Board 8 > ~FIGHT!~ Squall Leonhart vs Neclord

(+) Yeah! (+)

Squall Leonhart has challenged Neclord to a fight! Location of the fight: Balamb Garden - The wide halls of Balamb, normally packed with students, are empty in preparation for the coming battle. The entire top parts of the Garden (i.e not NORG's room) are fair game in this fight, so there's plenty of potential for games of cat and mouse. Neclord will start at the front entrance outside the Garden, while Squall will start at the Headmaster's Office. 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 a pre-selected plan of battle.
- "Broken" refers to a lot of things, including insta-death, auto-effects, a variety of status effects (e.g., Imp, Silence, Stop, *not* Poison), and revival. Unless stated otherwise, nobody has them, though do use your own discretion.
- There may be SPOILERS from all of the games the characters are from.

Rules for Voting
- Bold your votes (using bold HTML tags).
- 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 (and players from the same pool may not vote as well), 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 2 hours or whenever one side gets 7 votes, whichever is later, to a maximum of 6 hours.
- The following conventions are in use for match topics: www.gamefaqs.com/boards/570224-mercs/75290480/878106427

Squall is as he appears in FFVIII, Dissidia, and Kingdom Hearts (minus magic immunity) with all attacks, limit breaks, and spells featured within, but cannot cast Aura, Demi, Apocalypse, or negative status-inflicting magic. He is considered to have an optimal junction setup for stat bonuses, but gains no other benefits from junctioning and cannot summon. He has the benefit of the support abilities HP+40% and Counter. He comes into battle wielding the Star Dragon Sword. The Star Dragon Sword retains its sentience and can (and will) freely communicate with anyone in the fight, though it will not otherwise act of its own will. It acts as an ideal teammate but will, however, refuse to be wielded by anyone other than its chosen wielder for the fight.

~VS~

Neclord is as seen in Suikoden II, with all of his attacks shown in Suikoden I and Suikoden II. He retains his extreme resistance to damage from non-holy based magic and weapons from the Moon Rune, as well as any attacks seen in the gameplay granted by the rune. However, he will lose these resistances if struck by the Star Dragon Sword and cannot otherwise use the rune for curses or anything else.

Can Squall put aside the fact that the Star Dragon Sword lacks the ability to shoot and use it to vanquish the lord of the night, or will Neclord's centuries of experience prove decisive in dispatching this pretender? FIGHT!
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You know I'm not an expert on these characters so I don't know who wins.

Maybe @JeezyMiyagi and @redrocket_pub can help me
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Neclord's got some cool things that give him an advantage against Squall:

- He can fly around and Balamb is large enough to give him plenty of space to flee
- He's a better mage than Squall and can get off spells quicker than him. At range Neclord will be able to get the first strike and keep pounding Squall with lightning/wind spells to prevent Squall from casting higher level spells or getting too close.
- Neclord knows his opponent will have the SDS and will want to stay out of melee range. Neclord's cowardice will keep him safe and sound.

The SDS is essentially just a very large broadsword. Squall's gunblades are deeply silly gun/sword fusions that aren't handled in the same way as a more traditional sword. Squall won't be able to use the SDS super effectively because he's wasted so much time learning to use some stupid gunblade thing.

I'd also like to emphasize how hard it is to take out Neclord when you are working solo. In Suikoden II to kill Neclord you needed vampire hunter Kahn Marley to seal Neclord in place to prevent him fleeing, another Runic Vampire to cut off the Moon Rune from him and it still takes a full party of 6 to kill him in a fairly challenging boss battle. Squall's got nobody to hold Neclord in one place and Neclord doesn't just crumple to holy based attacks.
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Squall Leonhart has challenged Neclord to a fight!

Good.
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Assuming group 2 cant vote but thats a very compelling neclord argument
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Squall easily
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I'm not sure what delusions lead to the argument that Neclord is a better caster than Squall. Squall has access to a full stock of Ultima, Meteor, and Holy. Most importantly, he has access to the real game breaker, Triple. Triple Meteor and/or Holy spam is outrageous. And of course, he also has access to Curaga for self healing. He is well setup to outlast Neclord in a ranged spam fest.
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redrocket_pub posted...

I'm not sure what delusions lead to the argument that Neclord is a better caster than Squall. Squall has access to a full stock of Ultima, Meteor, and Holy. Most importantly, he has access to the real game breaker, Triple. Triple Meteor and/or Holy spam is outrageous. And of course, he also has access to Curaga for self healing. He is well setup to outlast Neclord in a ranged spam fest.

