Oh, shut up and help me remodel the Tifa Lockhart (VII Rebirth party member) page!
- all odd job quests, quests where Tifa is the party leader, and interactions with her.
This request can be discussed on the associated discussion page. Remove this notice upon completion.
Tifa Lockhart is a playable character in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. She is a brawler who equips knuckles as her weapon. Her strengths in battle are her strong physical damage and agility, allowing her to swiftly combo her weapon abilities together and build ATB quickly. Tifa can both quickly build an enemy's stagger gauge, and is unique in her ability to increase bonus damage dealt during stagger.
Tifa is present in the party from the beginning of the game. She leads the party briefly during chapter 9, "The Planet Stirs", and is mandatory at multiple points in the story. Tifa is one of five date options for the Gold Saucer in both chapter 8, "All That Glitters", and chapter 12, "A Golden Key".
If Tifa is transformed into a toad, she becomes a black and white-colored toad with a black skirt on suspenders.
Tifa is largely unchanged from her Final Fantasy VII Remake gameplay, with only a few moves changed and new moves added. This in turn was based partly on her skillset from her original Final Fantasy VII appearance.
Battle[]
Tifa is a melee physical attacker who focuses on rapid damage-per-second toward a single target. She is very mobile, capable of rapid movement both on the ground and in the air, allowing her to deal with faster threats and outmaneuver slower ones. Beyond this, her unique ability to increase bonus damage dealt to an enemy during stagger, coupled with her ability to quickly stagger an enemy, allows her to burst down single targets quickly.
Tifa's unique ability revolves around her Unbridled Strength mechanic. Using Unbridled Strength builds her chi up to three levels, which increases the number of attacks in her basic combo, as well as giving her a new unique ability. Her basic unique ability is Whirling Uppercut, which goes up to Omnistrike at the second level of chi and Rise and Fall at the third level. Each of these deal heavy damage, fill Tifa's ATB quickly, and against staggered enemies, boost bonus damage. Holding the attack button causes Tifa to unleash an uppercut similar to Whirling Uppercut (which can be cancelled into a dodge roll to minimize ending lag). While airborne, both Whirling Uppercut and this attack cause her to slam on the ground.
Though Tifa's playstyle and moveset are similar to her Remake appearance, it changes in Rebirth in incorporating parry and deadly dodge into her core moveset (rather than relying on materia), and her airborne combat abilities. Her regular dodge is a slide, which slides into enemies, dealing some damage to those she hits, while avoiding attacks. Performing a dodge roll and immediately attacking as Tifa causes her to perform aerial roundhouse kicks that hit opponents in an area, allowing her to kite around an opponent and hit them, building her ATB while avoiding their attacks. Many of Tifa's abilities have also been given airborne equivalents, allowing her to challenge flying opponents with no issue.
Tifa's main weaknesses lie in her durability and magic attributes. These can be shored up with the correct equipment, or by including her in parties with other members who cover these roles. Additionally, Tifa's ability to build ATB quickly can make her respectable spellcaster if needed (especially when taking advantage of her ability to build stagger quickly), and her lower durability is compensated by her ability to outmaneuver opponents with ease. Although Tifa's melee range makes her more limited than most party members, her speed and agility make up for this in the majority of cases.
Attributes[]
Tifa's attributes are weighted toward her physical damage and speed. She has the highest maximum 
Strength in the game, and second highest 
Speed with Yuffie below only Red XII. She also has the second-highest 
Luck below Cait Sith, giving her strong critical hit potential.
Her natural defensive stats are lower, as she has only the fifth highest HP, 
Vitality, and 
Spirit. Tifa has lower 
Magic than other party members, and has the second-lowest MP pool after Barret.
Equipment[]
Tifa's weapons are gloves of various materials. She begins the game with 
Leather Gloves, a versatile weapon with well-rounded stats albeit leaning more toward 
Attack Power. Most of Tifa's weapons, with a few exceptions, lean this way, meaning the biggest difference maker is often the weapon skills they come with. Given Tifa's playstyle, these weapon skills often boost her ATB-building or limit breaks.
