FF7 Gjoerulv's Hardcore Mod - Ep.45: Midgar SOLDIER Squad

These ambush-mongers should join the Spanish Inquisition.

Strategy

[Locke (Blue)]
HP: 50,000

[Venus (Red)]
HP: 40,440

[Theo (Black)]
HP: 60,200

No tricks this time, it's a straight-up fight and they've got more tricks than ever before. Now they throw around Contain magic, with Theo replacing his Bolt 3 with Tornado, and as if that wasn't enough on top of their usual menagerie of counters you've also got Venus throwing White Wind about with predictable efficiency.

I set Barret up with a Ziedrich, Cover, both Counter Attacks, and a Touph Ring. His job was basically to Defend the whole way through and soak up as much damage as possible. Red was using Comet (Comet 2 and Ultima would have triggered all three to Counter so that was out) to inflict damage and Cloud was basically a wind machine. I needed Red to have a few extra materia so I gave him the newly acquired Mystile instead of the third Ziedrich.

The red one has a revive move so she had to go down first. This isn't helped when Theo is casting Cure 3 and she herself is using White Wind. A solution might have been bringing a Barrier materia in, and casting Reflect on individual targets (using a Mirror or Reflect-All would have been too many counters to deal with). In the end, it took a critical from Barret to tip the balance enough to get her out of the fight. After that, it was time to throw a Mirror onto these guys and put Reflect on 'em; that negates the Cure 3 spell Theo uses when one is low on HP. With a Added-Effect+Mystify on Red, he was pretty much free to hit Locke and avoid the Berserk counter.

And then the end. Theo managed to down Red with Tornado and was milling through his Reflect with Cure 3 but it was too late. Comet 2, being able to focus on one target, got the job finished but not before Red went down again to a counter. And that's that. Don't think we'll be seeing them again but you never know...