Neclord is a runic vampire with centuries experience casting spells. Squall doesn't really seem like a magic focused FF party member such as Vivi/Terra/Celes. The base stats for FF8 seem to bear this out:
https://www.gamefaqs.com/ps/197343-final-fantasy-viii/faqs/39972

Rinoa seems like the closest to a dedicated mage in the FF8 cast with Selphie second. Squall seems like average, not terrible but it's not really his bag either
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well I mean

Rinoa is literally a sorceress.
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squall

well and Vivi is a black mage and Terra is an esper

my point is that magic casting doesn't seem like Squall's main focus, it is for Neclord
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Squall not having Aura really limits himself from spamming his limit but even then Lionheart is random enough to pull. However, he does have the full stock of Ultima, Holy, Meteor, and Triple. It's a shame Meltdown isn't available because that'd give squall the edge but alas, he can easily use Triple and cast triple magic to wear the enemy down.
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Yeah Rinoa has enormously inflated stats because she's Queen Superwitch. Rinoa with Angel Wing activated would smash Neclord to bits.

Squall BTW. The whole reason the Gunblade is hard to control is that for it to be more than just a sword you need to pull the trigger, and that makes the blade go wherever the fuck it wants except where you want it to go. He should have no issues with the Star Dragon Sword, and once one hit is achieved Squall just dunks Neclord.
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and my point is you can't just glaze stats like that or get things like you saying 'rinoa is the closest to a dedicated mage' when in the story she literally gets put in a stasis prison because her magical powers are too terrifyingly strong
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I think Squall's utter lack of communication skills would put him at severe odds with the Star Dragon. The sword is a snarky asshole who thinks humans should grovel, do what he says, kill what he says and keep him clean too, goddammit. Squall would lock up and go into super Whatever Mode
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FFDragon posted...

and my point is you can't just glaze stats like that or get things like you saying 'rinoa is the closest to a dedicated mage' when in the story she literally gets put in a stasis prison because her magical powers are too terrifyingly strong

even ignoring Rinoa, Squall's in the middle between Selphie and the rest of the cast. That sounds like an average FF caster to me.
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STElNER posted...

squall

sorry

Can Neclord teleport? I thought he could but been a while since I played S2.
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Crossley posted...

Can Neclord teleport? I thought he could but been a while since I played S2.

he can't teleport IIRC but he can turn into a flock of bats and fly away
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Squall

Pretty straight forward. Holy saves Squall's ass here.
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The funny thing is Holy damage doesn't specifically hurt Neclord more than anything else in Suikoden. That appears to be a Mercs invention
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Gotta balance that silly passive somehow.
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DeathChicken posted...

The funny thing is Holy damage doesn't specifically hurt Neclord more than anything else in Suikoden. That appears to be a Mercs invention

It's a way for casters to not be utterly hosed against him, as I understand it - which makes good enough sense because otherwise Neclord becomes a 'did you buy good melee' check.
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DeathChicken posted...

The funny thing is Holy damage doesn't specifically hurt Neclord more than anything else in Suikoden. That appears to be a Mercs invention

His write-up doesn't even say it hurts him more than anything else either. Just said he won't be extremely resistant to it. He can take some hits from the Resurrection Runes offensive spells and keep on ticking.
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I mean yeah, I take it to mean Holy won't just bounce off of his invincibility like everything else, but it's still not going to up and nuke him unless you're actually a good caster too.
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This match is kinda interesting.

The Star Dragon sword is an ass. Squall is an ass. They're not going to get along and he might just toss it on the ground before fighting even begins.

That being said, this MAY actually play to Squall's advantage since he won't necessarily need to try to melee. Squall has a few ways he can approach this fight, and the best ones are more likely if he doesn't use the SDS.

- Because he looks like a cliche vampire, Squall might use Triple'd Holy to open. If he does this he probably wins easily as I actually think Squall wins the mage battle here due to Triple.
- If he leads with Fire, another typical FF vampire weakness, this isn't as cut and dry but with Squall's healing and buffs he may get around to Holy before he loses.
- Any sort of melee-off heavily favors Neclord, assuming discarded SDS, but overall I think Squall isn't going to have a compulsion to melee here if he doesn't have to.

