Fate/stay night Game discussion (Warning: Spoilers)

[willyvereb]

In the VN it only killed Berserker 5 times though...
Also A rank Noble phantasms are capable of dealing 200 damage if I remember the table well.A++ should deal 800 which is excalibur.
I say it didn't kill Berserker 5 times, but neutralised God Hand's effects and so regardless of how many stock of lives Berserker had it would've killed him. Or simply a plot hole...

[MonkeyDude]

Ah right Archer got like 6 and Rin got 1, so yeah 5...wonder why I thought it was 7...

Well the only weapon I recall that was shown in FSN with the capability of nullifying the effects of immortality (wounds heal normally rather than regenerating at an accelerated rate) is Harpe. I'm actually surprised he managed to create a Caliburn to that degree of accuracy when he didn't have the crutch that is Emiya's knowledge. I mean at least UBW explained that he was drawing experience from Emiya and Shirou had Emiya's arm in HF. What was the explanation for Fate route?

[willyvereb]

Seeing Saber's damn Calibum every time in his dreams recently...I guess it means he had enough time to properly analyse it without him knowing it. Remember: He did the same in HF when Illya showed him a dream to project Zelterch's sword.

[MonkeyDude]

I've always interpreted his need to see the weapon in the physical sense. It even says that he cannot replicate an object unless he has seen the original with his own eyes. He may have seen Caliburn and Zelretch in a dream, but that is rather stretching the definition of seeing an object with his own eyes. Well for all intents and purposes, the dream sequences satisfied the rule of Shirou needing to see the original to trace it.

I mean we do have him pulling weapons out of nowhere due to Emiya crutch in UBW so this certainly makes more sense than that. Hey look a Reality Marble out of nowhere

[orangejuicetang]

Well, let's address the first point of Rider dodging Excalibur. Like I said, she charged first. Which means, she was moving at maximum speed in one direction. It's not known that she could dodge. Besides, Excalibur is, as you noted, a beam of light, and light travels pretty fast. She wasn't buzzing around in the air and such, but like mentioned before, charging full speed in one direction towards Saber.

Also, your missing the point I'm trying to make about Godhand. To quote a line from fuyuki,

It's effectively an armor coating the body.

Note that it's basically on the outside of his body. Also, your missing something else I said about Godhand, which is that it also had the secondary effect of turning his skin into something as hard as steel. So note that even if for example a person swung a stick at A rank strength, even though Godhand wouldn't nullify it, it still wouldn't really do much damage because his skin is hard as steel. Now the point I tried to make, was that when the Caliburn effect went off, it was already inside his body. While Godhand is effectively an armor outside his body. So not only does the Godhand nullify thing not take effect, not that it would have since Caliburn is above rank B, but also since the blast is directly inside his body, he also doesn't get any damage reduction from his steel-like skin.

[Khu]

Guys...

there's always physics. =D

Right? XD

[MonkeyDude]

Rider was buzzing around in the air before she charged towards Saber. She has demonstrated the ability to be highly maneuverable in the air. Why did she have to charge right into the Excalibur when she could have just moved aside just a tiny bit and evade the full brunt of the attack? Just because that scene was used to show the awesome power of Excalibur doesn't mean that it suddenly gives an excuse to make Rider act out of character. She's acting out of character in the sense that she is charging right into an attack within her means to fully evade when her main battle tactic is using her agility to her advantage.

My argument is how and why Caliburn took 5 lives from Berserker with only 1 attack. It doesn't work in an RPG sense and I'm working on the assumption that Nasu takes inspiration from RPG games given the rankings he gives to the heroic spirits.

God Hand also seems to have the unmentioned ability to regenerate missing parts of its wielder to accompany its automatic resurrection. It seems pointless to only have auto-resurrect when half your body is blown apart. I believe the process goes like this: death->resurrection->regeneration->death. So if Caliburn did indeed obliterate his insides, how could he kill Berserker more than once if he didn't have time to regenerate? Theoretically, Caliburn should have nothing else to 'kill' after roasting Berserker's insides.

