How to Beat Brutal Challenge: Army of the Damned

This is a guide on how to beat Brutal Challenge: Army of the Damned in the Combat Simulator of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth (FF7 Rebirth). Check out the unlock requirements and rewards, list of enemies and bosses in each round, and the best party, equipment, and Materia to beat this challenge.

Best Party and Builds

Best Party for Brutal Challenge: Army of the Damned
Yuffie	Tifa	Aerith

Yuffie Equipment and Materia

Yuffie Main DPS
		Weapon		Armor
		Crescent Sickle		Cetran Bracer
		Accessory		Summon Materia
		Sorcerer's Earrings		Gilgamesh
Weapon Materia			Armor Materia
HP Up MP Up Magic Up Speed Up Luck Up ATB Assist			First Strike Steadfast Block Magic Focus Fire and Ice Magic Focus Lightning and Wind Revival Prayer
Weapon Skills
Shuriken Mastery			Precision Defense ATB
ATB Charge Rate Up			Opening ATB Bonus

Yuffie will be the Main DPS for this team thanks to her ability to target multiple different weaknesses with her Elemental Ninjutsus and the Fire and Ice plus Lightning and Wind Materias. Alternatively, you can swap Magnify and Magic Focus in the builds since you will face against numerous enemies that will have the same weaknesses.

She also has other great abilities like Shooting Star for crowd control and Doppelganger to double cast spells and abilities. When combined with her elemental prowess, Yuffie can easily take down the hordes of enemies in this Combat Simulator challenge.

Since Yuffie will be your main character, she will also hold the ATB Assist Materia to fill the other party member's ATB Gauges and Prayer since she will have her ATB full most of the time compared to the other two who would rather use Curaga's one ATB charge to heal.

Tifa Equipment and Materia

Tifa Secondary DPS
		Weapon		Armor
		Kaiser Knuckles		Valkyrian Bangle
		Accessory		Summon Materia
		Full Throttle Wristguards		Odin
Weapon Materia			Armor Materia
HP Up MP Up Strength Up Luck Up Skill Master ATB Stagger			Magnify Healing Steadfast Block Precision Defense Focus First Strike Revival
Weapon Skills
Martial Arts Mastery			Concentration
Synergy Damage Up			Enemy Parts Damage Up

Tifa will be your Secondary DPS on this team and the character that you will use if you need to finish off an enemy on low health or that's been staggered.

Make sure to switch to Tifa before an enemy gets staggered so that you can use the combination of ATB Stagger and Skill Master allowing her to quickly spam out her abilities, especially the ones that increase the stagger damage percentage.

Remember though to always have an extra ATB Charge during battle in case you need Tifa to cast Curaga or Arise on another party member.

Aerith Equipment and Materia

Aerith Support
		Weapon		Armor
		Ceremonial Staff		Cetran Armlet
		Accessory		Summon Materia
		Enhanced Psychic's Charm		Phoenix
Weapon Materia			Armor Materia
HP Up MP Up Vitality Up Vitality Up Steadfast Block Precision Defense Focus			Magnify Healing Magic Efficiency Revival Synergy Comet Time Cleansing
Weapon Skills
Reprieve			Max MP +3
Altruistic Buff Up			Altruistic Buff Up

If you don't have a Ceremonial Staff with 6 Materia Slots, you can use Gambanteinn with Spiritual Harvest, Max MP +3, Reprieve, and ATB Charge Rate Up instead.

Aerith will actually be used more as a crowd control support on this team rather than a traditional buffing and healing support. The combination of Synergy and Comet allows her to constantly cast Comet at no MP or ATB cost thanks to Yuffie and Tifa's quick ATB recharge speeds.

Aside from that, she has the standard supportive set of Healing and Revival in case someone gets too low or needs to be revived, along with Time and Cleansing for Haste buffs and Esuna/Resist to deal with negative status effects.

Do note that the two Vitality Ups are used to increase Aerith's physical defenses, but you could replace them with any other Materia of your choosing.

How to Beat All Rounds

Rounds 1-3

The combination of Yuffie's Doppelganger plus Shooting Star and Aerith's Synergy casted Comets should be enough to deal with most of the enemies for rounds 1 to 3.

If there are enemies that are still alive, use Yuffie to hit them with a spell that they're weak to.

Round 4

Target Sandhog Pie first with the Doppel-Shooting Star combo plus a Blizzara to kill it off quickly. Once that enemy is gone, you can use Fire Ninjutsu and Fira to kill all the other enemies off.

Round 5

Start the fight with the usual Doppelganger into Shooting Star for initial crowd control, then use Fire Ninjutsu plus Firas to finish off everyone.

Round 6

Target the Spearhawk first with the Doppel-Shooting Star combo plus a Fira to kill it off quickly. Once that enemy is gone, you can use Wind Ninjutsu and Aerora to kill all the other enemies off.

Round 7

Target the Daggerwing first with the Doppel-Shooting Star combo plus a Aerora to kill it off quickly. Once that enemy is gone, you can use Ice Ninjutsu and Blizara to kill all the other enemies off.

Round 8

Switch to Tifa first so that you can immediately use Omnistrike or any other ability with a fast animation to stop the Type G Slug-Ray from using Lacerate. Once you kill it off, you can swap back to Yuffie and target down each enemy's elemental weakness.

Round 9

Go back to the usual combination of Yuffie using Doppelganger plus Shooting Star followed up by targeting each enemy's elemental weakness to easily beat this round.

Round 10

Target the Archdragon first with Doppelganger boosted Aeroras to quickly kill it. From there, use Tifa to beat down every other enemy with her powerful abilities since none of the other enemies have an elemental weakness to exploit.

Brutal Challenge: Army of the Damned Unlock and Rewards

Technically, there are no requirements to unlock Brutal Challenge: Army of the Damned in the Combat Simulator, but you must first defeat Gilgamesh to unlock the Brutal and Legendary challenges in the first place.

Once you've collected all Protorelics and defeated Gilgamesh, you'll be able to take on the Brual and Legendary Challenges in the Combat Simulator.

How to Unlock and Beat Gilgamesh

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