Massive Gears of War versewide Revision: Chainsaw Bypass Edition

Let's see, what's the last thing I expected to do when I joined this site?

Make a massive revision for a franchise almost no one on the wiki even cares about, as shown by the standards of the pages in said franchise?

Yeah, that'll just about do it.

God help me this is gonna be a big ol' post.

Act 1: Beginnings
With the recent release of Gears 5, and my interest in the franchise since the first game, I decided to take a look at the pages for it on this wiki.

And uhh... hoo boy, they're bad.

There's a long, long list of what exactly is wrong with them, such as missing powers, small format issues, possibly underplayed abilities, and just a general sense of age and neglect. These pages feel like relics of when the wiki had different standards, and was far smaller.

So, me being me, I decided to try and amend this issue.

To start, we'll have to go over at least three issues

1. The issues with AP, Durability, and other much more simple and basic issues.

2. The issues with unlisted Powers and Abilities that need to be added.

3. The large amount of missing profiles.

As we have three areas to cover, I'll split them into three segements, each building off of the last. Section 1 will cover the issues with basic things like AP and scaling, Section 2 will cover a long list of missing abilities, and Section 3 will cover missing profiles and also some level of scaling for those profiles.

So, without further delay, let's dig in to this mess.

Act 2: Chapter 1: Scalings
For starters, Gears of War has a higher baseline AP than most people have assumed. Not by much, but, the series is very likely a 9-A series physically, given some wonderful feats provided by Gears of War 1 and 2. Not to mention, things in the locust horde can likely edge into High 8-C given the usage of rockets to destroy things like skyscrapers and Grindlift Derricks, or Corpsers being able to sink Skyscrapers into the locust tunnels.

Most notably of all this is the Hammer of Dawn, which can collapse Skyscrapers and large buildings merely by being called down onto them, as well as vaporizing and/or violently fragmenting even the largest of Locust and Lambent forces, such as Brumaks.

While most of these scalings are merely made through me eyeballing the feats, I do plan to directly calc out some of the more contentious feats such as the Hammer collapsing skyscrapers and Brumaks. But the first focus should be on Marcus Fenix's own AP and Durability physically.

During the introductory chapter of Gears of War 2, when taking Benjamin Carmine on a trainig run, Marcus Fenix throws a single grenade into a Parking lot. This one grenade destroys and flips 2 cars, collapses a portion of the roof, and destroys a large concrete pillar, seperating it into large chunks.

Using the calculations for destruction of Concrete, and assuming the base area and volume comparable to real life pillars in similar parking lots (roughly, 304 cm x 107 cm x 46 cm, 1496288 centimeters3), we can determine the rough AP required to destroy a large concrete pillar like this, assuming it is pure concrete and not reinforced by rebar

High End (Violent Fragmentation): Roughly 1496288 centimeters3. 17j x 1.49 million CC = 25,436,896 joules, 0.00607 tons of TNT, just above baseline Small Building Level

Low End (Fragmentation): Roughly 1496288 centimeters3. 6j x 1.49 million CC = 8,977,728 joules, Wall Level+

This seems to fall in line with our current calcs, until we conside this assumes that this was a solid chunk of pure concrete, not a concrete pillar reinforced with things like rebar steel. Assuming it is reinforced by even a light mesh of rebar, the AP of Marcus's grenade skyrockets to far higher levels.

Calcing for this, we can gets two different extremes.

High End (Violent Fragmentation): Roughly 1496288 centimeters3. 17j x 1.49 million CC (0.00607 tons) + 568.5j x ((304 x 8) x (2.5 x 8) x (2.5 x 8), roughly 972800 centimeters3)(0.13 tons) = 0.13607 tons of tnt, Small Building Level+

Low End (Fragmentation) 6j x 1.49 million CC (0.002 tons) + 208j x 972800 CC (0.04 tons) = 0.042 tons of TNT, Small Buildng Level

• note: the x8 is due to me calculating the average of each individual piece of rebar steel poles that are vertically placed. Despite my efforts, I could not find a reliable way to determine the strength of a rebar mesh enhanced concrete. If you know of a method or can calculate this better than I can, please do. It will help immensely to ensure accuracy.

