Suggestd by DivineChoas88
Here we have Cloud Strife who is the main character of Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, going up against Squall Leonhart from Final Fantasy VIII, who is making he first apperance on the site.
From what I have read about both of these characters I would have to give this battle to Cloud. So….
Who wins?
UPDATE: (9.9.2010) – Cloud will be equipped with The First Tsurugi. Squall will have the Lionheart.
To make this more interesting there will be two battles one were items aren’t allowed to be used, and one which items can be used.
FIRST
Im not all that much of a cloud fan, but I haven realy heard of Squall’s abilities, except for dissedia. He is way faster than cloud in that game, is that true?
Squall is my favourite favourite Final Fantasy character but I’m giving this to Cloud…for the time being that is.
@Admin
What weapons do they each have? And abilities? Are they in possession of their ultimate weapons and have they realized their potential?
WELL IT HAD TO HAPPEN SOONER OR LATER!
Let’s see… Cloud had materia to enable his spellcasting abilities whereas Squall had to ‘draw’ spells from enemies so he had a stock of spells to cast from. Which meant a limited pre-battle stockof up to 99 of any particular spell. But during battle he could use spells drawn from whoever he is fighting. So if Cloud had spells unique to his world Squall could use them himself, if he had the chance and if they weren’t engaged in swordplay. Which I’m unconvinced is likely. And as far as swordplay goes I suspect Squall wouldn’t win even with a gunsword. However that is merely speculation on my part.
“And as far as swordplay goes I suspect Squall wouldn’t win even with a gunsword.”
Cloud definitly has the reach but what if Squall has lionhart or w/e it is his ultimate sword is called?
Squall article on wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squall_Leonhart
Cloud article on wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Strife
Was curious as to how tall Cloud was and found this: wiki.answers.com/Q/How_tall_is_cloud_strife
5’8″ if you can’t be arsed to click. Squall himself is 5’9″ (it’s in the article link in my last post). Granted it’s probably of little consequence but it is pretty relevant.
When I said reach, I meant sword length. Cloud’s swords are bigger.
Oh. Ok. I’ve heard the Buster Sword was over five feet long (I say ‘heard’ I mean googled it) and the First Tsurugi is of similar dimensions. However the only comparisons I have been able to make for Squall’s sword is through picture reference because I cannot find either quoted dimensions or speculations. My guess would be that Squall’s sword is between three and four feet long.
“My guess would be that Squall’s sword is between three and four feet long.”
I cannot comment on that but it is definitly smaller.
I don’t mean to sound like a fanboy or anything, but Cloud takes this easily. Cloud is basically a superhuman, he is infused with mako and injected with jenova cells. This gives him super strength,(as seen by the fact he can lift his sword and cut buildings in half) his reaction time is way above normal,(has to be to keep up with sephiroth) and pretty much everything else is of superhuman level. Not to mention that Cloud’s materia setup is infinitely better than Squall’s magic.
Squall is a normal human, yes he has elite military training, but he is still a normal human unlike Cloud.
Besides, even if Squall is faster than Cloud (unlikely), Cloud can just split his First Tsurugi up so he can dual wield.
@Nolston
We don’t know what weapons they get. So we’re using Standard Equipment.
Cloud gets the Buster Sword and Squall his gunblade.
Admin is the only one who can tell what they get and what they don’t.
I like what Olis said in post #4 regarding magic.
How is The First Tsurugi not Cloud’ standard equipment? that is his sword from Advent Children, which is his most recent incarnation. Plus, go look at all the other Cloud Strife threads, he uses The First Tsurugi in all those.
As for “drawing” magic from cloud, can you prove he could draw magic from materia?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_%28Final_Fantasy_VII%29#Materia
besides, I was more referring to the fact that Cloud can link several different maria together like preemptive+shield which would cast shield at the beginning of the battle. Shield makes Cloud absorb all elemental magic and physical attacks. Or Cloud could link final attack+Phoenix, which makes Cloud cast Phoenix after he dies so Phoenix can bring him back to life.
Whatever…Tsurugi or no Tsurugi, the end result is the same…Squall loses badly.
It is a shame because I prefer Squall over Cloud any day.
Nolston, Squall can do the same thing regarding the casting of final attack and phoenix. From what I remember, it was easy to make the characters in final fantasy 8 literally invincible through the right magic combinations.
@Johnnyquest
Now, that you mention it. My Squall always had death on his status attack….
So… is this battle going to devolve into a game mechanics comparison of whether FF7 or FF8 allows for a more imbalanced magic build? Or is this actually going to be a battle based on what canonical feats they have shown to be capable of?
Although with that said, apparently Squall can survive a massive ice shard going directly through his heart…. but the game never explains why or how?… but this is FF8 we are talking about, it has the tendency of making very little sense.
Although, this site, offers a different perspective on what happens to squall after he battles the sorceress Edea (not ultimecia). www.squallsdead.com/
If this interpretation of 8 suits you, then Cloud should beat Squall pretty easily, since it instantly eliminates all the canon from disc 2 on, as it would simply be a dream.
@Johnnyquest
No, in FF8 there was a CHANCE phoenix would come revive you. I don’t remember how you increased the chances though.
@Blood Dancer
Even if Squall does have death status attack, Cloud can cast stop or a death spell of his own.
Instead of making this a magic fight how about we stick with sword fighting because magic will just become a who can cast a spell first battle.
@ Cpt Olimar
I find that theory interesting, but we have no way to prove it.
Odin or Gilgamesh can win the battle for Squall by just appearing instantly before the battle starts.
Slicing and dicing Cloud with one ungodly slash.
I will let you know that when I suggested this, I intended them to both be at full power. Cloud has mastered all of his materia and has either the Ultima Weapon or the First Tsurugi (the canonical better weapon isnt quite specified). And the way I intended, Squall has 100 of the strongest form of possible spells (ex: firaga, blizzaga, etc) filling his 32 slots for spells. He also has Lionheart and his GFs are maxed out. Whether admin wants these to be the terms or not is up to him, and I should probably withhold many comments until then.
@nolston
I can understand if you are unfamiliar with Squall’s junction system, so I will explain. Squall’s junction system allows him to use magic to boost his abilities. The amount of the magic he has of the same type affect how effective the boost is. In other words 100 fire> 20 fire therefore 100 fire gives a better boost. Also, he has two sections of his junction system that allow him to equip magic to attack and defense. These sections are elemental and status.
Elemental: By equipping an element to this section, it will cause that element to be used in each of his physical attacks. This basically has the same effect as Cloud’s elemental materia. The 100>20 rule applies. Equipping an element to defense makes Squall resistant to that element and even allows absorbtion of it.
Status: Similar to Elemental by equipping status magic, that status is inflicted in a physical attack. Example: Equipping sleep causes the enemy to fall asleep when attacked. The defense is the same as elemental defense, except he cannot absorb status magic. For example, with 100 deaths equips, he becomes immune to death.
Squalls advantage is in this system is his ability to use the Ribbon ability from a GF allowing immunity to all status changes as well as Equipping 100 Ultimas, giving immunity to all elements, leaving Cloud to a fight using only his sword and non-elemental or status changing attack magic (ex:Enemy Skill Matra Magic)
Also one thing that im curious about the Factpile community’s response to is a fact that I am about to point out. No matter the weapon or ability, Squall’s hit rate is 255%, meaning he never misses. I am expecting people to jump at it with gameplay mechanics, but with all weapons like that, it is truly saying something. It is like with Kharn the Betrayer. He is said to never miss, which is even now still considered a valid point.
I will leave it at this for now and wait till other comments stack up. It will be a good fight.
@DivineChaos88
interesting, but I still fail to see how this helps beat someone with superhuman physical abilities like Cloud.
For magic Cloud can just cast shield making him absorb all elemental magic and physical attacks. With a ribbon and time+added affect he is immune to all status ailments.
When it comes to summons, Cloud is better as he instantly summons instead of a charge time. Plus with Knights of the Round Squall will instantly die.
Here is a list of all Cloud’s materia.
www.uffsite.net/ff7/materias.php
What a surprise…more weeaboo garbage.
*Looks at Bloods comment to admin*
This hurt……
*looks at top left then leaves*
@nolston
Knights of the Round wouldnt instantly kill Squall, also, Squall has the advantage of being able to use hero, making him temporarily invulnerable. Despell could immediately take down Cloud’s shield making his advantage only cost him MP in the end. This especially hurts him if he has Destruct materia equipped as Squall can constantly use Cloud’s magic as he draws it to dispell Cloud’s shield with no drawbacks.
The time abilities are the exact same on the 2 games, leaving Squall able to use haste as well as Cloud. Squall also has a physical advantage in his use of meltdown, a spell that instantly brings an opponents vitality to 0. Squall’s advantages in summons are:
1. he can equip as many as he wants
2. His magic and summons do not decrease his physical abilities as they do to Cloud
3. The summons take his place when he is preparing them as far as health goes, so he is unaffected
4. He can summon them as many times as he needs
5. His summons grant him many abilites such as upgrading his speed and strength by 60%.
With magic Squall also has Aura, greatly increasing the chances of having a limit break. Another advantage is that Squall doesnt have to fill a meter to get a limit break allowing for more, however this may also be a disadvantage as his health is low for the most limit breaks.
