Fate/Zero - Speculation & Theories (for F/SN Game Players)

[Jean Claymore]

Awkward how people judge Heracles/Hercules is far stronger than F/Z Berserker when he's shown only one of his NPs . Okay, my judges may be kinda biased since I am a fan of F/Z Berserker, so suck it up and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Back on topic, can't go to far related to LN atm nor am I aware y'all have read it already, but... Your only comparing Hercules' sheer strengh/agility to F/Z's Berserker while he on the other hand far exceeds in swordmanship and skills (just to "hint" some LN spoiler, but as far as we've seen until now including F/SN, most of Heroic Spirits seemed to have more than 1 NP which the latter came to be mind blowing as in cases of Avalon or EA) which even blocked the GoB Hercules couldn't in UBW Just a little side note sorry for those who arguing F/Z berserker was too adept to counter the GoB and say it would've been different if he faced an all-strengh brute guy instead because I can't really reply spoiling the thread atm. Maybe we should move this topic to LN readers' thread? Anyways, feel free to look at his stats since they won't do much harm once you read them. Oh wait, his stats can't be seen

As for Hercules' skills, yes he WAS lancer/archer (can't recall), but he lost most his skills when became Berserker. I'd call a pure madness if you ask me and his speed/strengh just reached at its peak since he lost his sanity and due to his fame. Yet, his power still remains relying in pure resistance and physical stance while F/Z Berserker didn't lose his "abilities/instincts" as a swordman and could still perform his combat techniques above rank A.

@SoldierOfDarkness While agreed, I think that's a spoiler... Well he still has another even more kickass ability anyways.

Jeez, never meant to chime in into a "vs thread" I know this is stupid, but I just couldn't resist Trust me... I would have cheered for F/SN Berserker if it was not for F/Z Berserker's "still not shown NP", but he's just too AWESOME!!!

[Jarmel]

Originally Posted by Ragna92

Fate stay night berserker is mad strong. He broke Gils chains. Also physically I doubt any servant is stronger then FSN berserker. F/Z berserker is badass though.

Strength though doesn't mean jack if you can't hit the opponent.

[Nightengale]

Originally Posted by Jarmel

FS/N Archer would have been wrecked by F/Z Berserker. F/Z Berserker just wiped the floor(from what we've seen anyway) with Archer. I can't imagine UBW having any sort of advantage compared to Bablyon in this case. The beauty of F/Z Berserker is that ridiculously high skill level.

UBW can explode its NP releases via Broken Phantasm. GoB can't.

That's a huge advantage on its own, since that means Z/Berserker can't grab anything UBW shoots at him.

Btw, I'm not going to see that spoiler. I'm just basing it upon the differences of UBW/GoB against Z/Berserker.

Originally Posted by Village Idiot

Any non-NPs turn into (IIRC) D-rank NPs regardless of the difference in destructive capability.

ie: If he grabs an m16, it'll be a D-rank NP. If he grabs a concrete block, its also a D-rank NP.

If Zero Berserker grabs a NP, it retains its current rank. So if he grabbed Excalibur, it'll retain its A++ rank

Now that's a far more realistic ability in comparison to the potential broken-ness that were brought up.

[Jarmel]

Originally Posted by Nightengale

UBW can explode its NP releases via Broken Phantasm. GoB can't.

That's a huge advantage on its own, since that means Z/Berserker can't grab anything UBW shoots at him.

Now that's a far more realistic ability in comparison to the potential broken-ness that were brought up.

He could possibly just dodge them all. The fact that he could dodge Gilgamesh's first strike was insanely impressive on its self. Now whether he could do that with multiple swords coming at him? Don't know. He did however maintain a defense that FS/N Berserker never did.

It's still a ridiculous ability. You could literally turn your opponent's weapon against them and be more skilled at it than they are themselves.

[Nightengale]

Originally Posted by Jarmel

He could possibly just dodge them all. The fact that he could dodge Gilgamesh's first strike was insanely impressive on its self. Now whether he could do that with multiple swords coming at him? Don't know. He did however maintain a defense that FS/N Berserker never did.

It's still a ridiculous ability. You could literally turn your opponent's weapon against them and be more skilled at it then they are themselves.

True, but it's an ability that really only shines against enemies like Gilgamesh and FSN Archer... who has a lot of weapons and the habit of shooting them against the enemy.

Against any other opponent, it would only shine as a disarming skill... and if you can disarm your opponent, you might as well just kill him right there and then.

Z/Berserker was obviously designed partly in due as an 'indirect counter to GoB via pure skill', allowing him to showcase an 'awesome and cool' way to counter GoB without creating a UBW clone.

