Raiden's "Reactive Power Level" (Metal Gear Rising)

[ShivaShakti]

You have to assume that he used ripper mode with absolutely no evidence, mine relies on what we are shown but i digress, let's wait for twellas big post

There is evidence of him using Ripper Mode as I have pointed out. Little to none for reactive power level

 

[ShivaShakti]

Also about the ripper mode point, if the intent is for him to be in ripper mode, why isn't he in ripper mode when the gameplay begins, this happened in the monsoon fight, so why not here.

Because the Monsoon fight is when Ripper Mode is actually unlocked for the first time. It starts you off in it to introduce you to the mechanic and allow you to get a feel for it.

 

[GrathOfLux]

I feel as though I should leave my input here. From my understanding of the issue, and having been someone who actively supported and helped get the Reactive Power Level on Raiden's profile in the first place, I do not agree with keeping it in it's current state. I've long reconsidered it and come to the conclusion that it doesn't have enough basis or justification to keep.

The issue is that it was originally put on the profile less due to the fact that there was actual solid evidence for it, but because it was one of the only reasonable ways to explain or justify an inherent discrepancy in the battle. There are other ways to explain it, though, which makes the fact that it was included with so little basis in the first place incredibly questionable. Unless more solid evidence for Reactive Power Level comes to the surface beyond the very little that has come up in the past, I can't agree with keeping the ability.

 

[Twellas]

I'll just say this: I agree that it shouldn't be Reactive Power Level, since the very beginning I wanted it to be Accelerated Development but I was told that it was RPL. AD also makes more sense because we know for a fact he has it at least skill-wise ever since MGS2, so it's a power that has undeniable basis in canon. This being said, I think it's there and should be considered.

I return to my slumber before the big post

 

[ShivaShakti]

I'll just say this: I agree that it shouldn't be Reactive Power Level, since the very beginning I wanted it to be Accelerated Development but I was told that it was RPL. AD also makes more sense because we know for a fact he has it at least skill-wise ever since MGS2, so it's a power that has undeniable basis in canon. This being said, I think it's there and should be considered.

I return to my slumber before the big post

I can see Accelerated Development via his Skill being alot more reasonable than straight up RPL

 

[Twellas]

ok, I'll start off with the "he was in Ripper Mode" argument, because it's the one argument that simply doesn't have a lick of validity and thus can be immediately removed

There are other implications ontop of this to further show why Raiden is preforming much better than earlier. In this scene, he can be seen giving a speech right as he obtains Muramasa. "I said my sword was a tool of justice. Not used in anger. Not used for vengeance. But now, now i'm not so sure. Besides. This isn't my sword." Take notice of his voice because that will be important. As the scene continues and he says "Let's Dance", you can see a Red Glint in his eye before the fight starts.

A bit earlier in the game, during the moonsoon boss battle you unlock "Ripper Mode". In the cutscene before said fight starts this happens. Hit voice gets progressively deeper and more scratchy, like in the earlier scene, and his eyes gains a red glint

There are some very blatant problems here, first of, we can see from the very videos you posted that the eyes differ greatly, here is the glint during the Armstrong bossfight, here is Ripper Mode, you can see that they are two COMPLETELY DIFFERENT things, in the first one, it's just his pupil that lights up and the iris stay black, while the complete opposite is true for Ripper Mode, where the iris is completely red while the pupil is perfectly black. This alone would be proof of the two things being completely different, but there's more; the "red pupil" (that's what I'll call it) is consistently shown to appear in situations where we know for a fact Raiden hasn't gone Ripper Mode, but is merely showing determination, such as here, where we are shown that Raiden stays in base throughout the whole ordeal; hell, this phenomenon isn't even exclusive to Raiden, and happens to multiple bosses, for instance Mistral and, you know, ARMSTRONG HIMSELF. All of this is proof that (and I'm sorry if I'm too direct) the red glint shown before the last part of the fight doesn't mean jackshit.

On top of this, let's also add that Raiden isn't in Ripper Mode during the bossfight in-game, which was the case in the only other case in which Raiden canonically went in Ripper Mode. Now yes, you can make up all the bullshit, gameplay-related excuses you want for why this is, but then, if they really wanted to show Raiden go in RM but didn't want to give him infinite fuel cells like with Monsoon, why the **** did they not just show him be in RM in the cutscenes/QTEs? Not only is Raiden blatantly in base form in the cutscenes, you can see him act in a way that is completely antithetical to how he would behave if he were in Ripper Mode, he straight up stands there and listens to Armstrong's last words, remember what happened against Monsoon? Compare it to this and tell me if they are even remotely alike.

