I need a tutorial on the best ways to make materia grow, and what combinations to use and avoid, and to know wether or not it matters if the materia is on the weapon or the armor...thanks

The best way to increase growth is to put it in a weapon that has 3x growth. There is one for cloud and one for cid. Apocalypse and Scimitar. The other characters have weapons for double. Tifa: motor drive,platinum fist and power soul. Aeris: Wizard staff and wiser staff. Red: Magic Comb and plus barrette. Cait Sith: White M-phone and black M-phone. Vincent: None.
It's up to you to choose which weapon works best for you.

Some combination are: Knights of the round linked with w summons and mime. If you equip your other characters with mime you can cast knights of the round several times. There is also sneak attack linked with death blow and mega all. You get first hit and it's deathblow to all enemies. That's just alittle to help. I'm sure more people have better combinations and more advice.:)

Some materia combinations can have different effects depending on whether they're on weapons or armor. For instance, if you attach Poison linked with Status Effect on a weapon, then you have a chance of poisoning when you attack. If you have the Poison/Status Effect combo on armor, you will be immune to poison. If you put materia like Ice with Elemental on a weapon, your attack will be ice based so when you attack a fire based monster, you deal extra damage. When you put Ice/Elemental on armor, you will be healed when attacked by an ice based attack.

Once you've Mastered a Counter and a Mime. Link them, the confusion and wonders of this pairing are amazing.


Also Knights of the Round linked with MP Turbo is a good one.

Of course Final Attack linked with Pheonix.

And last but not least, Bahamut ZERO linked witha Mastered Quadra Magic .



(Actually to have all these materias mastered would be a great help to your cause)

AVOIDANCE: avoid too many summons, they really down your stats, you should only have about 1-2 summon materia, thats the only avoidance i can think of

COMBINATION: some good ones were already said, KOTR plus mp-absorb workd great it restores your mp as soon as you cast KOTR, thats about it

GROWTH: clouds apocalypse=triple growth
cids scimitar=triple growth
i belive rune bangle=double growth(get at bone village)
those are the best materia growth items, everyone has a weapon that has double but only cloud and cid have triple(i think there's one more triple growth weapon but can't remember)

TIP: its better you find the comination that works best for your style and preferance, like me, i'm a defensive+offensive player, i make sure everyone can heal, but i keep one or two that can deal damage, and have one that can cast status enhancement magic like haste, find your style and experiment, because thats only half the fun of it isn't it?;)

Yuffie - Rising Sun - double growth. Steal it from Diamond Weapon

Cloud: You wouldn't understand.
Barret: So this is what makes them guys in SOLDIER so great, huh!? Okay, I'll ask Jessie again later. But you're in charge of the materia!