Trine (Final Fantasy VII)

Trine is an attack spell in Final Fantasy VII. It is an enemy skill used by the bosses Materia Keeper and Godo, and the regular enemy Stilva. Trine can be learned on the Enemy Skill Materia for the player to use, but there are limited times it is available. It is a useful enemy skill to learn for its power and MP cost.
==Obtained==
If learning each enemy skill the earliest they are available, Trine is learned midway (13th, in order) through mastering the Materia, from the boss Materia Keeper in Mt. Nibel. Materia Keeper will use Trine right after using Cure2, which it will use once its HP drops below 50%.
The next chance to learn it is from the boss Godo from Yuffie's sidequest in the pagoda in Wutai. The last chance is from manipulating Stilva in the Gaea's Cliff caverns. Gaea's Cliff is an unrevisitable location, and though Stilva also appears on the Battle Square, it is not possible to learn E.Skills permanently there. To get Trine to all four Enemy Skill Materia, the player would need to leave Godo for until after they have all four, as the last one is in Chocobo Sage's cabin where the player can only visit when they have the Highwind. Trine is one of the few missable enemy skills in the game.
As Trine is strong, equipping for Lightning-protection in these battles is a good idea, with armor, Bolt Ring, or Elemental+Lightning Materia/Ramuh.
==Stats==
Command Materia	Enemy Skill Materia
Effect 	Moderate-major Lightning elemental damage to target party. Cannot be reflected.
MP cost 	20
Reflect 	No
Trine deals damage in the following formula:
:(34 / 16) \times [ (Level + Magical~Attack) \times 6 ]
where "Level" is the caster's current level and "Magical Attack" is their Magic atk stat. Trine attacks the entire enemy party, but does not split the damage (1/3 reduction in power) unlike Magic spells do with All Materia.
==Use==
Trine deals Lightning-elemental magic damage to all opponents at the cost of 20 MP and it cannot be reflected. Its spell power is equal to 2.125x the base magic damage. Trine is capable of killing most enemies in one hit when it is first acquired. As Trine consumes little MP, it is a favorable choice for finishing off random encounters, and is efficient for Limit-grinding.
Trine is less powerful than its Water- and Fire-elemental counterparts in the Enemy Skill Materia, Aqualung and Beta. All three can be obtained fairly close together within the story.
Trine is good against groups of enemies, especially if they are weak to Lightning. Trine is more powerful than Bolt2 while also costing slightly less MP and targeting all enemies; the downside is that Enemy Skill Materia cannot be paired with Support Materia, whereas Lightning Materia can. Trine is half as powerful as Bolt3, but has a much lower MP cost and natively targets all enemies, whereas Bolt3 would need to be paired with All and would also thus suffer from 1/3 reduction in its power for being group-cast, making Trine still competitive against multiple enemies. Setting up Magic Materia with All also takes up two Materia slots, whereas an Enemy Skill Materia can hold numerous spells while only taking up a single slot.
Trine is more powerful than Ramuh while also costing less MP.
Good times to use Trine include against groups of enemies that are not dispatched with Matra Magic, such as Battery Caps, and any upcoming bosses, such as Palmer, Jenova∙LIFE, and Schizo. Trine is good against groups of mechanical enemies, or mechanical enemies that have multiple parts: Grosspanzer∙Mobile and Carry Armor.
==Etymology==
Category:Enemy Skills in Final Fantasy VII