Squall should have it.
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I don't see any reason why Neclord would just die to Holy like that. Putting up a decent Suikoden mage against him (which I'd certainly give more casting cred to than Squall) to throw Holy type magic unimpeded, and it'll still take a while to even get through Neclord's silly HP since it isn't a specific weakness or anything.
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I don't think it needs to be super effective for Squall to win. I'm not saying one triple holy would just ace him but it'd do good damage. And Squall's probably is a better caster in a duel than your standard Suikoden mage cause 1. More durable. 2. Triple probably puts him on par with them at worst. 3. Better spell variety.

Casting war after Squall has determined Neclord can be hurt with Holy basically turns it into a DPS off, but one side has buffs + healing, the other doesn't.
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It also helps that Squall's base stats kinda uhh...don't matter. >_>

Like seriously, the fact he has a junction setup means his casting power is tripled from those base stats Jeezy posted. The entire point of his writeup saying 'has junctions' means he actively benefits from the parameter boosts he gains from gameplay mechanics and they can't be dismissed. Squall is an average caster at base, but he's not at base. He's junctioned up.
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Lopen posted...

I don't think it needs to be super effective for Squall to win. I'm not saying one triple holy would just ace him but it'd do good damage. And Squall's probably is a better caster in a duel than your standard Suikoden mage cause 1. More durable. 2. Triple probably puts him on par with them at worst. 3. Better spell variety.

Casting war after Squall has determined Neclord can be hurt with Holy basically turns it into a DPS off, but one side has buffs + healing, the other doesn't.

Yeah this is probably the clincher for me here too.

Neclord would need to be able to harry Squall into being unable to do healing or buffing for me to buy him winning and if he's doing the guerilla warfare game then thats simply not happening.
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It's also worth noting that Squall has Reflect too <_< >_>

Which like, I think hardcounters Neclord? Is there a reflect equivalent in Suikoden that his stuff goes through? Cause if not he can't even harm Squall.
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KanzarisKelshen posted...

Like seriously, the fact he has a junction setup means his casting power is tripled from those base stats Jeezy posted. The entire point of his writeup saying 'has junctions' means he actively benefits from the parameter boosts he gains from gameplay mechanics and they can't be dismissed. Squall is an average caster at base, but he's not at base. He's junctioned up.

I think they do matter to show how his magic casting cred should be compared to the rest of the FF8 cast. Like in FF6 pretty much everybody can cast magic but you can kind of look at the plot and the base stats to see that like Celes/Terra/Relm are the best casters, someone like Shadow is probably in the middle and the Figaro brothers are kinda bad at magic. A junctioned Zell is probably good enough at casting but I wouldn't give him better casting cred than a Terra or a Vivi.
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Neclord easily wins the mage battle except for Reflect, which I'm not sure how I see working in a realtime environment. Like even taking Triple into account, Neclord has instacast spells and much better durability than Squall (whose durability isn't the greatest).
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I think they do matter to show how his magic casting cred should be compared to the rest of the FF8 cast. Like in FF6 pretty much everybody can cast magic but you can kind of look at the plot and the base stats to see that like Celes/Terra/Relm are the best casters, someone like Shadow is probably in the middle and the Figaro brothers are kinda bad at magic. A junctioned Zell is probably good enough at casting but I wouldn't give him better casting cred than a Terra or a Vivi.

I agree with that - junctioning can make you a much better caster but it won't let Squall beat Kefka at a casting duel even with the most magic heavy junctions. I do think it easily takes Squall from 'strictly Tifa tier' in magic to 'would outcast Celes cleanly' (but not Terra, who can trance and thus boost a lot), which means with triple he can definitely beat Neclord even if Reflect doesn't work.

(That said, I feel like Squall's thorniness is being overstated. He's not an idiot and he chills out significantly over the course of the game. Unless the Star Dragon Sword is an absolute ass he won't throw it away, at least not until he's stripped away Neclord's resistances so he can gunblade his ass. To me Squall probably wins via melee, not magic spam.)
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Gatarix posted...

Neclord easily wins the mage battle except for Reflect, which I'm not sure how I see working in a realtime environment. Like even taking Triple into account, Neclord has instacast spells and much better durability than Squall (whose durability isn't the greatest).

Way I see it Reflect probably functions somewhere between ATB Reflect (AKA right back atcha) and FFT Reflect (spell goes wild SOMEWHERE, not necessarily the caster). Either one trivializes the fight though, if it works.
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There is no gunblading of ass when the ass can fly.

