Kirito vs Kratos [GRACE]

[AnonymousBlank]

Skill wise, pre war Kirito with two swords is equal to Quinella who has mastered every Sword Skill in the Cardinal system, this includes all bladed weapons from axes, long swords, short swords, great swords, daggers, throwing knives, spears, halberds, scimitars, rapiers, katanas, dual wielding, claws (Wolverine style) etc, at least one form of hand to hand, and using shields (round, kite, buckler etc) in conjunction with the above weapons. Note that Cardinal already contains most if not all variations of thrusts and slashes with the above weapon types (and more) available to humanity in addition to a whole host of combo attacks on top of that. By definition, Sword Skills can’t have any waste in movement, trajectory, deviation in balance etc since all sword skills are perfected to a superhuman (to SAO humans who already do dumb stuff) degree by default). It can’t even be argued that Kirito’s non Sword Skill attacks are lesser since he himself is able to perform techniques to the same degree as the system aided Sword Skills and does it in games that don’t aid him like GGO (Horizontal Square iirc) and the Underworld (Starburst Stream).

Kirito essentially scales to comp human with melee weapons here while Kratos on the other hand …….. he rages at people …. and nothing else. He has cool toys that let him do more than conventional weapons but he wins basically all his fights via power or hax. I can’t even think of any statements for his skill and even the guy who did the mocap for 4 just said he made exaggerated, angry swings with the prop. His hax is honestly going to carry him in a cqc fight because his skill just ain’t it.

 

[Smashtwig]

Kratos as some unique weapons, even if he swings them with big angy, the nature of just the Blades of Chaos are unnatural, you won’t have too much experience against such a specific weapon type... like who puts chains on blades like that?

 

[AnonymousBlank]

Tbh, I would. That shit is badass. When it comes to weapons, adding chains to it makes it way better. Chain and spiky ball? Badass. Chain and scythe? Badass. Chain and knife (which is just a bladed whip now that I think about it)? Badass.

Edit: So I just watched a fight with the Blades of Chaos and the move set is really limited. He mostly just swing them at mid range where they follow a linear path, stabs dudes with them at close range and occasionally throws them at the target which lets him pull a Scorpion or go over there himself.

 

[Smashtwig]

Pretty dangerous tho.

anyways, how is Kirito gonna deal with someone who basically counters his sword attacks with just pure unorthodox fighting

 

[GilverTheProtoAngelo]

Okay now things are getting interesting.....
I'll respond later, a bit busy.

 

[AnonymousBlank]

It’s not exactly unorthodox tbh, the strike pattern is rather basic. It’s just a longer edge. Kirito with only a chain (that his opponent can snap with his bare hands) fights an Integrity Knight who uses a prehensile whip and only got offguarded by it’s transformation. Kirito with a single sword (who gets stomped by Quinella) is comparable to Alice in skill (lost cuz of stats) who trained the above IK. One of the bosses (with a large stat advantage) that Kirito has fought before in SAO also has a snake that moves in far more unorthodox patterns than a simple whip.

 

[Kaantantr]

Skill wise, pre war Kirito with two swords is equal to Quinella who has mastered every Sword Skill in the Cardinal system,

Pre-War Kirito is explicitly below Quinella, as he has lost against her, even after using Dual Blades which Quinella was not prepared for.

this includes all bladed weapons from axes, long swords, short swords, great swords, daggers, throwing knives, spears, halberds, scimitars, rapiers, katanas, dual wielding, claws (Wolverine style) etc, at least one form of hand to hand, and using shields (round, kite, buckler etc) in conjunction with the above weapons.

Citation needed for most of those weapon types. Underworld does not have all weapon types. For example, you mention Dual Blades, however Dual Blades does not exist within Underworld as part of the system. The general implication is that it is Yanai who ported Sword Skills over from ALO.

Note that Cardinal already contains most if not all variations of thrusts and slashes with the above weapon types (and more) available to humanity in addition to a whole host of combo attacks on top of that. By definition, Sword Skills can’t have any waste in movement, trajectory, deviation in balance etc since all sword skills are perfected to a superhuman (to SAO humans who already do dumb stuff) degree by default).

Bu definition, that is wrong. Sword Skills have plenty of waste in movement. An example would be the final hit of Starburst Stream which comes after a dramatic pause following the 15th hit. It all varies from Sword Skill to Sword Skill. Some have lengthy wind-up times, some have pauses in between etc. You can also further adjust their trajectory and deviate from their pre-determined path, increase or decrease their speeds etc to micromanage their output during the skill by pushing forward with the skill, or trying to hold back respectively.

It can’t even be argued that Kirito’s non Sword Skill attacks are lesser since he himself is able to perform techniques to the same degree as the system aided Sword Skills and does it in games that don’t aid him like GGO (Horizontal Square iirc) and the Underworld (Starburst Stream).

It cannot be argued. They are lesser. Sword Skills are not just system automated movement, they do receive proper boosts when being executed. When Kirito uses regular swings, they are just regular swings. GGO does not have Sword Skills, the anime adding fancy animations does not change this fact. Kirito's use of Starburst Stream in Underworld is a Sword Skill being incarnated into the world as suck, not a "non SS attack".

Also to further add, Sword Skills come at a massive detriment in PvP battles, so much so that whenever Kirito attempts to use them, he immediately regrets it. They lock you into a set motion that you cannot cancel out, should you not hit the enemy (or they dodge) you further get locked in a fumble animation and are basically just a sitting target for multiple seconds. It's even worse if your enemy parries your sword skill, which puts you in a staggered state where the enemy can deal bonus damage even.

Sword Skills are only usable in PvP when you manage to stagger an enemy and even then, you should generally not use more than 2-3 hit skills, otherwise you'll be in danger of getting parried.

There is also the Skill Connect that you can use after a skill to chain to a new one, eliminating the post-skill animation delay, but Kirito can only accomplish it 50% of the time, so it is not something he can rely on.

Kirito with only a chain (that his opponent can snap with his bare hands) fights an Integrity Knight who uses a prehensile whip and only got offguarded by it’s transformation.

Kirito alone actually kept getting destroyed against Eldrie, who was a knight for a couple weeks at this point trying to get used to his Divine Object. He was barely holding stalemate, and was losing more than Eldrie did in all the circumstances. The only reason he came out on top in specific instances is because he worked with Eugeo. And even then, Eldrie got the better of them. He was only "lost" when Eugeo triggered a prior memory of his via the mention of his mother.

And Kirito having "only a chain" is quite irrelevant here. For purposes in game, the chain acted as a proper whip, albeit a low quality one. It would break much earlier than any actual whip, let alone the Frostscale Whip of Eldrie, but it never reached a breaking point in the first place.

One of the bosses (with a large stat advantage) that Kirito has fought before in SAO also has a snake that moves in far more unorthodox patterns than a simple whip.

Bosses are predictable. They may have unique attacks, but they got 4-5 set attack patterns that you simply memorize and then easily dodge. That's why every raid party begins with an observation of the boss for a couple minutes, before actually starting their DPS phases. They want to push the boss into showing all of its attack patterns in a safe way before enraging it, creating clear strategies against them and only after the preparations are complete, they actually go for DPS. Heck, more often than not, you can just bait the bosses into doing one of their specific attacks, like surrounding it with a couple tanks to bait it into an AoE move.

Any PvP battle is less predictable, than a battle against a PvE enemy.

Needless to say, Kirito was also never alone in boss battles.

 

[GilverTheProtoAngelo]

Lmao thinking that Kratos is just a chain swinger is last mistake Kirito will do, it will be too late by the time he gets a rude awakening call.
First and foremost Kratos even before his servitude to Ares, was at peak in skills against humans, only those of equal to him who were patroned and plotted by gods into war games(hunt for Ambrosia for example) like Barbarian King or anyone else could measure upto him.
And myths in God of War as provided in game lore are quite literal.
Primordials, Titans and Gods all of them precede humans, all that humans have come from these Divine Beings. Like Fire being given to humans by Prometheus or Sun being creation from Primordial Fire which is used by Hyperion and Helios. Each Divine being quite is a part of reality.
Why is this important, well Hapheustus is source for all weapon-smithing for all humanity, and Ares is superset of all martail skills of humanity, armed or unarmed.
His God of War title isn't a joke.
Kratos is personally trained by Ares to be the weapon that overthrows Olympus, thats why in Ascension Furies are trying to get him back on track.
And this brings us to champions, Mortals who are chosen and patronized by 4 main Gods, given divine powers by them and guided in training. These guys bodying any humans and monsters with ease in skill, the monsters themselves coming in various shapes and forms with their own whacky abilities. On top of which these guys have whacky Divine Weapons and magic abilities. Also these guys have double chained hooks, and proficient in use of them, even using them with primary weapons like Cestuses, Spears, Swords and Hammers.
In a hypothetical match where all these guys given all weapons and armours( even legendary ones) they would get bodied by Kratos.

In short Kirito may have all the artificial ready made knowledge of human martial arts but it is trumped completely by Kratos whose skill surpasses Composite humanity and divine champions and excels in realms of Gods....all of this earned with blood, sweat and tears like a true chad. He can claim proudly to have muscle memory of all skills, while Kirito can't.
Even as child this guy was put through hell to become Spartan. As a Champion his skill matches gods.

