What Matters in a Fight

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Due to the return of Versus Threads over half a year ago, threads have had a different take to how matches are taken versus other communities that use them. This is due to how battles are applied and handled here. The following page (What Matters in a Fight) will be going over each category that's normally discussed in a cross-versus battle and discuss how it is treated here and the assumption one is expected to operate under. Unlike Standard Battle Assumptions, this is moreso talking about the concept of how fights work rather then the assumptions given for a versus match.

Stats

Many other communities tend to rely solely on specific stats for a character to gain a win or loss.

For example, one may be considered "bad" if they have speeds such as Superhuman or Supersonic at high tiers due to another having a high speed stat. One may be considered bad if their main forms of attack requires a weapon on hand or because they rely on equipment.

This will be going over each of the stats to explain what each would apply for in a battle.

Attack Potency/Striking Strength

These have slight differences amongst each other though are roughly the same idea. The higher one's Attack Potency or Striking Strength, the stronger their attack; this is normally seen as the end all be all for most discussions, as logically, someone with a much higher attack landing a hit on someone else with much lower defense should result in an easy win for them.

Speed

Speed is considered in the same ball park, logically the higher one's speed, the faster they are, whether it be traveling, attacking, or processing/reacting. This is also seen as the end all be all in a discussion as if someone is too fast they can never get hit and will be able to do many different things before one even has the time to react.

Durability

Still considered decently high but not as talked about due to one's Attack Potency normally being considered equivalent to their Durability. The higher the durability, the more hits they can take, at some point they are effectively immune to damage depending on the difference.

Lifting Strength

Barely brought up despite being a pretty important stat. Lifting Strength deals with different types of energy application then Attack Potency and Striking Strength, while both are based mostly on joules, Lifting Strength is based on types of output like Newtons. The higher one's lifting strength, the more they can overpower opponents even stronger then them. Lifting strength allows them to put opponents in holds and grapples that they cannot break out of, it allows them to fight through telekinesis and gravity based attacks depending on the context of them.

Stamina

Also not as brought up other than for talking about how an opponent can outlast another. However, this is also forgets another very important part of stamina, one's resilience. Stamina functions similar to Sheer Will where one can power through attacks that are far above their paygrade and keep moving despite it. It's also the thing making sure a character can keep punching, kicking, or using attacks at peak conditions, as the lower one's stamina, the weaker their attack will be.

Range

Not as talked about, however, range does matter for how far a character's reach is. The most common example of a range difference being detrimental is the saying of "bringing a knife to a gun fight". The gun has farther range and allows one to attack from afar while the knife user will have to find a way to get close while taking the minimal amount of damage possible.

Intelligence & Knowledge

Intelligence is important to an extent, however, many conflate intelligence with one's skill. While intelligence can be one's innate skill, it ultimately just means the capacity to learn, one can have Genius intellect yet still be less skilled at a style or application then someone with Average intellect if the Average intellect took more time in the craft while the genius intellect barely touched it. Of course there's cases where one's so intelligent they can instantly learn or apply any type of skill, though there also exists the antithesis to this, one that due to lacking this level of skill knows the exact counters to this kind of intellect.

Knowledge on the other hand would apply more to one's skill level, one with a high knowledge in a subject could potentially trump someone with genius intellect that doesn't have high knowledge in the subject.

Abilities

Abilities are another important part to discuss, they are very variable in applications, potency, activation methods, and more. The common agreed upon thing is that abilities that can circumvent conventional durability or need for stats is very helpful in a fight against someone far stronger.

Which Stat Matters Most?

The Answer

The answer is none of the above and all of the above. It all depends on context.

Let's take the example used above to say one has very high Attack Potency but their Speed is Superhuman vs someone with much higher speed such as Massively Hypersonic speed; ignoring powers and techniques, one would assume due to the low speed that the person with higher Attack Potency would eventually lose. While this is possible, this isn't definitive. The other statistics matter in this case, for example; if the character has higher stamina, then the speed difference doesn't matter as they can outlast the opponent until they get tired out allowing them to easily tag the opponent.

The character may also be the better fighter then the other opponent to where their moves are predictable, much like how Goku and Frieza noted Dyspo's moves were so predictable allowing them to easily react to them despite the speed difference.

