Sword Art Online - Episode 10 Discussion / Poll

[Anh_Minh]

Quadratic: Well, I don't think there are a lot of people stronger than he is, one on one. He just isn't the very best, 'cause that spot's taken by Heathcliff. And as Kradeel showed, he's still vulnerable to trickery.

[Karakuri]

Originally Posted by Quadratic

True, though many mechanics ended up being reexplained again anyway (teleport crystals & traps are the first that comes to mind).


Some time back, we got this whole super-Kirito argument to the point where "if Kirito wins against the guild leader, he's OP, if he loses, the writing sucks" (paraphrased). After realising side stories are side stories, I now realise this is the most hilarious result we got from trying to promote side stories to main story.

The fact is, there is no super-Kirito.
How did this conclusion come about? Easy, anime viewers linking side stories together with disasterous results:

Asuna-Kirito first boss fight: Whoa, screaming Kirito must be strong.
Kirito solos Santa Clause: Nothing stopping this man on Christmas.
Kirito vs a bunch of PvPers: Man of steel, right there folks.
Kirito solving a mystery: Detective Kirito, going Batman on me, are we?
Kirito soloing a dragon/wall running/saving Lisbeth: Holy crap! Super-Kirito!

Kirito solos a front line boss: put the others together and you get...
Klein! what does the scouter say?
It's over 9000!!!!!

This apparent explosion in power level then leads to 'guild leader must be more OP than Kirito'.

By putting the pieces together you get super-Kirito, when in fact none of the side stories were meant to showcase Kirito's awesomeness (Well, the dragon fight is probably the worst offender in promoting a super-Kirito).

So why did this happen? Because us anime-only viewers are dumb because we missed the "subtlies" of the side stories, such as, he was actually fightly scrubs and low level bosses, and the fights weren't the point at all.


If you cut the side stories out, as one should have done, you get:
Kirito solos a front line boss.
Kirito loses.

What does this imply? Bosses are still soloable at end-game, and Kirito isn't a top dog.
This is what probably how Kirito was meant to be portrayed, and greatly reduces the power level of solo-Kirito, hence why Kirito could be beaten.

It's true there is no " Super-Kirito ", it was only a few people who thought that it'd be impossible to Solo a Boss, even if you're way ahead than the floor's level.
But, if they hadn't shown us those side-stories, would it really work if they had flashbacks? I don't think so. When Kirito saw those Army guys being attacked, he remembered the Black Cat's guild, and they had shown us a flashback of it. It was good, however, would you really be able to understand why did he get into that situation ( from only those few seconds? )? Would you know if he had made the choice to go in, and blamed himself for it? Or would you know he was agaisn't it, and it wasn't his fault at all? Or think he didn't even know them and had a flashback of them because the same thing was happening - He was seeing people die before his eyes - ? I wouldn't get it...being honest here.
I just can't see them showing flashbacks instead of side-stories, because many reasons to " why would he do that " or " what got him into that situation " wouldn't be answered, unless they put like...4 minutes or so in a flashback ( maybe they would need even more time ), in which I really hate ( Because I think flashbacks are something that takes a short time, not a whole life ). Though many people may like 4 minutes flashback, I don't know. - I think those side stories did really well to get into the Main Story.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

There's a big difference between a person being a bit careless and that possibly causing lives to be lost, and a person killing another person with his own hands.

Saying that Kirito killed the Black Cats guild is silly, as is trying to equate that with how he killed Kuradeel. Kirito perhaps could have prevented the death of the Black Cats guild, but he didn't kill them himself!

The key is: what difference does it make to Kirito? He believes he's fully responsible for their deaths; the trauma is the same. You and I may rationalize it like "oh he wasn't really responsible" and "it's not the same as actually killing someone", but the only difference is that one was using his fist (in desperate self-defence), and the other was withholding information (resulting in, in his view, preventable death). If anything, I should think the Black Cats guild is way more traumatic (since he believes he could have stopped it) than killing Kuradeel in self-defence (which was what needed to be done). He's surely going to be more torn up about the ones he could have saved than the one who had to die.

