One thing I've observed with 3 Below is the serrators have a couple different mode (which should be pretty obvious) but for the modes they also have different levels. Now I haven't started working on a full fight meta for 3 Below yet so this is just my casual observations.
A standard serrator has three basic modes. Blaster, shield and melee. The obvious exception being Zadra's unique Scythe serrator. This is what we see Krel and Aja use from day one. While Krel keeps using these same levels Aja after training with Varvatos uses the different levels. I feel like the advanced levels are more difficult to wield so they are softly skill locked. Each of the advanced level modes adds additional benefits.
The upgraded shield is taller with wide wings out to the side. I feel like this is to help protect you fellow fighters. Especially with the Talon specifically referred to as the "Talon Phalanx." A phalanx being a military unit that is known for protecting their companions to their sides with large shields.
The upgraded blaster has a few options. We've seen a sniper mode but that might be unique to Birdy. Varvatos summons what I can only describe as an anti vehicle turret when Nana threatens him, but again that might be unique to his position as commander. We see Aja wield an advanced blaster during the final episodes that is larger and packs a much more serious punch.
The standard melee is obviously the sword that we see Krel and Aja use. Varvatos has a version that is longer and more ornate. There is also the pole arm mode. I call it pike mode even though it is obviously not a pile and is not used like one. The king and queen of Akiridion-5 both use the pike mode every time they fight. Aja also uses the pike mode against OMEN.
With season 2 coming out soon I have some questions. Will we see any more advanced serrator modes or levels? Will we get an explanation on why certain characters prefer certain modes or levels? Will we see some butt kicking from out indomitable leads? I sure hope so.
Does anyone have any thoughts? Once I'm done with the fight meta for Trollhunters I'll start on one for 3Below.
We’re gonna kick off my BNHA fight metas talking about a character whose power I absolutely adore- Anime Edgar Allen Poe. This kid is ridiculously strong- he placed 3rd in the Sports Festival for a reason- and has only get stronger since.
Tokoyami is intelligent and resourceful, and thanks to his Quirk Dark Shadow he’s an amazing general in the making. He’s essentially removed from the battlefield while his power fights for him, which is actually kind of useful and allows him to assess fights while still engaging his enemies. He’s got a 5/5 in cooperativeness and it shows- he can often plan while attacking, using Dark Shadow to keep his opponents occupied while filling his team in on how they help can finish the job.
Dark Shadow itself is as cool a power as they come. It’s an entirely sentient and autonomous shadow beast that- at least during daylight hours- is super helpful and oftentimes just as resourceful as its host. It can defend Tokoyami with its body and attack with powerful hits at a long range. And as night falls and its host gets angrier, Dark Shadow’s power only grows, absolutely dominating him and anyone else who stands in its way.
This is the guy who kept both of Class A’s strongest powerhouses on the defensive for the entirety of their encounter being literally yeeted out of the fight in an instant.
I love these kinds of powers- powers that take on a life of their own, powers that can completely turn against their hosts, powers that can leave their hosts helpless to them under the right- or wrong- conditions. In the complete darkness of a forested countryside and spurred on by Tokoyami’s teenaged angst and righteous anger, Dark Shadow can become an absolute behemoth, capable of obliterating anything and anyone in its path. I can’t wait to see how powerful this version of Dark Shadow can get while under Tokoyami’s control, but for now, I’ll deal with what we can get.
Because of this tumultuous relationship with Dark Shadow, we can see that Tokoyami displays incredible restraint he’s using it. This is shown during the Sports Festival when he beats Momo without ever laying a hand- shadow or otherwise- on her. With a swift barrage of strikes aimed directly at the shield she’d created, he pushed her out of the ring in seconds. Without a shield he even manages to push Ashido just hard enough to slide her out of the ring-
complete control with minimal physical contact. It’s obvious that even under ideal conditions- broad daylight and in complete control of his emotions- Tokoyami just doesn’t trust Dark Shadow or even himself in a fight. He does his best to maintain control over his own Quirk, but recognizes that Dark Shadow is just as much a dangerous weapon as it is a powerful tool.