So, even with my admittedly janky method of calculation, the results show that to fragment this pillar as Marcus did would require at the very least 0.042 tons of TNT, meaning Marcus's grenade would be in Small Building level territory.

Why is this important?

Because Marcus has tanked these same grenades and survived. Not a few seconds earlier, Marcus stood near to the exact same type of Grenade and was only injured by its explosion, and his comerades were "downed" (read: heavily injured) as they were a fair amount closer than him.

Even on Normal and to a degree Hardcore difficulty, this feat is replicatable in Gameplay, with Marcus being majorly injured/downed on Normal by these Grenades detonating right next to him. At a similar distance to his comerades on Hardcore, Marcus is also majorly injured, but not "downed".

• note: as a baseline, we should use Normal for any gameplay related feats, as this difficulty has the most reliable showings. Hardcore and higher tend to err in the direction of absurdist difficulty, with things that do not kill within the game's story cutscenes (nearby explosions, rifle shots, snatcher needles, etc) killing the player in gameplay.

As the meme must always go, Marcus's melee can damage those that can damage him with melee. Thusly, his AP scales to his Durability, physcially (man, I finally get to use that scaling method).

As for who scales to Marcus physcially? All of Delta Squad and most of the player characters directly scale. Normal fodder Gears should be lower, as the grenades do kill them, but they should still be within 9-A territory, due to being able to survive melee attacks from beings that can damage Marcus (drones, most other characters)

Thusly, Marcus Fenix and all other gears should be classed as "Small Building Level(+), At least Small Building Level(+) with Weaponry"

Now, about that Hammer.

Act 2: Chapter 2: Dropping a big Hammer on an Angry Lady
The Hammer of Dawn. The Big ****-you laser. The only thing that can kill a Berserker, who's love for you is like a truck (this truck being one barreling down a highway at 100 mph).

Unlike the last section, the AP for this weapon is ridiculously easy. A single page from a comic reveals all we need to know about this weapon's AP, and how it scales to Marcus's arsenal.


Big **** off laser explodes a ship.


A single Hammer of Dawn strike can destroy this Battleship, which appears to be comparable to at least a Cleveland-class LC, most likely comparable to a Baltimore-class HC, and at most comparable to an Iowa-class Battleship.

We also see in Gear of War 3, The Hammer has a much more powerful variant usable by Colonel Hoffman, though it is unknown to what degree.

The Hammer of Dawn needs to be added as an option to all Gears' arsenals (any gear can be equipped with and use it), and it should be classed as "At least High 8-C, Likely 8-B to 8-A, Possibly Low 7-C"

This makes every Gear tier as "9-A, At least 9-A with most Weaponry. At least High 8-C, Likely 8-B to 8-A, Possibly Low 7-C with The Hammer of Dawn"

Berserkers should have their durability rated as similar, however, their AP should remain as merely 9-A, due to them not having any shown ability to damage what can damage them (nothing aside from the Hammer can break through their armor). They should also be rated as "At least 9-A" as they can one shot all characters, regardless of difficulty.

Berserkers also should be noted as having a weakness to intense heat, as the heat from the Hammer damages their armor, enough to where the small arms fire of Delta Squad can damage them. They should also have a level of Regenerationn as they regenerate said armor after a short period, though to what degree I am unsure (probably Mid-Low or High-Low)

Act 3: Chapter 1: Missing Powers
This is the big one, though it is fairly simple compared to the AP sections

Simply put, the characters in Gears of War lack massive segements of powers they should have, such as powers asssociated with their weapons, and a few resistances, though only on Marcus Fenix.

