how do you kill Emerald without 3 Mimes or 24 Counters?

[Zeromus_X]

i got 1 hero drink but i can't seem to get another

if you use W-item (hopefully you got it, only one in the game, and you cant get it after that point) you can clone it.

i have a theory, but i dont know if itll work.(its about fighting emmy.)

first, make sure somebody's hp max is 9999 naturally. (without any maxhp altering materias.) give them mime and counter.

keep your hps up with megalixirs(which you should clone with w-item), and when emmy uses aire tam, that character has lucky 7s! then they will counter mime lucky 7s...

problem is, i dont know if you can mime lucky 7s. let alone counter mime.

now, about w item, just use the hero drink, (for the first item, ) , and then make the target for the second item. then cancel. you will notice youll have 1 hero drink. now go to the other item, and cancel again. then, use it again, and cancel. (you should have two heroes by now.)
now, cancel again and again until you have 99 . (this will work on any item that can be used in battle. so no sources unfortunately.)

however, the only way to get w item is going all the way to the back of the tunnel in the midgar raid.

i w item!!

[Randgris]

Mastered Magic Plus, W-Summon, KoTR plus lots of Megalixirs (W-item dupe trick)

Well duh I don't care how crappy this is, I beated him anyway

[Behemoth]

Begin the battle by using the enemy skill Big Guard (or whatever it's called) which gives you haste, MBarrier and Barrier. This applies to both the methods I use. Your character set up doesnt really matter that much, but I prefer to have people who's level 4 limit breaks hit multiple times- Cid, Cloud, and Barret, for example. There are two ways to go about this fight imo- heavily materia based or by using brute force.

Since the 'brute force' method is the simplest, I'll go over that first. Make sure everyone is wearing their ultimate weapon, and make sure everyone has 4x cut. Your stats must be somewhat high to pull this off, so being above lvl 80 helps a lot. The only materia combo you need to worry about here is final attack+pheonix, however everyone should have a level 2+ revive and a pretty well filled E-skills materia in addition to the 2x cut materia. Equip water rings on everyone ( I believe it will absorb some of his attacks) as well as Mystile armor on whoever has final attack+phoenix (in case you are a newbsteak and didn't duplicate it) and escort gaurds on the other two. Anyway, the only thing you do throughout the entire battle is attack and occasionally use a megalixer. Every attack should do approximately 32k damage, making it 96k damage per round. Since everyone is hasted, you will move significantly faster than emmy, and it won't be long until you do 1,000,000 damage- somewhere around 11 turns of pure melee, although this won't happen because there will be a time when you need to play some defense; emerald is easy but he's not a sitting duck.

The materia based option is much more fun, but that's probably because I'm just a spellcaster type guy... I have a warlock in WoW, my favorite character in FFIV was Rydia, Lucca/Magus own Chrono Trigger, etc. This requires more preperation time but I think you'll find that how bad you slaughter emerald with this method is a reward in it's own right. You will need to master KoTR twice (or use mime for the lazy), and master every other summon materia at least once to get master summon. I prefer to have the actual materia over mime because mime doesnt offer as much control. This whole scheme is perfectly executable without duplicating this materia and simple relying on mime, so if you plan on doing that, just substitute 'mime' wherever you see me say "duplicate X, Y, and Z.". Anyway, each of your characters will need the following materia: KoTR+MP absorb, Final Attack+Phoenix, Enemy Skills, W-Summon, Magic Plus x as many as you can duplicate. Additionally, you will need to equip the following to your various team members (doesn't matter who, just make sure to spread it out): master magic, master summon+MP absorb, shield, underwater. Note that whoever gets master summon+MP absorb should have their KoTR+MP absorb changed to KoTR+magic counter. Once the battle ensues, immediately cast big guard. Then W-summon KoTR; for me it usually does just under 260,000 damage, but even if it does just over 100,000 you should be fine. You'll be rewarded copious amounts of MP. The next three turns you get use shield on yourself, meaning don't shield characters already shielded... 180MP is a lot to waste. After all three are shielded, use your next three turns summoning KoTR. If your KoTR has been doing maximum damage, emerald will be either dead or in critical condition- another KoTR would finish him off easily. If it's doing wussy damage he should still have well over half of his life left, but fortunately there isn't much left to do but rinse and repeat; even if he does manage to kill the three of you with one of his uber-nukes, it shouldn't matter because you will instantly cast phoenix bringing everyone back to life, and then have a megalixer for good measure.

If anyone has felt that I've left anything out, that any of the information I've given is incorrect, or that this isn't working for them, let me know. I haven't played the game for over 5 years now, so I may have forgotten a few things.