No, I meant 'how so?'. You said it was useless, but elaborate a bit, you didn't say why it was useless.
Why does it work for low tiers but not higher ones?
It's not really counter-intuitive. It's "this one is stronger, so they'll probably win most of the time... unless there's something to upset it, like someone getting outside aid or a magic boost or such."
For high tiers, the stats generally aren't that far apart, which fits well with what we see. Natsu's only one offense short of a wizard saint, *and* he can boost (which his extra stat, one of the few useful ones, shows he can do at 6), so it's really not surprising he can take down very strong foes.
just had a FT marathon manga reading and liked it.
about the power ratings, i see it more as a gauge as to how powerful they are but is quite useless when trying to compare who would win.
for example, lets say there's this stupidly strong mage who gets 6s in offense and defense, but he uses fire magic. he'd lose to natsu just coz natsu is immune to fire plus natsu can eat fire to get an amp.
Ratings can't cover everything, of course, but you still know from the ratings that, "Oh, this guy should own Natsu up until the point where Natsu devours his flames."
(And as Zancrow showed, you can hurt Natsu with flame, it's just really hard)
Okay, well, my response would then be this for high-tiers:
"...neither of us can know how [a] fight would work. We can speculate but the likely outcome will be counter-intuitive as many fights in Fairy tail have become. It ... is never really 'well, this guy is stronger...so he wins' type of situation.
Well, yeah, it pretty much is counter-intuitive. No one should ever be able to beat Ultear. No one...ever. It should be literally impossible. People like Natsu and Gray actually last beyond a couple of seconds. Oh really? Now she can affect magical, thinking, beings, time-skip? O rly? Without CIS and PIS, she is the single strongest mage in the series, now. Unless Zeref can do the same, no amount of magical power would work against her.
You are probably looking for a much better justification. But I do not have the patience nor desire to express my distaste for how lame the ratings system is for Fairy Tail. It is useless, for them most part.
Also, gogogadgetgo brings up another good point.
Let's go with on the fly PIS.
"Natsu can eat flames because he's a fire-dragon mage."
*introduces a new strong opponenent for Natsu*
"But wait! He can't be immune to and eat the flames of these special anti-natsu-eating magical god-flames that did not exist at all until I introduced it in this chapter specifically to give Natsu something to have to fight again"
This, imo, is poor writing and constitutes PIS. Don't give a character an ability just to negate it so you can have a fight. Poor writing. At least with Naruto, Kishimoto introduces the "secret" many many chapters in advance later for them to be exploited. Much better writing style and he doesn't even have to flesh out exactly what that secret is until much later in the series. Maybe this is why I like Naruto much more than Fair Tail. That and Fairy Tail seems to get too caught up in Ecchi.
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Last edited by dadudemon on May 2nd, 2012 at 04:23 AM
Erza is stronger than Natsu, so she does win when they fight. Likewise, Laxus is stronger than Natsu, and wins unless he has help from Gajeel. Erza is stronger than Juvia and can specialize against her, and wins. Natsu and Gajeel are really close, so it's about even. Gray's a bit weaker than Natsu but has ice, so he does pretty close too. Gildarts is stronger than Natsu by a lot, and wins. Natsu is stronger than Max, and wins. Those're all mid to high tiers.
That there can be outside circumstances, and often is, doesn't mean that the rankings are useless. That's silly.
Almost all of the time when someone strong is taken down, it's due to either an amp, or if they're a whole lot stronger, a whole bunch of people teaming up against them. And even then, it's clear a whole bunch of 2/2/2s aren't going to be much help, while 4/5s and 5/3s and so on will.
Fairy Tail is a big believer in the team up.
When they fought, she definitely couldn't use her powers on them directly and her offense is limited to hitting people with an orb.
It's not fair to say that it's counter-intuitive that they'd be able to last against her when she has that specific major limitation.
She can do a specific time spell on people to open up their magic, but I don't think she has full time control on them now.
I mean, if she does, then yea... but at the same time, if she does, don't you think her offense and defense would to up to, like, 8 and 8? Or 9? When it's probably just around 5 before.
The only way to beat her with person time control would be taking her out by surprise.
You are mistaken. You are viewing this entirely wrong.
