this was to give it a challange in FF 16 monsters are in new locations you might fight a monster you dont fight tell later in the game early in the forest zone
Ah you've inspired me to do what I was already doing instinctively, BUT FASTER, in regards to queuing up long animated and high damaging attacks per character and switching over to someone else while they're busy.
Tifa: Cloud don't worry, as long as the detonator is in place we have time Cloud: yeah about that *4 second countdown to the 24 sound effect* Barret: you lying mother f**ker Cloud: IREGRETNOTHING Tifa: CLOUD Barret: woman, he. ain't. worth. it.
I finally beat this! I admittedly died way too many times as Tifa but at the end I hit the Airbuster with her Dolphin Fury and killed the airbuster but I will never ever do this again in hard mode 😂
Over the past few days, Hard Mode hasn’t been that bad. Once you equip the proper materia for the “resource drains” it helps a lot. I expect to be hit and my battles to be a little messy but that is just how it is.
I beat it first try with this guide! Admittedly I also had some higher stats, but this was more than enough to guide me through it. So very very helpful!
So much has changed from my first Hard Mode run to my second one. I was struggling with this boss fight. Now? I did it first try. Didn't even have to try. Tifa almost done her full Dolphin Limit Break but it killed her. However one nice thing is that Cloud used Braver on it. Which is pretty much cool because in OG if you do that while it's back is shown to Cloud then it does a Shitload of Damage.
This guide doesn’t show which Airbuster components were removed. Should you remove the AI programming cores, or the Big Bombers? I am bad as well and have followed all your guides so far for Rebirth first now Remake (hard mode) cleanup, and just want to know how someone should go about that
It should be shown in my Remake Walkthrough of that particular chapter on hard, sorry i forget what part it is. Iirc though i dont think it makes much difference
I'd like to chip in my own method for fighting the Airbuster as I seem to utterly wreck it in my runs. I'm playing the PS5 version, that means I have the better Synergy materia, which is crucial to my loadout. First, Cloud is the main magic damage dealer. That means Mythril Saber and Circlet. Give him Lightning-Synergy. That will make him cast a *free* Thunder spell every time someone does an ATB action when you're not controlling him. Imagine the rapid fire Thunders when you're using Tifa! Then give him Lightning-MP Absorb so he recovers MP with every Thunder spell he casts, free or otherwise. That'll make him a magic attack monster! Then give him First Strike so that he can start out with a strong Thundaga. Pile him up with the two Magic Up materia to maximize damage and MP ups. Steadfast Block can't hurt either. Set him up for magic damage and he's golden. Second, we'll be using Tifa as our main during Phase 1 when the Airbuster is grounded. Give her Feathered Gloves for maximum speed. We want Cloud to be dealing Thunder damage as much as possible so I prefer this over Metal Gloves. Give her Lightning-Elemental in her weapon for extra damage. Give her a Parry materia! You'll escape the Tankbuster attack much faster with it. Next, give her a Time materia for Haste. Naturally, give her a First Strike, ATB Assist and ATB Stagger. Then fill out the rest for survivability like HP up and such. Third, Barret will be our main during Phase 2 when the Airbuster is flying. Naturally, give him Lightning-Elemental on his weapon for extra damage. He's also our healer tank so give him a Healing-Magnify and Raise materia for emergencies. EKG Cannon would do fine for him. A HP up on him wouldn't be a bad idea. Also, I generally put Steadfast Block on all three characters because you'll be doing plenty of it in this fight. For strategy, I set Barret as the lead. First, I command Cloud to cast Thundaga as a start and then cast Overcharge as Barret. This will give him one ATB which I'll use to cast Regen-Magnify on the party to give them durability. Then I switch to Tifa and then we go! Usually the Thundaga would put the boss in Pressured state, but if it doesn't, Tifa casting Haste on herself will make Cloud cast a free Thunder that will do the trick. From then on, just use the basic OP Tifa combo: strike strike, focused strike, strike strike, focused strike. Cloud will be casting free Thunders with each Tifa's Focused Strike, and this can easily whittle the