Originally Posted by Quadratic

If you cut the side stories out, as one should have done, you get:
Kirito solos a front line boss.
Kirito loses.

What does this imply? Bosses are still soloable at end-game, and Kirito isn't a top dog.
This is what probably how Kirito was meant to be portrayed, and greatly reduces the power level of solo-Kirito, hence why Kirito could be beaten.

I'm still not sure about the conclusions you've reached. Here's how I see it:

1. Kirito is a powerful solo-player (and former beta tester), whose level and abilities exceeds that of most others around him. (This is why he gets respect on the front-lines, even though he's a solo player and not part of any guild.)

2. Kirito's (basically) soloing the 74th floor boss fight was an unusual, legendary feat worthy of repute throughout Aincrad.

3. Heathcliff is also a legendary player with a unique skill, and many turned out to see a good fight.

4. Kirito is, however, not invulnerable. He loses to Heathcliff, and nearly loses his life due to Kuradeel's betrayal. He comes to the realization that soloing, as he's been doing for these last two year, has reached its limits, and he finds a partner he can trust in Asuna.


Honestly, I don't really understand the elements you're prioritizing and now re-prioritizing in the show. It seems like we're watching a different show unfold. I think the side stories are intricately connected and foundational to the events we're seeing take place now. You've obviously come up with a rationalization that helps you make sense of what you've seen (or rather explains the "lack of sense" you see), but your explanation makes even less sense to me than the show as presented. To each their own, I guess...

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

The key is: what difference does it make to Kirito? He believes he's fully responsible for their deaths; the trauma is the same. You and I may rationalize it like "oh he wasn't really responsible" and "it's not the same as actually killing someone", but the only difference one was using his fist (in desperate self-defence), and the other was withholding information (resulting in, in his view, preventable death). If anything, I should think the Black Cats guild is way more traumatic (since he believes he could have stopped it) than killing Kuradeel in self-defence (which was what needed to be done). So, if anything, I think the anime has it right in terms the order of magnitude of the trauma. He's surely going to be more torn up about the ones he could have saved than the one who had to die.

I don't know which is more traumatic, but the Black Cats' deaths were a mistake. If Kirito had to do it again, he'd tell them he was a beater, and damn the consequences.

Kuradeel's death was a conscious decision - albeit in the heat of battle. If he had to do it again, he would.

[Karakuri]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

I don't know which is more traumatic, but the Black Cats' deaths were a mistake. If Kirito had to do it again, he'd tell them he was a beater, and damn the consequences.

Kuradeel's death was a conscious decision - albeit in the heat of battle. If he had to do it again, he would.

Well, I think the Black Cats' deaths were more traumatic, because those were his friends, and they died because he didn't them tell the truth, while agaisn't Kuradeel, Kuradeel was just someone who was " faking " his guild, when he really was in a murderous guild, and tried to kill both him and Asuna ( Meaning Kuradeel was at fault, not Kirito ). The differences are - He could've protected Black Cats' members by telling them the truth, and they wouldn't die ( that's how he sees it ), but agaisn't Kuradeel, nothing could be done, he was already insane to begin with, either he killed for self-defence or he and Asuna would've died.
Basically - He " let them die " ( People who he cared and wanted to protect ) - as he thinks -, while agaisn't Kuradeel he was protecting his most precious partner from being killed, though agaisn't Kuradeel he used his own hands to kill him...but nothing could've been done agaisn't that - And he should feel there was nothing he could do to avoid Kuradeel's death, it was in the heat of the moment after all..
Though it is different from every person's view...

[erneiz_hyde]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Honestly, I don't really understand the elements you're prioritizing and now re-prioritizing in the show. It seems like we're watching a different show unfold. I think the side stories are intricately connected and foundational to the events we're seeing take place now. You've obviously come up with a rationalization that helps you make sense of what you've seen (or rather explains the "lack of sense" you see), but your explanation makes even less sense to me than the show as presented. To each their own, I guess...

