Weiss VR battle strategies

[Makoeyes987]

Beat him in 06:08.

Holy hell, this is... One of the most challenging FF superbosses I've faced in a long time. Yet, he's challenging in an enjoyable, and "fair" way. Like, this fight is designed to demand your mastery of this game's combat system. The fight's predictable yet chaotic. And there are so many fucking elements to manage between your team and his attacks, and it can honestly be overwhelming until you get the rhythm of it. But once you do, it's manageable.

As you can see by my time, I didn't beat him before he got to use Immaculate End. I just had to survive it. Hurray for Tifa's Purple Pain, Angelic Earrings and Cloud just tanking it thanks to Wall!

Weiss's emulation of Rosso's Bloodburst form to drain HP and deal devastating high speed consecutive attacks was intimidating at first. However, the key to dealing with that form... Is to go on offense. He may drain your HP and regen, but it won't matter if you can keep beating his ass. Weiss is extremely susceptible to attack interruption. I'd argue that's his easiest form to make flinch without having to strike when he's "pressured." Running/Parrying from him is key once he regains his stance but if you keep the pressure on, you can stagger him in that form and take back all the HP he regen'd from you. I managed to hit him with two well time limit breaks while in this form.

Magic is extremely important in this fight. Aerith's Magic Attack stat needs to be as close to 500 as you can get it. When Weiss emulates Azul and becomes immune to physical strikes, magic can easily pile on the damage when combined with Arcane Ward. I killed him with that. "Aga" level magic comboed with Arcane Ward is incredible because it causes Weiss to flinch. If you get everyone on the Arcane Ward and combo your magic spells right, you can briefly stunlock Weiss and prevent him from using his annoying Devastation Shot.

Parrying as I said before, is key to this fight. You have to master the timing of how to effectively dodge his unblockable sword strikes. That's what fucked me up for awhile because I wasn't used to using Parry and I kept getting stabbed But once I figured out the timing, that made things easier. Tifa is so clutch for that beginning part thanks to her quick strikes and ability to stagger effectively. Focused Strike is amazing.

Oh, and what makes Parry even more awesome, is you can Parry-cancel any attack. So if you go in for an attack and you see Weiss getting back up out of the Pressured state, cancel your move with Parry and get the hell out of his way.

I gotta say this fight was incredible. FFVII-R's combat system is the best in FF, and this fight shows just what you can overcome when you master it. I had to level up materia to get Aerith's magic stat up to snuff, along with some other support materia. Tifa paired with a Mastered ATB Assist and Skill Master materia allows her to pour on the pain, stagger effectively and give ATB to others so they can go to town. That combo I feel is one of the most important things to use in this fight. Because ATB is so key to keep the pressure on Weiss so he doesn't just outlast you via resources and attack strength.

Just... This was a fucking badass superboss. Really can't say that enough. This game is a masterpiece in terms of its battle system.

You're right "Weiss." I will see you in Deepground.

 

[Makoeyes987]

What I'm hearing is that my abject refusal to improve my equipment whatsoever from what I already had or use the Parry materia got a faster time than either of you over-prepared nuts.

Also, u should share your recording of the fight @Makoeyes987

I didn't activate recording lol

I was fighting him and dying over and over, so I had no idea which attempt would be the successful one

LOL you can definitely beat him without parry. However, dodging normally is far more challenging due to the timing required. Dodging in FFVII-R gives no i-frames, meaning you have to time it perfectly. Parry gives you brief i-frames and when done properly on some enemies/attacks, you effectively cancel out their attack and leave them briefly stunned. Also, some characters have extremely fast parry animations, like Tifa; her parry slide is frankly ridiculous. Weiss can't keep up with her if she parry slides away from him. And the animation you get when parrying Weiss's Stab attack is hilarious because he even makes a surprisedpikachu.jpg face.

So no joke, you're pretty damn skilled to pull off the fight in such short time with no parry, and without him getting his Limit Break off. I intend to challenge him again and see if I can beat my time, and I will try recording that attempt. But right now I'm just happy I was able to successfully beat this badass myself.

