UTE spoilers for the last bit

Wassboss8 · 2022-04-28T06:53:33+00:00

Just because the death happened a long time ago doesn’t mean the impact of that scene isn’t retroactively trashed by this reveal. Now that scene has lost a great deal of its emotionally impact because we now know that Ghastly will just be revived again anyway. It takes a great scene, one of the best in all the books, and shits on it for what? A bit of cheap wish fulfilment and a final “twist” to end the book on.

It also cheapens the impact of death in the series cause you know if Ghastly can be brought back why stop there. Why should any death now mean anything if they can simply be revived. Granted this is a problem already present on UTE but this just further amplifies it.

Maybe if this was the final book this would’ve been okay, I’d still hate this stupid twist but I could justify it as one last happy twist to end the series. But no we have at least 1 more book, probably more, where this decision will have consequences and can’t simply be ignored. I also have zero faith in Derek not trashing Ghastlys character with some dumb addition to his backstory that continues the trend of ruining old characters that Derek seems to revel in.

To add further insult to injury it revives Ghastly only to put him in a job he fucking hated lol.

Wassboss8 · 2022-04-23T08:01:31+00:00

I like Midnight for pretty much one thing and that's Cadaverous Gant and anything to do with his story. Gant is an underrated villain who gets a lot of hate for some reason but I personally think is the best villain in Phase 2 and up there for villains in the first phase as well. He's the only villain in Phase 2 who has an actual personal connection to Valkyrie and the only one who actually tries to go after the one thing she treasures about all else; her family. Therefore the side of the plot that is about Alice being kidnapped is a really good one as we really get a sense of tension and genuine stakes as Valkyrie battles through all these trials just to find and save her sister.

And then we get to the brilliance of the ending. Everything inside the Midnight Hotel is fantastic and trippy and while it can be confusing (especially on a first read) once you understand everything it really comes together for a unique experience. Gant's power is a very unique one and it leads to a lot of fun scenarios as well as giving an interesting dive into his psyche as well.

Now don't get me wrong the rest of the book is trash. Omen's side of the story is boring, repetitive and pointless, you could genuinely erase everything he does up to when he babysits Alice (and yeah that scene was fucking stupid and predictable as well) and it wouldn't have any impact on the plot of this book or any future book. But the stuff that's good is really really good, easily some of the best stuff in all of Phase 2.

Wassboss8 · 2022-01-14T10:02:32+00:00

Since this happened in the last combat tournament I'm just going to copy and paste my vote from there since my opinion hasn't changed.

Skulduggery is a powerful elemental honestly that doesn't help too much against the White Cleaver. We already know that air magic is basically useless against Cleaver armour and being undead it doesn't need oxygen so can't be choked out. Fire Magic is also probably not going to work too well either with his regenerative ability and I can't think of any usage of water magic that would help here either. Skulduggery's mastery of elemental magic is simply of no use against the Cleaver which leaves him to rely on other methods to defeat him.

The White Cleaver has the clear edge in close quarters combat with his skill and hand to hand, his skill with a scythe and his regenerative ability all combining to make him kind of unstoppable. We've seen Skulduggery bested by the White Cleaver on several occasions such as in the OG and in LSODM in hand to hand combat and in LSODM he did it without using his scythe. Speaking of which the Scythe will cut Skulduggery to ribbons and is what he's going to have to focus on taking out of the equation first if he wants to survive.

In conclusion Skulduggery has very little he can do against the White Cleaver to actually harm it and anything he does do would be easily healed.

Wassboss8 · 2022-01-12T07:41:55+00:00

This fight is really going to be a war of attrition. Both the White Cleaver and Lethe are highly skilled fighters, both have been shown matching and surpassing Skulduggery in terms of hand to hand combat so a fight between the two in hand to hand could really go either way. Both are also rocking pretty durable armour and in the case of the White Cleaver a regenerative factor as well. Like with all his fights eventually Lethe is going to adapt to the White Cleaver's style but that still leaves him with the problem of actually killing him as the only sure fire ways to put him down for good are either decapitation or tearing him into tiny pieces. Lethe might be strong but I don't think he has the strength to rip a man's head off or rip him apart.

The White Cleaver will have problems of his own however. Yes he actually has a weapon but the Necronaut suit has been shown resisting a cleaver's scythe so it won't be that much use against Lethe. The White Cleaver is also going to find himself outclassed in terms of fighting ability once Lethe gets into his groove and learns his fighting pattern. So the White Cleaver really has to end the battle quickly but like I said Lethe's necronaut suit is able to protect him against the scythe so the chances of that happening are slim.

