How to prevent Whymzelett from taking flight in FF7 Rebirth

Most Combat Assignments in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth are very straightforward. Pressure an enemy, stagger it, do it in time, done. However, every now and then, there is a Combat Assignment that gives you an annoying challenge, and preventing Whymzeletts from taking flight is one of them.

I’ll tell you how to prevent these flying monsters from taking flight so you can finish all the Combat Assignment challenges.

Before you can prevent Whymzelett from taking flight in FF7 Rebirth

Before you begin Fiend Intel 2: Zemze Breaks in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, you need to equip everyone with an Ice Materia. If you have the Fire and Ice Materia from the Grassland region, that also works.

Character-specific elemental attacks won’t be enough because they do very little elemental damage. So, make sure your three party members have anything that can cast Blizzard at the least. I also recommend you equip Cloud with a First Strike Materia just to give him a full ATB bar at the start of the battle.

As for your party members, pick whoever you like. I picked Barret and Red because they just happened to be with me at the time. While Barret is definitely a great pick for this fight because of his range, you can also take Tifa with you because of her amazing ability to quickly build up the Stagger bar.

Once everyone has an Ice Materia equipped, go ahead and start the Combat Assignment.

How to prevent Whymzelett from taking flight in FF7 Rebirth

To prevent Whymzeletts from taking flight, attack them with Blizzard (or Blizzara) with two characters at once as soon as they start casting Soothing Breeze. You only have a couple of seconds, but if you know what to do, you won’t really need more than that. 

Easier said than done, so allow me to give you a step-by-step guide.

• Start the battle and quickly build up everyone’s ATB bars by focusing on only one Whymzelett. 
• Only spend an ATB if you have two. In other words, always keep one on standby. 
• Attack one Whyzelette with basic attacks until it starts casting Soothing Breeze.
• Immediately after a Whymzelette starts casting Soothing Breeze,  cast Blizzard at it with at least two characters (one usually isn’t enough unless it’s a Blizzara).
• The Whymzelett will be Pressured after taking enough Ice damage.
• Repeat this process until you defeat it.

Preventing one Whymzelette from flying is hard enough, but you have two to deal with. I fought the Whymzelettes several times, and, from my experience, the one you focus on casts Soothing Breeze more often. That isn’t to say that the other one won’t try it, just not as often.

If the other one attempts to cast Soothing Breeze, you will get a little notification on the side of the screen, even if the Whymzelette is behind you. When this happens again, immediately cast two Blizzard spells at it and pressure it. After the other one has been pressured, go back to fighting the first one. Don’t drop your guard after you kill one of them: Even just one Whymzelett can cast Soothing Breeze and take flight while also ruining your challenge attempt. 

If both Whymzelettes cast Soothing Breeze at the same time, there’s not much you can do, and you may as well restart the fight. You can try to cast two Blizzards at each of them and hope you get lucky and pressure them both, but one of them will probably take flight. This only happened once to me, and if you focus on one at a time, this shouldn’t happen.

Whymzelett location and drops in FF7 Rebirth

Getting to the Whymzeletts is pretty easy. From Gabe’s Ranch, follow the path marked on the image to get to the battle location. You don’t really need a Chocobo to get there, but I recommend you mount one so you get there faster. It’s directly south of the Junon region Mog House.

The only things Whymzeletts drop are Beast Pelts and Beast Talons. Sure, these are used for several crafting recipes, but they aren’t really hard to get elsewhere. More importantly, fighting these birds again is very… unpheasant and awkward… because the fight takes a long time, the experience isn’t great, and once they start flying, they take forever to kill.