Deadliest Character: Lightning vs. Cloud. WHO IS DEADLIEST!?

[VeloZer0]

The amount you can do with materia WAY exceeds what you can do with paridgms. You give lightning an advantage because she has a sword/gun? Long Range materia. You give her an advantage in speed? Speed Plus Materia. Not to mention all the crazy self supporting combos you can hook together with a clever set up of support materia. Cloud can be set up to outperform Lightning in any of her paradigms, and do it all at the same time.

Sorry to keep doing this to you, but Cloud was never in SOLDIER. He was just a standard infantryman. That's why he became nuts when he was injected with Jenova cells, unlike SOLDIER recruits (although Sephiroth probably did lose it, he was less augmented and more created)

In game he says his body has the same physical makeup of someone in soldier.

[Laddy]

The amount you can do with materia WAY exceeds what you can do with paridgms. You give lightning an advantage because she has a sword/gun? Long Range materia. You give her an advantage in speed? Speed Plus Materia. Not to mention all the crazy self supporting combos you can hook together with a clever set up of support materia. Cloud can be set up to outperform Lightning in any of her paradigms, and do it all at the same time.

Keep in mind, if he uses too much Materia he becomes significantly weaker. Speed Plus Materia only does so much. Lightning can easily swap to Synergist and haste herself, go to Saboteur and slow Cloud, and go back to a combat role as quick as a flash. That's why I handed it to her in various categories. Cloud can come in more powerful (which is why Materia got the edge), but Lightning can adjust easily to any situation mid-battle and on the fly.

Anyway, next post contains the results!

[Laddy]

Cloud was walking through a futuristic landscape, with his Buster Sword lying lazily on his back. His eyes were filled with alertness as he stopped and casually put Materia in his Buster Sword, not looking down to see his progress. Out the corner of his eye his saw a tall young woman, Lightning. As she somersaulted down a marvel of a building she released her Blaze Edge and posed as he landed. "I'm not gonna let some overcompensating twerp with long term memory loss take me," she said aggresively deadpan. Cloud chuckled, "Well, it looks like this is gonna be fun."

Lightning instantly leaped into action, dashing at Cloud while firing bullets at him, which he deflected easily. Cloud then took a duo of fearsome strikes at Lightning, which she evaded with ease. "Looks like I'm not the only SOLDIER here," he said under his breath. "You wish," Lightning remarked as she kicked Cloud in the face, staggering him. Cloud quick regained his balance and unleashed a spell at Lightning, "Fire," he said, as the Inferno struck her down. "Dammit," Lightning remarked as she got up from her vulnerable position, "need a new plan." Lightning hopped up and swapped paradigms with a White aura enveloping her.

Cloud snarled, "What the hell is that?" Lightning propelled her hand at him, releasing a ball of energy. Cloud suddenly felt thick, unable to move very quickly. Lightning pounced at him, Cloud tried to release a strike at Lightning, just barely connecting as she almost cut a slash down his face. Lightning was promptly propelled back, while Cloud took the added time to dispel the Slowon himself. Lightning changed paradigms again, becoming enveloped in a red aura. Cloud, feeling a pulse of energy, decided to strike her with his Limit Break, Braver, running at her with full speed. Lightning, newly a Commando again, tried to awkwardly push herself up. Cloud finally exerted himself in the air, bringing his gigantic blade down on the vulnerable woman. Right as he brings down the blade a gunshot went off. Lightning, still on the ground from Cloud's strike, had shot him square in the chest. She rolls herself out of the way as the man falls down, blood trickling down his chest.

Lightning, bruised and bloodied, stood up hapharzadly, clearly injured. "You...s-seem like a nice enough guy, but a target's...a target," she stated with the fatigue clearly present in her voice. With that she saluted at the lifeless corpse, put away her Blaze Edge, and leaped out of sight.

Winner: Lightning


A choice that may not be popular, but one I stand by. Lightning has a better weapon, more versatility, and better all-around stats. That's why I find her deadlier than Cloud. Actually, I had originally planned this to be a Cloud victory, but after I noticed her movement in battle and researched that she was a Seargant, I felt she was much, much stronger than I originially thought. So while Cloud had an expansive library of skills to work with, Lightning's ability to adjust her skills as it happens makes her the Deadliest Character.

Up next: Paladin Cecil vs. Auron, starting later this week. Don't miss it!

[VeloZer0]

Speed Plus Materia only does so much

I agree raising a stat to 150% of it's original for each one is a very marginal effect.