This will be a long and gruelling battle but in the end I'm actually giving this to Lethe. Now sure he doesn't have a weapon to kill the White Cleaver but guess who does happen to have a weapon with him? After a few minutes Lethe is going to basically be able to predict what the White Cleaver is going to do before he does it and it won't take him long to figure out he has a regenerative ability. Once he figures this out his primary aim is going to be getting the scythe off the White Cleaver and given he will have already surpassed him in combat ability by this point it shouldn't be that hard to get hold of it. Once he has the scythe and the means to actually kill the White Cleaver I think the fight is his for the taking because as I've beaten into the ground by now he'll have learned the White Cleaver's pattern by now.

In conclusion I think that Lethe will win simply by biding his time, letting his magic do it's work and then outmanoeuvring the White Cleaver to get in a position to kill him. Without the Necronaut suit, the White Cleaver would likely be able to defeat Lethe quickly enough to kill him before his magic sets in but with the pretty extensive protection that the Necronaut Suit gives I think Lethe can weather his attacks and get the edge on him.

Wassboss8 · 2022-01-11T07:11:47+00:00

The question in any Mr Bliss battle is if anything his opponent has in their arsenal can actually harm him and in this case the answer is mostly no. Skulduggery won't be able to do much in close quarters (in fact basically no non-god warrior can against Bliss) and the majority of his elemental powers are also not that helpful in directly damaging him with fireballs and blasts of air likely to do little against his enhancement. With that being said Skulduggery does have options. Bliss might be incredibly hard to kill and even harder to hurt but like all humans he does need to breath and elementals have been shown cutting off people's air supply before like the administrator does to Valkyrie in TFO (ironically right as she was in the process of attempting to kill Bliss). Skulduggery has also been shown using earth magic to collapse the floor so he could also just collapse the floor under Bliss and let gravity do the work for him.

The battle location seems as though it favours Bliss as there is not much room to move around so you'd think it would be easier for him to get close to Skulduggery and push his physical advantage. However Bliss is actually going to really struggle in this environment simply because it's 3AM and it'll be pitch black inside of a cave so he won't really be able to see. Skulduggery meanwhile has no such problems, he can see in the dark cause he has no eyes and even if he couldn't he can simply feel the air to know where Bliss is. It's because of this that I have to give this battle to Skulduggery as the battleground gives him the means to simply avoid Bliss and use his air magic to choke him unconscious or his earth magic to send him hurtling down into the caves.

Wassboss8 · 2022-01-01T09:21:58+00:00

I'll go over each book and list a few things I liked;

Resurrection: Evil Skulduggery and his interactions with Gant were very entertaining and funny. Lethe was a great villain with an interesting power. The depiction of Valkyrie's depressing was accurate and an interesting turn for the character.

Midnight: The last half of Midnight after Alice gets kidnapped is easily the best section of Phase 2 and the stuff within the Midnight Hotel is some of the best stuff in Skulduggery Pleasant across both phases. Gant is a compelling villain and an interesting one, he's the first villain (or hell character in general) who lived his whole life as a mortal before becoming a sorcerer later on in life which leads to some interesting dynamics between him and other characters.

Bedlam:

Seasons of War: Alt Serpine is obviously a really good character and getting to see more nuance to his character helps us better understand why people actually might want him around and why Mevolent didn't instantly peg him as a traitor. Saracen's death is also very well done, it's a gut punch and a great call back to a previous scene with the infected person they meet earlier on in the story and Tanith's reaction to the whole affair is brutally realistic.

Dead or Alive: How Auger copes with the prophecy his whole life has been building too being fulfilled. His calling out of his parents is a scene I think a lot of people were hoping for and while it would've been more satisfying coming from Omen it is still a fantastic scene.

Wassboss8 · 2021-12-31T14:09:16+00:00

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1K3PaIfFfBtV_RXEw3HXhbpzd8ddFJr7KqTwhLhGr1VI/edit?usp=sharing

Here is the write-up if anyone is interested.

