Dumbledore Vs. Jaina Proudmoore

[Kyberwulf]

As the title Card says, who would win.

Assume a normal word-ish. They have to go head to head. We will assume a more three act structure. Beginning they test each other out. Second act can be them researching and whatnot. Third is them fighting to the end.

No Martha moments please. Assume they both have a very good reason to fight to the death, and have no way around it.

[ben-zayb]

WC Jaina is less resistant to debuffs/status attacks than WoW Jaina, although I can't remember if both are immune to instagib effects.

From what I see in the movies, Dumbledore doesn't really look that impressive, but the same could be said for many WoW bosses special-effects-wise for gameplay reasons.

[Rater202]

Dumbledore is one of the strongest Wizards in HP. He's also got the Elder Wand, which at bear minimum makes spells cast with it much stronger and at maximum makes it's master unbeatable in a straight up duel of magic vs magic...

His known feats include creation of Portkeys, being able to become invisible without an invisibility cloak, conjure a massive whip of flames, tamper with magical artifacts to alter their functionality(Mirror of Erised being altered to hide the Philosopher's Stone, destroy magical artifacts(Destroyed the Philosopher's stone with Flamel's blessing) conjure objects from thin air without incantations and with minimal movements, preform minor transfigurations on a massive room's worth of objects at once, a couple of times he casts without a wand(which, despite what the fics will tell you, isn't a thing otherwise) or and most of the Dark Wizards in the series fear him to some degree.

Dumbles is also cunning-more or less the entire series was a plan of his to fulfill the prophecy in such a way as for Tom to be the one to die, and for Harry to not have to die to remove the Horcrux from him, and Albus was more or less making it up as he went along and it still worked out pretty well.

I don't know enough about Jaina to say that it's a flat out win for Albus, but I'd say he definitely has the advantage, if only because of the Elder Wand.

However, Albus is remarkably reluctant to kill. He believes that everyone gets at least two chances, and even when he's on board with a killing he doesn't want it to be just a killing-He explicitly wasn't aiming to kill when he dueled Tom at the Ministry because merely killing Tom wouldn't satisfy him...Even though, you know, killing his body sure as hell would have bout some time to put him down for good.

[Razade]

Jaina is a former leader of the Kirin Tor and Dalaran, the strongest holding of mages in all of WoW. She also has the honor of being the strongest human spellcaster alive in current WoW. She helped beat Archimonde, a powerful demon of the Burning Legion. Archimonde is easily more powerful than the greatest threat Dumbledore ever fought, one could argue that a good number of demons from the Burning Legion are stronger than Voldemort. She doesn't need to wand duel, she doesn't really need incantations for a lot of the simple magic that Warcraft can throw around. She could spam him with Water Elementals if she didn't want to go fight on the front lines. She has access to the strength of the Kirin Tor and the vaults of Dalaran. I don't think this is a fair contest honestly.

[Leewei]

Magic in the Potter-verse and in Warcraft are two hugely different animals. Muggles in the Potter-verse have advanced to the point where they pose a real threat to wizards. By comparison, magic in Warcraft has made and destroyed entire worlds.

From a perspective of raw power, Jaina therefore looks to have a substantial advantage. Dumbledore has a number of things going for him, nonetheless.

1) Chessmastery. Dumbledore has a definite knock for knowing exactly which buttons to push to get the outcome he wants.

2) Subtlety. Dumbledore does not need incantations, gestures, or anything else, to produce substantial and unique magical effects.

3) Zeal. Dumbledore is willing to suffer, die, or worse if the cause is just.

All of this leads to the contest itself being very conditional. If both wizards suddenly appear somewhere, Jaina would likely have a big advantage. Every second Dumbledore has to understand Jaina's nature, their surroundings, and what is truly needed to win will quickly erode this advantage.

Ultimately, Dumbledore will probably win.

[Yael]

Magic in the Potter-verse and in Warcraft are two hugely different animals. Muggles in the Potter-verse have advanced to the point where they pose a real threat to wizards. By comparison, magic in Warcraft has made and destroyed entire worlds.

From a perspective of raw power, Jaina therefore looks to have a substantial advantage. Dumbledore has a number of things going for him, nonetheless.

1) Chessmastery. Dumbledore has a definite knock for knowing exactly which buttons to push to get the outcome he wants.

2) Subtlety. Dumbledore does not need incantations, gestures, or anything else, to produce substantial and unique magical effects.

3) Zeal. Dumbledore is willing to suffer, die, or worse if the cause is just.

