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This isn't to argue anything really, just share some findings and thoughts and hear your own on the matter. I apologize for the long ass thread BTW =P
Well, the other day I was talking with a friend about the Vergil vs Sephiroth matchup, when we discussed whether Vergil could outspeed Sephiroth to get a clean hit with the Yamato and use its Durability Negation for a fatal strike we came across a roadblock; he argued Vergil was fast enough to do so (due to scaling to Dante who dodged Nevan's lightning), I said Sephy was much faster via scaling to Bahamut Fury who is FTL, we discussed abilities and haxes about it later on. At first he argued that Bahamut's speed didn't count since it was just travel speed and not combat applicable, I asked what he meant exactly with combat speed, he replied at first with a vague "the speed at which you can fight" before going into more precise speed at which you can attack and react in a fight. I insisted that travel speed is valid for combat if the user displays enough control of it to apply it freely, such as dodging obstacles or changing directions quickly, for example, and just because a display of speed was used for travel it doesn't mean that it automatically doesn't count for combat.
After a while we both had our doubts and confusions about our definitios so we looked it up. We found out that the whole travel speed vs combat speed is actually a debated topic in several communities with people on both sides of making the distinction and not doing it.
In the end what we gathered is that you can have different types of speed: perception, travel, reaction, attack, among possibly others depending on how much detail the source material gives. Each of them by themselves is not enough to state the speed at which a character can fight for different reasons.
I know it's be redundant, but just for the sake of clarity of what we got.
-Travel: Speed at which you can move from one place to another.
May not be enough because it's used strictly for travel and the user has strict limitations with it, like going only in straight lines, having difficulties maneuvering, having trouble perceiving surroundings, taking time to reach top speed and slowing down, etc.
-Perception: Speeds the character can detect and perceive.
May not be enough because the perception doesn't necesarily mean you can react to said speed. Said perception may come from super senses not related to speed or other physical capabilities, or perhaps clairvoyance of some kind, for example. It's a bit more complex but this is the general idea.
-Reaction: Speeds to which the character can react to and at which he can react.
Reaction is a bit more tricky, but when the reflexes are shown to be limited to automatic reactions of some sort or the character can't consciously control nor attack with them, then it may mean they fall short to be applied for combat. Kinda... to say like a very incomplete version of the Ultra Instinct?
-Attack: Speed at which the character can attack.
Usually not the case, but sometimes the speed may be a property of the attack itself rather than belonging to the character himself, more likely in the case of special moves and techniques. For example, like how Sephiroth isn't MFTL because the explosion of the Supernova reaches Jupiter in an instant in the jap version or how the meteor in the international version travels through the Solar System in a minute (which is still a freaking lot when you're playing the game).
Now the argument here is how these by themselves may not be enough, but mixed between them is a good indicator that the character can indeed fight at said speed. Something that displays the character has good control of his/her own speed.
For example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQWRAEVPVcc
The reason why I do believe Bahamut Fury can apply its speed in combat is because it shows that it can control its movements mid-flight: it reaches the Planet travelling through an asteroid belt (I know the distance between asteroids is like 1 million Km, but Bahamut travels at least at 10 times the speed of light so running into obstacles is likely) so it can perceive and dodge obstacles as it goes; when you fight it and decides to use Exaflare it plunges itself into outer space and reaches top speed in an instant; when flies in the atmosphere it can change directions and stop instantly after reaching a desired distance from the moon, its target, showing it can put his speed all at once as it likes, can maneuver easily, it can perceive and gauge distances well enough and can stop itself without issue. All of that should mean travel, perception and reaction speed.
Now, for the opposite; in ComicVine I found a thread that talked about distinctions made between speeds and how some writers actually made a difference between Superman's speed and Flash's speed. Now, I speak as a complete ignorant about comic books so I, saying without elegance whatsoever, may be talking out of my butt and correct me if I am wrong, but what was being discussed is how Superman was close in raw speed, but Flash could apply his speed to everything, from travelling, to every little movement, to perception, to his thoughts (the attosecond perception), while Superman kind of lags behind his own speed at moments. If I can find the thread again I'll post the link. I dunno how valid this is, nor if I got it right, I could have misunderstood things due to my lack of knowledge about comics, but the point I got does kinda go with what I mentioned earlier: travel doesn't automatically made a speed non combat applicable, but there are cases of it if there are given enough details and limitations like in this case. Now, this also may depend on the writer of the story as well, given Supes AFAIK tends to have different limitations even in the same incarnation depending on who's writing.
This post gives some points on the issue: https://www.outskirtsbattledomewiki.com/index.php/13-general-obd-terms/79-combat-speed-fallacy
I don't really agree with the tone, but look past that and look at his elaboration on the matter. I wouldn't say that travel speed alone equals overall speed nor that combat speed doesn't exist per se, but that travel speed being automatically irrelevant is indeed a gross oversimplification. That's my view though.
https://www.reddit.com/r/respectthreads/comments/2m4ov3/meta_the_nature_of_speed/
This second post gives a more detailed classification on speed types and talks about the issues with the "combat speed" criteria as its own. I found this one linked on the ComicVine thread I mentioned before.
Now I am linking other sites and such, but is in by no means to spite them or anything of the sort, don't get me wrong, but they provided interesting points regarding the issue we initially had here.