There is also the matter of Jack the Ripper and Ripper Mode, which are actually 2 separate things: Jack the Ripper is the violent persona Raiden has which basically leads him to be bloodlusted and violent, whereas Ripper Mode is a physical change, where his eyes turn wholly red, he manifests an aura and becomes significantly faster and stronger; the former is part of the latter, in the sense that every time Raiden goes Ripper Mode, he also goes Jack the Ripper, but the contrary is not true (or at least, doesn't have a basis in canon), so when Raiden goes Jack the Ripper he doesn't necessarily go Ripper Mode; this is perfectly shown in the very first scene of his transformation, wheree he first goes Jack the Ripper (his pupils and pupils only turn red and he says "Jack is back") and only after Dok turns off his pain inhibitors he goes Ripper Mode (he emits the aura and has red iris), this proves that it's 100% possible for Raiden to turn into Jack the Ripper without going Ripper Mode.

Essentially, there is quite literally no valid argument to be made to support the idea that Raiden went Ripper Mode in his last fight with Armstrong. No, "he would do it in-character" is not a valid argument by itself, since it's contraddicted by everything we are show.

Now, onto the Murasama argument.

First of all, Raiden before the final phase starts obtains the Murasama blade. The strength and quality of this sword is hyped up to be a lot better than most standard HF Blades due to the quality of the original weapon as pointed out in this scene, as well it's weapon description. This sword had much higher cutting power than Raiden's own HF Blade, and he uses it in the fight with Armstrong

Moot, we know from the fight with Sam that the Murasama doesn't actually effect Armstrong by itself, he can deflect it while being casual without suffering any damage whatsoever; while yes, Sam is probably quite a bit weaker than Raiden at this point, Armstrong is also very much suppressed, while he's straight up bloodlusted against Raiden with the Murasama, and we know that Armstrong's suppression effects his dura significantly.

and its implied said blade as actually breaking and weakening his nanomachines overtime. In this scene near the end of the fight, Raiden is shown swinging the blade as Armstrong attacks, and causing cracks to appear in his skin after making contact. Furthermore, the blade in this instance is shown to be capable of completely dismantling and opening up the nanomachines surrounding Armstrong's chest cavity with repeated strikes in blade mode. So already we have the implications of Raiden just having better weaponry to deal with the durability given by Armstrong's nanomachines, but that isn't all.

This stuff is only true or relevant if you don't look at the entire fight, because, for one, you can clearly see that all the scratches on Armstrong's arms are caused by that very QTE, as they are not present in the scene right before and his arms are completely fine, showing that whatever permanent damage Armstrong suffered only happened after his punches were slashed with BM. What happened with the heart is that Raiden concentrated himself on one spot, scratching it over and over again until he was able to create a small hole in which he could shove his hand. The fact that Raiden can casually crush Armstrong's nanomachine heart is already, by itself, proof that he physically scales to them, but what makes the "he's just chipping away at his nanomachines" argument completely moot is that 1) Raiden can punch him to the ground almost immediately after obtaining the Murasama, making it an impossibility for him to have chipped away at the nanomachines beforehand 2) the various scratches are only visible on his forearms, raiden can straight up punch him in the face and gut and hurt him significantly.

The idea of Armstrong's nanomachines getting chipped away or stuff like that is also completely unsubstantiated and Dok doesn't even mention it as a possibility when talking about ways in which Raiden could beat Armstrong, the scratches could very well just be an instance of Raiden's strength having grown to they point where he can surpass the nanomachines' hardening. it's also worth noting that the Murasama still bounces off of Armstrong's fist, which means that the nanomachines are still doing their job and countering the HF blade's effects, otherwise Raiden would have cut his foreharm in half.

This one isn't even the only case of Raiden's strangth growing through his fight with Armstrong: Armstrong starts off suppressed and suppresses himself less and less as the fight goes, he's at peak suppression in Phase 1 (when Raiden still has his sword), he is slightly less suppressed during Phase 2 (when Raiden fights him h2h and gets no-sold) and at the very end of Phase 2 he's straight up bloodlusted. Now, in Phase 1, with this level of suppression, Raiden gets completely squashed by Armstrong and is completely overpowered by him; now, right after he gets his sword snapped, Raiden manages to successfully block one of Armstrong's punches and straight up overpowers and overwhelms him up until he gets more serious, at which point he simply gets no-sold. This is a clear cut case of Raiden growing stronger during a fight.

