Gunvolt vs Cloud Strife

[Robo432343]

Gunvolt

Captured by Sumeragi and experimented on as a test subject for Project Gunvolt, Gunvolt spent his early life being tortured to accept the Azure Striker Septima. Despite being the perfect match for the power, he was rescued from the emperor company's clutches by Asimov and the publicly called...

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Cloud Strife (Final Fantasy)

Cloud Strife is the main protagonist of Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, also appearing in the spin-off games of the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, with a minor appearance Dirge of Cerberus -Final Fantasy VII- and Before Crisis -Final Fantasy VII-, as well as a...

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CLOUD IS HIGH 6-A
KIRIN RESTRICTED
GV 3 GV
SPEED =
SBA

cloud;
gunvolt:
incon: 7

 

[Smashtwig]

I was PREPARING for this exact matchup lol. It’s my fav GV matchup cuz they are literally the same people:

• Worlds are a mix of magic/psychic and technology
• Power systems revolve around the Lifestream and the Lifewave respectively
• The main cities, Midgar and Sumeragi's city are the last remaining beacons of advanced civilization with massive buildings in the center, and no one goes in or out.
• Shinra and Sumeragi abuse the Lifestream and Septima for their own gain, their most notable projects being those that use Mako and Azure Strikers as a power source. As well they both have "just" reasons for doing this, to prevent the world from falling into chaos from the lack of energy sources or Adepts threatening to kill the world
• Both Shinra and Sumeragi massively **** up by abusing these resources with the emergence of Weapons and Primal Dragons respectively
• Cloud and GV both fight against and hate Shinra/Sumeragi, and work with AVALANCHE / QUILL, "terrorists" / freedom fighters / environmental extremists to fight against their foe by taking out major facilities such as Mako Reactors and UTU Media Towers
• To use magic in FF7, one must be able to tap into the knowledge of the Cetra, typically through Materia which requires to put a strain on the user mentally represented by MP, similar, Septima users are known as Psychics in Japan and their abilities are mental based and their powers collapse, GV requires concentration and Electro Psycho Energy to keep his Flashfield up in GV1 and 2, as well Adepts make use of physical Septimosomes in their body in order to use their powers
• Both Cloud and GV though are in it for the money nowadays as mercenaries, contracts from AVALANCHE / QUILL to make a living, and both are quite warm inside and have a soft spot for a frailer female character (Aerith / Joule)
• Both Cloud and GV use weapons that incorporate both magic/Septima along with Technology to maximize their magical and physical prowess
• Both have mentors/idols that are the top 1 most powerful characters under QUILL / Shinra, but are also secretly insane and evil and betray them, have long white hair, are immensely powerful, somehow keep coming back, and have the same powers as them (Cloud has Sephiroth's genes and GV has the same Septima as Asimov and all four of these names got their powers through Shinra / Sumeragi scientiets and experiments, though Sephiroth and GV later got more powers from Lifestream and Moebius)
• Both get immense boosts from heightened emotions
• Both worlds have unique currency, that being Gil and Vig
• Both have the same haircut

lemme copy paste my notes for this matchup



….wait it’s 2A versions and my notes were… H6A based… guess that went to waste.

Cloud DOES resist 2A Fate Manip right? I don’t see a way GV can win, but maybe I can prove GV could Prevade everything Cloud’s got and just prove that he can’t lose either?

 

[Smashtwig]

Okay, I'm just gonna take this slow and explain everything about Prevasion first in this one response before I get onto GV's offense options

Prevasion / Defense Section

https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/User_blog:Smashtwig/Prevasion's_Inconsistency (this is the current full guide to Prevasion, it may be missing some details)

Prevasion is an automatic intangibility defense that turns users into electrons. It costs part of a character specific resource (EP, Bullits, Talismans). So long as the user has their required resource, they've already "dodged" the attack, hence "Pre"vasion. By default, users are practically unhittable while still being able to attack during its activation. As for the resource, that resource is rechargable, either on its own, or manually by the user. If one chooses the latter, all of the required resource is instantly restored to its absolute max. Combine this with Prevasion, and users can stall out anyone if they really wanted to (the games even call them "pseudo invincible" and even Matt in a interview just called you invincible). In character most users want to keep their resources topped and will always try to restore their resource, and they can become intangible even while restoring

