Fire damage on all opponents
Description
Beta is an attack spell in Final Fantasy VII. It is an enemy skill used by Midgar Zolom, which can be learned on the Enemy Skill Materia for the player to use. It is one of the more useful enemy skills to learn.
Obtained[]
Beta is the fourth spell available to be learned on the Enemy Skill Materia, though learning it as early as can be is tricky. It is learned from Midgar Zolom on the marshes before the Mythril Mine, and without preparation, will likely do more damage than the player's party has HP at this point in the game.
To obtain the Beta, the character who holds the Enemy Skill Materia must both survive the attack and win the battle. The simplest way to do this at low levels is to equip an Elemental Materia in a linked armor slot with a Fire Materia to reduce Beta's damage to approximately 600, allowing a character with high enough HP to survive it. The character can then cast Beta to kill the Midgar Zolom and end the battle with Beta learned. The character with this set-up must not attack once the Midgar Zolom rises into the air, so it is less likely to eject them.
Learning the spell later on is easier, when Midgar Zolom is no longer such an insurmountable obstacle. The Fire Ring from Costa del Sol, equipped on the character holding the Enemy Skill Materia, nullifies all damage from Beta.
Stats[]
| Command Materia | Enemy Skill Materia |
|---|---|
| Effect | Major Fire elemental damage to target party. |
| MP cost | 35 |
| Reflect | No |
Beta deals damage in the following formula:
![{\displaystyle (54/16)*[(Level+MagicalAttack)*6]}](https://services.fandom.com/mathoid-facade/v1/media/math/render/svg/c5e3a544ad39b0ac52e4bf23f00ac8067ad303b4)
where "Level" is the caster's current level and "Magical Attack" is their Magic atk stat. Beta attacks the entire enemy party, but does not split the damage (1/3 reduction in power) unlike Magic spells do with All Materia.
Use[]
Beta deals massive Fire-based magic damage on all opponents and can't be reflected. Its spell power is equal to 3.375x the base magic damage. It takes 35 MP to cast. The spell's graphic is akin to that of a nuclear bomb exploding with a resulting mushroom cloud.
Beta is good against groups of enemies, especially if they are weak to Fire. It is slightly less powerful than Fire3, but does not lose power from being targeted towards an entire enemy party, like Fire3 would with All, and costs less MP. If Fire2 with All is powerful enough to kill an enemy party, it is preferable for the lower MP cost, but the set-up takes two Materia slots, whereas Enemy Skill Materia can hold numerous spells only taking up a single slot. Beta surpasses Ifrit in damage and also costs slightly less MP to cast.
Good times to use Beta include against groups of enemies that are not dispatched with Matra Magic, and any upcoming bosses, such as Bottomswell, Jenova∙BIRTH, Dyne, Turks:Reno and Turks:Rude and Palmer. Because Beta is not reflectable, it can be used on Jenova∙LIFE as well. Beta continues to be a strong spell until the end of the game, and the player can also use it against Emerald Weapon to take out its eyes.
A comparably good E.Skill to Beta is Aqualung, which is also an elemental attack against all enemies, but deals Water damage. Both are surpassed by Magic Breath in damage.
Etymology[]
Beta (uppercase Β, lowercase β; Greek: Βήτα Bḗta) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet.