In-Depth Materia Study

[Obsidian Fire]

In-Depth Materia Study

This is a series of articles on Final Fantasy VII materia system. It is designed to be an in-depth study of all the materia in the game as well as how they interact with each other and how players actually use them in the game.

I've decided to put this up on the forums first so I can incorporate comments and feed back when this all goes to the front page.

Table of Contents

1. Damage Formulas: What Makes Materia Powerful
2. Blue Support Materia: The Engine that Powers the Materia System
3. Green Magic Materia: The Building Blocks of the Materia System
4. Red Summon Materia:
5. Yellow Command Materia:
6. Enemy Skill Materia:
7. Purple Independent Materia:
8. Materia Set-Ups:

 

[Flintlock]

This should be great, I'm looking forward to it!

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Awesome! I'll really enjoy this.

 

[Joker]

I got excited to read something and there wasn't anything to read yet.

now I'm sad

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Damage Formulas: What Makes Materia Powerful

Damage Formulas: What Makes Materia Powerful
In-Depth Materia Study Part 1

Before we even get to the materia, we need a way to be able to compare their effects without character stats getting in the way. This leads us right to the most central gameplay formulas in Final Fantasy VII, the damage formulas. There are two main damage formulas used and they are the subject of this article. The two formulas are the Physical Damage formula and the Magical Damage formula. The Item Damage formula will be gone over as well if just for comparison's sake.

Physical Damage Formula

This is the most involved out of all the damage formulas and has the most post-formula damage modifiers applied to it. It has the widest range of damage and is probably the least reliable source of it. It also gets the least power boosts from materia. However, any source of damage that uses this formula doesn't use any Mp, so it can always be "cast" for free.

The Physical Damage formula starts with the Attack(Att) stat. This is turn is calculated from the Strength(Str) stat and the Weapon Attack Bonus via the following formula:

Att = Str + Weapon Attack Bonus​

The main thing to notice here is that the Att stat is dependent more on the Str stat then on the Weapon Attack Bonus as the Str stat can be permanently boosted with Power Sources. The Weapon Attack Bonus comes from whatever weapon a character is equipped with. Att is capped at 255 which is the same cap as Str. Maxing out Str will max out Att as well, which effectively lets you equip any weapon you want for no damage reduction. This is also really easy to do if you don't mind abusing the W-Item materia (more on the W-Item materia later).

The next step to getting to the Physical Damage formula is calculating the Base Physical Damage(Bpd) the character does. This calculation uses the Att stat and the characters level(Lvl) and is one of the most complex calculations out of not just this formula, but all the other ones as well.

Base Physical Damage = Att + [(Att + Lvl) / 32] * [(Att * Lvl) / 32]​

The main takeaway from this is that as characters level up, they'll do more damage even if their Str doesn't increase. How much more damage will they do? If Att is maxed out on two characters and one is Lvl 95 and the other is Lvl 99 the Lvl 95 character will do 1000 less points of Bpd then the Lvl 99 character. A Lvl 89 character would do 1500 less points then the Lvl 99 character. This is why the "Down 5/10 Lvl" handicap in Battle Square can be a pain to deal with. Bpd maxes out at 8923 at 255 Att and Lvl 99. Yes, it still has over 1000 damage points to go before it gets to 9999 damage points.

Finally the actual Physical Damage formula is calculated. This uses the Bpd as well as the Physical Defense(Def) of whatever is getting hit with an attack as well as the Power variable which is determined by what materia (if any) is being used.

True Physical Damage = [(Power * (512 - Def) * Bpd) / (16 * 512)]​

This is the formula that is ultimately used to compare materia to each other. Bpd can be left the way it is as it's always dependent on the character. If Def is set equal to zero, the formula now calculates the max damage an attack will do and looks like this:

Max Physical Damage = [(Power * Bpd) / 16]​

The Power variable is really what we're after and deserves special mention as it can be a really confusing variable to calculate. Technically, it's an integer, but it's usually displayed as a fraction or decimal number because it's been divided by the 16 constant to simplify the Max Damage formula down to this:

Max Physical Damage = Power * Bpd​

Part of the reason why this works so well is because on most materia that use the Physical Damage formula, Power equals 16 anyway. It also gives us the perfect formula for comparing materia to each other and this is the main way walkthroughs display the power of materia (and it's the way I'm going to compare materia with each other). For most Physical Damage calculations that use this form, Power is equal to 1.