I'm working on conjecture here given the provided data is insufficient in explaining how it really works. I just can't buy the explanation of an attack exploding inside of the body, killing Berserker 5 times instantaneously. Then again, we also have Emiya somehow managing to kill Berserker (6?) times and that was left largely unexplained. At least we can make a safe assumption of Emiya sword spamming Berserker to kill him one at a time, not five in one blow.

[willyvereb]

Well Nasu was largely ignorant to the rules of his own world and reality when it came to the Emiyas. Archer supposedly didn't use UBW against Berserker and still beat him 6 times...kind of strange as even Saber with much much better speed, strenght and skill had a hard time getting a hit on Berserker.

I think Archer used trickery and the surprise of his Noble Phantasms. in the interlude part it explains various kinds of wounds on Berserker. Though I doubt Nasu though out the whole Berserker vs Archer battle, but it still indicates that Archer did use at least 6 different Noble Phantasm to achieve the kills.

While the short distance and obvious difference in power totally should've given Berserker the upper hand I think Archer cunningly used the various surrounding objects as cover. Afterall his only skill in battle is his insane battle coordination and talent at tactics. I bet Berserker wasn't astonished by his skill but by his cunningness as we al know Hercules was also a quite cunning person in his life.
But still it's kind of unbelievable.

[orangejuicetang]

First, like I have mentioned countless times already, she's was charging. As in moving at full speed in one direction to gather as much momentum as possible. It's exceedingly difficult to do even a 30 degree turn at maximum speed. Yes, she is maneuverable in the air. When she's just flying around in broad circles. Next, like I've said before, Excalibur is a fucking beam of light. How the fuck are you expecting rider to react in time and dodge a beam of light? Rider's strategy made a decent amount of sense if you only know what Rider did. Which is something like, A. My Noble Phantasm, is really powerful and fast, B. On the rooftop, there is no cover or any place for Saber to dodge to, C. Saber probably doesn't have a Noble Phantasm more powerful then mine considering that I'm the Rider class which is pretty much guaranteed to have a powerful Noble Phantasm, and it's A+ at that, while Saber's only required to be excellent all around, so the chances of her having a Noble Phantasm to beat mine are slim. It's not her fault that Saber had "Lol Excalibur Rank A++ Beam of light, Bitch". And once again, I just want to emphasis that Excalibur is a beam of light. How exactly do you expect Rider to "evade" a beam of light? Also, how large exactly is the tip of the beam.

Next, well, in RPG terms, I suppose it would go something like this. Beserker has let's say, 100 hp. He also has magic skin that negates all weapons that are below a certain rarity, let's say rarity 2, being the higher the rarity, the more powerful it is. If the weapon is above rarity 2, the damage is reduced by 70% due to the armor class bestowed by his magical skin. He also has a stock of lives, so everytime you kill him, a new life pops in. So let's say you deal 150 damage after the reduction, you take off one of his lives, but then one of his extra lives kick in, and then it restores it back to 100 hp for that life. However, for every additional 100 damage you deal in a single blow, you can take off more than one life, so a 200 damage kills 2 lives, and ect. Now Caliburn has a rarity value of 3. Thus, it penetrates Beserker's magic skin. But then while it's still in Beserker's body, it let's off the full force special attack, which deals 520 damage. Now, if it was outside Beserker, it would only deal 156 damage and kill him once, but since it's inside him and not being reduced by his magic skin, it deals the full 520 damage, killing him 5 times.

If the thing you can't buy is an attack killing him 5 times, fine. I understand that. It's kind of absurd to think irl, "My god, that explosion killed him 3 times." But it's a fictional magic ability.

