Best Fighter: Tifa Lockhart vs. Ayane

Today, I was rewatching Dead Fantasy episode 3 where Tifa was fighting Hitomi and it's quite clear that the fight was not accurate to the Dead or Alive games. If Tifa and Hitomi were to actually fight, Tifa would win due to possession of powerful limit breaks and even some magic. However, watching it made me remember an old forum post I read stating that if a battle between Ryu & Ayane vs. Cloud & Tifa were to happen, Ayane could hold off Tifa or Cloud long enough for Ryu to finish one off and then double team them. Now, I don't want to make this a complete response to a forum post that old but, since I already covered Cloud vs. Ryu I figured it might be appropriate to compare Ayane to Tifa, since this seems to be an area where the two overlap quite a bit.

So, if hypothetically, Tifa and Ayane were to get into a fight for some reason, who would come out on top? That is what I'm here to answer.

History

Back in Final Fantasy VII, Tifa was one of the main characters, introduced not too long after the opening mission with Cloud, Barret, and other members of Avalanche. Tifa was the bar-keep for the most part but her skill in Martial Arts and mix of damage and health make her a suitable ally for Cloud and Barret.

Storywise, she was Cloud's childhood friend and one of the only other survivors of the Nibelheim event. Her father was killed by Sephiroth and she herself took a blow, which resulted in Cloud jumping in and killing Sephiroth, or at least sending him into the Life-Stream.

Throughout the game, Tifa is one of the more mature and nurturing characters but who was often one of the stronger damage dealers as well. During the game, her most notable actions involve rescuing Cloud from the Mako poisoning and his own fractured psyche. Outside of this, she doesn't really do much, though a fight in Advent Children will be a factor in this discussion.

Ayane, by comparison, is introduced far later. Though her earliest canon introduction into the Team Ninja Universe is Ninja Gaiden (XBox), where she serves as a spy looking for the traitor who revealed the location of the Dark Dragon Blade, her first playable appearance was the Playstation version of the first Dead or Alive game where, alongside Bass Armstrong, she was extra content in the special edition, which was previously on the SEGA Saturn as the default training dummy.

Storywise, her involvement in any given game is variable depending on what game it is. Though focus on Ayane has grown over the years, she has yet to be the protagonist of any game. Starting off, she had very little to do with the plot at all, not having a story at all in DOA 1, Ninja Gaiden, and Ninja Gaiden 2, then receiving a story that barely has any impact on anything in DOA 2 and Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, then receiving plot-relevance in DOA 4 and Dimensions, being the protagonist of her own side story in Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge, and being incorporated into the entire plot of Dead or Alive 5.

Though Ayane is usually on the periphery in terms of importance to any given story, she does nonetheless have relevant relationships. She has strong if opposing relationships with the protagonist of each of Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden, with her relationship to Ryu being one of respect and her relationship with Kasumi being one of aggression until the end of DOA5. Hayate, another relevant character in Dead or Alive, is one she normally has a positive relationship with, though her anger at Kasumi does piss him off occasionally. See DOA: Dimensions for more information.

A much more interesting relationship, however, is the one she has with Hitomi. Bearing in mind, Ayane does not use any Ninja Techniques in the Dead or Alive games for the most part, it is made clear that Ayane and Hitomi are absolutely equal in fighting skill. We'll bring that up later as a factor.

Stats

I already covered in detail what the stats are supposed to represent so if you want more detail, see this page and you'll be fully caught up. As per usual, the stats are Vitality, Mana, Strength, Dexterity, Durability, and Sorcery. With that in mind, let's get through it.

As I covered in the previous battle, Ayane and Tifa are both human so they're going to take relatively the same amount of damage before they die. Yes, either one might last longer than the other with certain wounds that are less fatal than others but no human will last too much longer than any other after a decapitation or the removal or crushing of a vital organ. This will put both Vitality at 100.

Mana is a bit more of the same. Tifa's MP is largely going to translate as well as Cloud's does, with the maximum MP from Final Fantasy VII at Level 99 divided by 10 to get our number. Ayane's, however, will be the same as Ryu's due to her Ki bar working the same as his in Razor's Edge. In Sigma 2, it was quite a bit different but I already covered much of that.

As for strength, this is showing a bit more of a difference. As confirmed by the Stat list for Final Fantasy VII, Cloud's base strength is higher than Tifa's and though her limit breaks can cause it to rise dramatically, it's a pretty straight translation from the original numbers to a percentage and then translating that percentage between the two characters.