A General Gears' Powers and Abilities section should appear as follows:

Powers and Abilities: Superhuman Physical Characteristics, Highly Skilled Combatant [Links to Martial Arts], Mastery of Multiple weapons [Links to Weapon Mastery], Explosion Manipulation with Various Weapons, Fire Manipulation with Incendiary Grenades and Scorcher Flamethrower, Light and Sound Manipulation with Flashbang Grenades, Poison Manipulation with Ink Grenades (disperses a cloud of poisonous dark green gas), Smoke Manipulation with Smoke Grenades, Electricity Manipulation with Shock Grenades and Shock Weapons, Healing and Enhancement of Durability with Stim-gas Grenades, Ice Manipulation with Cryo Cannon, Heat, Light, and Solar Energy Manipulation with the Hammer of Dawn, Resistance to Sleep Manipulation with the Adrenaline Injector (The adrenaline injector injects aerosolized adrenaline directly into the users lungs, forcing them to either stay awake or waking them from even comatose-like sleep), Resistance to Gas and Poison Manipulation with Gas Masks (cleans the air of molecular particles), Biological Manipulation with Venom Bomb (The toxic gas produced by this bomb appears to target all organic material, not just Swarm or COG)

Certain powers and resistances can be removed from certain profiles if needed, but this should be the basic list for the average COG Soldier. Locust Drones should also have either the same or similar powers, due to being capable of using the same weapons as the COG forces. They should also be noted as being physically stronger than most COG forces, though not enough to get a teir change. (I am planning to make an entirely different thread dealing with everything involving the Locust Horde)

Marcus Fenix, however, is a bit unique. He is, firstly, noted as being stronger and more skilled than the average Gear, but more importantly, he has 2 things that other gears do not. Possible Minor Precognition, and Resistance to Biological Manipulation.

Marcus's Minor Precognition comes from two scenes, one in Gears 1, and another in Gears 2. In this scene , Marcus detects an Incoming Locust Ambush despite no real clues, and while he fails to warn the rest of his squad when he does notice it, he still was at least somewhat aware of the incoming ambush.

In this scene in Gear 2, Marcus detects and even turns to react to the incoming Riftworm, despite, same as the last scene, not having any clue that it was coming nor having a reason to believe it would reappear.

This precognition is always marked by the same thing: a flash of blueish white light, and Marcus's own expression changing to identify that he feels "off" about the current situation, such as him squinting while examining the area or his hardened face relaxing and him turning around. Even if this isn't precognition, it's clearly enhanced senses on the level of precognition as none of his teammates were aware of the Riftworm's appearance until Marcus made them aware.

His resistance to biological manipulation comes from him resisting being turned into a juvie by the swarm podding him in 4. Despite being podded for hours, he was able to stay as a human whereas mere minutes in a pod can completely disintegrate and liquify most other characters. The swarm's podding works by "Breaking down and restructing the body on a cellular level" according to Damon Baird in a collectable in Gears 5, meaning that Marcus can resist his cells being broken down for hours.

As an aside, Dominic Santiago should also have Stealth Mastery, as he was a COG Commando during the Pendulum Wars.

Act 4: Chapter 1: Missing in Actio
To wrap us up, this is a list of all the mssing profiles that need completion, and a list of profiles that need clean-up and revision.

Profiles in need of Revision and clean-up:

• Marcus Fenix
• Clayton Carmine
• Drones

Profiles in need of Creation:

• Every profile on the Gears of War verse page aside from those listed above
• JD Fenix
• Kait Diaz
• Delmont Walker
• Swarm variants of Locust Units, such as Drones and Swarmaks
• Scions
• The Speaker

That should be everything needed for this verse

Thank you for your time. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm taking a much needed break.

If I am needed, either wait for me, or message me on my profile

following

I know the biggest problem is the speed ratings for various weapons; they should be scaled using muzzle velocity, the speed/velocity the individual projectiles fly, rather than rounds per minute.

I'm not invested in the verse, but I am aware of how unfinished the profiles do appear. I'm neutral about the feats or ratings though, but there should be more proper calcs in blogs that are evaluated by calc group members. I also could probably judge certain feats if there are videos with specific time stamps.

I'm planning to create a few blogs for the verse's calcs.

As for the other issue, there are videos with exact time stamps in the post

I see, go ahead and take your time. I may not be a calc group member, but I do have a decent knowledge on calculations and could give pointers.