Another case is the Monsoon one. We all know that Monsoon fights a RM Raiden, and while yes, Monsoon is weaker than Raiden in this case, he still puts up a good fight, fast forward no more than a few in-game minutes, Raiden fights Ai-piloted copies of Mistral and Monsoon, since there are no statements about it, and we don't see Raiden go RM, we have to assume he went into this fight in base, and he manages to beat both Mistral and Monsoon. Now, while Dok does state that "the AI will not perform up to the organic original in many respects. Such things as speed, agility, accuracy, how it responds to damage", it's also true that these bodies are perfect copies of the real thing physically speaking, as proven by Dok's statements such as "backups are built for custom-made frames like Mistral and the others. They can be used for spare parts in case of damage, or if the original body is completely destroyed... The brain can be transplanted over for a quick recovery" and "Well, bear in mind that these spares retain all (of) the original body's abilities". Given how we know that Ripper Mode is a significant amp (hell, OP argues that it's big enough to let Raiden kick the shit out of people who no-sold him in base) we either say that Raiden managed to beat an enemy who can basically one-tap and no-sell him, or we say that he grew in strength in the meantime; while yes, the copies are slower and less skilled than their real counterparts, they can still use all of their abilities, such as the Phosphorous Smoke Grenades, which basically blind Raiden, and the detachment, during which Raiden can't canonically do anything but wait for him to be forced to reassemble due to lack of oxygen, stuff like this would make it nigh impossible for Raiden to beat an opponent THIS drastically stronger than himself, and besides, it's just common sense to say that the protag is at least comparable strength-wise to the opponent he beats. On top of this, Raiden fights Sundowner (again, in his base because nothing leads us to believe he went RM) who could be argued to be even stronger than Monsoon due to being the leader of the WODs.

Now, I'm not saying that Monsoon is equal to Raiden's Ripper Mode, what I'm saying is that he put just as much of a fight against RM Raiden as Sundowner did against base Raiden.

To add to all of this there's a quote from Raiden during his fight with Sam, in which he says "His fighting style uses a good amount of blunt strikes and throws too... but sooner or later, that won't be enough to stop me", which heavily, HEAVILY implies that Raiden is growing throughout the fight; this could be either Skill or AP, but given how he talks about "stopping", it's quite probable that he's talking about physical stats.

Now, frankly, I'm interested in proving that Raiden's strength grows more than defending/proving how he did it; now it's RPL, which I don't think is accurate, because we saw with Monsoon and Sundowner that Raiden just grew stronger in-between battles, this leads me to believe it is a very quick form of AP Accelerated Development, which also goes along well with his already existing and irrefutable Skill AD; this being said, I'm open to proposals

 

[Arcker123]

Combat applicable AD sounds better than rpl

 

[ShivaShakti]

ok, I'll start off with the "he was in Ripper Mode" argument, because it's the one argument that simply doesn't have a lick of validity and thus can be immediately removed


There are some very blatant problems here, first of, we can see from the very videos you posted that the eyes differ greatly, here is the glint during the Armstrong bossfight, here is Ripper Mode, you can see that they are two COMPLETELY DIFFERENT things, in the first one, it's just his pupil that lights up and the iris stay black, while the complete opposite is true for Ripper Mode, where the iris is completely red while the pupil is perfectly black. This alone would be proof of the two things being completely different, but there's more; the "red pupil" (that's what I'll call it) is consistently shown to appear in situations where we know for a fact Raiden hasn't gone Ripper Mode, but is merely showing determination, such as here, where we are shown that Raiden stays in base throughout the whole ordeal; hell, this phenomenon isn't even exclusive to Raiden, and happens to multiple bosses, for instance Mistral and, you know, ARMSTRONG HIMSELF. All of this is proof that (and I'm sorry if I'm too direct) the red glint shown before the last part of the fight doesn't mean jackshit.

On top of this, let's also add that Raiden isn't in Ripper Mode during the bossfight in-game, which was the case in the only other case in which Raiden canonically went in Ripper Mode. Now yes, you can make up all the bullshit, gameplay-related excuses you want for why this is, but then, if they really wanted to show Raiden go in RM but didn't want to give him infinite fuel cells like with Monsoon, why the **** did they not just show him be in RM in the cutscenes/QTEs? Not only is Raiden blatantly in base form in the cutscenes, you can see him act in a way that is completely antithetical to how he would behave if he were in Ripper Mode, he straight up stands there and listens to Armstrong's last words, remember what happened against Monsoon? Compare it to this and tell me if they are even remotely alike.