All of this leads to the contest itself being very conditional. If both wizards suddenly appear somewhere, Jaina would likely have a big advantage. Every second Dumbledore has to understand Jaina's nature, their surroundings, and what is truly needed to win will quickly erode this advantage.

Ultimately, Dumbledore will probably win.

I think you're giving very low credit to Jaina's powers, tho.
She is considered one of the (if not the) most powerful humans alive, because she is a mage. Her repertoire is more than just damage spells, and even if it was so, as a mage, her options on whatever she may be carrying, from a wand to an item of dispel magic, that would give her advantage.

Sure, during WC she was young and reckless, but at the current WoW (which is the Jaina I think the OP refers), Proudmoore should have arranged enough wisdom to know how to face spellcasters. Also, by looking at some other sources, Human Mages are more adept at Counterspelling, which is an advantage, especially when HP's magic is more around wands than raw magic (though without a spellbook she's as good as done).

In the end, both would give a fair fight, but WC's magic is more developed, so there's the advantage. Also, her hair is white, she gains like 10% more coolness by that.

[The Glyphstone]

Depending on where in the timeline we take Jaina, she might win the 'zeal'-off too. After the destruction of Theramore and moving into the current era, she pretty much turned into a would-be genocidal maniac. Dumbledore might not be an orc, but if she's legitimately convinced he is as much of a threat as the orcs are/could be, she'll turn all of that single-minded zealotry on him like a laser beam. Extensive collateral damage will ensue, but I don't know if she will care.

Where I think Dumbledore can take this is flexibility. He's free of the #1 weakness of the Potterverse, their dependence on wands as a focus object, and while Warcraft wins out in raw destructive potential, Jaina's abilities outside of direct combat application are far more understated - Warcraft's magic in general tends to, unsurprisingly, be developed as a weapon of war, though non-combat spells exist, they're generally utillity-oriented like teleportation and conjuring food (which Potterverse cannot do, admittedly). Dumbledore has the creative chops to take any of Potterverse's vast array of ostensibly non-combat charms and make Jaina's life absolutely miserable while she wrecks everything in sight trying to stop him.

[Yael]

Dumbledore has the creative chops to take any of Potterverse's vast array of ostensibly non-combat charms and make Jaina's life absolutely miserable while she wrecks everything in sight trying to stop him.

That's... A win, too. I suppose.

[Razade]

Where I think Dumbledore can take this is flexibility. He's free of the #1 weakness of the Potterverse, their dependence on wands as a focus object, and while Warcraft wins out in raw destructive potential, Jaina's abilities outside of direct combat application are far more understated - Warcraft's magic in general tends to, unsurprisingly, be developed as a weapon of war, though non-combat spells exist, they're generally utillity-oriented like teleportation and conjuring food (which Potterverse cannot do, admittedly). Dumbledore has the creative chops to take any of Potterverse's vast array of ostensibly non-combat charms and make Jaina's life absolutely miserable while she wrecks everything in sight trying to stop him.

That's not true though, it only really applies for the games which unsurprisingly are combat focused. There are tons of wards, sigils, small spells and all manner of neat enchantments in Azeroth, just not a lot of time to need them when you're fighting the Orcish Horde. Dalaran and the Kirin Tor are a font of mystical weirdness and really all Jaina needs to do is drop a Polymorph on him. Something the Wizarding World of Harry Potter can also not do. Another thing Jaina can do that we don't really see Harry Potter World do is dispell. Jaina can, when ever she wants, wipe away magics. That's sort of a game changer in a magic fight when only one person can do it.

[The Glyphstone]

That's not true though, it only really applies for the games which unsurprisingly are combat focused. There are tons of wards, sigils, small spells and all manner of neat enchantments in Azeroth, just not a lot of time to need them when you're fighting the Orcish Horde. Dalaran and the Kirin Tor are a font of mystical weirdness and really all Jaina needs to do is drop a Polymorph on him. Something the Wizarding World of Harry Potter can also not do. Another thing Jaina can do that we don't really see Harry Potter World do is dispell. Jaina can, when ever she wants, wipe away magics. That's sort of a game changer in a magic fight when only one person can do it.

Offensive Transfiguration is totally something the WWoHP can do - heck, it's something so trivial to do/undo that it's only a mildly inappropriate punishment to be dished out to students. I'll give you that Jaina has an unquestionable edge in defensive dispelling, and counterspelling in Round 3 when she's figured out how the other guy's magic works.

[Leewei]

Depending on where in the timeline we take Jaina, she might win the 'zeal'-off too.