I have no idea how Archer killed Beserker 6 times. All we know is that Beserker was impressed by Archer's sword skills at the end. I don't think Beserker would have confused cunningness with swordsmanship, because, well, it's just hard to believe that Hercules of all people would confuse the difference between cunning and swordsmanship considering that Hercules was both quite cunning as you mentioned, and probably fairly skilled as well. Honestly, I have no idea how Archer scored so many kills. And unless Nasu ever decides to write a short scene describing it, it'll likely be never known. The best I can come up with is that Archer was more focused on dealing damage than actually winning, thus taking a higher risk-reward fighting style, but I don't really know. All that's known is that he apparently traced six different Noble Phantasms which killed him 6 diferent times, and accomplished this through melee combat and not swordrain/ubw.

[willyvereb]

And if anything Archer would have a really poor swordsmanship so...another overglorising of the Emiyas from Nasu...

[orangejuicetang]

Why exactly should Archer have really poor swordsmanship? His swordsmanship is exactly the best around, but to say he has poor swordsmanship...?

[willyvereb]

You know...he's compared to the other Heroic Spirits a mere human and he hasn't born with insane talent at it and raised up with the best trainers as many of the heroes.
Just take Arthuria for example.
Archer gains the memory of the weapon, but it's only a minor hax. It sometimes kicks in sometimes not. He still needs real skill to use his weapons. Also he's quite weak in physical abilities. Even True Assassin has better ones than him.

[orangejuicetang]

That doesn't mean poor swordsmanship though. Beserker, Lancer, and Saber have praised Archer on his swordsmanship before. Sure, he's probably not as skilled as people like Saber and Lancer, but that's still not the same thing as being poor. The fact that he's able to keep up for a while on his own while on an admittedly defensive and mostly one-sided battle should prove that he's fairly skilled. He's just not as skilled as the other Servants "Insanely Talented Genius" level. He doesn't really rely on on the memory of his weapon for the most part, since he has a definite sword style with K+B, which are the swords he used most often, since Shirou was able to emulate that style using a wooden Kendo sword.

I suppose you say that Archer's swordsmanship pales in comparison to the other Servants, which is fair. But that doesn't mean that he isn't skilled. He is fairly skilled in swordsmanship. It's just that most of the Servants are even more skilled at it then he is because they rely more on it. And to be fair to Archer, looking at the "normal" stats for Servants, Archer's more average than weak. It's just that A. While Archer was an average Servant, the rest were way above average Servants, and B. The Archer class isn't really meant for close range combat in the first place.

[willyvereb]

Yeah...I meant exactly that. Archer is fairly skilled, but - as Rin states in UBW - His style and skill is like something achievable by almost any human.

[MonkeyDude]

I don't think Excalibur is a light beam attack at all. If we go by the description of the attack, the light is due to the "dislocation" of everything the "ultimate killing technique" goes through. The light isn't necessarily the attack itself but the after effect of the attack. The dislocation of light is what makes Excalibur an Anti-Fortress NP rather than an Anti-Unit. I'd have to reckon that the "killing edge" would be roughly the same size of the blade of Excalibur, which is fairly small. Though Saber is probably the only one with a full understanding of how Excalibur's attack really works. I'm just nitpicking why Rider decided to go head-on against a Servant who has not yet revealed the true extent of her abilities while forsaking her advantage in agility. I should add that this made it easier to display Excalibur's power given the limitations of the attack itself in that setting.

I can buy that explanation even though no RPG works like that. The attack "kills" the player, then the auto-revive item kicks in. It doesn't take more than 1 revive item to bring back a player who was overkilled. Yeah magic...explains everything

Emiya's skills represent the peak of human condition. Though they pale in comparison to skills a heroic spirit have at their disposal, I guess they can impress those who can enjoy a good fight or something like that. Emiya fighting toe to toe with Berserker in swordsmanship should be nigh impossible. Saber herself had to use her Mana Burst ability to even fight on an even ground and I doubt Emiya has an ability like that. Even if she were fighting Berserker evenly, she was still taking damage through the shockwave created by Berserker's attack. So Saber was drawing on every skill at her disposal short of unleashing her Excalibur to fight Berserker evenly and Emiya manages to kill him 6 times through swordsmanship alone? At least a sword rain of Broken Phantasms is plausible...

