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Edgelord Swordsmen - Adam Taurus vs Shinobu Jacobs

Sir_Ovens

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Doing this because it's thematic.

Edgelord Anarchist vs Edgelord Assassin

Base Adam and NMH2 Shinobu. Speed equalized. Victory via SBA.

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Dark Step is a pretty good counter to Aura, if Shinobu gets one off she can strike him multiple times with ease so it should easily wear through it. Generally how high is RWBY skill?
 
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Dark Step is a pretty good counter to Aura, if Shinobu gets one off she can strike him multiple times with ease so it should easily wear through it. Generally how high is RWBY skill?
Hitting him is the hard part though, Adam's semblance works through his sword, he's going to be blocking as many attacks from her as he possibly can. Also Adam's senses actually counter the secondary effect of Darkstep as he can see and sense his opponents even while blindfolded because he can still fight while blindfolded.

Skill-wise, RWBY characters are extremely skilled, especially in the case of Adam. For starters, Adam was able to match both Blake and Yang simultaneously, with them only winning due to Yang knowing about Adam'a semblance and having a prosthetic arm durable enough to withstand it, and even then it was a close fight. Adam was seen as a threat to Mercury Black, Emerald Sustrai, and Cinder Fall, to the point that Cinder felt the need to have obtained the power of the Fall Maiden in order to negotiate with him (ie. Adam was seen as so much of a threat that a character needed to get a tier 7 with spammable elemental powers and one of the only people in the entire world capable of using Magic). The fact that Mercury saw him as dangerous is a testament in and of itself as Mercury is one of the most skilled h2h fighters in the entire verse, having been trained since he could walk to fight by his father (one of the most skilled assassins in the world), having learned his skill without the use of his semblance as it was stolen from him by his father, and having become so skilled that he is confirmed by WoG to be able to beat Pyrrha Nikos, one of the most skilled fighters in the verse in general, if he were fighting seriously.

Pyrrha in turn scales massively above basically everyone else in the series during the Beacon Arc including people like Velvet Scarlatina (because Pyrrha was stated multiple times to be the most skilled huntsman in training multiple times), who is able to analyze, perfectly replicate, and utilize the fighting style of anyone she observes in combat and mix the fighting styles she uses as well as utilize other people's weapons in conjunction with her copied fighting styles (basically Taskmaster from Marvel), and Pyrrha also scales above people who can outmatch Velvet in turn such as Nebula Violette and Scarlet David (as in the light novels that are cannon). There's a lot more of a scaling chain that applies here but this is a very condensed list. I can do a full scaling list if it's requested .
 
Hitting him is the hard part though, Adam's semblance works through his sword, he's going to be blocking as many attacks from her as he possibly can. Also Adam's senses actually counter the secondary effect of Darkstep as he can see and sense his opponents even while blindfolded because he can still fight while blindfolded.
I mean that's not too helpful when he's moving so slowly he can't counter anything she does, Dark Step is basically free hits for her.
Skill-wise, RWBY characters are extremely skilled, especially in the case of Adam. For starters, Adam was able to match both Blake and Yang simultaneously, with them only winning due to Yang knowing about Adam'a semblance and having a prosthetic arm durable enough to withstand it, and even then it was a close fight. Adam was seen as a threat to Mercury Black, Emerald Sustrai, and Cinder Fall, to the point that Cinder felt the need to have obtained the power of the Fall Maiden in order to negotiate with him (ie. Adam was seen as so much of a threat that a character needed to get a tier 7 with spammable elemental powers and one of the only people in the entire world capable of using Magic). The fact that Mercury saw him as dangerous is a testament in and of itself as Mercury is one of the most skilled h2h fighters in the entire verse, having been trained since he could walk to fight by his father (one of the most skilled assassins in the world), having learned his skill without the use of his semblance as it was stolen from him by his father, and having become so skilled that he is confirmed by WoG to be able to beat Pyrrha Nikos, one of the most skilled fighters in the verse in general, if he were fighting seriously.