I can't view videos at the moment so someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like FF8 reflect only protects you from the front -- which is fine in a turn-based setting but not that great in realtime where you have to deal with AoE and attacks from different angles.

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/5/5a/FFVIII_Reflect.png

Which seems in keeping with how it's portrayed in at least some other FF games (not exactly canon but I'd expect similar things to function similarly unless there's a plot reason for them not to, e.g., summons).

https://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/e/e7/FFIVReflect.png
https://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/2/27/FFIII_NES_Reflect.png

So yeah.

Neclord
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There is no gunblading of ass when the ass can fly.

In Balamb? When Squall has all of his Dissidia moves? >_>

Like if this was neutral nondescript terrain I buy it maybe (maybe - does Neclord ever cast as a bat?). But this is an enclosed area. Zero chance Squall can't do some patented final fantasy flippydoos to get close to him.
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Neclord because squall's too emo and probably cuts himself it'll send Neclord into a bloodlust fuelled rampage.
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oh hm

Is the flying only in bat form? I thought he could straight up fly (and also do the bat thing separately).

Also Squall never struck me as the flippiest of dudes...like during the Edea assassination mission when Irvine's bullet gets bounced and Squall is going after Edea himself, he's athletic but I don't recall anything particularly superhuman.
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Yeah Squall's definitely on the slower end of FF protag's.

Edit: Pretty sure Neclord can hover without bat form, but I don't remember him actually flying without it.
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The SDS is so obnoxious that Viktor (who is not a particularly evil guy) abandons it alone in a cave for years even though he knows it is sentient.
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Yeah Squall's definitely on the slower end of FF protag's.

'lol'

yeah sure
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Lightning > Zidane >= Tidus > Cloud > Squall > the rest I think on speed.
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Gatarix posted...

oh hm

Is the flying only in bat form? I thought he could straight up fly (and also do the bat thing separately).

Also Squall never struck me as the flippiest of dudes...like during the Edea assassination mission when Irvine's bullet gets bounced and Squall is going after Edea himself, he's athletic but I don't recall anything particularly superhuman.

He has his KH and Dissidia moves. Which yes, make him pretty fast

https://youtu.be/aaIpxQheFSY?t=36

Worth noting in particular is that A) his Blasting Zone is not a limit break there and is an absolutely enormous vertical slice, and B) His Thunder Barret has a magnet effect that pulls in too. Like the idea of Squall getting ranged in this place is kinda silly tbqh. Don't even have to look at Dissidia cutscene flippydoos or anything (he has a pretty flash showing in the Dissidia 1 intro cutscene where he fights Sephiroth with lots of wire fu IIRC), it's all right there in his moves.
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(That said, I feel like Squall's thorniness is being overstated. He's not an idiot and he chills out significantly over the course of the game. Unless the Star Dragon Sword is an absolute ass he won't throw it away, at least not until he's stripped away Neclord's resistances so he can gunblade his ass. To me Squall probably wins via melee, not magic spam.)

This is definitely being glossed over. I know a lot of you probably never beat FF VIII, but Squall really gets over his issues over the course of the game. He's probably one of the best FF leads for meaningful character development.
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squall loses his issues but gains rinoa

it's a net negative

by a lot
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Gatarix posted...

squall loses his issues but gains rinoa

it's a net negative

by a lot

No arguments from me

Squall's at his best in World of Final Fantasy where he manages to bond with Shelke instead of emoing (from FF7 Dirge) and it's super cute

somebody should dropkick rinoa into the sun
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(seriously though - it's actually one of the clearer points of Squall's characterization that he really is mostly over his issues in his appearances outside FF8. He's still aloof, but he's the Restoration Committee's head in KH and one of the main coordinators of the Warriors of Light in Dissidia. The actually antisocial dude is Cloud, who spends the games going it alone and angsting, Squall is probably one of the better party commanders in FF.)
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Aside from perhaps combat prowess, I find it hard to take anything about Squall from spin off series seriously, or anyone else tbh. Maybe that's just be me though.
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KanzarisKelshen posted...

Unless the Star Dragon Sword is an absolute ass

He most certainly is.

Neclord. I actually buy Lopen's suggestion that Squall would throw the SDS away in disgust and try to just Gunblade it, as he has no reason to think it wouldn't work. Then it won't and he doesn't win a battle of attrition with Neclord, dude is tanky as fuck and absolutely faster on the spell draw
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