What you can't do with this version is easily calculate True Damage with it. Def has to be brought back into the picture and Power has to go back to being an integer for it to be accurate. So to get from Max Damage to Ture Damage you'd have to do this:

True Physical Damage = [(Max Damage * 16) * (512 - Def) / (16 * 512)]​

A good rule of thumb for Max Physical Damage is that it'll be the same as Base Physical Damage. So usually you can just calculate Bpd and leave it at that unless you want to bring Def into it.

Formula Modifiers​

After all of that, a bunch of checks are run on the status of the attacker/target in the following order to see if the True Damage is raised or lowered:

Critical Hit, Berserk on attacker, Row Check, Defend on target, Back Attack on target, Frog on attacker, Sadness on Target, Split Damage, Barrier on target, Mini on attacker, Random Variation, Sanity Check

Several of these checks are based on materia effects and will be covered when we get to the materia the effects come from. The others are below.

Critical Hit​

This doubles the damage a physical attack does. The chance that an attack will be a critical hit is related to the Luck(Luk) stat, the attacker's Lvl and the target's Lvl. At max Luk and Lvl of both the attacker and the target the chance for a critical hit is around 63%. Given how easy it is to max Luk out with Luck Sources, you can safely assume you're getting double damage on 60% of your hits. This only works with abilities that use the Physical Damage formula.

Defend​

Damage is halved if the target is defending. This only works with abilities that use the Physical Damage formula.

Back Attack on target​

Damage is doubled if the attackers are back attacking.

Sadness on Target​

If the target of an attack is in Sadness, damage is reduced by 30%.

Random Variation​

The final damage is multiplied by an RNG. This can reduce the damage down to 95.77% of what it was actually going to do. For the most part, this can be ignored.

Sanity Check​

Caps the damage at 9999. Bpd will never need to be capped if none of the damage increases happen.

And with that Physical Damage is calculated! Fortunately, Magic Damage is a lot saner to calculate.

Magic Damage Formula

Compared to Physical Damage, Magic Damage is a more stable source of damage. More of its power comes from the materia than the character and there are a lot fewer damage modifiers for it. To offset this, its damage range is narrower and it costs MP to use.

The Magic Damage formula starts with the Magic Attack(MAt) stat. This is equal to the Magic(Mag) stat.

MAt = Mag​

Like the Att stat, MAt maxes out at 255, but it's a lot harder to max out with Magic Sources due to Magic Source availability. Fortunately, most weapons raise Mag (and therefore MAt) even though it doesn't show up on the equipment screen. Because it's a lot harder to max out Mag, I tend to be a lot more concerned about the Mag stat then the Pwr stat on characters.

Like the Bpd calculation the Base Magic Damage(Bmd) calculation uses MAt and the character's Lvl. Unlike Bpd, Bmd is a straightforward calculation.

Base Magic Damage = 6 * (MAt + Lvl)​

In this equation, the largest number is MAt and the multiplier is a constant. Lvl matters a lot less in this case. If MAt is maxed out on two characters and one is Lvl 95 and the other is Lvl 99 the Lvl 95 character will only do 24 less points of Bpd then the Lvl 99 character. A Lvl 89 character would only do 60 less points then the Lvl 99 character. Bmd maxes out at 2124 at 255 MAt and Lvl 99. Where does all the other damage come from? That's part of the next calculation.

The actual Magic Damage formula is exactly the same as the Physical Damage formula and can be simplified the same way. Only it uses Magic Defense(MDf) instead of Def.

True Magic Damage = [(Power * (512 - MDf) * Bamd) / (16 * 512)]

True Magic Damage = [(Maximum Spell Damage * 16) * (512 - MDef) / (16 * 512)]

Max Magic Damage = [(Power * Bamd) / 16]

Max Magic Damage = Power * Bmd​

As usual, Power comes from the materia and is an integer we're dividing by 16. Unlike the Physical Damage formula where we can assume Power is always equal to one, Power in the Magic Damage Formula is all over the place. In fact, the Power stat is the main source of damage in the Magic formula and is the main thing that's going to be compared across materia in the following articles.

Formula Modifiers​

Like the Physical Damage formula, the following checks are run to see how the damage should be modified. There are a lot less of them though.

Sadness on target, Split Damage/Quadra Magic, MBarrier on target, MP Turbo, Random Variation, Sanity Check

Sanity Check​

If a spell does Mp damage as opposed to Hp damage, the damage is capped at 999.