I just have to say again how fucking amazing this boss was. Having him copy the abilities and fighting styles of the Tsviets from DC and incorporating them into different phases was peak creative battle design. The level of detail just exudes care and knowledge of the work. The designers and developers deserve all the praise and raises they can get.

 

[Odysseus]

PS5 automatically records the last hour of game footage, that's how I had mine. Also, dodging Stab and Evisceration is actually pretty easy once you know the timing I say, having been smacked in the face with Evisceration almost every time he used it in the recording.

 

[Makoeyes987]

PS5 automatically records the last hour of game footage, that's how I had mine.

How do you access this?!

Please tell me!

 

[Odysseus]

How do you access this?!

Please tell me!

left button, by the d-pad, is the share button. go all the way to the left on the menu it opens and choose "go to media gallery." It should be in there.

 

[Odysseus]

How do you access this?!

Please tell me!

No wait that's wrong. Go to the option with the clock and choose "save recent gameplay." My bad. Then it will be in the media gallery.

 

[Makoeyes987]

No wait that's wrong. Go to the option with the clock and choose "save recent gameplay." My bad. Then it will be in the media gallery.

I closed the game, put my console to sleep and when I went back to the game, it wanted to record the session of my game I started. Bleh.

Well, there's next time. Thanks for letting me know that though!

 

[Makoeyes987]

When I said I'd try to beat my time, I honestly didn't expect to have success after just 5 more tries....

This time I recorded and uploaded it. I'm shocked yet proud of this run.

The start of the fight demonstrates how ridiculous Tifa's parry is. She's like KH1 Sora; just able to dodge/slide infinitely, stay out of reach, cancel out of attacks, and evade sticky situations.

Spoiler: Some commentary regarding certain sections of the vid

0:16- Yet, here I am, fucking up my timing and get yeet'd by Weiss's Crosswise Cleave

0:34- A perfect example of the parry-cancel. I was greedy, trying to go for another Focused Strike and build ATB for Cloud and Aerith, but Weiss wasn't having it. So I immediately parry'd the opposite direction and proceeded to lure him away.

0:46- I don't know why, but sometimes Stab just...mixes me up. LOL its so straightforward, yet I sometimes still get hit by it.

0:53- I switch to Cloud so he can help Tifa build Weiss's stagger. Tifa's the point-woman for staggering Weiss in this phase but it goes by faster if you make it a team effort.

1:16- I'm pretty proud of this moment here. I once again got greedy and tried to get a second Focused Strike on Weiss while he was pressured. He regained his stance and I parry-canceled out of the attack. However, he immediately went for a stab and in an instant I managed to parry the stab. However, right when I switch to Cloud he does a Crosswise Cleave that gets my poor AI controlled character. Oops.

3:46- Ballistic Black Hole is an extremely annoying pressure move. It continuously homes in on whichever character you control, and also has a gravity-effect, pulling characters towards it to continuously damage them. All I did was just ignore it and tried to stay close to the Arcane Ward. Basically, throughout the Azul Phase of the fight, I made it a point to just keep casting magic and not let up. Especially with Aerith since she had the highest magic stat of them all.

3:52- Because Ballistic Black Hole homes in on whichever character you control, you can use this to your advantage. Aerith was at low health and needed to cure, so I switched to Cloud and basically baited Weiss and the Black Hole to chase him, thereby giving Aerith and Tifa room to breathe.

4:22- LOL Tifa's out of MP. I was like, "Fuck...Whelp.. Guess I'll use Cure on Cloud and hope we stagger this fuck." This was where I was thinking this fight would probably end in failure but I was like, "fuck it... let's keep going and see what happens."

4:59- I got the stagger, and was honestly surprised because I didn't think it'd happen this soon. Tifa's lack of MP suddenly doesn't matter anymore. I go to town, and thankfully Weiss is near the Arcane Ward so magic hilarity begins to ensue. Aerith doublecasts Blizzaga while Cloud doublecasts Aeroga. Cloud goes Punisher and before I can build enough ATB to use Infinity's End, Weiss is a popsicle.

The Immaculate was beaten in 3:16.

...That's quite a fitting time, given the numbers and Weiss's title.

Here's the build I used.

