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Elemental is a Support Materia in Final Fantasy VII. It can be linked with most Materia, including Magic Materia, Summon Materia, Independent Materia, Command Materia (with the exception of the Enemy Skill Materia), to apply the element of the Materia to equipment. When equipped on weapons, it will infuse the element with elemental damage from the Materia, and when equipped on armor, it will provide resistance to, immunity to, or absorption of the element depending on the level of the Elemental Materia.
If the linked Materia has a specific element, it will apply that elemental effect. In most cases, however, including all Command and Independent Materia as well as several Magic or Summon Materia, it will simply link the Hidden element. This usually has no effect.
Obtained
Elemental is first found in the Shinra Headquarters on floor 62, if the player guesses the mayor's password on the first try. The password is found by piecing together the clues from the library. The mayor has moved books into wrong sections. All books have a number before the title; together, the number and title give a single-letter clue. Given the example of a misplaced book called "5 Midgar City Map", the clue it would give would be "A", A being the 5th letter in the title. The player needs to find the misplaced books by seeing which titles don't make sense to be kept in the shelf where they were found and taking one letter from each to form the password.
Elemental is later found on Mt. Nibel. If the player plays Tifa's piano in Nibelheim while she is the party leader, they can obtain the Elemental Materia also.
After this, the only way to obtain more Elemental Materia is by mastering one. This requires 80000, and the best way to do this is to equip weapons and armor with Double or Triple AP.
Stats
Growth
| Level | AP required | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0 | Makes weapon take on elemental properties of linked Materia. Armor resists element of linked Materia by taking half damage. |
| 2 | 10000 | Makes weapon take on elemental properties of linked Materia. Armor nullifies element of linked Materia. |
| 3 | 40000 | Makes weapon take on elemental properties of linked Materia. Armor absorbs element of linked Materia. |
| 4 | 80000 | MASTER |
Effects
When equipping the following Materia, a specific element will be applied. In any other case, equippable Materia will provide Hidden.
| Materia | Element |
|---|---|
| Fire | Fire |
| Ice | Ice |
| Earth | Earth |
| Poison | Poison |
| Gravity | Gravity |
| Choco/Mog | Wind |
| Shiva | Ice |
| Ifrit | Fire |
| Ramuh | Lightning |
| Titan | Earth |
| Leviathan | Lightning |
| Alexander | Holy |
| Phoenix | Fire |
| Typhon | Wind |
Use
Elemental can be linked with the majority of Materia on a weapon to imbue all physical attacks with elemental damage, or on armor to provide resistance to, immunity to, or absorption of the element in particular. The Elemental Materia has a wide variety of strategic uses both defensively and offensively. Whether the player should use the Materia offensively or defensively is situational, based either on the enemies they are encountering in a dungeon, or how resistant their characters already are. At level 3, when the Elemental Materia will absorb attacks entirely, it is often best to use it defensively if enemies use damage of a certain element often as it means players will have to heal much less often.
Elemental Materia used offensively can allow characters that mostly deal physical damage to exploit enemies' elemental weaknesses that usually only spellcasters can otherwise exploit. When used this way, it should be given to characters with a high Strength stat, such as Cloud, Barret, Tifa, or Cid, to make the most of their high physical damage. It is almost always best paired with Magic Materia, as Summon Materia come with larger stat penalties that compromise physical attacks. However, the Wind and Holy elements are unique to Summon Materia.
If used defensively, Elemental should just be given to the most vulnerable party members with the lowest HP as a priority. On characters who have Summon Materia equipped already, Elemental is one of the few Materia it can be paired with, making it a good choice to use on armor.
Elemental can be linked with Materia that have no specific element to instead link with the Hidden element. This element usually has no effect, however, as the only enemy attack that deals Hidden-elemental damage is Ultimate Weapon's Ultima Beam.