soul drain cant happen until your dead. lich king has alot of one-hit kill moves. also, like i said earlier, illidan summons shadow demons. those thing freeze you in place and literally eat your soul. also some other things i forgot about, illidan’s flames of azzinoth. it summons two giant fire elementals form his swords while hes flying out of range.

Sorry for the double post, but majortypo in my last post, it should say “revive itself from death ALMOST instantly”

“if they are affected by paralyze”
Again, Cloud can become immune to this. He has a variety of things that protect against paralysis (yes, it exists in FF7 as well, also a full unable to do anything). A Ribbon would do it, as would Added Effect + Hades. Sephy can probably do this as well. So no, it won’t happen.

“when arthas kills someone, his very presence will summon the dead (or he can revive the dead without having to do a cast) and then sephy can do the exact same thing your saying cloud could do.”
There’s two things wrong with this: 1) If Sephy is affected by Arthas’ instant death attacks, he doesn’t have his materia, and therefore can’t do what Cloud is doing, and 2) if he does have his materia, he won’t be affected by Arthas’ instant death attacks.

“or what if cloud was the one hit by the instant death? is cloud immune to soul-draining?”
Well, Cloud has stuff that protects against the grim reaper himself coming for him (as seen in the Death spell, Death Sentence enemy skill, etc), so probably, although I can’t say for sure. In-game, the Death status effect covers almost all methods of your character being one-shot killed without any actual HP damage, but saying it’ll definitely cover having your soul ripped out is a no-limits fallacy.

So here’s a question for you: Can Arthas rip out people’s souls at range, in only a few (a few here meaning 2-3) seconds? Because that’s all he’s going to get. Even worse, can he do so while defending himself from another threat?

Here’s a list of status effects and ways Team FF can protect themselves from them:
http://www.gamespot.com/ps/rpg/finalfantasy7/show_msgs.php?topic_id=m-1-47474683&pid=197341
Scroll down to the fifth and final post. I’ll admit I mixed up a few times with what protects against what, but I didn’t make anything up (as in, he can still defend against it all), so no biggie.

So still looking kind of hopeless for Team Warcraft.

yes, he can soul drain at a range, and thats what illidan is for. also, someone brought up in cloud vs. ichigo all ifghts count as boss battles. so does death work on bosses? what about toad?

@ midnite
Well, then this match has something of a conflict between the rules. Materia IS Cloud’s standard equipment, only his sword is more so, and any attempt to deny this is folly. However, in Advent Children, he gets all of his materia stolen. Yuffie gets it back for him (or gets more from somewhere else), but we never actually see her give it to him due to how abruptly the movie ends after Cloud defeats Sephiroth. It’s probably safe to assume she does, but again, we never actually see it. I’ve mainly been using the Standard Equipment rule over the Current Incarnation one, since there are several instances where the current incarnation is ignored over the standard equipment (Yoda and his lightsaber, and Sauron and the Ring are two good examples). Without materia this is a stomp for Team Warcraft, since that takes away any and all magic that Team FF has, as well as most of their immunities.

@ wtf bomber
Okay, but how long does it take him? Again, if Cloud gets his materia (which seems to still be disputed) he’s only going to have 2, 3 seconds tops before shit goes down. And that’s if we go with the FF7 casting time, and not the Crisis Core and Advent Children casting times (which is pretty much instantaneous). If Illidan leaps to defend Arthas from Sephy in melee, he’s going to be torn a new one, as Sephy can not only fly, but also (as said before) is fast enough to block bullets and strong enough to slice up the Juno Cannon, one handed. If he uses magic, he’ll probably last longer.
“someone brought up in cloud vs. ichigo all ifghts count as boss battles. so does death work on bosses?”
On some, on both counts. However, it’s already been established (numerous times, and not just by me) that bosses being immune to status effects simply because they’re bosses is gameplay, and therefore invalid. Unless they have a reason for not being affected by something (like, as I’ve said before, a robot boss being immune to poison, or having an item that specifically makes them immune to whatever) they can be affected by it.
Also, for this soul drain, we still don’t know if it’ll work or not. It’ll probably work on Sephy, but Cloud has resisted similar attacks before (with the right materia setup), but assuming it’ll work on Arthas is a no-limits fallacy. Does Arthas have anything else he can do (in his 2-3 second window) that we can definitively say will or will not work? Otherwise we’ll keep going back and forth with “It’ll work!” and “it won’t work!” forever.

