You can get beta once you have a fire ring from costa del sol, or if you bothered grinding an elemental materia to the point where it halves damage. Some of the most damaging attacks by the midgarzolom are also counter attacks, so you can poison it and let it get low on hp before starting to provoke it into using beta.
There's also Laser, which obsoletes gravity materia for the few times you can actually use that, and dragon force, and death force. You can also regain mp with magic hammer. Early in the game, you can also use Matra Magic, which is extremely low cost, AoE, and hits about as strongly as a tier 1.5 spell.
In either case, out of magic materia, regen+all is useful, and so is life 2.
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