As for the superhuman nature that you describe, Cloud had the exact same animated abilities in cutscenes as Squall did, indicating similar abilities. Cloud was merely far more popular, and he had a movie made after him. Cloud fought many Weapons including Ruby and Emerald which is certainly impressive, but Squall defeated the Ultima Weapon which is at least equally as powerful as the weapons on FF7. Also they have both had the same effects when shot by bullets, something in common with all FF characters. Their reactions are the same.
As far as materia goes, i dont need a list lol, Ive been playing FF7 constantly, but its been a while since I played 8.
@DivineChaos88
First off, lets leave items alone please, do you really want to play the items game?
Second, can you prove Squall can draw from materia, which is basically Crystallized knowledge from the life stream.
Third, Cloud can also bring all summon and spell materia thanks to the master summon and master magic materia and master command materia. Then there is W-Summon and W-Magic Materia which lets Cloud cast a summon or magic twice with only the mp cost of one spell.
As for aura, Cloud can despell it. Plus as seen in Advent Children Cloud can do a limit break whenever he wants.
I think gameplay mechanics should be avoided here. Because if it were transfered to a real-time scenario (like Advent Children) HP by Final Fantasy standards is a measurement of endurance instead of damage. That’d be pretty equal across the board for both of them maxed out methinks.
No, I think we should look at them as characters as a few people attempted. Cloud dodged and blocked bullets left and right. Even wearing equipment (however unlikely) that is apparently bulletproof. Even with bullet proof glasses that should’ve knocked a person out. Not to mention he was shot full of holes and stabbed to hell and sliced and diced and still running around and fighting after the Sephiroth match in Advent Children.
Someone already mentioned that he’s a super soldier developed off the template of a character that eventually become a self proclaimed god (more accurately described as a demi-god). Said character is one he’s defeated three times on his one (first time before experimented on).
As for Squall being faster in Dissidia that is part of the gameplay mechanics; they needed something to even characters out and Cloud was supposed to just be the physical beast for the heroes side of things.
I see no way Squall can keep up. I appreciate both guys but so far –at least in real life debates I’ve had– the only thing I’ve seen people effectively claim in favor of Squall was that his final limit did more damage.
I will admit I caught myself after i posted last time on the master summon skill. But that comes with the disadvantage as he cannot use a magic in its place, taking 1 of the 16 slots.
Leaving items out puts cloud at the disadvantage of being able to cast Knights of the Round even fewer times as their magic cost is 250, which could be blocked off by Squalls GFs.
By despelling aura, Cloud is using up MP again while Squall can cast Aura up to 100 times.
Triple has the advantage of using three spells in one turn over W-Summon, or W-Magic gives the use of two, however Triple doesnt get rid of the magic cost.
As for drawing the materia, drawing merely takes magic from a source of magic. Without the Junctions, FF8 characters cannot use magic, so the GFs take magic from those that can so humans can use it. Materia would be a such source.
The limit break was basically an example of filling the meter out of gameplay. On Advent Children, he used the Limit Break after his major beating from Sephiroth.
Your turn
I may as well also add that I forgot the mastery of all materia. The slots wouldnt be much of an issue obviously
@DivineChaos88
No, as I said before, there is Master Magic, and Master command. That is 3 of 16, the rest can be whatever he wants.
You still haven’t explained how Squall can survive Knights of the Round, let alone W-summon knights of the Round. How could GFs block a summon WHEN THEY HAVE A CHARGE TIME! Plus with the mime command Cloud can just mime his W-Summon or whatever he wants with no mp cost.
Cloud can dispell triple and double so there goes that.
As for mp, cloud can link Knights of the Round and mp abosrb to give him all his mp back.
Materia are not a source of magic, they are crystallized knowledge, that is all. There is no magic in a materia, people basically summon the knowledge of how to use a spell from the materia.
You are also wrong about Clouds limit breaks, when Cloud fights Loz and Yazoo, he uses blade beam to block and earth type attack from Loz. Again he uses braver against Bahumat SIN when he hasn’t even been hit.
Personally I think this fight would be far more interesting if magic was completely ejected from the dabate and both were stuck with just their swords. Otherwise, as the Good Cap’N said, this is going to involve a lot of game mechanics.
That said, since magic is going to be a part of this debate, I might as well just right on head first.
Cloud could just link Master Magic materia with MP Absorb and regain MP per hit with spells.
Does Squall have a defense against Death spells?
Ok here we go with the actual debate.
Going by your logic of Materia, MP Absorb would be unable to work on Squall because Squall has no MP, only spells. MP Absorb would be a waste as it merely takes MP from one source and gives it to another.
Dispelling triple and double would bring up little issue as Squall can either cast it on himself or have Cerberus do the same. A GF “blocks” because when it is summoned, it replaces Squall’s HP with it’s own. Also when the GF blocks for Squall, the damage of Knights of the round may defeat the GF, but Return Damage would come into play and 1/4 of the damage of Knights of the Round’s 129,987 damage kills Cloud before he can cast a second time.
Materia isn’t quite crystalized knowledge. It is a crystalized and condensed form of the lifestream. It calls upon the wisdom of the lifestream as it is used. The lifestream is doing the magic and the materia is part of the lifestream. Cloud would be unable to use magic without the Materia as we all know. In either case, the draw ability doesn’t matter much in the fight.
I admit to have forgotten about the fight with Loz and Yazoo, but that would merely leave the door open to the same going for Squall.
Let me know if Ive left anything out
@Original A
As stated above, yes he has resistance and immunity to death
You didn’t mention how Squall will survive a Death spell.
Ignore Post 33.
Lag of page refresh times.
While it is on my mind, i must also add that Ribbon does not make Cloud immune to death as it does with Squall. Squall can have innitiative, immediately allowing him to cast Death before Cloud could use Death Force to make himself immune. If Cloud used an accessory aside from Ribbon to prevent death, he opens himself up to the status effects that could be used on him. With my favorite being Zombie then life.
If we are going to play that game, then final attack+ phoenix brings Cloud back to life every time he dies. Or he could link final attack and Knights of the Round so Squall dies anyway in which case we have a draw. Also, if Cloud has shield cast on him then this rebound won’t have an effect.
With mp absorb+master magic, Cloud can just keep dispelling until Squall runs out of double and triple.
@DivineChaos88
actually, all it takes to make Cloud immune to death is death+added effect on his armor.
I think, but am not 100% sure, that Death + Added Effect in an armor slot gives Cloud immunity to instant death attacks.
That said, if Squall uses a Death spell against Cloud and it fails to kill Cloud, would Squall then loose his immunity to Death spells due to no longer having the max amount of Death spells equiped?
Thats weird. I was always under the impression that both of those guys were from the same game.
I have a question, can you dispell a summon? I know it doesn’t work in FF7 because summons are instant, but what about FF8 where summons take time?
@OriginalA
Yes, if he did cast a death spell he would lose total immunity, though it would still be 99% immunity.
Only in Dissidia and Kingdom Hearts, both of which are not the home canon (and thus irrelivent in this match) of either character.
Cloud is the main player character in FF7 and Squall is the same in FF8.
Squall does not run out of double or triple merely because of Cerberus.
Im sorry this post took so long, I was testing somethings out on FF7. Final attack has a limit of five uses and when they are brought back by pheonix, they have to prepare to attack from scratch. Like I said before, If Squall cant draw from Cloud, then how can Cloud absorb MP that Squall doesnt have?
As for knights of the round being equipped, it would end in a draw, but admin will not allow draws.
As far as dispelling FF8 summons, they can be stopped if the character is silenced and only if they are silenced
Is swordplay an issue here, or is it (as I suspect) a bit of a curbstomp?
“Odin or Gilgamesh can win the battle for Squall by just appearing instantly before the battle starts.
Slicing and dicing Cloud with one ungodly slash.”
My, my, a lady that likes Final Fantasy VIII and likes Squall…
Alright, we got to stop the materia talk. It’s too much gameplay mechanics that won’t solve anything. Maybe an admin call needs to be made right now for that issue.
As for Odin/Gilgamesh…It’s not like Cloud’s taken on summons that according to stats and exp aren’t already stronger than VII’s version of Odin. Like his weaker precursor Zack bagging a standard Bahamut and himself bagging the “Bahamut SIN” who by all accounts in cut scenes seems to have even greater destructive power.
I know they’re two different summons from the two different games. But in a real-time fight the insta-death thing doesn’t really work (just look at FFIX when Odin was summoned in a cut scene) and can be countered just as well by the likes of either Cloud or Squall. Hell, Seifer did it, didn’t he?
@CIDE
I agree, but DivineChaos88 requested this, match unless admin says different we are playing by his rules. Plus, in a sword fight, Cloud wins easily. His first Tsurugi can change from it’s normal form to 7 different swords which he can dual wield.
@DivineChaos88
One major thing that Cloud has and Squall doesn’t, is enemy skills. Great E-skills like shadow flare(more powerful than flare) and Pandora’s Box can easily kill Squall as they are both non-elemental and very powerful.
Also, let’s say for whatever reason Squall does kill Cloud and Cloud used Final attack+ Phoenix, Cloud can cast ???? which does more damage the less hp you have.
“Alright, we got to stop the materia talk. It’s too much gameplay mechanics that won’t solve anything.”