Also limiting Kratos' skill from gameplay and mo-cap is as outrageous as saying he is human lvl in strength cuz he struggles with chest opening.

 

[Vietthai96]

So after reading Kaantantr explaination, my understanding is Kirito Sword Skill is like a game, he is can only perform certain set of skill, and like game, the movement is bound by it, he can't cancel or change the trajectory of it, he is bound to complete the movement of a strike before he can perform another whenever he hit or miss it the target, it is like we play game

 

[Kaantantr]

So after reading Kaantantr explaination, my understanding is Kirito Sword Skill is like a game, he is can only perform certain set of skill, and like game, the movement is bound by it, he can't cancel or change the trajectory of it, he is bound to complete the movement of a strike before he can perform another whenever he hit or miss it the target, it is like we play game

Almost correct. He can micromanage the trajectory, like veering a skill a couple centimeter to the left or right. But that's pretty much as much as you can achieve, it's mostly used for course correcting from a normal hit into a critical hit, like if he was aiming for a shoulder, he can slightly nudge it towards the heart instead for a crit. But you cannot make a 90 degree turn and suddenly hit a completely different place.

As for the latter, completely correct. The skill either must be completed until the end (if successfully hit: short delay while enemy also suffers a knockback delay, if missed: fumble status & long delay) or must be successfully parried by the opponent before it executed to completion, which is even worse for the one using the skill. Hence why Sword Skills are rarely ever used in PvP. It simply isn't worth it.

 

[Bernkastelll]

As for the latter, completely correct. The skill either must be completed until the end (if successfully hit: short delay while enemy also suffers a knockback delay, if missed: fumble status & long delay) or must be successfully parried by the opponent before it executed to completion, which is even worse for the one using the skill. Hence why Sword Skills are rarely ever used in PvP. It simply isn't worth it.

How long is the stun/delay?

 

[Smashtwig]

Pretty sure long enough for Kratos to do damn well whatever he wants.

 

[Kaantantr]

How long is the stun/delay?

I do not have the exact numbers on me and they are usually scattered around multiple volumes. Progressive v2 is the first one that comes to mind for a good one to check since that's where the first main PvP fight for Kirito happens, but I am too lazy to check.

But if you are not looking for an exact duration, yes, if you miss & fumble or get parried, there is enough time to land one solid clean hit at the very least for the opponent.

On the other side of things, even with careful planning and getting landed a crit on that fumble is very likely to not kill you.

 

[AnonymousBlank]

Pre-War Kirito is explicitly below Quinella, as he has lost against her, even after using Dual Blades which Quinella was not prepared for.

The moment he uses two swords, he is able to contend with her and even directly harm her with both of them taking equal damage from their exchange.

Citation needed for most of those weapon types.

Looking at the screen. Sachi and Rosalia used a spear, Heathcliff uses shields, Kirito uses long swords, Asuna uses rapiers, the Katana Skill exists and both Klein and that 1st SAO boss in OS uses Katana Skills, one of the goons with Rosalia had an axe and used a SS, Argo has the claw and uses Martial Arts etc. It’s not hard to know where they come from when you think about any of it.

Underworld does not have all weapon types. For example, you mention Dual Blades, however Dual Blades does not exist within Underworld as part of the system. The general implication is that it is Yanai who ported Sword Skills over from ALO.

Yanai ….. you mean the dude who is helping Quinella and feeding her info? Pretty sure Yanai was only responsible for telling Quinella stuff and adding the right eye thing to the Underworld. Also you realise that Quinella is the person who states she knows everything in the Underworld right and is shown to read the literal manual to the place?

Bu definition, that is wrong. Sword Skills have plenty of waste in movement. An example would be the final hit of Starburst Stream which comes after a dramatic pause following the 15th hit.

No. It is explained in Mother’s Rosario that SS have no wasted movement, perfect balance etc etc. The dramatic pause from the anime? Why does that matter when it is clearly for the entertainment value?

It all varies from Sword Skill to Sword Skill. Some have lengthy wind-up times, some have pauses in between etc. You can also further adjust their trajectory and deviate from their pre-determined path, increase or decrease their speeds etc to micromanage their output during the skill by pushing forward with the skill, or trying to hold back respectively.

That is something that the user can choose to do. That’s not what the baseline SS is like which, once again, is explained in Mother’s Rosario to be performed to perfection.

It cannot be argued. They are lesser. Sword Skills are not just system automated movement, they do receive proper boosts when being executed. When Kirito uses regular swings, they are just regular swings. GGO does not have Sword Skills, the anime adding fancy animations does not change this fact. Kirito's use of Starburst Stream in Underworld is a Sword Skill being incarnated into the world as suck, not a "non SS attack".

You seem to have misunderstood what I am saying. The skill to perform them is my point, not the damage boost from using a sword skill. The context of my post is skill so I don’t why you would bring up something that doesn’t matter. Kirito explicitly recreates SS from SAO in ALO while Asuna and Eigene create OSS as well. They themselves are able to operate on such a level and so does Kirito.

Also to further add, Sword Skills come at a massive detriment in PvP battles, so much so that whenever Kirito attempts to use them, he immediately regrets it. They lock you into a set motion that you cannot cancel out, should you not hit the enemy (or they dodge) you further get locked in a fumble animation and are basically just a sitting target for multiple seconds. It's even worse if your enemy parries your sword skill, which puts you in a staggered state where the enemy can deal bonus damage even.

That’s really weird then since literally everyone uses them in PvP, including the best PvP fighters like Kirito, Yuuki and Asuna. I could steel man this and it still wouldn’t change the fact that top tier fighters like Kirito can perform at the level of SS.

Sword Skills are only usable in PvP when you manage to stagger an enemy and even then, you should generally not use more than 2-3 hit skills, otherwise you'll be in danger of getting parried.

Source? Because this is conjecture in your part.

There is also the Skill Connect that you can use after a skill to chain to a new one, eliminating the post-skill animation delay, but Kirito can only accomplish it 50% of the time, so it is not something he can rely on.

Not relevant.

Kirito alone actually kept getting destroyed against Eldrie, who was a knight for a couple weeks at this point trying to get used to his Divine Object. He was barely holding stalemate, and was losing more than Eldrie did in all the circumstances. The only reason he came out on top in specific instances is because he worked with Eugeo. And even then, Eldrie got the better of them. He was only "lost" when Eugeo triggered a prior memory of his via the mention of his mother.

You mean the Kirito who had a far weaker weapon that he had no experience in using vs a dude who was specifically trained to use his far superior weapon. Kirito still responded to said attacks being at a huge disadvantage. Since you don’t seem to be aware of how large the gap is between Kirito with just a single sword.

BR Eugeo = Bercoulli = Alice > NSS Kirito > basically every single shown IK besides Fanatio’s groupies > Eldrie >> Kirito and Eugeo with chains

Seeing as you missed it, the point was that Kirito has fought against people who use far more unorthodox fighting styles than Kratos and was still able to briefly contend against them despite being in a far worse position than he is now.

And Kirito having "only a chain" is quite irrelevant here. For purposes in game, the chain acted as a proper whip, albeit a low quality one. It would break much earlier than any actual whip, let alone the Frostscale Whip of Eldrie, but it never reached a breaking point in the first place.

Huh? The point is to exemplify that Kirito didn’t have his swords or basic gear which he has here. If you have no clue what the point is, don’t respond like you do because you consistently spout random things that have nothing to do with what I am saying.

Bosses are predictable. They may have unique attacks, but they got 4-5 set attack patterns that you simply memorize and then easily dodge. That's why every raid party begins with an observation of the boss for a couple minutes, before actually starting their DPS phases. They want to push the boss into showing all of its attack patterns in a safe way before enraging it, creating clear strategies against them and only after the preparations are complete, they actually go for DPS. Heck, more often than not, you can just bait the bosses into doing one of their specific attacks, like surrounding it with a couple tanks to bait it into an AoE move.

And Kirito had to learn the patterns? Bosses need to perform said patterns for the party to learn them which means someone had to go and trigger the attacks, something that we know Kirito does seeing as he specifically went to scout out the Gleam Eyes boss room to prep for a raid party.

Any PvP battle is less predictable, than a battle against a PvE enemy.

Great, doesn’t change the fact that Kirito has experience in more complicated attacks than what Kratos has shown.

Needless to say, Kirito was also never alone in boss battles.

Essentially was against Gleam Eyes but whatever, read above.

Lmao thinking that Kratos is just a chain swinger is last mistake Kirito will do, it will be too late by the time he gets a rude awakening call.

Didn’t say that is what Kirito will think, I said that’s what Kratos is.

First and foremost Kratos even before his servitude to Ares, was at peak in skills against humans,

Scan and why does this apply to things that haven’t been shown to exist in the setting?

only those of equal to him who were patroned and plotted by gods into war games(hunt for Ambrosia for example) like Barbarian King or anyone else could measure upto him.
And myths in God of War as provided in game lore are quite literal.

You’d need to provide the actual lore from the game for this to mean anything.

