Dranabarga Hard Mode Guide

Dranabarga is a boss in the Lament of the Damned side quest of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth (FF7 Rebirth). Learn how to beat Dranabarga in Hard Mode and normal difficulties, its weaknesses and resistances, and a list of its moves and attack patterns in this guide!

Dranabarga Weaknesses and Stats

Stats

	Easy	Normal	Hard
HP	?	18101	47802

Weakness and Resistances

Weaknesses	Lesser Resistances	Greater Resistances
Ice	Fire Lightning Magic	Proportional Damage Sleep
Absorbed Elements	Immunities
Poison Silence Stone	None

Changes When Staggered

Weakness / Effective	Resistance
None	None

How to Pressure Dranabarga

How to Pressure

Deal enough damage when Dranabarga uses Subdue.

The only way to Pressure Dranabarga is to deal enough damage to it while it uses Subdue. Equip an Ice Materia or use a ranged character with powerful ATB abilities to quickly pressure Dranabarga as it charges at you.

Note: Dranabarga is immune to physical attacks if you hit its armored back. The only way to deal enough damage to pressure it while it uses Subdue is to face it head on during the attack.

How to Pressure and Stagger Enemies

Dranabarga Best Party and Builds

Recommended Party Setup

Recommended Party Setup
Cloud	【Physical DPS】 ・Main source of damage when Dranabarga gets staggered.
Yuffie	【Elemental DPS / Stagger Buildup】 ・Mainly used to build pressure with Ice Ninjutsu during Subdue. ・Can safely deal damage from a distance.
Aerith	【Support】 ・High magic damage with her Ice spells. ・Can focus on healing all allies using Pray and Limit Break.

Best Materia to Use Against Dranabarga

Materia	Effect
Ice	・Deal Ice Elemental Damage ・Best equipped on Yuffie or Aerith.
Magnify	・Heal all allies in battle when linked to Healing Materia. ・Best equipped on Aerith.
Healing	・Heal a single ally in battle. ・Best equipped on Aerith.
Prayer	・Heal all allies in battle (alternative for Healing Materia if you do not have Magnify Materia). ・Best equipped on a character that can generate 2 ATB easily.
HP Up	・Increase the HP of a character. ・Can be equipped to all characters.

How to Beat Dranabarga (Normal)

Dranabarga Boss Fight Tips
Use Yuffie's Ice Ninjutsu Attack from the Side or Front Maintain Distance and Use Ranged Attacks Use Infinity's End or Use Limit While Staggered Summon Yuffie's Doppelganger

Use Yuffie's Ice Ninjutsu to Deal Bonus Damage From a Distance

Dranabarga is dangerous to fight up close. Maintain your distance and utilize Yuffie's Ice Ninjutsu to deal damage from afar. After casting Ice Ninjutsu, throw your shuriken using Triangle and spam basic attacks (Square) to deal ranged elemental damage.

Yuffie Best Builds and Weapons

Attack from the Side or Front of Dranabarga

Dranabarga is immune to Physical attacks if you target its armored back. If you're fighting up close, attack Dranabarga's side or front to deal damage. This is highly risky though as it can use its Subdue and bind your current character.

Maintain Distance and Use Ranged Attacks to Avoid Subdue

Subdue is a dangerous ability as it will bind your character, preventing them from moving or taking actions. Avoid it by using Yuffie's Ninjutsu, Cloud's ranged attacks, or Aerith's basic attacks + Radiant Ward since these all do ranged magic damage.

Summon Yuffie's Doppelganger to Increase the Stagger Meter

To fully exploit Dranabarga's weakness to Ice, have Yuffie cast Doppelganger to conjure a copy that mimics all of Yuffie's attacks and spell casts. This will drastically speed up the stagger meter build up during the fight.

Additionally, with Doppelganger active, Yuffie will be able to fill up her ATB gauge twice as fast because of the double attacks. Use this to your advantage and spam Ice elemental damage to build up stagger.

Learn Doppelganger From Bird of Prey

You can learn the Doppelganger ability from the Bird of Prey weapon you get in Chapter 9. Maxing out its proficiency will allow Yuffie to use Doppelganger even when she has a different weapon equipped.

How to Get Bird of Prey

Use Strong Abilities Like Infinity's End or Use Limit Once Staggered

Once you manage to stagger Dranabarga, use all the offensive abilities and Ice Spells at your disposal to quickly chunk away at its HP. Have Cloud go into Punisher Mode and use Infinity's End to make the most out of the Stagger phase's increased damage.

Learn Infinity's End From Crystal Sword

You can learn the Infinity's End ability from the Crystal Sword weapon you get in Chapter 9. Maxing out its proficiency will allow Cloud to use Infinity's End even when he has a different weapon equipped.

How to Get Crystal Sword

Dranabarga Hard Mode Guide

Dranabarga Hard Mode Tips
★ Best Hard Mode Builds for Dranabarga ★
Tank the Hits with Barret Use Yuffie's Ice Ninjutsu to Deal Damage Dodge Attacks with Brumal Form Burst with Banishment III Use Magnified Poisona to Remove the Poison

Dranabarga Hard Mode Builds

Notice from Game8	The builds featured in this Hard Mode section are at Weapon Levels 7~8. If you find that you don't have enough Materia slots to complete the setup, consider getting all the possible Manuscripts on Normal, first.