Unfortunately a Quirk as cool as Dark Shadow has to have drawbacks- otherwise he’d just be the main character in his own anime. Its energy is drained by light and grows weaker and weaker until it fades away entirely. This is unfortunately an extremely obvious weakness- the shadow bird person is weak to the light. who would’ve guessed?- and Class A’s pile of personified garbage Bakugo manages to take advantage of it and get his semi-finals victory
(But I’ll be damned, if bright light beat shadows the same way fire types beat water types Tokoyami and Dark Shadow put up one hell of a fight).
Tokoyami himself also has a few weaknesses. While Dark Shadow as a Quirk is powerful and durable, Tokoyami is... not so much so.
Tokoyami actually recognizes this and creates his first signature move Black Ankh (this kid seriously needs to put down his HP Lovecraft books), in an attempt to mitigate his relative physical weakness. Unfortunately our boy Mirio is well versed in punching birds.
He’s also gotta work on watching his own six- in one-on-one fights this won’t be a problem- but when he’s being surrounded, he won’t always have our favorite frog girl to watch his back.
But even with these weaknesses, Fumikage Tokoyami still manages to secure his rank among U.A.’s finest heroes-in-training. He’s a character who has to fight himself and his Quirk as hard as he fights the guys he’s sworn to apprehend. He’s someone who struggles every day with the beast within and refuses to allow it to win. He’s a bird man with teeth! And I think he’s just a super neat character, even if he looks absolutely horrifying when looking directly at the camera.
That’s why I’ll be chanting Revelry in the Dark, whenever I need a super assist.
Can we all give a hand for the amazing @rosamage for working on these GIFs for me? Seriously her GIFs are fantastic and she’s super helpful, I would fight for her.
To anyone who trash talks Steve being knocked down by Thanos, ignoring the fact that he's a human alone with his bare hands against the Mad Titan with 5 Infinity Stones...
Just let me remind you that it's also set at the end of a fight.
I mean, we don't know how LONG the fight actually is, but we've seen it for at least 20 minutes by that time on the screen. And during that time Steve had fought countless aliens, a member of the Black Order, ran at high speed repeatedly, has been beaten repeatedly, etc.
Let me remind you that an average gymnastic routine (depends on the specific sport and the type of routine) is around 2-3 minutes long. The world-class athletes are expected to perform the best of their abilities for 2.5 fucking minutes and have you seen them afterwards? They're sweaty, they're breathing heavily, they're exhausted. Because that high performance IS FUCKING HARD on your body, muscles, lungs, etc. Statistics even show that they make more mistakes at the end of routines because they got tired by that time, despite most routines schedule the hardest parts (jumps, elements,etc.) at the beginning of the routine to avoid tiredness as a factor. (Sorry I can't dig up the source of this research, I've read it long time ago.)
The simple fact that anyone is standing after half an hour of an intense fight without a break is miraculous. But he's not only standing, he's still performing impossible things.
We've seen Steve, fighting his goddamn best and hardest while defending Vision. Look at the gifs, we see he's exhausted by the time he punches that Outrider in the face minutes earlier, and even more by the time he's helping Vision to his feet. He's heaving, he's bleeding, the only thing that drives him at this point is probably stubornnes and spite and rage. And RIGHT AFTER THAT he's going toe-to-toe with Thanos, and he's holding him back. I don't care how long he did it. I don't care if you see Thanos's confusion as sarcastic or not. (To me, it was not, he was honestly baffled that anyone can withstand him.) It was iconic, it was beyond human abilities - even superhuman abilities -, it was legendary.
okay so there’s a popular post going around that’s having a bit of a laugh at one of the moves steve did in the lemurian star sequence in catws. i’m all for finding the amusement in things but given that steve’s fighting style is an amalgamation of martial arts, one of which i have been doing for 11 going on 12 years, the whole post kinda bugged me.
so here’s an accurate breakdown of this move (under a readmore bc it got long) based on what i know, and what would happen if steve tried it on the winter soldier:
the move:
the techniques:
now it might look like he’s jumping into the guy’s arms, but there’s actually a lot going on here.