Primordials, Titans and Gods all of them precede humans, all that humans have come from these Divine Beings. Like Fire being given to humans by Prometheus or Sun being creation from Primordial Fire which is used by Hyperion and Helios. Each Divine being quite is a part of reality.

Preceding something doesn’t mean you scale to everything after you. Not sure why being a part of reality matters here. Are the gods the very things they are god of? If not, I dunno why you are bringing it up.

Off topic ish but didn’t Kratos go on a spree killing a load of gods? Did reality fall apart at the seams or smth?

Why is this important, well Hapheustus is source for all weapon-smithing for all humanity, and Ares is superset of all martail skills of humanity, armed or unarmed.
His God of War title isn't a joke.

Scan and this would still only scale to what has been shown in verse, not all of irl humanity.

Kratos is personally trained by Ares to be the weapon that overthrows Olympus, thats why in Ascension Furies are trying to get him back on track.

Being trained by someone doesn’t matter. Dick Grayson doesn’t scale to Batman just cuz he was trained by him.

And this brings us to champions, Mortals who are chosen and patronized by 4 main Gods, given divine powers by them and guided in training. These guys bodying any humans and monsters with ease in skill, the monsters themselves coming in various shapes and forms with their own whacky abilities.

Why is super humans killing monsters and other humans a skill feat? Unless it’s explicitly stated to be skill, it’s just the result of their superhuman physicals.

On top of which these guys have whacky Divine Weapons and magic abilities. Also these guys have double chained hooks, and proficient in use of them, even using them with primary weapons like Cestuses, Spears, Swords and Hammers.

If they have magic gear and hax, why is it a skill feat at all? Do we see a fight?

In a hypothetical match where all these guys given all weapons and armours( even legendary ones) they would get bodied by Kratos.

Is this stated or shown somewhere?

In short Kirito may have all the artificial ready made knowledge of human martial arts

Small/big correction, he doesn’t have it, he beat someone with it. Just figured I would clarify before someone gets the wrong idea.

but it is trumped completely by Kratos whose skill surpasses Composite humanity and divine champions and excels in realms of Gods

Same as before, scan and why does this apply to things that aren’t in the setting?

....all of this earned with blood, sweat and tears like a true chad. He can claim proudly to have muscle memory of all skills, while Kirito can't.

This …… literally doesn’t matter. Also not accurate since Kirito has to train to be able to fight at his level which directly mentions “burning the movements into the synapses of [his] brain”. Even irl, he still unconsciously does the same motions he does in game and is physically capable enough to perform the moves irl as seen in Ordinal Scale.

Even as child this guy was put through hell to become Spartan. As a Champion his skill matches gods.

Spartan training is nothing compared to what Kirito has beaten.

Also limiting Kratos' skill from gameplay and mo-cap is as outrageous as saying he is human lvl in strength cuz he struggles with chest opening.

I haven’t played the games and can only speak from what I have found and seen. If you have the scans to prove what you claimed then I will happily retract my statement but until then, Kratos is a big angry boi.

 

[Kaantantr]

The moment he uses two swords, he is able to contend with her and even directly harm her with both of them taking equal damage from their exchange.

Everyone can hurt everyone. Kirito still got destroyed in that fight, despite catching Quinella completely off guard.

Looking at the screen. Sachi and Rosalia used a spear, Heathcliff uses shields, Kirito uses long swords, Asuna uses rapiers, the Katana Skill exists and both Klein and that 1st SAO boss in OS uses Katana Skills, one of the goons with Rosalia had an axe and used a SS, Argo has the claw and uses Martial Arts etc. It’s not hard to know where they come from when you think about any of it.

Why are you citing Aincrad information for Underworld? I explicitly said not all weapon types exist in Underworld...

Yanai ….. you mean the dude who is helping Quinella and feeding her info? Pretty sure Yanai was only responsible for telling Quinella stuff and adding the right eye thing to the Underworld. Also you realise that Quinella is the person who states she knows everything in the Underworld right and is shown to read the literal manual to the place?

Yes, Yanai was previously working back at RECT under Sugou Nobuyuki. He's a developer from ALO.

And no, Quinella did not read a manual or something, she just had access to the command list. And from what we saw, not even a man page you'll recognize from Linux. Just a list of commands. And then she just experimented with them and using her knowledge of english to figure out what they do.

No. It is explained in Mother’s Rosario that SS have no wasted movement, perfect balance etc etc. The dramatic pause from the anime? Why does that matter when it is clearly for the entertainment value?

From the anime? It is not from the Anime. It is straight from Volume 18, Alicization Lasting. Kirito explains Starburst Stream.

"The sixteenth and final swing was a full overhead slash from the left, delivered after climactic pause."

Sword skills have plenty of wasted movement and no "perfect balance". The system literally assists the movement so you specifically would not need "perfect balance".

That is something that the user can choose to do. That’s not what the baseline SS is like which, once again, is explained in Mother’s Rosario to be performed to perfection.

The base sword skill is literally quite unoptimal for a top tier player. That is why players like Kirito, Asuna or Yuuki can get so much more from the exact same sword skills compared to your average players. Because they boost the skills through their active physical participation.

You seem to have misunderstood what I am saying. The skill to perform them is my point, not the damage boost from using a sword skill. The context of my post is skill so I don’t why you would bring up something that doesn’t matter. Kirito explicitly recreates SS from SAO in ALO while Asuna and Eigene create OSS as well. They themselves are able to operate on such a level and so does Kirito.

Reminder that Kirito failed to create his own OSS and thus doesn't even have one as a result. And Asuna never created her own OSS either, she just inherited Mother's Rosario from Yuuki.

That’s really weird then since literally everyone uses them in PvP, including the best PvP fighters like Kirito, Yuuki and Asuna. I could steel man this and it still wouldn’t change the fact that top tier fighters like Kirito can perform at the level of SS.

Of course. As I said, when you manage to get your opponent fumbled, you use short and quick sword skills, 2-3 hit 1HS skills and you are already pushing the limit. Rapiers/Daggers can sneak in bigger combos due to faster but less powerful thrust skills, whereas you won't get a chance to go over 1-2 hits with a two handed weapon. You see this very clearly in every single PvP fight. And the moment when you start going into longer SSs or at unoptimal times... Well, Kirito lost plenty of battles because of this because he simply can't control his temper and launched a sword skill without a proper plan.

Source? Because this is conjecture in your part.

Progressive v2, Kirito vs Morte would be a good place to start. Aside from that, basically every single PvP fight in the series re-iterates the basics of PvP.

Not relevant.

That is very relevant. It's literally what Kirito can do to his advantage and how reliably he can pull it off. I thought you people were here to gauge the skills and abilities of a character to see which one would triumph and here you go, discarding a massive battle advantage as "irrelevant".

You mean the Kirito who had a far weaker weapon that he had no experience in using vs a dude who was specifically trained to use his far superior weapon. Kirito still responded to said attacks being at a huge disadvantage. Since you don’t seem to be aware of how large the gap is between Kirito with just a single sword.

You seem to not realize that is exactly why Kirito did not exactly put up a fight with his own whipchain. He prioritized dodging and closing the gap, something he specialized in under Sortiliena's mentorship.

Dodging and closing the gap has 0 relevance to what weapon he was holding. He simply came up close and locked Eldrie in place by grabbing his whip.

Seeing as you missed it, the point was that Kirito has fought against people who use far more unorthodox fighting styles than Kratos and was still able to briefly contend against them despite being in a far worse position than he is now.

I mean, your example boiled down to "Kirito fought and lost against this guy... But hey, he fought at least!". So it had to be pointed out.

Huh? The point is to exemplify that Kirito didn’t have his swords or basic gear which he has here. If you have no clue what the point is, don’t respond like you do because you consistently spout random things that have nothing to do with what I am saying.

The point is that Kirito lost the fight while having a weapon he was comfortable using. You keep acting like Kirito is going in with a wooden toothpick that was capable of nothing. Whereas it was acting as a proper whip for all intents and purposes and did what Kirito needed it to do, while he utilized the knowledge he learned from Sortiliena. He had a sword against Sortiliena during their sparring sessions, but that didn't help him either. Because you can't really fight against a whip with a sword. If you read Kirito vs Eldrie fight, you would know the fight is not about "fighting", it's about getting close to Eldrie so he loses his advantage with the whip.

And Kirito had to learn the patterns? Bosses need to perform said patterns for the party to learn them which means someone had to go and trigger the attacks, something that we know Kirito does seeing as he specifically went to scout out the Gleam Eyes boss room to prep for a raid party.

Actually, it is normally a squad of tanks who do the baiting, whereas leaders and Kirito stand behind and watch the boss. And then there are basic rules of thumb playing the game as well. You see a thrust? You jump to the sides. You see a swing? You jump back. So yes, Kirito knows how to dodge highly telegraphed attacks from AI bosses. That isn't even an impressive feat, that's easier than dodging a normal punch in real life, since the AI Enemies telegraphs their attacks beforehand...

Great, doesn’t change the fact that Kirito has experience in more complicated attacks than what Kratos has shown.

Define "complicated" because you keep using the words as it means something in this context. Yes, the boss can have a 100 times hitting very fancy swingy stuff, but if all it takes for me to dodge it is a simple backstep within a 5 second window after the boss' eyes clearly shine a different color, that "complicated" attack means nothing.