Item Damage

In contrast to both the Physical Damage and Magic Damage calculations, we have the Item Damage formula. This formula is based purely on the Power stat of the the item in question.

Base/Max Item Damage = 16 * Power

True Item Damage = [Base Damage * (512 - Def) / 512]​

Unlike the Power stat in the Phisical and Magic formulas, this Power stat is always an integer and is never simplified. A lot of the time, this Power stat is the same as a materia's Power stat and thus they have the same Base Damage. In game, this is when an item's description says it casts a specific magic spell. This also explains why items are so good in early game. None of them depend on the character using them for damage.

Formula Modifiers​

The only modifiers to Item Damage are the Random Variation and the Sanity Check. So enjoy the really powerful items while you can.

Hopefully you got a sense of how Physical and Magic Damage are calculated and how the different calculations govern how they behave when used in battle. Physical Damage is good to use if you've got a solid Att stat while Magic Damage is better when you've got powerful materia. And the next article will be all about materia.

Credits

This study would not be possible without all the work TFergusson did in data-mining Final Fantasy VII for all these calculations and variables. I'm just adding commentary to his work. Anyone who wants to know more about what makes Final Fantasy VII tick should take a look at his Battle Mechanics FAQ, Enemy Mechanics FAQ, Party Mechanics Guide and Gold Saucer Date Guide.

Next Article:

Blue Support Materia: The Engine that Powers the Materia System
In-Depth Materia Study Part 2

 

[Flintlock]

Vague: "The main thing to notice here is that the Att stat is dependent more on the Str stat then on the Weapon Attack Bonus" - despite what you say afterwards about being able to permanently boost Str, the formula itself is equally dependent on Weapon Attack Bonus and Str.

Spelling errors: "Maxxing" and "maxxed" should be written "maxing" and "maxed" respectively.

Style suggestion: "This calculation uses the Att stat and the characters level(Lvl) and is one of the most complex calculations out of not just this formula, but all the other ones as well." -> "... is one of the most complex calculations in this study". Although, having said that, it doesn't look any more complex than the True Physical Damage calculation, so maybe you could just leave it out.

Unnecessary space: "take away" -> "takeaway", since it's a noun.

Style suggestion: write "points of damage" or "damage points" instead of just "points" the first time you use it, rather than using "points" on its own first and then the longer form afterwards.

Inaccurate: "Bpd maxes out at 8923 at 255 Att and Lvl 99. Yes, it sill has 1000 damage points to go before it gets to 9999 damage points." - it has 1069 damage points to go before reaching 9999. If you're rounding, I suggest "it still has over 1000 [damage] points to go..."

Typo: "sill" -> "still".

Typo: "forumla" -> "formula".

Missing word: "This is formula" - > "This is the formula".

Vague: "Bpd can be left the way it is" - what do you mean by this?

Style suggestion: "If Def is set equal to zero" -> "By setting Def to zero". If you disagree, then you could still get rid of the unnecessary word "equal".

Unnecessary word: "and it deserves special mention" -> "and deserves special mention".

Missing word: "as can be" -> "as it can be". Maybe you just put the "it" in the wrong place?

Vague: "it's been used to get rid of the pesky 16 constant and simplify the Max Damage formula down to this" - do you mean "it has already been divided by 16"?

Typo: "walkthoughs" -> "walkthroughs".

Unnecessary word: "will display" -> "display".

Style suggestion: "The only thing you can't do is easily calculate True Damage with it." -> "The only thing you can't easily do with this version of the formula is calculate True Damage." Or, since there are plenty of other things you can't do with it (like go to the moon), "Calculating True Damage becomes more difficult with this version of the formula, however."

Typo: "bing" -> "being".

Typo: "same a" -> "same as".

If this is the kind of thing you're looking for, I'd be happy to continue.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Vague: "The main thing to notice here is that the Att stat is dependent more on the Str stat then on the Weapon Attack Bonus" - despite what you say afterwards about being able to permanently boost Str, the formula itself is equally dependent on Weapon Attack Bonus and Str.

I meant that while Att is equally dependent on both, Str will always be the same no matter what weapon is equipped. It's better to have high Str then a high Weapon Attack Bonus in the long run. I'll think about how to fix that...

Style suggestion: "This calculation uses the Att stat and the characters level(Lvl) and is one of the most complex calculations out of not just this formula, but all the other ones as well." -> "... is one of the most complex calculations in this study". Although, having said that, it doesn't look any more complex than the True Physical Damage calculation, so maybe you could just leave it out.