a quick background: i’ve been doing judo since i was ten, and teaching it since i was 18. judo, or “the gentle way” is a martial art that uses throws and holds rather than strikes. the idea of a throw is manipulating the body, momentum, and the centre of gravity to your own purpose. this manipulation makes it very energy efficient, and allows a smaller/lighter/weaker person to defeat a larger/stronger/heavier person if done correctly.
back to steve:
in judo we have two techniques similar to the move steve is doing here. those techniques are are yoko-wakare, and yoko-tomoe-nage (the video for the first one is for the kata so it’s kind of weird, but they show the throw before breaking it down)
both of these throws are known as “sacrifice throws” - ie. you throw your opponent by throwing yourself in a controlled way. by controlling your descent, and controlling their core (ie the stomach/hip area, and the centre of power as well as gravity), you throw the person over yourself. they’re not easy to master, especially if you don’t want to hurt your training partner (steve, obviously, doesn’t care about that).
in this sequence steve is doing what, to me, looks like a mix between the two throws mentioned, and then he’s modified it slightly on top of that by bringing it up to the chest level.
steve’s version:
what you can see steve doing is jumping up, closing the distance between he and his opponent, and gripping behind his opponent’s head, somewhere between the shoulder blades. as his body drops, he rotates himself, and, with his grip on the back of the opponent’s neck, drags him in a large circle, head first.
there are several things here that make this effective.
steve placing his weight above the opponent’s centre of gravity
steve’s grip between the shoulderblades
steve’s body rotation
the height steve has jumped to
steve’s strength advantage over his opponent
steve placing his weight above his opponent’s centre of gravity makes the opponent top heavy, and easy to overbalance. once your shoulders are in front of your hips, you tip forward if you don’t move your feet/bend your knees.
steve’s grip allows him to not only control the spine, but control the clavicle. this control means he can force his opponent’s shoulders forward - there’s no way his opponent can push his hips forward, his head back, and ride this one out.
steve’s body rotation then continues this forward direction, dragging the shoulders so far in front of the opponent’s core that the only thing he can do is fall forward. he’s accentuated this by swinging his free arm, with the shield, around in a circle to generate momentum.
the height of steve’s jump creates momentum. What goes up must come down, and steve’s using this energy he’s generating to move his opponent forward and down. steve’s drop also allows momentum to build, to the point where his opponent is throwing himself.it also, obviously, gives his opponent somewhere to go.
this technique is possible without steve’s supersoldier strength, but that makes everything easier - he knows he’s stronger than his opponent, knows he can use his strength to essentially pile drive his opponent into the ground. this isn’t required - it’s possible to do this on someone stronger than you if you get everything else right, but it would be difficult.
vs winter:
the bit everyone’s interested in right? the arm and the serum and everything that makes the winter soldier so deadly has got to pose some sort of problem to the technique above, right?
not really, no.
the original post implies that bucky’s arm would catch steve, and he’d end up in a bridal carry. this is incorrect for a few reasons:
winter’s arm is attached to his body
the strength of the arm doesn’t move winter’s centre of gravity
steve is a tactician and would modify his techniques based on his opponent
so. winter’s arm is strong, it can rip off doors and hold things up and do a lot of Strong Things. but it’s not independent of winter’s body. if something heavy suddenly lands in your arms and you’re unprepared for it, you’re going to stumble or tip forward. this is because that object is in front of you. the weight is on your shoulders but in front of them, so your body instinctively places your shoulders above the weight to best minimise the strain of carrying it.
which puts the shoulders in front of the centre of gravity.
which puts you off balance.
see where i’m going with this?
the arm is strong, yes, but strength doesn’t matter when you go from having no weight in your arms to suddenly bearing a load. it’s the suddenness that would be key here. get him before he braces himself, and he’ll tip right over. faster probably, because he’s so top heavy (thanks to the giant hunk of metal attached to his shoulder).
the fact that he’s top heavy is point number two: attaching the strong object to him doesn’t move his centre of gravity, which is still somewhere in his core. sudden load above this point? tip. control the clavicle in some way and drag forward? tip faster.
