Spell Power Reference Tables

For those of you who just want the link to the spreadsheets that make up the bulk of the guide and are sorted according to MP Cost, Single Target and Multiple target damage, here you go:

Spell Power Reference Tables[docs.google.com]

Continue reading for a basic explanation of what's on the tables.

Spell Power in FFVII starts as a value (let's call this Base Magic Damage or BMD) calculated from the character's level and their magic stat. The maximum BMD can be is 2124. It's a lot easier to calculate what Spell Damage is if we don't take Magic Defense into account, so all the values on the tables are based on the Maximum Spell Damage or MSD.

In order to get the value of MSD, we multiply a characters BMD by the Spell Power of the spell. The Spell Power is a constant value that is different for every spell. It's the value that makes one spell more powerful then another even if the character casting it has the same BMD. In other words, Spell Power is what makes one spell Fire2 and another spell Fire3. With a few exceptions, all damage on the table is displayed as (Spell Power x BMD).

If a magic or summon materia is linked to an All, Quadra or MP Turbo materia, the Spell Power will be different. More on each specific materia is listed below.

For those of you who want to know the exact formulas that are being run in the game, continue reading. Otherwise feel free to skip the next section.

All spell damage calculation starts with the Character Level and Magic Stat of the character casting the spell. Base Magic Damage (BMD) is calculated by the following formula:

Base Magic Damage = 6 x (Character Level + Magic Stat)

After this, the actual spell damage is calculated acording to this formula:

Spell Damage = [(Spell Power x 16) x Base Magic Damage x (512 - Magic Defense)] / (16 x 512)

Fortunately for us, making Magic Defense equal to zero gives us the maximum damage of every spell and also gives us two variables: BMD and Spell Power. Spell Power is the value that we're interested in as every spell in the game has it's own Spell Power constant, and it is this constant that determines how powerful spells are in comparison to each other. Maximum Spell Damage is also very easy to calculate:

Maximum Spell Damage = Spell Power x Base Magic Damage

To get from Maximum Spell Damage to spell damage with Magic Defense taken into account, this formula can be used:

Spell Damage = [(Maximum Spell Damage x 16) x (512 - Magic Defense)] / (16 x 512)

After the raw spell damage is calculated, any damage changes from All, Quadra, or MP Turbo materia is calculated. After that calculation, Elemental weakness/resistance/immunity/absorption is calculated. Finally, any damage that goes over 9999 is capped. More on those calculations below.

The All materia only works with the following materia:

Restore, Heal, Revive, Fire, Ice, Lightning, Earth, Poison, Gravity, Seal, Mystify, Transform, Time, Barrier, Destruct, Master Magic

The All materia enables characters to cast most single target spells at all targets for no MP Cost increase. The trade off is that the spell power is decreased by a third no matter how many targets the character is facing. It's worth noting that the All materia does not decrease the chance that Status Effect spells will work.

The Quadra materia works with all Magic and Summon materia except the Escape magic materia and the Knights of the Round summon materia. Casting either Exit or Remove multiple times makes no sense and letting Quadra effect Knights of the Round would make that summon too powerful (like it wasn't powerful enough already).

The Quadra materia causes a spell or summon to be cast four times in secession, but the spell power of each casting has been cut in half. This includes the chance that Status Effect spells will work unless the normal chance is already 100%. If a spell naturally hits a single target, then it will pick a random (but valid) target for each of the four castings. If a spell naturally hits multiple targets, then all targets will get hit four times. If there's only one enemy, then a single target spell will essentially end up doing double damage for the same MP Cost as the normal spell. If there's more then one enemy, single target spells usually do less damage then the normal spell does. Multiple target spells will always hit all enemies for what is essentially double damage.

Worth noting is that it's impossible to link both All and Quadra materia to magic materia at the same time. With few exceptions, the only way to get spells that effect all enemies to do double damage is to use a summon materia linked with a Quadra materia.

The MP Turbo Materia works with all magic materia and summon materia.

The MP Turbo Materia increases both the MP Cost and the Spell Power of a spell by ten percent for every mastery level it has. A mastered MP will double the MP Cost and the Spell Power of a spell. Status Effect spells have the chance that they will work doubled.

The MP Cost increasing only works up to a point however. The MP Cost of a spell is capped at 255. This sounds high unless we're talking about the Knights of the Round spell which costs 250 MP anyway. Fortunately, the Spell Power increase isn't capped.

There are four elemental effects that various enemies have, and all of them effect Spell Power in some way. All of these effects are calculated after the All/Quadra/MP Turbo damage changes have been made.

If an enemy is weak to an element, then the Spell Power is doubled.