I guess if the novel was attracting such a huge fanbase without the linear chronological story-telling we see in anime, then surely the single time-skip in the novel did something right, no? I think that's Quadratic take on this.

The fact of the matter is the LN was already presented differently and it was a huge success.

[Karakuri]

Originally Posted by erneiz_hyde

I guess if the novel was attracting such a huge fanbase without the linear chronological story-telling we see in anime, then surely the single time-skip in the novel did something right, no? I think that's Quadratic take on this.

The fact of the matter is the LN was already presented differently and it was a huge success.

Well, it's true it was a huge success, but that doesn't mean it would've been better. Those side stories told us many things we wouldn't know, and if going forward, it would be really weird to just keep going - Atleast this is my way of seeing this, since I'm nearly finishing the LN, I am saying this, because I think those SS were pretty important.
Example: Just like what I said above, if we didn't have that " Black Cats Guild " SS, we wouldn't know why would Kirito remember them while watching those Army guys - I atleast would be thinking : " Why is he remembering them? Did he say they should explore that room and they died because of it? Did he tell them not to but they still went in, even when he told them not to? Did he even know them? Could it have been just pure strangers who he saw dying and he couldn't protect them?
Well, atleast that's my point of view - They were pretty good imho.

[Adigard]

Originally Posted by erneiz_hyde

The fact of the matter is the LN was already presented differently and it was a huge success.

Two points I can make on that topic. A) the author obviously regrets the way the LN progressed to such an extent that he's re-writing the books, in chronological order. That alone should say something (beyond the obvious money grab).

And B, your standard LN has to present a full and complete story within the confines of a single volume... because... well... they may not get a second book published. But that discussion has been beaten to death here in past threads.

And C, technically when the LN was released the web version of SAO was probably much further along (not a moonspeak reader, so I can't be sure how far), so many of the SAO LN readers had likely been introduced to the franchise via the web version... but that's neither here nor there.

Ultimately it all comes down to whether or not you thought the early episodes did a solid job of world- and character-building or not. Regardless of what expectations people brought into the show, I personally feel the opening episodes (the side stories) did a very solid job of fleshing out the environment, and setting up the framework that the latter episodes exist in. But that's also a discussion that's been beaten to death.

I've always been a member of the "flashbacks are crappy storytelling" camp myself... I'd prefer they spend the time in advance, laying foundations, rather than copping out with a cheesy flashback to magically explain a sudden plot twist. Obviously a fair number of people in this thread love the stereotypical anime trope of flash-backing stuff in order to suddenly insert depth... but I'd rather shows went with the method they're using here. To each their own, of course.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by erneiz_hyde

I guess if the novel was attracting such a huge fanbase without the linear chronological story-telling we see in anime, then surely the single time-skip in the novel did something right, no? I think that's Quadratic take on this.

The fact of the matter is the LN was already presented differently and it was a huge success.

Well, that wasn't really the point I was referring to in my reply... but that notwithstanding, that doesn't necessarily means that either a) the approach taken in the novel would translate well to anime (you can do a lot in prose that doesn't work as well in a visual medium) and b) that the approach taken in the novel is necessarily the way the author would write it if he had to start all over again. I think the pacing of the anime episodes now is only possible because so much groundwork was covered in the earlier episodes to explain what's going on. I'm sure that this was probably handled differently in the novels, and I'm not saying that's bad, but the approach we saw here also has merit. I, for one, certainly find the events shown in the recent episodes to be quite powerful because of the connections established earlier in the show. I certainly don't think the current events are in any way less effective because of it.