Pyrrha in turn scales massively above basically everyone else in the series during the Beacon Arc including people like Velvet Scarlatina (because Pyrrha was stated multiple times to be the most skilled huntsman in training multiple times), who is able to analyze, perfectly replicate, and utilize the fighting style of anyone she observes in combat and mix the fighting styles she uses as well as utilize other people's weapons in conjunction with her copied fighting styles (basically Taskmaster from Marvel), and Pyrrha also scales above people who can outmatch Velvet in turn such as Nebula Violette and Scarlet David (as in the light novels that are cannon). There's a lot more of a scaling chain that applies here but this is a very condensed list. I can do a full scaling list if it's requested .
I'm more interested in the feats than the scaling so I'll get into those- But rest assured she does upscale. Shinobu herself is far better than most assassins in this game, where even the absolute worst of them are able to clear low-level Assassination Gigs, which require them to kill dozens of people at once (in a single room, all of them armed and aware of the assassin) and she's easily above the level that could clear more difficult Assassination Gigs which see her facing a hundred people or more, same circumstances. Keep in mind that's a mid-late game mission in the first game and Shinobu is one of the stronger assassins in the second game.

She's also way higher-ranked and more skilled than Kimmy, whose Accelerated Development makes her learn in a single day what it takes most others multiple years- and Kimmy did train for two whole years obsessively just to defeat Travis Touchdown, who defeated her with incredible ease. No More Heroes scaling is really simple considering the whole point is that the characters are ranked but Kimmy isn't actually even ranked despite being an assassin, which means even the weaker bosses in the second game should be above her (although I personally like to think they're more on the same level than explicitly superior, not that it matters since there's 51 ranked assassins in this game and Shinobu can fight and defeat Rank 9 and 8)

Then you've got Henry Cooldown, who's perfectly equal to Travis Touchdown's endgame self from the first game: and Henry gets defeated offscreen by Dr. Letz Shake. If you wanna know why that's impressive you should read Travis' page- I can get into it if you want I just don't wanna bore you with an unnecessary amount of details. Either way, Shinobu fights higher-ranked assassins than Letz Shake and defeats them- with too much issue if the cutscenes after that are to be believed although I like to think they put up a fight.

Finally something has to be said in favor of Shinobu's sheer precision with her sword. She can block a rapid-fire burst of bullets even from behind (You can actually do this against enemies with automatic guns, and it won't get past your guard like this guy, it's just the only footage of it I've got on hand) and perform sword combos in mid-air.
 
So its dodge-based? That could indeed pose some problems for Adam...
Yeah, it's left very nebulous how exactly it activates, but it does have to be a close dodge, she can't just have an attack happen two meters away from her and make it work. But it is a very strong tool.
Its probably easier to just show Adam's fights tbh:
I don't mean to downplay him but there isn't much that necessarily stands out here- don't get me wrong he's good but I don't necessarily see much that puts him above Shinobu, although I only watched a bit.
Also do you want a more in-depth skill scaling or?
Nah, I get the idea, he's good, one of the best in the series, right? What I'm arguing here is more that the general base level of No More Heroes 2 is higher than RWBY's because of (from what I'm seeing at the moment at least) superior feats- basically everyone that matters can pull off crazy shit like fight a hundred people at once or be superior to someone with accelerated development that makes you learn hundreds of times faster than you normally would, you've got Travis from the first game who literally just got most of his skill just by watching samurai videos on cassette and still became one of the world's best assassins, beating out people with much better formal training- and NMH2 Shinobu is superior to NMH1 Travis.

Oh by the way, another small boon Shinobu has is her willpower- she can fight through injuries that would otherwise be lethal just with it- that should help balance out the advantage of aura somewhat.
 
Yeah, it's left very nebulous how exactly it activates, but it does have to be a close dodge, she can't just have an attack happen two meters away from her and make it work. But it is a very strong tool.
Hmm, that balances out then, Adam tends to play equal parts offense and defense, usually leading with defense against opponents who are equally strong, and he has ways to actually work around Darkstep like his clones
I don't mean to downplay him but there isn't much that necessarily stands out here- don't get me wrong he's good but I don't necessarily see much that puts him above Shinobu, although I only watched a bit.
That kinda defeats the point of posting the videos lol
Nah, I get the idea, he's good, one of the best in the series, right? What I'm arguing here is more that the general base level of No More Heroes 2 is higher than RWBY's because of (from what I'm seeing at the moment at least) superior feats
I mean not really? A lot of what you listed has also been done by RWBY characters. Literally everyone in the main cast can take on hordes of hundreds of grimm at once and win with ease (ruby did this Bos in the red trailer. Alone). Velvet does the same thing as Travis and Kimmy only it applies to entire fighting styles that took others their entire life to learn, and she can copy any number of fighting styles and replicate them in combat at will (note that Velvet is considered mid-tier in skill). Everyone in the verse can intercept automatic gunfire too, casually at that, Adam even has direct feats of it in the second video that was posted. Rwby's intelligents reasonings on their profiles is kinda outdated and needs updating like how dekus was updated
 
