Fictional combat skill, VSB and You; Giving Skill a concrete form

[First_Witch]

As the title implies, I am attempting to streamline combat skill for debating, be it as arguments in Versus debates or in general skill debates. As such i am not attempting to make this whole thing "official" or a "standard", unless people overwhelmingly support the idea (Please dont). For that purpose I have cobbled up a rough and incomplete draft detailing my ideas;

https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/User:First_Witch/Skill

The draft is incomplete in that it hasnt all necessary sections filled out, but it wont be getting any major inclusions from my side. It is in its outline complete. Unless someone brings up a enlighting point to add (I'm serious, I am not infalliable after all). I plan to finish this with the communities input in general. Voice your opinions, argue with me, pat me on the back or call me a doodoo head, your opinion is requested.

To-Do lists;

-Probably canning reflexes as a category
-Probably making Accelerated Development a fluid category that can be a Major discipline if its combat applicable
-Gonna rename Acrobatics to mobility

 

[First_Witch]

Hitting the sack in the meanwhile, I just posted this to get traction going.

 

[First_Witch]

Bump

 

[azontr]

You ain't shit old man.

 

[Yeolban]

I didn't read allat sorry I only stalk goh threads

 

[First_Witch]

I intercepted your inception of intend, get Demonbaned

 

[Arnoldstone18]

What in blazes

following.

get @Armorchompy in this bitchhhh.. maybe both of yall can fuse drafts. Then finally make this shit official.

 

[The_man_with_the_Midas_touch]

Whoa, further proof that Taskmaster skill stomps your favorite character??? (He scores high on most major and minor concepts)

But naw this looks cool lol, I'll have to give it a deeper read later.

 

[First_Witch]

What in blazes

following.

get @Armorchompy in this bitchhhh.. maybe both of yall can fuse drafts. Then finally make this shit official.

You can ping him if you wish.

 

[First_Witch]

i have probably chosen a onfortunate timing to post this, seeing as most are probably far more interested in the ripping apart of our tiering system. And because its christmas (Merry) and no one wants to deal with skill nonsense at such times. But someday...

 

[azontr]

The skill meta has died, witchy. It's over.

 

[First_Witch]

If Skill has 1 million fans, then I am one of them

If Skill has 1 thousand fans, then I am one of them

If Skill has 1 fan, that person would be me.

And if Skill has 0 fans, that means i switched over to hax walls.

 

[Arcker123]

Anything to kill God of Highschool, Rakudai, and Metal Gear skill chains should receive unanimous support.

 

[LIFE_OF_KING]

Mash still skill stomps

 

[Shmooply]

It's peak.

 

[Arnoldstone18]

And if Skill has 0 fans, that means i switched over to hax walls.

That's a shame... I prefer to exist as a transdualistic fan

 

[Deceived3596]

Extraordinary Genius Zoro clears.

 

[Bobsican]

Zoro is a meme lol.

But still, while I lack the time to properly read this I like the premise.

 

[azontr]

This thread has so many Geniuses.

 

[First_Witch]

Bump

 

[First_Witch]

Christmas bump

 

[First_Witch]

bump

 

[First_Witch]

Bump

 

[Rikimarox2]

Don't have the time to read all of this yet, but I read a bit. I also recall reading the draft.

I'll be back later, but I gotta say, as a skill fanatic, this is very pog, Witch. Keep up the good work.

 

[First_Witch]

 

[Arnoldstone18]

Summoned Armor

 

[Armorchompy]

These are the general "ratings" I made up but I don't really encourage any really formal categorization of combat skill to be taken too seriously, and definitely not as the defining factor of an argument. Ultimately this sort of thing is always subjective but trying to objectify it is a pretty awful idea and will lead to inaccuracies.

As for the blog itself I disagree with the categorizations. Splitting body control and knowledge is very silly to begin with since there's almost always perfect overlap, 99% if a character showcases a technique they are both capable of understanding and executing it- in fact you might argue that being capable of performing feats of movement and dexterity is because of your knowledge of how to do them. When they aren't capable of it that will always be very obvious and notable and most definitely not something that should be assumed without showing.

I also disagree with the method of applying single abilities to a blank slate to figure out which is better, and getting point scores out of them, a fighting style exists and complements itself in its entirety, not as a clump of singular things. A character with 9/10 precog and 4/10 pressure points may beat a character with 8/10 precog and 10/10 pressure points just by virtue of being capable of landing the first strike. A character with 2/10 everything and 10/10 power mimicry might beat someone with a 9/10 everywhere just by eventually outmatching them. An even fight might become a near stomp if one of the characters has better stamina. A character with super outlandish and impressive insta-kill techniques might find them to be very worthless in a fight against someone who just puts them in a chokehold within the first 15 seconds because they've never been shown to counter grappling in their series (This would happen a lot- grappling is dreadfully underutilized by a lot of series and very much equivalent to the goofiest instant death techniques when successful).