When I wrote out the calculations on paper, this one was the most complicated and resulted in me doing it over again the most times. It has a lot less predetermined variables as well and involved me doing more calculations as a whole.

Vague: "Bpd can be left the way it is" - what do you mean by this?

Bpd doesn't have to be simplifed out of the Max Damage formula to compare materia power, so it can be left alone. As opposed to Def which is simplified out.

Style suggestion: "If Def is set equal to zero" -> "By setting Def to zero". If you disagree, then you could still get rid of the unnecessary word "equal".

This is a leftover of me explaining algebra to people. Leaving "equal" in the sentence lets me know I can use an equals sign in a formula. Taking it out means that I arbitrarily set Def to a value. I think I took out "set" out to make it "If Def equals zero".

Unnecessary word: "and it deserves special mention" -> "and deserves special mention".

Missing word: "as can be" -> "as it can be". Maybe you just put the "it" in the wrong place?

Probably. I think faster then I type.

Style suggestion: "The only thing you can't do is easily calculate True Damage with it." -> "The only thing you can't easily do with this version of the formula is calculate True Damage." Or, since there are plenty of other things you can't do with it (like go to the moon), "Calculating True Damage becomes more difficult with this version of the formula, however."

I changed this to "What you can't do with this version is easily calculate True Damage."

If this is the kind of thing you're looking for, I'd be happy to continue.

Please do, writing English that makes sense to everyone else is not my strong suite. Diagramming it and making it look pretty is.

 

[Joker]

Vague: "The main thing to notice here is that the Att stat is dependent more on the Str stat then on the Weapon Attack Bonus" - despite what you say afterwards about being able to permanently boost Str, the formula itself is equally dependent on Weapon Attack Bonus and Str.

He states they have the same stat cap, which makes it quite clear, I thought.

 

[Flintlock]

I was just looking at it from a mathematical perspective: if x = a+b, then x is equally as dependent on a as it is b; in other words, a and b have the same weighting in the calculation. Compare x = 2a+b, in which a is more heavily weighted.

 

[Joker]

Given that x has a set maximum value, and a can reach that value on its own...

 

[Flintlock]

I could debate this with you, but let's not derail the thread any more.

Obs, I'll proof-read another part of your post tomorrow.

 

[Flintlock]

Here you go. Starting from the paragraph, "After all of that, a bunch of checks are run on the status of the attacker/target in following order to see if the True Damage is raised or lowered."

Missing word: "in following order" -> "in the following order".

Punctuation: use a colon before starting a list.

Style suggestion: "will be gone over when I get" -> "will be covered when we get". Always involve your reader.

Vague: "when I get to their materia" - whose materia? I think you mean the materia associated with with the previously mentioned "materia effects", but you could be clearer about it.

Typo: "in in" -> "is in".

Inaccuracy: "multiplied by a RNG" - it's multiplied by a randomly generated number, not a random number generator. If you do keep RNG in that sentence, use "an" before it instead of "a".

Inconsistency: "Magic Damage" and "Magical Damage". Pick one.

Typo: "souce" -> "source".

Grammar: "More of it's power" -> "More of its power".

Typo: "then the character" -> "than the character".

Grammar: "there is a lot less damage modifiers" -> "there are a lot fewer damage modifiers".

Grammar: "it's damage" -> "its damage".

Vague: "damage range is less". Less as in narrower, or less as in lower?

Capitalisation: "Mp" -> "MP". Regardless of it being the in-game capitalisation, my advice is to capitalise an acronym if you pronounce every letter individually, as in this case: "em-pee" rather than "uhmp".

Typo: "fromula" -> "formula".

Style suggestion: "most weapons will raise Mag" -> "most weapons raise Mag". No need for the conditional.

Vague: "even if it doesn't show". My interpretation of that "if" is that it might show sometimes, perhaps with some weapons but not others. Perhaps you meant "even though"?

Grammar: "Because of its a lot harder" - get rid of "of" and change "its" to "it's" and you'll have something that makes sense.

Unnecessary space: "in stead" -> "instead".

 

[Blade]

And here I thought you were going to talk about the "lore" behind Materia, lol

Still, it's interesting.

If you could at some point, make a list of some good if not really awesome Material Combinations... I've lost touch but there's always some great setups.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

If you could at some point, make a list of some good if not really awesome Material Combinations... I've lost touch but there's always some great setups.