Hmm, that balances out then, Adam tends to play equal parts offense and defense, usually leading with defense against opponents who are equally strong, and he has ways to actually work around Darkstep like his clones
Eh, I don't really see how. Self-duplication doesn't get you that far in NMH and Shinobu has fought two comparable opponents at once already, plus if she activates Dark Step it doesn't matter where the clones are, they won't be able to intercept her attacks.
That kinda defeats the point of posting the videos lol
I don't mean any offense but i ain't gonna watch twenty-five minutes of RWBY just for a match
I mean not really? A lot of what you listed has also been done by RWBY characters. Literally everyone in the main cast can take on hordes of hundreds of grimm at once and win with ease (ruby did this Bos in the red trailer. Alone).
Aren't they just animalistic in intelligence and dangerous because of their stats? I wouldn't consider that as impressive. Plus, that's context-dependant, are all the Grimm in the same place, all able to attack at once? Cause if not the feat becomes way less impressive
Velvet does the same thing as Travis and Kimmy only it applies to entire fighting styles that took others their entire life to learn, and she can copy any number of fighting styles and replicate them in combat at will (note that Velvet is considered mid-tier in skill).
Yeah, cause she does that with her Semblance, Kimmy is pure skill and she's kinda foddery for the verse.
Everyone in the verse can intercept automatic gunfire too, casually at that, Adam even has direct feats of it in the second video that was posted.
Yeah, but from behind?
 
Eh, I don't really see how. Self-duplication doesn't get you that far in NMH and Shinobu has fought two comparable opponents at once already, plus if she activates Dark Step it doesn't matter where the clones are, they won't be able to intercept her attacks.
Fair.
I don't mean any offense but i ain't gonna watch twenty-five minutes of RWBY just for a match
I mean if youre looking for Adam's skill feats thats literally the entirety of his on-screen combat scenes, plus its rather unfair to say he's not skilled if you havent actually seen the full showcase of his abilities
Aren't they just animalistic in intelligence and dangerous because of their stats? I wouldn't consider that as impressive. Plus, that's context-dependant, are all the Grimm in the same place, all able to attack at once? Cause if not the feat becomes way less impressive
Not all of them no, there are grimm that do stuff like spit acid, mind control, possess objects and people, sap willpower, etc. And yes, its all in the same place all attacking at once. Even the first ever video for the series had Ruby soloing a horde of several dozen beowolves all at once.
Yeah, cause she does that with her Semblance, Kimmy is pure skill and she's kinda foddery for the verse.
Semblances in RWBY are skill-based though...plus thats kinda like saying that Taskmaster isnt skilled since his fighting style mimicry is based on an ability.
Yeah, but from behind?
Adam does it blindfolded so yeah, and he has blocked attack like that from behind his back at the same time as well.
 
