W-Item and AP Grinding

An efficient way of leveling up characters in Disc 1 is through the Junon Alarm area.

Right after getting the Buggy at the Gold Saucer, you can drive the Buggy back to Costa del Sol.
Then take the cargo ship back to Junon.

Once in Junon, head to the lower part of town till you get into an area filled with marching Shinra soliders.

>Past here up ahead Go down the hallway and press the red button on the wall to trigger the alarm
The battles that have the Slalom enemies in groups particularly give a lot of AP

An efficient way of leveling up characters in Disc 2 is through the Sunken Gelnika sidequest.

In Disc 2 after completing in the Underwater Reactor mission and hijacking the red Shinra Sub marine, you can take command of the submarine that you acquired in the bottom of the sea near Junon.

In the overworld you can travel to the large bay area between Costa del Sol and the Gold Saucer, its right next to Junon.
Then you can submerge your vessel and search for this area underwater.
BEWARE the Emarald Weapon on your journey underwater, this is a very hard boss so its best to avoid it at all cost. During Reno and Rude's encounter, I suggest to steal from them as they carry very good items
After all that I suggest picking up all the items in rooms and area. You can find the "Hades" Summon Materia in the first floor on the right next to the broken helicopter
In the Mako generator room, you can find the "Double Cut" Materia behind this chest in the far right
And you can find Yuffie's Ultimate Weapon on the left side of the room
Finally, Just grind in the Mako generator room fighting against the "Unknown" enemies

For grinding AP late game you will need specific weapons for certain characters and a particular command materia.

This section will cover the important weapons for grinding, I'll talk about the command materia in the next section.

-Triple Growth Weapons
There are two characters that can obtain triple growth weapons in the entire game.

Cloud's Apocalypse

The weapon has 3 Materia single slots (they are not linked)
The weapon can obtained in the Ancient Forest.

>To access the Ancient Forest you must defeat theUltimate Weapon
or by using a Blue, Green, Black, or Gold Chocobo Cid's Scimitar

The weapon has 2 Materia single slots (they are linked)
The weapon can obtained in the Underwater Reactor(Submarine Dock) in Junon.

>BEWARE: There is another item here called the "Leviathan scales".
>The Scimitar and the Leviathan scales are both MISSABLE so be sure to grab them when you get to this point in the game, as they will not be available pass this point.

-Double Growth Weapons
All Characters have at least two weapons that have double growth.
Most of them can be found in Junon or throughout your adventure so they aren't missable.
With the exception of Cid's Javelin since this is item is missable, but it won't matter since if you are following this guide you will be aiming to get the triple growth weapon rather than getting the double growth one.

This section will cover the W-item Materia and Elixirs. This Materia and Elixir are important as we will them need for grinding a certain enemy in the final dungeon of the game (The Northern Crater)

W-item Materia

-Casts two items at once
The W-item will let you use two items in one turn. If you have it equipped on a character it will replace the item command with W-item.

The Materia is not missable but there are two ways to get it.

>You can obtain it during Disc 2 during the raid on Midgar to stop the Sister Ray. It can be found in the South End of the Winding Tunnel.
>You must go all the way down, eventually you will find the materia next to a save point. If you missed the tunnel, you can find the Materia in Bone Village in Disc 3
>Dig on the cross on the ground. The first time you dig here you will get a mop.
>The second time you dig here you will obtain the W-item Materia

Elixirs
Lastly you will need at least 4 or 5 Elixirs
>Elixirs cannot be bought from shops
>Elixirs can be earned through stealing and morphing enemies
>They can be also found in the Overworld or in Field locations
Locations such as:

The Shinra Building.
Mt. Nibel.
Forgotten Capital.
Gaea's Cliff.
Sunken Gelnika.
Bone Village (Dig for them).
The Northern Cave

Morphing enemies using the Morph Materia
Morphing Harpy enemy around the Bone Village/ Gold Saucer Arena Chocobo tracks
Morphing Vlakorados enemy around the Bone Village
Morphing Tonberry in the Battle Square. They typically appear in Battle 7 after obtaining the highwind

Stealing from enemies using the Steal Materia
Stealing from the Master Tonberry
Stealing from the Gighee
Stealing from the Iron Man
all of these enemies are located in the The Northern Cave

If you have made it far in the game, then you should have plenty of elixirs by now.

IMPORTANT: W-item Duplication
Finally you will perform an exploit before heading into the Final dungeon of the game. This is the whole point of this guide.

*Caution*:Be sure to save before going into the battle just incase if you mess up the first time that way you reload the save file that you just saved :)

Before heading to the final grinding area, go into the overworld and find some low level enemies with the W-item equipped on any character.

When its that characters turn you will select W-item then pick elixir then pick the first elixir then the target then pick the second elixir but do not confirm the second target, then press return then hover and do not confirm the second target again and again again

Essentially
W-item>Elixir>Pick first target>Elixir>Return>Elixir>Return>Elixir>Return>Elixir>....etc

If the exploit is done correctly you should see the number of Elixirs go up as you do this process.

If you are having trouble please refer to this YT video by @ShockstormRPG

If you have gathered the items from the previous sections, then Congratulations!
This section will cover where and which enemies you need to look out for Ap grinding

I recommend equipping Enemy away Materia if you have it, so not as many enemies pester you as you travel down into the... Northern Crater.

You will be searching for this swamp area in the Northern cave

Once you arrive you can equip all the items we talked about thus far. Cloud and his Apocalypse and Cid with his Scimitar and another character of your choice with their double growth weapon.

If you plan to level up ALL materia for the "Master Overlord". I'd recommend equipping the Knights of the Round Summon Materia as it is on of the longest Materia to master.

Finally the enemies that you will be looking for in particular are.... The Magic Pots

You'll fight them in pairs or one by himself.

Before you can do any damage to them, they will demand Elixirs. That's alright since with the previous section you should have 99 elixirs.
If you encounter these guys, give them an elixir and then defeat them.

Another enemy to look out for is the Mover enemies. They are orange bouncing balls and they always come in a group of three
They don't require any of the previous steps. Just defeat them. They will award the party with 2,400 AP and alot of Gil.

Welp, Congratulations on making it to the end!

I hope this guide has helped you on your adventure, whether its going to master all materia or to defeat the weapons or simply defeat Sephiroth. I believe in you and never give up! :)

This is my first guide so thank you for reading.