That's what the last section of the guide is going to be about.

If anyone has some favorite set-ups (serious or otherwise) fell free to make posts of them.

And Part 2 of this is almost done.

 

[Flintlock]

Section "Item Damage"

Typo: "Phsical" -> "Physical".

Typo: "always an integer an" -> "always an integer and".

Vague: "this Power stat is the same as a materia Power stat" - "a" materia Power stat? Which one? Perhaps you meant "materia's".

Grammar: "they'll have" - unnecessary conditional again, but if that's your style choice, fair enough.

Grammar and style suggestion: "None of them depend on the person using them" - I suggest "None of them depends on the stats of the character using them". Notice that depends is in the plural following "None".

Style suggestion: "And the next article" - it's not incorrect to start a sentence with a conjunction, but it can be a bit jarring. You could just as easily leave out the "And" but keep the rest of the sentence as it is.

That's it! Not a lot to correct this time.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Blue Support Materia: The Engine that Powers the Materia System

Blue Support Materia: The Engine that Powers the Materia System
In-Depth Materia Study Part 2

Compared to most RPG skill systems, the materia system is extremely flexible. Any character in the party can learn any skill and nearly any skill can be further customized in various ways. The only thing the player is limited by is the number of slots in weapons/armor and how those slots are linked to each other. The more slots there are, the more skills characters can use; the more links there are the more skills can be customized. Since slots and links are limited, what then, is the best, most efficient use of slots and links?

Since linked slots are the main cause of the flexibility of the materia system, we're starting with them, or rather, the reason why slots need to be linked in the game at all, the support materia. Support materia are the oddball "family" of materia in the game. All the other materia work just fine without linked slots and can be stuck in any slot in weapon/armor. Support materia, on the other hand, don't do anything unless they're put in linked slots with another materia they're compatible with. Some of them will also do different things depending on whether they're placed in weapons or armor. The main trade-off for the customization support materia bring is that they take up slots that could be used for more skills.

Support materia fall into three main categories. The first category is passive support. These materia's effects are always on and will always work. Nearly all of these materia only have two levels, their first level and their mastered level. The second category has materia that are chance based. Their effects have a percentage chance to work or not. These materia have five levels, with the chance of their effects working incresing for each level. The third category's effects will only work a set number of times per battle before the effect stops working. Fortunately, the character can choose when the effect can be used. These materia have five levels as well, with the number of times the effect can be used increasing each level.

For better or worse, Final Fantasy VII has a large number of bugs, glitches, and general odd behavior programed into it. The support materia certainly have their share, but instead of going into them in this article, I'm going to go into the bugs in the articles that address the materia the support materia are linking too. Mostly because the bugs have more to do with the materia being linked to instead of the support materia themselves.

All

Description
'All' effects on paired Magic

Lvl Ability AP
1 Use paired Magic against all 1x per battle 0
2 Use paired Magic against all 2x per battle 1500
3 Use paired Magic against all 3x per battle 6000
4 Use paired Magic against all 4x per battle 18000
5 Use paired Magic against all 5x per battle 35000

Paired With
Restore, Heal, Revive, Fire, Ice, Lightning, Earth, Poison, Gravity, Seal, Mystify, Transform, Time, Barrier, Destruct, Master Magic

This materia lets the player to chose if a magic spell hits one or all targets. If it hits all targets, the "Split Damage" Formula Modifier is also applied. Split Damage is calculated according to the following formula:

Damage = [Damage * 2 / 3]​

This is a straightforward trade off of power for AOE damage at no extra MP cost. Spells that cause status effects have the chance the the stauts effect will work decreased by the same forumla as well. Once summon materia come into the picture, it's almost always more MP efficient to use summons to deal with multiple enemies.

On the other hand, it's also one of the best sources of gil in the game...

Counter/Magic Counter

Description (Command Counter)
Attacks with paired Command when damage is incurred

Description (Magic Counter)
Attacks with paired Magic/Summon when damage is incurred

Lvl Ability AP
1 30% chance of counterattack with paired Command/Magic 0
2 40% chance of counterattack with paired Command/Magic 20000
3 60% chance of counterattack with paired Command/Magic 40000
4 80% chance of counterattack with paired Command/Magic 60000
5 100% chance of counterattack with paired Command/Magic 100000

Paired With (Command Counter)
Steal, Sense, Throw, Morph, Deathblow, Manipulate, Mime, Master Command

Paired With (Magic Counter)
All Magic and Summon Materia

These two materia do exactly the same thing for three different families of materia; when a character is attacked, they will use the linked Command/Magic/Summon materia. If the materia has multiple abilities, a random one will be cast. In the case of Magic/Summon materia, MP will be used to cast the ability, and it will fail if the character has run out of MP. There's a lot of shenanigans that can be pulled with this materia. They'll be covered in later articles.

