As you continue to find paths through the Temple of the Ancients in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, you’ll run into the Ironclad boss, who can only be beaten when staggered by your party. This massive knight has nearly no weaknesses, making them difficult to pressure. You’ll need to use specific attacks from characters on your team to stun this creature quickly enough to defeat it.
Ironclad appears in Chapter 13 as a guardian of the Temple who can be forced into breaking a specific pillar that helps you move further into the region. You cannot defeat the boss until it has been staggered at least once, otherwise your party will fail the fight and be forced to start over. It can be easy to accidentally kill this boss before you manage to stagger it, so you have to carefully approach this battle.
Try not to
use a summon in
FF7 Rebirth
for the Ironclad boss fight since a powerful ally might be able to defeat the boss far before your party can stagger it.
How To Stagger Ironclad In FF7 Rebirth
The best strategy for staggering Ironclad is to use Electric element attacks and stagger-related abilities when the boss is pressured. Ironclad has no physical weaknesses and is immune to most status conditions you can inflict with Magic Materia in FF7 Rebirth. However, any spell that deals Electric damage will deal more damage and raise the boss’ stagger meter significantly.
Ironclad has a ton of health, but not many opportunities for your party to pressure it even with strong stagger attacks. For example, Tifa’s Overpower ability or Cloud’s Focused Thrust will barely increase the boss’ stagger meter unless they have the right opening. You should still consider spending ATB on these moves whenever you can to gradually raise Ironclad’s stagger as you avoid its strikes.
You can use the Assess ability if you have the right Materia equipped to identify Ironclad and view the conditions of this battle and the boss’ weaknesses and resistances.
The only time when Ironclad is pressured is during its Sharpen ability to empower its greatsword. Despite the dangerous follow-up attack unleashed after this buff, you have a small chance to apply huge amounts of stagger to the boss while it is doing this move. Unleash whatever abilities apply some stagger at this moment as fast as you can to finally cause Ironclad to break the pillar in FF7 Rebirth.
A small cutscene will play when Ironclad is staggered showing the success of your party’s plan. Those familiar with fighting Combat Simulator bosses will quickly realize that Ironclad still has to be fully defeated even after it’s been stunned. Thankfully, Ironclad will remain vulnerable once your team manages to stagger it, allowing you to win this fight and continue traveling through the Temple in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
- Franchise
- Final Fantasy 7
- Released
- February 29, 2024
- Developer(s)
- Square Enix Business Division 1
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG , Adventure
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 4
- ESRB
- T