There is also the matter of Jack the Ripper and Ripper Mode, which are actually 2 separate things: Jack the Ripper is the violent persona Raiden has which basically leads him to be bloodlusted and violent, whereas Ripper Mode is a physical change, where his eyes turn wholly red, he manifests an aura and becomes significantly faster and stronger; the former is part of the latter, in the sense that every time Raiden goes Ripper Mode, he also goes Jack the Ripper, but the contrary is not true (or at least, doesn't have a basis in canon), so when Raiden goes Jack the Ripper he doesn't necessarily go Ripper Mode; this is perfectly shown in the very first scene of his transformation, wheree he first goes Jack the Ripper (his pupils and pupils only turn red and he says "Jack is back") and only after Dok turns off his pain inhibitors he goes Ripper Mode (he emits the aura and has red iris), this proves that it's 100% possible for Raiden to turn into Jack the Ripper without going Ripper Mode.

Essentially, there is quite literally no valid argument to be made to support the idea that Raiden went Ripper Mode in his last fight with Armstrong. No, "he would do it in-character" is not a valid argument by itself, since it's contraddicted by everything we are show.

Now, onto the Murasama argument.


Moot, we know from the fight with Sam that the Murasama doesn't actually effect Armstrong by itself, he can deflect it while being casual without suffering any damage whatsoever; while yes, Sam is probably quite a bit weaker than Raiden at this point, Armstrong is also very much suppressed, while he's straight up bloodlusted against Raiden with the Murasama, and we know that Armstrong's suppression effects his dura significantly.

This stuff is only true or relevant if you don't look at the entire fight, because, for one, you can clearly see that all the scratches on Armstrong's arms are caused by that very QTE, as they are not present in the scene right before and his arms are completely fine, showing that whatever permanent damage Armstrong suffered only happened after his punches were slashed with BM. What happened with the heart is that Raiden concentrated himself on one spot, scratching it over and over again until he was able to create a small hole in which he could shove his hand. The fact that Raiden can casually crush Armstrong's nanomachine heart is already, by itself, proof that he physically scales to them, but what makes the "he's just chipping away at his nanomachines" argument completely moot is that 1) Raiden can punch him to the ground almost immediately after obtaining the Murasama, making it an impossibility for him to have chipped away at the nanomachines beforehand 2) the various scratches are only visible on his forearms, raiden can straight up punch him in the face and gut and hurt him significantly.

The idea of Armstrong's nanomachines getting chipped away or stuff like that is also completely unsubstantiated and Dok doesn't even mention it as a possibility when talking about ways in which Raiden could beat Armstrong, the scratches could very well just be an instance of Raiden's strength having grown to they point where he can surpass the nanomachines' hardening. it's also worth noting that the Murasama still bounces off of Armstrong's fist, which means that the nanomachines are still doing their job and countering the HF blade's effects, otherwise Raiden would have cut his foreharm in half.

This one isn't even the only case of Raiden's strangth growing through his fight with Armstrong: Armstrong starts off suppressed and suppresses himself less and less as the fight goes, he's at peak suppression in Phase 1 (when Raiden still has his sword), he is slightly less suppressed during Phase 2 (when Raiden fights him h2h and gets no-sold) and at the very end of Phase 2 he's straight up bloodlusted. Now, in Phase 1, with this level of suppression, Raiden gets completely squashed by Armstrong and is completely overpowered by him; now, right after he gets his sword snapped, Raiden manages to successfully block one of Armstrong's punches and straight up overpowers and overwhelms him up until he gets more serious, at which point he simply gets no-sold. This is a clear cut case of Raiden growing stronger during a fight.