There's also the issue of what is "better" vs what is more "effective". A character with 1/10 everything but one technique that's basically impossible to beat might still beat someone with overall much higher scores. Kenshiro can make you explode by tapping seven spots on your body, is that better or worse than killing someone with a shockwave to the heart in a single strike? (He probably can just do it with just one tap, I don't know HNK, but pretend for the sake of the argument that he can't) It's more "difficult", but it also would be harder to land in a fight, and by your method, would lose him the duraneg battle against the latter. Who's more skilled here? Someone like V1 from ULTRAKILL has their actually impressive skill feats almost entirely lie within the field of marksmanship (and some parrying), but they're also insanely mobile. It isn't too impressive (relatively) to do wall-jumps, ground slides and air dashes, but it ends up being far more relevant to how they fare in a fight than your method would show. After all even slightly superior mobility turns a ranged fight into a complete stomp if the opponent cannot compete at that distance. Who cares if V1 is worse at throwing hands if its opponent is never going to get to touch them?

There's also the question of who these people are fighting. Karate Kid has a relative lack of techniques that allow him to avoid or land hits against extremely skilled people, but that doesn't really matter because it's not who he's going to go up against- he mostly fights relatively unskilled but extremely powerful stat bricks or hordes of goons, and he is amazing at that. Golgo 13 is a hitman, not a fighter, and his fighting feats therefore pale in comparison to his sniping prowess. Just because they might lose against more well-rounded foes that shouldn't necessarily mean they're less skilled, just more specialized for something that falls a little bit outside of 1v1 combat.

Finally I disagree with experience being considered a "false friend". It (and skill scaling) is IMO to be considered a skill feat like any other, just generally with a low roof unless context implies otherwise. Someone fighting for 3000 years isn't much (again, relatively). Someone fighting other immortals for 3000 years is maybe a bit more. Someone fighting other immortals since before the beginning of creation and being explicitly capable of recalling every single move he has ever performed at a whim- I think you would find it hard to argue that does not bring quite the advantage in a tussle. The last is an extreme case but practice does make perfect and practicing against someone forever is going to yield more and more results- While I agree that does not hold up against better showings, I am of the opinion that it, and skill scaling for similar reasons, are to be paired with skill feats to provide greater context rather than tossed aside.

TL;DR I think arguing by splitting into categories and then rating by those categories loses a lot of the fine details of how both the concept of skill in a vacuum and how a stats equal fight between the two might go. I have read the "The Problem" section and I agree with its statements however I still don't think that this makes for a particularly good starting point at all, when so much context is ignored.

 

[Armorchompy]

A great example for showcasing the difference between "skill" and "effectiveness" is Muhammad Ali vs Antonio Inoki. The best boxer of his time- possibly ever, was stalemated by Antonio (A pro wrestler, although also an amazing and extremely historically important martial artist, I don't want to downplay his skill) simply laying on his back and kicking him in the shins- despite many other restrictions to his combat style (He would not be allowed to throw, grapple or tackle Ali and could not land any kicks unless he had one knee on the mat) all Inoki had to do was simply lie down and Ali could literally do jack shit.

The fight was declared a draw, probably to avoid controversy, despite Inoki landing over 100 kicks to Muhammad Ali's shins, and Ali barely getting a few punches off: afterwards Ali's legs were hurt bad enough to lead to infections and permanent impairment (narrowly avoiding amputation) to his mobility despite the ruleset being greatly in his favor. This doesn't mean mean he was the lesser combatant here, not at all. It simply means that boxing isn't capable of dealing with certain threats and that a grappler like Inoki was exactly that threat (More rigorous evidence of this exists in modern MMA).

I apologize if I got something wrong, I'm far from an expert on IRL martial arts, but I think this is a good showing of how a fight between two people of roughly equivalent skill (or even with the more skilled one on the losing side) can be a complete stomp just via the winner's style being more effective or at a logistical advantage vs the other's. So if you're trying to decide who's more skilled, then "who would win" should not be the be all end all it sounds like, and if you're trying to decide who'd win, simply looking at the two's respective skill feats should not be where the discussion ends.

