[Sunder the Gold]

Originally Posted by Orange Duke

Erm, abilities inside their specialties, obviously? O.o

Then why would Graphite Edge need to advise his fellow legionaires to focus only on bonuses to their color specialties, and why is it significant that Scarlet Rain focused entirely on Long Range Firepower?

The horse might not have had any offensive abilities at all.

It has legs. If it has the strength to bear a rider and gallop, it has the strength to kick and stomp. The same realism that has Ash Roller's V-Thunder with rear-wheel-only drive and an actual gasoline tank that can run empty.

Besides, I'd like to think that the horse was often equipped with artillery much too heavy for a pure Red weakling to lift and control. Side-mounted railguns and missle pods!

[Reds have to be the physically weakest of avatars to counterbalance their range advantage, and Rider was apparently built lightweight for speed (on foot or horse). Armor and muscles are heavy.]

Heck, if a DUEL AVATAR, something made explicitly to fight, could be created without any offensive ability (White Cosmos)

No one ever said that White Cosmos can't fight, just that she can't attack. Or that she has no particular ability for attacking. Since she has hands, she ought to at least be able to punch.

Who knows? Maybe WC started as a Level 1 avatar with purely defensive powers and a special ability to automatically win any duel in which she took no damage (as opposed to facing a Draw)?

Not necessarily. Since having the pile extended left him vulnerable, it would be in his favour to return the pile back as soon as it hit Crow.

Of course retracting the stake as soon as possible is best. The question has always been "how fast can he do it?"


Also, interesting fact: The Pile Driver has an independent "energy gauge" like the Gale Thruster, which limits how soon Cyan Pile can fire off the next shot.

I bet Cyan Pile could have devoted bonuses to increasing the energy pool or reducing the charge time. I'm guessing that Fuuko could have done the same with the Gale Thruster, but she was obsessed with attaining the greatest height possible, and so focused entirely on the distance and power of a single burn. According to the LN, if it weren't for IS, she could only use the booster every ten minutes (which is not even enough for three activations during a normal 30-minute duel).

Irregardless

Minor nitpick: That's not actually a word. It's just "regardless".

we cannot simply disregard the fact that he managed to spear a small bug on the wall without even looking at it with something as unwieldy as his pile driver. Most of us can't even hit a fly with our bare hands

Impressive, yes. But not all small bugs are as agile as flies, and the bug made no fly-speed reaction to Pile's attack. Dusk Taker used his stolen tentacles to grab up a number of the same bugs while trying not to be obvious about it.

Splash Stinger is a series of needle guns on his chest. The projectiles fire straight forward.

Seems to me that there is a slight "cone of fire", where the target area is larger than the firing area of his chest.

As his pile driver is to the side, there is no obstruction of the firing zone.

His pile starts on his right side and then slants centerward to hit a target right in front of him, which places it directly in the firing zone of Splash Stinger.