Another case is the Monsoon one. We all know that Monsoon fights a RM Raiden, and while yes, Monsoon is weaker than Raiden in this case, he still puts up a good fight, fast forward no more than a few in-game minutes, Raiden fights Ai-piloted copies of Mistral and Monsoon, since there are no statements about it, and we don't see Raiden go RM, we have to assume he went into this fight in base, and he manages to beat both Mistral and Monsoon. Now, while Dok does state that "the AI will not perform up to the organic original in many respects. Such things as speed, agility, accuracy, how it responds to damage", it's also true that these bodies are perfect copies of the real thing physically speaking, as proven by Dok's statements such as "backups are built for custom-made frames like Mistral and the others. They can be used for spare parts in case of damage, or if the original body is completely destroyed... The brain can be transplanted over for a quick recovery" and "Well, bear in mind that these spares retain all (of) the original body's abilities". Given how we know that Ripper Mode is a significant amp (hell, OP argues that it's big enough to let Raiden kick the shit out of people who no-sold him in base) we either say that Raiden managed to beat an enemy who can basically one-tap and no-sell him, or we say that he grew in strength in the meantime; while yes, the copies are slower and less skilled than their real counterparts, they can still use all of their abilities, such as the Phosphorous Smoke Grenades, which basically blind Raiden, and the detachment, during which Raiden can't canonically do anything but wait for him to be forced to reassemble due to lack of oxygen, stuff like this would make it nigh impossible for Raiden to beat an opponent THIS drastically stronger than himself, and besides, it's just common sense to say that the protag is at least comparable strength-wise to the opponent he beats. On top of this, Raiden fights Sundowner (again, in his base because nothing leads us to believe he went RM) who could be argued to be even stronger than Monsoon due to being the leader of the WODs.

Now, I'm not saying that Monsoon is equal to Raiden's Ripper Mode, what I'm saying is that he put just as much of a fight against RM Raiden as Sundowner did against base Raiden.

To add to all of this there's a quote from Raiden during his fight with Sam, in which he says "His fighting style uses a good amount of blunt strikes and throws too... but sooner or later, that won't be enough to stop me", which heavily, HEAVILY implies that Raiden is growing throughout the fight; this could be either Skill or AP, but given how he talks about "stopping", it's quite probable that he's talking about physical stats.

Now, frankly, I'm interested in proving that Raiden's strength grows more than defending/proving how he did it; now it's RPL, which I don't think is accurate, because we saw with Monsoon and Sundowner that Raiden just grew stronger in-between battles, this leads me to believe it is a very quick form of AP Accelerated Development, which also goes along well with his already existing and irrefutable Skill AD; this being said, I'm open to proposals

These arguments aside, you mentioned as early as MGS2 that Raiden has shown forms of Accelerated Development. Would you mind presenting these forth?

 

[Armorchompy]

Learning how to use a sword in hours at a skill level that allowed him to beat Solidus, I think.

 

[ShivaShakti]

Learning how to use a sword in hours at a skill level that allowed him to beat Solidus, I think.

Okay thats surely much more convincing in this case.

If Twellas feels to, i'll give him the opportunity to detail his AD showings in previous games.

 

[Twellas]

These arguments aside, you mentioned as early as MGS2 that Raiden has shown forms of Accelerated Development. Would you mind presenting these forth?

It's on the profile, Raiden learned to use a sword well enough to beat Solidus, who could be argued to be the best swordsman up until that point, in mere minutes, we know for a fact that Raiden had never held a sword before that moment because he outright says so in MGR

 

[Armorchompy]

I mean, that's only canon for MGR, right? Doesn't matter here but that wouldn't retroactively apply to his MGS2 and 4 incarnations.

 

[Twellas]

I mean, that's only canon for MGR, right? Doesn't matter here but that wouldn't retroactively apply to his MGS2 and 4 incarnations.

Doesn't matter, it's very clear from how Raiden moves that he's never held a sword before, MGR just makes it explicit

 

[Twellas]

And before anyone tries to bring it up, Raiden's eye turning red after killing Armstrong doesn't mean he used RM during the fight, it's merely symbolic of him embracing Armstrong's ideology and becoming fully acquainted with his bloodlust.
You can clearly see that as the red on Armstrong's eyes fades away, Raiden's eyes become of the same color, meaning that he inherited Armstrong's principles

 

[ShivaShakti]

And before anyone tries to bring it up, Raiden's eye turning red after killing Armstrong doesn't mean he used RM during the fight, it's merely symbolic of him embracing Armstrong's ideology and becoming fully acquainted with his bloodlust.
You can clearly see that as the red on Armstrong's eyes fades away, Raiden's eyes become of the same color, meaning that he inherited Armstrong's principles

His bloodlust is inherently tied to his Jack The Ripper persona is it not? His character development seemed to revolve around him trying to keep the ripper at bay and using his sword as a "Tool of Justice" in order to combat his violent tendencies.

 

[Armorchompy]

His character development was him realizing that the tool of justice part was just part of his personality, and that the Ripper persona was indeed a part of him. So, yeah, his bloodlust is tied to Jack the Ripper.

