Raven vs The Ancestor

[Wokistan]

Both 5-A

Takes place in the Kiln of the First Flame

Speed unequal, as I'm pretty sure its not a blitz, just an advantage

Starts 300 meters away from one another

SBA otherwise

Their AP is about the same, Raven may have a slight advantage if anything

Raven (Teen Titans):

The Ancestor: 5 (Mr. Bambu, Antoniofer, Yellowpig10, Dargoo Faust, Phoenixstorm9)

Inconclusive: 7 (DMUA, RavenSupreme, Schnee One, MrSpringWater, TheRustyOne, PaChi2, ZachMoon1234)

 

[DMUA]

What stops Raven from getting flayed and Mindhax?

She doesn't resist either and she doesn't really open with Hax from my memories of the show.

 

[Antoniofer]

The Ancestor has a more powewrs and few of them seems dangerous (not sure how his Death Manipulation works) and it also have some other hax.

 

[DMUA]

Death Manipulation is more that he's well versed in necromancy and is stated to be a master of life and death, doesn't mean much in a fight.

 

[Wokistan]

Death manip isn't really important. It's just a thing he's able to do, since he learned how to manipulate life and death and kill things when he studied with a bunch of necromancers then killed them, but he doesn't really do it to the party.

The most important things are duplication, mind/madness manip, flaying, invulnerability, void shields, and status effect inducement.

 

[Monarch_Laciel]

Remind me what flaying does because I'm just hearing whipping the skin off and that doesn't sound very easy to do

 

[DMUA]

It's this: https://youtu.be/oJGp6yjcxX0?t=14m50s

 

[Wokistan]

He raises his hand and strips the flesh from the bodies of the opponent.

 

[Monarch_Laciel]

Yowsers

Though those adventurers seemed to come back from it pretty quick.

 

[Wokistan]

I have no idea how to explain that recovery beyond game mechanics or the Heart of Darkness not really caring enough to just obliterate everyone (which is actually consistent with its other actions) tbh

 

[DMUA]

>Speed Unequal

Holey doley this got immensely more unfair

The Ancestor can dodge light from pretty close range, honestly you could make the argument it's probably FTL.

But, under the assumption it's just baseline Rel+ (it isn't), Raven is at about a 5x speed disadvantage. Even if she did open with Hax, she'd be hard pressed to actually get it off in time before she just gets outright flayed.

 

[Wokistan]

White raven I'm pretty sure uses her stuff quite a lot.

 

[DMUA]

I have no idea how to explain that recovery beyond game mechanics or the Heart of Darkness not really caring enough to just obliterate everyone (which is actually consistent with its other actions) tbh

Yeah I myself was wondering once "is it resistance that they survive or game mechanics or...." And I just decided on the latter considering it would be pretty lame to have an instant kill move before you even got to the big bad, but equally lame to cut out some of that sweet sweet lovecraftian forkery

 

[Wokistan]

He probably just puts them back together due to being an offshoot of the Heart of Darkness here. What that means for vs battles, I don't really know. Maybe Raven gets a freebie here from her being ostensibly human.

 

[DMUA]

White raven I'm pretty sure uses her stuff quite a lot.

It's not like her character changes from base, she's still Raven who mostly uses TK, unless I dunno your angry demon father does a 5-A surface wipe and you have to warp it back cause you need the series to have somewhere to go.

 

[DMUA]

He probably just puts them back together due to being an offshoot of the Heart of Darkness here. What that means for vs battles, I don't really know. Maybe Raven gets a freebie here from her being ostensibly human.

I mean, they still take damage, so I don't think it's just the heart messing with them and just reconstructing them afterwards.

Especially considering that beyond literally a single similar name to Nyar that there is no implication that the heart is messing around, especially considering that it's not even hatched from it's shell of earth and rock and is basically a baby at a fraction of it's power. And, why he'd spontaneously stop messing around after he absorbs the power of the death of 16 heroes and just ends the game outright is also something that makes that angle a bit questionable.

