Crisis Core Reunion Minerva: Unlock, Fight, Build

Minerva is the strongest and most difficult boss in Crisis Core Reunion. She is classified as a super boss and requires a very high level and a build specially designed to defeat her.

How To Unlock Minerva 

Minerva can be fought in Mission 9-6-6: The Reigning Deity. Unlocking this mission is a bit of a lengthy process.

• You are required to complete missions 8-4-1 til 8-4-6 and missions 8-5-1 til 8-5-6.
• This will unlock the Mission 9 section.
• Complete all the missions in the M9 section to unlock Mission 9-6-6: The Reigning Deity.

Now, you can engage Minerva in a boss battle.

Optimizing Your Build For Minerva

Minerva boasts the highest HP in the game at a whopping 10,000,000 HP. Her attacks will kill any player with less than 60,000 HP. As such, we recommend you level up and optimize your materia with Zack as much as you can before attempting this fight.

Getting High Stats

We recommend that you level up Zack til at least level 75. This will boost your stats to survive Minerva’s absurd damage. 

To break the HP limiter, we recommend you use the Genji Armor Accessory. Using Ziedrich is also recommended because it increases your HP, ATK, MAG, and SPR by +100. It will also mitigate 50 percent of all elemental attacks.

Breaking The Damage Cap

In order to do damage to Minerva, it is of the utmost importance that you break the damage cap on Zack. To do this, you must level up your Buster Sword’s proficiency to 23 percent. Otherwise, you will inflict negligible damage on Minerva.

Alternatively, you can also use Genji Gloves to break the damage limiter. It also guarantees your attacks to be critical hits so we recommend that you use it.

For a more detailed explanation of how to level up Buster Sword’s stats and proficiency, check out our guide.

Recommended Materia

Materia attacks will be your primary source of damage in this fight. We recommend these materia to help you combat the Goddess Minerva because of their damage and beneficiary utilities. If you do not use these materia, the fight will last for too long, and it will not be optimal.

• Costly Punch.
• Aerial Drain.
• Curaga.
• Drainga.
• HP++ Materia.
• Wall.

Recommended Items

Items are incredibly useful if they are used in conjunction with beneficiary spells. That is why we recommend bringing along these items to use in the fight.

• Elixir.
• X-Potion.
• Phoenix Down.
• Ether.
• Aroma.

Summons

It is incredibly important to obtain all summons for this fight. Their limit breaks can prove incredibly useful in interrupting her attacks. That alone can make a big difference. Phoenix can also grant you a free Phoenix Down buff, saving you a potion.

If you wish to know how to unlock all summons, check out our guide.

Things To Keep In Mind Against Minerva 

Once you’re all geared up and ready to go, we can start focusing on the actual problem. Minerva’s attacks are very damaging and somewhat tricky to dodge. We will go in-depth on each strategy that you should use against her.

The very first thing you should be is patient. Minerva has 10,000,000 HP. Even with the strong and effective Costly Punch and Aerial Drain spam doing 99,999 per hit, it can still take up to 10 minutes to defeat her. You must be patient and focused at all times, look at every single move she casts, and dodge accordingly.

You can use the Gil Toss materia to reduce the length of the fight by quite a lot, but you will need to grind out a lot of Gil to use this attack, which can be a bit tedious.

General Game Plan:

1. Start with a Phoenix Down potion as insurance.
2. Use Costly Punch and Aerial Drain for damage.
3. Mitigate Costly Punch’s HP cost with Curaga and Drainga.
4. Keep Wall up for damage mitigation.
5. Save 1 Limit Break to cancel her attacks.
6. Use Limit Break to cancel strong attacks.

Avoiding Her Attacks:

1. Photon Feather: Stay close and dodge the projectiles.
2. Krysta: Dodge when the ice effect on her staff disappears or use Aerial Drain.
3. Thor’s Hammer: Dodge when she swings her hammer down or use Aerial Drain.
4. Flash Slash: Tank with mitigation or use Buster Sword’s attack mode.
5. Ultima: Dodge when white orbs appear or use Aerial Drain and Buster Sword’s attack mode.

Special Ability – Judgement Arrow:

• Always have a DMW Limit Break ready.
• Use Limit Break to cancel Judgement Arrow’s cast.
• If no Limit Break, heal and use an elixir to recover stats.
• Reapply mitigation with Wall and return to the offensive.

Rewards For Defeating Minerva

Upon defeating Minerva in Crisis Core Reunion, you will be rewarded with one of the uncontested best accessories in the game, the Divine Slayer accessory.

This accessory will give you the following benefits.

• Your AP, MP, and HP will increase by +100 percent.
• Your ATK, VIT, MAG, SPR, and LCK will increase by +50.
• It will break your HP, AP, MP, and Damage Limit.
• Divine Slayer also grants you Auto-Libra.

It may sound grand and glorious, but since you already attained most of these beneficiary effects while preparing to fight Minerva, it feels underwhelming.

All Final Fantasy games have an optional super boss, and Crisis Core Reunion is no exception. Even in this remaster, Minerva keeps her crown as the strongest boss. We hope our guide helps you attain victory against this divine deity of the Lifestream.

Since you’ve defeated Minerva in Crisis Core, why not go for the platinum trophy? Check out our trophy list in Crisis Core Reunion. Mail Completionist can be a tricky trophy to obtain in this game. If you wish to know about another tricky trophy, check out our good match for Aerith trophy guide. The Mako Recovery unit also has a trophy tied to it that players can miss.

NEXT:

• Crisis Core Reunion How To Get DMW To 100%
• Crisis Core Reunion How To Unlock Mission 10-1
• Crisis Core Reunion How To Defeat The Sea Hulk
• Crisis Core Reunion How To Obtain Blast Wave Materia
• Materia Fusion List in Crisis Core Reunion