There are several things I'll address in closing. First, a few final bits of rebuttal, as Jin brought up one or two new things at the end there. Second, I'll adress the fallacy of some of Kahuna's percieved superiorities. Third, I'll recap my character's assets. Finally, I'll recap my strategy for the battle, and why it works.
I'll put these in separate posts for clarity.
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This cannot work on Ben Dreadcrawler. His armor is vacuum sealed. If individual air molecules cant get in or out, your symbiote won't be seeping anywhere.
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With regards to your claim that falling back on the rules is a copout, I can only say that the rules are there for a reason. It is only the rules that allow us to compete on a level playing field.
I could easily state that "Nightcrawler's agility paired with my amalgam's overall physique and Benedicts godlike reflexes and skills will let me dodge or block anything you can throw at me indefinitely." I could back that claim up with feats too.
I am not making that claim. The rules are what they are to ensure that this tournament can be something more sophisticated than "My Dad can beat up your Dad." Only by working within the rules can all of our characters get a fair shake. Without turnung this into an online RPG with actual mechanics, chance simulation and such. Only each of us willingly limiting ourselves can make this work.
I think a lot of what some people perceive as "Jinzin dominating the debates" has been the fact that I have been more disciplined in respecting the limits imposed on my draft pics, while Jin has gotten carried away with hyperbole and Venom feats that are beyond the bounds of what is allowed.
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Jinzin's claims of Kahuna's superiority exhibit three recurring problems: lack of adherance to durability limits, lack of any concept of diminishing returns where the symbiote's enhancements stacking are concerned, and gross overstatement of Taskmaster's worth. I will address each of these in turn.
Firstly, I again remind us the rules. For all that Venom has withstood over the years, the limit on durability is still Luke Cage. It doesn't matter that Venom took hits from Pyre, Juggernaut, or the Hulk with ease. Cage couldn't have done so, thus for purposes of this tourney, niether could Venom. Much of Jinzin's areguements hinged on his largely disregaurding my ability to even hurt him. His basis for those agruments was clearly false. This also comes into play with regards to his energy shields. He want's them to be Adamantium-level, but Digi ruled that energy shields can be no stronger than Hi-End-Real-World-Metals.
Second, his claims that Venom's symbiote on Sabertooth's body give him a huge strength and reflexes advantage. The example of Spider-Carnage totally debunks this claim. Peter was only slightly improved by the bonding with the symbiote. Certainly, Creed would be boosted as well, but not to as great a degree as Eddie is. The tougher you are to start with, the less of an advantage the bonding process provides.
Finally, the fallacy that Taskmaster's reflexes will somehow enable Kahuna to match/overcome Dreadcrawlers mega-skill-advantage. This is wrong for three reasons. First, the value of his copied skills is grossly are overstated. For proof of this, look no further that his showings against Captain America. He's studied Cap's moves more than anyone else, and he has a ton of other skills and gizmos that cap doesn't. Even so, he only beats Cap about half the time, and only one of those victories was clear-cut. If he can do no better than that against Cap, what chance would he have against Benedict? Second, there is the fallacy that Tasky is able to learn an opponents moves on their first meeting well enough to overcome them. His loss to Elektra clearly illustrates this point. Against someone who hasn't fought fot the TV cameras, he choked. (In fairness, I'll alow that loosing to Hawkeye Ant Man II was a bit SMvFL ) Thirdly, there's the overestimation of Taskmaster's general competance. For sll his skills and weapons, the best he can usually achieve is escape. Even in his own mini, (where he wasn't set up to loose because he was the villain), he failed to save his girlfriend, failed to get his money, and failed to get his revenge on Sunset.
Where I will give Kahuna props are his healing factor, his senses, and his stealth. The healing factor in particular should crazy mesh like he says it does. Remember though, that mangling a uber-healer to the point where they're momentarily down is still considered a win here.
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Last edited by Laminator_X on Sep 24th, 2005 at 04:45 AM
Finally, since Jinzin used Wolvie quite a bit as a benchmark, here's the famous cover from X-Men #142. Recovering from force blasts isn't the same as withstanding energy attacks. There was nothing left of Future-Logan but his bones. A serious energy attack will fry the flesh and symbiote-limited to-Cage-durability f far more than he claims.
