Don't count me, I'm only arguing because I was asked to. Normally I wouldn't even be here.
My argument about the forcefield is that, if the Hamon shrouds can really block Frost Blaze and prevent the flames from reaching Joseph's body which I'm not convinced of, Rubia will immediately know there's some barrier protecting him.
Except she won't, if you're arguing it would freeze Hamon, for all she knows, it worked, she'd be hilariously wrong of course, but not like she is gonna know that, she isn't omniscient. Her freeze attack hit him, he looks frozen solid, why would she assume all that froze was the thin forcefield.
In that scenario, it's easy for her to combo her attacks between her barrier-breaking spell and offensive spells. Joseph's shrouds don't "counter" Frost Blaze; at best, it's a momentary defense that will get shattered anyway by Rubia's other spell or the ice itself. Then, the blue flames have access to his skin, and Joseph is screwed.
Untill he takes another breath and it gets put back up
You realize this can be rendered an effectively passive move that is put up every time he takes a breath right?
Concerning the breathing, Rubia can manipulate the flames into decreasing the oxygen around, which will, bare minimum, complicate things for Joseph. Frost Blaze was even capable of freezing a spiritual weapon that is known for being an anti-magic sword.
Except it won't, he can hold his breath for hundreds of kilometers, it was part of his training, even Will can hold his breath for tens of kilometers. Any and all Hamon that is created, will be saved for future use, all breathing does is prevent the creation of new Hamon, does **** all about existing Hamon.
Rubia solo'ed a squad of elite elementalists which included this
chick and equally-strong and skilled fighters, and she casually broke through and strolled through the most heavily guarded prison of the empire. That's not accounting, for the umpteenth time now, for Rubia's really high senses, perception and the best instinctive reactions in the series.
Cool? What do you want to make this a pissing contest of skill? Joseph in two weeks time eclipsed dudes with decades of martial training beyond anything any human is capable of, casually. His first day of training was pulling shit off that got martial masters killed for even trying it. He can contend with and even outskill Pillar Men, dudes with over 100000 years of experience, super genius IQ, the ability to analyze foes every movements and counter them with ease. One of Joseph's rivals is skilled to the point that despite not even knowing what is, can adapt kung fu stances, not because he knows what it is, but because he instinctively knows the best stance for that situation, the Pillar Men such as Kars could kill his entire race with little help, coming out of it without injury while his WHOLE RACE was dead, he then goes onto casually wipe out whole clans who exist for the sole purpose of hard countering him. Lad, it isn't like Joseph isn't skilled, and it isn't like Joseph doesn't constantly fight enemies with superhuman senses, perception and more, honestly, the fact Joseph can bullshit and blindside someone like Kars who has some pretty wacky enhanced senses should account for something.
As for the illusions, the answer to your question is in the entry on her profile. It's not a type of illusion that affects the mind. When Joseph hits the illusions, from his perspective, Rubia would have suddenly disappeared.
Ok so that's even better, if it was mental, all I would really have is conjuncture, but if they're the more worldly illusions, Joseph can easily use Hamon to deduce what is and isn't real, also she might disappear, but it wouldn't matter. Hamon can sense life force, it can sense and locate hidden or invisible enemies through their "life energy" or whatever, this is actually one of the first thing Hamon lads learn, Jonathan for example learned how to do it with a glass of wine, Hamon can be used almost like a sonar to sense living beings, her vanishing via illusions wouldn't actually enable her get out of his perception, he can still locate her.
But speaking of mind, Rubia still has the option of Word of Power, which Joseph doesn't resist. It's in-character for her to use it.
Then see above.
Depowering Joseph isn't useless, because even if he does have a stat amp, he'd just be undoing the stat reduction Rubia inflicted on him.
Uh yeah, so? Joseph without Hamon is piss weak anyway, unless she can completely negate any and all Hamon usability, which she can't, stat debuff isn't a issue, as he'd just go right back to his High 8-C state via Hamon, it's a continuous process, unless she wants to apply the debuff constantly every fraction of a second, it won't be permanent, it's for all intents and purposes actually useless.
In fact, Joseph likely won't even know what's depowering him as the Isolation Barrier is extremely hard to notice at all. There's also the possibility that the Isolation Barrier can cancel Joseph's shrouds due to IB's ability to overwrite barriers; this last one is a maybe, but it is something to take into consideration.
Again, doubt it, and if it's "hard" to notice, he'd notice it, unless it's impossible to notice, don't forget, Joseph himself has some pretty wacky senses (minus that one time but that's more of a feat on ACDC's end), Joseph has extremely high spatial awareness and one of his key gimmicks is analyzing everything around him at all times, never letting anything go unnoticed. I mean, even before his training, never having trained a day in his life, Joseph could do shit like bisect a fly from across a way by flicking a piece of glass, impaling one and decapiting another. Joseph is one for picking up on extremely minute details, whether it's from his foes, or the enviroment.