 

[First_Witch]

I will answer shortly. Just laying some ground information before I do;

The aim of the draft is NOT to pinpoint some sort of skill hierachy, but to allow users to compare 2 characters determine who is more skilled. Likewise, I agree that being more skilled dosnt instantly equal more likely to win. Skill isnt infaillible afterall. That is of no concern to the blog though, because the sole goal is to determine who is more skilled. The example you have cited is pretty famous, but dosnt help your point much, seeing as the match ran on inorganic rules; Antonio didnt fought Ali on his "turf" (Boxing and was himself limited in his whole arsenal. Likewise Ali, while fighting under "his rules" was limited by the same rules; The match might have gone veeeery different if Ali was allowed to stomp and kick. I will elaborate on my proper answer post to you.

 

[First_Witch]

As for the blog itself I disagree with the categorizations. Splitting body control and knowledge is very silly to begin with since there's almost always perfect overlap, 99% if a character showcases a technique they are both capable of understanding and executing it- in fact you might argue that being capable of performing feats of movement and dexterity is because of your knowledge of how to do them. When they aren't capable of it that will always be very obvious and notable and most definitely not something that should be assumed without showing.

I disagree. I could right now look up and memorize Shaoling Kungfu techniques but without the ardous training that goes into them, I will never be able to perform them. Likewise, I can do a spinning roundhouse kick the likes of Taekwondo spin kicks without ever consulting a master nor a manual, simply by performing the motion until i hit the right form. You can view both concepts in a vacuum perfectly fine. Not only that, you scrunitize this under the lense of exclusicly martial arts, when this whole ordeal is about combat in general; There are body control feats completly detached from martial arts, and characters with ginormous wealth of martial arts knowledge who have never dabbled in said arts, because its useful in dismantling them in combat.

But setting that aside and lets say i concede for arguments sake, you do realize that a ton of categories i have listed DO in fact aknowledge that they only exist because of the interplay between the 3 basic pillars right? And that the 3 being viewed seperatly is for feats that can be ONLY viewed under the lense of said category? Like having insane muscle mind connection, or like i mentioned above, knowing the theory of a shitton of martial arts to counter them without having the skills necessary to perform them yourself?

I also disagree with the method of applying single abilities to a blank slate to figure out which is better, and getting point scores out of them, a fighting style exists and complements itself in its entirety, not as a clump of singular things. A character with 9/10 precog and 4/10 pressure points may beat a character with 8/10 precog and 10/10 pressure points just by virtue of being capable of landing the first strike. A character with 2/10 everything and 10/10 power mimicry might beat someone with a 9/10 everywhere just by eventually outmatching them. An even fight might become a near stomp if one of the characters has better stamina. A character with super outlandish and impressive insta-kill techniques might find them to be very worthless in a fight against someone who just puts them in a chokehold within the first 15 seconds because they've never been shown to counter grappling in their series (This would happen a lot- grappling is dreadfully underutilized by a lot of series and very much equivalent to the goofiest instant death techniques when successful).

As mentioned in my previous post, I agree to the overall sentiment of this post; More skilled dosnt mean automatically mean more likely to win because a fuckton more than just skill goes into a battle, but thats kinda irrelevant to our subject matter, because the goal here is exclusivly "Who is more skilled".

Being more skilled dosnt mean youre bypassing your opponents techniques, it means youre equipped for more combat situations and more likely to win them. So yes, in a actual fight, someone with a vastly better AnaPre will probably beat you in a fight, but that dosnt mean that he is more skilled. Thats the equivalent of saying that a trained Special Forces Soldier isnt all that skilled because hes probably going to lose against heavyweight boxing champions under boxing rules. If you organically stretch the combat situation into less and less restrictions, you will see that more and more categories become more and more relevant, more some than others. From a rigid no fouls fighting ring, to a obstructive uneven no barrels holden battlefield. The intend of rating categorizations is not only who would win in a skill battle, but who would win the tougher and more varied the situation becomes.

There's also the issue of what is "better" vs what is more "effective". A character with 1/10 everything but one technique that's basically impossible to beat might still beat someone with overall much higher scores. Kenshiro can make you explode by tapping seven spots on your body, is that better or worse than killing someone with a shockwave to the heart in a single strike? (He probably can just do it with just one tap, I don't know HNK, but pretend for the sake of the argument that he can't) It's more "difficult", but it also would be harder to land in a fight, and by your method, would lose him the duraneg battle against the latter. Who's more skilled here? Someone like V1 from ULTRAKILL has their actually impressive skill feats almost entirely lie within the field of marksmanship (and some parrying), but they're also insanely mobile. It isn't too impressive (relatively) to do wall-jumps, ground slides and air dashes, but it ends up being far more relevant to how they fare in a fight than your method would show. After all even slightly superior mobility turns a ranged fight into a complete stomp if the opponent cannot compete at that distance. Who cares if V1 is worse at throwing hands if its opponent is never going to get to touch them?

