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.
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
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