Board 8 > ~FIGHT!~ Mario, Raiden, Pamela, Gordon vs. Cloud, Zeratul, Vivi, Ridley, Maria

(+) Yeah! (+)

Mario, Raiden, Pamela and Gordon Freeman have challenged Cloud Strife, Zeratul, Vivi Ornitier, Ridley and Lady Maria to a fight! Location of the fight: Shakuras, the Dark World - A volcanic hell with a breathable (if thin) atmosphere and swelteringly hot temperatures, though it is perpetually in darkness. Attackers will start at the bottom of the Talematros Plateau, with defenders at the top, as seen in the Brood War mission Drawing of the Web, using the locations of the Zerg and central Protoss bases, respectively. Which side will win?

Guidelines
-The fight will occur in real-time (like an FMV sequence). Gameplay mechanics are less important than how the characters would function in a real-time environment.
-The members of each team are ideal teammates capable of executing a prearranged battle plan.
-Unless stated otherwise, characters have access to their full arsenal of abilities and equipment. They may not always work at full power, however (e.g. a petrifying spell may have only a partial hindering effect not seen in gameplay or even fail outright against sufficiently powerful mercenaries). Use your own discretion.
-No mercenary can ever start in a location where they would die instantly, destroy the arena merely by existing in it, or end up ringed out of the terrain before abilities. If there's no room within a terrain to fit them, the terrain will stretch out until there's at least one yard of available, moving, safe space. Attacks may not damage the terrain enough to cause automatic deaths or ring-outs, save with a concerted effort.
-There may be SPOILERS from all of the games the characters are from.

Rules for Voting
-Bold your votes.
-You do not need to require justification for your vote, though the admins reserve the right to disqualify votes in the advent of obvious alt voting and other similar scenarios.
-Leaders cannot vote for their own teams, but they are free to argue their case.
-If you want to switch your votes simply bold the change; there's no need to delete your post, though you may if you wish.
-This match will end in 24 hours.

Mario is as he appears in the Super Mario Bros. series, with full access to all of his abilities seen therein. He has access to all of his Super Mario RPG abilities, cap suite as seen in Super Mario 64, Mega Mushroom and kart (plus one Banana Peel, Dash Mushroom, Lightning Bolt and Spiny Shell), and may use his Final Smashes from the Super Smash Bros. series if the appropriate circumstances arise without requiring a Smash Ball. Additionally, he is accompanied by Cappy, but may not Capture enemy mercenaries by default.

Pamela Ibis is as she appears in Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis. She is equipped with a set of endgame equipment and has access to all of her skills, including Physical Immunity, all of her Have Fun options and Immortal Body, which will only work once. She has mastered all the slots in her Grow Book. If all of her allies are defeated, she will automatically pass on one minute from the last one falling.

Gordon Freeman is as he appears in Half-Life 2 and its sequels, with his full arsenal at his disposal save for the Super Gravity Gun.

Raiden is as seen in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance with access to all of his weapons (save the Fox Blade) and upgrades available in that game, including the Murasama blade, as well as a full complement of grenades and stinger missiles.

~VS~

Zeratul is as he appears in the Starcraft series and Heroes of the Storm with all of his skills except Void Prison. During combat, his cloaking works as it does in HotS, invisible until either he attacks or is damaged, at which point it takes a few seconds of non-action to reactivate.

Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower is as she appears in her fight in Bloodborne: The Old Hunters. She may use any attacks from any of her boss stages as she sees fit.

Vivi Ornitier is as he appears in Final Fantasy 9, equipped with his ultimate endgame equipment and his full complement of passive abilities, minus all auto abilities except for Auto-Reflect (which he may dismiss at will but not reapply). He has access to all of his spells save Death, may apply Element Null as he sees fit and may perform Sword Magic combos with other allies as appropriate. Doomsday will not necessarily hit all enemies nor allies automatically.

Cloud Strife is as he appears in Final Fantasy 7 Remake and continuations, with full access to all his moves and Limit Breaks seen therein. He has access to all elemental magic materia, Deadly Dodge, Parry, Steadfast Block, Healing, Barrier, Subversion, Time, Elemental (linked to Lightning), Assess, Refocus and Bahamut, all fully mastered.

Omega Ridley is as he appears in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, though he may be damaged by non-phazon attacks and phazon will not irradiate anything just by existing. He has access to all attacks and feats shown in Metroid: Other M, Metroid: Samus Returns, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and Metroid Prime, in all forms.