Strength/HP only decreases from Magic and Summon Materia, of which HP Plus makes the strength trade off the only one of significance. Support, command and independent materia all have no adverse effects. With intelligent materia set up you only need a few pieces of magic & summon materia.

[Laddy]

Speed Plus Materia only does so much

I agree raising a stat to 150% of it's original for each one is a very marginal effect.

Strength/HP only decreases from Magic and Summon Materia, of which HP Plus makes the strength trade off the only one of significance. Support, command and independent materia all have no adverse effects. With intelligent materia set up you only need a few pieces of magic & summon materia.

Still, though. A lot of independent materia, while useful, has limited use in a one-on-one fight. Cloud can definitely become very powerful, but if he wants to meet Lightnin's excellent ability to cover all the bases, his other stats are going to suffer. Making Cloud a jack-of-all-trades is very damn difficult, as being overloaded with Materia with no clear focus makes him incapable of being particular good at all of them.

Cloud could either be an effective specialist, which is awesome, or a limited Renaissance Man. Lightning is versatile, but making Cloud versatile (in my experiences) made him lose effectiveness.

EDIT: Seriously, Cloud is slow as smurf. How many slots do you have to build up a crucially important stat to match up someone who could very easily haste herself and slow you in no time flat? Cloud's Materia is potentially very powerful, but when you can literally swap classes depending on the situation, it become difficult to match up.

[VeloZer0]

Well I guess we are going to have to agree to disagree, because I feel with materia setups you can make Cloud versatile enough to cover every base to a higher level than Lightning could if she specialized to each of them individually. By equipping a single Enemy Skill materia Cloud already has her level of versatility.

[Laddy]

I completely understand, considering one can disagree so much with another makes me confident I chose a good match-up.

To me, Lightning had a better weapon, more skills, better stats, and Cloud simply doesn't have enough Materia slots to fill all the areas Lightning has to cover. Though, the opposite is perfetly valid.

I like both characters though and I feel like trout having to write Cloud dying, so I made it fairly tame. xD

Anyways, what do you think about the next one? Paladin Cecil versus Auron? I'm proud of it because I can see both men easily winning. Cecil has a selection of healing spells and great defensive equipment, while Auron can inflict statistical damage and has large HP.

[TrollHunter]

Aurons won the next one. Why is that you ask? Because he's mothersmurfing Auron!

[champagne supernova]

In game he says his body has the same physical makeup of someone in soldier.

Well he was injected with JENOVA cells, so I'm not surprised But he was never trained to be in SOLDIER, although he was mentored by a SOLDIER.

[Karifean]

Auron uses Shooting Star and wins instantly.

Btw, Cloud and Lightning DID fight each other.

[Laddy]

Dissidia?

[Mercen-X]

Still think you based your decision more on Cloud being an idiot that on being physically slow. There's no evading a summon and Cloud never once used one. You think that just because it's a one-on-one battle that he's gonna go in overconfident? Two slots. Fine. You didn't even mention which materia he chose. We only know he used Fire. I'll grant you that Cloud would lose because he is fairly stupid though.

[Laddy]

Lightning didn't use a summon either.

The fights are for dramatic effect, not to simulate how the battle would go down. In the show this is based off, the winner would often kill their opponent with the weakest one of the entire bunch. It's just adds to the suspense.

[Mercen-X]

the weakest one of the entire bunch.

I'm not sure what that means.
My opinion is that the ability to plan ahead by use of systems like Materia, Licenses, or Spheres, what-have-you far outranks any one character's natural abilities. These Paradigm Shift abilities, no matter how useful they may seem individually, to me at least, would not seem to be able to hold their own against any inhabitant of the Planet when properly affixed with Materia. I think even Marlene could win a battle against Lightning if only by the use of materia. Of course, if you remove this aspect entirely, that's a different story. No materia means no augmented statistics (aside from that which can be attained by use of Sources which, let's face it, is not the most efficient way to gain stats), no magic, and no special abilities aside from the character's own LIMIT Breaks (which only Cloud's group seems able to use... aside from that one kid in the training hall...). No Paradigm Shift means Lightning has to choose one mode to fight in throughout the battle. I don't know what the outcome would be then.

[Laddy]

Dude, Materia beat Paradigm Shift. And to be honest, it wasn't even close to beating Materia.

The difficulty Cloud had is that he's the inferior warrior. In every other category he was weaker. His weapon was inferior. His stats were inferior. His significantly inferior training would like affect his Materia strategy. So a questionable suggestion of Materia reflects that.