Red Dragon Hard Mode Guide

Red Dragon is a boss in Chapter 13: Where Angels Fear to Tread of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth (FF7 Rebirth). Learn how to beat Red Dragon on Hard Mode and normal difficulties, its weaknesses and resistances, and a list of its moves and attack patterns in this guide!

Red Dragon Weaknesses and Stats

Stats

	Easy	Normal	Hard
HP	68075	97250	170723

Weakness and Resistances

Weaknesses	Lesser Resistances	Greater Resistances
Ice	-	-
Absorbed Elements	Immunities
-	Fire Proportional Damage Berserk Slow Poison Silence Sleep Stop Stone Petrify Morphable Items

Changes When Staggered

Weakness / Effective	Immunity
Ice	Fire

How to Pressure Red Dragon

Destroy One of Its Body Parts Hit Its Head With a Scorched Pillar

Destroy One of Its Body Parts

Throughout the fight, the Red Dragon will have multiple body parts that you can destroy to pressure it. For the first part of the fight, you can destroy its head, while in the second half, you can destroy both of its wings as well as its chest.

Hit Its Head With a Scorched Pillar

During the first part of the fight, you can hide behind one of the four pillars when the Red Dragon uses its breath attacks to transform it into a Scorched Pillar. Destroying these pillars and dropping them on the Dragon's head will instantly destroy it and pressure the boss.

How to Pressure and Stagger Enemies

Red Dragon Best Party and Builds

Normal Mode Build

Builds by Difficulty
Normal Mode	Hard Mode

Recommended Party Setup

Recommended Party Setup
Cloud	【Punisher】 ・Unleash powerful abilities, like Infinity's End and Braver, when the boss is staggered ・Use ranged sword attacks once the boss starts flying Recommended Level: 47
Yuffie	【Ranged Attacker】 ・Attack the boss from a distance using Ice Ninjutsu ・Can easily target the wings of the boss once it starts flying Recommended Level: 47
Aerith	【Spellcaster】 ・Attack the boss with Ice magic ・Place Arcane Ward to double-cast spells Recommended Level: 47

Best Materia to Use

Materia	How to Use
Ice	・Gives the ability to cast Ice spells
Healing	・Gives the ability to cast healing spells
Barrier	・Manaward halves the damage of the Red Dragon's Magic attacks.
Magnify	・Used to cast heals and buffs on the entire party.
HP Up	・Equip to increase HP
Steadfast Block	・Fill up ATB with each successful block
Precision Defense Focus	・Increase the overall efficiency of blocking
Item Master	・Increase the effect of items like Potions
Shiva	・Help inflict additional Ice damage while on the field

Hard Mode Build

Builds by Difficulty
Normal Mode	Hard Mode

Notice from Game8	These Hard Mode builds use equipment that are at least Weapon Level 8. If you don't have enough Materia slots or the right Weapon Skills to complete a character setup, consider using a different weapon or collect all of the character's Manuscripts first.

Best Build for Yuffie

Jump to Character Build
Yuffie	Tifa	Aerith

Yuffie Magic DPS
		Weapon		Armor
		Fuma Shuriken		Cetran Bracer
		Accessory		Summon Materia
		Genji Gloves		Gilgamesh
Weapon Materia			Armor Materia
HP Up MP Up Magic Up Speed Up Steadfast Block Precision Defense Focus			MP Absorption and Ice Revival Skill Master ATB Assist First Strike Darkside Prayer
Weapon Skills
Magic Attack Power +20			Max MP +3
Ice Damage Up			ATB Charge Rate Up

Yuffie is the best character for this fight since she has multiple ways to target the Red Dragon's Ice weakness. She can easily deal tons of damage with her Ice Ninjutsu basic attacks, Darkness-boosted Icy Banishments, and Blizzard spells.

Since she's the character you're controlling, make sure that she has the Skill Master and ATB Assist Materias equipped so that you can generate ATB Charges on your other party members without you having to directly control them.

Yuffie's ranged attacks are also necessary to destroy the Red Dragon's wings without you having to go up in the air.

Best Build for Tifa

Jump to Character Build
Yuffie	Tifa	Aerith

Tifa Physical DPS
		Weapon		Armor
		Dragon Claws		Valkyrian Bangle
		Accessory		Summon Materia
		Enhanced Expeditionary Medal		Odin
Weapon Materia			Armor Materia
HP Up MP Up Strength Up First Strike			Magnify and Healing Revival Steadfast Block Precision Defense Focus Limit Siphon
Weapon Skills
Enhanced Techniques			Weapon Ability Damage +5%
Attack Power +20			Attack Power +20

Tifa does a lot of Physical damage with her Unique Ability and True Strike combo when the Dragon's staggered. She can also help build up its Stagger Meter with Focused Strike once Yuffie pressures the boss.

