Tifa Lockhart (VII Remake party member)

Tifa Lockhart
ティファ・ロックハート (Tifa Rokkuhāto?)
Portraits
Gameplay details
Type	Party member
Unique abilities	Unbridled Strength
Limit break	Somersault, Dolphin Flurry
Weapon	Knuckle

A member of the anti-Shinra militant group Avalanche. Tifa manages Seventh Heaven, a bar located in the Sector 7 slums. A student of Zangan-style martial arts, she can clobber opponents with her fleet-footed combat techniques.

Description

Tifa Lockhart is a playable character in Final Fantasy VII Remake. She is a brawler who equips Knuckles as her weapon. Tifa's main strengths are her agility, speed, ability to combo her moves together, her ability to both quickly build up enemy's stagger gauges, and her unique ability to increase bonus damage dealt during stagger.

Tifa joins the party in Chapter 3, "Home Sweet Slum", in a party with her and Cloud. During this time, she can partake in many Odd Jobs, which will improve Cloud's affection score with her and grant the ability to choose a dress she wears in Chapter 9, "The Town That Never Sleeps". Tifa joins the party frequently throughout the story, and becomes a party leader briefly in Chapter 16, "The Belly of the Beast", as well as Chapter 17, "Deliverance from Chaos".

If Tifa is transformed into a toad, she becomes a black and white-colored toad with a black skirt on suspenders.

Tifa in Final Fantasy VII Remake is based largely on Tifa in the original Final Fantasy VII, with added moves. Later, Tifa in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth was largely unchanged, with new moves added.

Battle

Tifa in battle.

Tifa is a melee damage-dealer focused more towards single-target damage, with high damage-per-second potential. She is very mobile, with high movement speed, giving her a quick ability to position herself advantageously in battle, and her attacks can react quickly to an enemy's movements. Another of her strengths is her ability to quickly stagger enemies and build up stagger bonus damage.

Tifa's unique mechanic revolves around building "chi" through the ability Unbridled Strength, which increases the number of basic attacks she can use, as well giving her an additional unique ability attack, up to three attacks (Whirling Uppercut, Omnistrike, and Rise and Fall), to be used consecutively for massive damage, as well increasing the bonus percentage damage against staggered opponents. This chi level is visually shown by a fiery aura that envelops her. Holding the attack button will cause Tifa to unleash an uppercut similar to Whirling Uppercut, which can be cancelled into her dodge roll to minimize the ending lag.

Attacking in the air.

Tifa's main issue lies in her limited range, forcing her to position herself properly to maximize her damage output and avoid enemy retaliation. Her mobility makes up for this, and most of her attacks have very little recovery and can be canceled into dodge rolls easily. This can be further taken advantage of with materia such as Parry Materia and Deadly Dodge Materia, allowing her combos to be more fluid and uninterrupted. When compared to Cloud (and Barret while wielding a melee weapon), her melee damage has the lowest area-of-effect. Tifa also has low durability, meaning her survivability is entirely dependent on her mobility to avoid damage rather than mitigate.

Attributes

Level	EXP	HP	MP	Strength	Magic	Vitality	Spirit	Luck	Speed	SP	Weapon Level	+
10	1837	1096	28	21	19	14	14	22	18	10	1
11	2483	1193	29	23	21	16	16	23	19	15	1
12	3409	1301	30	26	24	18	18	24	20	20	2
13	4380	1413	31	29	26	20	20	25	21	25	2
14	5519	1519	32	31	28	21	21	27	22	30	2
15	6840	1642	32	34	31	23	23	28	24	35	3
16	8927	1733	33	36	33	24	24	29	25	40	3
17	11223	1849	34	39	35	25	25	30	26	45	3
18	13932	1921	35	40	37	27	27	32	27	50	3
19	16877	2010	36	42	38	28	28	33	28	55	3
20	19977	2127	37	45	41	30	30	34	30	60	4
21	23150	2194	38	46	42	31	31	35	31	65	4
22	26624	2281	39	48	33	32	32	37	32	70	4
23	30170	2413	40	51	46	33	33	38	33	75	4
24	33838	2477	41	52	47	34	34	39	34	80	4
25	37642	2566	41	54	49	35	35	40	35	85	4
26	41596	2694	42	57	52	37	37	42	37	90	4
27	45618	2782	43	59	54	38	38	43	38	95	4
28	49723	2940	44	63	57	39	39	44	39	100	4
29	53925	3012	45	64	59	40	40	45	40	105	4
30	59567	3145	46	67	61	41	41	47	41	110	5
31	65808	3233	47	69	63	41	41	48	42	115	5
32	72799	3362	48	72	65	42	42	49	44	120	5
33	80282	3448	49	74	67	43	43	50	45	125	5
34	88222	3517	50	76	70	44	44	52	46	130	5
35	96633	3584	50	78	71	45	45	53	47	135	5
36	105245	3650	51	81	74	46	46	54	48	140	5
37	114355	3716	52	83	75	47	47	55	50	145	5
38	123979	3782	53	85	77	48	48	57	51	150	5
39	134130	3844	54	88	80	49	49	58	52	155	5
40	144822	3893	55	89	81	50	50	59	53	160	5
41	156070	3941	56	89	81	50	50	60	54	165	5
42	167887	3988	57	91	83	50	50	62	55	170	5
43	180287	4035	58	92	84	51	51	63	57	175	5
44	193285	4080	59	94	85	52	52	64	58	180	5
45	206895	4125	59	95	86	53	53	65	59	185	5
46	221131	4168	60	96	87	54	54	67	60	190	5
47	236006	4212	61	97	88	54	54	68	61	195	5
48	251534	4255	62	98	89	55	55	69	63	200	5
49	267731	4297	63	99	90	56	56	70	64	205	5
50	284610	4338	64	100	91	57	57	72	65	216	5