I mean, just look at how many new fans of Zero/Berserker were created in the span of half a day. I won't deny that the way he countered GoB was definitely very very cool, even more so since it's showcased as a showcase of high skill.

[Kokukirin]

Originally Posted by Jarmel

Strength though doesn't mean jack if you can't hit the opponent.

He hit Saber and Archer pretty hard as far as I know. Actually, Ilya felt confident enough to face Saber AND Archer at the same time. And Rin felt she needed an alliance just to win against Berserker. I don't see any master feels he needs an alliance to take on F/Z Berserker.

[Jarmel]

Originally Posted by Nightengale

True, but it's an ability that really only shines against enemies like Gilgamesh and FSN Archer... who has a lot of weapons and the habit of shooting them against the enemy.

Against any other opponent, it would only shine as a disarming skill... and if you can disarm your opponent, you might as well just kill him right there and then.

Z/Berserker was obviously designed partly in due as an 'indirect counter to GoB via pure skill', allowing him to showcase an 'awesome and cool' way to counter GoB without creating a UBW clone.

I mean, just look at how many new fans of Zero/Berserker were created in the span of half a day. I won't deny that the way he countered GoB was definitely very very cool, even more so since it's showcased as a showcase of high skill.

What I don't know is whether he just has to touch it for the item or NP to belong to him or hold it in both hands. Like if he grabbed Excalibur, or some other NP, then it belongs to him even if the opponent is still holding on to the weapon.

Originally Posted by Kokukirin

He hit Saber and Archer pretty hard as far as I know. Actually, Ilya felt confident enough to face Saber AND Archer at the same time. And Rin felt she needed an alliance just to win against Berserker. I don't see any master feels he needs an alliance to take on F/Z Berserker.

This group is a much more backstabby lot than the FS/N group. Also Saber most of the scenarios was essentially running on fumes. Now that I've seen his actual stats and what F/Z Berserker can actually do, this is probably best left though for the Fate/Zero spoilers thread.

[Village Idiot]

Zero Berserker is simply the better Berserker than FSN Berserker

Thats not to say that FSN Berseker is weaker, its because Berserker class is the worst possible choice for him.

[Nightengale]

Pretty much what Village Idiot said.

We don't know if it's an innate skill or another Noble Phantasm of his, but it does seem to be extremely abnormal to the other Servants that Z/Berserker has retained his techniques and skills as if he's perfectly sane.

On the other hand, Heracles gave up :
- his weapon-based Noble Phantasms/Nine Lives
- his knowledge and wisdom ( both as a warrior and a person )
- his combat skills and experience ( which is legendary, even compared to other Servants )
- Ability to negate mental interference
- Sixth sense

Just for some stats boost that are already the overall best of all Servants.

[pikachuwei]

Firstly, F/Zerker's "take anything as my NP" ability only converts it to a D rank Noble Phantasm if it was a non-conceptual weapon in the first place. Be it a normal 9mm pistol or a giant gatling gun or telephone pole, as a Noble Phantasm it will still be D rank

Which means it cannot bypass Heracles's God hand, which ignores all attacks from any weapon below A rank

Also, another ability of God Hand that is often forgotten is that God Hand develops immunity to what killed it before. So you cannot kill Heracles with the same attack multiple times.
Gilgamesh and Archer were able to bypass this due to having multiple Noble Phantasms, but the rest of the Heroic Spirits are not so lucky. If it wasn't for the fact that Archer took out 5 of Heracles's lives in Fate, Shirou and Saber would still have died in the forest, for once Berserker regen from having 7 lives taken out, he would have become invulnerable to Caliburn.

And Caliburn taking out 7 of Heracles's lives was simply plot. In Heaven's Feel, Saber Alter only took out 2 or 3 of Heracles's lives with her full Excaliblast. That was why Shirou was able to kill Dark Heracles with Nine Lives Blade Works even though it only killed Heracles 9 times (3 + 9 = 12, the number of lives Heracles has).


Finally, Heracles actually has the highest stats of all Servants in F/Z or F/SN (even without Mad Enhancement) so he is most likely faster and definitely physically stronger than F/Zerker. F/Zerker only hard counters Gilgamesh's Gate of Babylon, while Heracles's God Hand alone makes most of the other Servants ineffectives. Nasu states if F/SN's Caster, Fake Assassin, True Assassin and Lancer were all to fight Heracles at once, at most they would be able to take out 2 or 3 of his lives. In Heaven's Feel Zouken commented that Heracles would have been able to fight evenly or even beat Saber Alter + True Assassin, and that it was only Dark Sakura's presence that cost him the battle. Heracles truly does deserve the title of the greatest Heroic Spirit. Even as Berserker with most of his skills shafted for a mere stat boost he is still the second most formidable Servant after Gilgamesh.