Cloud
Weapon: Hardedge
Armor: Chain Bangle
Accessory: Transference Module

Master Wind, Master HP Up, Master First Strike, Master HP Up, Master ATB Stagger, Master Steadfast Block
Master Healing, Master Revival, 4 star MP Up, Master Parry

Tifa
Weapon: Purple Pain
Armor: Force Bracelet
Accessory: Champion Belt

Master ATB Assist, Master ATB Stagger, Master Parry, Master Lightning, Master First Strike, Master HP Up
Master Healing, Master Revival, Master Steadfast Block, 3 star MP Up

Aerith
Weapon: Mythril Rod
Armor: Force Bracelet
Accessory: Revival Earrings (I thought we would have reached the Immaculate End Stage of the fight, and she'd need to be revived )

4 star Magic Up, 4 star MP Up, Master Magic Up, Master Healing, Master Barrier, Master HP Up
Master Revival, Master Parry, Master MP Up, Master Ice

 

[Odysseus]

Jesus, that slide is fucking ridiculous. Good job, man.

Also apparently I missed the "purple pain" weapon for Tifa somewhere.

 

[Shademp]

Nice time, Mako!

The Immaculate was beaten in 3:16.

...That's quite a fitting time, given the numbers and Weiss's title.

I don't understand. What are the numbers coinciding with?

 

[Makoeyes987]

Well there's Weiss's title, "The Immaculate." You know, like the Messiah, with all the religious connotations.

So pair that with the Bible verse, John 3:16. One of the most popular ones. Just thought that was a hilarious coincidence, lol

 

[cold_spirit]

My in-game time to beat Weiss from my video is 03:03, which I liked because that was the release of FFVIIR before the delay

 

[Eerie]

Lol, Tifa is a beast, it's savage there:

 

[Makoeyes987]

On a random note.

Has anyone been able to accurately make out any of what Weiss says throughout the fight with him?

Daman Mills does a fantastic job, however the sound mixing for this fight has his voice almost sound like a whisper compared to the sound effects and everyone else's lines.

I made out some of the lines but there are quite a few I just can't catch.

Spoiler: Weiss battle quotes

"Taste my blade."

"Fall."

"I'll drown you in a sea of despair." OR "My power is boundless." Phase Shift into Azul

"Ready?" -Before shooting Devastation

"Like lambs to the slaughter"- when using Mutilation

"You're powerless to stop me." -when grabbing

"There's no escape." -when using Ballistic Blackhole

"Bear witness to my burning rage." Phase Shift into Rosso

"Tremble in the presence of perfection." Phase Shift back base form

"I'll be waiting for you... In Deepground."-When Defeated


If anyone can make out the rest of his lines, I'd be greatly appreciative!

 

[cold_spirit]

Me 10 seconds in: "This doesn't seem so bad, I could do it."

Me at 30 seconds: "What the hell did I just watch?"

 

[Odysseus]

So that's what peak efficiency looks like. No wonder Mako was insistent about the bosses having phase transitions lol.

It looks like they have some kind of ATB regenerative on Tifa so she can use True strike over and over in quick succession to raise his stagger rapidly while Cloud and Aerith blast him with double cast magic. I think they all also have haste on.

 

[Makoeyes987]

All of Tifa's special moves can be Parry canceled to bypass her cool down animation and instantly perform the next attack.

Before battle you shortcut True Strike to a button. When the enemy is staggered you True Strike via shortcut, after the hit you parry towards the enemy and immediately hit True Strike again, and Tifa can basically perform quick consecutive True Strikes to massively raise the damage multiplier. You also do this with her Triangle attack. Same principle applies, you Parry cancel to ensure quick repeated attacks and build ATB.

It's extremely easy to do since her Parry is extremely fast and can be interrupted to perform an attack again. Notice how Tifa's animations just animate immediately over and over. To maintain this combo you simply utilize ATB Assist, Skill Master, have Tifa Hasted, and use a weapon that gives Tifa a good speed boost. You can rip apart any boss in the game like this with Tifa on point.