Tifa's attributes, like Cloud's, are balanced, but weighted towards physical damage and speed. She has the second-highest Strength in the game after him. She has the best Speed attribute, which translates into the fastest build-up of ATB possible. This, coupled with her strength stat, translates in very high damage-per-second.

While having lower Magic attributes than Cloud, she can fulfill the role of a battlemage spellcaster effectively, especially coupled with her speed attribute to charge up spells faster. The main issue with this is that she has the second-lowest MP pool after Barret.

Equipment

Main article: Tifa's knuckles

Tifa's weapons are gloves of various materials. Her default weapon is the Leather Gloves, a versatile weapon which has fairly well-rounded attributes while leaning towards physical damage. Most of her weapons give her upgrades to her speed, and all have upgrades to give her the chance to start battles with a higher chi. Compared to other characters, Tifa's weapons focus more on building up her speed and damage than her durability. Her weapons have higher boosts to physical damage attributes than most characters, but also have fewer abilities that improve MP recovery or her HP. Her weapons therefore play into her role of dealing damage-per-second. Tifa can earn SP for her weapons with Way of the Fist manuscripts.

Tifa's weapons focus her on either physical damage or magical damage playstyles. For physical damage, the Metal Knuckles and Feathered Gloves provide her the highest Attack Power and speed attribute boosts respectively, where the former focuses on sheer physical damage output but compromises her spellcasting potential, while the latter makes fewer such sacrifices and grants her greater speed overall. These weapons best fit Tifa's typical playstyle of dealing quick physical damage-per-second.

For a magical damage playstyle, Tifa can equip weapons focused on giving her spellcasting prowess. The Mythril Claws grant her a great Magic Attack attribute increase at the cost of a lower attack power boost, and are well-suited towards damaging spells, while the Sonic Strikers improve her MP and MP recovery rate and provide less of a compromise to her physical damage. Purple Pain is a more versatile weapon for Tifa, which has fairly moderate attribute increases for both physical and magical damage, but greatly improves her durability, addressing her biggest shortcoming, while also increasing her critical hit rate and limit break damage. This means it plays well into Tifa's playstyle, while not excelling in any area.

In terms of accessories, early on Tifa benefits from Power Wristguards to boost her strength, or on equipping accessories that provide resistance to debuffs that leave her vulnerable. Later, Tifa is the best choice to equip the Transference Module due to her high speed allowing her to consume ATB charges quickly, meaning that with the accessory, she will also quickly build up her limit gauge. The Champion Belt is also a great choice for Tifa, as improving her strength attribute and her HP simultaneously takes advantage of one of her best traits and addresses a major shortcoming. For armor, Tifa should focus more on improving her durability than on increasing her materia slots.

Abilities

Main article: Tifa's weapon abilities

True Strike.

Tifa's abilities make use of her high mobility, allowing her to move in and out of combat, and to close gaps between her and her opponents easily. Her abilities can be performed together in quick succession as a combo to easily build opponents' stagger gauge. Tifa is also unique in her ability to easily increase bonus stagger damage with her attacks and True Strike. This makes her mandatory to obtain the "Staggering Feat" trophy.

Tifa's Unbridled Strength and martial techniques are a core mechanic to her playstyle, buffing her damage, quickly staggering an enemy, and being one of the few abilities that boost an enemy's stagger bonus damage. Next to this, Starshower is arguably her next most important ability to her moveset, as it plays into all her strengths. This ability deals tremendous single-target damage (greater than any of her other abilities), builds an enemy's stagger gauge, makes her very evasive and near-immune during its animation, and sets up another attack quickly after while boosting its damage. In particular, Starshower increases the damage of her next ability by +70%, and can be used with any ability, magic spell, or limit break. This means it is crucial not just for melee damage builds, but also helpful in spellcaster builds.