Ayane, however, is a bit harder. The only stats she's given definitively are in Dead or Alive 5: Last Round, where she can be compared to Ryu but it's more about character effectiveness than it is about canon feats. For instance, her strikes are more effective than his but her throws and counters are weaker. Since Throw is the closest to gripping and holding strength that could be associated with weapon wielding, we're ultimately going with that and Ayane's throws are 40% weaker, her ability to lift is quite a bit lower as well. Ayane and Tifa are both physically weaker than Cloud and Ryu but the difference is quite a bit bigger since Tifa is closer to Cloud than Ayane is to Ryu. Even if we assume that Ayane's strength is the same as Ryu's, it would still not bode well for her.

Dexterity is closer, however. Ayane and Ryu, in terms of sheer movement speed, are both about the same at the speed of sound. Tifa proved against Loz in Advent Children that she struggles at that speed. However, we're not entirely clear if that's because of sheer speed difference or due to exhaustion.

One thing to point out is that though Cloud is not at full power during his fight with Loz and Yazoo, Loz uses his maximum speed at the beginning of the fight when Cloud would clearly be at his fastest and most rested, whereas against Tifa he didn't use it until after Tifa had exhausted herself a fair amount. This could mean that, though she wasn't breathing heavily, Loz's surprise max speed, which did catch her off guard, coupled with a reduced amount of energy may be the difference.

If we're to believe the stats in the game, Tifa is faster than Cloud, at 347 miles per hour. However, due to Ayane's sonic speed, at 768 miles per hour, it's safe to say that Ayane is over double that speed. And, though Tifa didn't show the same bullet-dodging feats that Cloud did in Advent Children, Tifa does display the ability to dodge bullet-like projectiles in Dissidia Duodecim depending on the character.

Also worth considering is that, in Dissidia Duodecim, Tifa has an ability known as Feint, where she can teleport behind an opponent during or before an attack to undermine their flank. In a way, it's very similar to the snap vanishing of many Dragon Ball games, and Tifa is the only character who's capable of this, at least if we're referring to sheer speed, suggesting that Tifa may in fact close that speed gap even further than Cloud did, even if no after-images are seen.

Durability has a bigger gap on it than it was in the previous fight. Though that's not saying much, since Cloud and Ryu were equal. The reason Tifa's durability is higher here is because, while we have no proof that Ayane is as durable as Ryu is, there's no hard evidence that suggests her maximum durability. Unlike Ryu, who had a building dropped on him and Ryu came out mostly unscathed apart from the previous fight, Ayane has nothing like that on her achievement list. Though she can sustain damage in gameplay, in terms of actual cutscenes, we've never actually seen her harmed to any significant degree by any opponent or event.

That said, though, we can draw some comparisons. For instance, Dead or Alive 4 features cutscenes against Alpha-152 that are not present in Dead or Alive Dimensions. In Ayane's cutscene, she's shown standing relatively unscathed by the explosion that she and Hayate emerged from that was likely caused by Alpha-152. By comparison, Lei-Fang, in that game, is not shown to be able to sustain damage of that level. In Leifang's actual campaign, she never fights Alpha-152, her actual final fight is against Jann Lee, and though she does seem to win, in Jann Lee's campaign, we see that he comes to fight Alpha-152 right as Leifang is being knocked unconscious, seemingly without dealing any damage.

Considering that Leifang is a girl that, while powerful, is not as conditioned as some of the more ridiculous characters, it's safe to say that Ayane's physicality is far closer to many of the stronger males than to the other females, with the exceptions for Hitomi and Tina, who are both on the higher end of the strength range on the female side of the roster.

However, because we never see Ayane's cap, we cannot determine under what pressure she would break the hardest. Because of that, I'm putting her cap at 20,000, roughly 80% of Ryu's, which should be more than reasonable given how ridiculous Ryu is as a character.

And, finally, in terms of Sorcery, we cannot confirm who has the edge here. While Tifa is a lot like Cloud in this area, Ayane is a bit less definitive, due to showing only two actual Ninpo in the entire franchise and, though the Art of the Raging Mountain God is at least on par with the Art of the True Inferno, her lightning Ninpo is a lot more like a regular lightning bolt.

Tifa does not use Magic in Advent Children, however, it is possible that she could. Here, Tifa will be able to use Magic. The reason is because she could in Dissidia Duodecim. Cloud also could in Duodecim but the version of Cloud we were using was from Advent Children, which was far more reliant on his multiple sword configuration than Tifa ever would be. So it's fair to give Tifa some magic. That said, Tifa's actual efficiency will be a bit difficult to calculate so I'll leave it undefined for now.

Now we have our stats. Again, each character has an equal amount of edges but the absolute value of those edges matter more than simply the existence of the edges.