That example is really poor, because if character A can do what B (Kill someone with a shockwave to the heart with a good hit) do but with just one casual tap, its obvious what is better. So I will ignore that specific argument.

A character who has no noteworthy skillfeat to speak off other than a skillbased oneshot technique is never going to beat against a well trained alrounder. You are arguing that someone with no prediction ability, no instincts, normal human senses, no combat system, no analytic abilities and no kinetic control but has the ability to kill another human with a single hit could land said hit against someone with potentialy decent AnaPre, Instinctive Reactions, redirective capabilities, a martial arts background, good stealth skills and a good grasp at human pressure and weakpoints?

Also, this isnt mentioned in my blog because I thought it was kinda obvious and how we run current skill debates anyway, but we only compare characters to their respective field of combat. Swordsman to swordsman, hand to hand to hand to hand, marksman to marksman.

There's also the question of who these people are fighting. Karate Kid has a relative lack of techniques that allow him to avoid or land hits against extremely skilled people, but that doesn't really matter because it's not who he's going to go up against- he mostly fights relatively unskilled but extremely powerful stat bricks or hordes of goons, and he is amazing at that. Golgo 13 is a hitman, not a fighter, and his fighting feats therefore pale in comparison to his sniping prowess. Just because they might lose against more well-rounded foes that shouldn't necessarily mean they're less skilled, just more specialized for something that falls a little bit outside of 1v1 combat.

See above. Let it be known that I aknowledge that characters excel at different forms of combat and that we at the very least only compare them to their respective fields because as you mentioned above, it is unfair to put a swordsman against a sniper in their respective distances.

Althought I have to stay at this point for a little bit longer because the karate kid argument is bothering me. Not to claim that karate kid isnt skilled, he probably is, idk the character. But the assertion that I have to believe that KD is skilled exclusivly because he fodderizes Stat sticks or armees of fodder is a terrible argument and im sure you didnt intend to word it like that. Because, being outskilled by other character in universe is not a anti feat and outskilling unskilled characters is not a good feat at all? Like for one, beating someone who could oneshot you is a cool feat, but if you outskill him to the point where he woudnt land a hit on you, it really dosnt matter if said character is 2, 5 or 10 times stronger. It dosnt make the difference in skill bigger. Like obviously, this is taking into account that you have methods to win regardless of said difference. but scaling up the degree of difficulty past a certain point

Finally I disagree with experience being considered a "false friend". It (and skill scaling) is IMO to be considered a skill feat like any other, just generally with a low roof unless context implies otherwise. Someone fighting for 3000 years isn't much (again, relatively). Someone fighting other immortals for 3000 years is maybe a bit more. Someone fighting other immortals since before the beginning of creation and being explicitly capable of recalling every single move he has ever performed at a whim- I think you would find it hard to argue that does not bring quite the advantage in a tussle. The last is an extreme case but practice does make perfect and practicing against someone forever is going to yield more and more results- While I agree that does not hold up against better showings, I am of the opinion that it, and skill scaling for similar reasons, are to be paired with skill feats to provide greater context rather than tossed aside.

How can you prove my point and then argue against it.

To reiterate, in order for experience to amount to anything at all, you would have to proof that 1. Your character has faced growing obstacles for himself to grow (Because doing the same thing on and on again dosnt bring growth for ever) and 2. Your character has the potential to grow forever in the first place. Its a meaningless number that has no intrinsic value and adding it to actual value, that is feats, dosnt make the feat more impressive.

Like lets make another example; A and B

A has been the peak of skill in his verse for a millenia

B has been for a decade.

But A's best feat is black belt, while B is some Baki/Kengan type bullshit. And boom, B is undoublty more skilled. A factor that literally cant stand on its own or sometimes even worsen (Like im just a powerscaler whos highest martial acclaim is getting decked in his face in his highschool boxing club, so I dont want to sound like im disrespecting genuine blackbelt fighters, because that is undoublty impressive. But if your series hasnt archieved anything beyond for hundreds of years, it wont push past any serious skill wank series) the feat in question, it shoudnt be used as a standalone argument. Especially not as THE argument way too many people tout around in debates.

Like, there is a perfectly fine feat standing there. It dosnt get better with a long ass timeframe, it just means that anything before the point in which the feat in question happened is irrelevant. Like if your best feat is blackbelt, why do i care that you beat up brownbelts before hand.

