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I've been planning on making this thread for months now but college started up and I never found the time to make this. This probably isn't even the time to make this thread because I have class in an hour, but I need to make this at some point or else it will never be made. Pretty much I've been wanting to use Mercer in a versus thread ever since I saw him get a profile; but three seconds into reading it I saw the profile was going to get shot down immediately. So I might as well downgrade it before anyone else does.
Powers and Stats
"Powers and Abilities:"
I'll get to these when I make part 2.
"Attack Potency: Large Building level (As a rogue, it's likely that he had battled and slain monsters like giants.)"
This is the equivalent of saying a CIA agent is 9-B because they kill bears. Now you maybe saying "why would a CIA agent have killed a bear"; that's exactly my point. Why would an assassin/thief have killed a random animal that had nothing to do with him?
Now maybe this is trying to scale Mercer to the average adventurer and just says he killed Giants as a way to link the calc to Mercer's profile. But the average adventurer is only 9-B. Aela the Huntress is a werewolf; she's hilariously above the average adventurer. The average adventurer is the thirty separate bodies you find littered around a frost spider or a boulder trap; not someone like Aela that beats giants to death for fun. This is especially the case since the Elder Scrolls legends card and lore book consistently place the average adventurer around 9-B with the average card having them destroy things like wooden walls or a wooden fence because they're too lazy to jump over it. Now you may be saying he's scaling to J'zargo, but I've been planning to downgrade his durability for a while now, also Mercer is an assassin so going for direct kills that requires him to overpower an opponent doesn't really make much sense. Both of his swords have a way to ignore durability, and even after amping himself with the skeleton key his first move is to turn invisible. Nothing about Mercer says he would fight you face to face, hell every time he did attack someone in the story they were either vastly weaker, he immediately attempted to paralyze them, or incapacitate them.
"likely Mountain level (He used his unlocked power to shake the cavern where the entire city of Irkngthand was built under. The side effect of his quake is the collapse of a massive Dwemer building. Historically, the first Nightingales were powerful enough to carve a cavern out of a mountain that housed their first headquarter, and Mercer Frey is way above their league)"
Now here is the biggest problem; The whole reason I made this thread is was because of this. That's not mountain level; it isn't even close. Earthquakes are usually 8-A to low 7-C, but even violent earthquakes can get you high 8-C to 8-B+ results depending on how close the shaking/destruction is from the epicenter. I bring this up for two reasons.First to be 7-A he would have to cause a magnitude 9 quake which would have destroyed the entire cave they were in instantly and would have made it near impossible for the characters to stand; this didn't happen. The only thing Mercer's earthquakes destroyed was a thin layer of rock that was already underneath a massive lake and caused a few rocks to fall. Not only did he barely do 9-B damage despite causing this earthquake right next to the part that got destroyed, the part he destroyed was already under the stress of holding hundreds of tons of water. Second point is his quake being high 8-C lines up with his other feat after amping himself with the skeleton key. Earlier he causally knock over a building and the characters that are most knowledgeable on Mercer are much more impressived by him knocking over the building then when he caused this earthquake. Another extra side note, it took him multiple earthquakes to destroy the nearby wall: first was at the start of the fight and the second was when he died. The second one was the one that caused a hole to open up in the lake.
Edit: Just reread the quest. The cave did collapse so 7-C is probably going to be the most likely option. Which lines up pretty well with other Elders Scrolls characters.
Edit two: Earthquakes just got shot in the foot by revisions.
His supporting feat is pretty much irrelevant. The "mountain" that was carved up was tiny and the time frame is unknown. A 9-B could carve out an entire mountain if you gave him enough time. Even assuming they carved up a mountain the size of Mount Everest in an instant it wouldn't scale to Mercer anyways as he killed none of the ancient members of the Nightengales. He killed a relatively new member and he could have done it through poison or ways that negate durability, since every weapon he owns has at least some form of durability negation on it.
I personally think Mercer Frey attack Potency should look like this.
Attack Potency: Wall level (Should be comparable to the average soldier of Tamriel). | at least Small Building level (He causally knocked over a dwemer tower, caused an Earthquake upon his death).
Revisions to Earthquakes just shot Mercer in the foot because the only thing we see effected by the earthquake was literally touching the cause of the Earthquake. I'm not even sure this feat is even usable anymore so we'll have to go with the next best feat for now.
