7-C Sam with Iaido

[PsychicCipher]

So I looked at his fight with Armstrong, and Sam notably uses Iaido multiple times, with different results:

1. The first time Sam uses Iaido against Armstrong, he is able to cut him even through Armstrong's hardened body.

2. The second time Sam uses Iaido, right before he accidentally loses an arm, he can completely cut through Armstrong's unhardened arm.

In general, in the entirety of the DLC where you play as Sam, all of his Iaido attacks are significantly more powerful than his normal strikes.

Therefore, I believe that Sam's new tiering should be: Low 7-C, 7-C with Iaido.

 

[SpookyShadow]

Hmmm, it's dura neg but Armstrong is resistant to HF Blades and Iaido massively increases speed and force, so I agree

 

[SpookyShadow]

The scene

 

[Schnee_One]

This does contradict how Raiden is capable of blocking Laido strikes from Sak while not in Ripper Mode

 

[SpookyShadow]

Base Jack is 7-C

HF Blades are visibly immune to other HF Blades

And... where did he block Sam's Iaido?

 

[SpookyShadow]

You mean these strikes?

 

[Schnee_One]

See the entire boss fight

Didn't know Base jack was 7C though so I'll be quiet

 

[SpookyShadow]

There was entire CRT for that so yup

 

[Twellas]

It's pretty clear that the Laido only cut Armstrong because it effected the section of the arm that wasn't nano-machine-hardened, in the cutscenes we clearly see that the Murasama just bounches off of Armstrong's hardened arms, and in that specific scene the Murasama hit Armstrong's heart, his weak spot so no, it doesn't scale in terms of AP, especially since the Murasama is a durability-negating weapon, but it does scale in terms of speed, because that feat shows that Laido is faster than both Raiden's base and Ripper Mode Blade mode, which is ludicrously faster than Sam himself

 

[Twellas]

Using HF blades to scale AP is not a good idea at all, which is why in my CRT i always justified the uprage by showing instances of characters harming each other with their bare hands and not some dura-negating weapon

 

[Twellas]

Also Armstrong wasn't really phased by the strike, just knocked to his feet, he got up fairly casually and he was very casual during the whole ordeal. I'd much rather keep the Laido as simply a speed amp. which is what it is consistently shown to be

 

[PsychicCipher]

Need more people. Who should I call in?

 

[Twellas]

other knowledgeable members i guess, check in the Knowledgeable Members list for Metal Gear

 

[Twellas]

To be honest, the fact that Sam had to cut the not-hardened part of Armstrong's arm with the Laido kinda makes this whole argument fall apart

 

[Twellas]

and honestly the Laido slashing faster than the nanomachines can move is a pretty huge speed feat since Armstrong's nanomachines are thought-based in terms of activation

 

[SpookyShadow]

I thought they are passive, because they harden in response to physical trauma

 

[Twellas]

That's what the heart does, but Doktor states in the codec that a good portion of the nanomachines are controlled by Armstrong's own brain, a minority of them, but still a present percentage

 

[Twellas]

Basically 3\4 of the nanomachines are passive and controlled by the heart while 1\4 is controlled by Armstrong's brain, so that even if his heart somehow stops working he can still control some of the nanomachines

 

[Twellas]

Dok compares Armstrong's nanomachines to "clay that you can alter by thinking about the shape you want"

 

[Twellas]

This also explains why his nanomachines sometimes activate even before he suffers physical trauma (his arm hardening while he throws a punch, for instance), he's activating the nanomachines himself

 

[Twellas]

At first i thought that the reason why the nanomachines didn't harden instantly on Armstrong's ars was because ther had to move from one place (the heart for instance) to the arm itself, so the travel time justified this discrepancy, but in the very same codec conversation Dok states that Armstrong has a "nanomachine body", which means that they nanomachines don't need to travel from one place to another, as they are already everywhere in his body, so the only plausible explaination for the non-instantaneousness of his arm's hardening is armstrong using his brain to direct those nanomachines in that instance

 

[Twellas]

Sooo, is anyone else gonna comment here?

 

[XSOULOFCINDERX]

I think we're good.