In Azure Striker Gunvolt 3, he gets even more things he can Prevade, such as Soul / Time / Space / Death / Concept killing attacks (Seven Slashes and Zero Blade), 2-A Existence Erasure and BFR (Damnatio Memorie), 2-A Power Nullification and Stats Reduction (Greed Snatcher), and Prevasion is overall a 2-A / Multiversal ability, since attacks that normally can bypass Prevasion such as Damnatio Memorie going through Kirin's cannot pierce Gunvolt in Gunvolt 3's. In addition in Gunvolt 3, Gunvolt doesn't need to recharge anymore, at all, as "EP" not only doesn't exist, but is infinite

This is Moebius-Gunvolt's (the one we're using) Prevasion video so you get the idea. Keep in mind that Prevasion is a 2-A ability, as 2-A level attacks (of an EE nature) straight up just... didn't work on him.

Cloud’s NPI does not work on Prevasion, not only is Prevasion straight up a 4D Smurfed up Intangibility, Cloud’s ability to hit souls doesn’t count towards hitting it- and even if it did, Gunvolt is able to Prevade against attacks that attack the very soul itself. Even to hit ASG1&2 GV, you’d need to hit specifically electrons to feasibly hit him, and sometimes even then it may not work- and in ASG3- even that isn’t enough, as attacks that used to go through it don’t anymore, even an

Here is list of all of Cloud's Materia/Magic that I could figure out that would be relevant to this (so, only the notable ones I found) and how they stack up to Prevasion or any of GV's other hax (Keep in mind this is all Disc 1 / All Materia)

• Death Manipulation (Gunvolt straight up Prevades attacks that “kills” the concept of his very soul)
• Transmutation (After exerting enough power into his Berserk state, Gunvolt straight up broke out of being a small canine dog… thing- similar to being a toad). A similar argument can be made for the Mini spell too, as he keeps his form and none of his abilities would be limited unlike in his canine Azure Beast state
• Petrification (Gunvolt has been resisting Petrification since game 1, and in GV3 he straight up doesn’t get affected by it at all)
• Time Stop (While time DOES stop Gunvolt, after being hit during it, he is somehow able to Prevade the actual damage… AFTER being hit- doesn’t make sense but it happens. Also GV may be getting Time Stop resist soon)
• Poison (Gunvolt felt no effects of poison after being hit with knives filled with the stuff)... if it would even get past Prevasion.
• Added Effect Attacks (If the attack itself doesn’t hit, any effect attached to it wouldn’t really matter, such as the time stop example above, just… note working
• Hades Summon (Gunvolt can Prevade attacks that look and act like clouds of dangerous gas before)
• Gravity / Demi Spells (While they’ll likely be Prevaded as it’s an attack- even if they do hit, these spells work by dealing a set amount of damage instead of one-shotting)
• Silence / Power Nullification (Gunvolt straight up Prevades attacks / effects that would normally bypass Prevasion back in GV1/2 and do null him, that being Greed Snatcher, which can null a 2-A Astral Order and one shot due to it)
• Berserk (At least when not in Berserk/Anthem, the Radiant Fetters seal is specifically meant to keep Gunvolt from going mad and berserk- which is what this Key like... is, Kirin's Fetters prevented MGV's rampage and made him control himself) and Confusion (the first thing Moebius-GV did was use Astral Order when they were berserk, only being prevented by GV trying to resist Moebius (a very confused and panicked baby who instinctively uses Astral Order)) using it- if Cloud makes GV confused, it'll just reassure that he'll just... die
• Flare: Gunvolt’s resisted with Matter Manipulation on the atomic level thanks to Absolute Zero resistance- and Prevasion is an electron based ability, but even if this does work, Gunvolt’s Mid-G Regeneration negs that.
• Attacks that appear inside GV (several instances where enemies just appear right on you are just Prevaded)
• BFR (Dezone) (Gunvolt’s straight up, PREVADED being sent to another dimension before)
• Sleep (wouldn’t really help, plus Gunvolt would likely just wake up a soon as Prevasion triggered, he’s also capable of fighting while “asleep” or what felt like being asleep for a long time as a Primal Dragon (as described in a cutscene after GV3’s intro stage)- I also doubt putting him asleep will just prevent him from going Berserk to counter it
• Water attacks from Aqualung or Leviathan do not work either, as Gunvolt in ASG3 does not have any weakness to water
• Any Added Effect Materia, as Prevasion would negate the sword attack that causes those effects.