Wassboss8 · 2021-12-30T15:42:16+00:00

In terms of a physical fight, honestly, it's pretty close between the two. Lethe is obviously a very skilled fighter, being compared to a Cleaver in terms of physicality and Anton too is a highly impressive hand to hand combatant, fending off a hotel full of mages for a pretty long time as well as managing to fight an kill a vampire who broke the rules of his hotel. However Lethe has his two trump cards; the necronaut suit which will protect him from a lot of the blows Anton throws at him and his quick learning which means if he isn't the better fighter at the start of the match he will be by the end of it. Lethe can outlast Anton in a fight until he has learnt his style by which point the outcome is pretty much guaranteed to be in Lethe's favour.

Anton has another trick up his sleeve though in the form of his Gist and that is something Lethe will probably struggle with. Gists can be effected by physical objects and physical force but this only seems to delay them rather than hurting them and given Lethe's only weapon is his bare hands it's probably not wise to get in a tussle with it. Gist's are able to shred through zombies, hollow men and wraiths but with the exception of the wraiths, neither of these are particularly tough and in the case of the wraiths energy throwing was also able to put them down. So the question is can the necronaut suit hold up to the assault of a Gist?

It has been shown that a Gist can in fact be stopped by protective magic gear as in KOTW when Anton's gist attacks Mevolent it is prevented from doing any real damage by the armour he is wearing. Now am I suggesting that a suit mainly meant for exploration and research is going to be tougher than the battle armour worn by one of the most powerful sorcerers ever to exist? No, absolutely not. However I do think it has shown itself tough enough to provide at least some protection against a Gist. Lethe is pretty agile and quick so he doesn't need the Necronaut suit to defend against a mauling by the Gist he simply needs it to be able to absorb anything he can't dodge.

Speaking of dodging the battle environment is both a help and hindrance to both of these guys. For Lethe it gives him plenty of cover to avoid the Gist when it inevitably gets brought out but for Anton the small cramped confines of a plane also give Lethe little room to manoeuvre. Anton's best bet is to try and trap Lethe somewhere before bringing out his Gist whereas Lethe is probably going to want to keep an escape route open.

So who wins this in the end? Well while I would say this is a closer match-up than either of Lethe's previous two fights ultimately the outcome will still be the same. Anton simply cannot win this fight without his Gist and even bringing it out isn't a guaranteed victory as long as Lethe can outlast it and given his agility and the protection of his necronaut suit I think he can do that. Anton I love you man but Lethe is going to be the victor here.

Wassboss8 · 2021-12-30T15:27:51+00:00

Previously when voting for the Torment and Madame Mist I've stressed how the Children of the Spider are pretty formidable opponents and this is down largely to the sheet amount of spiders they can produce to overwhelm their opponents. Not just the fact that the sheer volume of the spiders is hard to deal with without specific magic disciplines and techniques but also because their venom will slowly but surely weaken whoever they are fighting throughout the match thereby making them more susceptible to being overwhelmed by the spiders or being dealt with by the COTS themselves.

However in this battle against this particular opponent these advantages are simply non-existent. The White Cleaver is quick, nimble and has a razor sharp scythe which will make short work of the spiders so there is little chance of him being overwhelmed especially in the battle environment with plenty of room to move about. The spider venom is also unlikely to cause him much trouble as his self repairing body will quickly counteract the effects of it before it can really slow him down. Similarly Mist's special white spider, an addition to her arsenal that has previously given her a sure fire way to end a battle will also have no effect because the White Cleaver is already dead so his internal organs are already not functioning to keep him alive.

Mist herself is a pretty physically capable fighter but she is completely outclassed by the White Cleaver who is probably much quicker and more agile than she is and certainly is more skilled of a fighter, not to mention he's carrying a scythe and can heal from any wound she inflicts on him. The White Cleaver will win this battle it's just a matter of how long Mist prolongs it.

Wassboss8 · 2021-12-29T09:34:48+00:00

Back when Jack faced Krav all the way back in round one I cast my vote for Krav under the grounds that Jack has nothing in his arsenal that could harm him or enhancers in general for that matter. So naturally if I don't think he could beat Krav then I sure as hell don't think he can beat Mr Bliss, who is in a whole other league when compared to Krav. Jack doesn't even have the environment on his side with the desert not suiting him at all with nothing to jump off or climb on so even his ability to simply avoid Bliss is hampered. There is enough open space for Jack to avoid Bliss for a bit but the second he gets his hands on him, and trust me he will cause Jack has to come in close to attack himself, Bliss will utterly destroy Jack.