Thanks for your patience if you actually sat down and read through all that. Really wanted to give my two cents on the issue.
Well, the other day I was talking with a friend about the Vergil vs Sephiroth matchup, when we discussed whether Vergil could outspeed Sephiroth to get a clean hit with the Yamato and use its Durability Negation for a fatal strike we came across a roadblock; he argued Vergil was fast enough to do so (due to scaling to Dante who dodged Nevan's lightning), I said Sephy was much faster via scaling to Bahamut Fury who is FTL, we discussed abilities and haxes about it later on. At first he argued that Bahamut's speed didn't count since it was just travel speed and not combat applicable, I asked what he meant exactly with combat speed, he replied at first with a vague "the speed at which you can fight" before going into more precise speed at which you can attack and react in a fight. I insisted that travel speed is valid for combat if the user displays enough control of it to apply it freely, such as dodging obstacles or changing directions quickly, for example, and just because a display of speed was used for travel it doesn't mean that it automatically doesn't count for combat.
After a while we both had our doubts and confusions about our definitios so we looked it up. We found out that the whole travel speed vs combat speed is actually a debated topic in several communities with people on both sides of making the distinction and not doing it.
In the end what we gathered is that you can have different types of speed: perception, travel, reaction, attack, among possibly others depending on how much detail the source material gives. Each of them by themselves is not enough to state the speed at which a character can fight for different reasons.
I know it's be redundant, but just for the sake of clarity of what we got.
-Travel: Speed at which you can move from one place to another.
May not be enough because it's used strictly for travel and the user has strict limitations with it, like going only in straight lines, having difficulties maneuvering, having trouble perceiving surroundings, taking time to reach top speed and slowing down, etc.
-Perception: Speeds the character can detect and perceive.
May not be enough because the perception doesn't necesarily mean you can react to said speed. Said perception may come from super senses not related to speed or other physical capabilities, or perhaps clairvoyance of some kind, for example. It's a bit more complex but this is the general idea.
-Reaction: Speeds to which the character can react to and at which he can react.
Reaction is a bit more tricky, but when the reflexes are shown to be limited to automatic reactions of some sort or the character can't consciously control nor attack with them, then it may mean they fall short to be applied for combat. Kinda... to say like a very incomplete version of the Ultra Instinct?
-Attack: Speed at which the character can attack.
Usually not the case, but sometimes the speed may be a property of the attack itself rather than belonging to the character himself, more likely in the case of special moves and techniques. For example, like how Sephiroth isn't MFTL because the explosion of the Supernova reaches Jupiter in an instant in the jap version or how the meteor in the international version travels through the Solar System in a minute (which is still a freaking lot when you're playing the game).
Now the argument here is how these by themselves may not be enough, but mixed between them is a good indicator that the character can indeed fight at said speed. Something that displays the character has good control of his/her own speed.
For example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQWRAEVPVcc
The reason why I do believe Bahamut Fury can apply its speed in combat is because it shows that it can control its movements mid-flight: it reaches the Planet travelling through an asteroid belt (I know the distance between asteroids is like 1 million Km, but Bahamut travels at least at 10 times the speed of light so running into obstacles is likely) so it can perceive and dodge obstacles as it goes; when you fight it and decides to use Exaflare it plunges itself into outer space and reaches top speed in an instant; when flies in the atmosphere it can change directions and stop instantly after reaching a desired distance from the moon, its target, showing it can put his speed all at once as it likes, can maneuver easily, it can perceive and gauge distances well enough and can stop itself without issue. All of that should mean travel, perception and reaction speed.
Now, for the opposite; in ComicVine I found a thread that talked about distinctions made between speeds and how some writers actually made a difference between Superman's speed and Flash's speed. Now, I speak as a complete ignorant about comic books so I, saying without elegance whatsoever, may be talking out of my butt and correct me if I am wrong, but what was being discussed is how Superman was close in raw speed, but Flash could apply his speed to everything, from travelling, to every little movement, to perception, to his thoughts (the attosecond perception), while Superman kind of lags behind his own speed at moments. If I can find the thread again I'll post the link. I dunno how valid this is, nor if I got it right, I could have misunderstood things due to my lack of knowledge about comics, but the point I got does kinda go with what I mentioned earlier: travel doesn't automatically made a speed non combat applicable, but there are cases of it if there are given enough details and limitations like in this case. Now, this also may depend on the writer of the story as well, given Supes AFAIK tends to have different limitations even in the same incarnation depending on who's writing.
This post gives some points on the issue: https://www.outskirtsbattledomewiki.com/index.php/13-general-obd-terms/79-combat-speed-fallacy
I don't really agree with the tone, but look past that and look at his elaboration on the matter. I wouldn't say that travel speed alone equals overall speed nor that combat speed doesn't exist per se, but that travel speed being automatically irrelevant is indeed a gross oversimplification. That's my view though.
https://www.reddit.com/r/respectthreads/comments/2m4ov3/meta_the_nature_of_speed/
This second post gives a more detailed classification on speed types and talks about the issues with the "combat speed" criteria as its own. I found this one linked on the ComicVine thread I mentioned before.
Now I am linking other sites and such, but is in by no means to spite them or anything of the sort, don't get me wrong, but they provided interesting points regarding the issue we initially had here.
Thanks for your patience if you actually sat down and read through all that. Really wanted to give my two cents on the issue.