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I went with some relatively obscure picks, and clearly that's hurt me here. I thought it would be to liven things up a bit with something different than the same tired conflicts we rehash so much around here. It seems though, that lack of familiarity has robbed my claims of a certain gut-level respect that Kahuna is enjoying. What can I say. I've made my bed and I'll lie in it. Just the same, I ask the voters to give these guys a second look, especially Benedict. Amber has inspired two series of novels, conventions, RPG's, artwork, and a worldwide army of fans. I highly recommend Zelazny's writing to anyone.
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ever seen phantoms or the blob?... symbiotic-like substances got into vac suits just fine...... you think your suit's going to fair any better versus the real thing? and more importantly, I don't have to seep into your suit to snap your neck ...
__________________ "damn jinzin, you're a real trooper, you provde fact after fact and pages and pages of proof and these wanton miscreants just keep at it"~MERC
I won't waste space here restating all the diferent feats and such. You may review them at your leasure. What I will do is recap just who and what Ben Dreadcrawler is, so it's fresh in your mind as you weigh out weather or not he could perform as I claim.
Primary in both mind and body is Benedict. Base level for an Amberite is several times beyond peak human, in all respects. Think about that for a moment. Strength, speed, endurance, senses, intellect; all that. An "average" Amberite could medal in the Decathalon, weightlifting, swimming, and fencing.at the Olympics were they visit earth. When it comes to combat, Benedict is "Peak Amberite" he is a God among demigods. As Hercules to strength, Benedict is to fighting ability/tactics. And remember the only limit on battle prowess among recruits is 70% attack avoidance against a highly skilled opponent.
Mix with that, the (passive, and thus allowable) magical enhancement of Dreadstar's Sword. Unlike the enhancements conferred by Venom's symbiote, this is an unfettered tenfold increase in strength and general toughnes. This lets otherwise peak-human Vanth acomplish the feats of strength, speed, and endurance I posted during the debate. Starting from Benedict's peak-Amberite body, he'll be in the same league as Kahuna in strength and general constitution, though not as much of a healing factor.
Finally, Nightcrawler's flexability and Teleportation powers. With only a bit less thanpeak-human musculature and reflexes, Nightcrawler is a notch below the Spider-family in terms of leaping/agility/dodging. Now take that flexability and mesh it with Ben Dreadcrawler's strength, toughness, and already superhuman reflexes and speed, and you will see that the resulting amalgam will be dodging with the best of them in this match. Also note that the limiting factor on Kurt's teleporation frequency and distance is his stamina. The amalgam's stamina is so far beyond kurts that B.D. can use Kurt's top-end feats almost at will.
Finally my attacks. Vanth's sword is an upper-limit cutting attack (same rules as lightsabers apply) and an upper -limit energy attack. It's blasts can punctire military spaceship hulls (as Cyclops has done). Both it and his radiation pistol niether drift off course nor increase appreciably in lead-time out to their extreme range. They both inflict damage that is harder to heal from than from "normal" injuries like slashes, puncture wounds, or impact. He's also packing an arsenal of moden and sci-fi special forces gear.
Look at that all together for a moment, the total package. Now look back over the again and consider again wether he can pull off the things I said he did.
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Let's not restart the debating, I only made that point there because you brought up something new in you summation. Apart from that, I'm just summarizing previous arguments.
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Look back over the flow of the battle. Jinzin's claims of Kahuna's dominance were largely based on his faulty pretensions of overwhealming physical superiority, rather than any particularly innovative tactics. They were mostly variations on "I'll stalk/rush him and kick his a$$ . I'm meaner and he cant hurt me." really, the only advantages he had were his senses, his strealth, his bones, and his healing-factor.
Throughout, Dreadcrawlers tactics controlled the flow of the battle. The pace, distance, and combat ground were all of my choosing. Again and again I took us down paths that minimized the effectiveness of his advantages while maximizing mine. Stealth? Moving the battle to the treetops, the sky, and maybe a clearing if you buy him surviving my air aussault. Senses? I let him "stalk" me to the ground of my choosing, and have means to attack the senses themselves. Bones and healing? I never went for slashing attacks and kept range in the sweet spot for maximizing my distance attacks and minimizing his.
Who dominated again?
Via Digi's rulings both here and elsewhere, energy shields and webs are at "titanium level." He had nothing that could keep my energy blasts from racking up the damage faster than even he could heal. We don't need to kill the mega-healers for a win, just momentarily overwhealm them. That should be what happenned even with a brief period of easy hits on him in the air.
Allright, that's all I've got. I hope you'll find that I've earned your vote.