Airbuster's health quickly. It will then move to the center catwalk and begin charging the Tankbuster attack. Use Tifa's Parry move to get out of the way! The AI will take care of the other two. Once the Tankbuster attack is blasting, have Cloud cast another Thundaga with nothing to interrupt him. When the Tankbuster attack ends, make Tifa parry slide toward the Airbuster and begin wailing away! Remember, strike strike, focused strike, strike strike, focused strike. This combo will increase the stagger gauge and give the boys free ATB. Combine that with the Haste and the fact that Focused Strike refunds ATB to Tifa, and with Cloud casting Thunder, the Airbuster will soon reach Phase 2 quickly. It might not even have time to deploy its two arms. Be warned that the Airbuster has two nasty moves. The first is electric mines that stun, and the other is laser fingers that stun. The nasty bit is that when anybody is stunned, the Airbuster follows up with the Big Bomber attack that can certainly KO anyone if their HP isn't 9999. With the mines, you just have to watch your step around them, but for the finger lasers, just BLOCK. Don't get greedy with the physical attacks when you see the Airbuster pointing it's fingers at you, just block the attack. It doesn't do that much damage and you should recover relatively quickly with the Regen that Barret cast earlier. In Phase 2, the Airbuster starts flying out of melee range. That means it's Barret's turn. Generally, try to keep 1 ATB bar on Cloud and Tifa so that they can cast Thunder spells in a hurry. When you have control, have Tifa cast Haste on Barret (while Cloud casts a free Thunder) and then have Barret cast Steelskin for insurance. Then just fire away on the Airbuster. Overcharge, Maximum Fury, whatever comes to mind. When the Airbuster starts charging its Tankbuster attack, cast Thundara (from either Barret or Tifa). That should be enough to cancel the attack. If Barret gets stunned, quickly have either Cloud or Tifa cast Thundara to stop the Big Bomber attack. But don't worry too much. Barret with Steelskin and 9999 HP can easily tank one of those moves. When the Airbuster comes in melee range, don't get too aggressive too quickly. Let it attack, and just block the attack. Seriously, blocking is good. The Airbuster can either use its laser fingers, a flamethrower, or pounding the ground in front of it. There is always a windup animation before it attacks. Don't get greedy. Get out of the way or block it and then do the Tifa combo until it flies away, then switch to Barret and continue. If Cloud has full ATB, cast Thundaga, but always keep 1 ATB bar in reserve for Cloud at the very least in case someone gets unexpectedly stunned. With the constant pelting of Synergy Thunder spells, the Airbuster can fall in a matter of minutes. Good luck!
Great alternate strategy mate, thanks for taking the time to explain it, I'm sure it will be found helpful!! Yea I think I would probably change a few things if on the PS5 version, especially with Synergy being pretty awesome now like you say. I think another thing I would do is go and get the 3 x Gotterdammerungs as well before starting
Im currently struggling with this one 😢 I missed the letter on chapter 14 even tho I had all the sidequests done, so Im one Elemental Materia short 😅 Im also not sharp enough to handle all the chars so quickly. I always die at phase 3 bc I have no MP and no ATB. By the end anger and despair it's all I have left XD
Solid guide, only downside for some people is, not everyone has enough MP left over from the chapter, for the fight, to cast that many thundaga. but i think the basic idea you gave, is enough, that if someone needs to adapt, last minute, they can. if not enough MP for that many Thundaga casts, summoning might be a good idea, to help with a bit of extra DPS, from lack of MP
I get that, a lot of players may not have max materia either, I just went with this as I took these from my platinum walkthrough and in there I show where the last crate is to farm MP before boss
@@Optinooby that's understandable. honestly your guide helped me a bit with materia choices, for this boss. only took me 2 or 3 tries, tbh. so i appreciate the guide :) now im about to get to Hell House soon. Hoping i can manage that one on hard. haha!
For anyone needing more help try to make your barret as beefy as possible with the steel skin and constant regen cloud and tifa did not die once I think my barret had about 8.9k health and my cloud about 7k.
