The Great Debate Season 4 Round 2

[u/That_guy_why]

---

Rules

---

Battle Rules

• Speed shall remain unequalized; at this level, you have to show your moxie in arguing speed succinctly if you wish to retain an edge.

• Battleground: 'They call it a mine, A MINE!' 'This isn't a mine....it's a tomb.' THE MINES OF MORIA!!! Nestled in a mountain pass underneath the Misty Mountains, The Mines of Moria are an underground labyrinthine arena. The proper fighting stage is set in the Great Hall on the western side of the Bridge of Durin. All combat will begin roughly 200 feet from the bridge, should any wary persons decide to try and take advantage of such a precarious perch….The Hall is a large spacious opening with numerous 4 foot thick concrete support pillars littering it that reach all the way up to the 50 foot tall ceiling, and all exits save for to the Bridge are barred and locked by magic. Numerous sconces and braziers of flame are upon the walls and floors, casting enough light to see decently well by (a light level of roughly 5 lux, wherein your normal parking garage has 10 lux). The Hall itself is an area of roughly 1 kilometer squared, or 1000 meters by 1000 meters for sake of this tournament. Combatants start 10 meters away from each other at the start.

Debate Rules

• Rounds will last 4 days, hopefully from Wednesday until Saturday or Sunday of each week of the tourney; no time limit, however each user MUST get in two responses or else be disqualified. If one user waits until the very last minute to force this rule to DQ their opponent without any forewarning to their opponents or the tournament supervisors, they will be removed from this tournament, no exceptions.

• Format for each round: both respondents get Intro + 1st Response, then 2nd response, then a 3rd response and closing statement individual of one another that can be posted any time after both 3rd responses are complete. EACH RESPONSE MUST BE NO LONGER THAN TWO 10,000 CHARACTER REDDIT COMMENTS LONG.

• Rounds will either be a full 3v3 Team Match, or 1v1 single matches. 1v1 matches are determined by submission order (I.E. Your first submission vs. their first submission, and so on). Match format will switch every round, with Team Matches always followed by single matches, and vice versa. First Round will be determined by coin flip.

---

Current Bracket and Match Style

---

Brackets Here

1v1 Singles Matches

Round 2 Ends February 24th, 11:59 EST

[u/EmbraceAllDeath]

Response 2 Part 1

John vs the Reaper

Framing arguments

Some arguments that were not answered that give frame this battle are:

1. The Reaper will use his powers casually

a. This means evaluating when the Reaper fights without powers is irrelevant, except when the Reaper or John stop using their powers.

b. You claim in response to John’s ability to copy powers that the Reaper would one shot him with a head shot. This is unlikely to happen given John’s dodging feats and Reaper’s lack of accuracy feats, and your claim is non responsive to the my claim that the Reaper doesn’t know that John can copy his powers, which makes it unlikely that he’ll use his powers to end the battle in one shot.

c. This means that we evaluate this debate in a context where the Reaper has used his intangibility teleportation powers and John has the capability to use them by copying the Reaper’s powers.

1. John has good dodging capabilities.

a. This means that the Reaper’s guns are unlikely to matter, as the Reaper hasn’t demonstrated the skill necessary to tag John who was capable of dodging “missiles” from Rouker and Blyke’s energy beam attack.

b. The strength of the guns is also unlikely to matter, especially in a context in which John is only vulnerable when he stops using the Reaper’s power, can regenerate from hits, and can maneuver himself to dodge if he turns off his powers.

Rebuttal

Reaper isn't super accurate but he fights at close range so it doesn't matter

All of John’s dodging feats are close range so accuracy at close range does matter here

Reaper can hurt Soldier: 76 who can tanks a grenade and Winston is a tank who has much tougher durability than John just due to his armor itself.

Being able to tank a van is more impressive those durability feats given that grenades in Overwatch only cause small amounts of damage to building floor whereas the impact of a speed van would cause more damage. The argument about Winston’s durability lacks a warrant, nothing makes Winston’s armor inherently more durable than John. In any case the arguments about durability become irrelevant when John copies the Reaper’s intangibility/teleportation/regeneration powers, which then makes the debate a question of endurance.

Reaper's guns were meant to shed highly durable tanks

Source?

missiles are slower than shotgun shells so John can't do much dodging.

Even if we consider the “missiles” that John dodged to be slow, John still dodged the laser from Blyke which I mentioned previously. Blyke’s energy beams are pretty fast, and even the one of the larger energy beams that he charges up is fast enough to Gou between when Gou was slightly bent over to when he stands up.

if John can turn intangible and teleport and regenerate from dealing damage, then it wouldn't matter since he doesn't have any shotguns or other weapons to help.