Erza is stronger than Natsu because Erza was stated to be stronger than Natsu so the feats match up. (Not even kidding...it's tautological in the series).
Laxus is stronger than Natsu because Laxus is supposed to be stronger than Natsu.
Erza is stronger than Juvia because Juvia is useless.
Gray is even with Natsu because Gray is supposed to be Natsu's rival.
Gildarts is stronger than Natsu because Gildarts is supposed to be the strongest person in the guild.
You missed my entire point, however, in why the system is messed up. Natsu can beat Gildarts if that's what the author wants. There isn't a specific system in place that makes those ratings even remotely useful. Gray can put up a really good fight against Ultear when that doesn't even make sense. Natsu can put up a fight and even win against Zancrow even though Zancrow exists specifically to be unbeatable by Natus. BUT WAIT! Natsu can *sspull a technique that allows him to eat Zancrows flames!
Oh no, it's pretty much useless. You have convinced me, with your examples, on how useless it really is, now. The rankings are trash and were only created for fans to consume.
Here's how I would have worded this section of your post:
"Almost all of the time, and it happens almost every major fight, when someone strong is taken down, it's due to either an *sspulled, PIS or CIS, amp; or if they're a whole lot stronger and it is futile for even a group to fight against such a character, a 2-5 Fairy Tail characters team up against that enemy and counterituitively defeat that person with more PIS/CIS *sspull victories. And even then, it is definitely unclear if any ranking even matters when they team up against a strong opponent...including the lower ranking individuals.
Here's how I would word what you said:
"When they fought, it did not matter that she could not use her powers on them directly as her offense is literally limited only to what can be affected by time. Her actions/fights with the others were the single biggest CIS moment in Fairy Tail history, up to that moment."
Here's how I would word that.
"It's not fair to say that that they'd be able to last against her when she clearly has a broken power that could easily defeat anyone."
There is nothing to confirm what you are claiming. You are contradicted by her not having the ability to use magic on people to now being able to use magic on people. Until proven otherwise, we can only assume what I have stated.
The scale only goes to 5. And, yes, I think she was already at that point before the timeskip.
She's basically like Barragan from Bleach...but even more broken and versatile.
And she has not been surprised once. She can see that potential future and already know about it. She should never have been created to begin with.
This is only one character. Move on to Laxus. What's wrong with him? He's supposed to be broken but there always seems to be exceptions. He can, apparently, easily kill people. But...nope! Natsu is mostly immune. Okay, well..then no. Guess we should just wipe the rules clean, not assume anyone can win any fight, ever until the fight actually occurs, and then ignore the ratings.
Yea, this is true in-universe too. They're rankings by the magazine guy.
This, mind you, means the stats are accurate.
So? Yes, the author can change strengths haphazard, doesn't change that the stats match up to how the author currently intends, and hasn't done so so far.
I mean, that argument boils down to any stats for any fiction are worthless because the author can always change it.
The author's ability to change things doesn't make stats worthless. Even less so when you're talking about just some specific tiers and not others.
This seems to be a condemnation of all stats / stating stuff in general rather than anything on these stats specifically.
I also don't get how this supposedly affects the mid/high tiers but not the low tiers. After all, the writers could always make Reedus stronger than Makarov, Buggy stronger than Luffy, and so on. They don't, mind you, but they could.
You're misusing the terms PIS, CIS, and *sspull.
Amping a character with an inherent power to amp isn't PIS or CIS. Nor is having multiple characters accomplish something where one couldn't.
I mean, some of the times how they actually get something to Natsu to eat is a bit out-of-nowhere, but what amping does, or that teamwork works, isn't counterintuitive in the slightest.
Especially the teamwork is pretty much the exact opposite of *sspull. Isn't multiple people working together being stronger than a single person extremely intuitive? Especially if the multiple people are, themselves, strong?
No, she specifically had that limit at those times, and her inability to affect people directly at that point is even a primary character motive.
How her magic is limited was mentioned and confirmed repeatedly.
Note that it specifically became possible only after 7 years of training, and that's just the one spell.
She *may* have gotten rid of it completely, which I doubt, but in any case, she's only shown to be able to get around the limit with one spell, and this is a specific post-timeskip only ability.
