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A Salty Sailor Smackdown - Popeye VS Piers

XitSign

He/Him
3,124
1,770
Continuing my crusade of giving Golden Sun more fights, and trying to keep a theme, lets pit two starbusting sailors against each other, both with wildly differant and stupidly over the top powers.

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"-and we slayed Poseidon himself! I've even had the pleasure of the Pirate King fighting at my side on the high seas. I think I've earned being called the world's greatest sailor!" Piers was bragging about he and the other Warriors of Vale's adventures in a small bar on a nameless port he had docked in. Even in his long life, he never thought he'd rack up the achievments he has, so what harm was in bragging to some other sailors for bit?

"Whadda ja' say?" A mildly annoyed voice spoke up from the other side of the bar, an older looking sailor with the largest anchor arms Piers had ever seen stood up with his drink. No, it wasn't a drink, it was...a can of spinach?

"That I, Piers, may just be the world's greatest sailor," The adept answered smugly, rising to his feet. He could tell where this was going, reaching for his battle mace to hoist it over his shoulder, attempting to scare this old, or in Pier's case young, man out of it, "And, what's it to you?"

"Hmmp...I yam what I yam and tha's all what I yam." He grunted, crushing the can to shoot the greens into the air, catching them in the side of his mouth to chew on, "I'm Popeye, the world's greatest sailor man!"

BAR FIGHT!

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Popeye VS Piers, Speed Equalized, Popeye has already eaten some Spinach, and Piers has a basic Battle Mace. Fight takes place in a shabby, no-named bar in a nameless port town.

---

Toot-Toot: 1

Not-That-Picard: 0

The Flying Dutchman: 0

PopEye
*Various incomprehensible Popeye noises*

Imageedit 1 5174064189
I-I...I can't understand a word you're saying
 
Thank you, I'm still proud of this one after all this time, I wanna see if we can get a clear winner between star-busting sailors.
 
Let's get into this

Popeye:

+Lifting Strength

+Maybe Intelligence?


Not sure about Range, AP, Durability, and stamina

So, what haxs do they use in character?
 
Intelligence is a bit tricky, Piers has been around for over a century now, and had a pretty epic adventure with the Warriors of Vale, so he's at least got experience and knowlage under his belt, but Popeye seems hyper prepared with spinich so it stays a bit questionable.

Popeye's never been calced to my knowlage, and I'm not sure what to make of moving the sun and busting multiple smaller stars back to back. Piers' for sure is at least 1 Foe since he scales above Iris by an unknown degree. So Popeye's AP and Durability are unclear for now, but we have a ballpark for Piers.

Piers probably has range. I know Popeye's range is unknown, but that's most likely because his abilities change so often to fit the situation. He's most reliable and go-to method seems to be brawling though. He has the ability to make use of range, but that doesn't seem to be his prefered way to handle fights at least.

Popeye's Hax are kinda hard to make a good call on. He changes things up to fit the situation so often it's hard to tell what is and isn't in-character for him. Sometimes he only ever uses an ability once and never again. Someone who has looked into Popeye more regularly would have to make a call for what he uses more often than other abilities.

Piers is a playable character, so 'in-character' is tough to make a good call for too, but he does have a playstyle that his stats and classes play to, so we can guess he'd favor those abilities first. Water, Ice, and Healing are his main go-to abilities without messing around with his Djinn. He might also start with using the Djinn and Summons too, since there's no risk/penalty really for using them. Those cover pretty much all his elemental manipulations and a few Hax like Soul manip, Death manip, Power Nullification, Statuses, Stat manipulation, and his ability to make forcefields.

So Pier's is higher than 1 Foe, leans more towards Water and Ice but could really use anything, and MIGHT outrange. Popeye's stats are really up in the air and his own abilities seem pretty willy nilly. That's everything to the best of my knowlage.
 