You’re ignoring John’s unarmed combat skills, where as I mentioned previously he’s fast enough to punch, kick and elbow a goon before he falls to the ground and is strong enough to bloody people’s faces with his strikes

John wouldn't be more powerful with his ability since Reaper has it for way longer time and finding the needle is just good eyesight or luck.

You might be right, if John was like any other power copier. But he’s not. When John copies abilities, he tends to be stronger than the original user. For example, when he copies Meili’s claws his claws are longer than hers.When John is caught in Ventus’s wind vortex he replicates a stronger wind vortex to escape Ventus’s vortex . This not only applies to strength of the ability, but proficiency as well. John while in possession of Ventus’s Whirlwind ability and Meili’s Demon Claw ability combined the two to create wind blades that were beyond the scope of Ventus and Meili’s powers. John even found a miniscule needle wound on a patient using Elaine’s healing and wound detection ability that Elaine couldn’t even detect You claim that finding the wound is good luck, but in the scene John was using his power in order to detect injuries that Elaine said were beyond the scope of her power . I should note that all of the users here have lived with their abilities their entire lives, so the fact that John can surpass them with his ability mimicry ability is impressive. In the context of this of this fight, John superior ability usage means that he can use regeneration/intangibility/teleportation longer, which means that John can beat the Reaper when he runs out of his powers while using the Reaper’s powers.

How John wins

The Reaper will use his intangibility/teleportation/regeneration abilities, which I mentioned the Reaper does normally in fights to increase his speed without any thought of explicating aiming to one shot. John will then copy the Reaper’s abilities, which will make the fight into a battle where neither side can really touch each other. This battle ends when one of the opponents exhaust their abilities, which will be the Reaper due to the fact that John’s ability use is generally stronger and more proficient when he copies abilities. John will then proceed to beat up Reaper, using his speed to beat the Reaper in a close encounter while using the Reaper’s powers to shield himself until he is in range to punch the Reaper. John ‘s superior close combat fights will win the days, and the Reaper won’t have a chance to use his gun. Even if the Reaper does use his guns, which are the only way for the Reaper to beat John, John will be able to dodge and tank the Reaper’s shots.

Arlo vs The Hunter

Framing arguments

Some arguments that you didn’t adequately address that frame this battle are:

1. Arlo can apply ranged attacks with his barriers

a. This means that Arlo can accelerate The Hunter’s blood loss with barrier slash attacks that approach the Hunter’s blood loss limits. Granted, that limit is significant, but it still exists

b. This also inhibits The Hunter’s win condition that you mentioned was to cleave Arlo with his weapon. Arlo can use his barrier slashes to decelerate the Hunter and create distance between them so that Arlo can recover.

1. Arlo can win via by constructing his barrier around the Hunter and constricting it so that the Hunter has no leverage and is hence incapped

a. This increases the burden on you for establishing the Hunter’s ability to break through the barrier. The Hunter not only has to break the barrier, but he has to break the barrier fast enough before he becomes constricted enough that he would have no leverage to strike.

1. The Hunter’s strikes consistently cannot break through Arlo’s barrier

a. I previously went through nearly all of the Hunter’s striking feats and explained why Arlo’s barrier would tank all of them. You only posit that the Hunter’s strength feat of tearing organs is capable of puncturing through Arlo’s barrier. However a double bind remains here. Either that particular strength feat punctures through the barrier but the rest don’t due to me having negated them, making the feat of ripping out organs an outlier, or the feat of ripping out organs isn’t strong enough to break through the barrier in which case the Hunter can’t break through the barrier.

Rebuttal

Hunter can just wait it out in the barrier

Not if Arlo constricts the barrier or puts the Hunter in a chokehold

and he can keep rapidly slashing since he can survive getting his bones broken and even having his skull punctured.

I acknowledge that the Hunter has good durability, however, at some point the Hunter will approach a blood loss limit due to taking significant damage, to claim otherwise is a NLF.

Arlo's barriers don't deal with rapid strikes that much

You sure about that ? Arlo has dealt with multiple strikes a lot with his barrier, and his barrier only broke from multiple strikes when John copied Arlo’s barrier powers to break Arlo’s barrier with barrier infused strikes.

Hunter can rip out organs of large beasts with his strikes.

You claim that this is the strike that will take out Arlo’s barrier, but the feat is just the Hunter hitting the beast hard enough to spill gore and blood. Rein’s spider arms which were no sold by Arlo’s barrier did the same exact thing. Some of the other strength feats that Arlo fended off, like Gou’s body slam are more powerful given that I previously mentioned that Gou’s strikes created a small crater in the ground, which is strong enough to bloody a large beast in the same manner.