Spoiler for Comparison to the novels in a bit more detail (though I haven't read these):

Keep in mind that these side-stories were written long after the original arc. If they're going to include them in the anime the way they were in the novels, they'd have to go way past the current story, and then later throw in these flashbacks well after we already know how this particular arc will be resolved. (In, like Season 2 or 3 of the anime that may not air for years.) By that point, the direct impact of the revelations in this story is lessened. I realize that Quadratic's argument is that they basically have no impact and that they're either pointless or "misleading". But if they're really so pointless, why did the author even write them? One assumes that they fill gaps in the story that people were curious about and will have an impact later on. To that point, we already see how they have had an impact on the events thus far. If they don't wait for some indefinite point in the future to show these flashbacks, then they basically have to cut to them right at the point when they're referenced... and that would really break up the story. You'd have a little bit of progress... FLASHBACK... more progress... FLASHBACK... more progress... FLASHBACK... I really don't think that would be that much better at all.

As it is, I think the anime is a huge success. I someone wants to argue that it would have been an even bigger success if not for this structural adjustment... all we can do is speculate. Even as someone who knew nothing about the novels coming into this show, the presentation wasn't confusing to me. But then again, I do have experience playing MMOs, so the idea of the player level, zone difficulty level, strength driven by stats, and so on are somewhat instinctive to me.


Edit: Too slow again.

Edit 2: In re-thinking this, perhaps the key point is that they're not really "side stories". They're "missing stories". They fill in gaps left by the original narrative. And so here, they're presenting the story with the gaps "pre-filled", which also has the advantage of visually exploring game mechanics that will be referenced later. If you see it in that light, then it makes sense for the anime to present it the way they did. Otherwise, they'd be blatantly ignoring relevant events that happened in the chronology just because "that wasn't the order in which the author originally wrote them".

[Adigard]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

b) that the approach taken in the novel is necessarily the way the author would write it if he had to start all over again.

He is, and it isn't

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Spoiler for Comparison to the novels in a bit more detail (though I haven't read these):

But if they're really so pointless, why did the author even write them? One assumes that they fill gaps in the story that people were curious about and will have an impact later on.

Spoiler for response to the LN comparision:

The LN started with the standard in medias res cold opening, then fired into a multiple chapter flashback... Had they duplicated that in the Anime I think the story would have suffered drastically. And even if we never see any of the characters from the side stories (we have, in fact, seen some of them again), it still adds width and depth to what would otherwise be a rather shallow story.

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Edit: Too slow again.

You spell things out better than I do, take as long as you need with the posts.

[Znail]

Flashbacks works a lot better in a novel then in an anime as it only takes a few sentences to sum up some past event. And while the fleshed out story is a SS so was it still present as a detailed flashback in the orginal novel. It's almost the same with the murder case SS as it's also flashbacked in the original novel and later fleshed out into a full SS.

So these SS may be written after the first volume, but they are not really additions in the sense as they were still asumed to have happened and were reasons behind how the characters acts. It's even unsure if they were written afterwards as he had to make cuts to fit in the format for a novel competition he wanted to enter. So the side stories may actually have been written at the same time but been cut out to make the novel fit the required size.

[mod edit: removed spoiler/hint about future novel content]

[Shimapan]

Originally Posted by vyktar

Secondly, This is something i want to be discussed or preferably answered. It has to do with consistency.

Spoiler for Battle Regen:

Now if you all remember, in episode 4, when Kitiro is fighting the group of bandits, hes level 78 and they only do about 400 damage to him in ten seconds. Kitiro has a Battle Regen of about 600 at a tick rate of 10000 (10 seconds). ie, the bandits don't do any damage.
In the most recent episode of SAO when Kuradeel poisons both Kirito and Godfrey they become paralyzed. Kuradeel kills Godfrey, then turns and starts to attack Kitiro. Currently Kirito is level 96 with 18500 health, meaning his Battle Regen would have gone up as well. Lets say by about 200, making it about 800. Kuradeel deals 3 blows to Kirito over 90 seconds, means that each strike would have to deal about 6000 damage, over 30 seconds, meaning 2000 damage over 10 seconds. Kirito's Battle Regen should have been able to counteract this to last longer then 90 seconds meaning that it would longer to kill him. This means that's Kuradeel needed to do over 2500-3000 damage every ten seconds to counteract his Battle Regen. Another possibility is that Kitiro's battle regen was disabled because he wasn't in combat, meaning he would not regenerate health every 10 seconds. yet another theory is that Paralysis disables Battle Regen, hence for both reason why its aptly named 'Battle Regen'. One finally reason as to why Kirito's health did not regenerate is that it was Gear dependent, and since Kitiro had the Blood Knight armor equipped, he no longer regenerated his health.

