Originally posted by Mocorongo at Gamefaqs:

HP Absorb + Enemy Skill: ALL MAGIC from this materia benefit from the effect

Magnify + Quake + partner with Synergy: Quakega is the king of "poise break" and your partner will follow-up with a freebie (use Yuffie Doppelganger or Aerith dualcast ward for extra fun)

Time + Magnify: Obvious, but you can never go wrong with "we have Hastega at home" and the eventual Stop

Biding + Magnify: There is a surprising amount of foes vulnerable to Sleep and your AI partners are reliable to avoid waking them

Originally posted by ReaperEngine at Reddit:

Quake with Magnify and Quickcast, inside Aerith's multicast ward, is ridiculously powerful, and mostly carried me through hard mode. It hits hard, will petrify smallfry in three casts, deals excessive stagger damage, and if you get enemies bunched they are all getting hit by each other's individual magnified versions as well.

I also had Poison paired with Synergy on a character, which was nice to just have them applying damage over time when not controlled.

Originally posted by xbombr at Gamefaqs:

Unique ability/auto-weapon ability on Tifa when you aren't controlling her is pretty disgusting. She'll self-cast unbridled strength and maintain her buffs for when the stagger hits. The AI is actually really good at controlling her.

Auto-cast + cure on party members you aren't controlling is also fantastic. Basically takes any need to worry about healing out of the fight.

Barret with auto-weapon ability and auto-unique ability makes for a hilarious tank if you set livesaver to his commands. He'll do auto-charges, and with the right set up, that will have him permanently putting free protects on himself as he draws all of the damage away from allies. I like to throw the provoke materia on as well so he can pull enemies to him even when he doesn't have ATB.

I ran that Barret combo with the Tifa combo and just focused on staggering stuff with Cloud. Barret drew the damage away and Tifa would absolutely blow stuff up when the stagger hit because she'd start unloading her unbridled strength attacks once the stagger popped.

Magnify + Healing materia is really good because curaga to the entire party is basically a party wide full heal even with the magnify penalty. I also liked having Auto-Cast + Cleansing materia so I didn't have to worry about status much.

Elemental + the fire/ice materia or the wind/electric materia are really good too. You'll either be able to decrease damage from two types or make your basic attacks hit two types of elemental damage. The fire/ice one in particular is great offensively.

Originally posted by 212mochaman at Reddit:

The healing E skill is fantastic if U use it in the final seconds of the battle cause it'll still be in use after the fight is over.

Hp to Mp. Keep it the hell away from the active party but, it effectively means you have 3000 mp with which to heal after the fight for a chapter. More than enough

Hp absorb plus mind blast E skill (trash mobs only)

Quickcast is busted. Stack up support materia and a green element and go bananas.

Warding is great when maxed when the enemy has multiple statuses that you can't cover with an accessory or ribbon for the party. Great Marlboro for instance

I've never thought magnify was worth the pairing of healing cause the chances are, if U need it, you'll need it more than once in a fight. Too much mp. Poison and petrify, time, fire and ice, lightning and wind are all much better things to pair with magnify.

And if you clear the chadley hard mode Sims before taking on hard mode (not recommended but worth it cause...) give one person gotterdammerung. Give aerith limit syphon, first strike and enhanced expositionary medal, syphon the gotter limit, use her lvl 3 limit, and give the third a normal expositionary medal and you can spam and stun lock every enemy with a lvl 2 limit till it's dead.

Also comet is just about the worst thing to pair with synergy. It takes too long to cast, whoever has the pairing will do nothing but cast it for the fight and every other green materia has multiples so you can stack synergy spells with basically any support materia for more DMG and utility then what comet can do. It's a trap. If you got just two comet materias you could pair it with quickcast and it'd skyrocket in viability but, you cant

Originally posted by Gameskyjumper at Gamefaqs:

Bio + auto cast.

Tifa and 3-4 luck ups. Just need 100% total. Pretty much all normal attacks are critical hit. Wear the last glove, equip 2 x (critical damage + 10%)

Yuffie also benefits from two luck pluses because of her stealing perks and high luck which gives her high critical rate.