 

[Dargoo_Faust]

What's stopping Raven from Reality-Warping?

 

[DMUA]

Ancestor actually haxing in Character

 

[Wokistan]

Nothing, except possibly void shields. Ancestor just also has ways to kill her.

 

[Dargoo_Faust]

How does Ancestor activate his hax?

 

[Wokistan]

Madness is either thought, or by shifting into a less human form. Flaying is by raising a hand, duplication and summoning void shields just kinda happen.

 

[Wokistan]

Some degree of madness manip is attached to basically all his attacks, but not to the same extent when he's deliberately trying to drive people insane.

 

[DMUA]

I think that's more just game mechanics/everyone being mentally unstable motherheckers that he madness manipulates with every strike, but, eh.

 

[Wokistan]

To be fair, the physical attacks do involve the morphing, and having your flesh torn off isn't gonna be pleasant. It can be attributed to the normal stress mechanic though.

So, anyone gonna vote, or is there anything else anyone wants to know?

 

[DMUA]

Eh, could be both. Either way.

Ancestor borderline stomps for the reasons I've already mentioned. Practically blitzes and can instakill her no trouble.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

For now I'll vote Ancestor FRA.

 

[Antoniofer]

I haven't it stated yet but I vote for the old man, at least for now.

 

[Wokistan]

Votes should be up to date

 

[RavenSupreme]

Well going by what was said I am unsure whether the reasons for the Ancestor winning are actually so hard winning conditions.

For example, going through them:

Death manipulation -> seems to be linked to Necromancy and not an instant drop dead scenario. Hence I dont see it being an important part in this match (other users mentioned this as well)

Flaling .-> an important argument for him but so far it was not stated if Flailing works on either

a) an intangible opponent or

b) through barriers

both are things which are important in such a battle

-> The speed advantage -> What exactly is the Ancestors canon accepted speed? If its FTL, equalizing it would be appropriate seeing how otherwise he would be able to outmaneuver her without her even remotely knowing what is happening

-> Heart of Darkness -> this yet needs an explanation because I dont really get it.

-

I like to further add:

Raven is her 5A key, meaning we are talking White Raven. White Raven has full acces to all of her powers, as she is one with herself and separated from Trigons influence. As such she has access to, most prominently - Time Stop.

How does the Ancestor deal with Time Stop?

Now we are entering hypothethical territory however it still happened on screen so I will still say it:

Raven reached through time, grabbed another Titan and pulled him back to the future.

What would stop her from doing the opposite with the Ancestor? Grabbing him - which she likely can do without problems, seeing how she has intangibility and therefore has not to fear flailing - and dumping him 3000 years in the past?

I would also like to know if the Ancestor has a defense against Sealing / Dimensional BFR. White Raven has the feat of sealing a great demon Sorcerer into a book.

-

One could say that "In Character" should be looked at and the mentioned things have been not really in character moves for her. Thats correct and stems from the typical "monster of the week" scenery of the show, however it doesnt mean that she is not able to do it.

If you truly however insist on an IC approach then my question is the following:

Immediately upon becoming White Raven she showed IC that her barriers withstand 5A force without her doing anything - I take this as an argument against flailing working . she then immediately BFRd another 5A in another dimension (Trigon).

Which is a very fair argument for her doing to the Ancestor as well, if you dont want to acceppt her more exotic feats.

 

[DMUA]

I mean, it's a hax, it just says "no u" to barriers and targets the being itself. I don't think Flaying is even really effected by Armor ratings.

Intangibility isn't something that Ancestor has dealt with however

Ancestor isn't FTL, he's currently rated at Rel+, but he scales to people who can dodge light from a close enough range that I could probably argue it's FTL.

Still much faster then Raven.

 

[RavenSupreme]

Thanksfor the reply. Has flailing affected people through barriers?

 

[DMUA]

Hmm... Not really, actually. No one in Darkest Dungeon uses force fields, you could argue the Balwark of Faith is a form of forcefield, but that's speculation more then anything.