How so? I can see how a few could be (Action Materia like Steal mostly), but the other types of materia are still fair game. Stop freezes the target in time, Frog turns them into a frog (obviously), Fire engulfs the target in flames, Bahamut summons a giant dragon out of thin air, Regen gives spontaneous cellular regeneration, and Death instantly kills the target. Most of Cloud’s materia have definite and quantifiable effects. And we know materia themselves are’nt game mechanics since 2 are integral to the plot of the first game, and we actually see a whole bunch in Advent Children.
hmmm…
Cloud beat sephiroth
Squall beat ultimecia…
Ultimecia better than Sephioth
so wouldn’t that mean Squall > Cloud?
then again i really have no clue as to who’s winning-all this game mechanics and abilities talk is ding my head in
Interestingly enough i havn’t seen any real fanboys pop up…why?
All those status effects and insta-death attacks also deal in chance. They follow stats and it’s like rolling a dice. No promise that it’s going to land and thus no way to say “this beats this”. That and both sides can be made immune to such things.
ASsuming both are maxed out we have to rule them all out. In that case the constant rebirth of Cloud gives him a huge advantage in a damage based fight. Also, if I recall I’ve used MP absorb linked materia that was successful on even targets with 0 MP left. If that works then it should still work on an MP-less Squall. Then again my copy of the game has some some strange things and could be just another glitch.
And uh…Ultamecia Vs Sephiroth is a battle for another day.
I have only played FF7 and not FF8, so can’t really do a direct comparison, but one thing that struck me as cool was the fact that Cloud, even before he was juiced up on Mako energy and Sephiroth cells (I am pretty sure it is Sephiroth cells and not Jenovah cells directly), he is able to survive a sword through the chest (during the mako reactor flashback when Sephiroth first goes crazy). Cloud gets stabbed through the chest and is even able to lift up Sephiroth by clutching the masamune and throws him into the reactor.
Just saying, that’s pretty bad ass, especially considering that is Cloud at his weakest.
lol wow! man look at everyone go! ok so ive played both games all the way through more than once and leaving the magic out of it i think cloud would take it hands down. but as divine chaos has said about squall being litterally unstoppable is quite true, i mean u can become like a god really and against any enemy. when i was cloud fighting the weapons and i was max out with everything from your phoenixfinal materia to knights and i got beat. but the again if the fight just started and both were staring at each other across the field and each started their first move which would be attacking probably, if clouds first move was knights? how would squall not die again???
Ok for some reason I cannot edit the post so i will say it here and ask admin to also add it in the actual post.
Cloud will be equipped with The First Tsurugi.
Squall will have the Lionheart.
To make this more interesting there will be two battles one were items aren’t allowed to be used, and one which items can be used.
So… this’ll be a two-nil romp then, as opposed to a singular curbstomp?
@Olis
With items Squall wins unfortunately. Squall has two items, one called hero and the other holy war, which make him invincible. Without items Cloud murders Squall.
Ok Im back I know you dont care to hear my story, but we are moving, Im painting my house that im moving in to, tomorrow is my birthday, so I have a feeling itll be a hell on earth etc. The point is, I have minimal computer time for a while sadly.
The way I see it, Cloud’s best bet for winning is the Final Attack and Pheonix as I see no way around that (yes I am not too stubborn to admit defeat lol, but I dont think that defeat has come yet. Hopefully we can debate at other posts together nolston). However, each of the 5 times Cloud comes back, he loses haste and any other positive status effect while Squall doesnt have to worry about it. One thing I am really thinking about is zombie and life.
It seems as Cloud’s ribbon does not cover every status change as it implies. Death is considered a status change and it did not prevent that. Because of this, Zombie would work on Cloud. Cloud has no defense to zombie. When Zombie is used on an enemy, the use of life will one-hit kill the enemy. It even works on bosses as I remember it being my favorite way to kill the fake President Deling after his transformation (I have not memorized the name of that monster). Squall could easily have Zombie equipped onto his gunblade. When he goes for as swing, Cloud is put under the status effect. Cloud has one of two options at this point. One: He can use his heal materia to get rid of his status ailment, or two: he can recover his lost health, greater than many attacks because of the effects of Squall’s trigger. Either way, both leave him in an unsafe position.
Two more advantages of Squall are the fact that he can start with haste in effect and he can start the battle ready for any sort of attack actually allowing him the time to summon Eden, which could one-hit kill Cloud as Knights could one-hit Squall, or get in both zombie and Life before Cloud could react. This could also allow Squall to use Meltdown, bringing Cloud’s Vitality to 0. When Squall uses his trigger, this could allow a possible one-hit.
Okay, like I said before, it may be a little while before I can post again, so bear with me.
@DivineChaos88
Well happy birthday! Hope you have a good day, now on with the debate.
I don’t see how since the death spell works, zombie would work. Death is death, it is not an ailment, it is a status. Like in other games where people get the “KO” status, but it is not an ailment. If you want to make Cloud immune to death, all you have to do is link death with added effect.
Zombie however, is a status ailment. Granted, it was not in FF7. However in the ribbons description is says “Immune to all status ailments.”
Even if it does work,(which if he didn’t cast it Squall would have to hit Cloud, which is going to be petty hard. Especially if he dual wields.) all Cloud has to do is cast esuna on himself.
As for Squall getting in an attack before Cloud, not likely. Cloud can link preemptive with haste, and another preemptive with Knights of the Round and kill Squall quickly. I thought about preemptive + reflect, but I’m not sure if you can do that since it is the third out of four spells on the barrier materia.
Also, here is a thought, since you already said yourself there is no way around final attack+ phoenix, what if you linked another final attack to Knights of the Round. This way you are revived and you cast Knights of the Round.
Before you say anything about having more than one of the same materia, you said all materia was mastered. When you master a materia you get another of that same materia.
First of all thank you. You are actually the first to tell me, even over family.
As for Ribbon. Final Fantasy counts Death as a status effect just the same as Zombie, Silence, Stop, Petrify, etc.
finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Status_Effect
This link mentions it. It is a clear gap in what seems to be a flawless item at least showing a sign of an overestimated defense.
As for preemptive. It is a materia of mere chance that only allows up to 33% of a chance of gaining a preemptive strike on the opponent. It is not a linkable materia and it doesnt give automatic haste as it is an independent materia instead of a support materia. As for Squall’s Auto-Haste. It works 100% of the time and it actually works.
Dual wielding doesn’t necessarily give a user an advantage because it leaves a huge gap in defense as the wielder cannot block with their full strength as they only have one arm per blade. Also, Squall’s attacks like I said before never miss, whether they are blocked or not, they dont miss.
Also in anycase, Final Strike+Knights could easily backfire due to Return Damage. Anytime Cloud does an attack that deals at least 39,996 damage, he is killing himself as well and Squall’s charging of a Guardian Force would prevent any damage to Squall. FFVIII counters work regardless if the attack misses or it does no damage.
As for the master materia, I am completely aware of what I said. I have no intention of going back on my words. If Squall comes out only winning with items, thats fine by me. I dont really care who wins, Im just trying to get down to the bottom of it as I am a big fan of both characters. I will not deny any fact of the matter. I said that Cloud gets all of his materia mastered, so he gets all of it mastered.
I believe that is sufficient for now
Also I felt the need to add the materia you were thinking of. It is sneak attack that allows to use equipped materia at the beginning. It has an 80% chance of succeeding. Where that isn’t a bad chance, there is still no sure chance of success.
@DivineChaos88
As I Said, the description of the ribbon says, “Immune to all status effects.” zombie is a status effect, if it makes him immune to a status effect that wasn’t in his world or not is up for debate.
Also, if we go by your reasoning that since he is not immune to death then zombie should work, then linking death with added effect on his armor would make him immune to zombie.
But that is the thing, since Cloud is genetically superior to Squall Cloud could take his sword strike with one blade. If he could parry Sephiroth’s blade while dual wielding I am betting he could do the same to Squall.
As for Squall’s attacks not missing, that does not make much since, you are using game mechanics. Besides, saying he never misses even if you block his attack is a no limit fallacy .
But that is the beauty of this plan, even if Squall does summon a GF to use as a shield,(which he might not do due to the fact he doesn’t know what Cloud’s materia do, or even what it is.) Cloud is already dead, what is it going to do? Rebound on a corpse? Even if it does rebound he is already dead/dieing, and phoenix is going to resurrect him anyway.
There is also the matter of the magic counter materia and quadra magic materia. With magic counter linked to ultima Could will counter any magic or summon cast on him with ultima, and if you equip another ultima with quadra magic, that means that any spell Squall cast on Cloud will be countered with four ultimas in a row. Thus, using any magic or GF on Cloud will kill Squall.
@nolston
“With items Squall wins unfortunately. Squall has two items, one called hero and the other holy war, which make him invincible. Without items Cloud murders Squall.”
Huh, I forgot about those. Weren’t those items only supposed to last a limited time? I’m not sure; It’s been nearly a decade since I last played FF8.
@Olis
Yes, they last a limited amount of time but I’m not sure if Final attack+phoenix could keep Cloud alive long enough.
I know that items are not in the current fight and I dont want to make items allowed, with an exception. If you dont agree to the terms, I can understand. Some GFs are only summonable with the use of items and I propose that we give merely 5 of the possible 99 for each GF. Agreed?