 

[Odysseus]

Tifa too stronk, plz nerf.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

On a similar note, the Synergy Materia is officially this game's version of the Ring of the Lucii. It got buffed from useless to OP AF:

 

[Makoeyes987]

I'm pretty sure no one else went through the trouble here but...

I replayed Weiss three more times with the music and sound effects almost muted, so that I could hear what he says throughout battle.

He says a lot. And I was wrong on a good bit of it. Either because of outright mishearing or only hearing part of the voice line.

The sound mixing for this fight is just sad. I don't know what happened but he's almost completely muted by the other character voices, the music and sound effects. He's got some great lines so its such a waste.

Spoiler: Weiss's dialogue throughout the battle Version 2

Generic Attack Lines

"Taste my blade."

Begone

"Fall."

"Not good enough." -If you hit him when he isn't pressured

"Bad move." -If you hit him when he isn't pressured and he hits you back!

"Let's have some fun."

"Grovel before me."

"I see." -when he gets bit

"How dare you." -when staggered

"I'll drown you in a sea of despair." OR "My power's as boundless as the sky." Phase Shift into Azul

Azul Phase Lines

"Ready?" OR "Embrace the pain" -Before shooting Devastation

"Like lambs to the slaughter"- When using Behemoth Beam

Don't bother.- Using Rejuvenation

"On your knees... Bow to me!" OR "OUT OF MY WAY!"- Azure Assault

"You're powerless to stop me." -when grabbing

"Try and run!' OR "There's no escape." OR "This fight is over!" -when using Ballistic Blackhole

"Bear witness to my burning rage." OR "Feed the flames of my fury." Phase Shift into Rosso

Rosso Phase

"I'll tear you apart."

"I'll paint the walls with your blood."

"And another." -When doing his... Spinny Combo of Doom

Weiss Phase

"Surrender in the presence of perfection." Phase Shift back into his own form

"Say your prayers to me, if you'd like~"- Immaculate End

"I'll be waiting for you... In Deepground."-When defeated after getting the special cutscene

Every Phase Shift makes a metaphorical reference to an object that matches the color of the Tsviet he's copying. Sky and Sea = Blue. Flames and Burning = Red.

Hearing what he said during his Rosso Phase Shift was the most difficult. Not just because if you're in that phase of the fight, you're barely alive to begin with But because when he does his high speed attack that lets him dart back and forth away from you, if he's across the stage, his voice modulates with the distance so he can be speaking clearly and then sound far away.

I had no fucking clue he even spoke before doing his Limit Break/Ultimate Skill, "Immaculate End." That one is probably my favorite line.

"Say your prayers to me, if you'd like~"

That's some cold shit to say to someone before killing them, lol

Such a shame these lines are so hard to hear. Daman Mills did a damn good job, I sorta like him more than the original VA.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Tried fighting Weiss again to beat my time and got it down to 2:40. In game volume was modified so you can actually hear Weiss's dialogue this time.

Tried a different strategy. From watching others, I saw that Cloud's Punisher Mode is actually super effective against Weiss's base form at the start. So I tried that out instead of having Tifa on point. Also equipped Cloud with Twin Stinger for more MP, stronger magic and Reprieve. Aerith has Synergy paired with Thunder materia. Cloud and Tifa also have Elemental materia on their weapons so they can hurt Weiss in his Azul Phase.

Twin Stinger is good because it's clear Cloud's spells are dealing more damage, however the loss in physical attack range and power is noticeable. I still prefer the Hardedge but I can see why people love the Twin Stinger so much. It made the Azul part go by without much trouble.

In reality I could have killed Weiss even faster by doing more of Cloud's ATB sword abilities or using Tifa's limit break during the second stagger but I wanted to be cute and do magic spam And I felt fairly confident about being able to handle the Rosso phase shift. Again, the trick is to go hard on offense. He's nowhere near as tanky, he can easily be interrupted and staggered. I purposefully held Tifa's limit break just for it so Weiss wouldn't get cute and heal all his HP. In the end he died like he lived. Violently screaming in battle.