Essentially was against Gleam Eyes but whatever, read above.

Less people participated in Fuscus boss fight than the Gleam Eyes fight, and even that was 2 full parties of a haphazardly built team that didn't even have the time to practice a team synergy... Anyways, not even gonna bother lecturing that about 2 dozen people participated in the Gleam fight. Either way, you are trying to work team fights that are not Kirito's solo accomplishments against an AI opponent, into a 1v1 PvP duel, which is honestly absurd.

And the rest is GoW stuff so not my topic. Honestly, if I hadn't met better people around here who do their best to inform themselves and trying to soak up as much information as possible, I would have been laughing quite a lot right now at how you are trying to warp facts to write a tainted narrative, while also trying to push things that you don't like away claiming they are irrelevant.

 

[GilverTheProtoAngelo]

Didn’t say that is what Kirito will think, I said that’s what Kratos is.

Well it is wrong.

Scan and why does this apply to things that haven’t been shown to exist in the setting?

You’d need to provide the actual lore from the game for this to mean anything.

Duh, you think I am pulling things from actual irl mythology?? I am stating what happened in game lore.

God of War (DC/Wildstorm comic series)

And having so recently defeated Ares to become the god of war, Kratos believed his tortured nightmares would come to an end. But, as he was to learn, they were only beginning...Narrator. DC/Wildstorm presents the game-to-comic graphic novel in a bi-monthly 6 part series, first released in May...

godofwar.fandom.com

Though misremembered it happening before GoW1, my mistake.

Preceding something doesn’t mean you scale to everything after you. Not sure why being a part of reality matters here. Are the gods the very things they are god of? If not, I dunno why you are bringing it up.

Off topic ish but didn’t Kratos go on a spree killing a load of gods? Did reality fall apart at the seams or smth?

Yes, Gods and Titans etc are very things they are gods of. Just hit any of the profiles on GoW page and look up.
Go look up any of GoW3 videos on YT to see what happens when you kill a god.

Scan and this would still only scale to what has been shown in verse, not all of irl humanity.

Yeah I already stated the difference in the two, humanity in GoW obviously, which would be Greece atleast, there's more but its heavily debated. So lets stick with Greece.

Being trained by someone doesn’t matter. Dick Grayson doesn’t scale to Batman just cuz he was trained by him.

Too bad for Dick then, not for Kratos though. The guy goes on to fight Ares in an uphill battle and win.

Why is super humans killing monsters and other humans a skill feat? Unless it’s explicitly stated to be skill, it’s just the result of their superhuman physicals.

If they have magic gear and hax, why is it a skill feat at all? Do we see a fight?

Just look up Ascension Multiplayer.
Point is these guys have buttloads of hands on experience in fighting unorthodox battles.

Also these gear and magic isn't offered on free platter, you need to earn it and master it.

Small/big correction, he doesn’t have it, he beat someone with it. Just figured I would clarify before someone gets the wrong idea.

And I see he only used a sword and shield to beat Kirito, so I dunno why his experience would extend beyond that.

Is this stated or shown somewhere?

Simple scaling. Entire Ascension Game.

Same as before, scan and why does this apply to things that aren’t in the setting?

Ascension Multiplayer, we even have profiles for them here. I dunno why you keep assuming I am pulling from outside game lore.

This …… literally doesn’t matter. Also not accurate since Kirito has to train to be able to fight at his level which directly mentions “burning the movements into the synapses of [his] brain”. Even irl, he still unconsciously does the same motions he does in game and is physically capable enough to perform the moves irl as seen in Ordinal Scale.

Natural trained skills trump any day.

Spartan training is nothing compared to what Kirito has beaten.

Pfft sure...

I haven’t played the games and can only speak from what I have found and seen. If you have the scans to prove what you claimed then I will happily retract my statement but until then, Kratos is a big angry boi.

You literally can't be serious. Do you not know how we treat gameplay feats??
This should be common sense.


You don't need to play the games, even cursory glance at game lore proves Kartos as brutally pragmatic warrior. He is a successful Spartan General and God of ******* War for god sake. The guy has defeated beings who existed before time.
Defeating Ares is already a impressive feat since he is the very embodiment of war and battle literally.

 

[AnonymousBlank]

Well it is wrong.

Thats on you to prove.

Duh, you think I am pulling things from actual irl mythology?? I am stating what happened in game lore.

God of War (DC/Wildstorm comic series)

And having so recently defeated Ares to become the god of war, Kratos believed his tortured nightmares would come to an end. But, as he was to learn, they were only beginning...Narrator. DC/Wildstorm presents the game-to-comic graphic novel in a bi-monthly 6 part series, first released in May...

godofwar.fandom.com

Though misremembered it happening before GoW1, my mistake.

This is a page from another wiki .... what exactly am I to take from this?

Yes, Gods and Titans etc are very things they are gods of. Just hit any of the profiles on GoW page and look up.

So Kratos killed skill which means it no longer exists ...... wot.

Go look up any of GoW3 videos on YT to see what happens when you kill a god.

Yeah I already stated the difference in the two, humanity in GoW obviously, which would be Greece atleast, there's more but its heavily debated. So lets stick with Greece.

You didn't and Greece has???

Too bad for Dick then, not for Kratos though. The guy goes on to fight Ares in an uphill battle and win.

See, him killing Ares is relevant, him being trained by Ares isn't.

Just look up Ascension Multiplayer.
Point is these guys have buttloads of hands on experience in fighting unorthodox battles.

So no scans? Cuz you aren't even telling me what to look for, just doing the equivalent of pointing at an arc in a story or installment in a franchise and telling me to go through the whole thing to find a single piece of info.

You: Mundus can fuse dimensions.
Me: You got the scan for that?
You: Go play Devil May Cry or look up a vid of it.

^This is basically whats happening rn.

Also these gear and magic isn't offered on free platter, you need to earn it and master it.

Did you miss the part that I haven't played the games? I don't know this stuff hence why I am asking you to provide scans. The extent of my knowledge of the verse is this

• He is a Spartan
• His family dies
• He kills Ares
• He kills other gods
• He goes to Scandinavia
• He has a son
• He kills some more gods
• He got a bunch of cool gear along the way

Thats it.

And I see he only used a sword and shield to beat Kirito, so I dunno why his experience would extend beyond that.

Huh? I feel like you misunderstood something. Quinella is the one with all the Sword Skills and she never uses a shield. The only relevant person Kirito fights that has a shield is Heathcliff and he definitely doesn't have all Sword Skills.

Simple scaling. Entire Ascension Game.

Same as before. You can't just tell me to look up some vague term and go through all the info that pops up.

Ascension Multiplayer, we even have profiles for them here. I dunno why you keep assuming I am pulling from outside game lore.

Because you didn't differentiate and proceed to say that Kratos scales to comp human which is a very different thing from comp Greek.

Natural trained skills trump any day.

????? Kirito still needs to train his shit? I dunno why you are being condescending when Kirito trains to do what he can do just the same. This isn't something like Neo just downloading martial arts into his brain. Kirito has to learn the moves and learn to perform them without the system assist. Whats the difference between learning to perform a technique and learning to perform a technique?

Pfft sure...

Uh .. yeah. Basic ass Spartan training means jack shit to matching someone who knows every weapon based martial art and can swap between the weapons on a dime to make use of said skill.

You literally can't be serious. Do you not know how we treat gameplay feats??
This should be common sense.

Gameplay combos are a valid thing for what the character is capable of as its literally what we are shown. Their actual move set isn't necessarily restricted to said combos but unless we see other things or are told of other moves, thats what we go with. I am using common sense and going by what I have seen, acknowledged I don't necessarily have the full picture and am asking you (who is presumably more versed in the topic) for more information but instead you refuse to give scans and tell me to go find it myself without telling me what I am supposed to find. No videos, no timestamps, no screenshots, nothing.

You don't need to play the games, even cursory glance at game lore

Then give me the lore from an official source.

proves Kartos as brutally pragmatic warrior. He is a successful Spartan General and God of ******* War for god sake. The guy has defeated beings who existed before time.

Why in god's name does this mean anything? Pragmatism =/= skill, being a general =/= skill, being the god of war =/= skill, preceding time =/= skill.

Defeating Ares is already a impressive feat since he is the very embodiment of war and battle literally.

Maybe bring the scan that says this along with an argument that actually relates this to skill?

You just keep saying shit that has nothing to do with skill and rather than provide scans for your claims that are actually relevant, you claim its common sense, easily available, on the profiles etc etc. If this shit is so easy to find, go get it and stop talking down to someone that is willing to listen to you.

 

[AnonymousBlank]

Everyone can hurt everyone. Kirito still got destroyed in that fight, despite catching Quinella completely off guard.

And Kirito couldn't land a hit before and has been taking damage the whole time since he ran the gauntlet on all of her goons.

Why are you citing Aincrad information for Underworld? I explicitly said not all weapon types exist in Underworld...

Did you yourself not say that Yanai ported SS from ALO to the Underworld? The same skills that came from SAO with the Aincrad patch? Quinella has all the SS in the UW which you said came from ALO which were in turn brought over from SAO.

