Unlike in some Final Fantasy games, elements, debilitations and buffs are tactical considerations you need to be wary of in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and while you won’t have ways to counter most of them early on, you can target enemy weaknesses and counter their strengths with specific abilities, materia, and items. One such tool you have to shift the odds in your favor is Elemental Materia, returning from both the original Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VII Remake to bolster your elemental defense and add elemental damage to your attacks! This page will discuss Elemental Materia in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, including where to find it and how to use it most effectively.

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(1 of 4) Equip Elementa Materia in a paired socket,

Elemental Damage and Weaknesses - Final Fantasy VII Rebirth¶

When you scan enemies with the Assess Materia, you’ll notice that most foes are weak against at least one type of elemental damage. Not only do enemies take more damage from these weaknesses, but it often pressures them, making them far easier to stagger, which is where the big damage can be inflicted. While you can (and in most cases, should) use materia to target these weaknesses (or abilities that mimic elemental materia or inflict elemental damage in their own right), sometimes it’s effective to dish out elemental damage with your normal attacks.

Even more importantly, some enemies lean heavily on one type of elemental attack or have very dangerous spells and abilities that deal elemental damage. Being resistant or immune to that element can make winning such battles much, much easier. Midgardsormr, for example, uses several dangerous fire attacks while much of Quetzalcoatl’s arsenal consists of many lightning attacks. Both fights would be much, much easier with resistance, immunity, or even the ability to absorb their primary elemental attack.

How Elemental Materia Works - Final Fantasy VII Rebirth¶

Enter Elemental Materia, an orb of rare Support Materia which, when equipped in a materia socket, will add elemental damage to your weapon or elemental defense to your armor. To do this you must equip Elemental Materia in a paired socket alongside any type of elemental attack materia (Fire Materia, Ice Materia, Lightning Materia, Wind Materia, etc). The order doesn’t matter, as long as the two materia are in a paired socket, the Elemental Materia should take effect.

While it doesn’t matter what order you equip the materia in, some configuration choices do matter. Equipping Elemental Materia in a socket on your weapon will cause your weapon to deal elemental damage (assuming it’s paired with elemental attack materia), while equipping it on an armor socket will cause you to resist that element’s damage. For example, if you equip Fire Materia + Elemental Materia, you’ll add fire damage to your weapons and fire resistance to your armor. Equipping an orb of Fire and Ice Materia will grant you both forms of damage and resistance, making it great for covering a lot of potential weaknesses. On the other hand, you need to be careful with elemental damage - enemies can resist, ignore, or even absorb elemental damage, and there’s not always a “one element fits all” weapon for some dungeons and encounters, making Elemental Materia on a weapon a very situational affair.

Another thing to keep in mind is Elemental Materia - like most materia - grows stronger as you gain AP with it, as follows:

As you can see, Elemental Materia is far more potent when it comes to protecting you from damage than it is at inflicting it. Elemental Materia is also very difficult to level up - simply going from Lv1 to Lv2 will cost 2,500 AP, and Lv2 to Lv3 requires 7,500 AP, so you won’t be getting the most out of this materia early-game.

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Both orbs of Elemental Materia can be obtained by completing Chadley’s VR battles, one in Chapter 4 and another in Chapter 9.

Elemental Materia Locations - Final Fantasy VII Rebirth¶

As mentioned earlier, Elemental Materia is quite rare. In fact, there are only two pieces of it in the entire game, and both are obtained by developing materia with Chadley:

Neither of these is terribly hard to complete if you’re marginally willing to do the game’s ample open world content. Typically, you need to complete Fiend Intel in the indicated regions, defeating rarer, more dangerous versions of native enemies to unlock their corresponding VR battle. Talk to Chadley and win the VR battle that grants the materia you seek, profit.