I mean if youre looking for Adam's skill feats thats literally the entirety of his on-screen combat scenes, plus its rather unfair to say he's not skilled if you havent actually seen the full showcase of his abilities
I'd appreciate if you could timestamp the most egregious parts if that's the case.
Not all of them no, there are grimm that do stuff like spit acid, mind control, possess objects and people, sap willpower, etc. And yes, its all in the same place all attacking at once. Even the first ever video for the series had Ruby soloing a horde of several dozen beowolves all at once.
I've watched that "Red" trailer. The Grimm clearly wait for their turn to attack, there's never more than three or four around her, and I'd hesitate to claim there's hundreds of them at all. Even considering the graphical limitations of a Wii game there's gonna be way more enemies surrounding you in assassination gigs in NMH. Also, they are absolutely just basic monsters that mindlessly run at her in that video, I'm sure there's stronger ones but are those the sort that they can fight dozens of?
Semblances in RWBY are skill-based though...plus thats kinda like saying that Taskmaster isnt skilled since his fighting style mimicry is based on an ability.
"Semblance is the manifestation of one's innate and personal power, as an ability unique to each individual, with the effects varying greatly from user to user. Individuals possess their own unique Semblance that represents an aspect of their character. It is currently unknown if an individual's Semblance is related to their Aura. Those that use Semblance are able to manipulate certain physical phenomena according to the nature of their power. Some individuals, such as Weiss Schnee, are able to use their Semblance to create glyphs that generate some desired effect. Ruby Rose is able to move at incredible speeds, while Pyrrha Nikos can manipulate magnetic forces."

Eh? This is from the verse page and the RWBY wiki, tells a completely different story. And like, yeah Taskmaster is explicitly less skilled than other Marvel characters who do not share that ability like Shang-Chi or the Winter Soldier as far as I know, it's still a skill feat but it's lessened by the fact that he can do it just because his brain is built wrong.
Adam does it blindfolded so yeah, and he has blocked attack like that from behind his back at the same time as well.
Fair enough, similar levels of dexterity then
 
I'd appreciate if you could timestamp the most egregious parts if that's the case."
1:25 - 4:11 for the first video

1:40 - 2:19 and 4:09 - 5:30 for the second video

1:45 - 3:12, 4:52 - 5:57, and 8:40 - 9:21 for the third video
I've watched that "Red" trailer. The Grimm clearly wait for their turn to attack, there's never more than three or four around her, and I'd hesitate to claim there's hundreds of them at all. Even considering the graphical limitations of a Wii game there's gonna be way more enemies surrounding you in assassination gigs in NMH. Also, they are absolutely just basic monsters that mindlessly run at her in that video, I'm sure there's stronger ones but are those the sort that they can fight dozens of?
Dozens but fair point (they do also fight dozens of grimm simultaneously in the games but they are just the basic enemies), though the point is that both Adam and Shinobu scale absurdly above people who can casually clear hordes of fodder
Eh? This is from the verse page and the RWBY wiki, tells a completely different story. And like, yeah Taskmaster is explicitly less skilled than other Marvel characters who do not share that ability like Shang-Chi or the Winter Soldier as far as I know, it's still a skill feat but it's lessened by the fact that he can do it just because his brain is built wrong.
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This is from the official RWBY guidebook, Aura alone requires a ton of skill and training just to manifest and control, Semblances even moreso. Also Velvet's is the same way, her Semblance is passive like Qrow's, its not a power its literally her memory thats amplified to allow her to copy all of those fighting styles.
 
1:25 - 4:11 for the first video

1:40 - 2:19 and 4:09 - 5:30 for the second video

1:45 - 3:12, 4:52 - 5:57, and 8:40 - 9:21 for the third video
Again he's very good I'm not taking away from this, he's clearly incredibly agile and experienced with his weapon, but I don't think it's necessarily superior to NMH stuff- admittedly it's a bit hard for me to prove that considering that battles happen in gameplay but Shinobu for example is very agile even in her NMH1 self, even if Travis manages to overpower her guard she can avoid his offense by jumping off the architecture and stuff which almost nobody else can do, even assassins superior to her at the time.

This is also something she can do in the same game, apologies for the terrible quality but it's the only version of the feat I've got.
Dozens but fair point (they do also fight dozens of grimm simultaneously in the games but they are just the basic enemies), though the point is that both Adam and Shinobu scale absurdly above people who can casually clear hordes of fodder
Yeah, true, but I still think Shinobu's fodder is a little less mindless, they'll try to keep their guard up and surround her instead of just rushing in.