Thanks, --Laminator_X
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Last edited by Laminator_X on Sep 24th, 2005 at 06:24 AM
indefinitely? I seriously doubt that.... with my healing factor, my other healing factor, and my symbiotic nurishment helping to sustain me through literally days of combat, my superior stamina and durability will help me do it consistently, your body will fail you, you will tire and you will die.....
which I can understand completely, however the durability of venom's symbiote was well noted when this tournament began, hell, it was even well accepted, just as it was noted that venom has been defeated or injured through means capitalizing on his weaknesses and lack of durability to other types of attacks barring blunt force trauma. unfortunately due to the amalgamation of my different characters your attacks and the effectivness of them are nearly negated completely to some extents...
hyperbole is something that drastically outweighs the majority of what the character is capable of, these are not hyperboles.. they are feats that are in nature both consistent and numerous. again, through the overall combination of my amalgamation you're simply not going to do much, your best offensive weapon only comes from one character where as my character has effective weapons vs. your amalgam from all three picks... as does my character's attributes in reflexes and (excluding tm) durability...
__________________ "damn jinzin, you're a real trooper, you provde fact after fact and pages and pages of proof and these wanton miscreants just keep at it"~MERC
not at all.... the majority of my argument was that you won't even have the chance to hit me...... given the stacked powers of all my amalgams capabilities the chances of you hitting me are simply far too slim... HOWEVER if you do hit me you most likely won't hurt me... not unless you were to continuously pour it on for well over a minute or so...maybe even longer.... otherwise, again, you're just working too hard against too many factors to overcome me before i get to you, or my symbiote does, or my webbing does.
perhaps not at adamantium level...but they can certainly HOLD UP to adamantium level attacks... this comes into play versus your sword which you claimed could blast through something more durable than something you think is at adamantium level... that's clearly outside the limits that were set for the purposes of this debate... I'm only fighting fire with fire here... if your blasts are more destructive than cyclops' than they are also outside the limits set by the tourny, you don't seem to acknowledge how "the door swings both ways" on this one...
in any case, you not only have to get past the energy shield, but multilevel symbiotic shields and a webbing shield when I have an indefinite amount of webbing to use for it... AND that's assuming once again that I'm just standing/gliding there and taking it...in the real matchup i'm not going to be standing/gliding in one spot, I'll be on the move near constantly, thus not only are the chances of you hitting me slim, but the chances of you downpouring it on me over a long period of time are slim as well
not an accurate assessment at all... the reason that this was so was for two different factors.. the first being that: venom had spiderman's powers because the symbiote took all it could from spiderman that was possible for it to take.. thus if venom re-engaged spiderman it wouldn't make spiderman THAT much stronger etc, because it already has spiderman's powers..it can't build off itself in that regard... when venom gave birth to carnage he transfered the same powers but to a higher level so obviously carnage wouldn't get stronger either... it was also later revealed that the symbiotes brute strength was induced by it's hosts' rage hence why an enraged venom literally one-punched spiderman 100 feet into the sky, also the symiote gets more strength from it's hosts adrenaline... sabretooth------berserker rage... that sould settle that... TBK isn't fighting the symbiote like spidey did, he's embracing it. the symbiote also doesn't have sabretooth's capabilities, it has spiderman's...in other words SPIDERMAN IS NOT SABRETOOTH.. thus your explaination is moot.
which he can...which is why he could catch bullets like izzy after seeing it only once...
again more often than not TM's skills are not the question, it's his damned intelligence... he gets outsmarted into getting hit by something that his HUMAN LEVEL durability can not take.. however... this is not the case here...clearly... YOU ARE NOT FIGHTING TASKMASTER, you are fighting against his ability and because of this coupled with sabretooth's expert fighting capability (level 7 mind you), TBK can seriously stand up to dreadstar in a h2h... hell I can just stand there taking you hits indefinitely until you tire out, all the time taking in all your moves with my photographic reflexes...
too bad you won't be able to do this to me before I webyank your sword away and gut you while my symbiote snaps your neck like a twig...