As was apparent from several previous instances already, the author doesn't seem to set great value in consistency, so consistency is handled very loosely here. New stuff is introduced whenever it's convenient for the story and generally quickly dropped again afterwards, when it has served its purpose, to be never heard of again.
BR was only introduced earlier as a convenient explanation for why those thugs couldn't really hurt Kirito. Yes, it should have been active here as well, as it was never mentioned that it doesn't work when paralysed, is dependant on the equipment or anything like that, so it should likely be constantly active.
I can think of two reasons why it wasn't used here, even though there should've been some effect by it:
1. The author forgot about Battle Regen once it served its purpose, as he never intended to use it a second time.
2. The author explicitly disregarded it, because it wouldn't have been convenient here. He might've thought Kirito constantly regenerating health with BR would've made Kuradeel less threatening.

[Adigard]

Originally Posted by Shimapan

I can think of two reasons why it wasn't used here, even though there should've been some effect by it:
1. The author forgot about Battle Regen once it served its purpose, as he never intended to use it a second time.
2. The author explicitly disregarded it, because it wouldn't have been convenient here. He might've thought Kirito constantly regenerating health with BR would've made Kuradeel less threatening.

Did we watch the same episode?

Kirito is plainly seen to be bleeding, a la a Damage Over Time effect... from the fact that he's got a sword stuck in his body that's being pushed around inside the wound.

In fact, it's made even more obvious because of the 'pixel' blood spiraling out of the wound, and the fact that his health is quite quickly draining out of the bar.

The PK'ers several episodes ago, even with all of them, never pushed his HP beyond 5-10% down... so a slow tick of health returning would easily counter the damage they were dealing. Conversely a slow tick of health returning would not so easily counter the fact that a much higher level player with likely better equipment had a sword stuck in his body being pushed around inside a wound. I imagine if Kuradeel decided to stop pushing swords around in his opponents body for more than a few seconds we'd probably be able to see the HoT affect, but a weak HoT isn't going to offset a powerful DoT. No?

Originally Posted by Shimapan

As was apparent from several previous instances already, the author doesn't seem to set great value in consistency, so consistency is handled very loosely here. New stuff is introduced whenever it's convenient for the story and generally quickly dropped again afterwards, when it has served its purpose, to be never heard of again.

Got a few examples? There are certainly some glaring issues in the LN's of this one, but less in the anime. The only thing I can think of, off-hand, are the details surrounding Scillia and the whole Pet Tamer 'class'... an arc which introduced us to other elements which have been a consistent and reoccurring plot point.

[Kamui04]

Originally Posted by Adigard

The PK'ers several episodes ago, even with all of them, never pushed his HP beyond 5-10% down... so a slow tick of health returning would easily counter the damage they were dealing. Conversely a slow tick of health returning would not so easily counter the fact that a much higher level player with likely better equipment had a sword stuck in his body being pushed around inside a wound. I imagine if Kuradeel decided to stop pushing swords around in his opponents body for more than a few seconds we'd probably be able to see the HoT affect, but a weak HoT isn't going to offset a powerful DoT. No?

Well I'm getting tired of replying to Shimapan's comments, since it seems either he never checks people replies or refuses to accept what most people understood logically and easily or there's a language barrier or a physical barrier altogether.

But back on to the Battle Healing (Healing over Time or HoT) and the Damage over Time effect. People keep arguing that Kirito's HoT was stronger than the damage done by Titan's Hand goons. But back then Kirito was level 78 while Silica was 45. Rosalia most likely was around that level to party with her, whereas her goons would be equal level or maybe lower. That would represent a gap of over 30 levels. On a lot of RPGs and MMO damage from such a low level enemy would be reduced to be insignificant or maybe even miss it's target altogether from the difference in accuracy vs evasion.