Tank the Hits with Barret

At the start of the battle, immediately use Barret's Lifesaver and Steelskin back-to-back to increase the party's survivability by having him tank a portion of the damage intended for his allies.

A maxed out First Strike materia and the Chocoking's Cape will make this setup possible very early in the fight.

Use Yuffie's Ice Ninjutsu to Deal Damage

Dranabarga's weakness to Ice can be easily exploited by Yuffie's Ice Ninjutsu. Be sure to switch elements after setting her up with Haste and Doppelganger!

Due to Dranabarga's lesser resistance to Magic and immunity to rear Physical attacks, using Ice Ninjutsu is a safe choice even if it deals slightly reduced damage.

Dodge Attacks with Brumal Form

As your main attacker, Yuffie will surely draw more aggro than her two allies. Fortunately, Dranabarga's attacks are slow and can be easily dodged with Brumal Form.

Successfully dodging attacks with Brumal Form fills a bit of the ATB gauge, allowing frequent uses of abilities to damage the boss and charge Banishment.

Burst with Icy Banishment III

Keep on using ATB commands with Yuffie to ramp Icy Banishment up to level 3 before unleashing it for a massive damage burst. Make sure to change its element with Ice Ninjutsu first or it won't do much!

By triggering the Corsair's Compass' effect, you can spam abilities easier (especially with the Haste buff up) to upgrade Banishment.

Use Magnified Poisona to Remove the Poison

All of Dranabarga's attacks will inflict Poison once its health drops to a critical level. Your non-active party members are more likely to take hits from these attacks that will rapidly chip their HP bar.

Have Cloud cast the magnified Poisona to purge the poison from your party immediately.

If you need ATB charges for Cloud, you can do so by having Yuffie trigger Skill Master or ATB Assist so she can continue dealing damage while also giving ATB charges to her allies. No switching needed!

Dranabarga Rewards and Details

Rewards

Dranabarga Rewards
Easy/Normal						Hard Mode
・854 EXP ・3 AP ・413 Gil						・10692 EXP ・9 AP ・740 Gil
Items Dropped						Rare Items Dropped
・Beast Talon						・Exquisite Beast Spine
Stealable Items						Morphable Items
・Beast Talon						・Exquisite Beast Spine

Drops Sharpshooter's Companion Vol. XIV on Hard Mode

You can obtain the Sharpshooter's Companion Vol. XIV for Barret by defeating the Dranabarga on Hard Mode.

List of All Manuscripts Guide

Basic Information and Details

Dranabarga
Location	Chapter Unlocked
Shinra Manor	Chapter 12
Species	Movement
Artificial	Grounded
Details
An experimental specimen kept in the basement of Shinra Manor. It had long laid dormant, but was awoken when the facility's systems came online. Now, its lonely cries echo through the halls, imbuing the building with an even eerier aura. Impervious to physical attacks from the rear. Inflicting enough damage during Subdue will pressure it. When its HP is low, all its attacks will inflict Poison.

Dranabarga Location and Side Quest

Encountered During Lament of the Damned Side Quest

You can encounter Dranabarga during the Lament of the Damned side quest. Dranabarga will appear as the final battle of the quest after defeating all Combat Simulator challenges in the side quest.

Lament of the Damned Walkthrough

FF7 Rebirth Related Guides

Boss Fight Guide and List of All Bosses

Story Bosses

All Major Story Bosses
Chapter 1	Materia Guardian
Chapter 2	Midgardsormr
Chapter 3	Rude and Elena Mythril Golem
Chapter 4	Terror of the Deep Roche
Chapter 5	Jenova Emergent
Chapter 6	Grasptropod
Chapter 7	Custom Valkyrie Gigatrice
Chapter 8	Dyne Anuran Suppressor
Chapter 9	Specimen H1024 Crimson Mare Mk. II
Chapter 10	Gi Nattak
Chapter 11	Diabolic Variant Yin and Yang Forgotten Specimen Galian Beast Roche
Chapter 12	Abzu Rude and Elena Rufus
Chapter 13	Red Dragon Ironclad Reno and Rude Tseng and Elena Moss-Grown Adamantoise Demon Gate
Chapter 14	Jenova Lifeclinger Sephiroth Reborn

Optional Bosses

Grasslands
Summon	Titan
Classified Intel	Quetzalcoatl
Side Quests	White Terror
Junon
Summon	Phoenix
Classified Intel	Mindflayer
Side Quests	White Mousse Hell Rider II Sandstorm Drake
Corel
Summon	Alexander
Classified Intel	Tonberry King
Side Quests	Dark Claw Joker
Minigame	Test 0
Gongaga
Summon	Kujata
Classified Intel	Great Malboro
Side Quests	Levridon Mastodon Gorgon Mane Gigantoad
Cosmo Canyon
Summon	Bahamut Arisen
Classified Intel	Jabberwock
Side Quests	Irasceros Gigaworm
Nibel
Summon	Odin
Classified Intel	King Zu
Side Quests	Queen Bee Dranabarga
Meridian Ocean
Gilgamesh's Island	Gilgamesh Titan and Bahamut Arisen Phoenix and Kujata Alexander and Odin
Pirate King's Treasure	Ogre Raider Brineborn Demon Hueyacoatl Sea Dragon