Best Builds for Barret in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth

Barret is a fantastic range/tank/support character for your party in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, which makes it very difficult to build his character. This is the reason why I made some of the best builds for Barret in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth to help you get started with this tanky DPS.

Best builds for Barret in FF7 Rebirth

Since Barret is a versatile ranged character, we have a few different builds you can improve on once you get more powerful equipment!

Tanky Support Build

If you find Aerith a bit too fragile for your team, Barret is your next best option as a support. This build utilizes Barret's innate tankiness and transforms him into an awesome healing tank with a Gatling gun!

For this build, I recommend leveling up these nodes as early as you can:

• United Refocus
• Electric Impulse
• Mad Dash
• Selfish Recovery Boost
• Iron Defense
• Max HP Up
• Avalanche Two-Step

This build is basically the same as the default Aerith. However, you'll be utilizing physical attacks instead of elemental spells. Barret excels in building up his ATB much quicker than Aerith, which makes him a viable user of Prayer.

Barret builds up more ATB by expending his Overcharge onto enemies, which you can do by pressing the Overcharge button (Triangle) after Barret uses a skill or reloads his Gatling gun.

With Barret's Overcharge mechanic, you can easily cast powerful early-game skills like Steelskin and Maximum Fury, which are both your main defensive and offensive skills. On the other hand, you can also cast Cure/Cura on your low-health party members since Barret can quickly build up his ATB gauge from a distance.

Tanky Maximum Fury Build

This next build is viable if you already have a support character on your team like Aerith. It makes use of Barret's insane Maximum Fury damage, as well as his high health pool and defense.

The Folio Nodes are somewhat similar to the Tanky support build; here are some of the nodes I recommend for this build:

• United Refocus
• Electric Impulse
• Mad Dash
• Enhanced Overcharge
• Iron Defense
• Max HP Up
• Avalanche Two-Step
• Selfish Recovery Boos
• Overload Overcharge

Barret's main role here is to deal as much ranged damage onto the enemy with his Square attack and Overcharge until he can cast Maximum Fury. Since Barret is very tanky with this build, you'll have no worries when soaking up all the damage and having another support heal you.

Barret can also perform the Mad Dash with Cloud or Red XIII to deal more damage to the enemy during your downtime. I still put the Electric Impulse in this build in case your party is lacking a lightning elemental spell so you can at least pressure or interrupt some monsters in the field.

Related: How to upgrade Weapons in FF7 Rebirth

AI Barret Build

If you're not the type of player who swaps in and out of characters in the heat of the battle, then this build is for you.

Following this equipment build, these are the Folio Nodes needed to further optimize AI Barret's entire kit:

• United Refocus
• Enhanced Overcharge
• Mad Dash
• Selfish Recovery Boost
• Overload Overcharge
• Avalanche Two-Step
• Friendly Fire

The main star of the build is the Auto-Unique Ability Cast materia, which means AI will automatically cast Barret's Overcharge even if you aren't controlling him. This materia essentially increases the damage output of AI Barret by a lot, especially if you're focusing only on one character while playing the game.

The Auto Cast materia, on the other hand, allows AI Barret to cast Cure on a low-health party member without needing any direct commands from the player. You can opt to replace the Healing Materia with Prayer instead, making AI Barret a self-sustaining machine throughout the battle.

If this got you hooked on Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, check out How to prevent enemies from taking flight when using Soothing Breeze in FF7 Rebirth right here at Pro Game Guides!