Spare Change Materia - Worst Materia in the game? 

Edit: I have just tested it as of 4-20-24 and determined that it does affect the 5th-6th-7th hits of the Unfettered Fury combo. The 1st-4th hits of the Unfettered Fury combo still scale with strength, as does the uppercut. I'm making a short video on the subject. Unfortunately, putting elemental+magic on yoyr weapon doesn't give spare change any extra damage which makes testing elemental a bit more complicated. I'll try to get around to it

I like girls that have a little more substance. Fabric is the substance.

@@aethertruck Where was best girl Cloud in all of this?

It just depends on what matters to you. Plumose has the highest magic attack but it's lacking the Altruistic buff up traits. Kaiser Knuckles have the highest attack and concentration, which guarantees starting combat at unbridled 1, but it lacks weapon ability ATB recovery, which I really prefer especially since Tifa hits the 9999 damage cap so easily anyway. It's usually down to 2 or 3 weapons which are best but the weapon traits available on them leave room for practical nuance and subjectivity. The answer changes drastically from weapon level 8 to level 9 because of available traits/stats/slots and most people will quit playing the game by the time they reach weapon level 9 on everyone so answering the question for everyone isn't straightforward or easy.

@@aethertruck what about yuffie? I did some testing with the bird of prey crit build on titan and it's seem to be doing more damage with the abilities but less with the elemental ninjutsu. I wonder what are the damage formulas

@@johnathanjhonson4262 i haven't used Yuffie in probably 70 game hours. I liked her for my first Rulers attempts. Her elemental ninjutsus were very nice for doing reliable damage to Phoenix, Kujata, Titan, Alexander, and Gilgamesh. Also ice ninjutsu on the beginning of Virtual Seph phase 2. But I couldn't tell you what's good on her. Just depends how you like to play her because she can be an effective melee attacker with supreme art of war and her triple ATB skill, or she can spam blindside to charge up her Banishment pips. I like blindside a lot. Really good to get out of a jam

This took soo long 😭 thank you for recognizing the struggle lol

@@aethertruck yeah I await your videos man I'm into the theorycrafting 😂 Thoughts on weapons? I overestimated atb boost on weapons for the longest time (at least on tifa)

my thoughts on weapons are something I've been asked about by enough commenters that I am probably gonna make a video on it at some point. There's a lot going on with the answer, especially because the answer changes a lot from weapon level 8 to level 9. It's been so long since I got WL9 that I can't even remember how I felt before. It would require some backtracking through old files to (which I thankfully have some of) to really quantify it in a way I think everyone could appreciate

Memes potential!

I mean, it’s a money throwing materia, it’s made for the end-game when you have no need for in-game currency.

I might have to agree with you. At least Spare Change was worthy of a video. Morph isn't even worth that.

Some viewers have informed me that the reason it can look exponential is because enemies have defense stats. Full Might Titan (seen in all my clips) has 300 defense which puts changes the stat floor to rise above 1 damage for every attack at 150 attack power. (Calculated as defense/2) Every single attack that scales off attack power will behave this way on full might Titan. It was my fault for not testing on multiple enemies, or even a weaker Titan. I should have expected that defense stats would play a factor. It was a very amateur oversight for me. In FFX I remember that strength had an exponential scaling. Probably in part because the stat caps were 255 and damage values were meant to soar into 5 digits for everyone in the "postgame". It's my most played Final Fantasy game by far so my mind just sorta went there, especially because the celestial weapons ignore defense stats.

I do not believe that formula can reconcile with these findings. These findings predict 0 damage dealt at 150 attack power. Though I'm always open to correction. Perhaps spare change has a unique formula? The fact that it has zero variance makes me suspicious. One thing I know for sure is, I'm not the right person to dive any further.

@@aethertruck I believe that fits with how this formula functions. If a character has too low of an Attack stat(and Power multiplier) vs the target’s Defense, the resulting Damage is 1. Let’s say Titan has a Defense of 300 and Spare Change has a Power of 100(for each of the individual hits). (2 x 150 - 300) x 100/100 = 0 Every Attack provides 1 Damage as a minimum before outside modifiers like Casting within Radiant Ward. So in this example, Spare Change would deal X Number of 1 Damage for any Attack Power

@@TheShiztastic I see! I didn't realize that defense existed for enemies. For what it's worth, this is full might Titan. That formula seems to plug in perfectly assuming Titan has 300 def. Now I feel like this entire effort was foolish. It seems likely that spare change has an attack power of 100 up to 10 times for a max of 1000. Makes sense. Braver feels like it would hit for 2500 at 400 attack power on Titan with no buffs, and that's how much Spare Change does at 400 attack power for 5000 gil.