Most weapons specialize Tifa in physical damage output. Kaiser Knuckles grants Tifa the largest attack power boost. Dragon Claws has a similarly high boost but slightly more balance and with some ATB-boosting weapon skills. The Járngreipr, her final choice, has lower stats on paper, but important boosts to her critical hit rate and some key weapon skills, namely 
Utterly Unbridled Strength.
A few weapons can give Tifa a magic-based playstyle instead. Crystal Gloves specializes Tifa entirely in this role with a large boost to her 
Magic Attack and weapon skills geared toward damage output. Sylph Gloves somewhat focus Tifa on this role, but with slightly more balanced stats and weapon skills that improve her MP, addressing one of her weaknesses. Tiger Fangs is a weapon with more balanced stats, but also one with weapon skills addressing one of her core weaknesses, namely skills geared for her durability.
For accessories, early on Tifa can benefit from aureate pinion to take advantage of her speed, and later use 
Full Throttle Wristguards to boost her HP and strength, with the latter being her most important attribute when built for physical damage. Near the end, she will want protective accessories such as the Karmic Cowl. Because Tifa can make strong use of her limit breaks as a form of damage output, accessories that allow her to use them more often can also be effective, and she can benefit from accessories boosting her ATB. For armor, Tifa should typically focus more on improving her durability over her materia slots.
Abilities[]
Starshower.
Tifa's abilities revolve around high mobility, single target damage, and staggering opponents. Her abilities allow her to increase bonus stagger damage to an extent greater than other party members are capable, and are designed to be performed in quick combos as she builds ATB rapidly. The majority of her abilities are based on physical damage, and thus derived from her strength attribute, but there are a few exceptions.
Tifa's initial abilities are Unbridled Strength and Focused Strike. Unbridled Strength is her core mechanic, as using it increases her chi level, which boosts her regular attacks and unique abilities, each of which boost bonus damage when used on staggered enemies. Focused Srtike also plays heavily into her playstyle, as it causes her to leap back before an attack that heavily increases an opponents' stagger gauge. This means Focused Strike grants mobility, a means of evasion, and a means of staggering enemies quickly.
Many returning abilities from Remake remain core to her playstyle. Divekick is effective at dealing area-of-effect damage and dealing a powerful hit, optimal when timed at the end of a combo. Starshower both deals good damage on its own and boosts the damage from her next attack, making it useful for setting up stronger physical or magic attacks, or even a spell or limit break. True Strike boosts stagger bonus damage and deals good physical damage.
Unfettered Fury.
Though Tifa is best at dealing physical damage, in Rebirth, Tifa obtains the Unfettered Fury ability. This is an alternative to her Unbridled Strength mechanic, which boosts her chi level but imbues her normal attacks with magic damage, causing them to increase stagger by a greater amount, and grants the alternative Omniflurry and Rage and Fall unique ability. This can be used both in staggering enemies quickly, and unlocks potential to build Tifa as a magic damage dealer. Coupled with the right weapon, her returning Chi Trap ability that deals magic damage, and Starshower to empower spells cast, Tifa can be very effective in this role.
Many of Tifa's abilities are also effective while airborne, including Focused Strike, and her new ability, Reverse Gale. This is a 
Wind-elemental attack that drags enemies toward her and launches grounded enemies, making it effective both at flying enemies and in aerial attacks.
Tifa's ultimately ability, unlocked from her folio rather than a weapon, is Trinity Strike. The ability gives her a combo of attacks (triggered with the regular attack button) that can deal immense damage if she is able to pull them all off against a foe, making it potentially her strongest ability but best used against immobile or staggered enemies.
Synergy abilities[]
Tifa's playstyle allows her to benefit from synergy abilities in a number of ways.
Because Tifa expects to combo a number of abilities together in rapid succession, United Refocus can play directly into her playstyle. This allows her to build up and consume ATB much faster, pulling combos together quickly.
Tifa is especially effective against staggered enemies, meaning using Relentless Rush, Avalanche Two-Step, Call of the Wild, or Cyclonic Kick just before an enemy is staggered allows her to get the most of her stagger damage-boosting attacks.
Tifa's limit breaks are all physical damage abilities. If Tifa is being built toward physical damage, using Divine Punishment or Moogle Dunk Shot can unlock stronger attacks, improving a great source of damage output for her.