You can ask a few of the following staff members to comment here:

SomebodyData, The real cal howard, Dragonmasterxyz, Celestial Pegasus, Dark649, Soldier Blue, Monarch Laciel, Saikou The Lewd King, AKM sama, Dargoo Faust, Wokista, Ultima Reality, MrKingOfNegativity, Mr. Bambu, Gemmysaur, Theglassman12, Qawsedf234, Crabwhale, Crimson Azoth, Sir Ovens, Warren Valio, The Calaca

The calcs are the most contentious part of this, aside from the Hammer of Dawn's tiering, which is pretty straightforward.

As for the powers and abilities, those are just things that need to be added, as well as just general revisions such as giving an actual intelligence rating to the characters. It should also be specified that equipment for the character needs to be given beforehand, as most COG and Locust forces can only carry 2 weapons, a sidearm, and 2-4 grenades of any type. Giving them all weapons all the time is ridiculous.

Most of the characters in 4 should have a Fabricator listed as optional equipment, and have preperation and item/weapon creation with the Fabricator.

Every character should also get Damage Boost/Statistics Amplification via Active Reload, which are not just game mechanics and can be seen to actually change the AP and traits of weapons, such as Boomshot grenades appearing with blue flames, bullets appearing larger and traveling faster, and the mechanics being mentioned by a few characters, though not by name (Baird calls it a perfect reload in the Gears 5 tutorial segment)

Uh, let's see here... What else do I have...

The Lancer MK2-3 should be mentioned as being capable of oneshotting anything that scales directly to Marcus in CQC, All of the character needs supersonic attack speed with most weapons and Subsonic attack speed with the Boomshot, Torque Bow, and other projectile explosives, and Speed of Light attack speed with The Hammer of Dawn as it is a laser.

Jack MK1 should be listed as either a character or as optional equipment for all members of delta squad due to being with them, and he grants the powers of Hacking, Electricity Manipulation, and Information Analysis

Jack MK2 should be the same as MK1 and adds Tempature Manipulation, Invisibility, Information Analysis, Healing, Statistics Amplification, Biological Manipulation, Mind Manipulation, and Barrier Creation via his different modules.

That's all I really needed to add.

Oh and all weapons need to be whatever tier the characters end as physically, since every single weapon is capable of fragmenting the head of the player character, even the Snub pistol.

Wait I'm sorry, I said fragment when I meant pulverizes. The head is turned into a fine red mist from a headshot from every single weapon.

I'm unsure about making every single weapon comparable to to protagonists. There was a long Overwatch discussion about making different firearms scale from their own calcs instead of just assuming every single gun as the same energy yield as that one Ice Cannon. Stronger weapons that one shot them regularly are fine or weapons designed to destroy bigger sized objects are also good if the feats are legit. But unsure about a fodder pistol being any higher than 9-C unless there's something beyond it being a lead pistol; or having a proper calculation.

Also, keep in mind that surviving big explosions requires inverse square law to be accounted for.

Shoot man you really did a good job with this. But yeah you'd need to account for the distance Marcus was from the grenade.

Most of the weapons are made with the intent of dealing damage to Locust Drones, who are physcially powerful enough to twoshot incap the protagonists with melee (as seen in Gears 5). The weaponry being far more powerful than our own makes sense as the characters are dealing creatures vastly more powerful than normal humans

It does take multiple headshots from the Snub to pulverize the skull however, so it could easily be classified as lower than the character durability.

As for his distance from the Grenade, he can survive a detonation from point blank ranges (shown in gameplay) and is majorly damaged, but alive.

Of course in Hardcore/Insane, he's blown into bloody bits, but I already went over why we can't use those difficulties in our scaling methods.

@Cal & Medeus

Thank you for helping out.

Yeah, game mechanics are another thing to be accounted for. Smashing a skull is Wall level at bare minimum; which is still far above what handguns are normally capable of. So 9-B Snub Pistol would be fine, but prefer to get a calculation for the grenade surviving feat. It's common for protagonists to be more durable in canon then they are in gameplay.

I dig that, and I can understand the issues with a 9-A peashooter lol.

As for the grenade, I need to find my copy of Gears 2 and boot it up to take videos and screenshots that can more accurately prove the calcs.