In no way did I imply that Zombie in death are the same. I merely said that this item that is supposed to be the ultimate defensive item has some major holes in it. Holes that can be exploited and Zombie is likely to do it.In either case it cannot be proven, so we can drop this.
As for my saying Squall never misses, he always has a 255% hit rate, no matter the weapon. Cloud’s 255% hit rates only happen with 2(if I remember correctly) weaker weapons. Saying that Squall never misses is merely saying that each of his attacks hit their mark, even if it means that another blade blocking becomes that mark. You misunderstood me. It is like with Kharn the Betrayer, He has his fighting style set up to where he never misses his target and that has been an important fact in his debates on Factpile. As for Squall, it is likely do to his extensive training and mastery of his weapon. Cloud does not have such training with his weapon. He was merely given similar attributes to members of SOLDIER through major experimentation.
Also as far as Ultima goes reflect solves that problem as Squall can also star with that on him. This would kill Cloud. Also after the first spell is used, the rest is halved. Put that with Shell (which halves it again) and defend (mentioned lower) and it does little to Squall and Cloud is killing his magic.
I should now bring up something that I should have brought up earlier, GF abilities. No I dont mean the support abilities Ive been mentioning, but the command abilities I’ve been waiting for the right time to mention. Some would be useless in the battle, some could decide the battle. Also, there is no limits on the use of any of these.
Defend: Learned from the Brothers and Cactuar. It gives the user immunity to physical damage of any kind and halves magic damage. This solves the Knights issue.
Devour: Learned from Eden. This humorous ability allows the user to attempt to eat their opponent. This is a one-hit kill, but it doesn’t work as long as the opponent has more HP at the time. It is still never a 100% chance of success.
Darkside: Learned from Diablos, Doomtrain and Eden. This ability outputs 3 times the damage of a normal strike at the cost of 1/10 of the users hp. This should sound familiar.
Mad Rush: Learned from Ifrit and Eden. It is useless in this fight, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun. It casts Haste, Pretect, Shell, and Beserk on the user.
LV Up & LV Down: Learned from Tonberry. It allows the user to manipulate the level of the opponent. In other words, Squall can weaken Cloud.
Kamikaze: Learned from Cacuar I may want to add that Cactuar can also one-hit Cloud as it does 10,000 damage). The user sacfrices themselves to do six times their HP in damage. This would be foolish in such a fight though.
Absorb: Learned from Pandemona and Doomtrain. Allows the user to absorb HP of their opponents. Sound familiar?
Revive: Learned from Alexander. Not useful here,but it automatically restores a fallen party member
Recover: Learned from Leviathan. Equilvalent to free Full Cure (I know how much that costs).
Mug: Learned from Diablos. Self Explanatory.
Treatment: Learned from Siren. The strongest possible esuna as it even removes doom.
Doom: Learned from Shiva. Counter starts at five. When the counter reaches 0, the target dies.
Card: Learned from Quezacotl. Useless in this fight, turns enemy into a card. However since Cloud does not have his own Triple Triad card, it would not work.
MiniMog: Revives and heals all GFs
Rebirth Flame: Not a command ability, but worth mention. Pheonix comes in and revives all fallen party members, regardless of whether or not 1 is alive.
@ Olis
They both have a limited time, but it is enough time to kill just about anything before it is used up + each character has 99 of each item in their game in the item fight.
Note: I may have missed a few details. I had to retype that because my internet kicked me off
abalutly, posativaly EPIC
is there a “most epic fight aword”
Squal ftw. on another note “OH YEA”
@J hud
you could have said ALL that in a single post….
sry just woke up
btw ive got a splitting headache and im realy not in the write mind to realy be doing any thing. but im so bored im commenting and using my brain
well……im takin a shower
@ j hud
What the fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck, why?
@envoy
Maybe he is just trying to get his star count up.
@DivineChaos88
I am going to have to say no to the items, from my memory all the GF’s who need items to summon can’t really be considered summons. I remember boko, moomba, and mog, all of which are creatures you normally see around and can’t be called GFs in my opinion.
What you are suggesting is still just game mechanics, in a real battle nobody can guarantee a hit. As for having more training than Cloud, I’m inclined to disagree. Cloud was a shinra soldier, and as we have seen all shinra troops were trained with a sword as well as a gun. Granted they were not trained to use a sword as big as Cloud’s, but you can’t tell me after watching Cloud fight Sephiroth in Advent Children that he can not expertly wield his sword. There is also the fact that Squall would not know that Cloud’s sword can come apart, if they get into a sword lock all Cloud has to do is pull the short sword from his larger sword and strike Squall in the side with it. Since Squall does not know that his sword could do that I doubt he could dodge it.
Starting out with reflect is unlikely, from what I remember you can only have three special things like that. Since you want auto haste that leaves you two, and I would guess they would be put to better use on stat enhancers since Squall doesn’t know Cloud’s materia setup.
As for your GF commands, if you are using the setup of attack,magic,GF, that leaves only one slot left in which you can either give him one of the abilities you mentioned or items. Also, please refrain from talking about LV up or down as that is a game mechanic, as well as kamikaze since Cloud can just resurrect himself.
Ok now to start up again
Not quite the case in GFs I will not push the issue either way as it makes Pheonix or Gilgamesh appear automatically as well. But like I said, I refuse to change anything without your consent as well. I stick to my word.
I would agree that nobody can guarantee a hit, but try saying that in a Kharn debate. It’s the same concept.
Keep in mind that Cloud never was accepted into SOLDIER. He was rejected. Shinra’s soldiers may have been trained with a sword, but not extensively else it wouldnt be so easy for SOLDIERs to throw them aside, or completely untrained characters like a majority of Cloud’s partners.
“but you can’t tell me after watching Cloud fight Sephiroth in Advent Children that he can not expertly wield his sword.”
He is certainly good, but it does not matter as his lack of professional training holds him back still. He has not been trained extensively with the weapon.
Also scan is superior to sense. Sense tells an enemies HP and weaknesses while scan gives HP, Strengths, Weaknessess, stats, a complete visual model, and important information. With this, Squall would know anything he needs about Cloud. Also going to pull a second sword out leaves a gap in his defense in a sword lock. This gap can easily be bridged by a quick pull of the trigger and hurt Cloud.
Actually there are 4 possible GF support abilities. I was expecting to have to choose soon enough. Ribbon, Auto-Haste, Return Damage, and Initiative would likely be the most useful.
Also i was expecting to have to choose for the others as well. Draw and Item would be absolutely be eliminated. Defend would be the quickest to choose as with it, he can survive anything Cloud throws at him. Although Magic Could be replaced with recover. Of course, I could call game mechanics, but I refuse to do so.
Attack
GF
Magic
Defend
All the parts Squall needs to come out on top here.
Squall can endure Cloud’s attacks with little to no damage (as even with destruct magic, Cloud cannot get rid of defend). Anytime Cloud does anything to take off Squall’s Shell and protect, Squall can immediately bring them back. Any attack that Cloud sends at him only damages himself whether they land or not and Squall can give out any necessary attacks.
“He is certainly good, but it does not matter as his lack of professional training holds him back still. He has not been trained extensively with the weapon.”
… Have you seen Advent Children? We have out-of gameplay proof that Cloud is a bullet-timer and is strong enough to cut buildings in half. I’ve never played FF8, so I’ll have to take your word for Squall’s abilities, but can Squall even hope to match Cloud’s physical power? After all, Cloud is a genetically enhanced supersoldier (not SOLDIER, but he did get injected with Jenova cells in the Shinra Mansion), whereas Squall seems to just be an elite mercenary. If not, how does Cloud’s supposed lack of training affect him at all? Not to mention the fact that Cloud defeats Sephiroth is a sword duel several times, and the latter is the most highly-trained professional in all of FF7dom. If professional training was such a big deal, how could this have happened?
Note that I’m ignoring both side’s magic here, as having never played FF8 I can’t really compare it without looking it up.
@DivineChoas88
I don’t know anything about kharn, so I can’t comment. However, as I have said many times before, Cloud is genetically superior to Squall in every way. Squall can’t hit Cloud with a sword strike because Cloud’s reflexes are higher than Squall’s. Cloud has demonstrated to be a bullet timer as seen in Advent Children when he deflects bullets with ease. Squall has never demonstrated such reflex, if anything the game proves he doesn’t have better reflexes. Look at the part where Squall gets impaled by an icicle.
True, Cloud was never “trained” to handle his sword, but he taught himself. It also helps, that he has seen Zack use the buster sword before and has adopted his style as his own, as seen when he adapts Zack’s persona. Cloud never handled a sword that large before, but by the begging of FF7 he wielded it to the point where everyone believed he was from SOLDIER. In a sword lock, Squall can not stand up to someone who cuts building in half as if they were paper. Since Cloud’s strength surpasses Squall’s, He could very easily keep Squall in the sword lock while he draws a second blade. Squall can not defend himself from two directions at once, whichever blade he blocks the other will hit.
I was going to leave abilities like scan and sense out of this(to many game mechanics) but if you want to that is fine. The way I see thing like sense and scan working is by increasing your powers of observation. I don’t doubt that scan is better than sense, however scan will not tell him that Cloud is genetically stronger than him, or what Cloud’s weapon does, nor will it tell him Cloud’s materia. Plus since Cloud has ribbon, and master magic and added effect on his armor, he has no magical weakness. Only thing that will work is non elemental magic.