TL;DR I think arguing by splitting into categories and then rating by those categories loses a lot of the fine details of how both the concept of skill in a vacuum and how a stats equal fight between the two might go. I have read the "The Problem" section and I agree with its statements however I still don't think that this makes for a particularly good starting point at all, when so much context is ignored.

So, if I were to reframe the topic from "skill battle", to just skill comparison, would that fix some of the issues you have with the idea? I personally still thing that this is a apt metaphor for a "Skill debate", but if the people agree with you then i am more than willing to fix it.

 

[First_Witch]

Also can we like, agree to only reply to each other like once a day? I dont want to spend multiple hours writing huge ass posts just to prove to you that goku outskills your favourite charatcer.

 

[Armorchompy]

I'm gonna reply when i can but yeah I don't mind that on your end, don't rush yourself

 

[Armorchompy]

The aim of the draft is NOT to pinpoint some sort of skill hierachy, but to allow users to compare 2 characters determine who is more skilled. Likewise, I agree that being more skilled dosnt instantly equal more likely to win. Skill isnt infaillible afterall. That is of no concern to the blog though, because the sole goal is to determine who is more skilled. The example you have cited is pretty famous, but dosnt help your point much, seeing as the match ran on inorganic rules; Antonio didnt fought Ali on his "turf" (Boxing and was himself limited in his whole arsenal. Likewise Ali, while fighting under "his rules" was limited by the same rules; The match might have gone veeeery different if Ali was allowed to stomp and kick. I will elaborate on my proper answer post to you.

The general consensus was that Antonio was held back a lot more, and generally boxing vs grappling combat arts has been shown to be fairly one-sided in favor of the latter.

I disagree. I could right now look up and memorize Shaoling Kungfu techniques but without the ardous training that goes into them, I will never be able to perform them. Likewise, I can do a spinning roundhouse kick the likes of Taekwondo spin kicks without ever consulting a master nor a manual, simply by performing the motion until i hit the right form. You can view both concepts in a vacuum perfectly fine. Not only that, you scrunitize this under the lense of exclusicly martial arts, when this whole ordeal is about combat in general; There are body control feats completly detached from martial arts, and characters with ginormous wealth of martial arts knowledge who have never dabbled in said arts, because its useful in dismantling them in combat.

I don't think that's true though. The former example is fair but rarely something that happens, and the latter... quite frankly I don't think that you could just learn to do that on your own without any understanding of how to, and if you did you'd essentially be making up your own ability. The last bit is fair though.

But setting that aside and lets say i concede for arguments sake, you do realize that a ton of categories i have listed DO in fact aknowledge that they only exist because of the interplay between the 3 basic pillars right? And that the 3 being viewed seperatly is for feats that can be ONLY viewed under the lense of said category? Like having insane muscle mind connection, or like i mentioned above, knowing the theory of a shitton of martial arts to counter them without having the skills necessary to perform them yourself?

Sure, fair enough. In that case though I wouldn't lead the blog with that.

As mentioned in my previous post, I agree to the overall sentiment of this post; More skilled dosnt mean automatically mean more likely to win because a fuckton more than just skill goes into a battle, but thats kinda irrelevant to our subject matter, because the goal here is exclusivly "Who is more skilled".

In that case I'll skip your points against my examples.

Being more skilled dosnt mean youre bypassing your opponents techniques, it means youre equipped for more combat situations and more likely to win them. So yes, in a actual fight, someone with a vastly better AnaPre will probably beat you in a fight, but that dosnt mean that he is more skilled. Thats the equivalent of saying that a trained Special Forces Soldier isnt all that skilled because hes probably going to lose against heavyweight boxing champions under boxing rules. If you organically stretch the combat situation into less and less restrictions, you will see that more and more categories become more and more relevant, more some than others. From a rigid no fouls fighting ring, to a obstructive uneven no barrels holden battlefield. The intend of rating categorizations is not only who would win in a skill battle, but who would win the tougher and more varied the situation becomes.

But as you said, "skill" is the ability to win a battle as effectively as possible. Incredible specialization in one field may still end up winning you more fights than overall great scores in every field, even if it grants less points. I think there's a bit of an unsolvable issue here- the purpose of combat skill is to win fights but someone who's less skilled in a vacuum might end up being more effective, and I'd feel wrong saying he's a worse fighter for it.