And people shouldn't think that F/Zerker was schooling Gilgamesh just from this encounter. As Kirei said, Gilgamesh was just getting started. That last volley from GoB that Gil was preparing before being ordered to retreat? It had twice the number of NP about to be launched as the volley Berserker counted (32 opposed to 16, if you don't believe me, count them all onscreen XD).
Gilgamesh can paste Berserker easy as 1,2,3.
1) Keep Berserker in place with GoB
2) Launch Enkidu and tie Berserker down
3) Enuma Elish

Heck Gilgamesh could just go from 1) to 3) like he did against Saber in Fate route. Except Berserker doesnt have Avalon =P

theres a reason Gilgamesh could have soloed both Grail wars in 1 hour if he was playing seriously.

[Klashikari]

There are a lot of misconception, although something has to be said: comparing servants in this fashion is redundant, since Nasu has the knack of using way too much convenient/circumstancial situations to dictate a servant strengths/weaknesses, even though there are things completely ludicrous (such like SN Lancer's gae Bolg and SN Assassin's Zabaniya)

First and foremost, Dark Berserker cannot be a good example of factoring Excalibur strength. The very reason is two fold:
1) There was no description of how many lives Excalibur could take out from Dark Berserker and likewise, no description how many times he died due to Nine Lives Blade Works (the fact it deals 8 strikes doesn't mean it actually killed him 8 times. Likewise, the finisher attack was a NORMAL thrust, it wasn't part of NLBW).
2) There is no indication if God Hand was still active and/or if Dark Sakura's prana didn't replenish Dark Berserker lives stock (since she has unlimited ressource of Prana as the holy grail).

Consequently, concluding that Excalibur "full force" only shaved 2-3 lives is really too rigid in term of theorycrafting, especially considering how Caliburn was vastly inferior to Excalibur here. Dismissing this point as "plot point" makes the whole point moot since you are conveniently cherry picking one instance as "mistake" but the rest as canon, which is doubtful at best.

Now, there is also another potential explanation for that: Dark Sakura did not want to kill servants, because she doesn't want to lose herself. This was also commented by Zouken, stating that she could kill Saber and Berserker any time, but chosed not to for her own agenda, but would make her disperse way too much.
With that in mind, she probably ordered Saber to simply defeat Berserker, so her shadow would be able to swallow him completely.

Another point that must be taken in consideration is SN Berserker: God Hand only provide protection against B ranks attacks or lower, but that does not only stick to Noble Phantasms: if physical or magecraft attacks is by itself a A rank, it -will- damage SN Berserker (as proved numerous times, such like Rin's attempt in Fate route, which actually killed him once... don't tell me that Excalibur in full force would barely deal twice/thrice than Rin's desperate attempt).

God Hand -is- an extremely potent Noble Phantasm, but it is by no means impossible to overcome alone. Should a servant have A rank stats + A rank NP, they can potentially kill Berserker alone, provided they aren't killed first.
Which means: with several A rank attack due to stats and a NP that can shave several lives at ones, it is doable alone.

I personally see SN Berserker and Zero Berserker as equal matched, although they both have favored situations due to their respective NP and fighting style. Both are beefs and would be much more threatening if they werne't Berserker class. Really, basing on their stats alone is ludicrous at best, especially when we are dealing with Nasu and his usual shenanigans.

By the way, remember that unless someone has a high degree of Divinity, Enkiduu has as much strength as a regular chain against a Heroic Spirit without any divinity attribute.

[Cherry_Lover]

Originally Posted by Nightengale

You forgot that Herakles cannot even be physically injured by Noble Phantasms or attacks BELOW A-Rank.

Sure, Zero Berserker can turn anything into a Noble Phantasm, but we can surmise from the fact that Lancer can cut said Pole Phantasm is that they're not A-rank NPs.

Zero Berserker does seem to be far more skillful in weapon arts compared to Herakles, but having skill is useless when it won't be able to even injure him, much less kill him 10 times.

It depends whether Zero Berserker has strength A or not. If he does, then he could beat Heracles. Further, if he gets hold of an A-rank NP, he could also beat Heracles.

Originally Posted by Nightengale

Zero Berserker's ability to wield other NPs and presumably use them to the level of the weapon requires him to have access to those weapons... Only 2 Servants actually has that kind of access... Gilgamesh and FSN Archer.

Well, FSN Archer's weapons wouldn't work either, most likely, because they're copies of the NP that Archer can make vanish at will.