I see Immortality Negation for Regen up to Mid-G, but I'm not sure how it interacts with a super high end Mid-G Regen, as Cloud killing Sephiroth for good seems to only be a single timeline feat while GV’s is like, this multiversal history erasure that can be argued to just straight up be High-G, which his Prevasion also scales to

Gunvolt also LOVES to teleport spam to defend- and his teleportation can range from ground level, all the way up to the skies- inside clouds (or even space if you wank it)- which has much more range the Cloud does

 

[Smashtwig]

Offense Section

Okay, I'm going to be very clear about this, this crap's linear. Thanks to GV's Astral Order powers from Moebius, he can passively just... Fate Manip all the time- it's basically just Yhwach's Almighty... like, line for line the same thing. He can also Time Travel or Rewind or some crap but I didn't put that in a CRT yet, but it really doesn't matter because it comes from the same ability.

If Cloud doesn't have Fate Resist on a 2-A level (which I'm... sure he does right?), then GV says

And then morbs all over the place and then Cloud dies and this match can't be added.

If Cloud does have Fate Resist on a 2-A level (Edit, he has Type 4 Acausality, he’s good)... then thanks to Prevasion, neither of them... like... lose? Inconclusive.

But if Cloud can somehow like, deal with that and Mid-G regeneration (which is instant btw it's not like it takes awhile)- along with GV's range, then Cloud just wins and GV has no incon.


There's also Gunvolt's Dragon Radiation which would make Cloud go mad and berserk- which I'm sure he'll resist- it wouldn't really matter because just because someone goes mad doesn't really mean they lose a fight or anything...

 

[Robo432343]

should i change the keys

 

[Bobsican]

I'd recommend that TBH.

 

[Smashtwig]

BET LETS GO that's the one I made notes on (I used Disc 1)

 

[Robo432343]

waht ap thing should i change it to
i cant see the profiles rn

 

[Smashtwig]

Okay just say GV3 GV, no Kirin (otherwise Cloud dies trust me lol)

Cloud's High 6-A key (any higher one and GV just loses trust me lol), Disc 1, for clarification, is the beginning of FF7 up until Aerith dies

 

[Smashtwig]

o yeah u forgot to tag GV, u only tagged in Azure Striker Gunvolt (verse name), not Gunvolt, anyways time to post my crap

 

[Smashtwig]

Now that everything's... actually fair, I'm gonna go over my opinion on how this match works

I actually a cool story for this matchup btw where Sumeragi/Shinra sends Cloud to beat up / incap Gunvolt so they can seal him in Glaives again after Kirin died or some crap

Battle Situation

This is a scenario where Kirin is not available to stop Gunvolt from going Primal Dragon and stuff- meaning that Gunvolt would go through 3 different forms on his own.

Base: He will have a "Fetters Gauge" that will slowly decrease until it hits zero and Gunvolt starts going Berserk again. Thanks to his Muse Image Pulse he'll instead be stuck in Anthem for a bit.
Anthem / Berserk: His likely most dangerous state in this scenario, and if he is in the state for too long he'll transform into his Primal Dragon state and immediately perform his strongest move, Vanishing World, which is where his AP even comes from.
Primal Dragon: Here, Gunvolt becomes a Bahamut-like dragon thing, however, he loses pretty much all of his really notable techniques (including Prevasion, the crux of GV's argument), but still keeps his Mid-G Regen


Cloud's Win Condition
Mid-G Regen and Prevasion together effectively stop Cloud from actually hurting or killing Gunvolt- yes even this version of Prevasion takes from the list of hax I listed above that just don't work against it. However, this isn't the case when Gunvolt is in his Primal Dragon state, where he loses pretty much all control of his powers- including Prevasion. On SBA's Win Conditions we have this:

Victory Conditions: Death of the opponent, removing the opponent from the battlefield for at least one week (BFR), knocking the opponent out for at least one hour, or incapacitating the opponent by putting him in a state in which he can not harm the other fighter(s) for over a day, are to be assumed as victory conditions.

