Death Battle II - I don't THINK Gara got robbed I KNOW he did.

[Forum Explorer]

I still maintain the method they use to decide the equipment of the RPG characters was about as good as anyone is ever going to get, since just giving all the best equipment ever is just not going to work. Although the pillar math was a load of bull.

I agree, and I don't think there was a problem with Tifa's equipment. However I'd say they dramatically underestimated the amount of damage Tifa was putting out, or over estimated Yang's durability. Cause once her Aura runs out, which doesn't take massive force to do, she's as durable as any other human. So she can take one pillar sure, but can she take a dozen?

Considering we've seen Yang lose fights, we know the answer is no.

[Traab]

I agree, and I don't think there was a problem with Tifa's equipment. However I'd say they dramatically underestimated the amount of damage Tifa was putting out, or over estimated Yang's durability. Cause once her Aura runs out, which doesn't take massive force to do, she's as durable as any other human. So she can take one pillar sure, but can she take a dozen?

Considering we've seen Yang lose fights, we know the answer is no.

My main disagreement was that the gear setup was like taking away a wizards spell book and arbitrarily assigning him only a few random abilities. The gear in ff7 makes such a massive difference to what they are capable of doing in combat that its insane. By wearing the right armor and using the right weapon, you could find yourself dishing out max damage multiple times per round with max hit points, the ability to counter every attack, and have a defense that covers pretty much everything. Or you can do minor damage and throw fireballs.

Well that and the fact they gave the link character so freaking many of his extra weapons and tools just seemed excessive. "Well, it looks like cloud is using his level 1 gear, so thats all we will let him have. Now for link, lets see, lets give him a dozen of his most useful items stretched across a dozen titles and let him use them all at once. That seems fair and balanced"

[ChillerInstinct]

Eh, on one hand, I think the idea of "let's give the characters what they bring when they're in fighting games and nothing more" has merit. On the other, they kind of fudged their own rule by giving Link the Pegasus Boots, and to a lesser extent the Golden Gauntlets.

I don't necessarily disagree with the outcome, to be entirely honest, but I'll concede that their means of getting there wasn't one of their best.

Considering we've seen Yang lose fights, we know the answer is no.

The thing is, at the time the episode was written, there was only two times Yang had "lost" fights: the food fight (by virtue of ring-out, and the fact that she had survived a terminal velocity impact immediately after meant that she still had plenty of Aura left), and against Neo in season 2, who explicitly exploited the nature of Yang's Semblance to chip her down without cranking her Semblance, something Tifa would realistically have had no way to know how to do.

Now that RWBY season 3 has come and gone, and in light of at least one fight Yang got into then... well, you know.

The problem with using active series is that any Versus analysis can very easily become outdated within months of the episode. I mean, hell, their claim that Flash caused the New 52 reboot got retconned literally DAYS after his episode aired.

Granted, there's that, and then there's "hey listen, we're going to do this episode to build hype for the next season of the show of one of the combatants that could easily throw the results in question in hindsight". Again, I'm not sure if I necessarily disagree with the episode's outcome, but frankly that was NOT well thought through at all.

[Dragonus45]

EI'm not sure if I necessarily disagree with the episode's outcome, but frankly that was NOT well thought through at all.

I just wanted to call out this one bit because it so thoroughly sums up how I feel about a lot of death battles. It's not that I think they are really wrong, outside of Gara, but that it seems like they often times clearly sandbag the person who would have lost anyway or use some really weird logic to turn a likely win into a curb stomp like they did in the Knuckles vs Donkey Kong fight. Although that one had about a legions worth of real complaints that could be made about it so its not a good example I suppose.

Actually while I'm typing this another thought has occurred to me. Has anyone noticed that they have a habit of assuming fictionalized things are just better. Like the CQC vs Krav Maga things in Fisher VS Snake, where despite CQC clearly being just a fictionalized Krav Maga/general military focus martial art they went with the default idea that because it was fictionalized it was just better. Same for the Greymon vs Charizard bit, where they assumed that armour being stronger than anything on earth meant that it was significantly stronger just saying it was good enough and not really giving a reason for it. Gonna need to rewatch to see if its as common as I'm thinking it is though.

[Anteros]

I've noticed that a few times as well.

Overall, I just wish they would stop claiming to have "scientifically proven" things. Actual science and actual proof on the show are both very rare. They should just say "this is our opinion, and now here's a cool video about it." I guess controversy fuels clicks though.

[Traab]

I've noticed that a few times as well.

Overall, I just wish they would stop claiming to have "scientifically proven" things. Actual science and actual proof on the show are both very rare. They should just say "this is our opinion, and now here's a cool video about it." I guess controversy fuels clicks though.

Meh, I suppose it depends on how you define "scientifically proven" They do try to match real world physics with in universe feats as much as is possible. Yeah they are sometimes wrong, but generally speaking thats what they aim for. "Ok, here we see him doing so much damage to so much solid rock, that would require x amount of force" That sort of thing. Of course, that gets wonky when you are dealing with stuff like say, two conflicting rule sets where both combatants can do something not covered by the laws of nature as we know them. *cough garra/toph cough* Then it becomes basically a dm call. They use rule zero and declare that "this" is how it will work.

On a semi related note, I still say they grotesquely underestimated garras speed both of attack and defense, the avatar verse is just solidly below the naruto verse in power levels. I bet pein would have fed aang his feet and made him swallow even in full avatar state. Right before he ripped out his soul. God knows what that would have done to the whole avatar collective. And thats just in a straight up physical battle. Someone like itachi would have turned his brain into pudding before he even knew the fight started. Seriously, we would watch a 5 minute long battle, only for the screen to go dark and we suddenly see aang on the ground with his throat slit. The entire fight taking place only in his mind as itachi walked up and killed him like a rabbit in a snare. He wouldnt even need his mangekyo eyes of hax.

[Kitten Champion]

Meh, I suppose it depends on how you define "scientifically proven" They do try to match real world physics with in universe feats as much as is possible. Yeah they are sometimes wrong, but generally speaking thats what they aim for. "Ok, here we see him doing so much damage to so much solid rock, that would require x amount of force" That sort of thing. Of course, that gets wonky when you are dealing with stuff like say, two conflicting rule sets where both combatants can do something not covered by the laws of nature as we know them. *cough garra/toph cough* Then it becomes basically a dm call. They use rule zero and declare that "this" is how it will work.

On a semi related note, I still say they grotesquely underestimated garras speed both of attack and defense, the avatar verse is just solidly below the naruto verse in power levels. I bet pein would have fed aang his feet and made him swallow even in full avatar state. Right before he ripped out his soul. God knows what that would have done to the whole avatar collective. And thats just in a straight up physical battle. Someone like itachi would have turned his brain into pudding before he even knew the fight started. Seriously, we would watch a 5 minute long battle, only for the screen to go dark and we suddenly see aang on the ground with his throat slit. The entire fight taking place only in his mind as itachi walked up and killed him like a rabbit in a snare. He wouldnt even need his mangekyo eyes of hax.

Yeah, those were my complaints about the Gaara/Toph match up, an arbitrary decision on how the various powers work (which, I can shrug off, really) and treating Gaara as if he were just some dimwitted mook with geo-kinetic powers whose tactics involve throwing sand at people until he wins or runs out of gas, rather than a top-tier and intelligent combatant in the decidedly more deadly, diverse, and power-heavy world of Naruto (which, well, ruins the bit that I find interesting about the versus concept). Even if their conclusion was something that I could agree with, it seemed like they were more invested in the seemingly clever point that Toph could - if you look around for evidence enough - sense earth separated from the ground as some kind of trump card for their argument, rather than making a compelling little narrative for their fight.

Anyways, I stopped watching after the Beast/Goliath fight. Not that I disagreed with the outcome really - I've never watched Gargoyles, and I'm not really a Beast fan in any sense - but because it was the same thing as above, only worse. They reduced the characters and their battle to a single round from some fighting game, not just visually but mentally - it wasn't clever and certainly didn't demonstrate any of their defining characteristics - it was just two sprites ripping at one another until one was declared the winner. Even I know there's far more to Goliath than that and certainly more to Beast. If I wanted something like that I'd just play Marvel v. Capcom and at least have the vague joy of mindlessly mashing buttons until I finally win or my hands begin to hurt.

[ChillerInstinct]

On a semi related note, I still say they grotesquely underestimated garras speed both of attack and defense, the avatar verse is just solidly below the naruto verse in power levels.

And really, I think that's the heart of the issue with that episode. I mean, I don't have a problem with them using a detail from a DVD "did you know?" panel like a lot of people did. It's still effectively canon. And if you're looking at the fight through the vaccum of seeing it as a battle between two casters, than yeah, Toph wins, because she can see everything Gaara's doing, use his own armour against him, and turn his sand attacks into stone a lot of faster than he can turn them back into sand. And while a lot of people took issue with Toph being able to bend the mother's sand, I honestly don't think it's an unreasonable assumption seeing as Toph can counterbend other benders' attacks,

The problem is, Death Battle kind of forgot that Gaara vs. Toph SHOULDN'T be just a battle where it's earthbending vs. ninja sand magic-- it's a battle between a caster and a NINJA who happens to use casting in most of his abilities. Sure, Toph could probably strip away most if not all of his sand-based abilities, but how far does that go against someone who is as fast as Gaara is? They never really explain that. What's stopping Gaara from flying at her with enough speed to crush her skull, Peach vs. Zelda style? Sure, most weapons would probably be vulnerable to metalbending, but what's stopping him from choking her out?

I can kind of see what they were going for: with the Sand Armor, in theory if Gaara got close enough to hurt her himself you'd get something like the finale of that fight, but "in theory" and "in practice" are two wildly different beasts. Maybe Toph would just crush him in his armour all the same, who knows, but it's a pretty big factor that was completely brushed over.

Anyways, I stopped watching after the Beast/Goliath fight. Not that I disagreed with the outcome really - I've never watched Gargoyles, and I'm not really a Beast fan in any sense - but because it was the same thing as above, only worse. They reduced the characters and their battle to a single round from some fighting game, not just visually but mentally - it wasn't clever and certainly didn't demonstrate any of their defining characteristics - it was just two sprites ripping at one another until one was declared the winner. Even I know there's far more to Goliath than that and certainly more to Beast.

Ugh, that fight. I get the impression they took the concept of "hey, these two dudes have similar backstories, let's have them fight!", realized that there really wasn't much of a match, didn't want the research time to go to waste, and just had the animation pushed out the door so they could get it over with and have something to fill the schedule so they could work on Snake vs. Sam Fisher. It's definitely the match with the laziest "feel". I mean, the fight lasts like, what, 70 seconds? They had better fights back when Ben was doing the animations themselves. And the worst thing is, it was Mali who animated that fight, and he's pumped out SO many better fights before and after that one. Just a lack of effort all around on that one.

[Traab]

Yeah I could have lived with the call on toph bending garras sand. As I said, in a situation like that you have to rule zero it one way or the other because in reality there is no way to be sure. Both casters use different methods of bending their element so there is no way to be sure if it would work or not, so declaring it does is fine as its a coin flip, but ignoring the basic stat differences was the real game ruiner for me. Garra as a CHILD was facing an opponent who needed to be incredibly strong and so fast he couldnt be seen with the naked eye to get through his defenses. His opponent in that fight even said it to someone earlier, "It does not matter if you can see my attack coming if your body is too slow to react to it." (paraphrasing) Toph has NEVER been that fast. And thats young garra, years before he reached his peak. The fight should have really gone something like this.

/garra summons enough sand to crush toph
/toph turns the sand to stone and takes control
/garra realizes he cant attack directly and uses a super powered sandstorm to scour the flesh from her bones.
/toph realizes she cant turn billions of unconnected grains of sand to stone in time and quickly dies.

Even without that as a setup, toph can only transform the sand she touches. She doesnt have some omnidirectional aura that auto transforms sand into her control. So the guy who can make all the sand everywhere attack toph does just that and she is pierced so many times she makes swiss cheese jealous. But hey, two of his sand spears were turned to stone and stopped. Grats?

[Kitten Champion]

Gaara in-universe is very cautious, at least as a young adult when his psyche isn't fractured, he'd produce sufficient distance between himself and his target as to go unobserved and then track Toph with his rather subtle surveillance technique, and then use that information to develop a strategy to attempt to ambush or trap her. If that approach failed, he'd remain back and observe some more while throwing attacks at her to gauge her reactions and scan for weaknesses - and for Toph it's the limited material she's capable of manipulating, the fact that she needs to move in certain patterns to use her ability in the first place, has a limited range of effect even if she can toss material farther than that, is incapable of flight, is incapable of using chakra to enhance her body or perform the various magicks ninja can, and is unfamiliar with ninja capabilities in general.

She's used to fighting people who use a single classical element and in very conventional sorts of ways for millennia, not opponents who seriously may do just about anything imaginable until they show their limitations - chakra can bend space and time, alter causality, summon monsters from nothing, vaporize mountains, summon lakes, create near endless armies of clones, craft utterly convincing illusions and warp peoples minds, destroy life on a cellular level, grow forests instantaneously, resurrect the dead, etc. etc. - point being, there's no assumption that the next ninja Gaara will fight will simply shoot fireballs at him, because that's not the world he lives in nor the one he's prepared for, he's not going to approach the fight with such an assumption in mind.

Gaara's just not stupid, he's not going to keep throwing paper when he knows his opponent is incapable of anything but throwing scissor simply because that's ostensibly his main gimmick.

[Forum Explorer]

Gaara's just not stupid, he's not going to keep throwing paper when he knows his opponent is incapable of anything but throwing scissor simply because that's ostensibly his main gimmick.

...Have we ever seen that to be true in any of his fights? Or really, for any of the ninjas who have a 'gimmick.' When their gimmick gets countered they seem to counter with using their gimmick even harder.

Anyways, I haven't watched the anime, but with the manga (I still haven't finished, but I'm at hopefully the final fight), the ninja's generally aren't that fast. Particularly Gaara who barely moves, or bothers to dodge at all.

[Traab]

...Have we ever seen that to be true in any of his fights? Or really, for any of the ninjas who have a 'gimmick.' When their gimmick gets countered they seem to counter with using their gimmick even harder.

Anyways, I haven't watched the anime, but with the manga (I still haven't finished, but I'm at hopefully the final fight), the ninja's generally aren't that fast. Particularly Gaara who barely moves, or bothers to dodge at all.

In naruto the fastest people are literally teleporting. The second fastest are moving so fast they might as well be teleporting. Semantic difference maybe but at least they have to physically move from point a to point b. Even though you cant see them do it because they are moving so damn fast. Garra is personally not that fast. His sand however is incredibly fast on both offense and defense. It actually takes said "might as well be teleporting" levels of speed to effectively bypass him. I think in the original discussion people posted both anime clips and manga clips of the same battle to show garra blocking amaterasu which basically just shows up wherever sasuke looks with his sand. Bottom line, naruto verse ninja are clearly superhuman on the speed front.

And going by how often various ninja get planted into the ground so hard it forms craters yet continue being able to fight, they have a natural durability bonus too. They get smashed through trees thicker than a human and get right back up. This is standard combat in their fights. I could probably post 10 clips of naruto ninja taking superhuman amounts of damage for every single avatarverse clip you show. Instead I will just post this one I put it right to the important part, where naruto hits a guy so hard it leaves a trench going probably 50 yards away and drives him into a boulder so hard it literally craters around him. Dude survives. Admittedly he is badly messed up, and has lost the fight, and yes they are surprised he survived at all, but he still did.

That attack would have vaporized or turned into chunky paste anyone in the avatar verse. And that is not even remotely close to the damage cap naruto level ninja need to deal with. They have ninja so powerful that just by moving the ground shatters around them. They take what SHOULD happen when superman flies really fast and show it happening as the air around them ignites from the friction of their passing and they use that as part of their attacks. At their peaks you have hand to hand combat types so strong their bodies literally warp space/time as if they were sentient black holes charging fist first at their opponents. That is NOT an exaggeration. Bottom line, naruto verse is just on a higher tier of power than avatar. Just because you have two characters with similar abilities doesnt mean they are on the same level. Its flash versus quicksilver. There was never, not even for a brief moment, a way in which toph should have been capable of winning.

[ChillerInstinct]

The fight should have really gone something like this.

/garra summons enough sand to crush toph
/toph turns the sand to stone and takes control
/garra realizes he cant attack directly and uses a super powered sandstorm to scour the flesh from her bones.
/toph realizes she cant turn billions of unconnected grains of sand to stone in time and quickly dies.