I managed to cheese this barely! Cloud and tifa were my thundaga casters while Baret healed. Once the hands spawned I went all out on thundagas with cloud and tifa while using barret to build up stagger with his ability. Once the bridge breaks I used tifa to guard and build up ATB while barret healed. Once per tank buster throw a curaga on tifa and repeat. Eventually tifa will be able to dolphin kick it. I was at the 11 minute mark.
Oh man how I wish to finaly play hard mode... but as you need the last VR mission for the plat anyway and I cant even best Shiva I cant forget that Plat I guess... people doing speedruns and it looks like a joke but I just cant spam hard enough to stun the enemies... cant wait for your tutorial
Im trying to keep it easy, it can be quite hard on the hardest difficupty which you must do. Hopefully my boss guides will make the hard bosses cake. As for the time, ur looking abt over 25 hours at the least being a first time player. Its quite a long game with a lot of slow elements u just cant speed up
Most of your guides have worked very well. But this hasn't worked for me at all. First playthrough was the best, but the airbuster killed tifa near the end and then everyone else went down quickly. Since then, nothing has lined up with this, it attacks unexpectedly or takes a lot less damage and more time....this hasn't been easy at all. There doesn't seem to be an "easy way" with this one. Really frustrating. 🙁
Yea I will agree that this is one of the more annoying battles. It has a lot of gimmicky moves and if something doesnt line up correctly, he will do something different which can mess up everything else. All you can do is keep trying mate and improvise where you can with the fundamentals that you see me showing here
For sure. At least your guide is giving me a fighting chance. Otherwise, I would be completely done here. To correct you, I AM the one who is bad, not you 😄. You're the guy that gives guys like me hope to beat it.
Well. I got it done! I'm not willing to say how many attempts it took for me, but I finally got it. Big thanks to you man! Funny enough, after this frustrating boss, I jumped right into the next boss fight with Reno, which was actually really easy following your guide.👍
I've been struggling for two days on this boss fight...I thought I'm never gonna get passed it cause I was low on mp...low and behold there's a way to fill it back up...I feel angry now. All that time wasted.
To anyone having trouble with this, I didn’t have the MP reserves that Opti had, but I had just about as easy of a time by saving some thundaga for the end, and using abilities with synergy on a party member instead. Slightly different build, but as long as you save most of your MP for after he goes flying, and remember to attack with Tifa in pairs, you can spam him to death with thundaga
I had the same issue. had 1 MP with Tifa lol. Another method and what worked for me and maybe for someone else is to have the Pray materia on Cloud. Use thunder materia once or twice before he takes flight. I was able to save Barrets and Clouds MP this way by melee attacking and when I got low i would use the Pray materia to heal since it costs only ATB. I had plenty to stop the Tankbuster from executing this way and this is the key to winning. That tankbuster will absolutely just ruin everything if it goes off 🤣
Who ever thought not using items on hardmode needa be fucking fired. Shits a pain in the ass
this was to give it a challange in FF 16 monsters are in new locations you might fight a monster you dont fight tell later in the game early in the forest zone
Tifa always ends up dying near the end of like every boss fight I have lol. Guide still worked tho (no surprise) thx so much
Ah you've inspired me to do what I was already doing instinctively, BUT FASTER, in regards to queuing up long animated and high damaging attacks per character and switching over to someone else while they're busy.
Thanks to your loadout I could finally beat this boss after MANY tries!Much respect 🙏
Tifa: Cloud don't worry, as long as the detonator is in place we have time
Cloud: yeah about that
*4 second countdown to the 24 sound effect*
Barret: you lying mother f**ker
Cloud: IREGRETNOTHING
Tifa: CLOUD
Barret: woman, he. ain't. worth. it.
I finally beat this!
I admittedly died way too many times as Tifa but at the end I hit the Airbuster with her Dolphin Fury and killed the airbuster but I will never ever do this again in hard mode 😂
This game is so damn good and can be such bullshit, all at the same time. Please excuse my salt
Over the past few days, Hard Mode hasn’t been that bad. Once you equip the proper materia for the “resource drains” it helps a lot. I expect to be hit and my battles to be a little messy but that is just how it is.
Been stuck on this for a while.. this will defo help
Cheers
I beat it first try with this guide! Admittedly I also had some higher stats, but this was more than enough to guide me through it. So very very helpful!