__________________ "damn jinzin, you're a real trooper, you provde fact after fact and pages and pages of proof and these wanton miscreants just keep at it"~MERC
to which I would ask people to keep in mind..
first: this isn't a 616 wolverine, he's from an alternate timeline.
second: the blast is the size of a human body, a size which the sword doesn't posses...
third: this wolverine was old and battle worn from years of running hiding and fighting, his healing factor was obviously slowed down as he began to age to some extent... current wolverine's got a faster healing factor, bone claw wolverine's healing factor is faster than that, sabretooth's is faster THAN THAT, and on top of that you have to surpass multiple shields, a symbiote, and YET ANOTHER healing factor.... once again..this is all if you hit me..at point blank, with me doing nothing in defense or in reaction.
foruth: wolverine's recently been blasted by several sentinals and although he was left a bloody mess, he was still alive. keep in mind, wolverine's missing several other factors that my amalgam has...
and finally fifth: wolverine survived a point blank continuous blast of the hottest hellfire from the demon king kaball at point blank range IN 616, AND didn't evaporate... my examples from mainstream, yours is alternate timeline... which has more relivency?....well how about the one that happened IN the current timeline...
also sixth: this is all just against wolverine's durability, sabretooths' is better..and venom's survived multiple attacks of even greater power output...
__________________ "damn jinzin, you're a real trooper, you provde fact after fact and pages and pages of proof and these wanton miscreants just keep at it"~MERC
healing factors, there's more than one... enhanced reflexes on top of enhanced reflexes, on top of a mock spider sense... I have a mock pre-cog to my advantage. my photgraphic reflexes, my strength advantage, speed advantages make my physical superiority clearly evident, while my tendrils and webbing make my area wide attacks more effective and the probably of hitting you more likely, I have superior
all avoiding the fact that you're working against the odds for any of this to work.. you to get a bamf on me before my superior senses can catch it, when an inferior wolverine can do it all by his lonesome? nope.... flashbangs working on me when a hulk thunderclap can't put down either an inferior logan, or it taking multiple thunderclaps to put venom himself down? not gonna happen to THE BIG KAHUNA. Hitting me with an energy sword when you're admittedly out of my range? not with all my reflexes, speed, and mock precog... get past multiple shields of mine, when just one of each can stop weapons and assaults comparable to your own? nahhhhhh.... not gonna happen... how about hurting my guy, when venom BY HIMSELF took basically the same exact attack that your sword has to offer and just stood there talking to his attacker? ....sorry but against THE BIG KAHUNA the attacks going to be EVEN LESS effective...
if it comes down to the stalking game I'll nail you before you can react....
again, you're either adhering to the rules where the cap to destructive capabilities reguarding blasts is cyclops and you're not coming close to hurting me, orrrrrr we're using our characters as they have been presented on a consistent level and you're still not coming close to hurting me..... all this of course... STILL ASSUMING you hit me..... and believe me ..... YOU WON'T
a mega healer? hell wolverine by himself can take most of what your boy has to offer. sabretooth's got a better healing factor than that, venom's got a comparible healing factor to BONE CLAW ( a version of wolverine, who lacking admantium posioning had a healing factor that went into overdrive) wolverine's and they are both working together to protect the host, all the while this is giving your character the BENEFIT OF THE BOUBT to say he will even hit me... even from the falling scenario you only realistically have a few seconds to work with... it's simply not enough time to get the job done...
__________________ "damn jinzin, you're a real trooper, you provde fact after fact and pages and pages of proof and these wanton miscreants just keep at it"~MERC
again well done lam, if I could now shake your hand I would, you did an extremely great job during this matchup and I must once again commend you on how you duked it out, good gentlemenly matchup man I'm glad we were able to cross (s)words without getting too emotional, good luck any oncoming votes...
as far as a closing statement, I've said as much about my amalgam for the purposes of THIS debate as I care to... i think merc pretty much summed it up though and was able to convey the idea of my amalgam for this matchup in a few words better than my multiple posts have in the entirety of this week......
and let's not forget how webbing negates nightcrawlers ability to teleport.... .............
just kidding...
....or am i?
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__________________ "damn jinzin, you're a real trooper, you provde fact after fact and pages and pages of proof and these wanton miscreants just keep at it"~MERC
KMC Community Forums
Sep 24th, 2005 01:08 AM
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) Thirdly, there's the overestimation of Taskmaster's general competance. For sll his skills and weapons, the best he can usually achieve is escape. Even in his own mini, (where he wasn't set up to loose because he was the villain), he failed to save his girlfriend, failed to get his money, and failed to get his revenge on Sunset. 
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"damn jinzin, you're a real trooper, you provde fact after fact and pages and pages of proof and these wanton miscreants just keep at it"~MERC
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Cap was my hero