Kuradeel was lower level than Kirito, maybe 10 level as speculated by Asuna, but that's a smaller difference than 30+. Which will definitely affect the damage and chances against Kirito compared to those low level PKers.

As for the HoT I second Adigard's comment that it's benefits would have been nullified by the DoT done by Kuradeels stabs and wriggling the sword in Kirito's wounds. Dammit it isn't rocket science, someone who had played games would understand such concepts! And also I don't like to repeat myself but the animators were careful enough to not show Kirito's POV and HP bar on each 10 sec tick.

[Clarste]

I think the problem is that people who aren't familiar with games got the wrong impression about Battle Healing from the Silica episode. Some people seem to be thinking "what happened to that super OP ability he had back then which made him invincible?" when that was never supposed to be the point. Battle Healing is weak. Negligible, really. I won't say it's useless, but those kind of numbers would basically never be noticed in a real fight. The point back in the Silica episode was to add insult to injury: not only did they do next to no damage, they literally can't kill him no matter how long they attack him. This is the sad truth in a world with levels.

However, that has nothing to do with Kuradeel. He's not quite Kirito's level, but he's not so far behind as to be unable to hurt him. So the fact that Kirito has Battle Healing is... completely irrelevant.

[Divini]

Originally Posted by Shimapan

As was apparent from several previous instances already, the author doesn't seem to set great value in consistency, so consistency is handled very loosely here. New stuff is introduced whenever it's convenient for the story and generally quickly dropped again afterwards, when it has served its purpose, to be never heard of again.
BR was only introduced earlier as a convenient explanation for why those thugs couldn't really hurt Kirito. Yes, it should have been active here as well, as it was never mentioned that it doesn't work when paralysed, is dependant on the equipment or anything like that, so it should likely be constantly active.
I can think of two reasons why it wasn't used here, even though there should've been some effect by it:
1. The author forgot about Battle Regen once it served its purpose, as he never intended to use it a second time.
2. The author explicitly disregarded it, because it wouldn't have been convenient here. He might've thought Kirito constantly regenerating health with BR would've made Kuradeel less threatening.

Those 'thugs' were at least half of Kirito's level (with gear that level too, probably), while Kuradeel was in the top clearing guild in the game with a comparable high level weapon. The difference in a MMO setting is night and day.

600 hp every 10 seconds when you have 18,500 hp is NOTHING when you have your HP drain as fast as was shown when Kuradeel had his sword piercing through him.

In every level-system MMO I've played, that's exactly how it is. Players and mobs less than half your level barely scratch you, and with a HP regen skill you are practically invincible. Kirito tanking all those hits in episode 4 was not exaggerated at all.

On the flip side, the usefulness of that skill fades when you get hit with huge bursts of damage normal for such a high level, let alone having a sword being impaled straight through you. What it is useful for is when you're constantly grinding for a long period of time, something that suits Kirito's soloing very well.

(I have to admit, watching that part in episode 10 again - they didn't show Kirito's GUI for more than 5 seconds at a time. It's a clever way to get around the 10 second regen)

[Wild Goose]

tl;dr, Kirito had Battle Regen, but Kuradeel's stabbing and Damage over Time effect was doing more damage than Battle Regen could heal, resulting in a constant net decrease to health.

Which is exactly what happens to me on a regular basis in Skyrim; there's a health regen system, but it is not fast enough to keep you alive in combat - you will take hits and die faster than the health regen will fill up, which is why you need to eat food and drink potions.

Can't say for other people's styles, but the whole point of regenerating health/shields, from Halo and in every other game with the same concept, is not to allow you to take constant damage, but to give you some breathing room. You don't walk up to enemies and let them attack you perpetually and trust in your healing factor; you use it to recover your health after you've taken hits and temporarily retreat to catch your breath.