Easy guide, got this after your guide on the bond of friendship and to be a hero on rebirth
So much has changed from my first Hard Mode run to my second one. I was struggling with this boss fight. Now? I did it first try. Didn't even have to try. Tifa almost done her full Dolphin Limit Break but it killed her. However one nice thing is that Cloud used Braver on it. Which is pretty much cool because in OG if you do that while it's back is shown to Cloud then it does a Shitload of Damage.
Great guide as always, good explanation slow and steady for everyone to follow, keep up the awesome work
Always a pleasure
This guide doesn’t show which Airbuster components were removed. Should you remove the AI programming cores, or the Big Bombers? I am bad as well and have followed all your guides so far for Rebirth first now Remake (hard mode) cleanup, and just want to know how someone should go about that
It should be shown in my Remake Walkthrough of that particular chapter on hard, sorry i forget what part it is. Iirc though i dont think it makes much difference
Was scared of this boss but thunder owned him. 😂. Now I just need to do 16-18 🫡
I'd like to chip in my own method for fighting the Airbuster as I seem to utterly wreck it in my runs. I'm playing the PS5 version, that means I have the better Synergy materia, which is crucial to my loadout.
First, Cloud is the main magic damage dealer. That means Mythril Saber and Circlet. Give him Lightning-Synergy. That will make him cast a *free* Thunder spell every time someone does an ATB action when you're not controlling him. Imagine the rapid fire Thunders when you're using Tifa! Then give him Lightning-MP Absorb so he recovers MP with every Thunder spell he casts, free or otherwise. That'll make him a magic attack monster! Then give him First Strike so that he can start out with a strong Thundaga. Pile him up with the two Magic Up materia to maximize damage and MP ups. Steadfast Block can't hurt either. Set him up for magic damage and he's golden.
Second, we'll be using Tifa as our main during Phase 1 when the Airbuster is grounded. Give her Feathered Gloves for maximum speed. We want Cloud to be dealing Thunder damage as much as possible so I prefer this over Metal Gloves. Give her Lightning-Elemental in her weapon for extra damage. Give her a Parry materia! You'll escape the Tankbuster attack much faster with it. Next, give her a Time materia for Haste. Naturally, give her a First Strike, ATB Assist and ATB Stagger. Then fill out the rest for survivability like HP up and such.
Third, Barret will be our main during Phase 2 when the Airbuster is flying. Naturally, give him Lightning-Elemental on his weapon for extra damage. He's also our healer tank so give him a Healing-Magnify and Raise materia for emergencies. EKG Cannon would do fine for him. A HP up on him wouldn't be a bad idea. Also, I generally put Steadfast Block on all three characters because you'll be doing plenty of it in this fight.
For strategy, I set Barret as the lead. First, I command Cloud to cast Thundaga as a start and then cast Overcharge as Barret. This will give him one ATB which I'll use to cast Regen-Magnify on the party to give them durability. Then I switch to Tifa and then we go! Usually the Thundaga would put the boss in Pressured state, but if it doesn't, Tifa casting Haste on herself will make Cloud cast a free Thunder that will do the trick. From then on, just use the basic OP Tifa combo: strike strike, focused strike, strike strike, focused strike. Cloud will be casting free Thunders with each Tifa's Focused Strike, and this can easily whittle the Airbuster's health quickly. It will then move to the center catwalk and begin charging the Tankbuster attack. Use Tifa's Parry move to get out of the way! The AI will take care of the other two. Once the Tankbuster attack is blasting, have Cloud cast another Thundaga with nothing to interrupt him. When the Tankbuster attack ends, make Tifa parry slide toward the Airbuster and begin wailing away! Remember, strike strike, focused strike, strike strike, focused strike. This combo will increase the stagger gauge and give the boys free ATB. Combine that with the Haste and the fact that Focused Strike refunds ATB to Tifa, and with Cloud casting Thunder, the Airbuster will soon reach Phase 2 quickly. It might not even have time to deploy its two arms.