Dozens of people-worth Ass Gigs = Rank 10/11-ish, with the latter being stomped by a BoG Travis in less than a minute << NMH1 Shinobu (Rank 8, just putting this here to show how much she grows in 2 years) < Rank 7 = 100-man Ass Gig <<<< Henry Cooldown and NMH1 Endgame Travis (Who is Rank 1 albeit he kinda lost to the former Rank 1 and only got lucky because Shinobu blind-sided her, but he still did beat Rank 2 and below fair and square) << (Stomped by) Dr. Letz Shake who is rank 10 (Keep in mind the rankings are much bigger now so that's way more impressive than being Rank 10 in the first game. Letz Shake also stomped 12 assassins directly below him in rank) < Rank 9 & 8, who Shinobu fights. Rank 8 is also two people at once so that's one hell of an advantage < Shinobu

This isn't 100% iron solid since the rankings are always a little unstable but there isn't really much that hints at them not being right in this case. I'm not a fan of skill scaling chains at all since they always lose some nuance but eh, should give an idea anyway.

Oh by the way, there's other assassination gigs that force you to not use your weapon or make you die in one hit, those don't have quite as many enemies but they're still worth mentioning since Shinobu is definitely above the skill level able to clear those.
This is from the official RWBY guidebook, Aura alone requires a ton of skill and training just to manifest and control, Semblances even moreso. Also Velvet's is the same way, her Semblance is passive like Qrow's, its not a power its literally her memory thats amplified to allow her to copy all of those fighting styles.
... So, she needs help to do it, unlike Kimmy. The fact that Aura/Semblances need skill to manifest I'm not trying to downplay but it is separate from the accelerated development.

Also here's another silly dexterity feat Travis has from the beginning of NMH2. It's hard to gauge how much Travis grows through the game and how much he struggles with early game opponents but Shinobu is definitely relative to him at least.
 
Dozens of people-worth Ass Gigs = Rank 10/11-ish, with the latter being stomped by a BoG Travis in less than a minute << NMH1 Shinobu (Rank 8, just putting this here to show how much she grows in 2 years) < Rank 7 = 100-man Ass Gig <<<< Henry Cooldown and NMH1 Endgame Travis (Who is Rank 1 albeit he kinda lost to the former Rank 1 and only got lucky because Shinobu blind-sided her, but he still did beat Rank 2 and below fair and square) << (Stomped by) Dr. Letz Shake who is rank 10 (Keep in mind the rankings are much bigger now so that's way more impressive than being Rank 10 in the first game. Letz Shake also stomped 12 assassins directly below him in rank) < Rank 9 & 8, who Shinobu fights. Rank 8 is also two people at once so that's one hell of an advantage < Shinobu

This isn't 100% iron solid since the rankings are always a little unstable but there isn't really much that hints at them not being right in this case. I'm not a fan of skill scaling chains at all since they always lose some nuance but eh, should give an idea anyway.

Oh by the way, there's other assassination gigs that force you to not use your weapon or make you die in one hit, those don't have quite as many enemies but they're still worth mentioning since Shinobu is definitely above the skill level able to clear those.
like i said, the explanation previously given that above that it was extremely condensed, RWBY as a verse extremely skilled, well beyond what was previously stated. At the bottom of the skill chain is aura users as a whole. While every living being in RWBY technically has Aura, actually being able to utilize it for things such as defense, regen, and senses requires years of training and a high enough degree of martial skill (and yes you actually need martial skill for it) that only a small percentage of the population of the entire planet ever become skilled enough to utilize their aura. Of that small percentage, an even smaller percentage ever become skilled enough to manifest/control a Semblance (yes semblances are also skill-based). To reach this small percentage comes to the second half of the bottom of the chain: Almost every character worth their salt in RWBY has spent their entire life training in combat and can fight hordes of Grimm with little issue (Almost because Jaune exists). The entirety of the main cast of RWBY was initially enrolled at Beacon Academy, one of the most prestigious combat schools in the world, with almost everyone who was accepted there having been trained for almost their entire life to fight monsters, and each one that was not professionally trained requiring a skill display overseen by Ozpin, who has the composite skill of several thousand professional huntsmen that he accumulated over his immortal lifetime.

Thats the baseline for skill in the verse.
 
