Thunderclaws have an annoying side quest in the early stages of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, which tasks you to pressure one during a short fight.
Pressuring an enemy is vital to building up the Stagger bar, and while you can spam attacks against lower-level enemies, that isn’t always going to pressure an opponent.
It would be best to learn the enemy’s weakness to pressure any opponent, let alone Thunderclaw. If you’ve used the Assess Materia on an enemy during battle, you can check their weakness in the Main Menu in the “Enemy Intel” option or by pressing the touchpad mid-fight. But if you just want to skip the fluff, here is how to deal with Thunderclaw specifically.
How to pressure a Thunderclaw in FF7 Rebirth
Thunderclaws in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth can be pressured by inflicting them with detrimental status effects, such as Poison. Fortunately, you start the adventure with a Poison Materia equipped with Red XIII, which grants him the Bio magic attack, so you’ll want to have him in the main party before you start the fight. If you’d rather not use Red XIII for this, be sure to equip the Poison Materia to someone else.
Once the fight starts, switch control to whichever character has the Poison Materia equipped and build up your ATB bar. Once you have a single bar filled, use Bio on a Thunderclaw, and this should cause it to get pressured.
Hit it a few more times with Bio if it doesn’t work, and keep hitting it afterward with physical attacks to cause it to Stagger. The only other task for this side quest is to defeat all the enemies within the time limit, which shouldn’t be an issue.
If you fail to complete any of the three tasks, you can hold the Triangle Button while in the area to force the enemies to spawn and try again.
