Ruby Weapon

Location

The Ruby Weapon can be found in the Corel Desert (where the Gold Saucer is), after you destroy the Ultima Weapon in Disc 2.

I recommend you leave Emerald and Ruby until the last possible minute in Disc 3, because your party members will have greater powers.
I also recommend that you defeat Ruby first.

Who To Use?

You get 50,000 AP for defeating Ruby, so you need to take this opportunity to take your Materia up to Master level. For this I recommend :-

• Cloud equipped with his Apocalypse Sword (Triple Materia Growth)
• Cid equipped with his Scimitar Spear (Triple Materia Growth)
• Anybody else equipped with a Double Growth Weapon.

Other Equipment

• Equip all 3 Characters with a Ribbon if possible.
• Give all 3 Characters some Armour with 8 Linked Materia Slots, a Wizard Bracelet.

Essential Materia

In order to defeat Ruby you must have the following Materia :-

• Final Attack linked to Phoenix Summon Materia
  It is essential that both of these are taken up to Master Level beforehand.

  W-Summon

  Knights of Round Summon

  This needs to be taken up to at least 4 stars.

  Hades Summon

  This also needs to be taken up to at least 4 stars. Hades will freeze Ruby.

  3x Mime Materia

  Each character needs to have a Mime Materia, but I have done it with two.

  W-Item

  You don't need to have this equipped during the battle, but you need to use it beforehand to replicate at least 25 Megaelixiers (using the W-Item trick).

  Big Guard Enemy Skill

  Restore Materia

  You really need this taken to the third level, Regen.

  HP and MP Plus Materia

  To stand any chance of defeating Ruby, you characters need 9999 HP and as much MP as possible.

Other Materia

Choose the placement of your Materia carefully. Make sure you place Materia that has less AP than others in the Triple or Double growth weapons.
After you have equiped the essential Materia, fill up the rest of the slots with any other Materia that needs to be taken up to Master Level. As you receive Magic, Command, and Summon Master Materia for defeating Emerald, I recommend equiping as many Command Materia Orbs as possible.

If my tactic is to work you must not equip any type of Counter Attack.

Battle Strategy

Remember, this is only my prefered way of doing things, there are many other ways to do this.

Ruby cannot be harmed until she has used an attack that removes two of your characters from the battle. To get around this enter the battle with two of your characters already dead (but not the one who has Phoenix).
This will cause Ruby to stick her Claws into the sand straight away, when this happens, cast Phoenix to bring your other two characters back to life, then proceed with the following...

• Cast "Big Guard" Enemy Skill.
• Cast Regen.
• Use a Megaelixier.
• Cast Hades followed by Knights of Round (using W-Summon).
• Use the Mime Command at each characters turn (this will mean each character casts Knights of Round twice without using up and MP).

  Keep on repeating the Mime Command (it takes about 30 Minutes to kill Ruby).

If Ruby kills your characters, the person who has Final Attack linked to Phoenix will bring all your characters back to life.
If this happens, just repeat the above instructions again.