The skill for named characters we'll just use Ruby as an example. Before the Beacon Arc Ruby had been personally trained by her uncle Qrow in combat and as a result she was noted as always excelling above her peers in combat training. At the start of the series Ruby was at a level of skill that even though she was two years away from being eligible to join Beacon she was admitted due her combat prowess impressing Ozpin, with him noting that she was already a master at wielding one of the most dangerous weapons ever designed. In combat Ruby is capable of taking on entire hordes of Grimm on her own and walking away without a scratch and utilizing the different functionalities of the Crescent Rose, such as the massive recoil from the rifle aspect of the weapon and the weapon's transformative capabilities, in tandem with each other and her Semblance in order to maintain an edge over her opponent.

Basically every named character is around this level of skill in the early seasons.

Now for Velvet. Velvet is able to perfectly and instantly mimic the exact moves that she observes other people use in combat as well as utilize multiple different fighting styles simultaneously, both armed and unarmed. Thanks to Anesidora, Velvet is also able to copy fighting styles that utilize weapons, and she is able to wield the weapons that she copies just as effectively as their original user. To date that we know of, Velvet is able to simultaneously utilize the fighting styles and weapons of Ruby Rose, Yang Xiao Long, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, Nora Valkyrie, Sun Wukong, Penny Polendina, Coco Adel, Peter Port, Reese Chloris, Fox Alistar, Vega Bleu, Yatsuhashi Daichi, Russel Thrush, Roy Stallion, Neptune Vasilias, Brawnz Ni, Bartholomew Oobleck, Flynt Coal, Edward Caspian, and Scarlet David. Of note, every person listed spent their entire lives training in combat and several of them are professional huntsmen with decades of combat experience.
Moving up the chain we have Nebula Violette, who not only outmatched Velvet in a 1v1 test of martial arts skill, but was directly stated to be more skilled than Velvet in combat despite Velvet mixing numerous fighting styles to try to throw her off in their fight.

Above her is Pyrrha Nikos, the skill god of the Beacon Arc. Pyrrha is one of the most skilled students at Beacon Academy, having won every combat tournament she has entered since she was a pre-teen due to both her mastery of combat and mastery of her semblance, being able to apply it in combat completely undetected and having done so in almost every fight she's been in for over a decade, doing so with such skill and precision that she has lead many to believe she is untouchable and invincible as no one has been able to even land a blow on her in her combat career. Even without her semblance she has shown the ability to quickly and easily adapt to her combat situation and analyze her opponents while fighting and changing tactics to suit the situation she is in. She has shown extreme accuracy, being able to hit moving targets from hundreds of meters away and strike vital weak points on an opponent mid-combat both with and without the aid of her semblance. She is also highly skilled at using her weapon's multiple forms in combat, being able to switch between forms several times in rapid succession to both deliver rapid attacks and counter others simultaneously.

Then theres Mercury. Mercury is a veritable master of close combat, having spent his entire life training in pure martial combat to make up for his Semblance being stolen by his father. He is shown to be a very acrobatic and agile fighter who relies upon quickly overpowering his opponent with complex kicks that imply a near-mastery of martial arts that resemble Tae-Kwon-Do. He is also capable of a break-dancing style, similar to Capoeira, and makes use of Muay Thai as well. Despite his focus on kicks, Mercury also uses his hands to grapple, block or redirect enemy attacks. His experience and skill are aggressive and effective enough to drive even fighters of a high caliber, like Pyrrha, into a defensive position, with Word of God confirming that Mercury would defeat her if he fought her seriously. Due to his fighting style, Mercury relies on his swift and quick reflexes to counter and block his opponent's attacks as first demonstrated during his fight with Yang Xiao Long, altering the course of her punches and using his footwork to raise her fists and kick underneath or around her attacks. Despite the presumed awkwardness of his weapon's ranged capabilities he is a skilled marksman, able to shoot a phone out of a person's hand from a good distance away, and is proficient at using the many different forms of projectiles at his disposal to keep his opponents off balance. Mercury is also known to be observant, tactical, and analytical, able to notice and deduce the capabilities and limits of Pyrrha's Polarity Semblance after she uses it once during their brief fight, despite Pyrrha using it extremely subtly in combat and having spent her entire life honing her ability to hide her Semblance and its mechanics from her opponents and the general public.