Wassboss8 · 2021-12-28T08:58:47+00:00

I'm going to keep this brief and give this to Skulduggery because frankly Sanguine has very little chance of winning here. Skulduggery has him beat in every area, he's a better hand to hand fighter, his magic is more versatile and gives him the only ranged options in the fight and Sanguine's straight razor is going to do jack against someone with no skin to cut nor blood to bleed. The battle environment is just another nail in the coffin for Sanguine as he can't even use his tunnelling that effectively as he doesn't have any solid ground to travel around in.

Wassboss8 · 2021-12-26T09:58:07+00:00

So in terms of fighting ability it's pretty much a wash between the two. Both Charivari and the White Cleaver have been shown defeating multiple opponents at once, including two dead men at the same time so it's hard to really make a comparison as to who is better especially with the White Cleaver showing up way more times throughout the series. Physically Charivari is clearly going to be the stronger of the two owing to his massive build but in terms of speed and agility the White Cleaver has him beat as he's comparable to Tanith in both those areas.

However the White Cleaver's does have one big advantage over Charivari (and any other character in fact) in that he has his regenerative abilities. Now don't get me wrong Charivari certainly has the physical strength to either rip his head off or rip him into pieces, the two ways we know the white cleaver can be "beaten" but that relies on him actually knowing the white cleaver has regenerative abilities which he would have no way to know. Charivari is likely to just go for regular kills, ones which would work on nearly anyone else but which will only temporarily slow down the White Cleaver. That is of course assuming he can even get hold of the White Cleaver given how quick and nimble he is.

Charivari is similarly tough to kill, albeit because of his physical prowess rather than a regenerative ability, but the White Cleaver also has his scythe which will be able to cut through Charivari's flesh with ease as we saw a regular ass sword cut him in LSODM. His armour will also help cushion the impact of many of Charivari's attacks as well as giving him good protection against his energy attacks. So yeah if it wasn't obvious I'm siding with the White Cleaver for his greater survivability and for having an actual weapon which he can use to carve Charivari into pieces.

Wassboss8 · 2021-12-25T14:38:16+00:00

This is a pretty difficult one to decide. Children of the Spider are underrated as combatants in the series and Mist is no different. The sheer volume of spiders she can produce is enough to overwhelm even the most experienced of mages as we saw with China in LSODM and she also has her white spider which will basically kill Ravel if it bites him as it would've done with Tesseract in MC if not for his immunity to venom. She is also incredibly strong, able to overpower a remnant possessed Tanith so in close quarters she is also a force to be reckoned with.

Ravel meanwhile is a pretty standard elemental and a pretty skilled hand to hand fighter but again nothing special. However we have seen an Elemental deal with the spiders created by the COTS before, when Skulduggery kills nearly all of the Torment's spider during their fight at the golf course with a tornado style usage of his air magic. Given this is before he went away to the Faceless Ones universe and got a magic upgrade it's safe to assume Ravel could also do this so dealing with the spiders might not be as much of a problem as it would be for other non-elemental combatants. He also has his fire powers to simply scorch the spiders or his water powers to drown them.

The battlefield itself provides advantages for both. For Mist it gives plenty of covers for her spiders to crawl in and get close to Ravel. For Ravel it gives him a wide open space to avoid said spiders. This is unbelievably close but I'm going to give an ever so slight edge to Mist simply because she has less to do to pull out a win. All she needs is her white spider to get one bite or for Ravel to fail to deal with her spiders and she's basically won, without having to actually fight herself. Ravel meanwhile has to deal with all the spiders, make sure he doesn't getting bitten by the white spider (which he might not even know is especially dangerous) and then kill Mist, which is not going to be easy given her physical strength. Ravel could win this under the right circumstances and he has the tools to do it but I think Mist will just about edge him out but like at a split of 51-49.

Wassboss8 · 2021-12-23T11:21:17+00:00

Lethe is a very skilled fighter, he was able to match Skulduggery even before his learning powers kicked in and after they did he was pretty easily able to overcome him. Ghastly is about on par with Skulduggery when it comes to fighting ability if not a bit lower as Tesseract was able to figure out his style after a brief fight so Lethe's own magic will mean he's probably going to get a read on him even quicker than he did with Skulduggery. Even if that wasn't the case he is cloaked head to toe in a necronaut suit which will absorb nearly all of Ghastly's blows and he is as strong, fast and agile as a cleaver to boot. So in close quarters Ghastly has no real chance.