Even without that as a setup, toph can only transform the sand she touches. She doesnt have some omnidirectional aura that auto transforms sand into her control. So the guy who can make all the sand everywhere attack toph does just that and she is pierced so many times she makes swiss cheese jealous. But hey, two of his sand spears were turned to stone and stopped. Grats?

I would have kept the fight the same up until the point where Toph grabs Gaara. Toph sends the mother's sand flying so far away that it can no longer protect Gaara...

...and as she prepares to grab him, she's knocked out cold by a flying kick to the face. Unconscious and unable to counterbend, she's helpless as Gaara attempts the Sand Burial for the second time... this time succeeding.

KO!

That way, they could have kept the claim that Toph could counter all of Gaara's sand manipulation, but that ultimately it only matters so much when you're ALSO against someone that much faster and physically stronger.

[digiman619]

Meh, I suppose it depends on how you define "scientifically proven" They do try to match real world physics with in universe feats as much as is possible. Yeah they are sometimes wrong, but generally speaking thats what they aim for. "Ok, here we see him doing so much damage to so much solid rock, that would require x amount of force" That sort of thing. Of course, that gets wonky when you are dealing with stuff like say, two conflicting rule sets where both combatants can do something not covered by the laws of nature as we know them. *cough garra/toph cough* Then it becomes basically a dm call. They use rule zero and declare that "this" is how it will work.

Yeah, those were my complaints about the Gaara/Toph match up, an arbitrary decision on how the various powers work (which, I can shrug off, really) and treating Gaara as if he were just some dimwitted mook with geo-kinetic powers whose tactics involve throwing sand at people until he wins or runs out of gas, rather than a top-tier and intelligent combatant in the decidedly more deadly, diverse, and power-heavy world of Naruto (which, well, ruins the bit that I find interesting about the versus concept). Even if their conclusion was something that I could agree with, it seemed like they were more invested in the seemingly clever point that Toph could - if you look around for evidence enough - sense earth separated from the ground as some kind of trump card for their argument, rather than making a compelling little narrative for their fight.

The problem is, Death Battle kind of forgot that Gaara vs. Toph SHOULDN'T be just a battle where it's earthbending vs. ninja sand magic-- it's a battle between a caster and a NINJA who happens to use casting in most of his abilities. Sure, Toph could probably strip away most if not all of his sand-based abilities, but how far does that go against someone who is as fast as Gaara is? They never really explain that. What's stopping Gaara from flying at her with enough speed to crush her skull, Peach vs. Zelda style? Sure, most weapons would probably be vulnerable to metalbending, but what's stopping him from choking her out?

<Gaara v Toph stuff>

<More Gaara vs Toph>

<Yet More Gaara vs Toph>

<Even More Gaara vs Toph>

<Gaara vs Toph VIII: Electric Boogaloo>

Yeah, I see the thread name wasn't a lie...

[Flickerdart]

...and as she prepares to grab him, she's knocked out cold by a flying kick to the face.

That seems pretty sensible - Gaara is a ninja, and all ninja are capable of at least basic taijutsu. I don't think we've ever seen Toph attempt non-bending martial arts. I'd say that Korra and Zuko might be the only Avatar-verse benders capable of standing up to your average genin in a hand-to-hand only brawl.

[Anteros]

That seems pretty sensible - Gaara is a ninja, and all ninja are capable of at least basic taijutsu. I don't think we've ever seen Toph attempt non-bending martial arts. I'd say that Korra and Zuko might be the only Avatar-verse benders capable of standing up to your average genin in a hand-to-hand only brawl.

Aang and Azula both fight hand to hand multiple times don't they?

[Dragonus45]

Yeah, I see the thread name wasn't a lie...

You could say its a running theme here yea.

[Forum Explorer]

*Kinda irrelevant stuff*

Not what I was asking about. Or really caring about.


When a gimmick ninja in Naruto has their gimmick countered, do we ever see them use a different tactic, or do they just double down on their gimmick/use it in a slightly different way. Bonus points if you can find an example of Gaara doing so.

Because someone claimed that if his sand was countered he'd use a different tactic like using physical weapons, and I don't think that's true for pretty much any gimmick ninja.