Thus meaning that in a straight-up battle between Berserkers without Gil or Archer deciding to just leave their weapons around, Zero Berserker wouldn't be able to damage Herakles, and can at best, run him round with superior skill, but insufficient destructive power.

Well, he could in theory steal an NP from someone else, but I agree that it would be very difficult.

Originally Posted by Lumir

Who said he touched the chariot? Looks like he just got ran over. Heracles was never lancer though so why bring it up? And as for the rock sword i was just saying he i could imagine him taking it for his own leaving FSN berserker with just his hands. And if i recall correctly if berserker in FSN was so fast why did he get dodge so many time from non-archer classes?

But the rock sword isn't an NP anyway, so it wouldn't do him an awful lot of good.

He's not Shirou, he can't read the skills of the original user (such as Nine Lives), he just uses the NP as if it were his own.

Originally Posted by SoldierOfDarkness

Shouldn't be. He's like Vin Diesel, he can kill you with anything in the room. Hell if a couple of squirrels just so happened to pass by he'd pick them up and use them like numb-chuks and probably take a few of Hercules' lives. Then he'll drop it and use that piece of rock over there to take another. I was under the impression that whatever he wields is just as good as any regular noble phantasm given that it matched Saber's sword. Lancer's lance on the other hand "negates" any magic so that would be a good counter against berserker.

The question is whether it's rank A. If not, then he can't kill Heracles with it, at least not unless he has rank A strength. And, given that he can steal other NPs and use those, it seems unlikely to me that it would rank everything up to A, because that would mean that he was not only stealing the NPs, but substantially improving them.

Of course, if he has another NP that is A-rank, that's another matter....

[Village Idiot]

One thing people have to note about Zero Berserker is that while he can make any NP his own, he can only use their innate abilities.

For example, he can use Harpe's defense-ignoring attribute, or Durandal's indestructibility, because its part its special properties.

However, anything that is specific to a heroic spirit like Lancer's 100% hit with Gae Bolg won't transfer to Zero Berserker, because its a NP of Gae Bolg specific to Lancer. Its curse so wounds won't heal will remain though, because its innate to Gae Bolg.

It means even if he grabs Nine Lives, he won't actually be able to use its 9x attack, because its specific to Heracles. It'll just be a NP bow with whatever innate special properties.

[Klashikari]

Nine Lives isn't even a weapon but a skill. Remember that Nine Lives can be performed with any type of weapon herakles could use, not the rock sword. In fact, that rock sword isn't even a NP to begin with.

Also, there is absolutely no statement that indicate if he really can't or if it is because of the mad enhancement impairing effect.

[GDB]

Originally Posted by pikachuwei

We also know Archer at his best takes out 5 of Heracles' lives.

If by "at his best" you mean without using UBW, sure. Because there's absolutely zero reason why Gilgamesh would be able to Gate of Babylon him to death, yet Archer wouldn't be able to Unlimited Blade Works him to death. Remember, the scene in the anime did not happen in the game.

[Kallen4life]

By the way, remember that unless someone has a high degree of Divinity, Enkiduu has as much strength as a regular chain against a Heroic Spirit without any divinity attribute.

good point, I didn't even remember FSN Lancer is a demigod and has B-rank divinity

[Cherry_Lover]

Originally Posted by Village Idiot

However, anything that is specific to a heroic spirit like Lancer's 100% hit with Gae Bolg won't transfer to Zero Berserker, because its a NP of Gae Bolg specific to Lancer. Its curse so wounds won't heal will remain though, because its innate to Gae Bolg.

I'm not sure that's true. It may have originally been developed by Lancer, but once he's summoned as a Heroic Spirit it becomes part of the weapon itself, so Zero berserker should be able to use it.

[Kaiba]

One thing I can't help but observe in this debate is that Heracles is probably helped out by the fact that Ilya is clearly a far superior master than Kariya. That also would help boost his stats to a degree, as I wonder how good F/Z Berserker's stats are with a master like Kariya. Remember that Saber was pretty bleh with Shirou as a master, and then was god-like with Rin as one.

[Jaden]

I'd say Kariya is on par with a magus like Tokiomi or Rin in terms of how much mana he can put out.
He just doesn't know any magic spells, doesn't have skills like alchemy or tools like Rin's jewels.
Also he's dying.

[Cherry_Lover]

Originally Posted by Jaden

I'd say Kariya is on par with a magus like Tokiomi or Rin in terms of how much mana he can put out.
He just doesn't know any magic spells, doesn't have skills like alchemy or tools like Rin's jewels.
Also he's dying.

Erm, what?

The fact that he has any magical ability at all is a miracle. I can't imagine him having all that much.

Also, Tokiomi shouldn't come close to Rin or Sakura, they're magical prodigies.