On her end, Rubia has 3 stat amps and 1 fire-spell amp. Speaking of AP, I guess it wasn't brought up in this thread, but Rubia triple upscales from the 4.68 ton value. Rubia > Base Kamito > Muir > Post-Awakening Claire >> Base Claire = 4.68, and that's Rubia with no stat amps and excluding the effect of stat reduction on the opponent.
And Joseph upscales drastically above his too lad. He can contend with foes who treat foes who actually humiliate low end High 8-C's and treat them as food, a nonissue. Pillar Men>=Joseph>>>>Santana (Considered nothing but a weak puppy, actual dogshit)>>>>Vampires of any kind (nothing but a quick meal for them, completely incomparable)=slightly above baseline.
And then with amps, Joseph can one shot Kars' Light Mode, which could one shot Lisa Lisa and Stroheim, in which Lisa Lisa is 3x stronger than he is normally, hence why he has that + next to his Ultimate Overdrive, it scales far, far, above 3x above himself as odd as that sounds.
the stat reduction as said, really doesn't seem like much of an issue if Joseph is constantly amping himself by pure virtue of how Hamon works, in fact, would that even matter? Making Joseph himself weaker doesn't really effect how much the Hamon effects things.
Rubia isn't limited to using 1 spell or 1 attack at a time.
Any joseph isn't limited to doing 1 spell or 1 attack at a time either, being able to multi-task isn't exactly an advantage, literally anyone could do it.
Even less so when 2 of her spells can be cast anywhere within range, 1 of which is a danmaku, and 2 other spells are homing, one of which can explode in a large conflagration, further boosted by Flames of Elstein.
Yeah and how many of these spells can actually harm Joseph? Don't forget, the dude has regen and healing, literally only two spells I've seen thus far are problematic, and you also have to consider that while she's attacking Joseph, Joseph is sending out Hamon, spraying with an uzi, and doing who knows what else, by simply breathing, or in some cases, by simply being in contact with the ground.
Rubia has herself access to environmental destruction,
Ok cool, nobody was talking about environmental destruction though? Environmental Destruction is completely useless. I hope you don't think that's what Joseph is doing? Because it ain't.
with much larger AoE than Joseph, which results in it not unlikely for Joseph to be damaged, at the very least, by the spell's edges. Dodge all you want, all the AoE spells coming Joseph's way forms a lot of attacks, which Rubia can cast and control in such a way to pincer or surprise attack Joseph from multiple directions.
Much larger AOE is a good thing though, especially at the edges as you just kindly pointed out. Inverse square law and surface area exist
It would be better if her attacks were highly focused so Joseph takes the full brunt of them, not like 1/1000th.
And yes, dodge all he wants, given he can actually like, see the attacks coming, speed is equal, and unlike him, she can't exactly store or lay traps, him dodging while difficult, would be a lot less problematic then her dodging, given Joseph can, as mentioned previously, channel Hamon through everything her to due it's organic nature, but not only channel it, but
store it. That's a key part you're not factoring in, Joseph can effectively pump the environment full of so much Hamon, and
keep it there. Sooner or later, probably sooner, there won't be anywhere she can move without getting to close to something imbued with Hamon, and given Joseph is an expert in manipulating and leading foes into positions he wants, it wouldn't be very hard for Joseph to set of Hamon and attacks, and have her dodge away, only for her to be dodging into positions he himself wants her to get into, why? Because said positions would have other Hamon charged objects, stored, only for her to get, as you just said yourself, pincer or surprise attack from multiple directions.
And hey, as mentioned, Joseph not only has the means to effectively make the whole environment a death trap and attack through it or store future attacks within it, but he also has long ranged options like his gun and crossbolt, among other things. Any reason why he can't just start spraying bullets, get her to dodge into a direction he wants, and then light her up with Hamon attacks that she can't really avoid due to pincering, without going into another attack or going into the uzi (which mind you, he can imbue with Hamon, at least, given he has oil, but he tends to have that shit on hand as shown in the Wham fight where he brought some with to coat metal armaments with it so they conduct Hamon).
Fyi, this is something Joseph is gonna do all pretty fast, Hamon channeling, charging, whipping out weapons, etc, he tends to that like, right away, no time for ******* around, she slips up, she's dead.
And of course, let's not forget, the secret technique, if Joseph ever gets hard pressed for some reason, he
will run away. And he's kind a good at it, he's also pretty good at slipping away undetected or slipping out of view, yes, even against those with enhanced senses. And before you start thinking "oh that doesnt sound in character", it is, it's his secret technique. Losing a fight? Then don't fight, run away and come back when you know you can win, as mentioned above Joseph NEVER fights a fight he knows he can't win, the moment he thinks he can't win or winning will be problematic, he ***** off, but not of cowardice, a strategic retreat, a retreat to where he can gather his bearings, formulate a plan and counter, and act on it.