This fight takes place at Shakuras, the Dark World. It's a rather open layout, which means there's plenty of space in the air for Ridley to fly around. This leads into my team's strategy, as we make Ridley and Bahamut fly around being big dragons causing chaos, leaving the other team distracted and open to Zeratul warping in and ganking the other team. Protoss communicate with their thoughts, like the Andalites in Animorphs. He can inform the dragons when he's in position without anyone else being aware that he's there. Gordon has the best ranged options on the other team, so he's a prime candidate to be distracted get ganked by Zeratul. Zeratul becomes visible after his first attack, but if they start focusing Zeratul, they aren't paying attention to the giant dragons. This is when Maria jumps in and takes out Pamela. In Bloodborne, blood and fire attacks are distinct from physical attacks, so Maria's blood and fire attacks from her later phases will hurt Pamela. She has either a warp or a very fast charge, so she can hang back a bit and jump in when it's good for her. Bahamut won't stick around for the whole fight, but his parting gift is a Mega Flare that only Raiden has a chance of surviving.

Meanwhile, Cloud and Vivi are hanging back a bit playing support. Cloud has already buffed Ridley and Bahamut with Regen, Protect, Shell, and Haste, and both Cloud and Vivi have Slow to hit Raiden with. After Zeratul clears out the enemy ranks, Cloud can play healer/buffer, while Vivi can hit Raiden with spells like Slow and Poison. Zeratul also has a neat ability called Singularity Spike, which also causes a slow effect if it hits. Raiden's good, but he's not good enough to parry an attack from an invisible guy while Raiden's under the effects of Slow and fighting a giant space dragon.

Another issue with Raiden is that he mostly fights by parrying, while Ridley loves using energy based attacks that you can't parry. Raiden will be forced to dodge rather than parry, and with Ridley's speed buff and Raiden's speed debuff, it's going to get tough for him.

Basically, Zeratul thins out the other team's numbers (and Maria takes care of Pamela with her fire and blood), which turns this into a raid boss against Raiden. Ridley is the tank, Cloud is the healer, Vivi is the debuffer, Lady Maria is the support fighter and Zeratul is the assassin. It'll be a tough fight, but I'm confident that my team comes out on top.

TL;DR: Double Dragon distraction, allowing Zeratul to gank. Cloud has heals and buffs, and Cloud, Vivi, and Zeratul all have debuffs. Ridley uses energy attacks that Raiden can't parry, and should have a speed advantage thanks to the buffs and debuffs. It becomes a raidboss, and my team is well equipped to win such a fight.

Raiden soloes?

Probably.

But he has the backup of Pamela who isnt conventially hurt, and not the biggest threat cuz Raiden is target numero uno. She has plenty of time to use her debuffs and buffs on her teammates, and she has a revive built into her base.

Once Mario sees the enemy team on his Kart (He's a great scouter on enemy planets!) he can use his Mega Mushroom and use his Lightning Bolt. He's HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE. Big disruption! Lightning Bolt hits all enemies so it'll hit Zeratul, which probably causes his camo to go down for a bit, and makes him vulnerable to Raiden.

Gordon is pretty helpful against flyers (Ridley), and can damage him with his rockets and laser gun. Not like anyone likes Gordon but hey...

Anyway yeah!

Rebuttal to post: Raiden can't parry energy attacks, but he can quick time ninja dodge beams, and has in his fight against Metal Gear Excelsius! So yeah!

He's going to have trouble dodging when he's been hit by slow, possibly two different sources of slow.

Also to note here is that Pamela can imbue Raiden with health steal which is very good.

Cloud has Dispel, so he undoes any buffs that Pamela applies.

which neutralizes cloud into being some debuff wiping bot and not being a SOLDIER

That's all Cloud needs to do here. He has Zeratul to go around ganking distracted people, and two dragons flying around to frontline for him. Cloud plays a support role here.

buffs are nice and all but they wear off, and cloud doesn't have unlimited MP

especially on such a huge terrain

Well, good thing we have a psychic alien who's proficient in mind reading to let my team know when the enemy gets close! Cloud doesn't need to keep spamming buffs before the teams meet. Zeratul will make sure that Cloud knows when they're close enough that it's time to start buffing.

thats true, but how long do buffs even last? can he keep buffing while dispelling too?