He has high pain tolerance so he doesn't care if he loses or permanently damages his arm

Maybe, but Arlo’s barrier does reflective power. And that is a major pain for the Hunter as a game character. This means that when the Hunter strikes Arlo’s barrier, it’s like he’s punching himself. Given that it seems that Hunters fight each other in the game through multiplayer and one Hunter wins and another Hunter loses. The Hunter could conceivably punch himself to death or incapacitation. In any case, this will become an durability test between the Hunter and Arlo’s barrier, and the latter wins that fight given that it can tank the Hunter’s strength feats and the Hunter will eventually have die or get incapped from the force of his strikes or blood loss. Even if Arlo’s barrier loses eventually to the Hunter, Arlo won’t simply sit around and let his barrier get destroyed.

[u/EmbraceAllDeath → u/EmbraceAllDeath]

Response 2 Part 2

Arlo can use barrier slashes to put the Hunter’s blood loss beyond recovery, or again constrict the Hunter in a barrier. Even if the Hunter does manage to break through the barrier, Arlo can set another barrier after recovering from the destruction of his first barrier, although Arlo would be in trouble if the Hunter broke through 2-3+ barriers.

Arlo would be defenseless without his barriers and he gets cleaved.

Even if the Hunter gets in range of Arlo and tries to cleave him, Arlo has good dodging feats, given that he outsped Rein’s punch. Arlo also avoids a punch from Angry John even after his vision was obstructed by a whirlwind, and Angry John is fast enough to knee, elbow, and punch a nameless goon before he hits the floor). Arlo also has good passive durability as he no sold Angry John’s punch without his ability, and Angry John can bloody Krolik’s face with a punch, which means that he has a small chance of surviving if Arlo can’t activate his barrier in time. Arlo can also place the Hunter into a chokehold and apply barriers to his body, which means that the Hunter has to deal with the pressing issue of oxygen loss while trying to break Arlo’s barriers without much leverage.

How Arlo wins

Arlo can win by constricting his barrier around the Hunter, as he did against Tanner in the manhwa and attempted to do against John.

Arlo can win by causing excessive blood loss towards the Hunter, with the Hunter taking reflective damage from his own strikes in combination with Arlo using barrier slashes to creates cuts on the Hunter’s body. Arlo hasn’t used this as main strategy against anyone yet, but it would just be incidental victory from Arlo using his abilities normally.

Arlo goes up to the Hunter and places him in a chokehold while applying barriers around his body, which depletes the Hunter’s oxygen and kills him, which was used against Rein to kill and Isen to restrain.

The 1st and 3rd methods of victory can only be negated if the Hunter breaks Arlo’s barrier in a short period of time. The 2nd method of victory can be negated with strikes from the Hunter over a long period of time, but if a long period of time passes with the second method being used, then the Hunter will succumb to blood loss/his in-game health function. Ultimately, the Hunter can’t break through the barrier in long run anyways given my negation of the Hunter’s strength feats, so Arlo is very likely to take this win.

Remi vs Ebony Darkness

Framing Issues

Some arguments that frame this battle are:

1. Remi’s massive speed advantage

a. Given the arguments so far, this battle seems to be fight between to glass cannons who shoot projectiles. In that circumstance, it matters significantly who tags the other foe first in a fight, as that will inhibit the foe from responding the future projectiles and any single projectile is likely to incap the other person. This means that if I prove a signicant speed difference between Remi and Ebony in Remi’s favor, it becomes extremely difficult for Ebony to win.

Rebuttals

Remi doesn't always speed blitz from the start.

Remi has had three fights in the series, not including a not serious dodgeball fight with Blyke. In a battle with Arlo, Remi electricity enhanced speed to attack Arlo. In an encounter where Remi was chasing down an invisible target on a motorcycle, Remi used her electricity to catch up to the motorcycle. In a fight with Melody that was initiated by Melody, Remi dodges Melody's Impact ability punch with some electricity induced movement and moves behind Melody while she's still lunged forward in order to tap Melody, and shock her. From these encounter, it’s fairly likely that Remi will speed blitz. Let’s say that said motorcycle that was moving at 75 mph. Remi’s speed, which is higher than the motorcycle given that she caught up to it from a distance of 100-200 meters or so, will be slightly slower at the start of the battle due to the need to accelerate. Even if we lowball Remi’s “speed” to 25 mph, she would still be able to close the gap between her and Ebony in a second. In that second Ebony has to process that Remi’s moving towards her, then raise her wand to stop her, and fire a spell, and actually hit Remi while being agitated by an extremely quick opponent. For an ordinary wizard with Harry Potter physicals, which are similar to a normal human, hitting Remi would be extremely unlikely. It would be more difficult for Ebony to retaliate if Remi decides to shoot a lightning bolt while she moves, given that Ebony would have to avoid a projectile that would obscure Remi’s figure before even being able to shoot Remi with a spell or gun. And Ebony would be doomed when Remi closes the distance, given that Ebony has no electric resistance feats while Remi’s direct electric field can stun people, and Remi can simply knock Ebony’s weapons out of her hand at that point, making Ebony defenseless and granting Remi the win.