the one thing that most bugged me though is that the post implies steve would not modify his techniques for a stronger opponent. even at the start of the first fight sequence (the causeway) he’s seen winter move and work, seen the strength in the arm, seen how strong he is. what worked on your average joe on the lemurian star will not work here.
so, going high could prove beneficial, but if there’s not enough surprise it leaves steve vulnerable. the smartest thing to do in this situation would be to go low. against winter this would only really be possible with steve’s strength, but irl this would work on anyone who isn’t expecting it. therefore, if you watched the videos above, he’d be more likely to move towards a pure yoko-wakare.
getting a grip somewhere around the shoulder, dropping his weight, rotating his body, and planting himself somewhere just in front of winter’s feet? that assassin is gonna face plant and there’s not much he can do about it.
and if y’all would like me to demonstrate i’ll see if i can get an unwitting partner and a camera and i’ll prove my points (with less athleticism than steve because i’m broken af) but if you have any questions/points you’d like to bring up i’d love to hear them!
I've been wanting to do some kind of fight meta for the trollhunters series (I want to wait to see more from 3below before I include that in the meta) for some time now. I haven't dont it yet because I wasn't sure how it would be received.
But after repeatedly analyzing Jim's fights in my mind, especially with the debate in the fandom about Merlin's potion I really want to do one.
Fundamentally I feel like changing Jim was completely unnecessary. He could have won the fight against Angor Rot and Gunmar. Morgana might be a different story, but he could have done it.
would anyone want to read this before I spend weeks amassing screen shots of the various fighters in the series?
Also @imthegingerninja I feel like this would be right up your alley with the Merlin hate train.
My second revised Fight Meta is about my Danger Wife, Yang Xiao Long. We’ve seen her fight so much during the series, especially during volume 3. When it comes to the most basic elements of fighting, Yang’s got almost everyone beat. Her weapon, Ember Celica, helps her at the most fundamental level of a fight- throwing a painful punch.
Ember Celica are a pair of Dual Ranged Shot Gauntlets. This means that they’re capable of firing off ranged rounds that can act as flares and turn unsuspecting meme girls into Team Rocket,
as well as powerful, short ranged rounds to feed a giant Nevermore a well balanced breakfast.
These short ranged rounds are ususally fired off during punching combinations, augmenting her punches and easily stripping away her opponent’s Aura to leave them vulnerable to finishing shots. In fact her combinations are so fast and hit so hard, I’m pretty sure most people can’t even see them coming- even if they weren’t wearing bright red sunglasses inside a nightclub like an asshole.
However when she’s strong enough to send a 6′11″ bear of a man sailing across the room,
and carry around a few hundred pound speaker system,
I’m fairly certain her unaugmented punches do more than enough damage to ruin some lives.
Besides punching, Yang’s pretty well versed in kickboxing, boxing and muay thai. And she’s fucking flawless. Her footwork and attacks flow together like she’s dancing and she’s smiling the whole time- Melanie is a ballroom dancer and she’s making her work.
Her footwork and agility can even give her a fighting chance against the son of a master assassin like Mercury, and give us one of the most amazing fight scenes known to mankind (watch to 15:28).
Her acrobatics keep her out of the way of heavy ranged attacks. 6 heatseeking missiles and not a single hit (did Junior take lessons from Church?),
and her experience on the battlefield has built up her arsenal of attacks to help her put down even more challenging opponents, especially if she can outmuscle them (does Melanie still have all of her teeth after this?).
This is her life. This is what she loves to do. When she’s smiling, she’s a hurricane of kicks, sweeps, punches and blocks. She’s unstoppable! Untrained people don’t even stand a chance against her. Look at this man! His soul has left his mortal body!
There’s a reason why Yang was chosen to continue to both the doubles and single rounds. She’s Team RWBY’s powerhouse. She’s the person they turn to when a fight starts going sour. She’s the person who- with just a little bit of help- can OHKO three people at once.
And her Semblance makes her even more dangerous.
“With each hit she gets stronger, and she uses that energy to fight back. That’s what makes her special!”