If an enemy is resistant to an element, then the Spell Power is halved.

If an enemy is said to be invalid to an element, then the Spell Power is equal to 0 and the spell does no damage.

If an enemy absorbs an element, then the spell heals an enemy.

There are two summons and one enemy skill that have multiple elements. If an enemy is resistant, invalidates or absorbs one of the elements those spells are, then that applies to the whole spell. Which is unfortunate as all those spells have high Spell Power.

Most spells found on this type of materia are all single target spells. In order for these spells to effect multiple targets, the All materia is needed. As the game progresses, these spells tend to have lower Spell Powers then the summons and enemy skills do. This makes them more useful to link to materia other then Quadra and MP Turbo. Until you get the Comet, Contain and Ultima materia that is...

All spells from summon materia are multi-target spells. This makes them excellent materia to link to the Quadra materia as they will essentially do double damage on all valid targets for no extra MP Cost. The Mastered MP Turbo materia isn't the best materia to link them too as they mathematically do the same damage as when linked with Quadra, but for double the MP Cost. The exception to this is the Knights of the Round materia which can't be linked to the Quadra materia. Most of the better summons are non-elemental and most of those also have piercing damage and the highest Spell Power in the game. To compensate, they've also got the highest MP costs in the game.

Aside from having the most amount of spells on one materia in the entire game, the other good thing about the Enemy Skill Materia is that most of it's spells, with few exceptions, have the best Spell Power to MP Cost ratio in the entire game. In other words, more damage will be done for the MP used to cast a spell when enemy skills are used. The main trade off for both these advantages is that the Enemy Skill Materia can not be linked to any other materia in the game, specifically the Quadra and MP Turbo materia. All enemy skill therefore have a Quadra value of "None" on the tables.

The following tables are organized by what elements spells fall under. Because the values of MP Turbo scale with the normal MP Cost and Spell Power of the spells, those values have been omitted.

The tables use the following values:

MP Cost: How much MP the spell costs to cast.

Single: The Spell Power the normal single target spell has. For Status Effect spells, this is a percent.

All: The Spell Power the multi-target version of the spell has. If a spell has the same Spell Power for both Single and All, then the spell naturally targets all valid targets without the use of the All materia. If this column reads as "None" then the spell cannot target multiple targets even with the All materia.

Quadra: The Spell Power of a single casting of the Quadra version of a spell. If this column reads as "None" then Quadra can not link to this spell. This only really comes up with Enemy Skills. For Status Effect spells, this is a percent.

Effect: What Status Effects certain spells apply.

Restoration magic uses it's own formula to calculate how much it heals instead of the normal magic calculation. Instead of multiplying BMD by a constant, it adds BMD to a constant. Some restoration spells also are derived from the HP value of the target or caster.

Gravity spells use their own mechanics instead of the magic formula. They all do damage based on a fraction of the current HP of the target. They also act weirdly when linked to the Quadra materia. Because Quadra casts a spell four times, the gravity spell damage is calculated from the HP of the target at the time of casting. As the spell multiplier is halved for this, Gravity spells actually have a decrease in overall spell power when linked with Quadra.

Non-Elemental spells don't really lack an element. Instead, the elemental calculations never apply to them. The good part of this is there spell powers can never be halved, invalidated, or absorbed. The bad part is that enemies can never be weak to these spells either.

Some of the Enemy Skills that are of this element have their own custom damage calculations. They are included.

Piercing Spells ignore Magic Defense, which means that the values represented here are probably what you'll actually be getting in game. Except for Typoon, all piercing Spells are non-elemental spells as well.

All the elements that have three or less spells are here.

The Spell Power of status effects is not dependent on BMD, but is a fixed percentage. This percentage is not effected by the All Materia, but is effected by the Quadra and MP Turbo materia. The exception to this rule are status effect chances that are already at 100%.

In doing research for this guide, I made a series of spreadsheets that in addition to having everything above in them, also have all the spells sorted by MP Cost, Single target damage and multi-target damage. Mostly becasue I wanted to know how to get the most damage for the least amount of MP. They also look a lot better then the tables here do. Link to the google docs version:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19yYD8v0Zc4PLyStXzkakP79FwCFW2xfxDBa6Bkz6QLY/edit?usp=sharing

This guide would not have been possible without referring to several guides by other people.

The Final Fantasy VII FAQ/Walkthough[www.gamefaqs.com] by Absolute Steve. This is the ultimate Final Fantasy ViI encyclopedia. Go here for anything in the FFVII game. It will be there.

Battle Mechanics FAQ[www.gamefaqs.com] by TFergusson. All the game mechanics that have to do with the battle system are from here.