[Last Sinner]

It was explained in Episode 4 that Kirito had 600HP regen/10 seconds at Level 78. He's now Level 96, so you could probably assume that with improved gear, stats and scaling abilities, his regen is over 1,000HP/10 secs.

And as Wild Goose says, while games like Skyrim and World of Warcraft do have abilities to regain health via regen or healing abilities, damage outputs or armor for specific classes or health pools are arrranged to prevent a character from being virtually invincible against cap level or near cap-level content. In the case of World of Warcraft, there is the odd Death Knight or Warlock that finds ways to do bosses other classes can't. Mione, a Korean female that plays Death Knight, is a master at finding ways to solo former raid bosses that needed a lot of people and even finds the odd current expansion boss she can solo because Death Knights have ridiculous abilities to get health back in Blood spec.

Another thing to keep in mind is - in any MMO, for even the best of players to get to the point to solo the hardest content, they would at some point need to regularly team up with others to get the gear to do that. There's only so far you can get by soloing - MMOs are designed to force people to work with others to become stronger.

Kirito somewhat reminds me of a Warrior in Fury spec. Dual wielding reminds me of Titan's Grip and the damage that comes with it, but also like Fury spec, the regen/tank effects aren't that great. Heathcliff gave me Paladin in Protection spec vibes but I'd figure he'd have better damage abilities than a normal tank.

If Kirito ever showed any tanky/crazy sustain abilities like a Death Knight in Blood spec, then I'd believe he could be near invincible. But since he's more of a damage-dealer and his tankiness isn't scaling as well as someone like Heathcliff, I certainly never thought of him as invincible. People mentioning some of the things he beat in those side-story episodes - wasn't Kirito considerably out-levelling those things he helped Silica and Lizbeth with? For example, the crystal dragon Kirito took on was on Floor 55 and they headed there on June 24. It was February 24, 2004 when Kirito took Silica to Floor 47 where we learned he was Level 78. On Octboer 23, 2004 from this episode, Kirito was Level 96. 18 level in 8 months, probably with exponential level XP amounts scaling - Kirito was probably nearly Level 90 when he took on the crystal dragon. Even if the crystal dragon was elite, Kirito would have had about 35 levels on that mob and stood a good chance against it. If it was ?? level, then there may have been a problem. The way things were shown, it was implied Kirito was strong and one of the better players. I never got the impression he was near-invincible or the best. Furthermore, if he was the best that early in the title, that would really make it harder to induce conflict on Kirito. Heathcliff is a necessary reminder that Kirito can't do it alone and is also a foil for Asuna and Kirito to get closer. I really don't get why people would think Kirito is too OP. Oh well.

One more thing...a heal crystal that's full HP restore regardless of level? That's OP...if those things don't have cooldowns, they'd better be damn hard to get or stockpiling up on those would make one pretty capable of survivng almost anything.

I prefer to think of Ep10 from more of an overall view than just the relationship development. It's sweet and all, but anyone with a clue knows this won't last. Strengthening the bond between Kirito and Asuna will make whatever comes soon that much more impactful. Respite and happiness within Sword Art Online is only temporary. Eventually something will come tear it apart. And there's two people that are likely to do it.

[Krono]

Originally Posted by Last Sinner

One more thing...a heal crystal that's full HP restore regardless of level? That's OP...if those things don't have cooldowns, they'd better be damn hard to get or stockpiling up on those would make one pretty capable of survivng almost anything.

All crystals are very expensive, and susceptible to being blocked by anti-crystal traps. That's part of why the floor 74 boss was so bad for the army once they were cut off from the entrance. They couldn't teleport away, and they couldn't instant heal. So they're useful, but not something it's safe to rely on.

[Dengar]

I always assumed that crystals were hell expensive, and players don't carry to many on them at any one time. It's better to hang on to your money, only use crystals in emergencies, and only buy more when you run out. If you don't, you might not have enough money to maintain your gear and make sure those crystals don't see too much use.