Since you have opted to not have auto reflect, my thoughts on ultima link with magic counter and quadra magic will kill Squall if he uses any spell. I realize Squall could use defend, but that only reduces magic damage by half and four ultimas in a row is enough to kill him.
You are forgetting Cloud’s enemy skills, with such skill as big guard, shadow flare, pandora’s box, and ????, Squall will be hard pressed to do damage to Cloud. Even if Cloud does run low on health, he can cast ???? and do major damage. Plus, pandora’s box is a non elemental spell that bypasses all defenses, even defend and shell.
im back and i just had a very bad headache this morning
Ok its been updated now
Ok now to get back to it.
@everyone
I have seen advent children multiple times. I love the movie. I have played through Crisis Core, FF7, and Dirge of Cerberus multiple times. I just wanted to go on and get that out of the way.
The training has importance. A good example is in Tifa. She is near Cloud’s level, although not quite there. She has had absolutely no genetic increases whatsoever, just extensive training and she didnt even begin training as early as Squall (who began training around the age of six). An example of feats is in the speed of Squall’s Limit Breaks. Lionheart is just as fast as Cloud’s Omnislash and he gets in more hits.. Zell’s Limit Break, My Final Heaven, shows Zell run around the world in a matter of seconds and Squall’s speed is only slightly slower than Zell’s.
As for sense and Scan. Scan like I said tells an opponents stats, strengths, weaknesses, important information, and a complete model of the character. I will add a second time, STATS. Squall WOULD know that Cloud has genetic superiorities to others.
Ahaha you doubt the use of Initiative. It would allow an instant reflect. It is just as good with the only downside being the loss of a single reflect. It allows anything that Squall would need at the beggining of the fight. Even apocalypse. However this ability is most useful with triple as it would one-hit Cloud without question. An easy way to finish it is for Squall to allow Cloud to kill himself (Sense wouldn’t warn Cloud of Return Damage, so Cloud’s first move is likely a strong move.). Of course, I could just save myself the trouble and change my idea of Auto-Haste to Auto-Reflect. Yeah that sounds good. Ultima would cause Cloud to go on and kill himself. I also need to double check, because I think I remember Final Attack not coming into effect when the user kills themselves (which is what Cloud would be doing. It matters not anyways because, when Cloud is revived, it gives Squall the time to prepare whatever he needs for the next round (likely Haste). (Not to mention that Pheonix or anything that involves an element would actually heal Squall if the damage somehow got through)
I have not forgtotten about Enemy Skills. The thing is, all enemy skills can be blocked and returned by Squall. Pandora’s box would be reflected. I actually just tested a few things you said out. Thats sums it up.
Even with materia involved we still have to ignore gameplay mechanics and get into a real time fight. The kind we’d see in a cut scene or in a movie (like advent children). That said these insta-hit sword slashes and shit aren’t going to matter at all.
That said we’re not looking at a situation like this:
Squall summons GF
Cloud summons KOTR(Knights of the round)
GF blocks and KOTR vanishes
Cloud and Squall are left staring at each other.
No, it wouldn’t work like that. It would be like this:
Squall summons GF
Cloud summons KOTR
Squall and GF fight Cloud and the knights in an epic match that ends in the destruction of Squall.
Seriously guys. As for an item making someone invulnerable? Do I need to say it again? HP=stamina. It’s not a measurement of health in a real time scenario. The fact Squall wouldn’t be losing HP simply means that he won’t be getting tired. It doesn’t mean a sword to the chest isn’t going to end his life.
And maybe I’m wronb but I don’t recall any FFVIII GF that could match KOTR let alone Cloud+KOTR. And with the real time fight we’re looking at an extended fight that once Squall’s GF is gone KOTR continues its assault just like Bahamut SIN did in FFVII: AC.
@DivineChaos88
I agree training is important. HOWEVER Cloud like I said, taught himself as well as learned from Zack. like I said, by the beginning of FF7 EVERYBODY, even the president of shinra believed he was a first class SOLDIER.
Cloud beat Sephiroth, who is expertly trained, was defeated by Cloud in a sword fight.
Then scan would be worthless, even if he does find out that Cloud is better than him in every way what is he going to do? say I’m screwed?
Even if you change it to auto reflect, all if takes to get past it is casting reflect on yourself, then cast pandora’s box on yourself. Our he could dispel it then cast big guard on himself thus giving him protect, shell, and haste, then he could cast pandora’s box while Squall tries to rebuff.
And since you brought up the point of absorbing phoenix fire damage, replace phoenix with life2. The only advantage phoenix has is it revives the whole party and does fire damage.
@CIDE
I got to agree with you on everything, now tell DivineChoas88 that.
“The training has importance. A good example is in Tifa. She is near Cloud’s level, although not quite there. She has had absolutely no genetic increases whatsoever, just extensive training and she didnt even begin training as early as Squall (who began training around the age of six)”
Just because Tifa can get to near Cloud’s level by training doesn’t mean Squall can. They’re from two different games, two different universes, and therefore don’t necesssarily follow the same rules. I could never reach Cloud’s level of power by just training, nor could Gordon Freeman, nor could Link, or anyone else who hasn’t already directly displayed the ability to. Squall’s just a regular human who happens to be very well trained. He has not displayed any feats of speed or strength on par with those of Cloud, so we cannot merely assume that he has ‘trained’ up to that level (which makes no sense whatsoever).
“As for sense and Scan. Scan like I said tells an opponents stats, strengths, weaknesses, important information, and a complete model of the character. I will add a second time, STATS. Squall WOULD know that Cloud has genetic superiorities to others.”
Strengths, weaknesses and important information is all fine and dandy, but stats reeks of game mechanics. Cloud’s stats are for nothing more than being plugged into calculations for damage, hit rate, HP, etc, none of which are in play in this fight since they are the very essence of game mechanics. Do you really think you can assign someone’s physical strength (not just how much they can benchpress or how hard they can punch, but all aspects of their strength) a single, global and infallible number? Sure, it may say “This man can snap you in half with his bare hands”, but it doubt it could realistically say “Cloud has XX strength, etc”.
CIDE and nolston also covered some good points.
Please, DivineChaos88, can you try and debate WITHOUT exploiting game mechanics? They will only be called out as such and summarily shot down.
Hero and Holy War when shown, do what seems to make the user intangible. The enemy attacks merely dont land. Squall has won that half of the fight.
It is hard to debate Final Fantasy characters with no game mechanics because of the fact that that is nearly all that can be drawn as fact from those games with the exception of the 7 compilation, but if that is how you want to debate it, so be it. I will bring new information.
In Final Fantasy 8, a Guardian Force becomes one with those who Junction it. Squall draws upon the GFs for strength and speed which effectively and greatly enhances his own. By fighting Squall with GFs junctioned, Cloud is basically fighting a highly trained mercenary combined into one with 16 Guardian Forces into one being. Each Guardian Force greatly enhances the physical abilities of the user. Also, his magic that he has drawn can greatly amplify these physical abilities even stronger.
I can also say that his limit of four GF abilities max is game mechanics as is his GF support limit because, with all combined into him, he would have access to all abilities that they have learned. He can put up Defend at any moment to block off any of Cloud’s physical attacks (as it is shown as a barrier blocking off attacks) Since we are taking out any game mechanics, he doesnt have to wait between turns in starting it up again, allowing him to block off whenever Cloud does a physical attack. There is nothing to prevent Squall from using Doom (that he has with Shiva equipped) to go on and kill off any of Cloud’s summons within 16 seconds of use.
ill have to finish this later cuz i have to get off
@DivineChaos88
I have to disagree with you, I would argue that the reason he can only have so many support and command abilities is because it is a physical limit for the human body. You would be magically altering somebody’s body, like taking steroids. If what you say were true, why then when multiple GF’s allow you to junction to strength can you not junction more than one magic to a stat? While you could simple say it is game mechanics, I believe it is more of a physical limit to the human body.I believe it would be game mechanics that won’t always let you use items, but not that you can’t have all command abilities. If Squall does try to use doom(which Hades would be immune to) he leaves himself wide open to attack from Cloud. 16 seconds can go a long way to killing Squall while he is distracted.
While what you say is true, without turns Squall could exploit the defend ability, without reflect all it takes is a Pandora’s box and defend is useless, with reflect Cloud cast reflect on himself then cast Pandora’s box on himself. Since he is staggering after being hit with magic that goes through all defenses, Cloud can exploit it by impaling Squall while he is defenseless.
“It is hard to debate Final Fantasy characters with no game mechanics”
I understand this perfectly. This is why I said without exploiting game mechanics, not without considering game mechanics. Things like Squall’s GF limit and Cloud’s ability to only use a summon a certain number of times per fight before losing access to it can sort of be explained away with at least moderately sensible arguments, but other things like Scan showing enemy ‘stats’, and Cloud needing to use a materia to be able to steal things or hit someone twice in a row with his sword cannot really be adequately explained as anything other than game mechanics.
I guess it’s a bit of a roundabout way of saying it, but in cases like this where there is little out-of-gameplay feats for a character don’t completely disregard gameplay (since it’s all we have for the character), but don’t base a significant portion of your argument on it.