I think Popeye would take this. He essentially has endless stamina due to his ability to summon spinach which heals all wounds and restores all stamina. He also has immortality. While Piers could summon Djinn, Popeye has stomped a genie at least once and is highly resistant to magic. His dimensional travel means that Piers' BFR wouldn't stop him. Popeye's BFR however would stop Piers. Durability Negation will destroy Popeye, but he can return by eating spinach. Durability Negation does not stop Low-Godly Regenerationn. Piers could use his death manipulation and soul manipulation as well as his sleep manipulation to defeat Popeye, but Popeye's not the kind of person to leave an opponent with any chance to fight back. Whenever he eats spinach, he proceeds to pummel his foe without mercy, not holding anything back or giving them any real pause in between the beating. Piers does have several one hit kill abilities that could deal with Popeye, but again, Popeye isn't the one to give others a chance to fight back. If Piers were to start out using his hax, he could take this rather easily, but since the characters don't know anything about each other, he's likely to start out with his normal attacks, which won't work due to Popeye's invulnerability. Once Popeye starts making use of his Toon Force, Pliers' won't be able to hold his own in direct combat, and his only real hope will be to use his teleportation/invisibility to get to a safe distance so he can make use of his sleep, death, or immobilization hax. If he could do that, he could win. Pulling even his teleportation or invisibility off might be very difficult though when he's being pummeled nonstop.
 
I have a few small issues with your explanation.

First one, Djinn aren't genies as we know them today in pop-culture, they're a lot closer to elementals honestly, the comparison isn't one-for-one for Popeye fighting a being like a genie as we now know them, especially since the Djinn sort of swarm and fight through special attacks at Pier's aid or by giving him buffs/debuffing his opponents. Plus accessing other summons. Also, just because Popeye 'stomped a Genie' doesn't automatically mean he's going to be able to fight a Djinn no problem...more on my problem with that logic in a moment.

Secondly, the power system isn't magic. Golden Sun's power system is Psynergy, a literal combination of the words 'Psychic' and 'Energy'. All the powers and abilities that Adepts, Djinn, and Summons use come from mental manipulations. Yes they're still conjuring elemental attacks a lot of the time, but it's not 'magic', and being resistant specifically against magical foes might not fly here with verse equalization in this case.

And finally...Popeye, with spinach, stomps almost every fight he's in because his opponents just can't fight back anymore. Him beating down people endlessly and not giving them a chance is usually part of a gag, the characters are more-or-less helpless because spinach 'stomps' in-universe for pretty much every situation. But Piers is genuinely on the same level as Popeye. Where Bluto can only tank the hits, Piers is actually experienced in fighting on a level where he DOES takes a supernova's worth of hits and has to fight back still. Pier's isn't going to be so stunned by being hit with something so powerful that he's helpless, Popeye's level of power isn't something new for him, he can swing back for every time he gets punched pretty much.

HOWEVER. I believe you're entirely right that Popeye takes this looking this over again just from your explanation, still. Piers has next to no answer for Low-Godly regen, non of his haxs short of attempting to incap Popeye will work here, and that forces Piers to use Psynergy and Djinn he doesn't normally use and use them in creative ways to win. Even what you mentioned with Death Manip probably shouldn't work (Soul MIGHT work, but that's iffy). Piers does have to get very specific and creative with his powers to beat that, so while I don't agree with most of your points, I think that point is more than strong enough to...possibly make this fight a stomp?
 
It's not a stomp, as Piers COULD win under certain circumstances, and Death Manip could possibly work since Types 2 and 3 immortality do not automatically = Death Manip immunity or resistance. That said, Popeye is the most likely winner in this specific encounter. If Piers had prior knowledge of Popeye's abilities, he could potentially stomp him, and if both had knowledge of each other, it could go either way. With neither having prior knowledge, however, Popeye's versatility and toon force should give him the win.
 
The godly regen is what makes Death Manip unusable, however. Popeye regens from total body destruction, there was nothing left of him, and Death Manipulation usually stops at the body.

Pier's Soul Manip MIGHT work if what Popeye regened from was his soul, however that's not entirely clear. I don't remember the scene in question well, only remember vaugely that spinich was eaten by 'nothing' before Popeye came back, so I hoenstly don't know if it was his soul, a disembodied consiousness, or some other metaphysics nonsense.