Althought I have to stay at this point for a little bit longer because the karate kid argument is bothering me. Not to claim that karate kid isnt skilled, he probably is, idk the character. But the assertion that I have to believe that KD is skilled exclusivly because he fodderizes Stat sticks or armees of fodder is a terrible argument and im sure you didnt intend to word it like that. Because, being outskilled by other character in universe is not a anti feat and outskilling unskilled characters is not a good feat at all? Like for one, beating someone who could oneshot you is a cool feat, but if you outskill him to the point where he woudnt land a hit on you, it really dosnt matter if said character is 2, 5 or 10 times stronger. It dosnt make the difference in skill bigger. Like obviously, this is taking into account that you have methods to win regardless of said difference. but scaling up the degree of difficulty past a certain point

See he actually just doesn't have methods to win a lot of the time, he's unable to even slightly hurt people like pre-crisis Superboy but he still impresses him by keeping him busy for minutes just by redirecting his attacks, immobilizing him temporarily, dodging his blows, etc. This isn't really falling within the debate but I'd link to a fight like this one (Against a Superman-tier guy) to showcase that it does go deeper than "I have duraneg gg", and it's not something I would necessarily expect a lot of skillbros to be capable of replicating.

it shoudnt be used as a standalone argument. Especially not as THE argument way too many people tout around in debates.

I agree with that but I don't think it shouldn't be an argument at all, or that it brings no advantage (well, besides the black belt bit but usually this sort of thing doesn't have a set limit like that). Having centuries even against normal people will grant you an IRL impossible quantity of experience in knowing what someone is going to do and how they're going to fight, and being capable of countering it on its own- It's not the end all be all but it's not nothing. Without further context I'd essentially rate this (or amazing skill scaling) as C tier in my own rankings, for context.

So, if I were to reframe the topic from "skill battle", to just skill comparison, would that fix some of the issues you have with the idea? I personally still thing that this is a apt metaphor for a "Skill debate", but if the people agree with you then i am more than willing to fix it.

I would agree but then that brings up some issues with the idea of how the scores are calculated vs the actual intent of the thing, given that it is framed in the context of "what wins you a fight more".

 

[First_Witch]

That was a nice long sleep for me.

Before I delve into this again, I will officially backtrack a little bit; After sleeping and mulling over it, I conceded too early on the concept of Skill battles and would like to make that a discussion point again. You mentioned that you arguments that you dropped because I dropped that subject, and I feel it would be somewhat scummy to overwhelm you with that while you took a step back, so I will await those points before I return to this topic.

I don't think that's true though. The former example is fair but rarely something that happens, and the latter... quite frankly I don't think that you could just learn to do that on your own without any understanding of how to, and if you did you'd essentially be making up your own ability. The last bit is fair though.

It isnt as uncommon as you think. Add any Super Martial Arts series protagonist who struggled for a while against a opponent of any martial arts, learn about the arts during combat and then counter it. Also it should be noted that martial arts are simply... Not the only combat related Knowledge out there? Being able to use physics, the human anatomy or psychological warfare mid combat is also included.

As for Body Control, respectfully disagreed. There are only so many varieties of attacks a human can do. We are as a species extremly limited in what we can do. If I can perform a jumping spin kick, chances are it is identical to that of Taekwondo or at least extremly similar. Like, in order to understand how meaningless it is to draw hard distinctions between singular techniques and sometimes even entire arts is to take a look at Sword fighting for instance.

In this video a European Sword practitioner examins the differences between Japanese Kenjutsu and European HEMA and points out that outside of minute details due to the swords used and the culture behind both arts, the techniques and stances are identical. Anecdotally, in the same comment section, someone points out that Judo and European Wrestling is basically the same martial arts emerging in 2 different time periods:



So yes, if your average person trains a particular technique through trial and error, they will simply reach the most efficient method to perform the technique. Lets say, learning how to throw a jab without breaking your wrist. If a human performs the action often enough, they will reach a point in which they perform a quick punch without their wrist hurting. Dosnt mean that they are now formally trained in boxing under the guidance of a proper coach.

And similar to Knowledge, Body Control consist of so much more than just Martial Arts, many skill based series will feature something like that unrelated to the super martial arts their character practice.

And we can discard ALL of that above because if I may remind you, Martial Arts is literally a aspect in my draft, something which I specificly mentioned above consists of both Body Control and Combat Knowledge. I have taken into account extreme and average cases.

Sure, fair enough. In that case though I wouldn't lead the blog with that.

But as you said, "skill" is the ability to win a battle as effectively as possible. Incredible specialization in one field may still end up winning you more fights than overall great scores in every field, even if it grants less points. I think there's a bit of an unsolvable issue here- the purpose of combat skill is to win fights but someone who's less skilled in a vacuum might end up being more effective, and I'd feel wrong saying he's a worse fighter for it.

and

I would agree but then that brings up some issues with the idea of how the scores are calculated vs the actual intent of the thing, given that it is framed in the context of "what wins you a fight more".