Be warned that the Airbuster has two nasty moves. The first is electric mines that stun, and the other is laser fingers that stun. The nasty bit is that when anybody is stunned, the Airbuster follows up with the Big Bomber attack that can certainly KO anyone if their HP isn't 9999. With the mines, you just have to watch your step around them, but for the finger lasers, just BLOCK. Don't get greedy with the physical attacks when you see the Airbuster pointing it's fingers at you, just block the attack. It doesn't do that much damage and you should recover relatively quickly with the Regen that Barret cast earlier.
In Phase 2, the Airbuster starts flying out of melee range. That means it's Barret's turn. Generally, try to keep 1 ATB bar on Cloud and Tifa so that they can cast Thunder spells in a hurry. When you have control, have Tifa cast Haste on Barret (while Cloud casts a free Thunder) and then have Barret cast Steelskin for insurance. Then just fire away on the Airbuster. Overcharge, Maximum Fury, whatever comes to mind. When the Airbuster starts charging its Tankbuster attack, cast Thundara (from either Barret or Tifa). That should be enough to cancel the attack. If Barret gets stunned, quickly have either Cloud or Tifa cast Thundara to stop the Big Bomber attack. But don't worry too much. Barret with Steelskin and 9999 HP can easily tank one of those moves. When the Airbuster comes in melee range, don't get too aggressive too quickly. Let it attack, and just block the attack. Seriously, blocking is good. The Airbuster can either use its laser fingers, a flamethrower, or pounding the ground in front of it. There is always a windup animation before it attacks. Don't get greedy. Get out of the way or block it and then do the Tifa combo until it flies away, then switch to Barret and continue. If Cloud has full ATB, cast Thundaga, but always keep 1 ATB bar in reserve for Cloud at the very least in case someone gets unexpectedly stunned. With the constant pelting of Synergy Thunder spells, the Airbuster can fall in a matter of minutes. Good luck!
Great alternate strategy mate, thanks for taking the time to explain it, I'm sure it will be found helpful!!
Yea I think I would probably change a few things if on the PS5 version, especially with Synergy being pretty awesome now like you say.
I think another thing I would do is go and get the 3 x Gotterdammerungs as well before starting
Im currently struggling with this one 😢 I missed the letter on chapter 14 even tho I had all the sidequests done, so Im one Elemental Materia short 😅 Im also not sharp enough to handle all the chars so quickly. I always die at phase 3 bc I have no MP and no ATB. By the end anger and despair it's all I have left XD
Fukn hate this fight on hard mode
Solid guide, only downside for some people is, not everyone has enough MP left over from the chapter, for the fight, to cast that many thundaga. but i think the basic idea you gave, is enough, that if someone needs to adapt, last minute, they can. if not enough MP for that many Thundaga casts, summoning might be a good idea, to help with a bit of extra DPS, from lack of MP
I get that, a lot of players may not have max materia either, I just went with this as I took these from my platinum walkthrough and in there I show where the last crate is to farm MP before boss
@@Optinooby that's understandable. honestly your guide helped me a bit with materia choices, for this boss. only took me 2 or 3 tries, tbh. so i appreciate the guide :) now im about to get to Hell House soon. Hoping i can manage that one on hard. haha!
For anyone needing more help try to make your barret as beefy as possible with the steel skin and constant regen cloud and tifa did not die once I think my barret had about 8.9k health and my cloud about 7k.
I think Synergy-Lightning on Cloud could work well, I'll give a try and report back
I managed to cheese this barely! Cloud and tifa were my thundaga casters while Baret healed. Once the hands spawned I went all out on thundagas with cloud and tifa while using barret to build up stagger with his ability. Once the bridge breaks I used tifa to guard and build up ATB while barret healed. Once per tank buster throw a curaga on tifa and repeat. Eventually tifa will be able to dolphin kick it. I was at the 11 minute mark.
Nailed it. Thanks
sadly im stuck at this fight i have no mana at this state and in hard mode you cant get more
Good video. Side note also a good drinking game for every time you say “very important”.
Lol, someone has said this before about something.
If you drink during this game though, you won't get far on hard mode ;)
a lot practice for mental reasons. Thanks for the tip.