[Traab]

Not what I was asking about. Or really caring about.


When a gimmick ninja in Naruto has their gimmick countered, do we ever see them use a different tactic, or do they just double down on their gimmick/use it in a slightly different way. Bonus points if you can find an example of Gaara doing so.

Because someone claimed that if his sand was countered he'd use a different tactic like using physical weapons, and I don't think that's true for pretty much any gimmick ninja.

Gimmick ninja tend to stick with their gimmick. Naruto used to do nothing but spam shadow clones till he eventually landed a hit as one example. Shadow clones was the only move he had, then once rasengan got added to it he would spam them both till they landed. As for Garra, there were a couple times his sand didnt work. His basic tactic was then to use the sand in different ways. Like when he fought kimmimaru, his gourd of sand wasnt strong enough to crush him, so he started making way more sand so he could try to do things that way, he ground up kimmis bones to make his sand stronger, etc etc etc. No, he didnt switch to something else, though too be fair, at that stage of his life he had literally nothing but his sand and unleashing his demon. After that fight he got good enough with his sand that it never really failed to get him the win in the end so im not sure if he is ever seen fighting in taijutsu or whatever. At most he would switch tactics while using it.

Most other gimmick ninja tend to be beaten too fast for the option of trying something out to be taken or ignored. As an example, during the chunin exam prelims, the chakra drainer sasuke fought. Once sasuke identified the trick, he crushed him in seconds so no chance to adapt. The other teammate fighting kankuro had his rubber body technique, that failed and he got crushed before he could react. And also, these are low level ninja working towards qualifying for their first promotion, so really, most of them were probably one trick wonders, but thats due to a lack of training and experience. Pretty much every high ranking ninja has a few sets of skills to call on. Hell, even Gai has a summoning contract, he just doesnt use it out of respect for his student.

[Mato]

When a gimmick ninja in Naruto has their gimmick countered, do we ever see them use a different tactic, or do they just double down on their gimmick/use it in a slightly different way. Bonus points if you can find an example of Gaara doing so.

In the Gaara Hiden light novel Shigezane is a water release user who mined the gold dust for Gaara's father and has also specialized in anti-Shukaku techniques. Gaara was even lured into a crystalized sand area soaked with Shigezane's water techniques to prevent him from obtaining more sand. So Gaara simply switched to magnet release and won anyway. The same novel also has Gaara using wind release to create a multilayer wall and multiple third eyes.

The databooks also confirm Gaara can use lightning release but the only known instance is in the movie Legend of the Stone of Gelel where the lightning>earth advantage is used against him to break his various sand attacks. Gaara used his sand to set up a bunch of rods on the ground then channeled her lightning release back into her shorting her power out and the narutopedia entry calls it a lightning release technique.

And looking back at it, most of the people Gaara has fought has been some kind of specialist counter. Lee's super speed, Sasuke expressly trained to beat him, his father Rasa's gold dust counter, Shigezane's water and terrain, in anime filler a water weakness was added and exploited against him, and in films Ranke's Gelel stone lightning release could easily bat his sand aside. God-modding Madara, Deidara, Kimimaro, & Naruto were the only ones that didn't have some kind of inherent advantage over Gaara's weaknesses. Well, Deidara did try to bomb the entire Hidden Village of the Sand as a distraction, sort of exploiting Gaara's kage-protection. That makes Gaara and expert at countering his own weaknesses even if he still mostly just uses sand.

[Traab]

And kimmimaro was just way too physically durable for his standard techniques to work on. A combination of his extra strong bone armor under the skin and his curse mark power boosting. The only reason he didnt absolutely murder both garra and lee was he died from his own illness just as he was about to stab garra through the eye directly into his brain with a freaking lance of bone.

[Mato]

And kimmimaro was just way too physically durable for his standard techniques to work on.

If you want to count that you can add Naruto needed the superior nine tails power and Madara was an overpowered hack.