 

[ShivaShakti]

It's on the profile, Raiden learned to use a sword well enough to beat Solidus, who could be argued to be the best swordsman up until that point, in mere minutes, we know for a fact that Raiden had never held a sword before that moment because he outright says so in MGR

Then yeah thats a pretty solid basis for his accelerated development. Especially considering the experience gap and Soldius' high IQ.

I suppose it'd be reasonable to say this accelerated development applies to him in MGS4, and is alot more reasonable than Reactive Power Level.

I'd suggest maybe in the future making a blog detailing this however and how it connects.

 

[Twellas]

His bloodlust is inherently tied to his Jack The Ripper persona is it not? His character development seemed to revolve around him trying to keep the ripper at bay and using his sword as a "Tool of Justice" in order to combat his violent tendencies.

the idea of "keeping the ripper at bay using his sword as a tool of justice" is done by the time he goes Ripper Mode the first time, the rest of the game is about him coming to terms and accepting the bloodlust itself, no coping mechanism to soften everything up

 

[SpookyShadow]

Are Twellas' points accepted or is anyone going to oppose his arguments? Because I haven't seen anyone do that.

 

[Twellas]

At this point I think we can agree to change the RPL to Accelerated Development and make a note on the profile about it, linking this thread

 

[Twellas]

did my post bore y'all to the point of killing the thread?

 

[SpookyShadow]

So there's a count huh

I'll disagree because of Twellas' reasoning.

 

[Chariot190]

I posted multiple times but unfortunately mobile ate my posts, needless to say I agree with Twellas, a lot of what I was gonna say he mentioned as well, simply change RPL to a more advanced AD and we can be off with this.

 

[WeeklyBattles]

So I'm confused, why is it still being accepted that raiden has an ap amp? Its flat out stated in the game that him damaging armstrong in the later half of the fight is due to a mix of him using Sam's sword instead of his own and Armstrong canonically becoming less durable over the course of the fight due to using up the energy he absorbed, making his nanomachines weaker as a result

 

[Twellas]

So I'm confused, why is it still being accepted that raiden has an ap amp? Its flat out stated in the game that him damaging armstrong in the later half of the fight is due to a mix of him using Sam's sword instead of his own and Armstrong canonically becoming less durable over the course of the fight due to using up the energy he absorbed, making his nanomachines weaker as a result

Because no, it's not stated, there isn't a single, A SINGLE instance of Armstrong "canonically becoming less durable", nor is there any evidence of him "using up the energy he absorbed, making his nanomachines weaker as a result", all of this shit is literally made up and doesn't have any basis in reality

 

[WeeklyBattles]

It is stated though, hell even on Armstrong's profile it's a listed weakness that he becomes less durable as he uses up energy

 

[Twellas]

It is stated though, hell even on Armstrong's profile it's a listed weakness that he becomes less durable as he uses up energy

it's not, it was removed in my CRT because, guess what? IT'S ******* MADE UP, it's nowhere in the game, it contraddicts established canon on how nanomachines work and it comes from a phantomatic "Kojima interview" which is nowhere to be found, and even if it was, it wouldn't matter, because Kojima wasn't the one who wrote the story

 

[Twellas]

I can't stress enough how Doktor goes out of his way to say that the ONLY way in which Raiden can beat Armstrong is by deactivating the nanomachines entirely, if them losing power was an actual thing, Dok would have brought it up 100%

 

[Twellas]

And again, even if we just erase the Armstrong thing, how the **** do you explain the Monsoon/Monsoon copy/Sundowner thing? Sundowner is the leader of the WODs, which means that he's stronger than Monsoon, and Raiden beats him in base; Sundowner puts as much of a fight against base Raiden as Monsoon did against RM Raiden, how in the hell do you explain this without an AP amp?

Did you even read my post?

 

[Chariot190]

So I'm confused, why is it still being accepted that raiden has an ap amp? Its flat out stated in the game that him damaging armstrong in the later half of the fight is due to a mix of him using Sam's sword instead of his own and Armstrong canonically becoming less durable over the course of the fight due to using up the energy he absorbed, making his nanomachines weaker as a result

It's outright stated in game

Things that aren't stated in game.

Also, nice try but you're acting like Raiden didn't actively harm Armstrong numerous times without the blade, because he did.

Here's a few examples.

Notice how the blade has absolutely nothing to do with any of these examples? (Let's not forget Raiden can even lose the blade for awhile and can keep up and harm him).