Also, which of the two would Arthas and Illidan go after first? I can say with a fair degree of certainty that Cloud and Sephy would try to take out the guy in death-themed armour with his evil-looking sword over the half-naked blind guy.

they might go for the guy in the death-themed armor…….. or it could come down to speed vs. speed(ish) and heavy vs. heavy. the two speeds being illidan and sephy, andi said speed-ish for illidan becuase i dont know if we have any speed feats. but obviously, that leaves the heavies as cloud and arthas. arthas has a few abilities that take only a few seconds to cast. theres relentless winter, which creates a giant snowstorm around him that slows and damages anytihng that gets too close, and pain and suffering, which adds to the damage-when-in-range part. he rarely uses them seperately. and again, theres fury of frostmourne, which im certain is an instant cast.

“Well, then this match has something of a conflict between the rules. Materia IS Cloud’s standard equipment, only his sword is more so, and any attempt to deny this is folly. However, in Advent Children, he gets all of his materia stolen. Yuffie gets it back for him (or gets more from somewhere else), but we never actually see her give it to him due to how abruptly the movie ends after Cloud defeats Sephiroth.”
When he goes traveling to make deliveries, he always carries his swords. Not Materia, which was left in the Church, wide open and unprotected.

“Also, according to the rules, since the Advent Children and Crisis Core casting times are more recent and (in some cases) non-gameplay, they take precedent, so Cloud can use his materia almost instantly. With this in mind, depending on the verdict of whether or not Cloud gets his materia, this is a curb stomp either way. If he gets it, Team FF curbstomps Team Warcraft. If he doesn’t, vice versa.”
Crisis Core in the time line happened before FF7. Advent Children happened after FF7. So Advent Children is the most recent version of Cloud.

its not, the most recent incarnation is advent children. so, with that in mind, we need to hear the final word on it form admin. also, if we do give him materia, i vote we dont give him the epic-curbstomp ones. i vote we give him some that make it a fight worthy of an award, but not too strong where he blinks and they burst into flames

by epic curbstomp, since i havent played any final fantasy games, i meant death and toad, since i find it hard to think its fair for cloud to just use death or toad at the start and royally screw team 2 over. ifi t was something cloud couldnt help, like if someone from bleach had spiritual pressure so powerful it literally crushed someones soul, id understand. but basically making them useless from the beginning (which i doubt he’d do, he doesnt seem like the type to try to end a good fight quickly) doesnt seem fair to me.

Zazax-Not all those materia are standard to cloud story wise. The ones that are standard are the ones he can use. I know for a fact that most of the summoning, death, and toad aren’t standard for Cloud. Sephy doesn’t have materia since the most current incarnation was devoid of it since he was just reborn.

However if you want to break the rules and give characters what ever they want then Team Warcraft both get magic immunity necklaces and fingers of death. That equals automatic win which is why I said lets not go there.

also, sorry for the double post, but it occurs to me that I might be coming off as a bit fanboyish (being the only one here still supporting Team FF) and sometimes a bit angry and/or sarcastic. Just wanted to assure everyone that I’m not, and I’m participating in this fight with a smile on my face. Love both these series (not so much WoW, but the RTS Warcraft games are excellent), so I don’t have a personal stake in who wins or anything.

Anyways, sorry for waxing melancholy for a moment. Back to the debate!

The materia in the chest was totally Cloud’s. It was in the church that Aeris tended flowers in, where he’d been spending most of his time since the end of FF7 in response to her death. This is made fairly obvious (Tifa goes there specifically to see him, we find his Geostigma wrap thing there, etc). There is absolutely nothing to suggest it was Yuffie’s. Hell, the only times we even see Yuffie in the movie is during the fight with Bahamut SIN and when she shows up with Materia for Cloud during his fight with Sephiroth. As I’ve said a few times before, there’s a very good chance he gets his materia back after the movie, considering that Yuffie specifically says the materia she’s got is for Cloud, but we never actually see it since the movie ends so abruptly. So it could go either way. Which is why we need admin to give his say-so.

Also, you specifically said that “I know for a fact that most of the summoning, death, and toad aren’t standard for Cloud”. I was merely asking how you determined this, since Death (granted by the Destruct materia, which is also used to remove Barrier and MBarrier on foes) and Toad (granted by Transform, which also has Mini) are actually quite common. The summons I can agree with, which is why I haven’t formed a strategy around them, but Death and Toad are actually used quite often.

Firstly, it’s the same for Arthas’ soul stealing abilities. Both sides (potentially, Cloud’s materia is still up in the air) have access to instant-win attacks, it just depends on whoever can get theirs off first.