Still though, based on the nature of the ability, I don't think it would be effected by a shield. The attacknames, Refashion them and Unmake them all, imply that it's more just The Heart expressing it's abilites as "The Alpha and Omega, our creator... And our destroyer" through the Ancestor, rather then the Ancestor just using TK to rip the party apart down to the bone.

 

[Wokistan]

Intangibility should stop the flaying.

Ancestor is Rel+ to Raven's Rel, not FTL. He is faster though.

Time stop worked, but I am pretty sure Raven did that on accident when she did it. From what I remember of that episode it was more a defense mechanism upon being nesrly caught by revived Slade.

Sealing should work, but I'm not sure how applicable the malchior thing is considering that it was also originally from that book. She took him out, then put him back.

As for time travel, due to being immortal he can just wait.

I'm usually not too strict with in character, but she definitely doesn't use that stuff right off the bat. It's fine for later use, but if she doesn't consistently open with it that is what I feel we should take into consideration.

Pretty sure she attacked Trigon with actual attacks first, before her weird banishment thing. Shields of absolute nothingness as well as duplications help defensively.


The biggest issue to Raven is definitely the madness manip, which he spams a lot. How does she deal with that?

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Doesn't he have Type 4, too? Meaning just seeing his type of creature would make her mad?

 

[Wokistan]

His type 4 doesn't happen when he's pretending he's still anything near human. It happens when he deliberately shifts into a more eldritch form to try to drive party members insane, as well as his tentacle attacks having some degree attatched to them.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Ahhh. Second stage. Got it.

 

[Wokistan]

Not that, some of his attacks have him stop pretending to be human which does a lot of mental damage to party members.

 

[Wokistan]

So it's not passive due to him starting with the facade up.

 

[RavenSupreme]

Thanks for all the input.

So whether or not flailing actively goes through barriers is up to debate from what I got. It has no corresponding feats but its a "could be" scenario.

Similar, Ravens shenanigans outside of barriers and intangibility are not absolutely sure.

One thing I like to add however is that while the argument for her TS being a specific case scenario is from her in blue, whereas in White she should have technically full access to it, due to the emotional instability which caused her to do it in blue are exchanged with full control over her powers.

However even assuming we dont believe that, using Madness manipulation should be contraproductive in my eyes, seeing that it pushes her in dire stress mentaly, which was the exact circumstances she was when she used it on the show. If anything, madness spam would therefore work against the Ancestor in my eyes.

Raven is at least Mach 180.000 - so if an argument could technically be made for the Ancestor being FTL the speed advantage is massively in his favour, seeing that the MFTL feats from Teen Titans are not yet evaluated (Starfire shenanigans).

If there is an exchange and flailing can not go through her 5A barriers she has a good shot at simply dimensionally BFRing him like she did with Trigon, albeit it is not her first move

If he Madness haxes her, chances are he will trigger timestop like when Slade triggered her emotionally. - once the time is stopped I would chalk that up as a win either, since she has all the means to dispose of him otherwise.

If flailing however actually does bypass barriers then accompanied with the speed advantage he has she would be toast, seeing how her physical durability is something like town level.

However I dont think its very fair to absoluetly look at every instance of Raven and under what circumstances she has used which ability while at the same time discarding the fact that for the Ancestor there is no feat of him bypassing barriers and arguing as if it would be a guarantee.

Hence I use the diplomatic route and claim inconclusive.

 

[DMUA]

Again, doesn't matter physical dura for Raven, it's hax.

Also, Raven probably wouldn't mind madness manipulation much, considering her mind is already a cesspool of Eldrich forkery that legitimately sent Doctor light into mental trama from spending mere seconds in. White Raven should have no problem looking at Ancestor going for it.

That said, if it comes down to a psychic fighting a madman Avatar, Raven should have no trouble beating him down. She's 2.9 Ninatons to Ancestor being a mere fraction of 2.8 Ninatons, leading to a good AP advantage.

However of course, Ancestor also can potentially outright flay her at the beginning of the fight, and can run circles around her with speed.

So, yeah, I'll go with Inconclusive as well.