And Armstrong canonically becoming less durable? Never stated, never said, not even implied. All the sword did was help him finish him off, by repeatedly attacking the same spot over and over and over and following it up, why was this needed? Because in case you forgot, Armstrong regenerates nigh-instantly and that goes for his nano's as well, Raiden didn't even give him a chance to at the end, this also means that in the multitude of examples where Raiden simply punched him in his face and made him eat dirt and physically overwhelmed him without immediately being preceded by multiple Muramusa slashes, it's just Raiden doing the heavy lifting in those cases.
And even then, as shown against Sam, even in situations the Muramasa manages to inflict damage, Armstrong's nanomachines instantly retaliate and counter against the damage.

The whole "armstrong's nano's were getting weaker over the course of the fight" is quite simply, a load of shit, isn't stated anywhere and actively demonstrated to be false in other situations and Raiden is even forced to take into account that they don't weaken over time to actually finish him off.


The only thing that holds any weight is that Raiden fought Armstrong in RM, and that, even at the absolute best case scenario, is simply a maybe, but i'd wager it's less of a maybe and more of he simply didn't, because even in the cinematics, immediately before and after the fight, Raiden isn't in RM, which we can tell he isnt in because he lacks the red aura that signifies he's in RM, which occurs in every single instance he's ever taken the form, even if only momentarily.

 

[Chariot190]

It is stated though, hell even on Armstrong's profile it's a listed weakness that he becomes less durable as he uses up energy

That was actual fake news. It's why it's gone.

 

[Twellas]

so, are we done here? Is anyone gonna make an actual argument against Raiden's RPL being changed to AP AD?

 

[Creaturemaster971]

I agree with the change as well. Every instance of Raiden doing better is either a Rage Boost, the Muramasa accumulating damage, and/or willpower

 

[ShivaShakti]

And again, even if we just erase the Armstrong thing, how the **** do you explain the Monsoon/Monsoon copy/Sundowner thing? Sundowner is the leader of the WODs, which means that he's stronger than Monsoon, and Raiden beats him in base; Sundowner puts as much of a fight against base Raiden as Monsoon did against RM Raiden, how in the hell do you explain this without an AP amp?

Did you even read my post?

I'd say Sundowner being >>>> Monsoon is kind of a weak point.

I don't think his leader status would automatically make him stronger than the rest, because well... That would mean Sam is below him. And by the logic you want to use with his AD, he's getting stronger throughout the story, which then, it wouldn't really make sense for his fight with Sam to be treated as much of a threat?

To address the double of monsoon thing as well, you earlier said Monsoon at the very best could keep up with RM but he didn't actually match it's strength, as Raiden overpowered him. I still find it highly dubious to straight up scale him directly to regular Monsoon's showings and by proxy even remotely scaling to RM as

1. It's seems strange to straight up scale his durability to being able to withstand Ripper Mode, considering the fact Monsoon's whole gimmick is the fact he's hard to hit as his body separates

2. The AI being in control can very well mean he wasn't fighting at a 100 percent. You can argue that it doesn't mean his physicals aren't as good, but obviously Raiden would have an easier time outmatching and outmaneuvering him without having to straight up brute force his way through it.

the idea of "keeping the ripper at bay using his sword as a tool of justice" is done by the time he goes Ripper Mode the first time, the rest of the game is about him coming to terms and accepting the bloodlust itself, no coping mechanism to soften everything up

I'm still going to have to disagree with Jack The Ripper not being tied to his bloodlust at all. The first time he's shown as Jack The Ripper he even says "This is my normal, my nature" and it greatly implies it's tied to his bloodlust and killing mindset.

 

[Creaturemaster971]

Also it's hardly outside the realm of possibility that Raiden gets stronger and improves throughout the game as he fights his way up the ranks of the Winds.

 

[ShivaShakti]

Also it's hardly outside the realm of possibility that Raiden gets stronger and improves throughout the game as he fights his way up the ranks of the Winds.

No one denies he gets stronger. Just personally think the way his RPL currently works is a bit much

 

[DMUA]

The whole point of the fight is that Raiden can't actually do anything to Armstrong without the Murasama. To assume he dramatically increases in power just because he can slightly nudge him with a punch (or take off a large chunk of his HP with QTEs, as I've also heard it justified) is a bit much.

Nothing in the story actually implies he gets a power boost, the most that happens is he crackles with electricity and presumably just puts more energy into his blows than before.

