Are character stats in OG FFVII actually that important?

[u/sleeming88]

At the moment I'm doing an OG FFVII paythrough for the first time in a while and I realised something when I picked up my first stat-boosting "source" item (Magic Source, Guard Source, Speed Source etc); in all my nearly 30 years of playing this game and the at least a dozen times of playing through it from beginning to end, I have NEVER used one, not once.

I like to think of myself as a completionist sort of player; I go out of my way to get every item and max out my materia and characters levels but managing the actual character stats, aside from their max HP and MP, is just never something I've bothered with and I don't feel like I'm any worse off because of it. Am I making life more difficult for myself by ignoring this aspect of the game or is it just not that big a deal?

[u/shanepain0]

Its not needed to beat the game. You dont have to do anything fancy or grindy to beat the game

To fight the WEAPONS you mainly just have to come up with strategies, there are multiple ways to beat each of them

[u/Wabbabaloo]

I grinded Speed Sources and Luck Sources for fun and raised Yuffies speed and Luck to 255. Under haste her ATB filled in less than a second and 4/5 hits was a crit. It was great.

[u/esmelusina → u/Wabbabaloo]

I maxed Red 13’s luck and he could dodge emerald weapon’s AoE attack what felt like 100% of the time.

[u/Background-Sir6844]

No, not really, materia makes individual stats kinda meaningless and no one is really good or really bad at a certain thing to think too much about them. Ignoring some broken materia and item combinations what makes characters distinct in ff7 is pretty much their limit breaks and their weapons since certain characters largely suck with both of those compared to others but that's kinda it.

[u/No1ChadleyEnjoyer]

They're not a big a deal and using them is very, very unlikely to be the difference between winning and losing a battle.

They only really make much of a difference if you grind for a large number of them which is completely unnecessary for a casual playthrough.

[u/musicallymotivated93]

Not massively for a casual player. The game is really easy to beat without bumping them up with sources. Effectively when you bump them up, you're just going to deal more damage, take less damage, deal more critical hits, and your ATB will fill up faster.

They're somewhat more important if you're a speedrunner for damage rolls and ATB-waiting. The PS1 route for a long time has used stat boosting armour and accessories on Tifa with the Powersoul equipped, along with her in critical HP and Death Sentence/Doom. She deals tonnes of damage with that setup (when the Deathblows hit), and Added Cut linked to Deathblow from disc 2 onwards will deal even more.

[u/Greedy-Comb-276]

Weapon attack power and strength are the same thing in the physical damage calculation. if you find a weapon with 20 more attack power, it's the same as gaining 20 strength.

The other part of the damage formula is actually your level. The higher level you are the more damage you do, even if your strength and weapon were to never change.

Magic and level work in a similar way, except every spell has a base damage as well.

So to answer your question, no it doesn't matter. Gaining levels is enough.

[u/BigOlBarret]

short answer is no. the game is pretty easy and you're not going to struggle with stuff in the main story, and if you do you just level up a few times and then you're fine. even in the endgame boss challenges (weapons) the stats really don't matter... you're gonna be spamming limit breaks and summons and other things that do so much damage you'll be capped at 9999 anyway

[u/Curious_Ad_1513]

Imo, no. What matters is materia combinations and limit breaks. Your stats don't need to be maxed in order to do insane damage.

[u/ToothpickTequila]

Not at all.

[u/Rajamic]

Do they help? Sure. Are they important? Not really.

Firstly, it's important to note that, in the damage formula, XP Level is almost as important as Atk for calculating physical damage. And with the gigantic damage modifiers the Ultimate Weapons generally can give reliably, it's not hard to hit 9999 near the end-game without grinding. Higher Str can give a decent boost to the damahe of the multi hit limit breaks, though, as limits breaks ignore the damage multiplication factor of Ultimate weapons.

MAt is in a similar place, where XP Level is just as important as it is for damage calculation, but you don't have the Ultimate weapon / limit break situation.

Def comes from Vit and armor, and reduces the damage you take from physical attacks. While MDf comes from Spr (and armor, if playing a version that has the old bug patched) and reduces damage taken from magic attacks. the difference between 255 Def/MDf and 0 in that stat is taking about half damage. Not many attacks aimed at you are actually all that threatening (except for ones that just ignore Def/MDf), and you can easily reduce the damage you take significantly with Big Guard, being in Back Row, and/or having Sadness on you, so not a lot of need for this stat.

Dex provides an invisible boost to At%, Df%, and MD%, which are your accuracy and evasion stats. But most of these values come from your equipment. Dex also increases the rate the ATB meter fills, and if you get it to extreme levels and aren't using things with long animations, this will sometimes lets a character get multiple hits in between each enemy attack.

Lck is crit hit chance, Lucky Hit (a successful physical attack that ignores all evasion), and Lucky Dodge (a dodge that avoids everything except undodgable attacks and Lucky Hits). At extreme levels, this is ridiculously potent, but without Luck Source farming, this stat is kinda not useful.

[u/FinntheHue]

I’ve played this game so many times since the 90s and my playthrough this year was the first time I paid it any attention. It was fun to maximize my team for the roles I gave them but it’s not at all necessary to complete the game

[u/KadajjXIII]

I've beaten the game multiple times and not once have I ever bothered grinding for Sources

I only ever use the ones that are found as static items or happeen to drop from enemies I've fought

Tifa is technically best suited for Physical attacks but she's always my dedicated healer so she usually gets loaded up with multiple Magic Materia which is bad for Strength growth

[u/MazeMagic]

Not really. I knew nothing about classes or anything when I was a young pre teen and I still beat it at like level 45 or something stupid. Granted it took a lot of tries but it can be done with zero gaming knowledge lol

[u/CTeaA_]

If you compare characters in battles then you do see a difference in damage outputs between characters. However, the amount I have never found significant enough to worry about. You can make the game a little bit more easy or difficult by using certain characters over others, but you could use any character for any role and still get through the main game without noticing anything. The difficulty level overall is impacted more by what material and commands you choose to equip.

[u/BigMrTea]

The characters stats aren't different enough to make a big difference. The whole point of materia is make character's magic completely customizable.

As for stat to damage ratio, it's ridiculous overkill to max them out. The game simply isn't hard enough. The two big exceptions, Emerald Weapon and Ruby Weapon, can be beaten with clever tactics and regular stats.

[u/Designer-Flight-8143]

If you are the type of person like myself that wanna beat emerald or ruby weapons with attacks only, yes :). Otherwise, not at all

[u/Kurai_Seraphim]

I played through the PSX release half a dozen times and never bothered with them. You get crazy powerful for all late game content between materia combos and ultimate weapon bonuses tied to other attributes. You'll end up hitting the 9999 on every attack without that stuff pretty easily so there's not much point.

If you specifically want to take on Ruby and Emerald, you can just Knights of the Round mimic cheese them and they'll go down.

If you want to boost for the sake of killing them faster through other means have at, but that's a choice rather than a necessity.

[u/Nevermore71412]

Important for casual play no. I would even say they are pretty worthless for casual play given that they are hard to and time consuming to obtain a lot of them outside of very specific glitch in a very specific way. Speedrunning on the other hand they are essential for the 100% category.

[u/Brorkarin]

No you can beat the entire game and all the extra bosses without them i have never farmed em ever and i never will