The litmus test for this would be if Jaina ever planned to have herself killed in order to win a battle. This isn't a desperation move; this is "Three months from now, I will have someone kill me to make my enemy trust them." Dumbledore as a rule avoided needless destruction, but when the situation demanded it, he paid the ultimate price.

[The Glyphstone]

The litmus test for this would be if Jaina ever planned to have herself killed in order to win a battle. This isn't a desperation move; this is "Three months from now, I will have someone kill me to make my enemy trust them." Dumbledore as a rule avoided needless destruction, but when the situation demanded it, he paid the ultimate price.

Remember that Dumbledore had already been poisoned by the curse on the ring-horcrux at that point. He was slowly dying already, and had at most a year to live. So he wasn't losing much, relative to the stakes - making his own inevitable death work for him is a Xanatos Gambit entirely fitting to him, and as a bonus he gets insta-killed instead of slowly withering away in (assumed) agony.


If she was going to die anyways, I could see her sacrificing herself in order to secure a victory. But it's not guaranteed, admittedly - the closest benchmark would be the Tidal Water Elemental she almost nuked Orgrimmar with, and that wasn't sacrificing herself so much as genocidally obliterating a city of civilians just to get at their leader in revenge.

[Traab]

Something to keep in mind. You can play as a mage in WoW, so the spell list is a bit more comprehensive than in wc3. Depending on what kind of mage she is (for all I know an archmage can be all three specs) She can shoot off fireballs or what amounts to a meteor of flame, a spell that will instantly hit the target with a burst of flame, no warning or travel time involved. She could use arcane magic that gets explicitly more powerful every time she casts, she can blink, she can shield, she can put up ice barriers, summon water elementals, turn you into a sheep, silence a fellow spellcaster, bury you in a blizzard, and has numerous aoe spells to take care of any distracting transfiguration attempts to mob her. Thats just scratching the surface, I dont feel like posting the entire potential spell list, but suffice to say, she has a lot of options and a LOT of raw power to put behind them.

[khadgar567]

just for compression I give you average mage of kirin tor ronin and my forum name sake khadgar both of them start as average mages in their books in the end khadgar becomes guardian of trisfall fing sagreas( a demon lord of at least asmodeus caliber) and ronin basiclly went mano o mano with deathwing ( an epic black dragon with good amount of optimazation)
for potterverse they need seven people to just get rid(by putting sleep) of one average dragon
so my opinion jaina proudmore wins

[The Glyphstone]

The very fact that he becomes the Guardian is a pretty strong argument against him being 'average', you know. The whole point of the Guardian of Tirisfal is that they are exceptionally above average. For that matter, Khadgar is irrelevant in either case, because he's not a participant in the fight, any more than Dumbledore can call in Merlin to help out.

[khadgar567]

The very fact that he becomes the Guardian is a pretty strong argument against him being 'average', you know. The whole point of the Guardian of Tirisfal is that they are exceptionally above average. For that matter, Khadgar is irrelevant in either case, because he's not a participant in the fight, any more than Dumbledore can call in Merlin to help out.

he inherited title because medhiv got possesed by sagreas(resident asmodeus wannabe) and unleashed waagh on azaroh so he didnt get title cuz he is ranked enough to qualify for the title he get the title because he is the only apprentice of the old fart with proper training to handle the job and his superiors(kirin tor) want some political puppet in that position to manuplate

for whole story please read last guardian book

[The Glyphstone]

I have. And he's still not an average character, by the very definition that he's a named protagonist with book(s) written about him. For every Khadgar and Ronin, you get a Wilfred Fizzlebang (Master Summoner!) - that's what "average" means, it's the midpoint of the highs and the lows.

And again, he's utterly irrelevant, because he isn't Jaina Proudmoore. Build your case on her accomplishments and abilities, not those of someone she went to school with. It shouldn't be hard, she was the golden girl of Alliance mage fluff for years.

[khadgar567]

I have. And he's still not an average character, by the very definition that he's a named protagonist with book(s) written about him. For every Khadgar and Ronin, you get a Wilfred Fizzlebang (Master Summoner!) - that's what "average" means, it's the midpoint of the highs and the lows.

And again, he's utterly irrelevant, because he isn't Jaina Proudmoore. Build your case on her accomplishments and abilities, not those of someone she went to school with. It shouldn't be hard, she was the golden girl of Alliance mage fluff for years.