Ultear specifically noted it was a brand new power, and trying to develop such power is in her pre-timeskip motives.
Several characters have 6s.
Ultear's got a whole lot more limits than him.
Seriously, re-read her stuff.
In the original arc with her, it was noted she couldn't work on Ice-Shell ice because it used to be a person. Natsu noted her power didn't work on her directly, only the orb, temple, and so on.
In the Tenrou Island arc, she couldn't undo ice with blood in it like she could other ice for the same reason.
You're heavily misremembering her powers.
No, Ultear does not have time vision either.
Ultear's magic has some well specified abilities and limitations, it is not just anything that has to do with time.
No, you misunderstood me. It is not that Erza is actually "stronger" than Natsu. The creator himself says that Erza is, despite the in manga feats, so any time there is a matchup between Erza and Natsu, Erza will come out on top. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy done by the creator. This is different than one being definitively stronger than the other.
You misunderstood my point, again.
And you're incorrect on the last part, as well, to your own admission. Fairy Tail does not have a system of "okay, this person beats this person." It's, "the author decide this situation over this one" making the rankings useless.
No, this is not correct. You misunderstood my point so I can see why you would come to this conclusion.
It's like me 1. designing a set of pokemon, each with a definitive powerset, and then 2. establishing feats for those pokemon. HOWEVER...just on my own whim, I make some pokemon win over the other destroying the previous system many times over because I created situations and PIS just because. And THEN I create a stat book that is virtually meaningless because of points 1 and 2.
LOL!
No, the exact opposite is true. The author's ability to change the outcomes of fights completely destroys the point of a stat book.
No, it isn't as I clearly distinguished one author over the other.
Case in point: you didn't complain when I whined about *sspull powers in Bleach, so why in Fair Tail?
No, I am talking about how the plot and fights unfold in Fairy Tail, not other mangas. I am saying that decent fighters, depending on the mood and how much the author wants to *sspull and make up stuff on the spot (rather than using strategy/chess matching like in Naruto for many of the good fights) can beat absurdly powerful fighters that they should not.
LOL!
This is not the first time that someone has said this of how I use them. I can assure you, my definitions are correct and accurate. It is your misunderstanding of them or you misunderstanding of how I am using them correctly that is the problem.
Correction:
"Amping a character with a power to amp that was previously established to not be able to work period, is PIS. So is having multiple characters succeed where the same multiple characters could not with an *sspull technique specifically invented on the spot to create victory. "
Formula: create a sense of hopelessness.
Create conviction.
Show a bit of hope.
Shatter it again.
Then use PIS, CIS, or an *sspull for victory.
Fair Tail Story telling, 101.
You are not addressing what I have stated nor are you on topic of what I stated.
Again, you are not addressing what I have stated. You are arguing against something I have not argued for and are delving into a tangent that is irrelevant to my points.
You incorrectly responded to my post, yet again. It was I who already pointed out that limitation, not you. You cannot reveal this information to me as though it is a counter to my point. Instead, go back, read that section of my post knowing full well that I already know the information you are pointing out and then respond again. Yes, the meaning of that section of my post changes if you read it as though it assume she could not affect sentient beings with her time magic at the point in time I referenced.
Irrelevant to this point:
"When they fought, it did not matter that she could not use her powers on them directly as her offense is literally limited only to what can be affected by time. Her actions/fights with the others were the single biggest CIS moment in Fairy Tail history, up to that moment."
The latter is irrelevant to the former as I already address the latter with this:
"You are contradicted by her not having the ability to use magic on people to now being able to use magic on people. Until proven otherwise, we can only assume what I have stated."
"You are contradicted by her not having the ability to use magic on people to now being able to use magic on people. Until proven otherwise, we can only assume what I have stated."
Occam's razor: if you want to add complexity to it, that's fine. But until then, assume the simplest: she removed that limitation and we do not know how limited it is, at this point...only the fact that she removed that limitation. You cannot sweepingly decide that that is the only new -tech she has to affect humans. This is not a Role Playing or vs. matchup where you have to stick to only on-panel feats. Sure, anything above and beyond her removing that limiter is of course, speculation. I will not delve into it because we do not know. But you cannot put arbitrarily put a limiter on until you yourself know for sure.