Yes, Yanai was previously working back at RECT under Sugou Nobuyuki. He's a developer from ALO.

So the guy feeding Quinella info and actively aiding his 2d waifu.

And no, Quinella did not read a manual or something, she just had access to the command list. And from what we saw, not even a man page you'll recognize from Linux. Just a list of commands. And then she just experimented with them and using her knowledge of english to figure out what they do.

From the anime? It is not from the Anime. It is straight from Volume 18, Alicization Lasting. Kirito explains Starburst Stream.

"The sixteenth and final swing was a full overhead slash from the left, delivered after climactic pause."

Sword skills have plenty of wasted movement and no "perfect balance". The system literally assists the movement so you specifically would not need "perfect balance".

Seriously, pay attention to what I am actually arguing and see the bolded below.

"However, for the user created ultimate attack to be recognized by the game as a sword skill, it had to fulfil certain extremely stringent requirements. Nearly all variations of simple slashes and thrusts already existed in the game as Sword Skills . That meant that any OSS had to be a combination attack, by necessity. But there had to be absolutely no waste in movement, trajectory, balance of weight, and so on, and on top of that, the action had to match the speed of the finished Sword Skill.

In other words, the player had to prove the nearly paradoxical: that he could replicate his combination at superhuman speed already, without any help from the system."

I have been arguing that people like Kirito, Asuna, Yuuki and Eugene are able to perform on par with Sword Skills by themselves and no assistance from the system. This is a fact given that Asuna created Starry Tear, Eugene made Volcanic Blazer and Yuuki just up and made Mother's Rosario after conversion. Its even said by Kirito in the character interview that he was able to replicate multiple Dual Blades moves as OSS but was having problems with Starburst Stream.

The base sword skill is literally quite unoptimal for a top tier player. That is why players like Kirito, Asuna or Yuuki can get so much more from the exact same sword skills compared to your average players. Because they boost the skills through their active physical participation.

Still irrelevant when I have shown that the top players can perform at said level anyway.

Reminder that Kirito failed to create his own OSS and thus doesn't even have one as a result. And Asuna never created her own OSS either, she just inherited Mother's Rosario from Yuuki.

Character interview disagrees and Asuna did create one, pretty sure we straight up get told near the start of Vol 7.

Of course. As I said, when you manage to get your opponent fumbled, you use short and quick sword skills, 2-3 hit 1HS skills and you are already pushing the limit. Rapiers/Daggers can sneak in bigger combos due to faster but less powerful thrust skills, whereas you won't get a chance to go over 1-2 hits with a two handed weapon. You see this very clearly in every single PvP fight. And the moment when you start going into longer SSs or at unoptimal times... Well, Kirito lost plenty of battles because of this because he simply can't control his temper and launched a sword skill without a proper plan.

Don't recall this being an issue besides Heathcliff where he specifically new exactly what Eclipse would do and where it would strike.

Progressive v2, Kirito vs Morte would be a good place to start. Aside from that, basically every single PvP fight in the series re-iterates the basics of PvP.

That is very relevant. It's literally what Kirito can do to his advantage and how reliably he can pull it off. I thought you people were here to gauge the skills and abilities of a character to see which one would triumph and here you go, discarding a massive battle advantage as "irrelevant".

Because it doesn't matter? Kirito doesn't use it in PvP and it has nothing to do with my point that Kirito is able to operate at the level of SS by himself.

You seem to not realize that is exactly why Kirito did not exactly put up a fight with his own whipchain. He prioritized dodging and closing the gap, something he specialized in under Sortiliena's mentorship.

This goes against my point how? Kirito had to close the gap against a guy who had the range and AP advantage on him and successfully did so. If he had Night Sky, he would have split Eldrie in half without issue. Kratos' attack patterns are literally more basic than Eldrie's so Kirito can get passed the Blades of Chaos being used at range just as well.

Dodging and closing the gap has 0 relevance to what weapon he was holding. He simply came up close and locked Eldrie in place by grabbing his whip.

His weapon does matter when it can both boost his range and also do more than give his opponent a small scratch.

I mean, your example boiled down to "Kirito fought and lost against this guy... But hey, he fought at least!". So it had to be pointed out.

Lost because his weapon sucked? I agree.

The point is that Kirito lost the fight while having a weapon he was comfortable using. You keep acting like Kirito is going in with a wooden toothpick that was capable of nothing. Whereas it was acting as a proper whip for all intents and purposes and did what Kirito needed it to do, while he utilized the knowledge he learned from Sortiliena.

Being able and forced to use a weapon does not mean he was comfortable using it. He has never once used a whip or chain before and always used a sword or swords.

He had a sword against Sortiliena during their sparring sessions, but that didn't help him either. Because you can't really fight against a whip with a sword. If you read Kirito vs Eldrie fight, you would know the fight is not about "fighting", it's about getting close to Eldrie so he loses his advantage with the whip.

Yes, a less trained Kirito with a sword that would snap if he tried to do anything semi powerful. Kirito getting close to Eldrie is my point. Eldrie had a ranged weapon similar to Kratos and Kirito could close the gap,.

Actually, it is normally a squad of tanks who do the baiting, whereas leaders and Kirito stand behind and watch the boss. And then there are basic rules of thumb playing the game as well. You see a thrust? You jump to the sides. You see a swing? You jump back. So yes, Kirito knows how to dodge highly telegraphed attacks from AI bosses. That isn't even an impressive feat, that's easier than dodging a normal punch in real life, since the AI Enemies telegraphs their attacks beforehand...

And we know that Kirito goes into unknown boss rooms to scout without a tank to gather intel. Is there a chapter where he goes to scout a boss room with another party?

Define "complicated" because you keep using the words as it means something in this context. Yes, the boss can have a 100 times hitting very fancy swingy stuff, but if all it takes for me to dodge it is a simple backstep within a 5 second window after the boss' eyes clearly shine a different color, that "complicated" attack means nothing.

The snake used by the boss literally coiled around and homed on the target in OS. Kiritio has fought this boss before and the ranged attack is indeed more complicated than a simple whip attack from the Blades of Chaos.

Less people participated in Fuscus boss fight than the Gleam Eyes fight, and even that was 2 full parties of a haphazardly built team that didn't even have the time to practice a team synergy... Anyways, not even gonna bother lecturing that about 2 dozen people participated in the Gleam fight. Either way, you are trying to work team fights that are not Kirito's solo accomplishments against an AI opponent, into a 1v1 PvP duel, which is honestly absurd.

Two dozen people got bodied by the Gleam Eyes and did little to nothing while Kirito went and almost soloed the thing. Asuna and Klein briefly stalled it, Corvatz and the ALS got dropped on their skulls and Fuurinkazan dragged the survivors out of the room.

And the rest is GoW stuff so not my topic. Honestly, if I hadn't met better people around here who do their best to inform themselves and trying to soak up as much information as possible, I would have been laughing quite a lot right now at how you are trying to warp facts to write a tainted narrative, while also trying to push things that you don't like away claiming they are irrelevant.

Was quoted from Gilver so eh, wasn't expecting you to respond to it. Which facts am I warping? Because everything I said is true. BR freezes things and doesn't simply create ice, Kirito was able to match Quinella in cqc once he had two swords while he got stomped with only one, UW has SS from ALO which come from SAO so those are all perfectly valid to scale Quinella to, Kirito was lacking the gear he has here in the Eldrie fight, having a sword would have changed the outcome of Kirito vs Eldrie, Kirito has experience with mid range attacks that work like whips or are whips that he was able to overcome, top tier players are able to perform on the level of SS since they are able to replicate SS and make OSS. Everything I claimed was irrelevant was irrelevant. They had nothing to do with what I said and didn't go against my points. Maybe lose the not so veiled insults and actually attack the points and not the person making them.

 

[Kaantantr]

And Kirito couldn't land a hit before and has been taking damage the whole time since he ran the gauntlet on all of her goons.

I do not think you understand that you can show something that has not been achieved as a proof of achievement. You cannot show "Look he lost! So he can win against this other character!"

Did you yourself not say that Yanai ported SS from ALO to the Underworld? The same skills that came from SAO with the Aincrad patch? Quinella has all the SS in the UW which you said came from ALO which were in turn brought over from SAO.

I said it is implied it was Yanai who ported them. And we know not every single thing was ported over from SAO into ALO. Like the Dual Blades skill that does not exist in Underworld. I am not sure how you keep ignoring this...

Seriously, pay attention to what I am actually arguing and see the bolded below.

"However, for the user created ultimate attack to be recognized by the game as a sword skill, it had to fulfil certain extremely stringent requirements. Nearly all variations of simple slashes and thrusts already existed in the game as Sword Skills . That meant that any OSS had to be a combination attack, by necessity. But there had to be absolutely no waste in movement, trajectory, balance of weight, and so on, and on top of that, the action had to match the speed of the finished Sword Skill.

In other words, the player had to prove the nearly paradoxical: that he could replicate his combination at superhuman speed already, without any help from the system."