I didn't say they are revelant they are just bench to determine jaina's power level in the setting

[Traab]

I would actually concur to an extent with khadgar here. Its a useful illustration of the type of thing big boss wizards in the WoW setting have been known to pull. Jaina isnt an average mage, she is leader of her faction for a reason. I honestly havent read many WoW books, and none involving jaina, so I cant pull up many specific feats for her.

[khadgar567]

I would actually concur to an extent with khadgar here. Its a useful illustration of the type of thing big boss wizards in the WoW setting have been known to pull. Jaina isnt an average mage, she is leader of her faction for a reason. I honestly havent read many WoW books, and none involving jaina, so I cant pull up many specific feats for her.

there is no books featuring her even as guest star current books are about ronin, trall( movies go'el), and khadgar
she can maybe day view in upcomming traveler series but for old books she doesn't appear

[Aeson]

for potterverse they need seven people to just get rid(by putting sleep) of one average dragon

Those wizards are not attempting to "get rid" of a dragon. They are attempting to corral the dragon, and wish to do so without causing it undue harm, which is much more difficult than just "getting rid" of a dragon by killing it or driving it off. I would further point out that the dragon falls more or less instantly as soon as they decide to actually use magic to bring it down.

As far as using this and the confrontation between whoever Ronin and Deathwing are for a comparison of magical power levels between settings goes, maybe you can do it, but you cannot do it just by pointing at it. You need to establish a basis of comparison - and "Deathwing is a dragon and so is the thing put to sleep by seven Harry Potter wizards" is far from sufficient. For example, Harry Potter dragons are fairly resistant to magic, whereas from what I recall of Warcraft III Warcraft dragons are not (though I could be mistaken; it's been a long time since I played Warcraft III), so even if the Harry Potter dragon is in absolute terms weaker suppressing it via magic as rapidly as was accomplished may still be the more impressive feat.

I didn't say they are revelant they are just bench to determine jaina's power level in the setting

Power level relative to the setting is kind of irrelevant to a versus thread. What you want is power level rated by some metric which can be compared across settings, or, failing that, something which provides information on what exactly it is that each character in the matchup is actually capable of doing - preferably by demonstrating that the character is actually able to do that, rather than bringing up things that other people in the setting are capable of doing and simply assuming that because person X is able to do this one thing, person Y must be capable of doing it too, or is at least capable of performing feats which require similar amounts of magical power.

Jaina isnt an average mage, she is leader of her faction for a reason.

Leadership of an organization very rarely simply falls to the most physically or magically powerful; rather, it typically falls to the most politically-adept, to those backed by the most politically-adept, or to the famous regardless of their actual ability or qualifications for the job for which they're being selected (e.g. war heroes being elected or appointed to high office in the real world). There are only two things that Jaina being the leader of her faction proves - she's sufficiently magically competent to meet whatever the minimum requirements for the position are, and she's a sufficiently skilled politician or is backed by sufficiently-skilled politicians or sufficiently popular and famous ("hero of the war that defeated the demon incursion" probably counts for a lot, even though it says nothing about her suitability for a political position) that she was able to outmaneuver her political opponents and gain the top position.

Arguing that Jaina is better at magic than an average mage because she's the head of her faction is kind of like arguing that Cornelius Fudge is a better wizard than Albus Dumbledore because Cornelius Fudge is the Minister of Magic whereas Dumbledore is merely the headmaster of a school with a funny name.

[khadgar567]

[QUOTE=Aeson;20935277]Those wizards are not attempting to "get rid" of a dragon. They are attempting to corral the dragon, and wish to do so without causing it undue harm, which is much more difficult than just "getting rid" of a dragon by killing it or driving it off. I would further point out that the dragon falls more or less instantly as soon as they decide to actually use magic to bring it down.
[QUOTE]
normal dragon flight dragon against seven wizards
[QUOTE=Aeson;20935277]
As far as using this and the confrontation between whoever Ronin and Deathwing are for a comparison of magical power levels between settings goes, maybe you can do it, but you cannot do it just by pointing at it. You need to establish a basis of comparison - and "Deathwing is a dragon and so is the thing put to sleep by seven Harry Potter wizards" is far from sufficient. For example, Harry Potter dragons are fairly resistant to magic, whereas from what I recall of Warcraft III Warcraft dragons are not (though I could be mistaken; it's been a long time since I played Warcraft III), so even if the Harry Potter dragon is in absolute terms weaker suppressing it via magic as rapidly as was accomplished may still be the more impressive feat.
[QUOTE] were are talking leader of black dragon flight
ronin = regular pc in dnd setting
jaina = epic pc with optimization
dumbeldore = wizard with to much wisdom and enough int to cast spells and dabble politics