Originally posted by egpNoodlez at Gamefaqs:

There's the Yuffie ATB generator with Aerith. Yuffie will want ATB Assist and the Speed Demon Keychain accessory, can't remember which shuriken maybe the Fuma for ATB Charge Rate Up. Basically, Aerith ATB Wards Yuffie, Yuffie spams Brumal Form and the ATB charge rates should give her enough to keep going indefinitely. ATB Assist procs constantly, so get that Arcane Ward down and get your other two members firing -aga spells.

I use the Aerith Limit Build for bigger/longer fights. Aerith with Limit Syphon and Enhanced Expeditionary Medal for instant access to lvl 3. Ideally someone with a Gotterdammrung, otherwise a Limit Booster and you can generate the other half of LB for Aerith to leech with Limit Syphon. Anyways, her lvl 3 limit gives the other party members LB gauge. This lets you constantly fire off an LB, while Aerith leeches off the other person.

Originally posted by Darthzilla991 at Reddit:

Best materia period is mp absorb 100% you can keep fighting way beyond what you would without mp absorb as there are very limited methods of recovering mp effectively and efficiently. That being said there are some rules of thumb for universality of use. Mp absorb is the only way I could find to beat the final challenges.

Second has to be either ATB assist (on tifa or yuffie is broken when paired with aeriths atb ward) or enemy skill for its unique spells and versatility.

As for best combinations mp absorb+ whichever offensive spell hp absorb plus the same offensive spell preferably a duel elemental materia splitting the between 2 characters so you have all the elements available of course this set up is less effective as simply using yuffie to cover having all elements in her kit

Magnify should be on 3 separate materia Healing Time Barrier Healing materia is the weakest choice because pray and chakra exist but it's good to have as an emergency heal in the event the others are ineffective or that character has no atb to use them and are in trouble.

Synergy with comet is pure chaos and fun as hell it won't be viable in the later game but I do recommend experiencing it at least once against a horde of enemies

In the last game elemental materia (the one that changes dmg property to the chosen element) is terrible in this game barring specific fights against low resistance enemies. There are some instances of duel weakness enemies so you can actually pair the elemental materia with the duel element materia and it will apply both. This is obviously risky as it opens up the possibility of healing as well if the enemies resistant to one of the elements. It functions better defensively in this one so use it on your armor instead you can completely neutralize some enemies this way.

If you're going for the platinum save the challenges for absolutly last. I'm talking about the boss gauntlets with zack and sephiroth you will want a mastered copy of 99% of the materia in the game.

Originally posted by Keenan Mccall at Twinfinite:

ATB Assist Materia (Purple) + First Strike Materia (Purple) + Steadfast Block Materia (Purple)

Those who dug deep into the Materia Combination meat of Final Fantasy 7 Remake will know this game-breaking combo well.

ATB Assist Materia grants a boost to your allies’ ATB gauges whenever you use abilities with your active characters. First Strike Materia, meanwhile, grants the character it’s equipped to an immediate ATB boost when a battle starts, while Steadfast Block Materia gives you an ATB Boost whenever you successfully guard against an attack.

When combined, these Materia turn the character they’re equipped to into an ATB Mass Production Unit. They can intercept attacks to max out their already boosted ATB, let off Abilities left and right to increase the ATB of their other party members, and keep the cycle going for an endless stream of punishment for enemies.

In particular, Tifa and Barret are great choices for this. Tifa can fire off abilities at a rapid pace via Unbridled Strength, and her basic attacks can build up her ATB gauge charges all on their own. Barret, meanwhile, is the party’s resident tank and can weather damage with ease. This means he can build up ATB and fire off abilities in-between absorbing damage from enemies, and that the rest of the party can focus on offensive skills instead of healing him up constantly.

Chakra Materia (Yellow) + HP Up Materia (Purple)

This Materia combination may not be linked mechanically, but it does offer a fun workaround to one of the Chakra Materia’s biggest drawbacks.

Just like in the first game, Chakra Materia only heals a portion of the damage you’ve taken. This means it’s still useful as an MP-free form of healing, but it also means you can never heal yourself past a certain point.

Enter the HP Up Materia. When fully leveled up, it raises your total HP by 30 percent, which can equal thousands of hit points depending on which character equips it. This means that it can increase the overall pool of HP a character with Chakra can heal, and ensures they have a higher total amount of health in trickier enemy encounters.

You can get both HP Up Materia and Chakra Materia from most vendors throughout the game, and both can be leveled up fast when linked to AP Up Materia.