 

[Armorchompy]

Well, he was likely puttting effort in punches beforehand too, I just think that's not enough for AD/RPL

 

[DMUA]

Yeah he definitely was putting effort into it, it's just more signs point to him putting more effort into it than before as opposed to just jumping in power

Either way, since I read the thread a little bit...

right after he gets his sword snapped, Raiden manages to successfully block one of Armstrong's punches and straight up overpowers and overwhelms him up until he gets more serious

This is the only time where he actually manages to use both arms to block a punch from Armstrong. To say he's straight up overpowering him is giving it a little bit too much credit, he just got himself in a position where he has more leverage. The fact he proceeds to get no sold afterwards anyways lines up with this a bit better than the assumption Raiden can jump in power in the middle of a fight and Armstrong went serious mode.

"His fighting style uses a good amount of blunt strikes and throws too... but sooner or later, that won't be enough to stop me", which heavily, HEAVILY implies that Raiden is growing throughout the fight; this could be either Skill or AP, but given how he talks about "stopping", it's quite probable that he's talking about physical stats.

This is definitely a skill thing, otherwise we'd actually see evidence of him being able to brute force through Sam's punches, and... How exactly does one brute force through a throw like the ones Sam does? Like, one is just him shifting Raiden's momentum to make him flip over, more force would just have more being turned against Raiden.

There's not a specific post but, just, in general, while I can agree that Raiden does in fact get stronger through the game, that's not really accelerated development, it's just him being upgraded by Doktor. That's outright stated to be why he has to cut off the left arm of enemies, and all, so he can get more resources. Of course, then again Raiden can upgrade himself when he's isolated and wouldn't have access to Doktor, but, pretty sure that's ultimately just Game Mechanics.

 

[Twellas]

I’ll respond to DMUA’s points later, when I have more time, for now I’ll respond to Shiva because his arguments come from misunderstandings of my points

I'd say Sundowner being >>>> Monsoon is kind of a weak point.

I don't think his leader status would automatically make him stronger than the rest, because well... That would mean Sam is below him. And by the logic you want to use with his AD, he's getting stronger throughout the story, which then, it wouldn't really make sense for his fight with Sam to be treated as much of a threat?

in an organization like the WODs, where you literally have to fistfight your employer to get in, if’s a nigh impossibility that an higher rank doesn’t translate to more strength
Sam is an unofficial member, and as such, isn’t technically under Sundowner in terms of ranking, which means that he’s not necessarily weaker than him, if anything his unique status implies that he benefits from some kind of prestige that could very well come from his strength and prowess

To address the double of monsoon thing as well, you earlier said Monsoon at the very best could keep up with RM but he didn't actually match it's strength, as Raiden overpowered him. I still find it highly dubious to straight up scale him directly to regular Monsoon's showings and by proxy even remotely scaling to RM as

again, i never said that Monsoon scales equally to RM, I said that he put up a fight, just as much as every other boss does against base Raiden

1. It's seems strange to straight up scale his durability to being able to withstand Ripper Mode, considering the fact Monsoon's whole gimmick is the fact he's hard to hit as his body separates

so what? It’s his gimmick, he doesn’t have it permanently on, he only activates it halfway through; it would be like saying that Sundowner doesn’t scale to Raiden because his gimmick is using shields

2. The AI being in control can very well mean he wasn't fighting at a 100 percent. You can argue that it doesn't mean his physicals aren't as good, but obviously Raiden would have an easier time outmatching and outmaneuvering him without having to straight up brute force his way through it.

as I said, Dok states that the AI is slower and less skilled, but he outright confifms that they are perfect copies of the og physically, it’s not even up for debate that the AIs are equal, it’s straight up stated.
I also think it’s simply logical to say that the mc scales above the boss he fought, especjally since if the AI was superior, due to the sheer gap (which you yourself consider big enough to take him from getting no-sold to being stronger) Raiden would straight up get ragdolled like he did against Sam, who sent him flying with every swordstroke

I'm still going to have to disagree with Jack The Ripper not being tied to his bloodlust at all. The first time he's shown as Jack The Ripper he even says "This is my normal, my nature" and it greatly implies it's tied to his bloodlust and killing mindset.

never said that Jack the Ripper is not linked to bloodlust, never. What I said was completely different and refering to the fact that Raiden lost the whole “tool of justice” after first turning RM.
I also said that while Jack The Ripper is a “mere” personality change, RM is a straight up physical change, the first isn’t necessarily linked to the latter, but the opposite is true