Angel Wing (Limit)

Angel Wing is a recurring ability in the series. It is generally associated with Rinoa Heartilly as one of her Limit Breaks.

Final Fantasy VIII
Angel Wing is Rinoa's second Limit Break, acquired after Squall saves her from drifting in space in disc 3. When executing Angel Wing a pair of white wings, similar to the ones printed on her blue sweater, momentarily emerge from Rinoa's back.

Mechanics
Activating Angel Wing will have Rinoa enter a "Magic-Berserk" status; players will lose control of her until the battle's end or until she is defeated or petrified. If Rinoa is petrified/defeated, the Angel Wing status will be gone when she is revived/cured. During Angel Wing Rinoa is immune to Berserk, Confuse, and Silence.

During Angel Wing, Rinoa will automatically cast an offensive spell present in her inventory without actually expending it, important for maintaining the effects of junctioned spells. Double and Triple statuses aren't used. Rinoa's magic damage will be five times as powerful as its base damage, even when her magic stat is already at the maximum 255. The increased damage multiplier will work even with Demi, which, instead of draining the opponent's HP by 25%, can kill the target. If Rinoa has no magic in stock while in the Angel Wing state, she will attack a random enemy.

To prevent Rinoa from casting unwanted spells like Scan or Dispel, the player can remove these spells from her inventory. Rinoa can become a devastating character if one manipulates her magic junctions in such a way that Meteor is the only or the weakest offensive spell she has in her arsenal. Since weaker spells are more likely to be cast, carrying some Ultima for junction doesn't influence the odds much. Full-Life or Triple are not used during Angel Wing and can be useful for junctions.

With the boost in magic damage and the appropriate magic stats, Rinoa could potentially be doing close to 99,990 damage in one attack round (Meteor hits 10 times, potentially for 9,999 each hit). Even with the 5x damage multiplier and capped magic at 255, it is still difficult to force the Meteor spell to exceed 7,500 damage per meteorite strike on harder bosses, such as Omega Weapon. The player can inflict the target with Vit 0 to reduce its Spirit to 0 to deal more damage.

In most cases, executing Angel Wing with Meteor is the stronger alternative to attempting Rinoa's Wishing Star. Considering Combine being random, and as the battle system is Active Time Battle taking place in pseudo real-time, the a player not having to manually input commands for Rinoa after Angel Wing is initiated increases her damage-over-time capabilities, especially when equipping with Auto Haste.

Apocalypse is compatible with Angel Wing, but can only be obtained during the last portion of the final battle in a normal playthrough.