Which means that Cloud can indeed just knock Gunvolt out when he's in his Primal Dragon state, and that's declared as winning. All Cloud needs to do is survive Gunvolt's Base and Anthem states, and he's golden.

Can he do this? Absolutely. Not only does he have the AP to support him, but he has Limit Breaks. And oh man those things are beyond powerful.

Limit Breaks are essentially one-shot moves, it’s unquantified, but going from normal attacks just annoying BAHAMUT- to one-shotting B A H A M U T with Climhazzard (a middle tier Limit Break- which he would have in Disc 1 (because I unlocked it during Disc 1 when I played FFVII) ). Even if he doesn’t have Climhazzard- even his WEAKEST Limit Break- Braver, can still massively damage ******* B A H A M U T is absurd, let alone Climhazzard- or Omnislash. Along with the AP Gap, it should be enough to KO Dragonvolt for an hour.

Will he figure it out? Absolutely, his skills and (implanted I think) SOLDIER experience should let him realize that Gunvolt is using a technique (Prevasion) to not let him be hurt. At the same time, he will absolutely notice that as time elapses, Gunvolt becomes more and more out of control- which by common logic will eventually strip him away from his Prevasion ability- a technique that seems to have some type of control required. And even if he can’t, Sense Materia, a common RPG Starting Move tactic people actually use, can tell Cloud of that information.

Gunvolt's Win Condition
GV's win condition is just as simple as Cloud's. Defeat Cloud before he goes Primal Dragon. He has multiple ways to do that

Most notably using Flash Dart, which "Tags" (essentially makes every next move home and autohit) everyone in the area in a pulse-

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/v...sion/latest?cb=20220816191534&format=original

If he isn't in Berserk, he'll simply have to shoot Cloud with his machine-gun fire like gun, which Cloud could indeed block to be honest.

And then use his super spam heavy teleportation- which is his primary way of traversing a stage or sometimes combat

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/v...Assault.gif/revision/latest?cb=20220811005127

Into Voltaic Buster, which one shots any opponent in the game (along with using a Class T lifting strength to grab them and crush them into the ground in the first place- and Cloud only has Class M Lifting Strength)

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/vsbattles/images/c/cc/GVVoltaicBuster0.gif/revision/latest/

Other tools he has are:

Constant Flashfield and constant Astrasphere in Berserk just means that Cloud has no chance of getting close with his Buster Sword, as he'd just get damaged by just being next to Gunvolt.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/v...Barrier.gif/revision/latest?cb=20220812051633
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/v...tAstra0.gif/revision/latest?cb=20220816232420

And Flashfield in general creates essentially a Danmaku of homing attacks in general to whittle Cloud down.

Voltaic Chains will use his Class T LS to grab and shock Cloud until he's done for.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/vsbattles/images/0/0d/GVAntVoltaic.gif/revision/latest?cb=20220812051511

Dragonvolt himself isn't helpless either, being his strongest form- even if his AP is still less than Cloud's aforementioned Dragon Radiation would definitely make Cloud go a bit berserk (I don't see it resisted in this key), but at that point, Cloud would be going for his Limit Break wincon, which would only happen when Cloud is in a tight spot anyways.


Is this doable for Cloud?
Now I just listed a bunch of ways for GV to just end Cloud, but- no, this isn't as clear cut as you think.

Gunvolt's once again, without Kirin, so Cloud can more or less use Berserk magic to make Gunvolt more suspectable to going Berserk- which, while risky, will indeed let Cloud skip past "Phase 1" of this fight, that being Base Gunvolt. Will he go for it immediately, who knows- but once he starts seeing GV go more Berserk, he could use his intelligence to put two and two together. Cloud can also use Confusion Materia to stall for more time as well. Of course, Materia takes time to cast- even in FFVII and FF7R, and Cloud has a Mana Supply (which could be offset with Ethers or any MP restoring item Cloud may have), but it's still a win condition