The more hits she takes- the lower her Aura drops- the more she’s able to cut loose and punch back even harder. How this works, we can’t be entirely sure until the RT crew lets us know. My theory is that her normal strength was just too dangerous to be used all the time, so at a young age she learned how to use her Aura to restrain that power to less dangerous levels. The lower her Aura drops, the less she’s able to keep all of that power at bay. Which means that after getting punched through half a dozen meter thick concrete pillars and her Aura possibly depleted, she’s strong enough to punch an Atlesian Paladin into scrap metal.
This increased strength is even more helpful when she’s angry- there’s a reason why Professor Port had to give us Bruce Banner’s “you won’t like me when I’m angry” line about her. When she’s mad, her fighting style changes dramatically. She goes from this amazing hurricane of power to a much more rooted attacker. From a mixed martial artist to a pure boxer, and that kind of strength in an angry boxer is dangerous.
She gets in close- too close for Mercury to get in a good kick- and annihilates the jackass with an amazing combination of punches that put him down and out of the fight (watch to 15:58).
But as helpful as that anger is for her against untrained enemies (or enemies that were already planning to lose against her), anger is never a good emotion to bring into battle- even if you know how to use it. Already angry with Neo for having escaped her the first time, Yang charges into battle against the walking icecream cone with a horrible combination of left-right-left-right haymaker punches that a smiling Neo easily dodges.
She’s unfocused and too angry to think of anything more creative. All of that fancy footwork that she had against Melanie and Mercury is gone while fighting Nui Harime’s sister. She’s telegraphing her moves and is easy prey for anyone who actually knows how to fight. Not to mention her Semblance itself often puts her at a huge disadvantage. During her fight with Neo, she was hardly hit. Neo only struck her to interrupt her combinations or to knock her over. She never hit Yang to hurt her. She negated Yang’s Semblance by not hurting her until she knew she’d be able to get in a OHKO (watch to 11:52).
Finally, her Semblance encourages a lot of extremely risky behavior. Notice anything weird?
Her Aura level always seems to be around 60%. Her Semblance encourages her to run out into battle without a care in the world, because even if she gets hurt, she can use the augmented strength to her advantage. She never really has to think about charging into a fight. She never has to fear being hurt because her Aura negates all but the strongest attacks from physically harming her, and her Semblance would only make her next attacks stronger. Unfortunately, charging in against someone like Adam- with years of experience on the battlefield fighting for his people, with a Semblance like Moonslice, which absorbs an attack’s energy to strengthen his next strike- was a risk that she failed to assess.
I’ve said it a hundred times since we first got to know her. It’s why I’ve always called her “Danger Wife.” She’s a danger to herself because of how she fights. I’m just glad she can live to learn.
Yang Xiao Long is a fucking powerhouse. She’s a threat to anyone who gets in her way- even herself. Put that much skill and confidence and power in one explosive blonde, and you had me at “Strawberry sunrise.”
I’m starting off my revised editions of my Fight Metas with my beautiful Pancake Wife. We didn’t get much screen-time of her fighting during season 3, but what we did see, we were able to learn a lot from. We finally learned her Semblance! But, I promised myself I’d stick to the order of “weapon, fighting concentration, Semblance, flaws, sum” for these, so let’s start with Magnhild.
Look at this thing. Magnhild is a war hammer and a grenade launcher. I’ve got no idea why in the world any sane individual would decide to combine two of the hardest hitting weapons in one construct, but Swiss fucking cheese, Nora Valkyrie somehow manages to make this beautiful thing work. As a weapon, war hammers are characteristically slow to swing and difficult to control without an appropriate amount of mass/strength behind it, but Nora makes her weapon dance on the battlefield- mostly because of how well she can use a hammer- even an improvised one.
Hammers are pretty terrible as defensive weapons, so Nora doesn’t give Weiss- or most of her opponents- a chance to mount an offense. She keeps that "hammer” swinging around her over and over again, keeping both the head (the melon) and the grip (the pole) as danger points for Weiss to avoid which cuts the amount of time she’s vulnerable to an attack as short as possible. She never stops swinging, keeping the momentum going until she creates an opening before smashing through it. Weiss didn’t stand a chance. However Nora relies a lot on those one-hit KO’s, and when something manages to tank her hit, she’s usually quick to escape, causing damage along the way using the recoil of a fired grenade explosion.