Aside from that, Tifa will mainly be using Limit Siphon so that she can spam Meteor Strikes to provide crowd control and good damage when the boss isn't staggered.

Best Build for Aerith

Jump to Character Build
Yuffie	Tifa	Aerith

Aerith Support
		Weapon		Armor
		Ceremonial Staff		Cetran Armlet
		Accessory		Summon Materia
		Enhanced Karmic Cowl		Phoenix
Weapon Materia			Armor Materia
HP Up MP Up Steadfast Block Precision Defense Focus			Magnify and Healing Magic Efficiency and Revival Magnify and Barrier Spirit Up Prayer
Weapon Skills
Altruistic Buff Up			Altruistic Buff Up
Max MP +3			Reprieve

Aerith will be your main support in this fight with her Magnified Curagas and Manawalls to reduce the damage of the Red Dragon's attacks. She can even use Prayer when she has 2 ATB Charges to heal the party without using MP.

Aerith also has her Healing Wind Limit Break and Noble Sacrifice Weapon Ability in case your party gets low on HP or multiple party members go down, especially from Crimson Breath III.

For her accessory, you can replace the Enhanced Karmic Cowl with a Gotterdammerung so that Aerith can use her Limit Break more often or you can Siphon it away with Tifa.

How to Beat Red Dragon

Red Dragon Boss Fight Tips
Exploit the Red Dragon's Ice Weakness Have Manaward Active at All Times Use the Pillars as Cover Destroy the Wings Before the Chest Focus the Chest to Weaken Crimson Breath

Exploit the Red Dragon's Ice Weakness

The Red Dragon has a notable weakness to Ice attacks, so use someone like Yuffie who can use multiple Ice moves, like Ice Ninjutsu attacks, Icy Banishment, and Blizzard spells, to quickly take it down.

Have Manaward Active at All Times

Since the majority of the Red Dragon's attacks deal Magic damage, you should have the Manaward buff active on all party members to reduce the damage that they take.

Use the Pillars as Cover

Whenever the Red Dragon uses one of its Fire attacks, hide behind one of the pillars to block the attack and turn the pillar into a Scorched Pillar. You can then destroy it by dropping it on the Dragon's head to destroy and pressure it.

Pillars are Destroyed During the Second Phase

Note that all four pillars will be destroyed once the second phase starts, so don't hesitate to use them to speed up the boss fight.

Destroy the Wings Before the Chest

Use Yuffie to destroy the Red Dragon's wings with her Ice attacks so that it will fall to the ground. Once it's downed, you'll have an easier time destroying its chest since your melee party members can now hit it.

Focus the Chest to Weaken Crimson Breath

Level	Chest HP and Attack Range
Crimson Breath III	Chest: Above 50% HP Range: Entire Arena
Crimson Breath II	Chest: Below 50% HP Range: Most of the Arena
Crimson Breath I	Chest: Destroyed Range: Half of the Arena

Crimson Breath's attack range is directly tied to the Red Dragon's chest HP. Once you destroy its wings and drop the Dragon to the ground, focus all your damage on destroying the chest to lower the attack's range.

In case you're not sure where to run to for safety, you can follow the AI controlled characters since they will automatically run to a safe area.

Always Uses Crimson Breath III on Hard

If you're playing on Hard Mode, the Red Dragon will always use Crimson Breath III regardless of the chest's HP. Make sure that you have an extra ATB Charge to cast Manaward before destroying the chest since it'll use Crimson Breath III right after and you'll need the buff to survive.

Alernatively, you could ignore the Assess text and stagger the boss without destroying the chest so that you don't have to worry about about dealing with Crimson Breath III's damage. Do note however that it will use Crimson Breath III if you take too long to stagger it.

Red Dragon Rewards and Details

Rewards

Red Dragon Rewards
Easy/Normal						Hard Mode
・4100 EXP ・50 Party EXP ・10 AP ・2050 Gil						・6500 EXP ・30 AP ・3250 Gil ・Tale of the Red Warrior Vol. XV
Items Dropped						Rare Items Dropped
None						None
Stealable Items						Morphable Items
None						None

Basic Information and Details

Red Dragon
Location	Chapter Unlocked
Labyrinth	Chapter 13
Species	Movement
Biological	Flying
Details
An enormous wyrm who has sworn allegiance to the Cetra, and now serves as guardian of their temple and its labyrinthine halls. It possesses a unique organ that allows it to spew incinerating flames. Striking the scorched pillars and bringing them down on the dragon will pressure it. Destroying one of its wings while it is flying will cause it to plummet, pressuring it. Attacking its chest will reduce the range of Crimson Breath.

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