The more important question is "can Cloud survive"- and the answer is- yes- possibly, he can. Healing / Angel Whisper Materia, being RPG healing, is very, very powerful healing that will restore Cloud to basically full every time GV gets close to killing him, and thanks to his AP, even Voltaic Buster which one-shots people stronger than GV (somehow) won't instant kill- and more importantly Barrier / Big Guard / Dragon Force Materia which reduces damage dramatically, as well as HP Regen. There’s even HP and MP Absorb to increase his sustain. Once he's set those up, which he probably will when he sees how Gunvolt's massive AoE and Danmaku Homing crazy crap is pretty much present all fight (as well as W-Magic to use multiple Materia at the same time), he can use his sword skills to fend off plenty of attacks like Lighting Assault teleportation spam or his Lock-On Flashfield- turtling up if he needs to to block the attacks, or slash away at any Voltaic Chains GV may try to throw at Cloud with his higher AP- Slash-All letting him cover more area to defend with his sword swings. Summons also help give GV something else to target or worry about too, dividing his attention and targets (Lightning Assault is single target until that target dies, then GV moves to the next, but Lock On Flashfield targets all). Even if things get out of hand Time Slow can buy Cloud some more time to react to GV’s attacks (yes GV may resist time stop but not time slow, it’s a special interaction in iX2). With all of this Cloud can possibly survive and stall for time until GV turns Primal and Cloud one-shots him with a Limit Break. But here's the issue:

We don’t know exactly how long GV will become a Primal Dragon without Kirin around aside from an arbitrary timer when he goes Berserk/Anthem, and for Normal GV, we don’t have much either aside from an arbitrary Fetters Gauge. Compare that versus how much damage he can do when he’s unleash (he basically dominates everyone that scales- and just straight up one shots in Anthem/Berserk)- and it becomes more unclear on “how long” Cloud will have to survive. And he cannot exactly “defend” against any of GVs attacks either via blocking or dodging due to their near auto-hit natures- or instantaneous teleportation spams, Anthem/Berserk especially- and Voltaic Buster / EM Grappling at Class T too.

Which is why to me, this can go either way, like- Inconclusive, because both have reachable win conditions, and I have a lot of faith in both of them to be able to achieve those conditions

(EDIT 12/30/23): So for some reason I completely forgotten about Dragon Radiation in his Dragon form. Not only am I sure that Cloud has some kind of resistance, it really only makes him go crazy and attack things, which uh... doesn't really affect the match at that point in the fight since he is supposed to attack at that point

 

[Xmark12]

Incon fra lol

 

[Peppersalt43]

Incon FRA

 

[Dragoonseraphim]

Incon FRA

 

[XSOULOFCINDERX]

Incon FRA.

 

[Smashtwig]

thats 5, need 2 more lol

 

[Sniper670]

Inconclusive based off the in depth analysis made by @Smashtwig

 

[Popted2]

Incon FRA

 

[Smashtwig]

Grace at 4AM EST

 

[Smashtwig]

Adding

 

[Smashtwig]

Going to quickly note that TartaChocolate clarified a few things about the 2-A variant of this match, Cloud has Type 4 Acausality, so Astral Order wouldn’t really work, but GV’s Prevasion and possibly Regen would still make this match Inco but also a lot more boring to where it’s a mismatch. This H6-A match is still good to keep tho.

EDIT AS OF MAY 8 2024: New Universal Changes for FF7, I’m gonna go through them real fast right now

• High G Regen Negation just makes things easier for Cloud so he doesn’t have to knock GV out rather he can just merc him. Doesn’t change much since he auto-wins anyways by the time he’s actually able to hit him
• The whole Information and Conceptual Manipulation part doesn’t really matter, it just means that they can affect those things… which GV isn’t anyways
• Soul Manipulation, Mind Manipulation, Memory Manipulation, Empathic Manipulation and Life Manipulation are all things GV resists but not up to a 4D level, so… this might matter? Spiritual Energy attacks would have to kind of land against a Layered 4D Prevasion to make this happen anyways
• Mid-Low Regen: I severely doubt that this will happen in a fast paced battle or I would have definitely have seen my health bar regenerate without me using Regen in the games

 

[Robo432343]

cloud doesnt have type 4 aca on his profile