Discussing Blaidd's tier and scaling

[ArbitraryNumbers]

I know Blaidd is pretty bizarre scaling wise, with his current potential ranking being "At least 8-B, likely High 7-C, at most 7-A, possibly High 4-C". I'd like to create a thread that will allow for us to organize our thoughts better.

Here's everything I can contribute to the discussion:

• The first thing we see Blaidd do is that he can essentially carry an early-game Tarnished through the fight with Bloodhound Knight Darriwil.
  • Given his status as an Evergaol boss, Darriwil could be considered comparable to the Crucible Knights, given that there is a Crucible Knight that can be fought in the Evergaol on Stormhill, which can also be fought at this point in the game.
• Next we know that Blaidd takes part in the Radahn festival, in which it should be noted that he and Iron Fist Alexander are the only two who are able to last a notably long time against him due to their HP count. However, he barely does any damage, and after the fight he states that "the glory of the clash is shared, by Radahn and you". In this same exchange of dialogue, he also expresses how he "can't fathom Radahn holding back something of that scale",referred to the falling star that just landed. This would indicate that he and Radahn are in very different leagues of power.
• Next up, Blaidd could possibly be considered comparable to the Baleful Shadow, given that the Baleful Shadow is quite literally a red version of Blaidd that fights identical to him. This shadow is capable of fighting (an potentially oneshotting), the Tarnished, who at this point had to have beaten Radahn in order to unlock the fight with the Baleful Shadow to begin with. This would count as a point in favor of scaling him to "At least 7-A, likely High 4-C".
  • Of course, Blaidd himself is also capable of fighting the Tarnished at the end of his questline.
• At the end of his questline, we see the corpses of two Black Knife Assassins next to Blaidd. It should be noted that Blaidd has no damage on him. There are multiple cases in the game where enemies spawn with damage on them, indicating weakness or injury (i.e., the guardian golemn in front of Castle Morne, or the Black Knife Assassin in Death Touched Catacombs). This would indicate that despite being outnumbered and on the brink of losing his mind, Blaidd was singlehandedly able to clap two Black Knife Assassins back to back without getting hit, making this a very, very casual feat.

Personally, I'm unsure about scaling Blaidd to the Fallingstar Beast, given that no lore links the two, and "it's a field boss" doesn't really work for me as a basis for scaling in the first place.

I'm also unsure about the Fallingstar beast's feat to begin with, mainly because I'm not convinced we know beyond any reasonable doubt that the beast colliding with the earth is what caused it. Here's why:

• In the crater on the Altus Plateau, just outside of Leyndell, approaching the crater will cause the beast to enter via teleportation, leaving question as to whether or not it was there when the crater was first created.
• In the center of the crater is a large rock. This is likely the meteorite that collided with the earth and caused the crater instead of the beast.

As such, while I don't dismiss the feat entirely, I do think we cannot prove concretely that the feat is legitimate either, so I'm uncomfortable scaling Blaidd to it.

There is a case to be made for Blaidd being 7-A to High 4-C, but it's consistently inconsistent; Blaidd has indeed fought the guy who beat Radahn, and is also comparable to another guy who ALSO fought the guy who beat Radahn, but direct statements from Blaidd himself would indicate that he fails to measure up when compared to Radahn's power. Because of this, I think we should leave out any chain of scaling that points back to Radahn.

So that leaves a few others left; Bloodhound Knight Darriwil, and the Black Knife Assassins.

As mentioned before, I think Darriwil could possibly scale to the Crucible Knights, due to his status as an evergaol boss that can be fought at around the same time as the Crucible Knight in the evergaol on Stormhill. The incantations used by the Crucible Knights are stated to be "manifestations of the Erdtree's primal vital energies". If there's anything to be gained from that, that's likely a good start.

If anyone else has anything to contribute, please share in this thread.

 

[Emirp sumitpo]

So that leaves a few others left; Bloodhound Knight Darriwil, and the Black Knife Assassins.

As mentioned before, I think Darriwil could possibly scale to the Crucible Knights, due to his status as an evergaol boss that can be fought at around the same time as the Crucible Knight in the evergaol on Stormhill. The incantations used by the Crucible Knights are stated to be "manifestations of the Erdtree's primal vital energies". If there's anything to be gained from that, that's likely a good start.

The problem is they're kinda featless. All the lower feats come from the fallingstar beast

Also I don't think all Black Knives are comparable to one another, considering we see Black Knives in places as early as Limgrave. And some Knives are harder to take that down than others. For example, Alecto has much higher health and damage than Black Knives you can find in catacombs or in Leyndell.

I think the Baleful Shadow is the best scaling we should go with, and at that it should downscale from the Tarnished. Considering how close the 7-A value is to baseline, Blaidd could downscale to "At most City level+, possibly Large Star level"

 

[Emirp sumitpo]

Also it's kinda wack how we have so many "Possibly" and "Likely" in our keys oof

 

[Emirp sumitpo]

Bump

 

[Foxthefox1000]

Yeah they're essentially featless and at worst scale to the lowest feats we could probably find. I do know there's a Crucible Knight that's implied to have taken down one of the dragons in Farum Azula but that could be a special case rather than the norm much like Black Knives are all different.

I also think the Baleful Shadow is probably the best scaling we can get ATM, since it's hard to find anything else to scale to that isn't featless or completely unimpressive.

 

[ArbitraryNumbers]

Sorry for the month delay, I complete forgot about this thread.

But if everyone seems to agree that the Baleful Shadow scaling getting Blaidd an at most 7-B+, likely High 4-C ranking, then I'd like to go with that too. Would it be okay if I got started on the profile?

 

[Emirp sumitpo]

Sorry for the month delay, I complete forgot about this thread.

But if everyone seems to agree that the Baleful Shadow scaling getting Blaidd an at most 7-B+, likely High 4-C ranking, then I'd like to go with that too. Would it be okay if I got started on the profile?

At most is a bit unnecessary as he's already downscaling to another tier. That and I think Chariot was making the profile?

 

[Emirp sumitpo]

I'd probably list the justification as:

City level+, possibly Large Star level (Should be comparable if not superior to the baleful shadow, who is stated by Ranni to be a challenge to Midgame Tarnished. Assisted the Tarnished in fighting Radahn, despite being significantly inferior to him)

 

[Chariot190]

Sorry for the month delay, I complete forgot about this thread.

But if everyone seems to agree that the Baleful Shadow scaling getting Blaidd an at most 7-B+, likely High 4-C ranking, then I'd like to go with that too. Would it be okay if I got started on the profile?

I already started the profile, he's like 90% done (and has been for like, 6+ months), just need a few citations and the tiering. But if we got the tiering done, I can likely finish it up.