There's also another important factor of: the character is likely to not employ speed blitzes in character, this is very common among characters of higher speed where they are faster but don't outright "statue" (moving so fast that one appears frozen to the person moving) the opponent.

The Issue With Focusing Purely on Stats

A common form of discussing versus matches is through the "Versus Edits" seen on Tiktok and Youtube, these effectively decide who the winner is depending on who has the better overall stats.

The issue is, this is not an accurate way to decide a winner, it's a simplified way to do so.

One of the most popular fights in movie history is the fight in Star Wars between Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi; if this fight was assumed to apply under the logic of Versus Edits, Anakin would be the winner as he has the edge in every stat.

However, as shown in the movies, Obi-Wan ended up winning despite the fact that Anakin had the edge. This is due to the fact that Obi Wan knew how Anakin fought due to training with him for years.

Batman vs. Superman is one where Superman has virtually every stat against Batman, however due to Batman's knowledge and preparation along with in most cases Superman does not want to go all out against Batman, he is able to fight on par with Superman and even win in some continuities.

Fights heavily rely on character strategies and motivations. Superman rarely ever fights at full strength unless it's a world-ending threat, Spider-Man is noted to constantly pull his punches even against villains that are a threat to the entire cosmos, characters like Goku want someone to fight at their strongest, so he will allow them to transform, even if it's the most evil entity in the universe, etcetera.

This is all to say, a character strategy is debatably the most important thing, even above stats. Take for instance, most villains from Dragon Ball, though for this example, specifically Frieza. Frieza likes making the opponent suffer and prolonging their death, this is shown with his fight against Nail where he prolonged the battle and didn't bother to use his full strength firstly to see if he can learn more information on the Dragon Balls and to make Nail suffer. His fight with Gohan, Krillin, Piccolo, and Vegeta also shows this, he had many opportunities where he could've easily killed them but he decided to play around and make them suffer due to how angry he was. He also openly allows one to attack him and won't dodge due to his sheer confidence.

This example can also be seen with Perfect Cell, where he allowed Vegeta to fully charge his final flash and nearly let it hit him until he could sense its ki was strong enough to kill him at the last second.

These character strategies would be serious issues against someone who despite all of their lower stats, has an ability to kill one without worrying about their statistics or has abilities that ignore statistics, such as Erasure, Battlefield Removal, Soul Manipulation, Sealing, etcetera.

These examples showcases how stats do not define a match but give a simplistic view of a likliehood for a match, however if one's character strategy is worse then the others this could cost them the match completely.

Another important thing is one's Sheer Will, or Adaptation, these could allow someone to catch up with an opponent or ignore stat difference entirely just due to believing, many cases like this are seen throughout Tokusatsu series. Normally they have directly listed values and stats, however their willpower allows them to jump far above these.

One barely talked about application to a battle is also Charisma. One's charisma could allow them to get out of fights they had no chance of winning, this can be seen with characters like Hercule, King (One-Punch Man), Captain Jack Sparrow, etcetera. Through negotiation they can pull tactics of manipulation, cheap shots, off-guard hits, or more, allowing them to bypass the innate stat difference.

This Charisma could also function as Intimidation, where one bluffs their way out of a fight by making the other think they have no chance whatsoever at beating them.

Things That Need To Be Shown in a Series

Sheer Strength Difference = Disintegration

Normal argument is due to the sheer strength difference between the two, one would atomize the other if they even coughed. This, however, needs to be proven per series. There are a multitude of series where a character has far higher attack then the other can dream of and still not atomize the person.

Examples include:

• Dragon Ball GT, where Omega Shenron attacked Goku's friends with the intent to kill, including Mr. Satan, yet he was still alive after all of this, just badly hurt.
• The Incredibles, Mr Incredible, fully angered grabs his small and old boss and throws him through several walls yet the boss ends up living.
• Explosions in movies not ripping a person's body apart and instead just having them die with their body fully intact.

Sheer Speed Difference = They Statue

This is based off the idea that due to the sheer speed difference between both sides, that one would appear as a statue to the other. However, this is also case dependent in fiction.

Normally a character statuting another is based off if they're a speedster or not, otherwise they will treat far slower characters as still being able to get lucky hits off on the faster character even though that's not logically possible.

Examples include:

• Dragon Ball Z, Hercule is able to get around a bloodlusted Kid Buu's attacks despite being far slower.