Mug Materia is an “upgraded” version of the Steal Materia in CRISIS CORE -FINAL FANTASY VII- REUNION, basically mixing a normal attack and Steal attempt in one go. Useful for when you want to cause both physical and fiscal pain in one go, but perhaps not quite as useful if you want to keep an enemy alive… perhaps in order to make a followup attempt at thievery in case the first one is unsuccessful. For most, adding damage to Steal makes Mug a worthy upgrade, especially if you’re willing to use a Brigand’s Glove to ensure !steal attempts are successful, or when you’re dealing with late-game enemies, who will probably survive a couple of hits. Unfortunately, Mug isn’t easy to obtain, requiring you to deal with powerful foes, and there are many pitfalls when it comes to Materia Fusion, which will be discussed below.

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(1 of 4) You can mug !Mug from !Lesser Demon enemies, but be wary - they only appear in one mission, and it’s a 10-star difficulty mission.

Where to Get Mug¶

You’ll earn an orb of Mug Materia by completing Mission 1-1-6, which doesn’t unlock until Chapter 10 and requires you to defeat 1,000 Shinra Troopers. While mostly fodder, the enemies in this 6-star mission can reduce you to 1 HP with some of their attacks, which makes an unexpected death always possible. Failing that, you can find some Mug Materia in the final dungeon, also in Chapter 10.

If you’re strong enough, you can attempt to !steal a Mug Materia from the Lesser Demon enemy in Mission 9-6-4, but this is a 10-star difficulty mission, so come prepared.

Failing those rather attractive options, you can always use Materia Fusion to upgrade either Steal Materia or Smart Consumer Materia. Smart Consumer is arguably more disposable, and you can find them in Missions 8-6-5 (8-stars) or 6-5-2 (9-stars). You can also !steal Smart Consumer Materia from Very Hungry enemies in Missions 9-5-2 and 9-5-4 (10-stars) but at that point you might as well just try to !steal Mug directly.

While Mug is higher on the totem pole than Steal, it’s not a particularly strong or stable materia when used in Materia Fusion. If Mug’s level is maxed out, it’ll probably turn into Gil Toss or some other, more dominant materia when fused with just about anything. Obviously if you’re trying to add stats to Mug, this isn’t ideal, and you’ll need to use a low-level Mug Materia and low-level Libra Materia if you want to use, adding stats via fusion items.

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Use !Mug to deal damage and attempt to steal at the same time - most enemies worth stealing from won’t be killed in a few mug attempts.

What Makes Mug Good¶

Steal is good because it allows you to… well, steal items from enemies. Mug is useful for the same reason, but it also deals damage, improving the action economy of your pilfering attempts. There are some downsides, namely accidentally killing an enemy before you can successfully steal from them, but Brigand’s Gloves will mitigate this, and frankly, any enemy with items worth stealing probably isn’t going to die before you can steal something. Another potential downside is that Mug costs AP, while Steal does not, but for strong, late-game enemies worth stealing from, you’ll probably be using the Genji Helm anyways, especially if you’re also fond of spamming Aerial Drain.

While it’s somewhat annoying to put stats on Mug, it’s worth the effort to farm stat-boosting fusion materials just to have the option to steal always available to you.