And it fits what we're told of him when he is introduced. Before he even became a real ninja he had already killed dozens of ninja assassins sent to kill him and I believe the commentary when they make it to the building in the exams that he had successfully completed an A rank mission which are supposed to be issued to Jonin-ranked and considered a village level problem. Among the other lesser fights, Gaara almost successfully took out three Kage level opponents at once if not for his father's counter and he was able to best Gengetsu while protecting Onoki. Even against Madara's wood clones Gaara fared better than the rest and was even able to protect the other Kage, he was even the only living Kage to stand against the ten tails Madara. By Kishimoto's intent Gaara simply outclasses just about everyone and so he used stuff like far superior power or specialized counter ability as a way to continue to push the idea while still challenging the character in fights.

[Traab]

Too be fair, madera WAS an overpowered hack. I wasnt trying to put down garra in any way, I was just mentioning that in the kimi fight he couldnt really do anything against him but buy time. Garra nailed him with several moves that are normally fight enders and he was able to just brute force his way right out of them taking minimal damage. Dude was scary. It wasnt like the other fights you mentioned where garra was specifically countered as such, but it had the same result, none of his moves did much good. And too be fair to garra B rank mission without a scratch or not (it was narutos wave mission that got boosted to A rank I think) he was young, inexperienced, and had little knowledge of how to deal with something his sand CANT kill.

[Dragonus45]

Too be fair, madera WAS an overpowered hack. I wasnt trying to put down garra in any way, I was just mentioning that in the kimi fight he couldnt really do anything against him but buy time. Garra nailed him with several moves that are normally fight enders and he was able to just brute force his way right out of them taking minimal damage. Dude was scary. It wasnt like the other fights you mentioned where garra was specifically countered as such, but it had the same result, none of his moves did much good. And too be fair to garra B rank mission without a scratch or not (it was narutos wave mission that got boosted to A rank I think) he was young, inexperienced, and had little knowledge of how to deal with something his sand CANT kill.

I always thought of the best way to put Kimimaro into perspective in that fight was that he was end series super ninja levels of bull**** with a terminal illness thrown at people that just simply were not on his level. Good luck then that the two coolest characters in the series were there to lose to him.

[Traab]

I always thought of the best way to put Kimimaro into perspective in that fight was that he was end series super ninja levels of bull**** with a terminal illness thrown at people that just simply were not on his level. Good luck then that the two coolest characters in the series were there to lose to him.

I personally liked the fanfic idea of having him breathe in a few grains of sand, then set his lungs to frappe. But yeah, honestly the whole VotE arc was annoying to me. Here we have orochimarus elite guard, and yet they all get dropped by a bunch of genin/borderline chunin? Yeah shika and kiba had help, from another genin, but still, how the hell does THAT make sense? In all seriousness, the fights all should have gone like the kimmimaru one did. With these kids getting stomped and barely saved at the last second. More realistic would be, "You guys go, I will hold this one back as long as I can" To try and split up the guards on sasuke till they can grab the barrel and run for konoha. Then play a game of hide and seek, trying to keep the fight going but not even bothering to try to win, just survive so they cant reinforce the other guards. Maybe save the deus ex machina not for a win, but for a fast getaway. Like temari sends in a massive blast of wind out of nowhere to knock away tayuya, then hauls ass dragging shikamaru away with her. That sort of thing. But instead we were given the baffling setup where orochimarus elite guard, the same guys who took out a couple jounin earlier, got slaughtered by genin.

[Mato]

But yeah, honestly the whole VotE arc was annoying to me. Here we have orochimarus elite guard, and yet they all get dropped by a bunch of genin/borderline chunin?

Try looking at it from a different prospective.

Orochimaru is a murderous sociopath who will capture and experiment/torture you in a lab like films portray the USA with aliens/mutants and his "elite guards" are going to be people who are willing to trade in what they have to follow a him and risk getting assassinated next time they are seen. It's kind of apparent that they are mentally unstable with their bickering too. Each one also has a flaw like Jirobo likes eating charka more than completing missions, Kidomaru plays around, Sakon has a rage problem, and Tayuya's never lose idea as we can see from Shikamaru's exams isn't going to land her a early chunin promotion anytime soon. They were probably failing ninja before they joined Orochimaru.

And "joined" may not even be the correct term. Later in the series Kabuto reveals that the Sound Four were all biological resources, they weren't even chosen for their skills but their abilities, and if you don't play along you end up being locked in a cell like Suigetsu was. They were competent, barrier techniques, ninjitsu, maybe some summons, but their elite title comes from a very low range selection of a few willing lab rats.