[Flinch]

Why do you people say Saber was a great swordsman? She wasn't all that good. Yes, she was amazing in comparison to most, but if you look at Lancelot, who didn't even pull Saber, she couldnt' keep up. Also, if you look at the legend, Arthur wasn't the greatest warrior. In his early days, he would've died multiple times without the scabbard to stop the bleeding, while his three best knights (Lancelot, Tristram and Gawain accordingly) didn't need such an item. Well, Tristram could've used it after he ran of with Isolde, but that's beside the point.

[Nevflinn]

She's the best all-round as far as Fate is concerned. But if you want to be really picky about it, consider some of the other accounts. Geoffrey of Monmouth describes Arthur as a warrior king, unsurpassed in prowess and diplomacy, who would both govern and fight wherever the need arose. It was with the writers of the 13th century that his own skill was downplayed and he became more of a typical king in comparison to his knights, who they went off to romanticise/invent. So of course they'd be made look better than him. :V

[Angrypokstick]

Another interesting fact about Excalibur i found out from recently playing fate hollow atraxia. First the barrier of the wind king can be extended so much that it could be used to protect an entire skyscraper so as to stop outside force from getting in. Next Saber for all intent and purpose fired a excaliblast that was umm.. Omnidirectional, as it wiped out all the shadows beasts surrounding her and the building she was protecting and the effect of the destruction was spread out for many many city blocks-visible for miles and undoubtedly from space as well. also it seemed to me saber fired the blast not in her usual pose firing the blast as a large slash but her sword was firmly planted in the ground at that moment and the blast was fired from the sword while it was tip first in the ground.
Remember when she said she was afraid of scorching the earth with her blade, now i see why, she scorched the earth alright she scorched it good.

[frenze12]

Originally Posted by willyvereb

You know...he's compared to the other Heroic Spirits a mere human and he hasn't born with insane talent at it and raised up with the best trainers as many of the heroes.
Just take Arthuria for example.
Archer gains the memory of the weapon, but it's only a minor hax. It sometimes kicks in sometimes not. He still needs real skill to use his weapons. Also he's quite weak in physical abilities. Even True Assassin has better ones than him.

stats doesn't mean anything, archer kicked True Assassin but in heavens feel and in UBW he was on par with lancer in the strenght devision (speed not included) . In both battles he was just fighting with his Kanshou & Bakuya.

[MonkeyDude]

If we go by stats, then Lancer is rather superior to Archer in most categories. He outranks Archer by 2 in Strength, their endurance is the same, outranks Archer by 2 in Agility, Archer outranks him by 1 in magic energy though I doubt he has much use for it other than UBW, their luck is relatively the same, and Lancer's NP is better against a fight between the two of them. Lancer's "protection from arrows" ability makes him the natural enemy of the Archer class. Archer also has no real means to counter Gae Bolg (Impaling Barbed Death) due to his low luck stat and Archer has no means to defend himself against Gae Bold (Striking Death Flight).

Don't forget that the (True) Assassin class was never really meant to engage other Servants. They were instead meant to "assassinate" the Masters, which by proxy takes down the Servant as well. There is a reason why the class itself is called Assassin and why it is considered the weakest Servant class.

Lancer was also under the binding of a command spell stating that he can only gauge his opponent's abilities, not actually fight to his fullest. Even if Archer was able to fight "on par" with Lancer, he was also being disarmed at every attack. The only reason Archer even survived his encounter with Lancer at close combat was due to the command spell on Lancer and his then mysterious ability to project swords out of thin air. I don't know if you just forgot the events of UBW, but Lancer utterly destroyed Archer when Lancer actually got to fight at his maximum. Lancer has Archer beat in terms of swordsmanship and Noble Phantasm, with Lancer's NP actually being a famous weapon due to him being a true heroic spirit.

Which raises a question I have. If Cu Chulainn is an actual heroic spirit and Emiya is but a mere counter guardian who somehow managed to weasel his way into the grail war, how is Arturia classified in the Nasuverse? Feel free to correct me if I'm getting something wrong here.