Blizzard is a magic spell in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. It is granted by either Ice Materia or
Fire and Ice Materia, and is the basic
Ice-elemental spell below Blizzara and Blizzaga. Blizzard deals a small amount of ice-elemental damage, but has the lowest MP cost, and the shortest casting time. The spell fires a small ice projectile at the targeted enemy, which then expands and explodes with a short delay to deal damage.
Blizzard is also used against the player by the following enemies: Shankhalopod, Shoalopod, Two Face, and Yin & Yang.
Use[]
Blizzard costs 4 MP to cast with a level 1 ice or fire and ice materia equipped. The spell is effective generally but is particularly strong against enemies that are weak to ice (normally biological enemies).
Among its peers—Fire, Thunder, and Aero—Blizzard is different in that after hitting its target, it creates a stationary icicle before dealing damage to enemies caught in the radius. This can give it a degree of area-of-effect damage, albeit delayed. However, it means that some enemies, which are not knocked back by the initial projectile, can evade the spell, meaning that some foes should be hit in between their movements or when they are stationary.
Although Blizzard is outclassed by Blizzara, Blizzard's short cast time and low MP cost mean it remains useful. As party members' Magic Attack increases, the spell becomes stronger, meaning it can even be effective (albeit less ATB-efficient) against stronger enemies with an ice-elemental weakness. Blizzard is also outclassed by Blizzaga, although Blizzaga requires two ATB charges to use and is even costlier.
Blizzard can be amplified with Support Materia. The spell is cast automatically by party members who paired ice materia with
Synergy Materia or
Auto-Cast Materia. This is useful in battles against enemies with an ice weakness to overwhelm them, but against other enemies, Fire or Thunder are more reliable. The
HP Absorption Materia and
MP Absorption Materia can increase a party member's sustainability when using the spell.
Magic Focus Materia can increase the spell's damage, and
Magnify Materia can make for a powerful combination when it hits all enemies at once.
Magic Efficiency Materia and
Swiftcast Materia are effectively redundant with the spell, and should be used with Blizzara and Blizzaga instead.
Using Blizzard with Aerith's Arcane Ward will cast it twice. Further using Yuffie with Doppelganger when in Arcane Ward can cast Blizzard four times.
If the party member casting Blizzard has unlocked their ice-elemental weapon ability (e.g. Cold Front for Aerith), Blizzard becomes Blizzard α, which will bestow an ice-elemental sphere to the spellcaster for the rest of the battle (unless the player changes the element with Fire α etc.) that will supplement small magical ice-elemental damage when defending against certain enemy attacks (perfect-blocking not needed) and when using ATB abilities. The attacks from the "ice sphere" do build stagger and can be critical hits.