Oh lmao, that explains your misunderstanding. That is an explanation of how one can register their free flowing movement as an OSS, not an explanation of what Sword Skills are. That isn't even talking about what you are claiming in the first place. It's literally saying "You need to successfully create a sequence of actions and you cannot deviate from that", otherwise you cannot register it as an OSS, the system will reject it. This says nothing about Sword Skill behavior in general. You are just taking words applying to an OSS creation sequence saying "you cannot deviate", and trying to apply it as a rule for all Sword Skills. "No waste in movement" does not refer to the same thing in the two different scenarios.

Not sure who is the one providing the narration here, but obviously, you are overblowing the words out of proportion. It is a video game where superhuman feats are very much possible. And that's what the game requires from you. "If you can do something as fast as an actual Sword Skill, you may save it as an automated action".

Still irrelevant when I have shown that the top players can perform at said level anyway.

We are 3 levels into your irrelevant layers at this point that I do not even know what you are calling irrelevant anymore. If you find key battle information in a supposed fight estimation irrelevant, you probably should be doing something else.

I have been arguing that people like Kirito, Asuna, Yuuki and Eugene are able to perform on par with Sword Skills by themselves and no assistance from the system. This is a fact given that Asuna created Starry Tear, Eugene made Volcanic Blazer and Yuuki just up and made Mother's Rosario after conversion. Its even said by Kirito in the character interview that he was able to replicate multiple Dual Blades moves as OSS but was having problems with Starburst Stream.
[...]
Character interview disagrees and Asuna did create one, pretty sure we straight up get told near the start of Vol 7.

Okay, just double checked. You are correct on Asuna, she did create a 5-hit OSS. As for Kirito, the information comes from the age of the Web Novel, from an off-story "character interview", just layering itself on top of the already "non-canon" label.

Don't recall this being an issue besides Heathcliff where he specifically new exactly what Eclipse would do and where it would strike.

Oh I'm sorry, you are not aware of Progressive? Or Alicization?

Because it doesn't matter? Kirito doesn't use it in PvP and it has nothing to do with my point that Kirito is able to operate at the level of SS by himself.

Okay. So what is the point then? Yes, for low hit skills, he can manually swing his swords around via muscle memory. What does that bring to the table? Trying to use SS via muscle memory does not give him an advantage. The advantage of Sword Skills are not their movement, it's their System Assist and Power Boost. Their movement is literally their disadvantage...

This goes against my point how? Kirito had to close the gap against a guy who had the range and AP advantage on him and successfully did so. If he had Night Sky, he would have split Eldrie in half without issue.

That is your opinion. An opinion that is not even between the two characters featured here. What if Eldrie had dodged, instead of trying to take it head on

Kratos' attack patterns are literally more basic than Eldrie's so Kirito can get passed the Blades of Chaos being used at range just as well.

His weapon does matter when it can both boost his range and also do more than give his opponent a small scratch.

Lost because his weapon sucked? I agree.

Oh, so you didn't even realize his weapon gave him an actual advantage, allowing him to completely lock Eldrie in place by catching him on his other arm? He would not be able to do that with the NSS.

Being able and forced to use a weapon does not mean he was comfortable using it. He has never once used a whip or chain before and always used a sword or swords.

And his track record in Sword vs Whip battles are also a big fat 0, against someone who wasn't even as good as Eldrie, before his synthesis too!

Yes, a less trained Kirito with a sword that would snap if he tried to do anything semi powerful.

That is not how it would break. And if your point to refute is Kirito being less trained, why are you bringing it up in an End of Alicization Kirito...

Kirito getting close to Eldrie is my point. Eldrie had a ranged weapon similar to Kratos and Kirito could close the gap,.

But you said Kirito would go ranged if he had NSS? This is the entire thing I am trying to point out to you. You keep going around in circles without realizing, just to be a contrarian to someone trying to help you with accurate information.

And we know that Kirito goes into unknown boss rooms to scout without a tank to gather intel. Is there a chapter where he goes to scout a boss room with another party?

He scouts plenty of bosses with a party in Progressive, yeah. Now where did he solo scout a boss? Because all they did with Gleam was opening the door, summoning the boss, and running out. That is not "scouting a boss". Scouting a boss involves actually cautiously fighting it to draw out as many of its attacks as possible. As you can imagine, "It has blue fur and demon horns" is not exactly relevant information for a raid party.

The snake used by the boss literally coiled around and homed on the target in OS. Kiritio has fought this boss before and the ranged attack is indeed more complicated than a simple whip attack from the Blades of Chaos.

Again, you are grasping at straws here and bringing funny equivalences to other whip users.

And also acting like Kirito defeated the thing on his own.

And are also acting like well telegraphed attacks that show exactly what is going to happen a couple seconds beforehand being "more complicated" means anything at all.

If you tell me "I am going to punch the location your head is in right this very moment in 3 seconds", I am the idiot if I stay in the exact same spot for 3 seconds. Kratos, being a human, will not be as courteous as an AI game boss, telling where exactly he will hit in a couple seconds. "Attack complexity" is a meaningless variable here.

Two dozen people got bodied by the Gleam Eyes

Two dozen people who were underlevelled, unprepared and exhausted who were sent there as a suicide mission by the Army leadership got beaten because their escape plan did not work due to an Anti-Crystal zone. You know, something that would be helpful knowing beforehand by scouting the boss. But because Kirito and Asuna were not tasked with scouting the boss and just finding the boss room, so the guilds can send their scouts, they did not have the information yet.

and did little to nothing while Kirito went and almost soloed the thing. Asuna and Klein briefly stalled it, Corvatz and the ALS got dropped on their skulls and Fuurinkazan dragged the survivors out of the room.

They did actually took out more than an entire health bar, and their generated aggro up until that point, while endangering the rescue operation, helped Kirito, Asuna, Klein & Co to have an easier time against the Gleam as they did not have the full focus of the boss.

We also do know that bosses aside from Milestone floors are easily beatable by a handful of members. As I said, Kirito had harder times with smaller parties involved yet still managed to come out without being in severe danger of death, simply because actual frontrunners overlevel to be safe. The ragtag underlevelled, underequipped, unprepared, exhausted team did 25-30%. You can imagine what a proper frontrunner guild, along with top 2 players of the game can do in comparison.

Was quoted from Gilver so eh, wasn't expecting you to respond to it. Which facts am I warping? Because everything I said is true. BR freezes things

Please provide citations as to who it froze?

and doesn't simply create ice,

Then why does the ice literally come up from the ground, rushing towards everything around, rather than just forming around?

Kirito was able to match Quinella in cqc once he had two swords while he got stomped with only one

No, Kirito got stomped even after Dual Blades. Novels are very clear, have you read them? Kirito cannot get up, he cannot stand. He explicitly states all of these, highlighting it is over for him. He cannot continue. Quinella, despite having a huge opening in her chest, still stands tall with no arms, mocks Kirito and promises to defeat him for good on the other side.

UW has SS from ALO which come from SAO so those are all perfectly valid to scale Quinella to

I don't think you understand that not all SAO Skills were ported to ALO...

Kirito was lacking the gear he has here in the Eldrie fight,

Not having his sword but having a whip gave him an advantage that allowed him to neutralize Eldrie.

having a sword would have changed the outcome of Kirito vs Eldrie

Yeah, at that point, not even aware of Memory Abilities, Kirito would get some ass whooping, much like he got his ass whooped by Liena just a couple weeks prior. But then again, let's say you are implying you mean a future Kirito with the necessary skills, well sure, he could use NSS' memory abilities. But unlike his other opponents, Eldrie is not exactly a ranged opponent. He would not be one to try taking the blast head on like Fanatio or Alice. In fact, none of the opponents he had ever felt the need to dodge his memory abilities, because they all thought they had something above that. Eldrie doesn't. At that point, you are opening yet another rabbit hole, as in "what would have actually changed in the fight?", something you cannot dismiss instantly as if Kirito would have won without a fight. If you can do that, I can just mention the state of depression Kirito has and he would kill himself before doing anything in the first place.

, Kirito has experience with mid range attacks that work like whips or are whips that he was able to overcome

Overcome to a certain extent, yes. We have never actually seen him defeat a whip user, he lost all of them, so statistics here are against Kirito.

top tier players are able to perform on the level of SS since they are able to replicate SS and make OSS.

Yeah, but stating that is like "Petrol is great, it gives power!" while completely omitting the fact that it ruins the environment. You cannot act like a negative side does not exist. Sword Skills are not practical in PvP. "Performing on the level of Sword Skills", physical movement, sure, up to a certain limit, but is that really useful? They are just manual attacks in a fancy sequence that are useful thanks to System Assist, but without it, you are better off performing on the go yourself. There is a massive difference between doing a pre-determined moveset you planned, in quick succession after you hit "Record" and then actually doing stuff in free flowing combat.

I can do the bottle flip challenge sitting in the middle of my room with no obstruction. I don't think I can be as successful, when someone is trying to stab me. Your reference is a highly practiced, non-obstructed environment (OSS creation), that you are trying to use as a baseline argument for a proper fight.

Everything I claimed was irrelevant was irrelevant.

It's the context man. It is the context. That is the biggest issue I have seen among many people here. People love cherry picking very specific bits of information and trying to build on top of that, ignoring the entire interconnected results of things. I think the OSS creation highlights it perfectly.

