The 5 Worst Final Fantasy VII Enemy Skills

Now I love using enemy skills - some of them are invaluable earlier on in the game before you learn higher level spells or summons - and I thoroughly enjoy the scavenger-hunt of collecting all 24 of them. HOWEVER; not all enemy skills are created equally. Some are awesome yes, but the following 5 in this list are the worst ones - they’re either useless, learnt too late in the game to be of any use, or require some roundabout route to even get them to work. Let’s begin the countdown!

5 - ????

This enemy skill, which you can learn in the Shinra Mansion at first may seem useful - but bear in mind, the amount of damage you can do is based solely on the amount of damage you’ve taken. It essentially only has the potential to do 9998 damage, providing you can maintain having only 1HP, or even get hit with the correct amount of attacks to absorb 9998 HP of damage in the first place. If you have full health, regardless of your total number of HP, whether you have 900 or 9000, you will do 0 damage. In order for this enemy skill to even work, you have to let yourself sit with damage, potentially increasing the risk you’ll be killed.

4 - L4 Suicide

Although you learn this enemy skill very early in the game - it can be potentially your first, or one of the first ones you learn - its usefulness is incredibly limited. L4 Suicide inflicts critical damage and small status on all enemies whose levels are multiples of 4 - such as 12, 16, 20, 24 etc. So already there’s only a handful of enemies this will even effect. Now out of the enemies whose levels ARE a multiple of 4, many of them are immune to the small status effect - which again reduces the usefulness of this attack. Yes, it will do critical damage - but it will never kill anything - it will always leave enemies with at least some health.

3 - L5 Death

L5 Death is likely going to be one of the last enemy skills you learn - it’s in the collection of rare enemy skills that you can only find in the Northern Cave - right at the end of the game when there’s little to no opportunity left to use it. As the name suggests, only enemies whose levels are multiples of 5 will be affected by the enemy skill - level 50, 55, 60, 65 etc - which is even less of a range of enemies that are potentially affected by L4 Suicide - and far more creatures are immune to instant death than the small status. I don’t think I’ve ever used L5 Death in any of my playthroughs - to me, it just seemed like a massive waste of time that had the potential to rarely ever succeed, either by enemies not being the right level, or being immune to instant death in the first place.

2 - Chocobuckle

Considering how much of a puzzle it is to even learn the Chocobuckle enemy skill, you’d think it would be more useful than it is. In order to learn Chocobuckle, you have to find a Chocobo whose level is a multiple of 4, feed it some Memitt Greens and then cast L4 Suicide on it - this in itself can be a pain in the arse if you’re not sure what you’re looking for - and if it wasn’t for the strategy guide, I’d have never thought of doing this in the late 90s when I didn’t have the means to just Google these things. Anyway, Chocobuckle’s damage is based on how many times you’ve escaped from battle. That’s right - escaped once? 1 damage. Escaped 9999 times? 9999 damage. If you wanted to build Chocobuckle up, you’d have to run from battle 9999 times. It would be quicker to fight the 9999 battles and level up your characters so they did 9999 damage with their normal weapon!

1 - Roulette

And finally we have Roulette, the worst and most useless enemy skill in the whole game. First off, let’s talk about WHEN you acquire this skill. You can only learn it from one enemy in one place, the Death Dealer in the Northern Cave - A.K.A. THE END OF THE GAME - so even if you wanted to use this enemy skill in battle, you have very little opportunity to do so. Now let’s talk about what it does. Roulette, as the name suggests is a luck-based attack which makes your cursor flick rapidly between all three of your party members and all enemies you’re facing. The person or enemy the cursor stops on will be hit with instant death. Firstly, you’re potentially risking the lives of your party members, unless they’re wearing an accessory that protects against death, such as the Safety Bit - or you’ve already gone ahead and cast a protective spell like the Death Force enemy skill. And what if it does land on an enemy and that enemy is immune to death spells? Lots of enemies are, and certainly the majority of bosses and sub-boss creatures are. Learn the skill to complete your collection, then never touch it again. It’s ultimately useless and risks the lives of your party members to MAYBE cast instant death on an enemy - just use x4 cut or a powerful spell and get it over with!