Death Battle IV: The Source Material Loses

[ArlEammon]

SO. . . spoilers

Spoiler

Show

Fate won.

I don't think that Death Battle understood what either Doctor could cure.

[Maryring]

Your spoiler's kinda spoiled by what you wrote underneath it.

Honestly though, besides the arrogant "Death Battle looks at the larger picture" self-praise I found myself agreeing with their closing argument. Strange and Fate are both so ridiculously powerful with so many outlier feats that you can make a solid argument for either side. To the point that as a fun fight, it can work. But it's a bad match-up for a death battle analysis.

[Keltest]

Your spoiler's kinda spoiled by what you wrote underneath it.

Honestly though, besides the arrogant "Death Battle looks at the larger picture" self-praise I found myself agreeing with their closing argument. Strange and Fate are both so ridiculously powerful with so many outlier feats that you can make a solid argument for either side. To the point that as a fun fight, it can work. But it's a bad match-up for a death battle analysis.

Agreed. There are any number of different ways such a fight could go, to the point where its almost like a game of Calvinball with two Calvins.

[Devonix]

Going back to the idea of high and low showings. Christopher Reeve Superman only comes into play is if you are analyzing Christopher Reeve Superman

Just like you don't look up Adam west Batman feats when talking about comic Batman.

[Lemmy]

I don't really care about the result one way or another. I doubt many people do. Like I said, Fate and strange have never been very popular.

In any case, the only thing I really disagree with is using the travel speed of Fate's helmet to calculate Dr.Fate's speed... That's for two reasons:

1- Just because the helmet can do it, doesn't mean the host can move at such speeds.
2- Universes are reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally small in comics. Even characters without super-speed can often fly to other solar systems or even galaxies in hours. Writers have no sense of scale, of course, but this becomes even more apparent when it comes to cosmic distances and super-speed.

In fact, the reason so many characters move FTL, isn't because they can actually move FTL, it's just that the writers create stories with absurd feats of speed without a second thought because it sounds cool, so when someone stops to calculate how fast the character had to be moving, it ends up being FTL.

[Otomodachi]

Spoiler: Strange vs. Fate

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I thought it was a pretty good episode. I like how they flat out admitted both characters are absurdly powerful, and that that makes it difficult to choose a winner. I pretty much agree that Fate's greater inherent physical strength is a leg up. I probably would've made the same call, just on instinct, because given two extremely comparable characters I'm always gonna assume the DC one is stronger.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Regarding outlier-style feats, I enjoy DB as a nerdy way to watch two characters dig into their arsenals. I'm personally less concerned with fairness.

That said, one battle did raise my eyebrows: when they handed a win to Kirby based on a cartoon where he tossed someone in a frying pan into the sun. That just felt really jarring.

[Knaight]

That said, one battle did raise my eyebrows: when they handed a win to Kirby based on a cartoon where he tossed someone in a frying pan into the sun. That just felt really jarring.

That's a particularly egregious example of a pretty major pattern, where they take a setting that clearly doesn't operate according to any model suggested by actual physics (Kirby, Dragonball, RWBY), apply physics to it, get a result that's flatly ridiculous in the context of the setting, then decide to toss the input data, keep the model, and use the ridiculous results.

I enjoy DB mostly because it's entertaining to watch people flail around with basic physics and screw up math hilariously, but that loses its appeal a bit when it's just obviously the wrong tool. That said, the other reason I appreciate it is because it can't really spread misinformation about actual history, Deadliest Warrior style.

[Traab]

Shoulda kept the cloak wrapped around the helmet. Not just tossed it. Even if he could summon it back, rapped up like that he cant wear it, and taking the time to sturggle with the sentient cloak would leave him open to obliteration. Also, seriously? Ryu again? Who keeps ASKING for this guy?

[Rater202]

Regarding outlier-style feats, I enjoy DB as a nerdy way to watch two characters dig into their arsenals. I'm personally less concerned with fairness.

That said, one battle did raise my eyebrows: when they handed a win to Kirby based on a cartoon where he tossed someone in a frying pan into the sun. That just felt really jarring.

Context: They had Kirby defeat Majin Buu by throwing him in the sun.