Now I can continue. Nolston, it is said that when Junctions combine with a human, they become the same being. It is stated that that human gains access to that GFs abilities. Where your arguement that he can only use limited as a result of a limit of the human body could make sense, it still does not make sense how if that was true, Squall cannot use the magic he has already obtained or even the Guardian Forces he has equipped if he doesnt equip the command. It is pure gameplay mechanics. Even if it wasnt gameplay mechanics, Squall could easily change it at anytime he needs. It’s like Cloud would be able to change materia realistically in the middle of the fight (however where he has it all mastered, there would be no use.
Junctioning a sinlge magic to a stat could be explained by a multitude of things. It could be gameplay mechanics to prevent the character from one-hitting every character in the game near the beginning because every spell you have is junctioned to Squall’s Strength. It can also be explained because with junctioning magic, Squall is drawing even more strength from a single element when he does it. (he isnt drawing that strength from the GF itself)
Now I’ll finish what I started (I had to get off the computer last night, and I didnt want to lose what I typed, so I posted). Pandora’s Box could be dodged. Especially since Squall has Haste, increasing his speed even more. We’re no longer going by gameplay mechanics. I know it happens in an area effect, but it doesnt happen up close to Cloud, else Cloud would be hit by his own attack. If nothing else, Squall could completely exploit recover, healing himself anytime Cloud is able to do any amount of damage. Cloud’s magic can and will run out if the battle lasts for any significant length. Also, Cloud has to have the necessary magic to use Final Attack (we arent counting Final Attack as gameplay mechanics are we?). If he doesnt have it, it doesnt work.
As far as Doom goes, Squall just casts it, then he does whatever he needs while Doom works itself. There are no drawbacks and no openings. Doom may not work on Hades, but if doom wont work, Life will. Or Revive at no magic cost. Also, I could say that Death could be junctioned to his blade, meaning that hitting any Summon, but Hades once would kill that Summon.
Another interesting and seemingly fun combination to exploit is Darkside and Recover. Squall could easily make himself hit three times as hard as normal (and that is with the GFs significantly boosting his physical abilities) and immediately heal the damage with no drawbacks. Also, if Squall has already used Meltdown, Cloud has no defense against his physical attacks.
Even if his GFs were somehow KOed in the fight, Squall can still use their abilities and even revive them.
@DivineChaos88
I will grant you that he should still be able to use magic and summon, but think about this, when using a GF command you are calling upon a skill of that GF. For a GF to manifest their skill through someone they would have to be even more intertwined with your soul than they already are. Having multiple GF’s that close to your soul would be devastating, GF’s like Ifrit and Shiva are natural opposites, having them close to each other would do more harm than good. All of Squall’s GF’s have an opposite, water and lightning, holy and darkness, they are all opposites that would clash in his soul if they got to close to each other.
I would say his limit would be one GF ability command at a time, if you agree I will agree he could change the commands during battle. Keep in mind though that there would take a while for a summon to detach itself from Squall’s soul to let another one attach itself. Plus without defend on at all times, he is leaving himself wide open to both Cloud’s sword and magic.
I also don’t believe they become one with you completely, else why can Ifrit be found in the fire cave? If he were truly one with someone than he could not be in the fire cave for others to get.
Your forgetting that Cloud’s reaction time and speed is better than Squall’s, plus since Cloud will have big guard in place he will have haste as well. Who says Cloud will be right in front of Squall when he cast Pandora’s box? It is not that hard to jump back, especially when Cloud jumps so high and far. Who says Squall will know how to dodge Pandora’s box? He does not know what Cloud’s magic does, or that Pandora’s box will go through all his defenses. There is also the fact that Squall can’t move while using defend, when he uses defend he forms a barrier in front of him correct? If he were to move from behind that barrier I don’t think if would follow him. As far as Cloud running out of mp, mp absorb still works.
True, all he has to do is cast it, but like with all FF characters it takes a few seconds to target the summon, then cast the spell on it. It will not take as long Cloud to cast a spell like Pandora’s box on Squall because he is already targeting him. While Squall is targeting Cloud’s summon, he is leaving himself open to Cloud. There is also the matter of the Knights of the Round being multiple targets.
As far as junctioning magic goes, that is my point, he can only junction one magic to a stat and he has a limit to how much magic he can carry. My point was that if 16 GFs were infused with his soul giving him more strength, why can you not junction multiple magics to a stat? My point is he has a limit to how much he can improve his physical abilities, and that each GF does not improve his physical abilities. As far as improving physical abilities he only needs 3 GFs, the rest can’t continue to improve his strength.
I will not agree to your deal for the simple fact that Squall can have 3 GF commands out at once even with the gameplay restriction. Three is the minimum I would agree to as three has been proven to work.
I am sorry to put it this way, but your idea of the opposite GFs clashing is ridiculous. They have shown absolutely no drawbacks like this, period. It is also said that one can junction infinite GFs without such drawbacks. The only drawback to using GFs is that prolonged use causes one to lose precious memories. But this has been enough of a drawback for all but Balamb Garden (the garden Squall is from) to stop using them,
It is hard to describe your statement about your disbelief of becoming one with the junctioneer. The simple explanation is that Ifrit was on his own in the Fire Caves. He had no Junctioneer. When Squall won out in the fight, Ifrit willingly joined Squall. Squall was then able to Junction Ifrit. The GFs are basically a form of energy that can manifest themselves in multiple various forms. When the GF is junctioned, the two beings are brought together as one and the Junctioneer gains access to the Junction’s abilities.
There is nothing to prove that Cloud’s abilities are superior to Squall with Squall’s GFs equipped. In their respective games, their feats are very similar. It is not until Advent Children that Cloud is shown doing anything that you are describing and until he is healed of the geostigma, Cloud was actually weaker than in Final Fantasy 7. Squall’s GFs (not necessarily the Junctioned magic, which is what you dont seem to understand althought the magic helps) greatly amplifies his abilities. How else could a “normal human” (which I may add Cloud is said to be until his experimentation) defeat the Ultima Weapon (which is stated in game that it is said to be impossible to defeat) or a Sorceress that has manipulation of time and space and can give life to subconcious and inanimate thoughs (as shown when she created Griever)?
If Cloud goes to far back, Pandora’s Box will also be ineffective. Same for if Squall is moving in the opposite direction. I know exactly what Big Guard does as if happened to be my personal favorite enemy skill. It could easily be despelled though. Squall can reflect Pandora’s Box and by casting it on himself to reflect to Squall, he is giving Squall more time to avoid it (or block it with a GF). It’s not like Pandora’s Box would even be effective as Squall could just Recover as soon as it hits.
For Defend, the barrier stays up as long as the character is not using any commands, items, magic, or attacks of any sort. He can dispell and put it up whenever he pleases.
We said up above that if Draw could not work with Cloud, MP Absorb cannot work with Squall as Squall has no MP to take. Once Cloud is out, he is out.
Also the idea of targeting the summon taking time is ridiculous. We are no longer going by game mechanics. Squall doesnt have to retarget, even the game mechanics in triple show that he can jump back and forth with no problems at all. He can just cast Doom on Knights of the Round, one at a time or like I said, put Death on his blade and merely hit them. Casting Doom would take less time though because game mechanics arent restricting Doom to one usage at a time. Whenever Squall puts defend up, they are harmless to him anyways.
Your last arguemant still makes little sense. The GFs arent the ones amplifying stats in that form. It is merely the magic that he has drawn. That is why that is called Magic Junction. It draws upon a single element of magic. Thats just how magic junctions are set up to be. It may be a purity issue, it may be a prevention of tying up your magic. Yes the limit to how much he can imporve his physical abilities (again this is a game mechanic) is 255, the max stat. It doesnt matter how much more the magic can count for. There is only a single spell that you could possibly need for any. It is game mechanics. Of course to be fair, going by your logic here, When Cloud hits the max stats on Final Fantasy 7, he can get no stronger… period. No matter how many fights or how much training he has. Is that what you are saying?
You’re focus seems to have went from what Cloud can do to attempts at disproving what Squall can do. A sign of desperation? maybe, but either way I am anticipating your next post.
Something just occured to me; what about Manipulate, for Cloud (Unless Squall has it too, in which case, for both)? Wouldn’t this allow Cloud to control exactly what Squall does and does not do, and when (or at least control his body like a puppet, if not his mind)? Does Squall have a defense against this (Note that Manipulate is a Command materia, and therefore not magic or anything. It’s like Steal, Double Cut or Deathblow)? And if he does not, could this be the game changer?
Sorry I didn’t add more. I’ll be back when I have more time.
I wouldn’t see why not but it misses often. Also, still talking about stats Divinechaos. We’re not working with stats.
@CIDE
Actually read what I put and the context in which it is in before you put such a foolish comment
Manipulate is fine and dandy, but it is considered a status, therefore it would be useless.
I did read what you said and you brought up and you were still bringing up stats and game mechanics for whatever reason.
I also thought manipulate wasn’t in the list of status effects. Could have been mistaken but I thought it wasn’t covered under that category.
As for impressive feats in game without relying on game mechanics there were several in VII. Starting with Cloud falling from the second reactor you blow up down to the lower plate. That’s how many stories tall? The distance alone between lower and upper plates in Midgar was greater than many builders were tall. Plenty of distance to reach terminal velocity before he crashed through the roof of the church and hit the ground. Flowers or not that should’ve killed him. Or at least scratch him up; according to dialogue he had no noticable injuries.