[Forum Explorer]

Gimmick ninja tend to stick with their gimmick. Naruto used to do nothing but spam shadow clones till he eventually landed a hit as one example. Shadow clones was the only move he had, then once rasengan got added to it he would spam them both till they landed. As for Garra, there were a couple times his sand didnt work. His basic tactic was then to use the sand in different ways. Like when he fought kimmimaru, his gourd of sand wasnt strong enough to crush him, so he started making way more sand so he could try to do things that way, he ground up kimmis bones to make his sand stronger, etc etc etc. No, he didnt switch to something else, though too be fair, at that stage of his life he had literally nothing but his sand and unleashing his demon. After that fight he got good enough with his sand that it never really failed to get him the win in the end so im not sure if he is ever seen fighting in taijutsu or whatever. At most he would switch tactics while using it.

Most other gimmick ninja tend to be beaten too fast for the option of trying something out to be taken or ignored. As an example, during the chunin exam prelims, the chakra drainer sasuke fought. Once sasuke identified the trick, he crushed him in seconds so no chance to adapt. The other teammate fighting kankuro had his rubber body technique, that failed and he got crushed before he could react. And also, these are low level ninja working towards qualifying for their first promotion, so really, most of them were probably one trick wonders, but thats due to a lack of training and experience. Pretty much every high ranking ninja has a few sets of skills to call on. Hell, even Gai has a summoning contract, he just doesnt use it out of respect for his student.

So no then?

Though speaking of Deidara, he was someone who didn't change his tactics ever. He just did more and more bombs.

In the Gaara Hiden light novel Shigezane is a water release user who mined the gold dust for Gaara's father and has also specialized in anti-Shukaku techniques. Gaara was even lured into a crystalized sand area soaked with Shigezane's water techniques to prevent him from obtaining more sand. So Gaara simply switched to magnet release and won anyway. The same novel also has Gaara using wind release to create a multilayer wall and multiple third eyes.

The databooks also confirm Gaara can use lightning release but the only known instance is in the movie Legend of the Stone of Gelel where the lightning>earth advantage is used against him to break his various sand attacks. Gaara used his sand to set up a bunch of rods on the ground then channeled her lightning release back into her shorting her power out and the narutopedia entry calls it a lightning release technique.

And looking back at it, most of the people Gaara has fought has been some kind of specialist counter. Lee's super speed, Sasuke expressly trained to beat him, his father Rasa's gold dust counter, Shigezane's water and terrain, in anime filler a water weakness was added and exploited against him, and in films Ranke's Gelel stone lightning release could easily bat his sand aside. God-modding Madara, Deidara, Kimimaro, & Naruto were the only ones that didn't have some kind of inherent advantage over Gaara's weaknesses. Well, Deidara did try to bomb the entire Hidden Village of the Sand as a distraction, sort of exploiting Gaara's kage-protection. That makes Gaara and expert at countering his own weaknesses even if he still mostly just uses sand.

So yes then? Are those sources actually canon?

[Flickerdart]

Though speaking of Deidara, he was someone who didn't change his tactics ever. He just did more and more bombs.

Deidara had all sorts of bombs, though - mines, carpet bombs, and so on. He was very creative with his gimmick. He was also ideologically tied to it - it was his art, after all - so it makes sense he wouldn't want to change strategies.

[Dragonus45]

So no then?

Though speaking of Deidara, he was someone who didn't change his tactics ever. He just did more and more bombs.



So yes then? Are those sources actually canon?

As far as I know they are, at least the guide books always are. Side light novels are sort of kind of yea thing although the one in question is pretty solid and doesn't contradict anything.

[Traab]

New battle is up!

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Ok, first off, i dont know anything about either of these guys. So I dont have a horse in the race. I have to admit the winner surprised me though. When they pointed out carolinas ai weakness, where if she overdoes it on gear he shuts down, I figured that was the sign of how it would end. I forgot about her healing ability. So nice twist ending.

Next time on death battle, cammy from street fighter versus sonya blade. Im honestly unsure. Both are tough fighters, I dont think either has much on the supernatural side for moves. Should be a good matchup. Only thing that might swing it are fatalities suggesting far greater strength or whatever than should be humanly possible. Or physics breaking moves or whatever.