In Dragon Ball Lore, taking the entire expanded multiverse into context under DB's "consolidate multiple interpretations" policy, beings that were less Durable(Broly) have survived being thrown into the sun(in Broly second coming, Broly was killed when his heart exploded from stress after being blasted into the sun, the sun itself didn't harm him until after he was dead.) and Cooler, who is both less durable and significantly weaker was harmed by being thrown into the sun but survived and somehow escaped its gravity.

Kid Buu has killed via total atomization b the Super Spirit Bomb, which contained the total combined energy of the entire main cast as well as the billions of people of Earth. Even low balling it to an absurd degree, this is at least two or three times an amount of energy estimated to be enough to destroy the Earth's sun. At the highest reasonable level, with the entire expanded multiverse taken into context, this would have been hundreds of magnitudes greater than the amount of energy needed to completely destroy a Galaxy in seconds.

Even low balling the amount of power it took to bring Buu down, there's no way in hell that the surface of the sun would have had enough heat to completely atomize Kid Buu in the seconds it would have taken him to teleport back to Pop Star.

But no, Kirby can throw people into the sun and throw people into the sun is an automatic win against anyone who isn't explicitly able to survive explicitly that even when their demonstrated feats of durability would logically put them beyond the amount of damage that the sun could do.

(The same episode also assumed that every explosion capable of destroying the earth or a similarly sized planet must have the exact same properties to justify Kirby being more physically durable than Buu.)

[Devonix]

Shoulda kept the cloak wrapped around the helmet. Not just tossed it. Even if he could summon it back, rapped up like that he cant wear it, and taking the time to sturggle with the sentient cloak would leave him open to obliteration. Also, seriously? Ryu again? Who keeps ASKING for this guy?

Remember Animation has no bearing on the actual fight, it's just fun pictures to look at after the analysis.

[ben-zayb]

Now that Doctor Fate is being used. Who does everyone think his greatest rival in DC should face

Who should battle "The Specter"

Thematically, it should be one of the Ghost Riders. I am just not sure how they would stack up against Spectre, who I am not so familiar with.

[Anteros]

Maybe Dormamu? It would have to be someone on that level.

[Otomodachi]

Thematically, it should be one of the Ghost Riders. I am just not sure how they would stack up against Spectre, who I am not so familiar with.

The Spectre is really, really, REALLY strong. Now, to be fair, he's had just as much fluctuating power levels as any other comic book hero. But he's also frequently been defined as the literal embodiment of the Abrahamic, omnipotent upper-case-G-God's wrath. He's... uh... wow. Maybe Neil Gaiman/Mike Carey's Lucifer? I can't think of anyone especially mainstream that'd really be a compelling matchup in therms of nicely contrasting/complimenting themes and similar abilities.

[ArlEammon]

Dormammu, I think, is equal to the Spectre.

[Knaight]

(The same episode also assumed that every explosion capable of destroying the earth or a similarly sized planet must have the exact same properties to justify Kirby being more physically durable than Buu.)

The decision to assume that characters would always survive/counter every strike that they ever survived/countered is a particularly weird one. Kirby has been explicitly shown getting taken out by half a dozen relatively weak strikes, being able to take repeated planet killing explosions is just absurd.

Plus Kirby planets are pretty clearly not proper planets, so even if you're going to do the math on energy to orbit you wouldn't get their results.

[Otomodachi]

Dormammu, I think, is equal to the Spectre.

The problem is bringing his power to bear OUTSIDE the dark dimension. I'd rank him below Galactus in the "real world", personally. And I'd bet on Spectre vs. Galactus any day of the week. Phoenix Force or Franklin Richards are probably better bets IMO.

[Kato]

Short reply to the new fight : it was fun to watch, but I guess not surprising in how it ended. Fate (and most of DC) is just more over the top powerful. (Marvel is too, but less so I feel)

Also, while I'm not one to pick apart every lacking argument DB makes, their speed discussions are a pet peeve of mine..
In this case, ignoring writers' disregard for physics, even ignoring whether travel speed or speed when fighting are related, one thing was clearly a magic spell designed to cross large distances, so presumably that one could travel any distance in the same time, by comic logic. Not that it would have been very useful..

Next time... Two people I don't care much about because I am not interested in fighting games. But it promises to be fun to look at.

