FF7 Rebirth: How to level up weapons and materia
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has plenty of weapons, equipment, and materia to equip, with thousands of possible combinations for each and every playable party member, each changing the way you approach combat. Throughout the game, you might find weapons and materia that you want to keep on your characters in the long-term.
If you want your materia to be useful in the late-game, or want to keep using weapon abilities after you switch away to a more powerful weapon, you’ll want to level them up. This guide will take you through how to level up weapons to gain their skills permanently and how to level up materia in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.
How to level up weapons – FF7 Rebirth
Weapons in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth all have a unique ability that can be used in combat, and most of them are very useful. Cloud’s buster sword, for example, has an ability called Focused Thrust, which deals a huge amount of damage and significantly increases stagger on enemies it hits. Initially, you’ll only be able to use these unique abilities when that weapon is equipped, but leveling up the weapon will let you use it even after you switch to a different weapon.
Every weapon has a unique ability
Square Enix
To level up a weapon and gain its unique ability permanently, you’ll need to use that weapon and its ability a lot. Simply using the weapon and its ability in combat will increase your proficiency with it, which will eventually cause it to level up. It does take quite some time, but you can increase the rate at which it grows by doing specific actions unique to each weapon.
When you hover over a weapon in the weapon select screen, a section in the sidebar will tell you what you can do to get a proficiency bonus. Cloud’s Sleek Saber, for example, requires that you exploit an enemy’s weakness while it’s equipped, while Tifa’s Kaiser Knuckles asks that you attack after using the weapon ability. Following these proficiency bonuses massively cuts down on the amount of time it takes to fully level up your weapon.
How to level up materia – FF7 Rebirth
Leveling up materia makes them stronger, gives you bigger stat boosts, and unlocks stronger versions of attacks and spells that the materia offer. A level 1 Lightning materia only lets you use Thunder, while a level 3 version of the same materia lets you use Thunder, Thundara, and Thundaga.
Materia takes a long time to level up
Square Enix
Leveling up materia is a fairly slow process, and will happen quite slowly over the course of the game, depending on how you play. Materia uses AP to level up, which is earned by using the ability or spell that the materia gives access to, and also as a reward for defeating enemies in combat, alongside EXP.
You can also increase the rate at which a materia earns AP by linking it to an AP Up materia, which doubles the rate at which the linked materia gains AP. That said, if you’re able to buy or develop higher-level materia, it’s worth doing so rather than leveling up a materia yourself.
