Kinda need help with Ruby WEAPON Challenge

[Kraid]

Ok here's the deal:

I'm trying to defeat Ruby WEAPON without the use of Slots, KoR, Mime or Bahamut Zero (Or Overflow Glitch ¬_¬) However I've hit a slight dead end.

At the moment when facing against him because of his abnormally high defence I've found that I'm probably at most doing 800 - 1200 damage per round with Tifa to him.

I've a consistent strategy against him as well at the moment:

Equipment thus far to use on Ruby:

Mystile <---- Needed for Ultima and Shadow Flare for when Tentacles are out, Needed for Comet2 when Tentacles are down.
Ribbon <---- Needed for Tentacles
Elemental - Fire in Armour <---- For Ruby Flame (It's essentially a free turn)

Establish Slow on Ruby Weapon
Cast Big Guard for Haste
3-4 Hero Drinks for the Buffs
2-3 Dragon Force for Defence
Dazers
Megalixers
Bad Breath
X2 Cut (I haven't got X4 cut and I don't want X4 cut as I'll explain why.)

I don't plan on always using Dazers: I only use Dazers if I need to establish a heal. I'm ok with using Item Duplication for Ruby Weapon because quite honestly I don't see how I'm supposed to do this challenge without the use of Dazers or Elixers/Megalixers.

Notes:

Ruby can be slowed and paralyzed

Tentacles can be Poisoned (Very useful)

With two characters dead: Ruby loses his invulnerability. If I resurrect them later, Ruby will regain them if I kill Tentacles and he'll whirlsand two away. However after testing this strategy, Ruby will randomly Whirlsand characters away anyway even if Tentacles are out. So reviving characters is essentially a no go.

Ruby's attacks with Tentacles out are Ruby Ray, Ruby Flame, Ultima and a random occurance of Whirlsand (It took him like 10-20 minutes to do this). Tentacles can counter with a physical gravity based attack or Shadow Flare.

Ruby's Attacks with Tentacles down are Comet2, Big Swing and a physical attack which often misses. Whirlsand will always happen in this form if more than one character is alive.

Magic thus far I know can pierce through Defence: The Bahamut Family, KoR, Pandora's Box. Ultima and Shadow Flare does not. Normal Flare maybe?

Should note: I've only died to Ruby so far because of simple mistimings on attacks (I figured out when to attack and all that), but at around 800-1200 damage per hit, I calcuated it could take just under 1000 attacks and I'm trying to figure how to do more damage. Granted I should note that this was with Tifa using the God's Hand so here's a list of things that could potentially do more damage:

Characters useful:

Cid & Red XIII: Higher MP = More damage is very useful. I like Cid more because of Highwind

Tifa: More Limit = More damage. Don't like this so much because of her Limit being really random.

Cloud & Cait Sith: More HP = More Damage. However because of Tentacle Counter Attacks as well as Shadow Flare and Ultima, sometimes I could take too much damage and get next to no damage done. Cloud is nice for Omnislash however.

All I need really is ways of doing more damage. Any one know the best ways?

[Aevitas]

What's your materia set-up like? If you're trying to set up status effects on Ruby Weapon/tentacles I would guess the "Add Effect" or "Counter" materia would help, since they would save you from using a whole turn to cast something like Bad Breath. When I fought Ruby Weapon way back when, I remembered having "Counterattack" and "Counter-Death Blow" on because even if I spent a turn healing/staying alive, my characters would still be doing damage (and at high levels, "Death Blow" never misses). It's been a long time though, so I can't remember if Ruby Weapon would counter a counterattack. >.<

[Kraid]

I didn't think about Counter-Death Blow. That might be an idea actually.

At the moment I'm wondering around which Materia to use. Because I plan to swap Tifa with someone like Cid with more Materia Slots, I should be able to incorporate that into my strategy.

[Sephiroth]

Start the match with two party members dead, and have one character equipped with W-Summon, Phoenix and Hades. Also having the character with a full limit bar wouldn't hurt either. The first turn use your W-Summon with Phoenix and Hades, then start on your set up with Big Gaurd and etc.

From there, you can go a number of ways at him. Like W-Magic Quadra Magic Ultima/Comet-2 With a HP <-> MP Materia. Or you could simply have everyone have Throw Materia equipped and spam Graviball.

[Kraid]

Start the match with two party members dead, and have one character equipped with W-Summon, Phoenix and Hades. Also having the character with a full limit bar wouldn't hurt either. The first turn use your W-Summon with Phoenix and Hades, then start on your set up with Big Gaurd and etc.

From there, you can go a number of ways at him. Like W-Magic Quadra Magic Ultima/Comet-2 With a HP <-> MP Materia. Or you could simply have everyone have Throw Materia equipped and spam Graviball.

I don't think you read my post. At all.

Ruby Weapon Whirlsands characters even if you start the fight dead. He can Whirlsand even when his claws are down and tentacles are still up. Also Ruby WEAPON is immune to Gravity. He also highly resists Magic based attacks such as Comet 2 and Ultima (Ultima and Comet each do 100 damage each.)

However I DID end up beating the bastard without the use of Mime, Final Attack, KoR, Bahamut Family, Pandora's Box and Limit Breaks (Well I did use Limit breaks, but You'll see what I mean.)

Using Aevitas idea of Deathblow -> Counter Materia, I managed an idea.