His sword too is an indicator of his physical capabilities; the weapon that size of a decent density to hold itself together without its weight alone warping it while being able to be used as an effective weapon would be immense. At least in the hundreds of pounds. Cloud wields any of these great swords with the same ease a normal person could swing around a wooden toy sword.
And it was already brought up but the instance even before Cloud was experimented on. Through sheer force of will he tossed Sephiroth around while the Masamune was pushed through his chest. First and last time Squall had anything puncturing his chest he was out like a light so the debate on durabilty is out.
I know there’s more. I’ll find them as I play through ( again). It was only a coincidence I was replaying the PS1 Final Fantasies. Still in the process of going through seven and as things come back to me I’ll mention them.
@DivineChaos88
If you remember, getting Ifrit was a requirement for becoming a SeeD. If it is a requirement, then how can it only go to one person? Obviously Squall isn’t the only person in the world with summons, if he was nobody would know a thing about them. The only thought that comes to me is that common GFs like Ifrit, Shiva, and Quzeticotal, are bound to several people. If they are bound to several people obviously they can not completely “become one” with someone as others have access to their abilities.
Physical abilities has already been covered, Cloud is superior. Want to know why? because without magic junctioned his physical abilities are poor, thus from the beginning I have included the fact he has magic boosting his strength, and he still is not a strong as Cloud.
I didn’t say he jump back a mile, Cloud knows the range of his own spells. Just as big guard can be dispelled so to can Squall’s buffs, and it takes more time for Squall to recast haste, protect, shell, and reflect on himself than it does Cloud. and when trying to rebuff he leaves himself open to attacks. If Squall wants to defend from Cloud’s physical attacks all it takes is to get past it is a spell behind him since defend only works for frontal attacks. Since Pandora’s box is an AOE spell the only way for him to go is towards Cloud, which would be suicide.
You can’t rule out MP absorb, in FF7 you could absorb MP from monsters that didn’t have any magic.
It is not ridiculous, to cast a spell you would have to look at your target correct? Then by trying to get rid of the thirteen knights, he leaves himself open to Cloud. You want Squall to attack thirteen knights that are 50x his size? Good luck with that. As for defending them, defend only works to guard the front, even if it didn’t you want Squall to guard forever? Even if he tried that, Cloud can cast spells. Even if he had reflect, and shell, they can be dispelled, and if he tries to rebuff he leaves himself open.
No, my point was that having 16 GFs makes him no physically stronger than if he had 3.
Also, CIDE and Zazax have a point, manipulate is not a status ailment, it is a command materia. Show me in a list of manipulate being a status ailment then we will drop it.
I have played both games and liked them both. but granted cloud is a geneticly altered super solder like a spartanll and squal is able to boost his abilties w/ magic junction. so im preaty much tied here.
if cloud can defeated sephiroth he can defeated squall
Im sorry my response has taken so long. I warned you that this would happen as life issues come first. You have to give me credit that Im at least coming on often.
@CIDE
Again, I was not using status for the fight. If you read carefully, I brought the numbers up to label that as game mechanics therefore it doesnt matter in the fight.
“Control, or Manipulate, is a recurring status that relinquishes all self-control over a unit and gives the user the ability to choose their methods of combat, inflicted by the command of the same name. When an enemy is in the Control status, the user’s command window changes to a set of commands that the target being controlled normally uses. The user can then choose the target of these commands.
The status only affects enemies. Some enemies and most bosses are immune to the status. The status can be of advantage to the player to help learn Blue Magic skills by forcing the enemy to use them, or it can be used to help defeat the enemy. It can also be used in battles to stop the enemy attacking the player, helping the user do things in battle without an enemy.”
Here you are. Manipulate (Control) is a status effect. Or we can ignore this because Manipulate isnt listed under magic, Doom could work on Cloud because it isn’t listed on magic. Your choice, it would just make this easier.
When Cloud fell from the explosion, Aerith said that the roof and the flowers both broke his fall. It’s not like he fell directly from the height and landed on a hard surface. It still knocked him unconcious.
As for the size of his sword being a feat.
“Despite its size, Cloud claims it’s not that heavy”
He also showed this when he first used it in his attack on Sephiroth. The sword seemed to weigh little before he had his experimentation. The explaination for this weapon’s lightweight is unknown.
As for his throwing of Sephiroth. Zack Fair had already been fighting Sephiroth, then He had previously ran up behind Sephiroth and stabbed him with the huge blade of the Buster Sword. This left Sephiroth struggling to move. Sephiroth stabbed Cloud while he had Jenova’s hand in his other hand. This was his only injury. Cloud then blacked out. Where this was a cool scene, it’s not as impressive as you make it out to be. Squall had been stabbed by multiple pieces of ice (although the scene shows one staying in his chest) in Edea’s desperate strongest attack as a result of being defeated. If not for that attack of desperation, she would have been killed. Squall then fell off as a result. The combination should have killed anyone, but it merely made Squall lose conciousness.
@nolston
You are overcomplicating something extremely simple. It is stated that when a GF is junctioned, that the two beings are brought together. It is made obvious that many people have GFs, but the only people that do are from Garden. Almost all are from Balamb Garden with Irvine being the only known exception. It is not stated that everyone in SeeD gets Ifrit. If they did, everyone (except Irvine and Rinoa) in the party would already have him and they could all Junction him. It still makes little sense how the party members dont join you with their own GFs though.
It doesnt matter if magic is what is boosting his strength. Maybe without it, Cloud would have the advantage, but Cloud isnt gonna be catching Squall without his abilities boosted. You are missing the point. I am not going to deny (and have not thus far denied) that without his GFs, Cloud would likely be stronger, but Squall has his GFs that have shown that they increase his physical abilities (even without magic). It is not like Cloud moves faster than Squall can comprehend and react to. His movements are easy for anyone’s eye to follow. Thats all that matters when Squall has the abilities that he does.
As for his buffs being lost, it doesnt really matter. Carbuncle can give him reflect at anytime. All Squall would ever need it Haste and Reflect. It isnt like it takes long to put those two up. As for Defend, the animation may show it only curving around him (more than any of Cloud’s defense animations show I might add), it states that it completely defends him from physical damage. This is also proven in the fight with Ultima WEAPON’s Terra Strike where 16 blasts that count as physical damage are fired all around his opponent. They explode on contact with the ground. Even though it hits behind the barrier that the animation shows, it still does no damage.
You obviously did not test your MP Absorb theory out. Luckily, I did. I found a Desert Sahagin (an enemy with no MP whatsoever) and I tried both Magic hammer and MP Absorb. Both gave Cloud absolutely no magic. When Cloud runs out of magic in this fight, he has nothing to fall back on.
It is ridiculous. casting magic on different targets has absolutely no drawbacks. You are talking like it takes minutes on one target to cast a spell. Looking at a target for a second would have no drawbacks. It would be no problem for Squall to kill all 13 with Death on his blade. A single strike would one-hit kill each. I have already explained the defend. You have also said yourself that Squall can take advantage of Defend. If Cloud takes down reflect, Squall takes not even a second to use reflect again and he can defend again. There is no drawback. Even without Reflect on, Squall has an advantage. Any magic Cloud did use, Squall can instantly heal whatever hits him with treatment. Cloud is just wasting magic and I might want to add that he has to have 100 MP left if he wants to come back to life. And dont forget, Return Damage is still in play. Whatever damage Cloud sends will hurt him. Return Damage is, afteerall a stated ability.
I dont see the difference if 16 GFs dont make him physically stronger than three although I could argue that GFs each cover a specific factor in his physical abilities, but it doesnt really matter. The point is, he has access to all the abilities of his GFs at any moment.
I covered manipulate above.
If you still need a list, here one is. Manipulate is the same as control. I merely am copying and pasting this.
Negative Status Ailments
Blind/Darkness – Reduces Accuracy, causing the sufferer’s physical attacks to miss most of the time. This was ineffective in Final Fantasy VI due to a bug.
Charm – Victim attacks for the opposing team.
Critical – Activates when a units’ HP falls below a certain level (usually 25%), this status can trigger some positive status effects depending on the character’s equipment.
Condemned/Doom – KO’d after certain amount of time, can be “cured” by ending battle before time runs out.
Confuse – Attacks both enemies and allies indiscriminately and uncontrollably.
Control – Target is under the control of the user and is unable to make any actions of their own. This status can only be applied to monsters and never to the party.
Curse – Effects vary depending on the game, but usually causes a drop in many stats and/or disallows the victim from performing Limit Breaks.
Disease – Impairs the recuperation of HP and MP, in various ways.
Disable – Unit cannot attack, but can still move.
Eject – Target is removed from battle and is flagged as dead in most cases.
Freeze – Immobilizes the target similar to Stop, however fire element attacks heal it and physical attacks will often kill the target instantly.
Gradual Petrify/Slow Numb – Similar to Doom, victim turns to Stone after a certain amount of time
Immobilize – Unit cannot move, but can still attack.
KO – HP is zero and is unable to take turn. Some skills inflict Instant Death, which KO’s a unit regardless of remaining HP.
Oil – Unit takes extra damage from fire-based spells.
Petrify/Stone – Encases in stone, unable to take turn or damaged by attacks. Also, if not cured by end of battle in some games, the afflicted character does not receive Exp/AP.