On hold, as this partains to the topic of Skill Battles

See he actually just doesn't have methods to win a lot of the time, he's unable to even slightly hurt people like pre-crisis Superboy but he still impresses him by keeping him busy for minutes just by redirecting his attacks, immobilizing him temporarily, dodging his blows, etc. This isn't really falling within the debate but I'd link to a fight like this one (Against a Superman-tier guy) to showcase that it does go deeper than "I have duraneg gg", and it's not something I would necessarily expect a lot of skillbros to be capable of replicating.

The most infamous and hated Skillbro has feats like that lol. It isnt a uncommon feat and as I mentioned above, it is far more valuable to know how he dealt with a stronger threat than to know how much stronger that threat is. Because at a certain point, differences in AP just offer diminishing returns, but knowing how exactly KD used his skill offers more concrete things to measure.

I agree with that but I don't think it shouldn't be an argument at all, or that it brings no advantage (well, besides the black belt bit but usually this sort of thing doesn't have a set limit like that). Having centuries even against normal people will grant you an IRL impossible quantity of experience in knowing what someone is going to do and how they're going to fight, and being capable of countering it on its own- It's not the end all be all but it's not nothing. Without further context I'd essentially rate this (or amazing skill scaling) as C tier in my own rankings, for context.

Oh boy, before I even adress this, let it be known that I never said to completly disregard Experience in its entirety. I consider it a extremly small factor that may decide the debate if things genuinly get to the wires (Both characters are dead even). The way the False Friends sections is intended is to be a minor discipline in its entirety, the same way the minor section is a major discipline in its entirety. So yes, experience can decide a match if the debate is close enough.

That said, the reason I value experience and every other is regardless of how big or small the given timeframe is, it will always come to down to the feats that happend during that time.

"He fought for thousands of years" sounds impressive, but what was accomplished in that time? Whats the difference between 10.000 and 100.000 years of experience? Billions of years? You are still limited to what was shown. You speak of the innumeral variations of humans such a character might have faced, but if none of those variations showcased any form of skill feats, why do we care when the characters hes being compared to are so far removed from the average human level? I dont believe being able to counter the average human in a myriad ways will help you when youre facing non average human characters. You destroyed any variations of boxing after a millenia? Cool, boxers in another verse can predict every move you could make, steal your ultimately human level techniques with ease, know every inch of your body better than you yourself ever will with a single glance, invalidate every of your strikes with techniques your series could only dream of and deliver punches that rupture your organs beyond what their body should be capable of with a single hit. This fact wont change regardless of how many zeroes you add to that number of experience.

But obviously, in your average case feats are present and that is good. But what does a big timeline adds to those feats? If your zenith is 5 Steps of Analytical Prediction, does the millenia needed to reach that zenith mean your AnaPre is better than someone with 10 steps? Obviously not. The very fact that it is entirely possible that a tenthousand year old master of skill could be skillfodder to a highschool martial artist in another series because he actually does perform impressive stuff compared to the master who has no noteworthy feats at all highlights the issue.

So let me summarize this a bit more compact.

1. Experience dosnt mean that the given timeframe was used year by year to its fullest. Endless Growth potential must be proven for that to be possible
2. Experience dosnt mean that the given timeframe allowed to endless growth in the first place. Endlessly growing threats and obstacles must be present for that to be possible.
3. A given timeframe Experience dosnt add to the feats that happened. If your skill zenith is below that of another series, it is below that. A big nummber dosnt magically bump up the feat. A argument can me made if the feats compared are basically dead even, in which case the more experienced character might have a edge over the less experienced character.
4. Experience is probably the only aspect that COULD make a feat APPEAR worse in comparison to another. If it took Character A Thousands of years to learn Analytical Prediction of 1 step and Character B only 1 year, the layman can justifiably believe B to be more impressive. That is not necessarily a argument of experience, but can be conflated with Experience due to their similar nature, so cation is to be excersized.

I can make similar arguments to all other False Friend (Scaling chains in particular, seeing as you consider them in a similar light to Experience), but I dont want to blow my hands open writing that until it is necessary.

Back to sleeping.

 

[Armorchompy]

Rather than debate around secondary stuff I'd like to cut to the heart of the matter. I'm going to be frank, the more I read the more it seems to me like you didn't explain well enough how this method would actually be applied in your blog. Could I ask you to make an example and demonstrate how you would work about rating a character, or a debate between two characters, through this? Because to be frank right now this feels extremely clunky and like it introduces more generalizations than needed.