However, you and I both know that Mashima will show her WTF PWNing someone with a direct affect magic other than a limiter removal. It is just too "tasty" and "delicious" for Mashima to resist his *sspull abilities.
"You are contradicted by her not having the ability to use magic on people to now being able to use magic on people. Until proven otherwise, we can only assume what I have stated."
Occam's razor: if you want to add complexity to it, that's fine. But until then, assume the simplest: she removed that limitation.
Anything over 5 if off the chart. Go back and read it. Not all "over-5s" are equal.
This is completely baseless and massive amount of assumptions.
Everything you stated is completely irrelevant to what I had stated. Go back and reread what I have stated and then interpret it without the assumption that I am not aware of her powerset. Then respond to what I have stated.
Of course, you'd have to realize that a 100% direct offensive ability is completely irrelevant to her ability to affect time. If you realized that then you'd realize how futile it would be for any person, ever, to fight her.
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Last edited by dadudemon on May 2nd, 2012 at 07:01 AM
There's also the problem of her being able to fast-forward, rewind, or even stop time in a bubble, making her the single most broken non-omnipotent character in manga.
Thank you for that but how is this relevant?
Now do you see why I did not want to discuss this with you? No one can criticize something you like. Even though everything I have stated is specific, opinion, and based on the manga, I still cannot be right, in your eyes.
Deal with the fact that I find the ratings useless. Do not take it personally. It's fiction. Everything about Fairy Tail is *sspull, CIS, and PIS...every single fight, without fail. Naruto has fallen victim to this type of writing at times, as well. However, it handles it a lot better. Bleach has fallen victim to this, as well...even more so than Naruto. I will say, however, that One Piece is better than Fairy Tail and Bleach when it comes to this stuff....but I have not read One Piece enough to give a genuine comparison.
Look, words work by mutual consensus. If everyone else is using them one way and you are a different way, then by definition the one person is using it wrong (yes, this does mean a right usage can become wrong if everyone else changes their usage).
If you are using a word differently than others, then when you use it you are saying to them something other than your intent and the other people have no way of telling your true meaning.
To quote xkcd, "Anyone who says that they're great at communicating but 'people are bad at listening' is confused about how communication works."
Granted. Still, doesn't change that a hypothetical Ultear with no limitations would be much more off-the-charts than anyone else.
... based on a lot of limitations both stated and demonstrated.
She definitely without a doubt had those limitations before the timeskip.
It's also a fairly large assumption that, even if post-timeskip her limitations are obviously less than before, to jump to her having absolutely none.
I am responding to what you've stated.
What you've stated involves a lot of assumption that she can do beyond what she's been shown to do. You've stated several times that she can/should be able to do stuff that she herself has said she cannot.
If your intent is to convey something other than that, it hasn't come across to me.
Which, as you yourself note, doesn't fit with how she's portrayed in fights at all.
Rather than "All her fights are CIS!", it's far more consistent to say "Her powers are what is shown."
Any assumption on power that is 100% inconsistent with a character's actual showings is 100% wrong.
I note no-where in that page do the words 'see,' 'vision,' 'peer,' or any other synonyms for actually seeing what's happening next appears.
She said she can imagine -possible- futures, and point them at him. And note what's actually happening then- when she imagines more futures, more Orbs appear.
I.e. she is using her power on the future of the Orb. She can't see Natsu's future, she's making a whole bunch of possible futures on the Orb so that the possibility of one or more of them hitting is effectively certain.
That doesn't make her unambushable, it just means she has an effectively undodgable attack.
Also, you're overlooking the other major limitation- it's magic. It takes magic power. Doing larger things requires more magic. She can run out of magic. The more she's affecting with time, the more she can run out. It takes more time to set up a spell like the multi-parallels than just controlling a single orb. And so on.
In 7 years she has gained the ability to affect people, but as it was beyond her for so long it's obviously not easy. It may be that
"I can assure you, my definitions are correct and accurate. It is your misunderstanding of them or you misunderstanding of how I am using them correctly that is the problem."