Pre Skeleton Key | Post Skeleton Key
"Speed: At least Massively Hypersonic+ (Is a Nightingale surpassing the skills of many thieves in history. He is easily excelling against individuals who can cast shock spells as fast as real lightning and react against them)"
"Is a Nightingale"
What does that have to do with anything at all. If you're going to put irrelevant information like this on the profile, could you at least put the thing they actually scale to before the irrelevant information. Also him dodging lightning spells is never shown and I don't remember it ever being mentioned. I doubt he fought any of these Massively Hypersonic individuals face to face (ignoring the fact they don't exist since only high 6-A and above characters in the Elder Scrolls scale to shock). His first move against people that were inferior to him was to turn invisible and paralyzed them. His paralysis spell has a massive AoE so I'm pretty sure if he ever fought someone with Massively Hypersonic+ attacks or reactions he just snuck up on them and paralyzed them, rather than fighting in a head to head confrontation.
His speed should be subsonic like all other Elder Scrolls Low tiers.
Striking Strength: Large Building Class, likely Mountain Class (Can trade blows against The Dovahkiin)
The Dovahkiin is Low 7-B or High 6-A so this puts even more holes in the 7-A tier for Mercer.
"Durability"
Should be downgraded for the same reason as his ap.
"Stamina: Exceptionally High (As a Nightingale, fitness is exceptional to be chosen by Nocturnal in the past)"
Being fit isn't high. A real life human could run for multiple days straight and fight for hours while sick and shot multiple times. They have peak human stamina (which is vastly lower than high on this site (High is for fighting multiple days straight with multiple missing limps)). Unless Mercer has a better feat he would be 'athletic human' at best.
"Range: Mountain Level (Tens of kilometers) with magic and powers"
Mountain level range doesn't exist. Ignoring how mountains vary in size, we put the amount of Kilometers on this wiki not the object that character effected (unless it's a planet or larger and even then it's stellar not star level). Also ten kilometers is pulled straight out of thin air, the area he effect with his Earthquake is unknown. The mountain that was carved up is a hill at best, how much was carved up per swing is unknown, and Mercer doesn't even scale to that anyways.
None of his other powers showed this kind of range either.
"Standard Equipment: The Skeleton Key, a metaphysical artifact that can unlock hidden potentials, concepts, gods, and impossibilities."
Just put: the skeleton key. Putting what it does isn't what that part of the profiles is meant for. The Skeleton Key's abilities would go under the notable attacks section.
"Intelligence: Gifted, he was accepted into the ranks of the Nightingales, and is a functional agent of Nocturnal. For such acceptance, his skills and talents must be second to none among the populaces of Tamriel."
I find it hard to believe he's "second to none" when people like the Ebony Warrior and Eternal Champion are just casually running around Tamriel. Don't get me wrong, he probably should be gifted in intelligence, but second to none is laughable.
Powers and Stats
"Powers and Abilities:"
I'll get to these when I make part 2.
"Attack Potency: Large Building level (As a rogue, it's likely that he had battled and slain monsters like giants.)"
This is the equivalent of saying a CIA agent is 9-B because they kill bears. Now you maybe saying "why would a CIA agent have killed a bear"; that's exactly my point. Why would an assassin/thief have killed a random animal that had nothing to do with him?
Now maybe this is trying to scale Mercer to the average adventurer and just says he killed Giants as a way to link the calc to Mercer's profile. But the average adventurer is only 9-B. Aela the Huntress is a werewolf; she's hilariously above the average adventurer. The average adventurer is the thirty separate bodies you find littered around a frost spider or a boulder trap; not someone like Aela that beats giants to death for fun. This is especially the case since the Elder Scrolls legends card and lore book consistently place the average adventurer around 9-B with the average card having them destroy things like wooden walls or a wooden fence because they're too lazy to jump over it. Now you may be saying he's scaling to J'zargo, but I've been planning to downgrade his durability for a while now, also Mercer is an assassin so going for direct kills that requires him to overpower an opponent doesn't really make much sense. Both of his swords have a way to ignore durability, and even after amping himself with the skeleton key his first move is to turn invisible. Nothing about Mercer says he would fight you face to face, hell every time he did attack someone in the story they were either vastly weaker, he immediately attempted to paralyze them, or incapacitate them.