The powers and general revisions outside of that (such as the Hammer) are fine though, right?

Alrighty, got some footage and some screenshots of the explosion.

And uh... these grenades might be 8-C, just eyeballing it.

I also have footage of Marcus taking the explosion near point blank and only needing to shield himself from it.

For some reason the Xbox app won't let me download the footage to my PC, so I can only take screenshots.

Marcus is 6'1" without armor, and his armor should add at least 3 inches to his height. The pillar is at least double his height.


This was one grenade. There was a pillar below where the hole now is, and you can see another pillar from the upper floor falling into the hole.


You can see portions of the roof, a flipped car, a pushed van, rubble that 'was' a pillar, and a small fire just for good measure.

There's some screenshots.

As for how close Marcus is, the closest he can be to the grenade and survive is about two thirds of his height on Normal, not point blank like I thought.

However, that would still land him into the 9-A territory. Especially with grenades this, uh... potent, for lack of a better word.

bumpeth

Not that knowledble about this verse, but the stuff in the op and Dragon replies are fine.

Good, I'll make a blog post for accepting the calcs after I've finished editing Marcus's and the other's profiles to add their new abilities.

@Dark649

Thank you for helping out.

I am almost done revising Marcus's profile to add all the powers, as well as revising his profile to be of generally higher quality

I have not changed his actual stats as that would require and accepted blog post for my calculations, which I also plan to revise and recheck with some members of the calc group.

I will unsubscribe to this thread due to time constraints. You can send me a message later if you need my help.

I'm pretty sure I'm the closest thing to a knowledgeable member for Gears of War lol

Its a really empty title

I may join into the knowledgeable pile in the future since I've been looking into the games.

They're pretty good, although 1 and 2 have pretty "basic" stories.

As in 1 and 2 have very bad stories that are only saved by the characters. 3 and onward are much better in that regard, and 5 takes the cake for best story.

Oh and something even more hilarious.

Most main battle tanks, the closest parallels to a Centaur Main Battle Tank in the real world, have 9-A durability.

Meaning my Grenade calc isn't even needed to update the friggin teiring since Skorge cutting a tank in half like butter is at least 9-A by itself.

And every member of Delta Squad can overpower him in a chainsaw duel, which is essentially a physical AP contest.

Well, I'm still gonna calc out the grenades. Because I'm a bit too devoted to this calc.

https://vsbattles.com/vsbattles/1155851

Yep. 9-A. I suppose this goes to show just how out of date the Gears of War profiles are

Slicing a Tank in half? That depends on the size of the tank and how long it takes actually. Jack can slize Train cars in half, and it was considered At least 9-B unless there's a proper calculation for that. Also, some of the real world vehicle profiles aren't entirely accurate. Durability of most real world vehicles is just Wall level; and that's a problem is that "The energy required from total destruction" shouldn't count as durability.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tw_LZ3Ay38k

3:32 to 3:36, 4 seconds more or less. Granted, the "tank" is more of a very hardcore armored truck, but that could still give a rating.

And I would advocate to keep this rating to the chainsaw weapons and similar. A simple melee attack not using these weapons scaling seems unlikely to me, especially when Marcus directly comments some time after Emergence Day that the normal Bayonets of the MK 1 Lancer were worthless for cutting drones, until he saw Tai kill one with a power saw.

That's fair. Looks like my grenade calc will be need after all.

Considering what it did do, the grenade is easily into the 9-A territory, though now it's just a question of how high and if Marcus can scale.

Considering he can survive the explosion from roughly 4-5 feet away, it's probable.

It's also worth mentioning that despite being technically classed as a Light Battle Tank, the Centaur Main Battle Tank (Confusing I know) can take multiple rockets from Brumaks (which can destroy large hotels and Grindlift Derricks), Grenades from Boomshots (which should be comparable to the Bolo grenades we've previously seen), and explosions from Nemacysts (which have actively destroyed or heavily damaged skyscrapers), and remain perfectly functional.

While they certainly look like nothing more than a "Hardcore Armored Truck" as Lancelot put it, they're also clearly quite durable.