Poison – Takes damage every turn, or over time.
Reverse – Switches the effects of healing into damage and vice-versa.
Seizure/Sap – Takes a small amount of damage constantly.
Silence – Unable to cast magic or sing.
Size/Mini – Shrinks, Defense and/or attack strength greatly decreased.
Sleep – Unable to take turn until woken up by attack or on their own.
Slow – Time taken to execute actions and time until next turn is increased.
Stop – Unable to move or attack until they re-enter time.
Toad – Becomes a frog, attack strength is decreased and can only input the Attack or Frog command.
Venom – A stronger or weaker variant of Poison, depending on the game.
Zombie – Victim becomes Undead, taking damage from healing spells/items. Revivification magic and items KO afflicted units.
Neutral Status Effects
Berserk – Increased Attack and sometimes Speed, but attacks enemies uncontrollably.
Hide – Target cannot be targeted by anything and is off-screen. Target cannot perform any actions until they return to the battlefield.
Positive Status Enhancements
Blink/Image – Avoid physical attacks for some turns
Bravery – has a different effect based on the game. In Final Fantasy XII it increases physical attack power. While in Final Fantasy Tactics, It is a measure for some attacks’ power rather than a stat.
Clear – Physical attack immunity, but 100% magic hit rate and loss of magical enhancements.
Faith – similar to Brave, only it affects the Faith stat in Final Fantasy Tactics, or magic power Final Fantasy XII.
Float – Target floats, becoming immune to earth damage and damage from damaging floors. In Final Fantasy XII it also prevents traps from triggering.
Haste – Time taken to execute actions and time until next turn decreases.
Invincible – Grants immunity to all physical and magical attacks but lasts for a very short period of time
Invisible – Attacks connect less frequently, or makes enemies less likely to detect a player by sight, wears off when attacked or attacks opponent.
Life 3/Auto-Life/Reraise – Automatic revival when KO’d.
Protect – Increased physical Defense, or half physical damage.
Reflect – Reflects most magic used against them at caster or to the opposing battle party.
Regen – Restores HP over time.
Shell – Increased Magic Resistance, or takes half magic damage. In Final Fantasy XII, It also decrease the chance of inflicting bad status.
There you are.
Nolston, you have definitely earned my respect and I will admit that there are some things you brought up that I hadnt quite expected. You are a worthy debater. Now Im completely confident that I have seen all that Cloud can do. Squall has the advantage here. Whatever Cloud does, Squall can immediately recover and counter. While Cloud will quickly run out of options and will only have his sword to help him. Squall then has the advantage and can finish Cloud off. Plain and simple.
That just about covers it.
I fail to see how you think this was at all a victory. I covered what Aerith/Aeris said too. Mostly because he comment made absolutely no sense; it wouldn’t have worked. He fell hundreds of feel. There were large buildings and towers that reached into the dozens of stories tall that were barely half the distance between the upper and lower plates. Cloud fell that entire distance and….a hard sharp roof and hard ground with some flowers saved his life.
Yeah, no. As many flowers as there were (in either movie or game) there’s no way. Maybe if there was a stack of hay the size of the church with a building of balloons or something.
I also recall that when Cloud wielded that sword he couldn’t heft it very well. He held it in one place and ran forward hoping for a blow. Swinging and anything else? Even in the anime and games that followed the original the burden of weight was obvious. ’cause really this is the same as the hulk going “Oh, this building isn’t that heavy.”
So, we established that both combatants can’t be touched by status effects. To include Manipulate and Doom as you yourself put out. No items (unless I misread) and they got maxed out equipment and are each at their absolute strongest.
We never dealt with the issue of Cloud double/quadruple summoning Knights of the Round on Squall. And if proof is needed to show that HP=Stamina and NOT an actual physical damage counter we look no further than the stat boosting items found in many FF games. The “stamina boost” in FFVII for instance.
Example: Cloud’s fight with Sephiroth at the end of AC. Neither he or Sephiroth had sustained any blows but Cloud was VERY clearly winded. He could barely stand let alone lift his sword. This is when Sephiroth landed his blows. When tired he had been low on HP. Same thing was happening during his fight with the SHM (Silver haired men). Only then Geostigma had a kind of poison-esque effect that drained him regardless of what he had equipped.
That said something that makes Squall invulnerable is simply going to keep him from getting tired. It’s not going to mean a sword is going to bounce off his chest.
That said a collection of 13 Knights fighting alongside Cloud is not something he’d be able to stop. Even if he can solo Cloud (which he can’t) the best Squall can manage is 2 vs 14. Because following a real time fight it’d be a continued brawl until the summons or their target are gone.
@DivineChoas88
I am not over complicating it, I understand what you are saying. The problem is, if a GF can have a contract with multiple people then it cannot be completely one with any person. It is stated by Quistis that getting Ifrit is part of his exam for becoming a SeeD, then it stands to reason multiple people have him. I don’t know why the other party members(Quistis, Zell, and Selphie.) don’t have any GFs, I doubt the Garden would give its only GFs to Squall. Besides, my view of how GFs work is that more form a contract to come when you call them and lend you their abilities than become one with you. My reasons behind this is that each summon takes time before they come when summoned, if they were truly one with you would they not come out instantly? Another reason is that as seen by Ifrit, after you defeat him he states
I know Squall has his magic attached to all his attributes, my point is that from the very beginning I have believed his strength was enhanced by his magic. My point is that he needs his magic attached to his attributes to achieve his max strength, this implies that he has hit his physical limits for his body and needs magic to go farther. However his magic has its limits, he can increase his skill, but he can not increase his strength any farther. When you can prove to me that Squall has the reactions to block bullets and cut building in half then we can compare physical skills.Cloud does move at hard to follow speeds, Advent Children proved that his speed is far greater than any normal human. Granted, Squall is a highly trained human, but he is still human. For Cloud to block a bullet after it has been fired, his body would have to move at speeds far greater than any human. Squall can not block bullets, then how can he keep up with someone who has a body that moves at speeds fast enough to block a bullet? Cloud’s strikes are also not as predictable as you say, even if Squall’s eyes can keep up with Cloud, Cloud’s sword is entirely unpredictable. With the First Tsurugi, Cloud can freely change from a great sword, to dual swords, to one handed swords, to hand-and-a-half swords, to a dagger. You explain to me how someone who has no knowledge of Cloud’s weapon is expected to predict what Cloud is going to do.
It doesn’t matter if Carbuncle can give Squall reflect, first he would have to summon it which Cloud would kill with Knights of the Round. Even if Squall has the rebound damage, all it takes is to W-summon Knights of the Round. How it would play out from there is like this, Knights of the Round kills whatever summon Squall has, Rebound kills Cloud, second Knights of the Round kills Squall, Life2 revives Cloud. Big guard shows it covering all around Cloud, defend shows it covering Squalls front. Just because an attack shows a spectacle, doesn’t mean it proves defend works from all angles. What you are saying is game mechanics, what good would guard do if 90% of attacks would get past it because it only guards from the front? Within FF games, there is no hitting behind the target so you can’t prove what you say.
You are acting like all Squall has to do is snap his fingers and the spell works, all spells even Cloud’s have a charge time. In FF8 for every spell you cast Squall does a small animation. While you could say Cloud would have to do his animation from the game, Advent Children says otherwise. We could debate how long it takes for Squall to cast a spell, but instead lets go for an easy number like 5 seconds. 5 times 13 is 65, that is 65 seconds of casting, (not counting at least 1-2 seconds of switching targets) and all this time he has lost sight of Cloud who will have taken advantage of this can killed Squall. If you are wanting Squall to attack the Knights with his sword you are asking for even more time. The knights are not standing still in a row, they will be doing their best to cut Squall in half, and he still has taken his eyes off Cloud and 12 other knights. Squall can not attack while he is defending, that means that to strike one of the knights with his sword he would have to drop his guard, charge one, and strike a knight while the other 12 are attempting to kill Squall, 13 if you count Cloud. You still have no proof outside of game mechanics that defend works from all angles, so even if he did try to defend he can still get struck from behind. Even if defend did work from all angles, like I said before Cloud has spells, and even with reflect and shell they can be dispelled. If it takes Squall 5 seconds to cast a spell, that is 5 second where he is undefended against 13(14 counting Cloud) people are trying to kill him. Lets also not forget that 2-3 of the Knights of the Round are spell casters. I will grant you that Sirens treatment ability will take less time than a spell, (maybe 2-3 seconds) but you can’t heal having your head cut off or being impaled if your dead. I’m not sure if final attack+life2 could heal Cloud is his head was cut off, but I seriously doubt that Squall has a chance of cutting his head off.
Fine, I’ll drop manipulate, but I wasn’t going to involve manipulate from the beginning so it is no big loss. I just wanted to see if there was a defense against it.
My point was that from one of your earlier post, I got the impression you believed that having 16 GFs somehow made him as physically stronger.
While I thank you for your kind words, It matters not if you have seen all Cloud can do or not, what matters is how he puts them to use.
Sorry for the double post, I meant that after you defeat Ifrit it says, “I will join you” While this could mean a multitude of things, to me it means that Ifrit will contract with Squall thus allowing him to call him from what ever plane summons come from when needed. Even Odin and Gilgamesh are a testament to how they are not one being, as they show up whenever they want.