Divekick is Tifa's best ability for dealing area-of-effect damage, due to its radius. The ability causes her to leap in the air and deal damage when crashing down, but it can be used straight after her Whirling Uppercut technique or while she is mid-air to cut part of the animation time and use it more quickly. In terms of burst damage, Tifa's next strongest ability is True Strike, which is more focused on single-target damage, but greatly boosts stagger bonus damage.

Omnistrike, an Unbridled Strength technique.

Focused Strike allows Tifa to move in-and-out of battle quickly, exiting and reentering combat rapidly. The ability is very evasive, and will also restore ATB on use, allowing it to be spammed often to avoid enemy's counterattacks and overwhelm them by moving rapidly. In particular, with Deadly Dodge and parry materia, it gives her great fluidity in battle. A similar ability to this is Overpower, in which Tifa leaps towards an enemy. This ability does not grant Tifa the same evasive maneuvers, but can pressure an enemy quickly, and allows her to leap back into battle and close the gap.

All of Tifa's abilities deal physical damage, with the exception of Chi Trap. This ability deals magic damage over time, in a melee range. Against enemies resisting physical damage, Chi Trap is therefore an excellent choice, and Tifa can place multiple traps at once to quickly stagger an enemy.

Rise and Fall.

Unbridled Strength.

Divekick.

Overpower.

Focused Strike.

Starshower.

Chi Trap.

Materia

Chakra.

Tifa comes with the Chakra Materia equipped, which when leveled up, allows her to self-heal with no MP cost. Tifa should equip materia that builds up her ATB gauge quickly, allowing her to rapidly combo her abilities together. Though she is not as good a magic user as Cloud and Aerith, materia that boost ATB build-up can still grant her very high damage-per-second in spellcasting builds.

Deadly Dodge Materia and Parry Materia materia are core to Tifa's playstyle, as they make her more fluid. Deadly Dodge increases Tifa's damage when she attacks after a dodge roll. It and Parry can be combined very effectively with Focused Strike and Starshower to make her evasive while still building up an enemy's stagger, overwhelming most enemies. Both Parry and Deadly Dodge charge her ATB quickly, allowing her to use these paired with attacks in-between her abilities to move in and out of combat while building her ATB to unleash the next ability.

Deadly Dodge.

First Strike Materia, ATB Stagger Materia, and Skill Master Materia also play well into her core strength, as they allow her to build up her ATB gauge quickly. This is beneficial both to a more physical damage-oriented build or a spellcasting build. Other materia that boost her ATB charge rate also play well into this strength, and Tifa benefits immensely from Time Materia, both in terms of its Haste and Stop spells. Casting Haste on herself improves her already fast ATB charge rate, while casting Stop can extend an enemy's stagger or otherwise freeze them in place, leaving them vulnerable to her close-range damage. The ATB Assist Materia materia also takes advantage of Tifa's high ATB charge rate to benefit other party members, raising their ATB after she uses her abilities.

Tifa can make use of the Elemental Materia materia to exploit an enemy's elemental weakness. In a physical damage build, this further increases her damage towards enemies with a weakness, and in a spellcasting build, it allows her to make a more efficient use of magic materia slot and improves her physical damage in-between spells. The Luck Up Materia materia can also play an important role in a physical-oriented build, as a higher Luck stat translates into higher critical chance, especially if she is equipped with the Purple Pain weapon.

Tifa using summoning materia.

Since Tifa has a naturally low Magic stat, she can be a good choice to give magic materia that don't rely on spell modifiers, such as Barrier Materia, Poison Materia, and the aforementioned time materia. If she does equip a spell while in a physical damage role, Wind Materia can be effective to drag enemies towards her, helping her close the gap.

Tifa can still be built towards spellcasting to deal damage, especially with a weapon that increases her magic attribute such as Mythril Knuckles. In this case, Tifa should equip Magic Up Materia and MP Up Materia materia to capitalize on spellcasting damage more, and to address a shortcoming in the form of her low MP pool. For general use, Tifa should instead equip HP Up Materia to address her naturally low HP, giving her greater ability to sustain damage in battle.

In Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, the Synergy Materia has been reworked, no longer requiring ATB charges or MP for the follow-up spell. Because of this, it's arguably one of the best materia to be equipped in any character, as it allows for free damage. While it can be equipped on Tifa, it benefits other characters more, as she can quickly build-up ATB and use abilities in succession, allowing for a flurry of spells from the synergized character.

Tifa is a great candidate for the Ifrit Materia due to its passive bonuses to attack and strength, as well defense and vitality, helping remedy Tifa's low defenses. Alternatively, Chocobo & Moogle Materia provides a bonus to luck, one of the most important attributes for Tifa. When used as the main player-controlled party member, Bahamut Materia should be used, as it provides the best attribute increases all-around.

Limit breaks

Dolphin Flurry.