Only Synchro Cyclone can give Tifa unlimited MP. If Tifa is built toward magic damage (taking advantage of her Unfettered Fury), this can help her use spells much more frequently as a damage source, as her lower MP pool can normally limit her. However, more often, Tifa is built toward magic damage.
Both Barret and Yuffie offer her United Refocus and an ability to extend stagger duration. Aerith and Cait Sith offer her United Refocus and a limit level boosting ability. Cloud offers her a stagger extending ability and is the only party member to give her an unlimited MP ability.
Synergy skills[]
| Type | Name | Partners |
|---|---|---|
| Offensive | Soaring Flurry |  Cloud Strife,  Red XIII
|
| Heavenly Ascent |  Barret Wallace,  Aerith Gainsborough,  Yuffie Kisaragi,  Cait Sith
| |
| Defensive | Slip and Slide | Cloud Strife, Aerith Gainsborough, Yuffie Kisaragi, Cait Sith
|
| Bodyguard | Barret Wallace, Red XIII
|
Tifa's offensive synergy skills, Soaring Flurry and Heavenly Ascent, let party members propel her up to fight aerially. This allows her to take advantage of her aerial combat moves and to approach airborne foes, since, unlike Cloud and Yuffie, she has limited means to reach flying enemies on her own, outside of Reverse Gale. Both of Tifa's offensive abilities have this same effect, and vary only on the party member she is teaming up with.
Her two defensive skills have different roles. Where Slip and Slide is an evasive move—fitting in with her playstyle as a more manueverable party member—Bodyguard is a guarding ability that protects her without requiring her to move. Both have different situational uses.
Materia[]
Tifa starts out with 
Chakra Materia just like she did in Remake but, unlike Remake, she also has an 
Ice Materia equipped for 
Blizzard spells.
Tifa's playstyle revolves around her ability to rapidly pull off a combo of moves together. The 
Skill Master Materia is therefore an excellent choice to help her do this more often, and it is normally important to equip First Strike Materia to allow her to raise her chi level from the start of battle, and combining it with ATB Boost Materia to do both at once. ATB Stagger Materia is also very beneficial for her, given she will need to use her abilities after an enemy is staggered. ATB Assist Materia allows Tifa to take advantage of her performed ability combos to benefit her teammates.
In Tifa's typical playstyle as a physical damage dealer, Strength Up Materia and Speed Up Materia complement her strengths, while HP Up Materia is important due to her naturally low HP. Tifa can use Time Materia (paired well with 
Magnify Materia) both for herself to take advantage of her ATB-building speed further, and to cast Stop to lengthen staggers further. She can also make use of Empowerment Materia or Enervation Materia to cast spells that can situationally increase her damage output.
When used for magic damage, it is best to improve her MP with MP Up Materia, and also equip Magic Up Materia and ATK⇔MATK Materia. In such builds, for Tifa it is better to equip a couple Magic Materia (ideally with a Support Materia pairing) rather than too many, so that she has space for the complete materia to boost her stats to the point where this is more effective.
Tifa can be a good candidate for the Enemy Skill Materia as it is not dependent on her MP. The abilities Plasma Discharge, which unleashes 
Lightning after every ATB ability used, and Sonic Boom, which grant herself 
Bravery (boosting her physical damage) and 
Faith after use, both benefit her. Mind Blast can be used once per battle as a quick way to fill stagger gauges.
Due to her exceptional strength attribute she is the best candidate for the Odin Materia which gives a substantial buff to the the strength stat.
Limit breaks[]
Tifa has three limit breaks, the third one of which is unlocked via the folio. Somersault and Dolphin Flurry, returning from Remake, are powerful physical attacks against single targets. Tifa can later obtain Meteor Strikes from her folio where she repeatedly strikes her foes with devastating blows with immense force reminiscent of falling stars.
Quests[]
Main scenario[]
Tifa briefly becomes party leader during chapter 9, "The Planet Stirs", when Cloud suffers from a mental breakdown. She automatically unlocks the chocobo for the region, Fango, and goes to the ruined reactor to help Cloud's party. Tifa also uses grappling hooks to get into the reactor and leads the party in the boss fight against Scarlet. A newly-added story scenario involves Tifa getting swallowed by a Weapon and reliving the incident when her mother died.