Secondly, and also not meaning to be an ass or anything, it doesn’t really matter if the participants don’t like it (although, you being the one who requested the thread it might be a bit different in your case). In Star Wars versus Star Trek debates, any and all Star Wars fans are really annoyed at the Q, as they are consistently the only reason Star Trek always wins, but they aren’t ignored for the debate. In a similar vein, we cannot ignore Transform and Destruct simply because it makes the fight lame (unless someone can prove they should be treated differently than Cloud’s other regular materia).
And don’t worry, I’m not offended or anything. As I said a few posts back, I have no personal stake in this fight, as I like both series (although Illidan is way, way cooler than Arthas, in my opinion. Or he was, until they made him just as cartoonishly evil as Arthas is).

Also, I don’t really see how Team FF’s maximum number of targets affects this match at all. If Arthas uses his little bit of time at the start to summon some buddies, Cloud and Sephy are going to eviscerate him, and no summmoned mook can stand up to either of them. And Illidan’s Shadow Demon spell thing (if I recall what you said about it correctly) summons one such Demon for each enemy, which comes to a grand total of two. That means (unless Arthas also summons first thing) that we still fall within the 5-7 range, as there will be 4 combatants on Team Warcraft (Arthas, Illidan, and 2 Demons). If Arthas also summons, they could very well exceed that (he’d need three at a time. Can he do that? I honestly don’t know), but by that point Cloud and Sephy would have had a chance to attack.

But yeah, for opening attacks, I see Sephy Draw Slashing Arthas, which will probably cut him completely in half (Is Frostmourne indestructible? If not, it’ll get that too). Being Undead, he might live through it, but Sephy can keep up a barrage (Advent Children shows him with no casting time. He just has to swing his sword).
Cloud’s strategy depends on whether he gets his materia, and what materia he ends up getting (if any). If he has them, he’d probably use either Stop or Toad (probably wouldn’t open with Death). If he doesn’t have those, he’d probably buff the crap out of himself and Sephiroth with any combination of Shield, Haste, Barrier, MBarrier, and perhaps Big Guard. If he doesn’t get ANY materia, he’s reduced to launching himself sword-first at either member of Team Warcraft. At this point, they’ll be just as defenseless against most of Team Warcraft’s big attacks as Team Warcraft would be to theirs.I think they could still beat Team Warcraft in a swordfight, but Team Warcraft’s magic would tear them a new one without materia.

These matches with high-powered offensive fighters always end too fast. Especially since Arthas can probably render Team FF’s reviving of the dead useless with soul stealing, and both sides (again, potentially) have attacks that’ll make each others healing useless (since they’d cause no physical damage). If we go past the instant-death attacks, on a magic level they’re actually both really equal (both sides can heal, both sides can stop the other from using magic, both sides can summon help, etc), although Team FF still wins on a physical level (what with all their physics-defying jumps, being able to cut buildings in half, and block bullets).

Also, since we’re using Advent Children Cloud, that means he doesn’t get Potions, Phoenix Downs, or other similar items, right?

sorry for the double post, but i think if illidan and arthas focus on one at a time, they have a pretty good chance. we dont really have a way to compare saronite (right now, the strongest material in WoW) to sephy/clouds weapons, but i doubt sephiroth could destroy it so easily. if cloud and sephiroth try to fly away, illidan can already fly, and arthas can summon a frost wyrm ( a giant skeleton dragon made out of bones and magic) and that only increases his army size. these frost wyrms are some of his strongest minions, their matriarch, Sindragosa, the 2nd highest rank out of any member of the scourge, just below arthas.

actually, tirion uses the ashbringer now, not a hammer. and he destroyed it while arthas had it raised in the air, attempting to raise the dead members of the raid as minions, and it shatters with the force of his attack. for saronite, it is able to shatter considerably large weapons (in the right hands, in this case, arhtas) being wielded by very powerful warriors (example, saurfang the younger). arthas doesnt use wings, but im assuming you meant illidan. i’d have to get back to you on the frost wyrms, but even a normal one is considerably stronger than i think you are giving it credit for. and again, back to icecrown citadel, during the encounter with him, you fight him on a solid saronite platform, and i doubt he would intentionally put corpses in with his materials, considering he believes he is nearly invincible. that reminds me, does arthas get invincible (his now-undead flying deathcharger from when he was still arthas menethil)? if so, frostwyrms maynot be needed for flying. id understand if he didnt, though. and by rank, yes i meant difficulty in battle. but about kel’thuzad, im pretty sure lady deathwhisper i a higher rank than him, being the Supreme Overseer of the Cult of the Damned (Kel may be higher ranked, not sure, but deathwhispers definitely powerful if she wasp ut in icc and kel wasnt.)

yes, frostmourne is what steals your soul, but t doesnt “eat” it, it stored inside, much like his fathers. and anyways, pretty much the only reason tirion survived long enough to build up that much energy was because arthas wanted him to watch while he “destroyed the last hope azeroth had”. obviously, this falls under plot immunity, but arthas can feeze people in solid ice, like he did with tirion.