[Rynjin]

Ryu vs Jin doesn't even make any sense

Street Fighter x Tekken is already a game series

both are playable in it

wat

[Kitten Champion]

That's the match-up?

Why not just slam two wooden blocks together? It'd be as interesting.

[Reddish Mage]

Your spoiler's kinda spoiled by what you wrote underneath it.

Honestly though, besides the arrogant "Death Battle looks at the larger picture" self-praise I found myself agreeing with their closing argument. Strange and Fate are both so ridiculously powerful with so many outlier feats that you can make a solid argument for either side. To the point that as a fun fight, it can work. But it's a bad match-up for a death battle analysis.

They do admit that either side could win but one side had the clear edge in strength, speed, and extent of powers.

Spoiler: Strange vs. Fate

Show

I thought it was a pretty good episode. I like how they flat out admitted both characters are absurdly powerful, and that that makes it difficult to choose a winner. I pretty much agree that Fate's greater inherent physical strength is a leg up. I probably would've made the same call, just on instinct, because given two extremely comparable characters I'm always gonna assume the DC one is stronger.

Spoiler: Strange Fate

Show

Basically this. Fate has just been shown to do things on a greater level of absurdly powerful than Strange. Strange has a variety of “I win” moves, but so does Fate, so it comes down to seeing who has the edge on their attributes and its Fate.

That's a particularly egregious example of a pretty major pattern, where they take a setting that clearly doesn't operate according to any model suggested by actual physics (Kirby, Dragonball, RWBY), apply physics to it, get a result that's flatly ridiculous in the context of the setting, then decide to toss the input data, keep the model, and use the ridiculous results.

I enjoy DB mostly because it's entertaining to watch people flail around with basic physics and screw up math hilariously, but that loses its appeal a bit when it's just obviously the wrong tool.

The question then is what is the right tool?

We’re dealing with the notion of settling which Superhero is going to win in a hypothetical no-holds-bar matchup where each is willing to kill the other.

You, and others here, keep trying to impose a scientific level standard of accuracy on what is basically an exercise in comparative fantasy.

The alternatives I am hearing, such as just grabbing still more data and average things out and somehow that’s going to make the outcome more accurate, is a formula for an academic paper that no one would want to read and everyone would criticize the lack of consistent method.

Taking some of the most powerful feats, measuring them, and determining the outcome by whose strongest, fastest, etc. is probably the best you can do if you are going to aim at settling matters by analysis.

Alternatively, you can just make it a popularity contest.

[Lemmy]

Ryu vs Jin doesn't even make any sense

Street Fighter x Tekken is already a game series

both are playable in it

wat

Shhhh... We don't talk about that game. Just pretend it never happened...

But jokes aside, being in the same game doesn't say much, because like it was mentioned before, game mechanics are balanced for players, not characters... Otherwise we gotta consider things like Chun-li (or any other character who reaches the final stage of MvC3's arcade mode) single-handedly beating the crap out of Wesker, Dr.Doom and Dormammu at the same time, then immediately moving on to kick Galactus' butt.

Anyway, I'd give this one to Ryu. It's another fight I just don't care about... While I love SF and Tekken, Ryu and Jin are by far the blandest characters in their games.

[Devonix]

Shhhh... We don't talk about that game. Just pretend it never happened...

But jokes aside, being in the same game doesn't say much, because like it was mentioned before, game mechanics are balanced for players, not characters... Otherwise we gotta consider things like Chun-li (or any other character who reaches the final stage of MvC3's arcade mode) single-handedly beating the crap out of Wesker, Dr.Doom and Dormammu at the same time, then immediately moving on to kick Galactus' butt.

Anyway, I'd give this one to Ryu. It's another fight I just don't care about... While I love SF and Tekken, Ryu and Jin are by far the blandest characters in their games.

I give this one to Jin. The Tekken verse simply operates on a higher scale of power, it's far more comparable to the KoF universe. Jin should have fought Rock Howard since they're closer thematically as well as in terms of power.


One issue here is that What's Stopping Jin from simply flying around and blasting Ryu from the air constantly.

[Lemmy]

I give this one to Jin. The Tekken verse simply operates on a higher scale of power, it's far more comparable to the KoF universe. Jin should have fought Rock Howard since they're closer thematically as well as in terms of power.