Main article: Tifa's limit breaks

Tifa's level 1 unique limit break is Somersault, and her level 2 limit break is Dolphin Flurry. Both of these limit breaks are martial techniques that deal tremendous physical damage towards a single target, based on her attack power attribute, which can also hit nearby enemies. Dolphin Flurry also increases an enemy's stagger gauge, and deals significantly more damage that Somersault, but when set as her limit break, takes much longer for the limit gauge to fill.

Because of her naturally high strength, and the high attack power boosts of her weapons, Dolphin Flurry can potentially deal the greatest amount of damage of any character's limit breaks. This can be further improved by 70% if it is used following Starshower, providing her the greatest potential damage output. Though Tifa can take advantage of a staggered enemy to deal bonus damage, it is normally better for her to use the time to build up their stagger damage with True Strike and her Unbridled Strength techniques, and to instead use limit breaks at any opportune moment once available.

Somersault.

As Tifa builds up her ATB gauge quickly, she is arguably the best choice to equip the Transference Module accessory. This will transfer ATB uses into quickly building up her limit gauge, allowing her to use Dolphin Flurry or Somersault much more often. Once obtained, Gotterdammerung is also a great choice on Tifa to use her powerful limit breaks often throughout battle, because of her high attack power attribute that transfers to her limit breaks.

Tifa is also a good choice to equip the Refocus Materia, giving her the Refocus limit break. This allows her to use three ATB charges for a long time, which Tifa can take advantage of as she can fill these charges quickly.

Quests

Tifa first joins during Chapter 3, "Home Sweet Slum", in a party with Cloud. She appears in most quests throughout the chapter. She leaves at the start of Chapter 4, "Mad Dash", but rejoins the party for its penultimate quest, "Sudden Attack". After this, Tifa appears in the main party along with Barret, from Chapter 5 up to Chapter 8, "Budding Bodyguard".

Tifa joins Cloud and Aerith's party in "The Audition", the final quest of Chapter 9, "The Town That Never Sleeps". She remains in the party for the following chapters, though in Chapter 12, "Fight for Survival", she leaves after the quest "Head for the Pillar", rejoining in "To the Top".

"Wavering Heart" pull-up minigame.

During Chapter 13, "A Broken World", Tifa leaves the party during "In Solitude", rejoining a party led by Barret in "Reunite with Tifa". She then remains in the party, and in Chapter 14, "In Search of Hope", she partakes in a Pull-Ups minigame in Wall Market, in the sidequest "Wavering Heart". Later, in Chapter 16, "The Belly of the Beast", Tifa becomes the party leader for the quest "Acquiring the Keycard", rejoining the normal party with Cloud and Barret afterward.

In Chapter 17, "Deliverance from Chaos", Tifa is in a party with her and Aerith for the first quest "A Way Out". She then leads her own party with her and Aerith during a series of quests in "Find the Others". The player switches between Cloud and Tifa's party, and Tifa's party complete the subquests "Research the 3rd Ward", "Rescuing Red XIII", "To the Central Terminal", "A Way Up", and "Source of the Sound". After this, she rejoins the party with Cloud and Aerith for "The Ominous Trail", up until Chapter 18, "Destiny's Crossroads". In this chapter, Tifa appears in the party periodically throughout the final quest, "The Turning Point".

Refined dress.

Sporty dress.

Exotic dress.

Interactions

See also: Affection mechanics (VII Remake) or Dress mechanics (VII Remake)

Selecting a choice of drink.

After doing all "Home Sweet Slum" sidequests in the Sector 7 Slums, the quest "Alone at Last" commences. In this, Tifa and Cloud plan to go out, and what kind of attire the player suggests she wear plays into determining what she wears in Chapter 9, "The Town That Never Sleeps", for Don Corneo's audition.

At the beginning of "Escape to the Surface" in Chapter 10, "Rough Waters", the player can choose to talk to Tifa or Aerith to progress; the following scene is different depending on whom the player talks to, and the answer affects her affection score.

In "Resolve" during Chapter 14, "In Search of Hope", a cutscene will appear with Tifa depending on her affection score with Cloud.

Behind the scenes

Of Tifa's abilities, Starshower was her most popular among players at 38% among respondents to a survey, followed by Unbrilded Strength at 13%, and Dolphin Flurry at 11%. 51% of players reported seeing Tifa's first "refined" dress (suggesting they either selected it in "Alone at Last", or did not complete the sidequests), followed by 31% of players who selected her "exotic" dress, and 18% who selected her "sporty" dress. Tifa was also the most common resolution scene option, as 56% of playres reported seeing her resolution scene on their first playthrough, compared to 42% seeing Aerith and just 2% seeing Barret.

Gallery

Guarding.

Dodge roll.

Battle stance.

Victory pose in the Corneo Colosseum and Shinra Combat Simulator.

Toad status.

Incapacitated.