@@aethertruck I wouldn’t say it’s foolish at all. What you’re doing now I myself did with Remake. I spent dozens and dozens of hours doing damage tests against the Sahagin Prince VR fight in Chapter 17. Relative average Damage for every Ability and Standard Combo String each character was capable of producing, exact values for Poison Damage, how long each Buff and Debuff lasts, how Lesser/Greater Resistances factor into their uses, etc. Eventually the Ultimania came along and provided the Damage Formula along with exact stats for every Enemy(including alt values for Hard Mode) and the Power for every Ability. But some things weren’t given definitive values, like the hidden 3x multiplier on the Nail Bat’s Homerun Swing in Punisher Mode(which had a 66% chance to activate on any given swing). So who knows what will or won’t be a waste of time. I’d say the important part is getting that info into the hands of the fans that crave it, presented in an accurate and fun way(as your videos have done). Don’t be disheartened, keep up the good work!

@@TheShiztastic thank you. It means a lot coming from someone who has done the work. When I say foolish I mean that I could have found the answers at any time if I had just searched the ultimania. I love that place. I want to know all the hidden values of the game to inform my decisions about what to use. But instead of searching I was obsessed with generating footage and playing with Sharefactory. And I produced a video that effectively malinforms. It's not up to my standards. Utterly Unbridled Strength doesn't boost damage by 15%, it only does against full power Titan at ranges near 400 attack. If I tested at 200 attack power the bonus would have looked like 40%. I should have tested more enemies and under more conditions. I'm halfway of the mind to completely delete it even though I covered most of my bases with qualifier statements. I want to be better than this but the this video took nearly 20 hours of work. What do you think I should do?

I will be mindful of this going forward.

Thank you. Another commenter has informed me of this also. He showed me that Titan full power has 300 defense. And spare change is 100 base power, or more accurately 20x5 base power per gil toss. I don't see myself diving any further into testing anything, but thank you for the insight.

I've already assessed crit when I played around with Cait Sith, and he appears to be the only character whose crit focused weapon (Red Megaphone) is superior than the rest. It's specifically because of the fact that he can reach 140% crit damage and 100% crit rate (with the help of 3 Lucky Jockeys) That extra 20% damage does end up justifying the loss of STR from Gjallarhorn especially because some of Cait's damage is magic anyway, and Red Megaphone has more magic attack. Crit weapons are never worth using on other characters, but having Cait use Lady Luck makes them a LOT better. As for the rest of the weapons it would take far too long to go the menial differences for every character. But I'd argue that level 9 Dragon Claws are better than Level 9 Kaiser Knuckles because of Weapon Ability ATB Recovery + ATB Rate Up. Those combined allow her to generate barely over 1 ATB with a fury cancel making it smoother than Kaiser Knuckles, assuming you are using fury cancels. Thanks for the ideas! If I ever become financially independent under the power of my content, I'll consider getting that granular.

@@aethertruck thanks for the detailed reply!! Your fury cancels changed my gameplay and I am blowing through hard mode so easily now. What are your preferred weapons on everyone else?

It's something to think about, but since there is only 1 spare change materia it could never be a cure-all for the problem. I'll test it some time

Welp, it doesn't work. Uploaded the test just now.

Okay, so that thing's useless beyond its contribution to the scientific method lol

They just might, and maybe you have a point. Spare change does appear to have a large area of effect, so it could be good for holding down a bunch of basic trash mobs for 7 seconds with a single ATB (and 10000 gil) Or idk, maybe you could just kill them. I'd bet there are a few examples of high health/low poise enemies but I'm don't think these kinds of enemies really demand such a shrewd consideration.

@@aethertruck Its true, Triple Slash and Windstorm often just do the job on their own. Might be nice against those damn Mandrakes since its stun-or-be-stunned there. Perhaps it would help solo Cait handle the Adjudicators, since the Moogle will be able to attack them while he stuns. the Musclehead Colosseum, though achievable on Easy, has large groups of annoying mobs, especially the UPA one. Doubt it would be worth considering over Magnify magic there but its a thing. Perhaps it stuns those stupid Whispers you fight before the final battles that waste a lot of time? They have AoE damage-over-time effects so being able to ranged stun them with anyone seems OK. Could you use it to juggle a Pressured Turk?? They can be stunned by basic attacks when pressured, so perhaps you can juggle Reno/Rude/Elena/Tseng in the Temple battles while others wail on them. Worth testing some of these? Might even try it myself since I have one more Fortification Ring to farm.

​@@Ultinarok47you can get a 2nd Fortitude Ring? I thought that was exclusive to a battle challenge. Would be nice because I just give a karmic cowl or genji earring to my 3rd member when I want them to all be beefy

@aethertruck It's a stealable from Reno in the Temple. You can farm as many as you want as long as you're willing to rerun 2/3rds of the temple to get them. Literally the only good Steal in the whole game. I'm a completionist so I planned on getting 6. (Enhanced Karmic renders a 7th redundant). I have 5 currently. Since the Fortification Ring is just the OG Tough Ring, which was also a stealable from Reno, it came back in the same way. Bladed Staff was the same deal in Remake. A shame they didn't give Rude a high level armor as well like OG.