One issue here is that What's Stopping Jin from simply flying around and blasting Ryu from the air constantly.

I don't know about that... SF is full of anime-esque absurd feats... Ryu in particular has plenty of scenes of him doing stupidly powerful stuff in other media... From fighting Wolverine on MvC's intro, to dodging bullets, to him downright beating the crap out of giants monsters!

Evil Ryu is particularly absurd as well, I'm pretty sure there are scenes of him causing huge craters on the grounds, but I can't remember from which game they come.

Not to mention that super attacks and supernatural powers in general are far more common in SF than in Tekken.

Jin has the advantage of (clumsy) flight, of course, but his beam attacks, while unblockable, are usually slow and/or inaccurate (depending on the portrayal) and not all that powerful, so he'd probably have to stick to melee anyway. In a projectile battle, Ryu has too many advantages.

[Devonix]

Crossovers like marvel vs Capcom unless you think that Ryu can fight Galactus.

The mishimas survive orbital lasers that wreck city blocks. Tank nukes ect.

Ryu does a lot of super human feats but not on the Tekken scale. And where are you getting clumsy flight from. He's incredibly fast and agilebin the air. Capable of hypsonic flight.

Don't confuse move sets in game vfor what a character vis actually capable of. Do that and you limit Ryu as well.

Jin's lasers being unblockable is also a gameplay mechanic. Someone strong enough can block them.

[Maryring]

They should just have this fight play out in a game.

[Lemmy]

Crossovers like marvel vs Capcom unless you think that Ryu can fight Galactus.

The mishimas survive orbital lasers that wreck city blocks. Tank nukes ect.

Ryu does a lot of super human feats but not on the Tekken scale. And where are you getting clumsy flight from. He's incredibly fast and agilebin the air. Capable of hypsonic flight.

Don't confuse move sets in game vfor what a character vis actually capable of. Do that and you limit Ryu as well.

Jin's lasers being unblockable is also a gameplay mechanic. Someone strong enough can block them.

I was basing my argument only on cutscenes and other media, not on gameplay elements. Ryu is never shown actually defeating Galactus, but the game intro does show that he can put a fight against Wolverine.

In Tekken 5, Heihachi does survive a normal explosion, but I don't remember any of the Mishimas surviving a nuclear bomb.

[Knaight]

[SPOILER=Strange Fate]The question then is what is the right tool?

We’re dealing with the notion of settling which Superhero is going to win in a hypothetical no-holds-bar matchup where each is willing to kill the other.

You, and others here, keep trying to impose a scientific level standard of accuracy on what is basically an exercise in comparative fantasy.

The alternatives I am hearing, such as just grabbing still more data and average things out and somehow that’s going to make the outcome more accurate, is a formula for an academic paper that no one would want to read and everyone would criticize the lack of consistent method.

Taking some of the most powerful feats, measuring them, and determining the outcome by whose strongest, fastest, etc. is probably the best you can do if you are going to aim at settling matters by analysis.

Alternatively, you can just make it a popularity contest.

I'm talking specifically about extrapolated ability from extended calculations in settings that don't follow physics anyways - that's where the rules are just wrong, with Kirby being a thorough example of that setting. This also applies to a number of the extreme outliers, where what we see on screen, directly is pretty consistent and a lot lower than what we get if we determine what's needed through a fair amount of math the authors clearly didn't do.

[Otomodachi]

When are we finally gonna get the only match-up that REALLY matters?

Wiz vs. Boomstick when?!?!?

[Devonix]

I was basing my argument only on cutscenes and other media, not on gameplay elements. Ryu is never shown actually defeating Galactus, but the game intro does show that he can put a fight against Wolverine.

In Tekken 5, Heihachi does survive a normal explosion, but I don't remember any of the Mishimas surviving a nuclear bomb.

feats from vs things don't factor in Him fighting Wolverine in the intro of Marvel Vs Capcom is the same as saying that things from Namco x Capcom would be valid when none of it is.

We use things from their specific games, though stuff like The Streetfighter Movies are usable, Such as anything happening in the Alpha movies or street fighter the Motion picture.

But we don't limit the characters to game mechanics only otherwise we get into game balance problems.

Jin's Forcefields and his Telekenesis will also offer a serious problem to Ryu