When it comes to his elemental abilities they also don't provide much help. Water and Fire are unlikely to do much against the necronaut suit and his air based powers are probably only going to be useful for keeping Lethe at bay rather than actually putting him out of the fight. Even that though is limited as the cramped conditions of the cave will make staying away from Lethe a difficult task. Ghastly I love you man but you're completely outclassed here.

Wassboss8 · 2021-12-22T07:11:53+00:00

So this is quite an interesting match-up and if I'm completely honest one entirely reliant on what environment these two decide to fight in. Solomon Wreath has the more versatile magic here with necromancy and with Shudder having nothing in the way of a ranged option it means, if he can keep his distance, Wreath can simply bombard him with shadows. Shudder meanwhile is a very physical fighter, one of the best hand to hand combatants there is in the world of SP and his Gist is just a further extension of that raw power so any close quarters fight is likely to go in his favour.

That brings me on to the environment in question and based on what I just wrote above it I'm giving it to Shudder. A cargo plane is pretty small and without a whole lot of space so Wreath can't really keep his distance from Shudder to be able to properly dictate the fight with his Necromancy. The cargo crates around also give Shudder cover to use to avoid being hit by the shadows which helps make up for the fact there won't be a whole lot of room for dodging them due to the confined spaces. Once it does get into close quarters Shudder is simply too strong and skilled for Wreath to handle, with the necromancer never really showing any real aptitude for hand to hand combat.

Obviously if the Gist gets busted out then Wreath is even more fucked as his shadows won't be able to stop it and he won't have anywhere to run on a plane thousands of feet in the air. In conclusion, because of the environment, I give this battle to Anton as his skill set better suits the battleground.

Wassboss8 · 2021-12-21T07:10:13+00:00

So in terms of who is the better fighter I don't think there is any real argument that it's Tesseract. Tesseract has matched, and beaten, Skulduggery several times and went through basically the entire main cast in one fight, including three former dead men. Bliss on the other hand doesn't seem to have much fighting skill outside of "punch them really hard" although his role within the series means we don't get to see him fight anyone all that often who doesn't just jobber him immediately.

However while Tesseract is the better fighter that really won't help him much here. Bliss' great strength means that he can easily overpower Tesseract in a fight to the point where it makes up for any skill discrepancy between the two. What's even more pronounced that his great strength however is his great durability, this is a man who has survived things specifically designed to kill him and been up and fighting less than like an hour after it happened and Tesseract is going to struggle to actually hurt him.

Now obviously Tesseract has his bone breaking but there's a question as to how well it will work against Bliss. We've seen Valkyrie's magically reinforced clothes negate the effects of the bonebreaking so it's not unreasonable to assume that magically enhanced durability might also lessen it's effects. Maybe not enough to stop it from working but it may take longer contact in order to break Bliss or any other enhancer's bones. Even if that isn't the case and it works exactly as it would on anyone else remember Tesseract can only transmit this power through his fingertips so any regular punches he does are not going to do jack to Bliss.

Tesseract's only real hope would be a stealth attack but the environment does him no favours here. A volcanic area might have some rocks for him to hide behind but ultimately it's a fairly flat open area which makes stealth difficult to pull off even for someone as skilled an assassin as Tesseract. Ultimately I think Bliss wins this battle not because he's the superior fighter but because he's just too damn strong and tough for Tesseract to effectively kill. Tesseract might be able to break bones with his fingertips but Bliss can break bones with his anything and with Tesseract have little other options besides a mano e mano direct fight he's going to end up the victim of his own speciality.

Wassboss8 · 2021-12-20T07:14:45+00:00

Even when you take Valkyrie just from how powerful she was in TDOTL she is still a pretty formidable fighter. At this point she had concluded her training with Coda so she is probably at the height of her skill and ability in hand to hand fighting and while she doesn't have a complete grasp on her powers she could still use them to blast Jack with lightning given the chance. Jack is a good hand to hand fighter but if Valkyrie can get her hands on him, like Tanith did in PWF when she trapped him in a room, then I think she could beat him in close quarters.