These grenades have some serious stopping power, causing even some of the biggest Grimm we’ve seen to falter where other weapons could not.
The recoil is also great for supplementing the strength/speed of her strikes (notice the explosion as Magnhild strikes the platform).
And- much like its counterpart, Mjolnir- Magnhild also lets Nora fly through the sky.
Cool, right?
Well guess what. Nora’s got an ace up her sleeve.
“Miss Valkyrie’s Semblance lets her to produce- as well as channel- electrical energy straight to her muscles. This allows her to jump explosively into the air, wield her mighty hammer, or in this case, absorb Nolan’s attacks and send the young man flying.” Or, in less academic terms: THE BOY DONE GOOFED.
We’re still not entirely sure about the extent of Nora’s Semblance. “Can she shoot electricity, or is it entirely internal?” “How much electricity can she take?” “How much electricity can she produce?” “Can she see why kids love the sweet taste of Cinnamon Toast Crunch?” I’m not entirely certain, but considering she was able to do this without a problem,
I think it’s pretty safe to say she can absorb more than enough energy to kill someone (100 amps can stop your heart, while one bolt of lightning can strike with 5,000 to 20,000 amps). All of this energy absorbed straight into her muscles can either be released over the course of a few seconds- as we see in the next two clips (Nora bounces up the mountain with practically 0 effort (watch to 3:25)
and see how difficult it is for her to just pull herself up the last few feet to the summit of the mountain as she loses the boost Nolan’s attack provided (watch to 4:13))-
or in one earth-shattering attack (watch to 4:45).
Without too much previous exertion, she can even dead-lift an entire metric ton,
which is apparently more than enough to send her friends into the stratosphere,
and OHKO an entire team!
One negative thing we did learn from season 3 was that Nora isn’t the tank we thought she was. Not counting Nolan’s hit which powered her up, the very first time she’s ever hit in battle, she’s OHKO’d (watch to 3:25).
And considering her specific fighting style, she leaves herself open every time she hits a target that can tank her blows/misses her target. Lucky for us not a lot of things can!
In my previous fight meta I explained Nora’s basically a nearly unstoppable dynamo of power. I’m glad to see I’m still mostly right about her. Tiny, peppy, quirky girls who could kick my ass 8 ways to Sunday?
Hi. Sorry to bother you, but after seeing your fight meta about Blake, I felt that you were the best person to ask about this: I've seen a few posts about how Blake's clones/shadows/illusions (whatever they are) were somehow different or more advanced when she used it to trick Adam and escape with Yang. Is that true? Because I didn't notice a difference.
Blake’s Semblance definitely seems to be evolving.
The very first time we see her use it is right here during the Black Trailer.
The clone doesn’t even last a full second, and when she makes it, it wouldn’t be able to fool anyone who was actually paying attention. It looks more like an afterimage of her moving so fast instead of an actual Semblance purposefully left behind to distract someone.
Our first indication that she has the ability to make these clones solid is during Chapter 8 where she very quickly jumps off a clone to get a little more momentum to attack the Nevermore.
You can see here during Roman’s first fight with Blake that her Shadows never last longer than a second and fade away quickly. Again, they’re mostly blurry and amorphous.
However during Round One, we see that her Semblance is hugely different from what it was before.
This clone Blake leaves behind lasts at least 3 seconds (possibly would’ve lasted even longer until Reese had hit it) and looks exactly like Blake. No more blurry outlines or amorphous shapes. That looks like Blake.
This clone is the one you were talking about in particular. I think it’s safe to say Adam knows Blake very intimately, so he’d be well prepared for her the tricks her Semblance affords. Adam doesn’t even notice he’s not attacking Blake. Even we as the audience have no idea when Blake ran. She manages to leave her Semblance behind (that moves after being hit, possibly to afford even more time) run behind Adam and snatch up Yang all before Adam can even strike and without him noticing.
So from season 1 we went to amorphous Blake colored blobs and blurry afterimages that were kinda tangible for a short second that faded away almost instantly, to season 3′s crisp, sharp hologram-like projections that can even be interacted with by another person until they fade.
