Ruby Weapon
Ruby Weapon first appears in the game after you defeat Ultimate Weapon (click here for more information on that). He takes the form of a small red figure in the sand surrounding Gold Saucer and pops up sporadically around the area. Starting the battle merely requires you to smack Ruby Weapon with the Highwind, but there's a lot of preparation required before you go doing something like that...
Mechanics of the fight:
Ruby Weapon has a lot of tricks up its sleeve to send you packing and on your way. It is undoubtedly the hardest encounter in the game. If you don't believe me just give him a go before you delve too deeply into this strategy.
Ruby Weapon has two tentacles which assist him during the fight. His moves change depending on whether the tentacles are buried in the sand or not. His moves are as follows:
Tentacles out of sand:
Big Claw - Hits one character for (5/8) of the characters HP
Big Swing - Hits one character for roughly 5,000 HP
Comet2 - Hits four times, roughly 3,000 HP per hit
Whirlwind - Removes a character from the battle (character counts as dead)
Tentacles in the sand:
Ruby Flame - Hits one character for roughly 5,000 HP
Ruby Ray - Hits one character for roughly 4,000 HP (can cause Confusion status effect)
Ultima - Hits all characters for nearly all of their HP and is used by Ruby Weapon against you when you cast a summon.
Shadow Flare - Hits one character for nearly all of their HP
Strategy:
The first and most important aspect of this fight is dealing with Ruby Weapon's Whirlwind move, which can potentially remove a character from the fight permanently. Ruby Weapon can only cast this move while its tentacles are out of the sand. It starts the fight with its tentacles out of the sand and after a given amount of time and inflicted damage it will put its tentacles into the sand, eliminating the potential for this move to be used.
How Whirlwind works:
Whirlwind cannot be used by Ruby Weapon to end the fight. In a typical encounter it will attempt to use Whirlwind on two characters and then will kill the last character with standard attacks. Whirlwind is also unable to be used on a dead character.
Start the battle off with two of your characters dead. During the battle, wait for Ruby Weapon to stick both of its tentacles into the sand before reviving either of the two dead characters. Once its tentacles are safely underground you can revive the two dead characters without fear of having them be permanently removed from the battle. Use Phoenix Materia for this.
From this point there are several strategies for taking down Ruby Weapon. The majority of them involve exploiting a few of Ruby Weapons notable weaknesses. Ruby Weapon is not immune to Slow, Paralyze or Darkness status effects. While Darkness and Slow are too little to stem the massive influx of damage you'll be receiving from Ruby Weapon, Paralyze can help immensely.
You're main method of applying the Paralyze status effect on Ruby Weapon is Dazers which are gained through battles with Boundfats. You can win them, steal them or morph them into Dazers - whichever you find easiest.
Keeping Ruby Weapon and both of its tentacles Paralyzed for the duration of the fight is the key to this strategy. From there you can go about taking it down almost any way available. The most common strategy is an onslaught of Knights of the Round Materia paired with W-Summon followed by a Mime on the other two characters. Using summons causes Ruby to counter with Ultima so keeping Paralyze up is the key to this strategy working.
Other things you may want to make sure you characters have:
- Either Mystile or Aegis Armlet (Mystile preferred)
- Enhance Sword (for Cloud)
- Ribbons on all characters to prevent status effects
- Sprint Shoes
- Methods to refill MP (Turbo Ethers, Elixirs or Megalixirs)
Having the Big Guard move on your Enemy Skill Materia can really help too. (Click here for more information on getting this).