 

[Tetsujin]

This guy sucks

edit: I'm getting too pissed off to continue now
I can get him staggered during the first phase fairly decently but I'm taking too long during the Azul phase and then he shifts into the Rosso bullshit where it seems he can be fairly easily interrupted but it ends being meaningless because he just zips away and all the while regenerates his health, does his immaculate end bullshit move and switches right back into Rosso phase and before I know it he's got 3/4 of his health back nullifying most of my progress

it's fucking frustrating

 

[Makoeyes987]

This fight is definitely a superboss and tough as fuck. I previously covered the strategy I used to do it in this thread, and it might help you out.

Do you have at least two Magic Up materia leveled up closed to Mastered? You need to get Aerith's magic stat way up, like close 480 as possible. Then, use Arcane Ward first thing at the transition to the Azul mode. Aerith and everybody needs an aga level magic materia and then just get in that Ward and dualcast Weiss hard.

Weiss gets flinched anytime he's hit with aga magic and it rapidly fills his stagger gauge. Make sure to constantly switch characters to draw his attention from the characters casting their magic. It can get hectic. But once you get everyone casting magic on him, he's gonna get stunned and ruined by it. Also, when he uses Rejuvenation, fuck him up. Although he's lowering his stagger bar, any magic attacks deal even higher stagger damage to him so go all in and stop him.

Using Elemental materia in your weapon paired with magic will allow your normal hits to hurt Weiss in Azul mode. Just be careful because if he goes Rosso mode, he will then resist your attacks because he becomes immune to magic in that form

If you get your magic stat up high enough you can definitely end Wiess before he even gets past the Azul mode. Oh. And Gotterdamerung does work in this fight. You just don't start the fight with a limit break but your limit gauge will fill extremely quickly. Use it if you need that extra push!

 

[ph14basicbitch]

This guy sucks

edit: I'm getting too pissed off to continue now
I can get him staggered during the first phase fairly decently but I'm taking too long during the Azul phase and then he shifts into the Rosso bullshit where it seems he can be fairly easily interrupted but it ends being meaningless because he just zips away and all the while regenerates his health, does his immaculate end bullshit move and switches right back into Rosso phase and before I know it he's got 3/4 of his health back nullifying most of my progress

it's fucking frustrating

This seemed to work for people where you kill him in Azul mode.

Equip everyone with fury rings. For his first phase, stagger him. Stagger will cycle him to his next mode, so you can anticipate it as the stagger gauge ticks down. Control Aerith near the end of his stagger. Move a bit to put distance between her and Weiss, then cast lustrous shield and arcane ward. If you are wondering how to get the ATB for this, note that a fully charged Tempest on a staggered target gives Aerith something like 1.5 atb bars (around 1/2 of that on a non-staggered target). Aerith and cloud can stand in the ward behind lustrous and it will null Azul ranged gun moves while they cast magic. I recommend firaga or thundaga since blizzaga and aero have the activation times, and aero's blowback effect might be unwanted. You can also use an ara spell in addition to firaga and thundaga to activate skill master and get atb back. During this period, you will have to swap which character you're controlling. If Weiss walks to the other side of the shield, swap to tifa and have her lure him away while aerith and cloud stand in the ward and cast magic. Swap back to aerith/cloud because they probably walked out of the ward. Etc.

 

[Tetsujin]

That feeling when you almost got him but not quite (despite unleashing two LBs during second stagger wtf) and then he switches to Rosso mode and everything's for naught
I spammed Thundaga at him with Arcane Ward during the second phase as recommended and if you can keep the pressure up it works pretty well but man, that fucking homing goatse attack really annoys the hell out of me. Or when the AI steps into one of those silence debuff puddles he occasionally pisses on the floor. Goddammit.
No idea how to deal with Rosso phase except not let it happen tbh

Anyway, I tried something different and instead of having Cure or Barrier paired with Magnify, I chose Haste
I always feel like I never have enough ATB or fast enough when I really need it so this really helped.
Finally managed to get him during the stagger at the Azul phase despite this time only having one LB available. Huh.

Tifa's parry was the MVP in this fight, so easy to get Weiss pressured just by rapid-fire dodging with Tifa whenever he does his unblockable shit in the first phase.






Can't touch this, motherfucker!

Anyway, 100% done with Remake...again.

Now to play the waiting game...again.