@@Ultinarok47 i used to be a "perfectionist" but one day it just clicked that it wasn't worth it to me. When does the game stop you from collecting more? Is there an accessory cap? Back in FF8 the cap for any item was 100 but some items had a limited quantity. I knew people who would leave their playstation running for days in a combat with a confused enemy that was incapable of acting. This enabled Rinoa to farm Angelo Search. Some items were on the table as infinitely collectible if you allowed the game to run long enough, so they collected 100 of those items too. After 3 days of farming you might only see 3 of them. It was a ridiculous amount of dedication for "completion". After a certain point, those things stopped mattering to me. And from there I was able to take bigger and bigger steps to playing in ways that felt like more fun and less tedium. For example, the enemies defeated counter. Each enemy probably has a cap. Maybe 9999? Who knows. Do I wanna kill Virtual Seph that many times? Probably not tbh lol

Gamble can be very useful in specific scenarios. If you only equip one other command/magic materia, that is the only thing gamble can call, so you could for example only equip Lightning and force gamble to call one of the three thunder spells. It sounds kinda meh, but what makes it potentially worth it is that gamble only costs 1 ATB but it can call abilities that require 2 ATB. If you get lucky, you could theoretically call Thundaga twice in a row, or 3 times in a row with skill master, or 4 times in a row with refocus and skill master. Also, when gamble calls multiple skills,.each of those skills count toward skill master. So you can reliably proc skill master by spamming gamble with just a single magic materia.

Gamble can be good if you build around it, namely for solos. Removes charge time and heavily lowered MP Cost on spells and can use Jump for 1 ATB. But you need to build your materia around it so you don't get screwed by the random choice. Steal is only good for Reno in the Temple to get more Fortification Rings and stealing the Pristine Crown for Johnny. Mug can also be a decent combo extension that refunds ATB and can be paired with HP Absorption for passive healing with each use. It also activates several perks for Yuffie if she gets the item successfully like Bravery and Faith. It's ironically better for its combat utility than acquiring items. The Auto-Weapon Ability materia can be nice because it causes Tifa to use Unbridled on her own, Red to use Sentinel Stance when he needs to, and Barret to set up things like Bonus Round. You can just do it yourself, but if you're focused on your primary, it allows you to do team combos with less effort. Not for everyone. Auto-cast is good if you hate menuing for certain spells, and Auto-Unique is actually not bad on Cloud, Cait Sith, Aerith or Yuffie. Not a good idea on the others. They also give small Str and Mag bonuses and I've seen people run them just for that. Jump is basically only good with Gamble or if you're trying to dodge a big boss attack, like a Summon move or Octaslash. Jump will protect the character from these kinds of big AoE moves. It's tough to actually hit with sometimes though and is definitely bad in short fights. Morph seems genuinely useless though. You're never short of raw materials if you just do exploration, and that's all you stand to gain from Morph. So, yeah, useless.

Mug is a staple build for yuffie plus plasma discharge.. you gain buff when you steal.. Jump is also good for dodging, plus its cool

​@@Ultinarok47 auto unique is good for Barret imo, but you do sacrifice the ATB you would have gained by being his pilot when he uses it. He gains ATB pretty fast without it and the damage it does is pretty good, and free, so I ran it on him from time to time

@@aethertruck Yeah, I figured the suboptimal ATB gain of letting the AI burn it whenever made it not as worthwhile, but you can't deny the damage is nice.

​@@Ultinarok47I found unique to be pretty good on tifa with hp absorb though, and it isn't like she uses it randomly she waits till something is staggered, maybe doing it on smaller enemies that probably will die before being staggered, not sure, but its pretty good to have her with that self sustain on and upping the stagger and doing unbridled on her own without needing to press a thing, I know its technically wasting slots but not the end of the world

When I see them visit the city of Los Angeles, I will consider calling it Earth. Til then, they can eat my shorts

Edit: I tested and confirmed that you cannot pair this with MP Absorb. That would be an interesting idea. 10,000 gil would have given 50 MP, 1 for each hit. Though I'm sure that it's a better idea to run MP Absorb on skills that actually do damage 🤣 and also don't take 6 seconds to use

​@@aethertruckyou shouldn't have even tested tho the game clearly shows the link lighting up if it works 😭

​@@SSlashhow do you know that isn't what I tested 🤔

Even if Titan was at 330% the entire time with Tifa's high STR, bravery and fury ring, along with chi level 2, it still would not have killed him. Barret is not capable of reaching nearly as high of an attack power level, and doesn't have Utterly Unbridled for Tifa's 15% bonus damage. He wouldn't be able to come close to her numbers. He could probably do more with maximum fury under the same conditions. I don't think Spare Change is the best option for any character for doing damage. But I'd love to be proven wrong!

@@aethertruck kinda figured stats would limit the potential. Bummer, maybe if we get an integrate style patch later on they’ll buff it lol. Crazy how it went from being the absolute most broken move in Crisis core to being useless in this game

You can reach 330% super easily with unbridled 2 full ATB. True Strike True Strike Rise and Fall True Strike Omnistrike True Strike That's what we Tifa afficionados call "the classic".

​@@aethertruckcould also use stop to prevent enemy from recovering in staggered state

It's certainly a practical take on pay to NOT win

Nah, it doesn't take so much as death to interrupt it. VR Sephiroth can interrupt it with his special bind, and it even cuts your spending short. Would have been neat though.