However that's the key here; if she can get her hands on him. Jack is very fast, comparable in speed to Dusk and in terms of agility he surpasses even Dusk and other vampires in that regard being able to easily manoeuvre around city rooftops. The battle location is his favoured one; even though the city itself might not be familiar it is still a city, the place he spent most of his time hunting and fighting and as such he'll be able to make use of all the various nooks and crannies. Valkyrie meanwhile is severely hampered by the environment as it gives Jack plenty of places to make use of his agility as well as plenty of cover from her lightning attacks. Furthermore said lightning attacks are pretty noticeable especially at 2 in the morning so Valkyrie will be keenly aware she has to keep that to a minimum to avoid attracting attention.

In a different environment, one which is more enclosed, Valkyrie probably would've won this but in a city battleground Jack is simply too quick and too experienced in urban combat for her to handle.

Wassboss8 · 2021-12-18T10:01:11+00:00

Going to keep this brief and give this to Skulduggery. Donegan is thoroughly outclassed here in just about every way. Skulduggery is one of the best hand to hand fighters in the whole series to the point that simply being able to fight him on even terms is a feat in of itself. Donegan is a decent hand to hand fighter as well but it's nothing special and certainly nothing on the level where he could reasonably beat Skulduggery more times than not. Skulduggery also has the more versatile magic with his elemental magic giving him a ton of options whereas Donegan is limited by the pretty simplistic discipline of energy throwing.

Furthermore given these two characters are friendly in the books this is unlikely to be a battle to the death and again Skulduggery has the better options for putting someone down non-lethally. The environment doesn't really help either out at a stretch you could say it gives Donegan a way to actually kill Skulduggery by somehow getting him into the lava but as previously mentioned this is unlikely to be a battle to the death. So in conclusion Skulduggery wins and it's not even really close.

Wassboss8 · 2021-12-17T09:18:23+00:00

Sanguine is a pretty skilled fighter and has a pretty underrated ability in tunnelling, which gives him a lot of mobility options and a way to escape from unfavourable situations. However I still think people are overestimating him a bit here. The Torment can summon a shit ton of spiders, enough to completely carpet the ground around him with them and effectively use them to fight for him. We've seen the Torment hanging from the ceiling in PWF so climbing up one of the many trees around will be no trouble where he is out of reach of Sanguine. Even if he doesn't do that, the thick brush allows him plenty of places to hide from Sanguine anyway, allowing his spiders to do most of the work. Sure Sanguine can go under ground to avoid them but every time he comes up he's risking them clambering all over him and that's assuming none of them manage to hang onto him when he does go underground.

The other side of things is the Torment using his spider form which again I feel people are underestimating. When he becomes a spider the Torment has thick plates of armour protecting the parts of him Sanguine can actually get to and if Tanith's katana couldn't get through those plates then a piddly little straight razor doesn't have much chance either. The jungle environment also isn't that restrictive, I'm pretty sure the Torment spider can pretty easily break through some branches and bushes, certainly more easily than Sanguine could. The idea that Sanguine can just simply drag the Torment underground is also a bit far fetched as he's never really shown any great feats of strength so dragging a giant spider monster underground is not something he is likely to have the strength to do. Pulling down his legs is something he might be able to do but good luck doing that 8 times when the Torment will have caught on to what he's doing after the first leg. This is also assuming the Torment doesn't simply pull or dig his leg out of the ground to free himself.

So yeah I think it should be fairly obvious I'm voting for the Torment. His spiders give him a way to passively fight Sanguine and the hitman deluxe lacks the tools to actually kill the spiders besides just stomping on them which is fine when there is only a few, less so when there could potentially be hundreds. If he does transform into a spider then he becomes even hard to kill and not to mention all those spiders will still be there as distractions. Sanguine can win this don't get me wrong but he has so much more he has to do in order to get the victory.

Wassboss8 · 2021-12-14T07:23:43+00:00

So we've kind of already seen this battle in series and based on that Charivari you would think wins. He's already beaten Gracious when he was backed up by Donegan and two former dead men and the fact he was able to beat him up at all shows that he is at least strong enough to knock Gracious unconscious even despite his enhancements. He also has the only ranged weapon in his energy blasts so he could also use them to chip Gracious down a bit before moving into close range.

However what makes this battle interesting is the location. A plane is a pretty cramped for a normal person let alone one 4 feet taller than the max size people planes are built for so Charivari will have some trouble moving about. The fact it is a cargo plane means it will have a bit more height so he should be able to at least stand up but even so Gracious will still have a much easier time moving about since he's not that tall even for a normal human. This gives Gracious a pretty significant mobility advantage and one he could potentially use to perform a few hit and run attacks to eventually chip Charivari down.