I came into this thread hoping to hear about a cool fight while thinking I'd probably have to correct 1-2 minor details just to stop things from running out of control. Yet I find someone who isolates bits and pieces of information and try to apply it into completely different instances they have no way of applying to in a realistic way.

They had nothing to do with what I said and didn't go against my points. Maybe lose the not so veiled insults and actually attack the points and not the person making them.

If you think I am insulting you, it's better to use the reporting functions available at your disposal rather than making claims towards me.

 

[Smashtwig]

Bump lol

 

[DMUA]

It does. However it does not affect you the same way the real world does.

You do get cold, but unlike the cold making you numb or powerless in real life, all it will do is eventually cause you to get status debuffs, like catching cold, as well as harming your Life value. It will not cause you to go rigid. It's the same thing as not getting tired in Underworld. If you overexert yourself, you won't get tired as there is no human biology involved in your avatar, you have no real muscles to produce acids to make them feel powerless. You'll just start losing HP after a while of overexerting yourself but still keep going at full power like no tomorrow.

Unless the anime drastically changed how things shake out, this actually isn't that correct

Like, yes, things work in irregular ways, but the fact is that the 20,000 people Kirito froze were all incapacitated and trapped by the ice.

If Kratos doesn't resist it like the Abyssal horror does, I don't see why he'd be able to avoid such an outcome

That said on Kratos' end...

1: the type 8 from Kirito can literally be bypassed by killing him. No joke, Fluctlights die when they die. The only real application of the Type 8 is that Incarnation can keep him alive when he should probably be dead by the point he's at.

2: Kirito doesn't resist power nullification, but he does resist absorption, as Gabriel wasn't able to eat up his Incarnation.

I've only read some of the thread just far I just honestly don't want to read every wall of text so I'm throwing this out there and following

 

[Kaantantr]

Unless the anime drastically changed how things shake out, this actually isn't that correct

Like, yes, things work in irregular ways, but the fact is that the 20,000 people Kirito froze were all incapacitated and trapped by the ice.

Uhmm, that is exactly what I'm saying. They were trapped in a chunk of ice.

2: Kirito doesn't resist power nullification, but he does resist absorption, as Gabriel wasn't able to eat up his Incarnation.

Gabriel was able to eat up his Incarnation. That's the main reason he died. He actually did eat it all up and his brain could not handle the amount of data.

 

[DMUA]

Uhmm, that is exactly what I'm saying. They were trapped in a chunk of ice.

That's kinda a normal way for ice to function, though, so like, eh?

Gabriel was able to eat up his Incarnation. That's the main reason he died. He actually did eat it all up and his brain could not handle the amount of data.

Before Kirito willingly shoved it into him in order to detonate him from the inside out, he was able to stop it from being absorbed completely. Otherwise his attacks wouldn't have worked in the slightest.

 

[Kaantantr]

That's kinda a normal way for ice to function, though, so like, eh?

My understanding of freezing is actually going rigid yourself because your body froze itself due to the cold, whereas getting "trapped in ice" is "getting trapped in ice", where you can replace the ice with any other thing and it would be the same. Multiple people here have acknowledged the distinction here as well, so I was under the assumption there is a clear distinction within the standards here as well.

Before Kirito willingly shoved it into him in order to detonate him from the inside out, he was able to stop it from being absorbed completely. Otherwise his attacks wouldn't have worked in the slightest.

Uhmmm, the attacks didn't work. It wasn't in Underworld damage that killed Subti. It was because he was absorbing the collective incarnation that his brain overloaded, causing his avatar in Underworld to implode.

 

[DMUA]

My understanding of freezing is actually going rigid yourself because your body froze itself due to the cold, whereas getting "trapped in ice" is "getting trapped in ice", where you can replace the ice with any other thing and it would be the same. Multiple people here have acknowledged the distinction here as well, so I was under the assumption there is a clear distinction within the standards here as well.

honestly the end result is still the same either way, they're rendered unable to fight if they can't handle the ice.

Uhmmm, the attacks didn't work. It wasn't in Underworld damage that killed Subti. It was because he was absorbing the collective incarnation that his brain overloaded, causing his avatar in Underworld to implode.

Yeah, they did. Sure they didn't actually kill him, but they did do some damage before his attack was interrupted by Kirito having his arm chopped off. If his incarnation was outright absorbed it wouldn't have enough power to effect Gabriel at all through his durability.

 

[Kaantantr]

honestly the end result is still the same either way, they're rendered unable to fight if they can't handle the ice.

Well, one results in you not being able to do anything at all as you are unconscious, while the other leaves you conscious, able to break out.

Yeah, they did. Sure they didn't actually kill him, but they did do some damage before his attack was interrupted by Kirito having his arm chopped off. If his incarnation was outright absorbed it wouldn't have enough power to effect Gabriel at all through his durability.

Subti is in a pseudo-incorporeal form, everything is just going through him. That's just that effect you see on Gabe coming into existence through his "Subtilizer, the one who devours souls" persona. Everything he expects, he absorbs. The only thing he got phased by were the metallic objects generated in Kirito's heart that he could not devour, because he didn't even know they existed. Kirito is not at all immune to what Gabriel does, because what Gabriel does has nothing to do with anybody but Gabriel.

Having a quick look though, I have found the exact moment that explains what happened and I believe that is the key to the misunderstanding here. It's when Gabriel got trapped in BRS' memory release, right? Since that is the only moment that he is physically taken aback.

Well, that was Kirito's entire plan. Early on, way before he turned into his Angel of Death form, Kirito realized something while they were exchanging their introductions. Kirito told him his name and asked for his in return. The moment he introduced himself as "Gabriel Miller", his real self, Kirito realized a faint fading out of his facial features. This was very subtly showcased in the Anime too for about 2-3 frames if you go frame by frame. At that point, Kirito realized Gabe was basically coating himself in the incarnation of what he believed himself to be, "Subtilizer, the devourer of souls" and his only chance of some success would be to cause a momentary lapse of concentration, cause something that would bring him out of that stable state.

And that was why he created the razors for him to eat up with his heart. Since Subti did not even know they were there, he could not actively devour them and the moment he realized they were there, he was already hurt, and also received a strike on his image of himself. He was just "hurt" and had started questioning why he did in the first place, his mind wandered away completely, and thus he lost control of his own incarnation for a bit, hence why he was locked in place by the Blue Rose Sword. Until he regained his control, at which point, he broke out normally and continued being Subtilizer, the one who devours souls. And devour he did. Kirito's sword was already through his incorporeal body where his heart would be, yet it wasn't doing anything at all, while Subti was devouring all the incarnation thrown his way. Until his real life brain gave out and his soul/fluctlight in the real world, along with his avatar in Underworld imploded.

Kirito realizing Gabe's incarnate facade is p93. Razors and Gabe being bound by ice due to losing his own control is p117-118. Can't copy and paste stuff because I don't have my digital archive with me currently and am using the physical book.

tl;dr: Kirito has no resistance, it is a case of Subti losing his own control for brief moments that allows Kirito to physically interact with him.

 

[DMUA]

Well, one results in you not being able to do anything at all as you are unconscious, while the other leaves you conscious, able to break out.

Pretty sure they still get TKO'd, though. Like, the Abyssal horror doesn't immediately go lights out due to it's particular level of resilience, but I distinctly remember the army all clearly being unconscious as opposed to just stuck.

Subti is in a pseudo-incorporeal form, everything is just going through him. That's just that effect you see on Gabe coming into existence through his "Subtilizer, the one who devours souls" persona. Everything he expects, he absorbs.

He straight up turns into the equivalent of a black hole, though. It doesn't really much sense for them to be described to be equivalent to an all sucking void and then turn around to say he only absorbs things he can expect.

Breaking his concentration could make sense if he wasn't still transformed, though that could just be the anime flubbing in that sense when his power should be presented as flickering away.

Though I think I can wait for the specific scans, since phrasing is probably something of importance in this case

 

[Kaantantr]

Pretty sure they still get TKO'd, though. Like, the Abyssal horror doesn't immediately go lights out due to it's particular level of resilience, but I distinctly remember the army all clearly being unconscious as opposed to just stuck.

Nothing was said about them being unconscious. It is referred to as a "painless way to die", but we know that already from all the way back, Eugeo vs Bercouli anyways, because it's draining their HP, not actually damaging them. The difference between AH and the red army is that the Red Army is a bunch of lvl1 default accounts. Abyssal Horror is not. PoH is not. Gabe is not. Bercouli, Fanatio, Alice are not. In fact, mentioning Alice is great here, Im glad I started listing people. Alice and Kirito were both trapped in an ice chunk just the same. And how Alice broke out was not by her physical strength, but by controlling the memory ability of her Osmanthus Sword from inside the ice chunk to cut the ice away.

He straight up turns into the equivalent of a black hole, though. It doesn't really much sense for them to be described to be equivalent to an all sucking void and then turn around to say he only absorbs things he can expect.

