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Piercing damage vs blunt damage (and why they're not comparable in AP)

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I'm making this thread partly because I don't understand, but also because it doesn't make sense.

Characters who harm another character with piercing weaponry (swords, spears, firearms, etc) cannot scale their attack potency 1-1 with the durability of the character that they harmed. It just isn't logical in so many ways.

For starters, whether we include it in our system or not there is such a thing as durability at different scales. This is a fact. Just because Saitama is High 6-A doesn't mean he's High 6-A at the atomic level, or the molecular level, etc. If I hit him with a 6-A attack at the atomic level, you bet it's going right through him, despite it being much weaker than his stated durability. Why? Because durability cannot be conventionally focused to protect smaller attacks.

Now obviously the scale of atomic level attacks is an extreme, but even on a slightly smaller scale do we see weaker attacks hurting stronger foes. The energy from a smaller attack such as a 9-C handgun bullet is still enough to punch through and harm a 9-B elephant. It's being dispersed against a smaller surface area. This is conventional physics, we use it as a base when comparing and debating other characters.

Yeah I know we use attack potency as a measure to see what tier of characters can this person damage, but we should also take into account the amount of damage they can inflict. Swords and guns are usually doing minute levels of surface damage in the hopes of grazing an organ and causing shutdown. If I poke a bear in the eye am I suddenly 9-B AP?

What's an example of characters who have a tier far higher than they deserve because of piercing weaponry?

Levi Ackerma. He's rated as High 8-C with his blades which are able to cut through building sized titans. This doesn't make sense to me, most of the time he kills a titan he's only cutting past the surface of the skin in order to hit their self destruct button. There are times where he can cut a small finger or two off, but even then that's in no way comparable to the energy delivered by Eren Yeager (the 15m muscle giant), and yet they share the same attack potency. Are you really telling me he's delivering an equivalent amount of energy as a giant titan? If he were, he'd shatter his arms and destroy his own body, it's acknowledged he's only 9-B in durability.

(Then why is he able to harm them? Because his energy is being delivered on a significantly smaller scale, and thus it's able to punch through and harm them. He's using focused pressure.)
 
I know there are a lot of offenders in the Marvel universe but because of how inconsistent they are in general it's best if I just don't use them as an example.

If you know any other character that is only equivalent to other characters via piercing weaponry, let me know.
 
And I know what I'm talking about is essentially the concept of pressure (and it doesn't work with out system blah blah blah) but to ignore the fact that piercing weaponry can hit above its weight brings up inconsistencies and falsehoods.

Also, I think calling it piercing and blunt damage is easier to follow than calling it pressure, but it's essentially the same. Focused low amounts of pressure can damage foes who can withstand high amounts of pressure
 
ProfessorLord said:
Levi Ackerma. He's rated as High 8-C with his blades which are able to cut through building sized titans. This doesn't make sense to me, most of the time he kills a titan he's only cutting past the surface of the skin in order to hit their self destruct button
Jotaro yes yes
 
ProfessorLord is obviously technically correct, but I am not sure how we are supposed to take this into account in our profiles, as the system would likely turn too complicated.

That said, even if somebody uses a sword or similar, it shouldn't be able to affect hundreds of (or more) times more powerful and durable characters, as fiction recurrently pretends.
 
Levi isn't High 8-C for cutting through building sized titans, he's High 8-C for cutting characters with High 8-C durability feats
 
Plus Levi is only High 8-C with his swords, otherwise hes only 9-B physically, so using him as an example here doesn't really make much sense
 
Eren = High 8-C

Eren harms Annie = Annie has High 8-C durability.

Levi cuts through Annie = Levi can cut through people with High 8-C durability.

Levi gets High 8-C AP.
 
Antvasima said:
That said, even if somebody uses a sword or similar, it shouldn't be able to affect hundreds of (or more) times more powerful and durable characters, as fiction recurrently pretends.
Right, in those cases where a character with a piercing weapon is hitting 1000x above their tier or whatever and it's reasonable and consistent, they can have their profiles read: "4-B with sword", like we do for Wolverine.

But generally those with piercing weapons should still be able to hurt well above their listed AP.
 
You should probably ask DontTalkDT, Kaltias, Assaltwaffle, and the calc group members to comment here.
 
PaChi2 said:
Levi cuts through Annie = Levi can cut through people with High 8-C durability.
See that's the problem, cutting a little past the surface of the skin isn't comparable to their durability.

Eren harming Annie is valid because he's testing his entire being against hers, durability is created through the cooperation of weight, muscle and bone strength. When you do a small little slice against her ankle that ends up disabling it, are you really testing her durability or are you testing the strength of her skin? They are not the same.
 
"Cutting a little past the surface"

What do you expect him to do with his 1 meter long swords, cut a building sized titan in half in one clean strike?
 