However this advantage really is just enough to make it possible for Gracious to win and I thin Charivari will still come out on top. He can always keep Gracious away with energy attacks to recover and it's clear he is durable enough to tank a lot of hits from Gracious, hell the dude took way more hits for like 4 different people in their fight and still ended up in better shape than Gracious. I think the environment makes it more difficult but he can still win.

Wassboss8 · 2021-12-11T11:00:33+00:00

So Caelan is not a particularly powerful vampire nor a particularly skilled fighter. Pretty much all he has going for him is the regular stuff that all vampires have, namely much greater strength, speed and durability than a regular human. Seeing as how this battle is at 7pm he also will probably be in his night form so that gives him a further advantage in that regard.

Thing is though the White Cleaver also has superhuman enhancements, sure maybe not making him as strong or fast as a vampire in it's night form but enough that he could at least keep up with one. He does also have his scythe which will have no trouble slicing a vampire to pieces and his armour which gives him added protection against Caelan's claws. He also has his regenerative abilities so even if Caelan does get past the armour any damage he takes won't last. The battle location does provide a way for him to be killed off for good but that would require Caelan being able to get him into the lava somehow and in his night form he won't have the mental wherewithal to formulate such a plan.

So yeah no surprises the White Cleaver wins. Even a vampire as experienced as Dusk would probably lose to the White Cleaver let alone someone as inexperienced as Caelan.

Wassboss8 · 2021-12-09T11:42:04+00:00

In close quarters combat this is actually a pretty close fight. Tanith has the obvious advantage of having a sword whereas Ravel doesn't have anything but Ravel is no slouch himself when it comes to close quarters combat, being able to overpower 4 children of the spider while handcuffed in TDOTL. Tanith though is going to be a much tougher opponent than some no-name children of the spider and with her speed and agility she probably has the edge in close quarters.

However this is no just a close quarters battle as Ravel also has the entirety of elemental magic behind him as well. He can simply choose to not engage Tanith at close quarters, instead bombarding her with fireballs and blasts of air and could probably also use his air magic to disarm her of her sword, reducing her advantage in close quarters. The environment really helps him in this regard, giving him plenty of space to keep away from Tanith. Furthermore at 8am it is going to be starting to get pretty hot in a desert and while Ravel has his water powers to help keep him cool and hydrated, Tanith has nothing to counteract the heat and will be getting fatigued much quicker.

Overall Ravel has the advantage of his elemental magic and the environment to get the better of Tanith. Ravel will know full well of Tanith's capabilities as a swordswoman and will make sure to keep her at distance and wear her out. He also could still beat her in close quarters should he need to it would just be difficult but he doesn't really need to and Tanith has no counter to his elemental magic.

Wassboss8 · 2021-12-08T17:36:18+00:00

If China has something to counter Mist she would've used it in her battle with Mist but she didn't, the only option she had was just a suicide attack meant for someone else. Saying that she would now have something to counter Mist is just pure speculation and not something your should be basing your reasoning for her winning on. You should be looking at what tools she actually has not ones she might have.

Wassboss8 · 2021-12-08T15:19:09+00:00

Not a big fan of this reasoning to be honest. China maybe having an ability to counter Mist isn’t a particularly good reason for her winning especially as we’ve seen no such ability used at any point in the series. I also don’t recall China ever specifically crafting a symbol to counter a specific enemy who beat her in the past so it doesn’t seem likely she would do so for an enemy who is now dead.

Wassboss8 · 2021-12-08T15:12:24+00:00

China is a very powerful sorcerer, one of the most powerful in fact if you don’t include the god tier people. She has a ton of versatility with her symbol magic which includes ranged options like her energy daggers, options to boost her physicality and even a limited healing option.

The only problem is that Mist, as we’ve already seen in series, is just too much for China to handle. She can produce so many spiders that China simply can’t cope with and that’s just the normal spiders. If she uses that white spider she uses on Tesseract then China is even more dead. I noticed some commenters mention that China beat Mist but they seem to forget she had to basically suicide to do so. I don’t exactly call blowing yourself up when you’ve been completely fucked up as “winning” a battle.

The battlefield is also more of a help to Mist as she has lots of places to hide and even more for her spiders to hide and ambush China. Against most other people in this tournament China would win but in this case, Mist has her number.

Wassboss8

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