[Aeson]

ronin = regular pc in dnd setting

I would strongly contest the claim that anyone who goes up against an "epic black dragon" and wins, or maybe even just lives to tell the tale, is a "regular" or "average" character in any setting, certainly not by the point at which they go up against said "epic" black dragon.

normal dragon flight dragon against seven wizards

Which tells us what, exactly? This is not a basis of comparison; you have not established the power level of a "normal dragon flight dragon" relative to a Harry Potter dragon; if it's one of the small red dragons from the WCIII campaign, even a relatively small group of basic units can take one down if going by gameplay. If you cannot show equivalency between two things, you cannot simply substitute one for the other and claim that this makes a comparison.

Beyond that, fine, it took seven wizards of unknown power in the Harry Potter universe to subdue one dragon. How strong are these wizards of unknown power relative to Dumbledore, one of the most powerful wizards of the age in the setting? Pursuing this line of comparison tells us just about nothing until we can find something that establishes firstly about how strong Dumbledore is relative to these seven wizards and secondly about how strong the dragon in question is relative to a "normal dragon flight dragon" of Warcraft.

[Traab]

Honestly we cant compare dragons because the dragons in WoW are by far more intelligent, they have magical powers of their own in certain realms, for example, deathwing has massive amounts of power over the planet itself, the bronze flight has time, blue has magic, red has life itself. They can live for tens of thousands of years, growing stronger in all ways as they do. Harry Potter dragons are magic resistant cattle with fangs.

[khadgar567]

Honestly we cant compare dragons because the dragons in WoW are by far more intelligent, they have magical powers of their own in certain realms, for example, deathwing has massive amounts of power over the planet itself, the bronze flight has time, blue has magic, red has life itself. They can live for tens of thousands of years, growing stronger in all ways as they do. Harry Potter dragons are magic resistant cattle with fangs.

Agreed mate still jaina wins or they sit and have pandaren tea while discussing how magic works( i think its more likely)

[Psyren]

Where I think Dumbledore can take this is flexibility. He's free of the #1 weakness of the Potterverse, their dependence on wands as a focus object

I don't think this is accurate. Dumbledore may not strictly need a wand to use magic, but he's still weaker without one. Had he dueled Voldemort in the Ministry completely wandless, the outcome would have been very different.

Besides which, if we're going to give Dumbledore access to Potterverse artifacts like the Elder Wand, why then wouldn't Jaina be packing similar setting heat like the Eye of Dalaran or Tirisfal Guardian's staff?

[georgie_leech]

Those wizards are not attempting to "get rid" of a dragon. They are attempting to corral the dragon, and wish to do so without causing it undue harm, which is much more difficult than just "getting rid" of a dragon by killing it or driving it off. I would further point out that the dragon falls more or less instantly as soon as they decide to actually use magic to bring it down.

As one of my favorite fics points out, if all they wanted was a dead Dragon, they have access to a spell that is unblockable and kills everything 100% of the time. But...

Power level relative to the setting is kind of irrelevant to a versus thread. What you want is power level rated by some metric which can be compared across settings, or, failing that, something which provides information on what exactly it is that each character in the matchup is actually capable of doing - preferably by demonstrating that the character is actually able to do that, rather than bringing up things that other people in the setting are capable of doing and simply assuming that because person X is able to do this one thing, person Y must be capable of doing it too, or is at least capable of performing feats which require similar amounts of magical power.

I'm not sure there is such a metric we can reasonably use to compare. Like, take Avada Kedavra. Is it a no save, Immunity-piercing (barring love shenanigans being an arbitrary counter) instant not-actually-death-effect Death Effect? Does it just do a bunch of HP damage that happens to be greater than anything in the Potter-verse has? Would it instantly kill Deathwing? Beats me. While Dumbledore himself is incapable of, or just never uses that particular spell, the point is that what we only have in-setting metrics by which to judge the 'power' of any given feat of magic. That makes a direct comparison rather difficult.

[Aeson]

Besides which, if we're going to give Dumbledore access to Potterverse artifacts like the Elder Wand, why then wouldn't Jaina be packing similar setting heat like the Eye of Dalaran or Tirisfal Guardian's staff?

The Elder Wand may be an artifact, but it's also Dumbledore's wand. I wouldn't take Anduril from Aragorn in a versus thread involving him just because Anduril is an artifact sword, nor would I give Beowulf access to Gram just because we're allowing Aragorn to bring along Anduril.