Here was my set up:

Red XIII Lv 56
Limit Level 1: Sled Fang/Lunatic High
Weapon: Limited Moon
Armour: Mystile
Accessory: Ribbon

9026 HP
579 MP

Why Red?

Red has good attack and a good weapon: Limited Moon that allows for more damage the more MP he has. Since I'm banking on Critical attacks, he could do more damage than Cloud per HP hit with Ultima Weapon. Red also has a nice chance of hitting and he's my second lowest leveled character (Which is odd since I USUALLY use Red all the time.) He also has decent stats in everything else and in this case every little helped. He also usually has good chance of Deathblowing someone.

Limit Break: I haven't got Limit 2.5 or 3.5 so I couldn't so Stardust Ray. Sled Fang actually was a disadvantage to me as it only DID 1400 damage in one go which is the same amount of damage as my physical attack. This meant everytime Red got into Limit, he only did Half the damage. This means the Limit Break added MORE challenge than I really wanted.

Battle Time: 1 Hour 40 Minutes

Restore - W-Item / W-Magic - Enemy Skill / HP Plus - HP Plus / HP Plus - Hades
Fire - Elemental / Counter - Deathblow / Counter Attack - Double Cut

Strategy:

Establish firstly Dazers and Hero Drink
Big Guard
Regen
Dazers and Hero Drink
Hades
Megalixer and Dazers
Hero Drink and Hero Drink
Bad Breath Tentacles


At this point I was messing around with ideas. I know you can only ever get buffs from four Hero Drinks. Per every Dazer you can get two attacks on Ruby with Claws/Tentacles on Ground while you can get THREE + attacks on him when he has his arms in the air.

At first him with his claws in the ground was dangerous. Very dangerous. Ultima and Shadow Flare hurt a lot but thanks to Mystile I got misses every now and then.

Tentacles counter attack WITH Shadow Flare if you blindly attack Ruby, so it's best to avoid hitting Ruby at the wrong time. Luckily If Ruby is paralyzed, the Tentacles do not counter attack so you can get 2 safe attacks per hit.

If Tentacles hit you, then Counter Deathblow and Counter Attack will hit Ruby.

So here was the strategy next with Claws in ground:

Bad Breath: (Tentacles)
Ultima/Ruby Ray/Tentacle Attack (Didn't matter if it drained HP or MP)
Elixer/Megalixer/X-Potion/Turbo Ether and Dazers
Two attacks (One attack with Sled Fang)
Rinse and repeat

If Ruby uses Ruby Fire do not threat. Just wait for another attack of his and keep it as a breather.

Having Bad Breath on the tentacles is amazing. It may seem weird trading a turn for it, but you get THREE TO FOUR ADDITIONAL TURNS IF YOU DO. I kid you not: When you know they're dead and Ruby has been Dazed, you can pull off three hits on him before he pulls his tentacles out and an additional hit when he does pull the tentacles out of the ground.

If Ruby's arms are in the air:

Comet 2/Big Swing/Physical attack that hits
Elixer/Megalixer/X-Potion & Dazers
Attack X 3 (2 Attacks with Sled Fang)

If Physical Attack misses: Free Attack

With Red + Limited Moon at Level 56, Red did 1300/1400 per HP hit with Double Cut, 2700/2800 per Critical. In this case it was always better to go Double Cut since I had chances of Critical (5600 damage in one hit is not bad!) Counter Deathblow however was amazing as was Counter Attack as each hit could cost Ruby Weapon an additional 3900 HP.

Half way through the battle however this occured:

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w178/DarkRealmChaos/Image029.jpg
http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w178/DarkRealmChaos/Image030.jpg

However this only stops him from casting Ultima and Comet2, not Ruby Ray or Flame. I don't know about Whirlsand but I decided NOT to risk it.

I did not know Ruby Ray and Flame could still be used until he put his hands into the ground for the third time. However it did stop a lot of Ultima and Comet 2 meaning it freed up more of my Dazers which could be used later.

1 Hour and 40 minutes later of doing constant 1400 x 2 x 2 or 1400 x 2 x 3 per round, he finally fell.

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w178/DarkRealmChaos/Image031.jpg
(Yes, I'm aware this proves nothing as it looks like I could have 'cheesed and cheated' the victory, but I think having so many Screenshots of Ruby having no MP would be prove I did not need KoR or CounterMime to win. )

Thank you Aevitas for the idea of using Counter - Deathblow. Never would have thought of that and it helped me shave off probably an additional 5 minutes off this battle which was good because I was beginning to go insane =X

[Aevitas]

Haha every little bit helps I always say. I wasn't sure if it was going to be useful advice, but glad it worked out for you. :)

[533787655464]

Congratulations buddy

[red ice]

Congratulations on Defeating Ruby Weapon. I tried many ways to defeat him. One of them was lucky sevens by CLoud. hahah. But after I acquired master summon, command and magic. The weapons get easier to beat.

[Kraid]

I've beaten Ruby and Emerald before (Usually with the aid of KoR + HP Absorb + Mime) but this is the only time thus far I've beaten Ruby Weapon without that aid.

Emerald is next on my agenda. I've done it before but it's been so long so I may need help with that as well (Again, without the use of overflow, Instant death limit breaks, Mime, Final Attack or KoR)

[red ice]

I remembered I defeated emerald before , no summons, no mimes, no final attack. Just Counter>Full Cure. From then its basically commands, enemy skills(for defence, added healing), limit breaks. and of course Underwater Materia.
Accessories: Sprint shoes
Armor: Mystile