I too would describe it as a black hole, because it's a cool way to describe it. Especially if he had devoured everything I threw at him. Until the moment I threw something at him that he did not know was coming his way.
Did you ever see him devouring anything and everything, whether he knew it was there or not? Because the one time something he does not expect comes his way, it breaks him. Everything else, he knows coming, sees coming, hears coming etc. The only exception is the razor in the entire story. If it was a trait of Kirito, it would not be just the razor that got to him, but plenty of other things too. The fact that it is only the razor, the one object in the entire story that he didn't know was coming against him, is all we need to know here.

Breaking his concentration could make sense if he wasn't still transformed, though that could just be the anime flubbing in that sense when his power should be presented as flickering away.

Though I think I can wait for the specific scans, since phrasing is probably something of importance in this case

I can provide them in a couple hours. Or if anybody has YP copies digitally, they can screencap the pages I listed above.

 

[DMUA]

Nothing was said about them being unconscious. It is referred to as a "painless way to die", but we know that already from all the way back, Eugeo vs Bercouli anyways, because it's draining their HP, not actually damaging them.

That seems really weird considering Kirito in particular had PTSD over killing people but, eh

It was only during the Kirito fight that he actively transformed, though. Like, otherwise he was just a normal dude and it makes sense for him to need to pay attention to absorb something.

 

[The_Wright_Way]

So, if Freeze GG ends up not panning out, then up voting Kratos FRA. He seems to have the better resistances if I'm reading the walls of text right and he strikes me as vastly more skilled based on arguments presented.

 

[Bernkastelll]

Kratos FRA ig

 

[DMUA]

I mean if Kirito can't actually freeze GG I'm pretty sure Kratos just curbs him judging by the sheer amount of stuff he has at his disposal to just outright end the fight

 

[RitsuØ1]

Will Kirito's freeze actually land on Kratos or not?

 

[Theglassman12]

Kratos should take this for the reasons stated above.

 

[Shmooply]

Kratos FRA.
hows the arm glass

 

[Mister6ame6]

Kratos FRA

 

[RitsuØ1]

Umm... What's there to FRA here again? My mind might be slippin'.

 

[Smashtwig]

FRA if freeze no worky

 

[Kaantantr]

Though I think I can wait for the specific scans, since phrasing is probably something of importance in this case

Realizing fake vs real Gabe:

When one second had passed, I spoke.

“…Who are you?”

His answer was immediate. The man’s voice was smooth and yet somehow metallic in nature.

“One who seeks, steals, and snatches away.”

Instantly, the aura of darkness surrounding his being writhed and amplified. I felt a slight breeze blowing from behind. The air—the very information that made up the world—was being sucked into the darkness.

“What do you seek?”

“Souls.”

With each answer, the suction increased. It wasn’t just the information of the world, either—I felt my own consciousness beginning to succumb to that empty gravity.

Then something resembling an expression floated past his lips. The faintest of smiles, but one utterly removed from anything you might call emotion.

“And who are you? Why are you here? What right do you have to stand before me?” [This is where Gabriels effect on Kirito begins, numbing his mind]

Who…am I?

The hero the Underworld always needed? Hardly.

A knight who protects the human realm? No.

Each suggestion that came to my mind was rejected, and each slipped right out of me, like it was being stolen. And yet, for some reason, I couldn’t stop the thoughts from coming.

The hero who defeated the deadly game of SAO? No.

The greatest VRMMO player alive? No.

The Black Swordsman? The Dual-Wielder? No, no.

None of those things were what I wanted.

So what was I…?

I could feel my mind starting to fade, to slip away—when I thought I heard a familiar voice call my name. [Eugeo speaks to Kirito to snap him out of the numbness, as he himself was not capable of snapping out of it himself]

My head rose—I hadn’t realized it had dipped—and I named myself as I had been called.

“I’m Kirito. Kirito the Swordsman.”

Bzak!! Sparks flew, and the tendrils of darkness clinging to me were cut loose. Immediately, my mind felt sharp and focused again.

What just happened to me?

Was this man using the STL to interfere directly with my mind? I hastily strengthened the defensive wall of imagination around me and focused on the man’s eyes. They were truly empty—bottomless darkness that absorbed the minds of others.

“…And your name is?” I asked, barely realizing what I was doing.

The man thought briefly. “Gabriel. My name is Gabriel Miller.” [Requesting his name, and Gabriel complying with his full real name, taking him out of his illusion for a moment]

I could sense that this was not a character name or an online alias but the man’s actual identity. For just a few seconds, his appearance had changed. His gaze had become sharper, icy, dangerous. His lips pulled back, and his cheekbones sharpened. [Kirito realizes the shift in his attitude and tone when his concentration was taken away from his "Subtilizer" persona]

As his features returned to that earlier fake look, the aura of darkness he exuded instantly thickened. At this stage, I finally realized that the man’s right arm was entirely missing from the shoulder down. The unsteady mass of darkness that was acting as his right arm slid down to his left side and grabbed the sword. [The Subtilizer persona returns almost instantly as there was no situation for Gabriel to lose concentration or question his persona for a prolonged time]

Kirito uses razors to break away Gabriel's grasp on Incarnation for a short bit, dealing a direct hit on his belief that he is "Subtilizer, the one who devours all":

“I will now devour your feelings, your memories, your mind and soul…your everything,” said the Angel of Death. I could barely keep my eyelids open to see. [Subti is explicitly going for a symbolic "mind and soul", assuming it's just going to be a meaty bite and nothing more]

Gabriel Miller’s colorless lips opened wide, and as if biting into a ripe apple, his sharp teeth touched the heart he’d stolen from me.

…Creshk.

It made a horrible, bloodcurdling sound.

His mouth gaped and gushed with blood. It wasn’t my blood, however.

And there could be no faulting him for his reaction. He’d bitten down on countless tiny razors that I’d generated with steel elements inside my heart. [He literally just generated tiny metallic elements, they no longer have anything to do with Kirito, they are mere, normal objects that are hidden inside]

“Urgh,” Gabriel grunted, bringing a hand to his mouth and backing away.

Ragged, I said, “As if you would find…the mind or memory…in there. The body is just…a vessel. Memories…are always…” [Taunting Gabe that he gave him something he did not expect. He expected mind and soul, got a heart filled with razors instead]

…in here. Blended together with my consciousness, fused into one, never to be separated.

The pain of having my heart torn out was so great that I couldn’t even call it pain anymore. But this one moment was going to be my last and greatest chance. I would not get another one. [Kirito explains this was his plan all along, searching for a breakaway moment and taking it as the only chance]

Even Eugeo had continued fighting with his body split in two. I spread my swords to either side, my blood spraying everywhere, and shouted, “Release Recollection!!”

Pure white and pitch-black exploded together.

The Blue Rose Sword, pointed straight ahead, emitted many vines of ice, which wrapped themselves dozens of times around Gabriel’s body.

And the Night-Sky Blade, pointed straight up, formed a great pillar of darkness that stretched to the heavens.

The beam of black light extended with a tremendous roar, splitting the bloodred sky to go even beyond it, as if colliding with the sun itself, and spread in every direction.

The sky was covered.

That bloodred color was painted over with stunning speed, and the light of day was drowned out.

The darkness soon reached the horizon, then spread even farther beyond it.

But this was not the darkness of emptiness. It had a smooth texture and a faint warmth to it.

Infinite night.

Gabriel's point of view, explaining his loosening grip on his Incarnate persona:

Gabriel Miller was in disbelief that he could be bound by mere ice. [He is completely surprised because this never happened before, he completely devoured all]

A moment earlier, he had rebuffed magic attacks of every kind, and he had even nullified a slash attack from a sword.

Yes, the dozens of razors that the boy had implanted in his own heart had damaged him. But that was only because his mental image of chewing had given him a solid, physical mouth. At this point, his entire being was covered in a thick layer of defensive darkness. [Gabriel explains why the razors were able to damage him, it was partially his fault too and had nothing to do with Kirito's "resistance". And this led to him questioning his being as "Subtilizer, the one who devours all" so for the duration of his confusion, he no longer had proper control of his ability to devour. Reference for doubt: v10, Alicization Running, Kirito failing a skill due to doubting if he would be able to do it]

I am the one who reaps. The one who steals all heat, all life, all existence.

I am the abyss. [He regains his belief and his avatar starts reacting accordingly again, snapping out of the ice-rose veins]

“NULLLLLLL!!” he growled, but it was not so much a word as it was an inhuman sound that tore through his suggestion of a throat.

The three pairs of black wings on his back all transformed into blades of emptiness, just like the one in his right hand. They beat violently, tearing the space around them. The pale vines of ice were severed, giving him freedom of movement again.

“LLLLLLL!!” he howled, an openmouthed discordance, arranging his seven empty swords—hand and wings—in every direction.

I think that should be all. Again, any case of Subti being physically harmed by Kirito, has nothing to do with Kirito having resistance. It's about Subti losing grasp on his own incarnation. His ability is not even an active one that would be "resisted" really, it's more about "consuming what's thrown at him". Technically, someone with a better control of incarnation can just break through him, but nobody in Underworld is psychotic enough to have such a power. Except for the collective incarnation of everyone. He does still devour what's thrown at him even then, but it's just that his brain can't handle all that information.

 

[RitsuØ1]

FRA if freeze no worky

IIRC, nobody mentioned Kirito's freeze not working. IDK. My mind might be slippin'. ¯\(ツ)/¯