 

[First_Witch]

Do you have any characters in mind? Or specific situations?

If not i would have to whipp out some fake characters and that might take a while

 

[Armorchompy]

Do you have any characters in mind? Or specific situations?

If not i would have to whipp out some fake characters and that might take a while

Anyone you're familiar with works, preferably someone everyone knows at least a bit, so I dunno, Goku, Baki, anyone like that works.

Anyways I did end up typing some counterarguments

The most infamous and hated Skillbro has feats like that lol. It isnt a uncommon feat and as I mentioned above, it is far more valuable to know how he dealt with a stronger threat than to know how much stronger that threat is. Because at a certain point, differences in AP just offer diminishing returns, but knowing how exactly KD used his skill offers more concrete things to measure.

That's fair- but even then I would still say that there's an inherent flaw in measuring the effectiveness of someone who's mostly shown fighting other skilled people and someone whose entire skillset mostly relies around matching far stronger enemies with the same measuring stick (that is, fighting other skilled people in a 1v1).

See above. Let it be known that I aknowledge that characters excel at different forms of combat and that we at the very least only compare them to their respective fields because as you mentioned above, it is unfair to put a swordsman against a sniper in their respective distances.

Even if you put Golgo vs someone like, idk, a Lupin III marksman, the fight would just sort of not be 100% fair for either because if it's at a long enough distance Golgo just snipes the shit out of them, while if it's relatively up close and personal he's a bit out of his depth.

That example is really poor, because if character A can do what B (Kill someone with a shockwave to the heart with a good hit) do but with just one casual tap, its obvious what is better. So I will ignore that specific argument.

Better =/= "requires more skill", though. Blows already output shockwaves into someone's body, making them go further down is a lot less impressive than something like Kenshiro's stuff- but at least equally as effective in this situation. Again here's a disconnect between skill and functionality.

Once again I return to Karate Kid. His duraneg is absolute overkill when it comes to... anything, really. He can find weak points in literally any material including energy constructs on the microscopic level, destroy planet-sized constructs, harm Kryptonian-tier people... and literally all of this is completely redundant against someone with similar AP to him, because all he needs to duraneg is to hurt a flesh and bone person with durability equal to his own. That doesn't mean he isn't more skilled in the matter than someone who can just duraneg people comparable to his own, but it does mean he will have functionally no advantage in that subject against them.

A character who has no noteworthy skillfeat to speak off other than a skillbased oneshot technique is never going to beat against a well trained alrounder. You are arguing that someone with no prediction ability, no instincts, normal human senses, no combat system, no analytic abilities and no kinetic control but has the ability to kill another human with a single hit could land said hit against someone with potentialy decent AnaPre, Instinctive Reactions, redirective capabilities, a martial arts background, good stealth skills and a good grasp at human pressure and weakpoints?

Yeah, depends on the technique. Maybe it warps or slips beneath perception in a way that overrides all of the above, maybe it's just nearly impossible to dodge even if you're aware of it, etc, etc.

Also, this isnt mentioned in my blog because I thought it was kinda obvious and how we run current skill debates anyway, but we only compare characters to their respective field of combat. Swordsman to swordsman, hand to hand to hand to hand, marksman to marksman.

I guess but even then there's stuff that you can't pretend doesn't matter even in the same field. For example, a good part of this guy's fighting style is developed around a mutation in his leg that allows him to kick stupid hard and fast. That's not skill but it is something around which his toolset is built, which means you can't use your method here. If you give his techniques to someone without the Dragon Foot, then we would have no way to tell how effective they'd be, while if you give the Foot to them, then they'd have an inherent physical advantage and as such not really win via "skill". But at the same time you can't completely discount the guy's kicking and grappling techniques because he's got this advantage, especially because they're so much of what he does.

Something else that comes to mind is once more Karate Kid who has developed a fighting style customized around his Flight Ring- if you take that away from him that's one less tool in his kit that he does often use. There's just something paradoxical about trying to put fighters on a 100% even ground- they are inevitably going to have non-skill advantages over the other that you cannot just remove because their skill builds off them.

 

[CrackerVolley]

Following

 

[Twisted_Little_Raven]

I went over this I'ma type my response in a bit

 

[First_Witch]

Anyone you're familiar with works, preferably someone everyone knows at least a bit, so I dunno, Goku, Baki, anyone like that works.

Thats the thing, I dont have a random asort of characters skillscaled and ready to go. Someone whould have to provide me with a good amount of feats for any given character. Which is why I asked if you had a couple at hand whose feats youre familiar with.