Things to note:

-Raiden has stinger missiles. Those are nice here, though not great against Ridley who is ungodly tough. Solid vs bahamut tho
-Bahamut is a oneshot guest star for one minute. Ridley is the only persistent flier here.
--Zeratul warp blades are pure psychic energy. They probably gib the shit out of pamela.
-Zeratul has to do a lot of carrying here to thin out the herd. I think Zeratul+Cloud+Ridley can beat Raiden but not with much backup.
-Vivi is lowkey really good here. Break is a potent-ass CC to hit Raiden with and let his mekee bots do things. He can stay on Ridley to cast safely, too.

Haste is 100 seconds, Barrier is 60 seconds, and Regen is 3 minutes. They last long enough that he'll have some downtime to Dispel.

Ridley is a loser. Raiden will carve him up in two seconds

This basically match comes down to how effective you think magic is against Raiden

raiden can be stun locked in mgr and tanks it btw just sayin''

Ridley's skin is made out of Phazon. He's unbelievably tanky here, and Raiden isn't going to be slicing through him in a few seconds when he couldn't even do that to Excelsus.

https://youtu.be/b_7496AVNaE?t=90

vivi in action

KanzarisKelshen posted...

-Bahamut is a oneshot guest star for one minute. Ridley is the only persistent flier here.

He is, but he's around at the start to cause a distraction to let Zeratul get close. He just needs to be an early nuisance, and then fire off a Mega Flare when he's done.

KanzarisKelshen posted...

-Zeratul has to do a lot of carrying here to thin out the herd. I think Zeratul+Cloud+Ridley can beat Raiden but not with much backup.

Zeratul can use his invisibility to get to the back line, then start warping around to get to people. I think he can get two right from the getgo, especially if Pamela isn't immune to his blade.

KamikazePotato posted...

Ridley is a loser. Raiden will carve him up in two seconds

This basically match comes down to how effective you think magic is against Raiden

He's got his Other M moveset. Any other Ridley version I'd agree but that one is actually legit.

Also, Cloud and Vivi have Break and Stop. Zeratul and Cloud will carve Raiden the hell up if those have decent effect against him, j/s

Ridley also has his Samus Returns moveset, where he actually had Samus dead to rights. If it wasn't for the baby Metroid, Ridley gets a win there.

Well Vivis not pulling off riding a dragon.

The real question is whether buffed Raiden and Gordon can do enough to take care of cloud ridley and Zeratul (lady marias toast even vs just gordon, Raiden just does it fastee)

And uhh

You know maybe.

Raiden isn't going to be buffed here. Cloud has Dispel to deal with that, and Pamela isn't going to live very long, with Zeratul's blade being psychic based, or even Maria's fire and blood attacks.

Mewtwo59 posted...

Raiden isn't going to be buffed here. Cloud has Dispel to deal with that, and Pamela isn't going to live very long, with Zeratul's blade being psychic based, or even Maria's fire and blood attacks.

So my only problem with your argument is this idea that Cloud is going to cast himself as the caster of this bunch.

Otherwise really solid.

Ridley can harass from the air when he's been hit by the lightning bolt. He's big enough that even with a size reduction, his energy attacks are something you're still going to have to put effort into dodging. Ridley's not just going to stand there and fight where he has a disadvantage. He has flight and range, so why wouldn't he take advantage of it?

Eddv posted...

So my only problem with your argument is this idea that Cloud is going to cast himself as the caster of this bunch.

Otherwise really solid.

Why not? He has the second highest magic stat in FF7, and he's your best caster at the points where Aeris isn't around. I used him as my caster in the Cloud/Barret/Tifa chapters. Dude is super adaptable. And personality wise, I don't see why he wouldn't go for it. You even see the low class SOLDIERs using magic in combat. Cloud's smart enough to know what his strengths are and to play to them.

Can confirm Cloud is the second best caster in FF7. He outshines even Cait Sith iirc, it's just that he's so far beyond everyone else if you're not casting and instead swinging weapons that he ends up in that role instead. This holds for 7 Remake too -- iirc, Buster Sword Cloud has more magic prowess than Barret and Tifa with their most magical weapons, though I could be wrong.

Team Cloud

Raiden's the best on the field, and Mario's good for the lightning bolt but it doesn't let Raiden take out more than 2 big combatants.

A ton of encounters in Rising are from enemies uncloaking in Raiden's face, so his ability to detect even just visibly cloaked enemies isn't amazing unless they're right up next to him. So Zeratul's got a pretty free kill if choosing anyone else and Pamela looks and fills the slot of squishy mage while Gordon's got guns, so I'd assume those 2 stand out as easy priority targets.

Everyone on Cloud's team could kill Mario or Pamela by themselves when they're available to, Gordon only really stands a chance to kill Vivi, Raiden can't really hold out against Cloud + Bahamut + Zeratul + Ridley, with potential backup from Vivi/Maria if they're alive.