Not only is Adam seen as more skilled than Mercury, but he is seen as more skilled than Mercury being backed up by both Emerald with her extremely versatile illusions/perception manip/invisibility semblance and Cinder with her spammable AoE fire attacks
 
I can definitely concede Adam is at least on the same level of Shinobu just because in my opinion skill gets a little hazy when at these levels and both are incredibly good and superior to many people with a buncha feats, are you pushing for more or can you settle for that?
 
I can definitely concede Adam is at least on the same level of Shinobu just because in my opinion skill gets a little hazy when at these levels and both are incredibly good and superior to many people with a buncha feats, are you pushing for more or can you settle for that?
Thats fair, sorry for the wall of text I just wanted to make sure Adam's skill chain was properly represented

So now that thats settled, theres now the stats to look at.

AP: How far above 9.8 tons does Shinobu scale? Adam scales to being stronger than Yang and Blake, who are equal to Vernal, who oneshot Weiss' Arma Gigas, which stomped the Queen Lancer, which was undamaged by an explosion of multiple crates of Dust powder canisters, with a single canister being 6.935 tons. Additionally, Adam's Moonslice allows him to amp his damage proportional to the number of and power of hits he blocks with his sword (When he blocks attacks with his sword the energy of the attacks that he blocks gets absorbed and stored, which he can then release all at once as a wave of energy or an empowered physical strike).

Speed: Equal, meh

Lifting Strength: Adam actually has a pretty sizable advantage here, Shinobu scales to 111628.95 kg while Adam scales well above 693616.8 kg, if they get into cqc, grappling, or blade clashing Adam would have the advantage.

Durability: This is where it gets interesting, Adam has an absurd amount of Aura protecting him, enough that he wasnt out of Aura even after an extended fight against both Blake and Yang and only had it broken from a direct punch from Yang with a fully maxed out Burn which increases her AP exponentially. Even with Darkstep on her side, Adam can take a LOT of punishment before his Aura starts to get low, and the fact that his Semblance relies on blocking with his sword means he'll be playing defense when he can.
 
AP: How far above 9.8 tons does Shinobu scale? Adam scales to being stronger than Yang and Blake, who are equal to Vernal, who oneshot Weiss' Arma Gigas, which stomped the Queen Lancer, which was undamaged by an explosion of multiple crates of Dust powder canisters, with a single canister being 6.935 tons. Additionally, Adam's Moonslice allows him to amp his damage proportional to the number of and power of hits he blocks with his sword (When he blocks attacks with his sword the energy of the attacks that he blocks gets absorbed and stored, which he can then release all at once as a wave of energy or an empowered physical strike).
It's a bit hard to tell. She downscales from the one who does it but it's a really casual feat done by what is probably a weak-ish form of him so I'd say she's roughly comparable to it, not that it really matters after aura is gone since piercing lol
Lifting Strength: Adam actually has a pretty sizable advantage here, Shinobu scales to 111628.95 kg while Adam scales well above 693616.8 kg, if they get into cqc, grappling, or blade clashing Adam would have the advantage.
Again Shinobu knows how to escape a losing blade clash through her acrobatics, she's literally the only boss in the whole NMH series that does this and that's back in the first game where she's much less skilled.

As for CQC/Grappling she never does it, it's implied she knows martial arts but she focuses on her sword only if she can.
Durability: This is where it gets interesting, Adam has an absurd amount of Aura protecting him, enough that he wasnt out of Aura even after an extended fight against both Blake and Yang and only had it broken from a direct punch from Yang with a fully maxed out Burn which increases her AP exponentially. Even with Darkstep on her side, Adam can take a LOT of punishment before his Aura starts to get low, and the fact that his Semblance relies on blocking with his sword means he'll be playing defense when he can.
Eh, I think there's a difference between the glancing blows you'll be suffering from an opponent that's comparable in speed and the dead-on blows you'll be receiving from someone who basically sees you as frozen when she uses Dark Step, the latter. Plus if she wants to she can attack really fast and that'd really do a number on any health bar. Also I'll have to reiterate how effective her stamina is, considering she's able to pull off the same "running on willpower" trick as NMH2 Travis that kinda implies she's superior to NMH1 Travis, who can literally have his heart punched out and keep standing. Obviously she can't replicate that since no Regen but bringing her down is not easy, it's not equal to Aura but it is a good defensive tool anyway, especially coupled with Dark Step.
 
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