Then the best course of action would be getting an idea for the AP of explosions like this and scale the Tank's durability to that. Then the main crew can mostly scale up to it via Chainsaw weapons from clashing many times with Skorge.

https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/U...ht/Gears_of_War_-_Grenades_are_strong_as_hell

AP of grenade explosions calc is up

I updated some parts of the calc and do plan to make later calcs for other topics.

For things that scale, Boomshots, Digger GLs, The Lancer GL, and basically any minor explosive aside from Mortars, Brumak and Reaver rockets, and more heavy explosives

I commented on the blog

Alright, it's been a while

Basically, we have DMUA's calc that put both the grenades and Marcus's durability at 9-A, and then we have the Hammer to figure out

I sent it through the eval thread but haven't gotten a single response aside from the one that were there before I tried to check DMUA's calc. I suppose that's to be expected, but what can you do?

Anyway, I guess I should ask. Should we continue with the 9-A upgrade or wait?

Some other things I was saving for the Locust Horde revision but are at least somewhat relavant here:

Uzil RAAM, the main antagonist of Gears of War 1, can tank 4 Bolo Grenades going off at once and is only somewhat injured. It's also worth noting that Marcus can melee him, but it does next to no damage and the player will be shredded by Kyrll for their trouble, so it shouldn't be used for scaling.

Skorge, despite being said to "make RAAM look like a goddamn pushover" is actually inferior to him. It's never actually shown just how inferior, but given how the comics show their relationship and how Marcus actually can overpower Skorge, I'd say Skorge is fairly below RAAM in terms of actual physical ability.

In fact, RAAM is such a massive lad that no other form of Locust compares to him unless it is a beast of war. The only "normal" sized Locust that compare are Berserkers, who are 10 feet tall behemoths that can shread through tanks and solid steel with just pure might. While I don't think RAAM could actual best a Berserker, it still goes to show just how much of an absolute unit he was.

Also interesting, Marcus can actually outrun a Berserker on foot. While he does have to sprint ("Roadie Run"), and will eventually tire, he does outrun it enough that he can put distance between him and it even while it moves at full sprint, allowing the player to quickly jump to the side and avoid the incoming 1 ton ball of rage.

The Centaur can take multiple grenades equivalent to the Bolo grenades with only minor levels of damage, though Corpsers and Brumaks can still one-shot it with melee (not suprising, those things are easily 8-C on pure size alone)

And that's all I have right now

Hey, so I've been a Gears fan for a while, played all the games that aren't on the newest console generation and watched the campaign for all the others, and I think I know of something that can make the Hammer of Dawn even more powerful. Forgive me if it's already been mentioned before.

Okay, so in Gears of War 3, after the failed fueling mission to Mercy where Dom sacrifices himself, Delta Squad goes to the city of Char, a place that was preemptively destroyed by the COG higher-ups with Hammer strikes in the name of removing possible footholds for Locust forces. Nasty business, plenty of human rights violations, it's GoW, what else is new?

So two factors of this caught my interest replaying the mission again:

1. Hordes of people caught in the blasts were turned to ash. They were left petrified as statues of dust, which will disintegrate if touched or shot. I don't know how much energy it takes to turn a human to ash, but since that was basically a side effect, it can be listed "Hammer Strikes turn humans to ash unintentionally"

2. At one point in the level, Delta Squad comes across a massive crater in the center of the city that is ground zero for the strikes. If the size of the crater can be found and the number of Hammers used for said strike (I'm sure it's in a novel or comic somewhere), an energy level can be found from that

I'm sure I can find some more feats if I look back through the games again, but this was one that I knew of

We actually have a calc that never got accepted that puts the Hammer at High 6-C with just one laser.

Which makes sense, three of them scorched a single city to nothing but ash. And since the entire array scorched 90% of Sera's surface (A High 6-A feat), well.

As for turning humans into ash, that's more of a rule of cool than a possible thing. The energy required to turn a human body into ash would more than likely dissapate the ash as well, so the "ash statues" left behind can't realitically happen.

Still, finding the energy required could provide a good baseline.

Burning people to ash is a 9-A feat.