Well it just strikes me that Cloud would favor the giant sword as opposed to his support spell suite

It takes 180 missiles to defeat Ridley in Super Metroid.

Now, Metal Gear Rising takes place in 2018. Zero Mission takes place is 20X5. Therefore, I am willing to believe that Raiden's actual damage output is about congruous to Samus', if not just a little less assuming that Metroid doesn't take place during the Bush/Sears administration. Even assuming, quite charitably, that Mario shrinks dudes to a 1/10th scale and that also 1/10ths their durability...

Like, if Ridley is not RIGHT next to the ground? I think he lives. Keeping in mind that this is Omega Ridley and not Super Metroid Ridley - he's been given big tech armor that has then been dipped in phazite, which no-sells Samus' standard missiles. "Raiden can't cut through it" is a silly thing to think, he absolutely can, but I don't believe for a second it's clean cuts straight through. Gordon isn't doing much more than scratching him.

However, Gordon does prevent this from being a complete blowout by sniping Vivi. If Mario uses Lightning on that Auto-Reflect... oof ouch.

Still, Double Dragons. Ridley will demand Raiden's attention for a while, even assuming the best of circumstances, and that basically lets Zeratul have free reign in ganking everyone else. I honestly don't think Cloud needs to summon Bahamut until he's actually ready to engage Raiden; he's got the feats and skills to handle everyone else here pretty deftly and Ridley, the guy who can fly between planets and Samus' Gunship can't keep up with, is most certainly the fastest guy here and controlling the pace.

Eddv posted...

Well it just strikes me that Cloud would favor the giant sword as opposed to his support spell suite

Well, there's also the factor of a "too many cooks in the kitchen" effect. With Ridley tanking and Zeratul and Maria (if she's still alive) being melee fighters, it's better off for Cloud to hang back so my team doesn't end up tripping over each other.

Team Cloud

I do buy that the lightning bolt here will decloak Zeratul and he'll die easily, but I think there's too much here for Raiden to deal with (especially if debuffed by Cloud), and Megaflare will definitely kill the rest of his team and deal heavy damage to him.

I'm gonna be the odd one out here and give this to Raiden and Pals.

Mario decloaking Zeratul is a very legitimate strategy that gets Zeratul killed early, Gordon can take out at least Vivi and possibly Maria, and Pamela has some time to work and do her thing here if Zeratul doesn't get to her. She doesn't need to be invincible to survive long enough to matter. A lot of it comes down to if Raiden can get to and take Cloud out early enough, because if he can then all those buffs and debuffs go away. It's true that Megaflare takes out most of Raiden's support, but this is where Pamela's re-raise effect matters, she can soak it and revive and make sure Raiden gets his lifesteal back up. And a Raiden with Lifesteal can take Ridley out (even a good Ridley), I'm pretty sure. Thing about Bahamut is you legit don't need to fight him at all he lasts a minute, you just need to dodge him as best you can and wait for him to time out. So yeah, I think if Raiden realizes that he needs to have a sword duel with Cloud (and the man does love sword duels, and as much as Cloud CAN decide to play buff bot he's also a big fan of sword fights and is probably not hanging back so far that he wouldn't be able to be engaged on...) Basically it's pretty plausible to me that Raiden takes Cloud on early while Ridley is brawling with Giant Mario, and if he does then I think he's got a very solid path to victory.

Mewtwo59 posted...

Well, there's also the factor of a "too many cooks in the kitchen" effect. With Ridley tanking and Zeratul and Maria (if she's still alive) being melee fighters, it's better off for Cloud to hang back so my team doesn't end up tripping over each other.

This is a good point

begrudging vote for Team Cloud

Thunder to decloak Zeratul is reliant on a ~3 second debuff being used in a 3 second window multiple minutes into the fight without him already knowing Zeratul is there at all. If he throws it out randomly, he just wastes it while Zeratul is already out of sight on nothing in particular, I think he'd rather save it for a big enemy encounter.

Bahamut is the point-tipper I think

Close match and I think this comes down to Mario having the wrong customs. If he had Star Spirits he could sleep Ridley down from the sky and this becomes a very funny rout. As is, Gordon dies as soon as battle begins, then Cloud and Ridley and Vivi fight Raiden (Vivi helps a LOT here with Break to either slow him down or freeze him in place), and Zeratul can pick off his support gradually until he's alone. It's tough, but I think team Double Dragons ekes it out.