Ebony can say some random goth girl stuff to distract her

Remi is an experienced fighter on the Turf War team that fights against other schools, which means that Remi should be used to verbal distractions. Additionally, Remi uses an electric field in combat, which should be louder than speech. Ebony also has to speak quickly given that Remi will speed blitz her, and has to think of things to say as well. Ebony’s telepathy would obliviate the hearing problem but not the speed blitzing problem. Telepathy would also drain Ebony’s mental faculties from responding in the fight which is crucial given the speed difference. However most importantly, Ebony has absolutely no feats of using telepathy or distracting others with talking in her RT. This argument is baseless speculation.

electric bolts don't seem faster than bullets

Remi’s ability is labeled lightning, and lightning’s speed is a factor of 10 below the speed of light, or around 310⁷ m/s, where as bullets travel at around 310² m/s , which is a factor of 10⁶ below the speed of light. Unless you have an anti feat for Remi’s powers, her electric bolts should significantly out speed bullets. Additionally, Remi’s superior reaction times that allowed her to dodge Melody’s punch with electric movement come in her, as even without factoring projectile speed Remi should be able to dodge more of Ebony’s spells or bullets than Ebony can dodge electric bolts. Additionally, Remi was able to strike the motorcycle with an electric bolt while catching up to the motorcycle, which means that Remi’s accuracy is fairly good and should let her win a projectile match in the absence of good accuracy feats for Ebony, who has only shot relatively immobile targets.

Accelerating to motorcycle speed takes a while so Ebony can use line of sight Imperio curse to control her and make Remi her slave.

I already addressed this issue above. There’s also no listed Imperio feats for Ebony, as she resisted an Imperio spell, but did not shoot any spells. The only spells she shot were Crookshanks, which functions as Crucio, and Crucio, which makes the enemy writhe in pain.

Why Remi wins

Remi is similar as a fragile projectile user like Ebony, but has 3 assets that make this a stomp for Remi. One is simply the speed advantage in a projectile fight, as Remi’s electric speed allows her to dodge and move extremely quickly and shoot projectiles quickly. Ebony lacks any substantial speed feats of her own for a projectile fight, unless you want to qualify shooting a gazillion bullets, which would ridiculous and doesn’t dealing with the dodging advantage. The second asset is the speed blitz strategy, which allows Remi to not simply just dodge Ebony’s projectiles and shoot electric bolts at her, but to do that while moving the fight towards a physical encounter that will spell Ebony’s doom, as physical contact with Remi’s body can lead to an electric shot that incapacitates Ebony. The third asset is the superiority of Remi’s projectiles, as Remi’s projectiles come from her body and not a secondary weapon, which means that Ebony is opened up to being disarmed, either through a physical encounter with Remi or an electric bolt knocking a gun or wand out of Ebony’s hand. Speaking of which Ebony’s RT doesn’t specify where she keeps her weapons or which weapon she generally has out, which means that the wand, gun, time turner could be in her pocket, which would leave Ebony even more vulnerable to a speed blitz; Ebony would even have to cock the gun as well. There’s also a difference in the strength of the projectiles, as one of Remi’s electric bolts that’s aimed to incap will generally incap Ebony due to her lack of electric durability, whereas a bullet shot or a Crucio spell is something that Remi could conceivably tank. Even if Remi lacks durability feats, the fact that Remi has fought as a part of Wellston’s Turf War means that either Remi has never been tagged by ability wielding opponents which above average human physicals or she has been tagged in which case she would have some experience dealing with being hit, which gives light to a small possibility that Remi can power through from a hit from Ebony and still fight. There’s also the possibility that Remi’s electricity would simply burn the bullet before it hit, given that plasma is fairly hot and Remi’s use of electricity to burn a page of paper to crisp. Ultimately Ebony has no advantage that could conceivably turn the tables for her, which means that she would get stomped in a fight with Remi.