If it was his soul, Piers has a win-con, this isn't a stomp, but Pier's is unlikely to use Soul Manip unless he feels pressured so it's in Popeye's favor. However if the disembodied reason Popeye could regen WASN'T his soul, Soul manips don't work in this situation and Piers has no other win-con.

That's my point when I said 'possibly', I don't know if Piers COULD win because the nature of Godly regens are pretty OP and might even make him immune to Pier's only options.

I don't disagree that point for Popeye, I'm just on the fence if this fight goes anywhere anymore.
 
Are those actually even possible win-cons? The spinach has a time limit but he has Creation on his side for more, plus he's got a decent amount of time to flex his own impressive powers while negating...a bunch of Pier's wincons as we just discussed.

And is sleep even a win-con either? GS sleep doesn't last nearly long enough for a true incap without Piers loading on a bunch of other effects.

I suppose we could argue a long chain or immobilizations, sleeps, and stuns to keep Popeye incaped? Though I'm not sure if Toon Force and Spinich wouldn't find a way out of that, too. But that's a possible, if super unlikely option. Piers certainly isn't the type to spam status effects since he's more a warrior type character, but I suppose it is possible.
 
I know he has creation, but if Piers can get through the first round, he could possibly knock him out before he can summon and eat more if he reacts fast enough. His Time Stop would be very useful in that instance. Use invisibility and teleportation to escape until the Spinach effect wears off, freeze time, and go and attack. Of course, Piers won't know about the time limit or anything. Still, I wouldn't call this a stomp.
 
Piers doesn't have a Time Stop, or any sort of time manipulation. Plus the rest of the stratagy more-or-less requires Piers to have total knowlage of the situation and wait out an unknown timeframe where he can't really do anything at all that he has no idea about.

Unless Soul Manip works against Popeye's brand of Godly Regen, Piers has no wincon other than waiting it out and THEN trying something since Popeye regens and negates everything.

That really does sound hax stompish in my opinion. If what you say is to be believed about Popeye's Toon Force ontop of Popeye's obvious answers, Piers has to wait until he even gets a chance to try non-traditional wincons that might not even work.

I can't help but feel this is much more stompish than I had originally realized. I certainly won't make the final call, but I can't help but heavily disagree with you about how good this matchup turned out to be...which is disapointing because I really liked the theme, but overlooking that Regen has changed my opinion on how viable this matchup is.
 
Anyway, I do feel like invisibility and teleportation would allow Piers a chance to escape Popeye long enough for his spinach to wear off, giving him the chance to knock him out before he summons/eats more. That and sleep manipulation means that Piers would have a chance at victory. I will admit that he could give Popeye a much harder time if he had prior knowledge as you said. Do you want to change the match so he does have prior knowledge?
 
Piers could play the stall game easily if he knew what was going on, he also has forcefields and Mercury is the best healing element as well. But at that point I'm not sure I'm comfortable with giving that much of a prep advantage to one side of the fight.

I really do believe Pier's win-con is so unrealistic in this scenario that he's basically entered into an unwinable fight without dumb luck...but to give him that knowledge advantage also feels like I'm compensating with too much of a handicap for something 'fair'.

...I just think this was a bad matchup because I didn't read well enough. Either that Regen and Toon Force means Piers basically doesn't get a chance until an arbitrary amount of time passes and Piers can acually use statuses, or I give him prior knowledge he probably shouldn't have and that probably won't sit well with anyone.

It's just my opinion on this, but I just think this one was a bad idea and I can't fix it and still make it good. I won't close the debate because people do seem to be on board, and maybe I'm just being nitpicky. But I personally feel this was one of my screwups is all.
 
Technically, Popeye could return via dimensional travel. He does have other methods of winning, though, such as knockout if he can use his invisibility and teleportation to evade Popeye until his spinach wears off and than attack before he summons more. Piers is much more powerful than base Popeye. He could also use sleep manipulation.
 
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