MP Turbo

Description
Uses extra MP and increases power of paired Magic

Lvl Ability AP
1 10% MP Increase, 10% Damage Increase 0
2 20% MP Increase, 20% Damage Increase 10000
3 30% MP Increase, 30% Damage Increase 30000
4 40% MP Increase, 40% Damage Increase 60000
5 50% MP Increase, 50% Damage Increase 120000

Paired With
All Magic and Summon Materia except: Gravity

This is a passive materia that increases the damage and MP cost of spells and summons. Because the damage and MP cost is increased by the same percentage, it doesn't make using the linked materia more cost efficient to cast. It simply lets the player dish out more damage in less turns.

Actually, that isn't quite true. The MP cost is capped at 255 MP, but the damage increase isn't. If the linked materia's spell costs 255 MP at less then a 50% MP cost increase, then MP Turbo will make the spell more cost efficient to cast. However there's only three summons that this applies too: Typhoon, Bahamut ZERO and KOTR. And guess which one of those can't be linked to Quadra Materia...

HP Absorb/MP Absorb

Description
Attacks with paired Materia, absorbs HP/MP at same time

Lvl Ability AP
1 Add HP/MP Absorb effect to paired Materia 0
2 Mastered 100000

Paired With
All Magic and Summon Materia, Steal, Sense, Throw, Morph, Deathblow, Manipulate, Mime, Master Command

These two materia do exactly the same thing and with all the same materia, but with differing stats and differing degrees. If the ability heals it's target, then the caster is hurt by the absorption.

The HP Absorb materia absorbs HP according to the following formula:

HP Absorption = [Damage / 10]​

The MP Absorb materia absorbs MP according to the following formula:

MP Absorption = [Damage / 100]​

Of the two materia, I'd say that MP Absorb is more important as there's lots of ways to regain HP without using items, but very few ways to regain MP via using MP. It's possible to cast spells for free if they're linked to MP absorb and their damage is high enough and they hit multiple enemies or multiple times. If an ability does 9999 damage per hit, then the max HP that can be absorbed is 999 per hit and the max MP is 99 per hit.

Elemental

Description
Adds Materia element to equipped weapon or armor

Lvl Ability AP
1 Half Element 0
2 Void Element 10000
3 Absorb Element 40000
4 Mastered 80000

Paired With
All Materia except Support Materia

This is one of those materia that change effects if they're placed in weapon slots or armor slots. If it's placed in a weapon slot it will make all your attacks the element of the paired materia, no matter what level the materia is. If it's placed in an armor slot, then it will half, nullify or absorb attacks of the element of the paired matera depending on the level.

Added Effect

Description
Adds Materia status to equipped weapon or armor

Lvl Ability AP
1 Added Effect 0
2 Mastered 100000

Paired With
Poison, Seal, Mystify, Transform, Time, Destruct, Contain, Choco/Mog, Odin, Hades

This works the same as the Elemental materia but for status materia. If it's placed in a weapon slot it will give the weapon a 20% of causing that status on hit. If it's placed in armor it will nullify all status effects of the linked materia.

Quadra Magic

Description
Paired Magic used 4 times

Lvl Ability AP
1 Use paired Magic with 4x-M 1x battle 0
2 Use paired Magic with 4x-M 2x battle 40000
3 Use paired Magic with 4x-M 3x battle 80000
4 Use paired Magic with 4x-M 4x battle 120000
5 Use paired Magic with 4x-M 5x battle 200000

Paired With
All Magic and Summon Materia except: Knights of Round, and Escape Materia

This is the MP Turbo materia's big brother and is the source of "Quadra Damage" Damage Modifier. If a spell is AOE, then it halves the damage of the spell and casts it four times. If a spell is not AOE, then it picks a target at random and does the same thing. If the target dies before all four castings are used, then the uncast castings are not used. Oh, and there's no MP cost increase either.