Beyond that, we're not really giving Dumbledore anything by allowing him the use of the Elder Wand. Every time we see Dumbledore casting a spell using a wand, we have to assume that he's using the Elder Wand unless it's highly probable (e.g. prior to the 1945 duel with Grindelwald) or explicitly the case that he's using some other wand. Possession, mastery, and use of the Elder Wand is a baked-in assumption that comes with our knowledge of Dumbledore's abilities; we simply do not have sufficient information on his capabilities without it to make meaningful statements.

Like, take Avada Kedavra. Is it a no save, Immunity-piercing (barring love shenanigans being an arbitrary counter) instant not-actually-death-effect Death Effect? Does it just do a bunch of HP damage that happens to be greater than anything in the Potter-verse has?

We can only go with how things are described or shown to work within a setting. Avada Kedavra is explicitly stated to kill people struck by it without fail, save in exceptional cases where one person sacrificed their life to protect another. It would therefore appear to be an instant-kill effect, not something which does "really high HP damage."

I'd also note that the mechanics of the protection from the killing curse aren't entirely clear due to events revealed in the seventh book - was Harry protected from Voldemort's curse simply because Lily sacrificed herself to save her son, or was he protected because Voldemort offered to spare Lily in exchange for Harry's life and Lily countered by offering her life in exchange for that of her son, an offer which Voldemort implicitly accepted in killing her? Voldemort's curses seemingly have issues "sticking" to the people in Hogwarts after Voldemort makes Harry a similar offer - "come to me and die, or all who are in Hogwarts will be killed," which implicitly offers to spare those in Hogwarts if Harry chooses to come to Voldemort and die (knowing Voldemort's character this is obviously an unintended offer, but the offer is implicitly there nonetheless), though of course you could also argue this as an extension of the "you were protected by your mother's love for you" story we got when Harry was 11.

[Psyren]

The Elder Wand may be an artifact, but it's also Dumbledore's wand. I wouldn't take Anduril from Aragorn in a versus thread involving him just because Anduril is an artifact sword, nor would I give Beowulf access to Gram just because we're allowing Aragorn to bring along Anduril.

Beyond that, we're not really giving Dumbledore anything by allowing him the use of the Elder Wand. Every time we see Dumbledore casting a spell using a wand, we have to assume that he's using the Elder Wand unless it's highly probable (e.g. prior to the 1945 duel with Grindelwald) or explicitly the case that he's using some other wand. Possession, mastery, and use of the Elder Wand is a baked-in assumption that comes with our knowledge of Dumbledore's abilities; we simply do not have sufficient information on his capabilities without it to make meaningful statements.

As head of the Kirin Tor, she'd have access to the Eye at the very least. It's not like I'm giving her the Skull of Gul'dan.

As for the wand's capabilities, we know one thing it does - makes him win wizard duels, which this clearly is. Can he win without it, or with it vs. the Eye? Not enough information.

Anyway, my main point was that "Dumbledore doesn't need a wand to use at least some magic" does not necessarily lead to "Dumbledore has overcome all Potterverse limitations."

[Aeson]

As for the wand's capabilities, we know one thing it does - makes him win wizard duels, which this clearly is. Can he win without it, or with it vs. the Eye? Not enough information.

Given what we know of the Elder Wand's history, I'd be inclined to say that it is not a wand which guarantees victory in a duel, and may not even be one which greatly increases the chances that the wizard wielding it will win the duel. Despite the wand's power, Draco Malfoy is still unable to beat Harry Potter or the other protagonists in magical combat; Dumbledore, despite being an enormously more competent wizard and despite not being taken entirely off guard, is still disarmed by Malfoy's spell on the night Dumbledore dies; despite the power of the Elder Wand, Dumbledore never decisively beats Voldemort in magical combat; despite presumably being both master and possessor of the Elder Wand, and almost certainly being at least the possessor of it, Grindelwald was defeated by Dumbledore in their duel in 1945; etc. Nor would I consider it all that likely for the Elder Wand to have never passed from one master to the next following a straight fight rather than through ambush, theft, or murder in all its long history of being possessed by powerful, combative wizards and witches.

Beyond that, we can also see a little of what it does when we see Harry Potter wield it. It appears to amplify the power or effectiveness of magic rather than simply being an "I win" card in duels. The success or failure of a wizard or witch in a duel who wields the wand is likely more strongly dependent upon the competence and preparedness of the wizard or witch than upon the wand itself; strength is useful, but more of it generally won't help if you do not know how to use what you already had effectively.