Introduction

 
In Final Fantasy VII, Materia are one of the most fundamental pieces of the combat system. The Materia which a character has equipped determines what options they have available to them in battle and how efficiently they can utilise them. 
 
Materia can be split into three different categories – standard Materia, Huge Materia and Master Materia. There are 80 different types of standard Materia, 4 types of Huge Materia and 3 types of Master Materia. You can hold at most 200 pieces of Materia in your inventory at once, but the Huge Materia do not count towards this total as they are Key Items. 
 
 

Standard Materia

 
Almost every single type of Materia which you obtain will be in this category. This group is so large that it is also broken down into the following five subcategories: 

 
When a battle is won, on top of the EXP (experience points) and the gil (currency) your party will gain, every piece of Materia which was equipped to the party’s weapons and armour will gain AP (Ability Points). This allows the Materia to level up and become more powerful. Once a piece of Materia reaches the maximum level, it will be considered “mastered”. From here, it will produce a clone of itself which will be the minimum level if there is available space in your inventory. 
 
The one exception to this is the Underwater Materia, which cannot be levelled up, is mastered from the moment you get it and will never clone itself. 
 

Magic Materia Checklist:

 
Below are the 21 different Magic Materia: 

Support Materia Checklist:

 
Below are the 13 different Support Materia: 

Huge Materia

 
Unlike standard Materia and Master Materia, pieces of Huge Materia count as Key Items and thus take up none of your 200 Materia spaces. 
 
Somewhat into Disc 2, you will be tasked with stealing four pieces of Huge Materia from Shinra. Obtaining each piece requires you to successfully complete a quest, which are mandatory to continue with the game, but are all possible to fail. Below are the details: 
 

 
One the four quests have been completed, you will move any Huge Materia obtained to Buganhagen’s observatory in Cosmo Canyon and they will become usable. 
 
The colours of Huge Materia gained will not be determined by which locations you stole them from, but rather the amount you managed to steal – for example, you cannot steal just the Blue Huge Materia. Below is a table detailing the uses of each Huge Materia: 
 

Master Materia

 
There are three types of Master Materia – Master Magic Materia, Master Command Materia, and Master Summon Materia. 
 
There are two methods to obtain the Master Materia: 

• Exchange a set of mastered materia to the Huge Materia in Bugenhagen’s observatory in Cosmo Canyon. This can be done as many times as necessary. 
• Defeat Emerald WEAPON and give the Earth Harp it drops to the Kalm Traveller. He will give you a full set of Master Materia. This can only be done once per save file.

Total AP Required

The four Materia which are “mastered” at 0 AP do not produce a clone upon doing so. 
 
 

Equipment with Enhanced AP Growth

 
AP is rewarded whenever a battle is won, and it is given to any Materia which is currently equipped to your party members’ weapons or armour. Each weapon and armour will have a certain amount of Materia slots as well as an AP growth rate, which can apply a multiplier to the amount of AP gained by the Materia on that item. 
 
Most weapons have a “Normal” growth rate (1x). Below is a table displaying any weapons with unusual growth rates: 
 

 
If you want to maximise the Materia you are gaining, then you will want to choose equipment with both high AP growth and a high number of Materia slots. 
 
It is also important to consider whether you want a few Materia levelled up extremely fast or many Materia levelled up at a good speed. For example, the Rune Armlet has 4 slots with doubled AP growth, meaning that it can effectively take 8 times the amount of AP given at the end of a battle. However, the Precious Watch has 8 slots with normal AP growth, which means that it also takes 8 times the AP given. 
 
The best two pieces of equipment for AP growth are Cloud’s Apocalypse, which gives 9 times the AP earned, and Cid’s Javelin, which gives 10 times the AP earned. 
 
Cid’s Scimitar has tripled AP growth, but only two Materia slots. This means that it gives 6 times the AP earned. Despite this, the tripled AP rate can be excellent for quickly levelling Materia which needs an enormous amount of AP. 
 
With a doubled AP growth rate, Knights of the Round effectively takes 250,000 AP to master. With a tripled AP growth rate, it instead effectively takes 166,667 AP to master. 
 
 

AP Grinding Locations

 
The best location to grind for AP is the game’s final dungeon, the Northern Cave – specifically in the Lake Area where you will end up after the team splits up if you go left and then to the upper path. 
 
In this location, the best encounters are Movers, which give 800 AP each, but always attack in groups of three, meaning each fight is worth 2,400 AP. The second-best encounters are Magic Pots, which give 1,000 AP each. They will attack either alone or as a pair, meaning that you can get 1,000 AP to 2,000 AP from each fight, but each one you kill will cost you one Elixir. I would recommend learning the W-Item glitch so that you can clone Elixirs ready for grinding. 
 

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