Thank u again omg u r a lifesaver.
Oh man how I wish to finaly play hard mode... but as you need the last VR mission for the plat anyway and I cant even best Shiva I cant forget that Plat I guess... people doing speedruns and it looks like a joke but I just cant spam hard enough to stun the enemies... cant wait for your tutorial
Do i need vr to plat this game?
Lol no m8, it's just a training mission within the game XD, comes with vr included ;)
Ty m8. How much time do I need to plat this game. And is it ez?
Im trying to keep it easy, it can be quite hard on the hardest difficupty which you must do.
Hopefully my boss guides will make the hard bosses cake.
As for the time, ur looking abt over 25 hours at the least being a first time player. Its quite a long game with a lot of slow elements u just cant speed up
@@Optinooby ty. As soon as I end GTA San andreas plat I will start this game 👍
I tried it my way was using thundaga and had him down to like 10% health and all my toons died I was pissed......
Most of your guides have worked very well. But this hasn't worked for me at all. First playthrough was the best, but the airbuster killed tifa near the end and then everyone else went down quickly. Since then, nothing has lined up with this, it attacks unexpectedly or takes a lot less damage and more time....this hasn't been easy at all. There doesn't seem to be an "easy way" with this one. Really frustrating. 🙁
Yea I will agree that this is one of the more annoying battles. It has a lot of gimmicky moves and if something doesnt line up correctly, he will do something different which can mess up everything else.
All you can do is keep trying mate and improvise where you can with the fundamentals that you see me showing here
For sure. At least your guide is giving me a fighting chance. Otherwise, I would be completely done here. To correct you, I AM the one who is bad, not you 😄. You're the guy that gives guys like me hope to beat it.
Well. I got it done! I'm not willing to say how many attempts it took for me, but I finally got it. Big thanks to you man! Funny enough, after this frustrating boss, I jumped right into the next boss fight with Reno, which was actually really easy following your guide.👍
I have no magic lol…. Sheeeshhhh
I've been struggling for two days on this boss fight...I thought I'm never gonna get passed it cause I was low on mp...low and behold there's a way to fill it back up...I feel angry now. All that time wasted.
Is there seriously no video explaining what parts i should get rid of while the airbuster is being set up?
I don't mention it here?? It's in my Platinum Walkthrough as that's where I pulled the fight from, thought I mentioned it here??
Get rid of the Big Bombshells and the AI programming. It will limit its speed and firepower.
Thanks a lot
Is this possible without the second elemental materia?
sorry mate i dont remember much about this fight
@@Optinooby ahh it’s alright
Never again doing this boss….
What parts did you chose to exclude for it?
I don't remember mate, it's all in my actual walkthrough, I hardly remember off my head
@@Optinooby judging frome the walkthrough it was all the ai cores, and one of each of the other two
Hey man, how do you move so quickly as Tifa at 8:34 ? Thanks in advance
You need the Parry materia equipped, then I think it's R1 and Circle
@@Optinooby Thank you, awesome guides by the way! :)
Parry materia, R1+O
@@sarAEZY911 never mind i did it already ?. .
Where do i get other magic up?
I don't even remember mate
@@Optinooby alright
@@Optinooby i already found it i had to do pull ups which are pretty hard lmao
10:33 you're being humble i could never imagine doing all this work in this annoying ass game and putting it on RUclips with no monetary profit
To anyone having trouble with this, I didn’t have the MP reserves that Opti had, but I had just about as easy of a time by saving some thundaga for the end, and using abilities with synergy on a party member instead. Slightly different build, but as long as you save most of your MP for after he goes flying, and remember to attack with Tifa in pairs, you can spam him to death with thundaga
I had the same issue. had 1 MP with Tifa lol. Another method and what worked for me and maybe for someone else is to have the Pray materia on Cloud. Use thunder materia once or twice before he takes flight. I was able to save Barrets and Clouds MP this way by melee attacking and when I got low i would use the Pray materia to heal since it costs only ATB. I had plenty to stop the Tankbuster from executing this way and this is the key to winning. That tankbuster will absolutely just ruin everything if it goes off 🤣