Stat	Tifa	Edge	Ayane
Vitality	100	=	100
Mana	85	<	100
Strength	96,000	>	3,000
Dexterity	20,000	<	22,468
Durability	22135	>	20,000
Sorcery	N/A	N/A	N/A

Abilities

Here, Tifa and Ayane will begin to show a lot of similarities and oppositions. First and foremost Ayane's Art of the Raging Mountain God is significantly stronger than a lot of Tifa's spells. Tifa's maximum strength punch while equipped with the Premium Heart is enough for the two to be equal if they clashed, considering what it did to the Diamond weapon. However, other than this one instance, what might make the difference is Ayane's ability to fire it off.

Ordinarily, Ayane would have the edge here because Sigma 2 allowed her to fire off her strongest Ninpo at least seven times in succession, not that one would need to do that considering it's a screen clearer.but with the implementation in Razor's Edge, I'm inclined to believe that Ayane would only have one real shot.

The same goes for Tifa, however. A maximum strength punch against the Diamond Weapon would be sufficient to deal a lot of damage to Ayane. However, while they would match if they were to clash, Tifa would be much smarter to save that full strength punch for until after Ayane has wasted her best move.

This brings me to another thing: remember when I said that Tifa's feint is like the snap vanishing of Dragon Ball games? Well, Tifa's also grants invincibility frames while it's going on. Of course, for a sustained attack, this would be meaningless but against Ayane's trump card, it may be enough to avoid it.

That said, this does mean that Tifa has the ability to dodge the strike even if she doesn't have a full EX gauge, which gives her some utility. However, that's not the only way Tifa is more mobile than Ayane.

Like Cloud and every other Dissidia character, Tifa is capable of 3D movement, multiple jumps, and air dashes. Meanwhile, Ayane, like every other Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive character, struggles to fight back while in the air. Air combat in DOA is mostly stationary, which means that if Ayane has an opponent that can move in the air, like Tifa, she will struggle to combat that.

Between Feints and aerial movement, Tifa has a lot of advantages over Ayane, so much so that outside a contest of raw power, Tifa clearly is stronger.

The difference, may in fact be in the weaponry.

Equipment

In any Ninja Gaiden game where Ayane is playable, she is equipped with two Fuma Kodachi, which are sharp enough to cut, decapitate and sever things but are also not really all that durable. They last against opponents in those games because of how short they are, which increases resistance a bit. However, because of their extremely short range, Ayane uses them in conjunction with martial arts to out-pace her opponents.

Tifa is not known to wear armor which means that if Ayane can land some blows on Tifa with her Fuma Kodachi, they will definitely deal quite a bit of damage. However, Tifa has enough evasion options that that may not be feasible.

Tifa has no equipment outside of her EX mode, where she is given her Premium Hearts, which make Tifa stronger the fuller her EX gauge is. Tifa's EX Burst is also the 3rd strongest in the entire series, right behind Cloud in second and Gilgamesh in first.

This means that, if Tifa starts landing blows, Ayane could be chipped down. Ayane would have to target Tifa's legs in order to reduce her mobility, which is not an easy thing.

Conclusion

Let's set up this fight. Let's say it takes place in the Dead or Alive tournament arena from DOA5, the following is a hypothetical interpretation of the events that would go down.

Early Fight: In the early fight, I see Ayane making the first move due to her reckless impatience and landing a solid kick on Tifa to get the fight going. Tifa will have to build up some momentum in order to overcome this but she can do it. Initially, I see this being even, where Ayane and Tifa are simply gauging each other while trying to deal damage. Hence, I give each one a 2-2 advantage for the early fight.

Mid Fight: Here, Ayane will be aware of Tifa's dominance in mobility and the air, so she'll likely take some drastic measures. At this stage of the fight, I see her using her Art of the Raging Mountain God, at which point Tifa will either be caught of guard and take a lot of damage or she will evade it completely, leaving Ayane ready to be defeated. Here I give these two a 1-2 advantage, making the total out to 3-4.

Late Fight: Here, if Tifa is still standing after either dodging or being hit by the Art of the Raging Mountain God, Tifa should be ready to stage a counter with her EX mode and EX burst, where Ayane will have no means left of overcoming or defeating Tifa. Hence, for this part of the fight, I give Tifa a 3-0 Advantage, bringing the totals to 6-4.

I see this ending in the mid-to-late fight, where Ayane's success in the battle will be determined by how much damage she does to Tifa with the Art of the Raging Mountain God. If it kills Tifa, Ayane will win. But if Tifa survives or dodges it, Ayane will have no means of defense.

Thus, if I were a betting man, I would predict that Tifa would be the victor. Of course, this is my opinion so feel free to agree or disagree at your leisure. Have a wonderful day.