The second potential summon in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is Phoenix, the fiery bird. The fire-based summon is very useful and you should try and acquire this Summon Materia as soon as possible. In order to do so, you must first defeat the Phoenix summon boss in Chadley’s combat simulator. Here is everything you need to know to defeat the Phoenix in the combat simulator and receive the Materia.
How to defeat the Phoenix summon
Phoenix Phase 1
First off, I recommend acquiring all the Phoenix crystals scattered throughout the Junon region as that will heavily weaken the Phoenix for your encounter as well as grant you the powerful 4-Star version of the Phoenix Summon Materia. This makes the fight much easier and there’s no downside to doing so.
When the fight begins you’ll notice three red orbs floating around Phoenix, all connected to him via a tether. Every now and then Phoenix will cast Breath of Creation, turning one of the orbs into another enemy such as a Flan. While that enemy exists and is tethered to the Phoenix, you cannot deal damage to the Phoenix. You’ll want to switch to the creations one by one as Phoenix creates them and focus them down. They can be a wide range of creatures from Flan’s to Fleetwing’s and even Bombs. Just take them out like you would normal enemies.
However, be careful as while creations exist, Phoenix will still be casting several other abilities: Rending Talons, Incandescent Burst, and Flaming Geyser. All are fire-based attacks that shoot out from the Phoenix and are pretty easy to dodge.
Phoenix Phase 2
Once all the creations are defeated and the orbs are gone, you will Pressure Phoenix. Start slamming him with all the damage you’ve got to try and push him into a Staggered state, though it may take two cycles to do so. While Phoenix doesn’t have any Weaknesses, he is less resistant to Poison so I recommend keeping Bio active. Just make sure you aren’t using Fire-based attacks as they will heal the Phoenix.
When there are no orbs active, you want to look out for the Phoenix Crimson attacks. There are four in total: Crimson Rondure, Crimson Emanation, Crimson Tetrade, and Crimson Aurora. Phoenix will cycle through all four of them. Each ability telegraphs an area on the floor red, and you want to quickly move out of it. After a second it will explode dealing lots of fire damage if you’re standing in it and knocking you back. If you’re not careful you can get caught in a chain of these attacks and meet a swift end.
After the Pressured state ends, Phoenix will spawn three more orbs and this process begins again. Just rinse and repeat. I was able to Stagger Phoenix after two Pressures and was then able to defeat Phoenix with a single Limit Break from Cloud.
The only other ability Phoenix has is Empowering Flames, which is a channeled buff Phoenix applies to himself. I’ve actually never seen him do this after fighting Phoenix several times, but according to the Access information for Phoenix you simply need to out-damage him while it is being channeled to interrupt it and push Phoenix into a Pressured state.
Rewards for defeating Phoenix summon
After defeating the Phoenix you’ll receive the Phoenix Summon Materia. The Star Level of the Materia will depend on how many pieces of Phoenix Divine Intel you have acquired.
- 0 Phoenix Divine Intel: 1 Star Phoenix Materia: Invokve Phoenix to aid you in battle, as well as confer stat bonuses to the summoner
- 1 Phoenix Divine Intel: 2 Star Phoenix Materia: Summon Level + 1
- 2 Phoenix Divine Intel: 3 Star Phoenix Materia: Summon Level + 1
- 3 Phoenix Divine Intel: MAX Lvl 4 Star Phoenix Materia: Reraise and Arise abilities learned by Phoenix
As you can see, it’s worthwhile to acquire all the Phoenix Divine Intel by visiting all three Phoenix crystals in the Junon region. Not only will your Phoenix Summon be the highest level, but it will also have two strong abilities.
