Summary
This guide will show you how to obtain the enemy skill Beta very early on. It is obtainable during the first appearence of the Midgar Zolom, right after you leave Midgar for the first time.
Beta is a very powerful enemy skill, rendering most of the game trivial once learned. The trick is to find a way to obtain it when the Midgar Zolom will typically kill your whole team very easily. In order to learn an enemy skill there are several rules that must be followed.
You must get the enemy to cast the spell.
You must have the character with the enemy skill materia targeted with the skill.
You must survive the fight.
You cannot be removed from the fight - even if the team wins, if the character learning the skill is removed from combat you will not learn the skill.
#1 is not a problem. The Zolom will cast Beta every time his health drops below 50%. So to initiate the attack, you simply have to knock his health down.
#2 is not a problem either - Beta is a multi-target spell. If he casts it, it will hit everyone.
#3 and #4 however are issues. Beta can do upwards of 1.5k dmg to each party member. Odds are good that around the time you leave Midgar you will have half that amount of health. Beta should be an instant kill to everyone in your group. The Zolom also will pick someone out of the group and kick them out of combat. If he picks the person with the enemy skill materia, that's it - attempt failed.
So, what to do? Although there are a few different strategies that can be employed, I will show you what I consider to be the easiest. It will center around Aeris, who is in my opinion, the most poweful Final Fantasy character ever.
Preparation
In order to make this work, we must have Aeris' 3-1 limit break unlocked. (Planet Protector) To unlock the first tier of each level limit break, that character must kill a specific number of enemies. Aeris' requirements are lower than most characters - most likely because of her "departure" later in the game. This makes unlocking her 3rd tier limit break fairly easy.
To make it even easier, I suggest first learning the Matra Magic enemy skill. This is easily obtained from who will likely be the first enemy you meet outside of Midgar, the Custom Sweeper. Simply find one of them on the world map, wait for a while, and he'll cast the spell on you. This spell, while pretty worthless at end-game levels, is great at this point in the game. Odds are good you will one-shot most groups of enemies you come across. This is valuable for Aeris to quickly dispatch large numbers of enemies, quickly. It also only costs 8MP, so you will not be forced into using tents or running to town to recharge frequently.
So to learn Planet Protector, give the E.Skill materia to Aeris, and have her deliver the killing blow to all the enemies you find. This should not take too long - as you will see from my screenshots I had the whole strategy down by the time i was level 21, and I'm sure that you could beat my time as I was experimenting with other ideas as well. If you have made it to the Mythril Mines, there are groups of 5 enemies in there that are easily killed by Matra Magic. This makes for an ideal spot to quickly unlock limit breaks.
Aside from learning Aeris' 3-1 limit break, there is one item that can be helpful as well. While not nessesary, it does speed things up and helps to manage the Zolom's tendancy to knock people out of combat if the fight drags on too long. This item is the Graviball. You can obtain these much earlier in the game, during the Train Graveyard scene. Many know of this area for its source of Ghost's Hands (the only easy way to obtain these rare items) and Aeris' first weapon upgrade, the Striking Staff (stolen from Eligor). The Graviballs are a drop from Deenglow, a mini-dragon looking monster. It's a fairly rare drop (around 15%), but you only need a handful of them. I used 3 in my fight with the Zolom, but 2 would have been fine. As i mentioned, this is not nessesary, so if you are past the Train Graveyard don't fret. It does make things much easier, however.
(*Note - Deenglows are also the enemies in the area you can steal Ethers from. Be aware, if you steal an item from an enemy, you cannot recieve a drop! So don't steal from them if you want Graviballs!)
Finally, once you have unlocked Planet Protector you will need to charge it up. I'd suggest putting Aeris in the front row, giving her the Cover materia, and giving her the worst armor you have. Just get into combat and wait - the enemies will have a greater chance of hitting her, and with weak armor it will do more damage, thus increasing her limit break faster. Once charged, we can move on and attack the Zolom!
The Fight
So with my team looking like this...
...I begin. Cloud has the enemy skill materia, so he needs to be the one who survives and does not get kicked out of combat. Aeris' limit break is fully charged. Red has my most powerful materia - in this case Fire and Ice - both are level 2 now.
First, I initiate combat by walking around in the swamp. The Zolom attacks. Then I throw out a couple graviballs quickly, using Red. In this fight, Red is my primary damage dealer. By having Red use 2 graviballs, he will deal 1k dmg first, then 750 dmg with the second. This puts the Zolom at around 65% health.
At this point i'm nearing the 50% health mark, where the Zolom will cast Beta. So it's time to call on Aeris. I have her use her Planet Protector limit break. (Note the stars, hehe) This will make the whole party invulnerable for several rounds. Then follow Planet Protector with more damage from Red (Graviballs will have less of an effect by this point - so i throw out some level 2 elemental spells). At this point, the Zolom chooses someone to knock out of combat. He will typically pick whoever has done the most damage - in my game, Red. Because i have had Cloud do nothing, he does not choose the character who has the enemy skill materia.
And after he knocks poor Red out... he preps Beta and lets loose...
...but thanks to Planet Protector it does 0 damage!
Mwahahaha. Now just throw everything you have at the Zolom to kill him ASAP. The trick now is to ensure that you kill him before he thows out the E.Skill materia carrying character. I used level 2 elemental attacks, Ice 2 in particular. But whatever you can do to finish him off (you'll need to do roughly 1.5k health after he casts Beta) will work. If your levels are particularly low, this might be difficult - however you should be able to compensate with random item pickups, limit breaks, etc. When the Zolom does hit, he hits hard. But these hard hits will raise your limit gague quickly, allowing you to throw the damage right back at him.
And when you see this, remember to RUN OUT OF THE SWAMP QUICKLY - or else you'll be right back in combat, with a weakend team, and your sucessful fight unsaved! (Yes, this happened to me, hehe)
Conclusion
Before saving, check your Enemy Skill materia to make sure Beta is listed. You don't want to save and then realize that you somehow failed to get the ability - and used up your Graviballs and other items in the process! Remember, you can be notified in-game that you learned the skill and not actually get it if the character dies or is removed from combat. However, once completed, you'll have access to an incredibly powerful spell very early on!
I hope this guide was useful to anyone revisiting this gem of a game.
Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=332677879
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