"likely Mountain level (He used his unlocked power to shake the cavern where the entire city of Irkngthand was built under. The side effect of his quake is the collapse of a massive Dwemer building. Historically, the first Nightingales were powerful enough to carve a cavern out of a mountain that housed their first headquarter, and Mercer Frey is way above their league)"
Now here is the biggest problem; The whole reason I made this thread is was because of this. That's not mountain level; it isn't even close. Earthquakes are usually 8-A to low 7-C, but even violent earthquakes can get you high 8-C to 8-B+ results depending on how close the shaking/destruction is from the epicenter. I bring this up for two reasons.
Edit: Just reread the quest. The cave did collapse so 7-C is probably going to be the most likely option. Which lines up pretty well with other Elders Scrolls characters.
Edit two: Earthquakes just got shot in the foot by revisions.
His supporting feat is pretty much irrelevant. The "mountain" that was carved up was tiny and the time frame is unknown. A 9-B could carve out an entire mountain if you gave him enough time. Even assuming they carved up a mountain the size of Mount Everest in an instant it wouldn't scale to Mercer anyways as he killed none of the ancient members of the Nightengales. He killed a relatively new member and he could have done it through poison or ways that negate durability, since every weapon he owns has at least some form of durability negation on it.
I personally think Mercer Frey attack Potency should look like this.
Attack Potency: Wall level (Should be comparable to the average soldier of Tamriel). | at least Small Building level (He causally knocked over a dwemer tower, caused an Earthquake upon his death).
Revisions to Earthquakes just shot Mercer in the foot because the only thing we see effected by the earthquake was literally touching the cause of the Earthquake. I'm not even sure this feat is even usable anymore so we'll have to go with the next best feat for now.
Pre Skeleton Key | Post Skeleton Key
"Speed: At least Massively Hypersonic+ (Is a Nightingale surpassing the skills of many thieves in history. He is easily excelling against individuals who can cast shock spells as fast as real lightning and react against them)"
"Is a Nightingale"
What does that have to do with anything at all. If you're going to put irrelevant information like this on the profile, could you at least put the thing they actually scale to before the irrelevant information. Also him dodging lightning spells is never shown and I don't remember it ever being mentioned. I doubt he fought any of these Massively Hypersonic individuals face to face (ignoring the fact they don't exist since only high 6-A and above characters in the Elder Scrolls scale to shock). His first move against people that were inferior to him was to turn invisible and paralyzed them. His paralysis spell has a massive AoE so I'm pretty sure if he ever fought someone with Massively Hypersonic+ attacks or reactions he just snuck up on them and paralyzed them, rather than fighting in a head to head confrontation.
His speed should be subsonic like all other Elder Scrolls Low tiers.
Striking Strength: Large Building Class, likely Mountain Class (Can trade blows against The Dovahkiin)
The Dovahkiin is Low 7-B or High 6-A so this puts even more holes in the 7-A tier for Mercer.
"Durability"
Should be downgraded for the same reason as his ap.
"Stamina: Exceptionally High (As a Nightingale, fitness is exceptional to be chosen by Nocturnal in the past)"
Being fit isn't high. A real life human could run for multiple days straight and fight for hours while sick and shot multiple times. They have peak human stamina (which is vastly lower than high on this site (High is for fighting multiple days straight with multiple missing limps)). Unless Mercer has a better feat he would be 'athletic human' at best.
"Range: Mountain Level (Tens of kilometers) with magic and powers"
Mountain level range doesn't exist. Ignoring how mountains vary in size, we put the amount of Kilometers on this wiki not the object that character effected (unless it's a planet or larger and even then it's stellar not star level). Also ten kilometers is pulled straight out of thin air, the area he effect with his Earthquake is unknown. The mountain that was carved up is a hill at best, how much was carved up per swing is unknown, and Mercer doesn't even scale to that anyways.
None of his other powers showed this kind of range either.
"Standard Equipment: The Skeleton Key, a metaphysical artifact that can unlock hidden potentials, concepts, gods, and impossibilities."
Just put: the skeleton key. Putting what it does isn't what that part of the profiles is meant for. The Skeleton Key's abilities would go under the notable attacks section.
"Intelligence: Gifted, he was accepted into the ranks of the Nightingales, and is a functional agent of Nocturnal. For such acceptance, his skills and talents must be second to none among the populaces of Tamriel."
I find it hard to believe he's "second to none" when people like the Ebony Warrior and Eternal Champion are just casually running around Tamriel. Don't get me wrong, he probably should be gifted in intelligence, but second to none is laughable.