This materia was most certainly designed with boss fights in mind. It essentially doubles the damage of the spell for free and if your stats are high enough, it does even more damage due to how Quadra Damage is calculated before the Sanity Check.

Bugs/Glitches
If the first cast of Quadra Magic is reflected, the rest of the Quadra casts will hit the target the first cast was successfully reflected to without going though the refection process.

If you link multiple Quadra Magic to multiples of the same type of materia then the spell will hit an extra time per Quadra Magic linked. This maxes out at five Quadra materia for a maximum of 8

Example: Three Quadra Magic materia are linked to three Fire materia. When Fire3 is cast, it will hit six times instead of four.

Sneak Attack

Description
Pre-emptive attack with paired Materia

Lvl Ability AP
1 20% chance of Sneak Attacking with paired Materia 0
2 35% chance of Sneak Attacking with paired Materia 20000
3 50% chance of Sneak Attacking with paired Materia 60000
4 65% chance of Sneak Attacking with paired Materia 100000
5 80% chance of Sneak Attacking with paired Materia 150000

Paired With
All Magic and Summon Materia, Steal, Sense, Throw, Morph, Deathblow, Manipulate, Mime, Master Command

This materia gives a character a chance to auto-attack with a materia before the ATB gauges start filling. If there are multiple targets and the abilty is single target a target will be chosen at random from all valid targets.

Final Attack

Description
Automatically uses paired Materia when disabled

Lvl Ability AP
1 Use paired Materia when KOed, 1x maximum 0
2 Use paired Materia when KOed, 2x maximum 20000
3 Use paired Materia when KOed, 3x maximum 40000
4 Use paired Materia when KOed, 4x maximum 80000
5 Use paired Materia when KOed, 5x maximum 160000

Paired With
All Magic and Summon Materia, Steal, Sense, Throw, Morph, Deathblow, Manipulate, Mime, Master Command

This materia uses the linked materia when the character is KOed for a maximum five times per battle. If the ability targets enemies, then it will pick a random target. If the ability targets alies, then it targets the characters casting the ability.

Added Cut

Description
Attacks simultaneously when paired Materia is used

Lvl Ability AP
1 Use Attack on target(s) after using paired Materia 0
2 Mastered 200000

Paired With
All Magic and Summon Materia, Steal, Sense, Throw, Morph, Deathblow, Manipulate, Mime, Master Command

This adds a normal attack to all the abilities an the paired materia. If the ability is single-target, then the attack will hit the enemy targeted by the ability. If the ability is AOE, then the attack will pick a random target from all enemies hit.

Steal As Well

Description
Steal simultaneously when paired Materia is used

Lvl Ability AP
1 Use Steal on target(s) after using paired Materia 0
2 Mastered 200000

Paired With
All Magic and Summon Materia, Steal, Sense, Throw, Morph, Deathblow, Manipulate, Mime, Master Command

This uses the Steal effect on all targets that the linked materia hits, even AOE abilties. The math behind the Steal effect will be gone over later.

General Bugs/Glitches

Final Attack, Sneak Attack, Counter (Command Counter), Magic Counter and Counter Attack all share the same invisible command space. There's only space for eight abilities with these effects and only the first eight abilities placed on a character will be used. Fortunately, this is pretty hard to do as you'd need sixteen linked materia slots and multiples of the support materia.

In the next article, we'll see how the support materia interact with the most common materia type; the magic materia.

Next Article:

In-Depth Materia Study Part 3
Green Magic Materia: The Building Blocks of the Materia System

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Next part out!

And how do we not have BBCode tables...

 

[Flintlock]

To save time, I've suggested edits in a Google Document. The changes are marked in red. I haven't commented every typo and missing comma, only the bigger changes, so let me know if you have any questions.

If you PM me your email address, I can add you as an editor to the document, which will let you compare revisions and see the differences (e.g. removed words) between my version and the original more easily.

A couple of general remarks:

At the end, you mention materia sharing a "command space" - could you go into that a little bit more? For example, in what order are commands executed?

If you could run your document through a spell-checker before posting it here, it would save me some trouble. Most browsers have built-in spell-checkers nowadays - what are you using?

 

[jacoobmiller]

This thread is an interesting read, thank you for the hard work put into it. I love the equations! Downloading the free version of Grammarly helps too, if you are worried about minor mistakes. Grammarly provides simple fixes to faulty words or sentence structure.

 

[Ite]

I must have missed this first time around!! Thanks for all the hard work, Obsidian Fire!!