Although, is just not possible that a conventional weapon bust the strength of someone that much, someone with wall level force wouldn't hit harder while using a light weapon such a sword, what happen is that the force concentrate in a much smaller area and thus increasing pressure. Just a note about that.
 
PaChi2 said:
"Cutting a little past the surface"
What do you expect him to do with his 1 meter long swords, cut a building sized titan in half in one clean strike?
No I don't expect him to, but as a consequence he's not testing his strength against her entire being (which is what her durability is based on), instead he's testing the strength of her skin and tissue.
 
WeeklyBattles said:
@Professor Hence why he's not high 8-C with his general ap, only with his swords
You missed the point, his swords AP cannot be correlated to Annie's durability because the concept of durability is on a larger scale, it involves weight, muscle and bone strength.

The strength of her skin is highly unrelated and so cutting through it isn't testing how durable she is, it's testing how strong her skin is. That's not the same thing.
 
That's exactly cutting her skin. I'll repeat myself since you haven't caught on:

You missed the point, his swords AP cannot be correlated to Annie's durability because the concept of durability is on a larger scale, it involves weight, muscle and bone strength.

The strength of her skin is highly unrelated and so cutting through it isn't testing how durable she is, it's testing how strong her skin is. That's not the same thing.
 
In a similar context, if I was super fast and could run around a polar bear without getting caught, if I ran around and poked his eyes out and started biting and tearing his ear off... would anyone really call me 9-B AP?

Of course not.
 
ProfessorLord said:
That's exactly cutting her skin. I'll repeat myself since you haven't caught on:
You missed the point, his swords AP cannot be correlated to Annie's durability because the concept of durability is on a larger scale, it involves weight, muscle and bone strength.

The strength of her skin is highly unrelated and so cutting through it isn't testing how durable she is, it's testing how strong her skin is. That's not the same thing.
Titan's regen no-sell minor injuries. If it was only her skin she wouldnt have been too damaged to continue fighting.

Also mikasa can cut her fingers, which include bony tissue.
 
PaChi2 said:
Cutting bone is a little more impressive but fingers are very weak parts of the body.

I'm not saying they can't be 9-A or 8-C even, but for them to scale 1-1 we'd need to see Levi slash Annie so hard that she goes flying. That lets us know that the force of his attack had attempted to been absorbed by the entirety of Annie but failed.

Testing the strength of her skin and bone is still not the entirety of her durability.
 
PaChi2 said:
Titan's regen no-sell minor injuries. If it was only her skin she wouldnt have been too damaged to continue fighting.

Also mikasa can cut her fingers, which include bony tissue.
I've told you durability is based on a collection of factors.

Telling me that a character can cut the skin and sometimes reach the bone of a titan is not all of the factors.

I can't help you if you can't understand that.
 
Note that both instances are done at so fast speeds that Zeke cant keep up with Levin. It proves that Levi does it in one single strike.
 
Maybe we should focus on the topic in a more generalised sense, rather than specific characters?
 
It's like I'm talking to a brick wall. If you're not going to bother making an effort than feel free to stop posting, I no longer care about your examples since you have not cared to address my point and concern:

Levi is not pitting his attack potency against their durability. Levi is pitting his attack potency against the strength of the titans skin and bone. They are not the same thing. Stop posting the same thing.

Furthermore there is generally no such thing in physics as Levi being 9-B meanwhile his swords are High 8-C. He's the one generating the force of the strike, not the sword. He has 9-B durability. If he really did have High 8-C via swords then whenever he generated the force behind the sword strike he'd obliterate his arms. The only exception is in-verse magical materials and the such, those are beyond conventional physics.

EDIT: Sorry if it sounded a bit harsh, not my intent.
 
@Ant The reason we're doing so is because hes using Levi as an example when Levi has legitimate reasoning for being rated the way he is
 
WeeklyBattles said:
@Professor It takes far less force to cut through flesh than it does to use blunt force against it
Thank you.

That is exactly why you cannot correlate his attack potency to the durability of the titan.

Also quick sidenote, the only weapons that can really have their own AP are ones that generate force such as firearms. Any melee weapon is just an estimate based on average to peak human use.
 
No, it's exactly the reason why he's a completely different tier with a bladed weapon that doesn't require blunt force to use to damage actually higher tier energy
 
WeeklyBattles said:
No, it's exactly the reason why he's a completely different tier with access bladed weapon that doesn't require blunt force to use to damage actually higher tier energy
But correlating his attack potency to the durability of the titan is still wrong. Durability is more than just skin and bone strength. Cutting a limb is not enough to scale 1-1 in attack potency and durability.
 
Oh, boy. This just turned to an attack on titan discussion. Professor is there another character you could use for this example? Just for the sake of this thread.

You could always try to make an attack on titan revision as a separate thing. Unless it is absolutely necessary to use Levi for some reason..
 
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