K. We agree on something, at least.
Incorrect. Unless you have a laundry list of limitations and abilities demonstration to present to me for Zeref? If you do, I'll figuratively eat my words. From what we know, Zeref's magical abilities are largely unknown, still. Some death magic, demon creation are pretty much what we have to work with. Sure, his death magic is ridiculously strong as well as his demon creations, but we still know very little.
If you are confused as to why I am responding to you about Zeref, go back and read the this particular conversation thread.
This is irrelevant to what I have responded.
I did not say she had none, now did I?
No you are not. You are responding with a tangential topic to what I stated. That is not the same thing as a direct response.
You should probably not sum up what I have stated because you usually do not get it right. Instead, you should direct quote it. But, to address what you have said I said....quote me where I said something similar to: "several times, dadudemon has stated the Ultear can/should be able to do stuff that she herself said she cannot."
Incorrect. Rather that apologizing for poor writing, one should not concede that something is not CIS. Instead, we should look at the entire picture and see that she is consistently committing massive amounts of CIS in all of her fights.
This is the false conclusion of a person who refuses to admit when CIS has gone overboard. I'm okay with you being caught up in Mashima.
You can just as easily (more easily, in fact) conclude that an author has created massive amounts of CIS in a character due to the pandering to plot-structure necessary for his trade. Which is more likely: an appeal to a fictional universe for consistency or the admission that a real world person is actually writing a story for entertainment purposes?
I'll note on that page that the words state "future", "possibilities", "imagine", and "infinite".
Sorry, but you lost quite sorely and definitely on this one.
lol!
Okay, so please point me to where I said that she can see the futures of other characters around her?
I apologize, but you're wrong. She also already indicated that infinity is her limit with her time magic vision. That's understandable as she has control over time, even peering into parallel universes. That would require an infinite amount of magic to do so. That's understandable as she can, apparently, view parallel worlds (which amasses to infinity, via her own words) and implement those possibilities in her perceived reality.
Now, are you willing to admit that we have some massive PIS and CIS on hand?
i get what you mean, kinda like how like say the nba, last season the heat got their big 3 and everyone was like "damn! dey gonna be champions now!" only for dallas to emerge as the nba champions :P
too bad dallas is looking to get swept by the thunders
you know, the ratings was supposedly published in a magazine for the masses.
most likely used for gambling lol! the people would look at the power ratings of each mage then go "hey, diz guy gots 6s in a scale of 1-5! damn he powerful! ima gonna bet on him!"
the ratings are all well and good for comparisons sake of level of magic power but not effectiveness of the magic when pitted against one another.
like i said, on paper, a fire mage with 6s on his rating would get screwed over by natsu.
Similarly, an s-rank phantom mage like luvia got wtf pawned by gray coz he can freeze her silly. looking at her rating, she has a 5 in defense, while gray has a 4. theoretically, 5 trumps 4 so he shouldn't be able to harm her. but shes water and gray can freeze her...
which brings me to why the hell did luvia/or juvia lose to Erza. Erza can specialize sure, but her armor is more for defense. imo, luvia should be the worst match up for erza since she shouldn't be able to cut her. but you know how these mangas go :P
On the case of the pis/cis filled sudden amp, well, i'll take natsu's random amps over naruto's insane never ending powerups. much like ichigo's never ending power ups. or goku's never ending power ups. if they continued dragonball i have little doubt in my mind that we would be seeing super sayan 7 by now lol
The one area where the stats outright fail, IMO, is Lucy- it's clearly her stats, but the thing is her summons without a doubt have higher offense and defense ratings. Loki and Aquarius and Scorpio and all that.
One difference doesn't imply immunity, just advantage. And conversely, her offense was 3 to his defense was 4.
And it was hard for him to hurt her, though he eventually did it with his bigger spells.
Erza's armor can do offense or defense- look at her stats, 5 in *everything* except intelligence. She's even faster than the rest (which bears out with feats- she was the only one able to block one of Racer's attacks before going into speed armor).
Some of her attacks include energy beams. And she was using her Sea Empress armor, which included water control, like fire empress includes fire control.
I liked this last chapter. IMO, it was one of the best in a long while. It was back to the old-school way.
Natsu doesn't put up with true disrespect. He's okay with playful insults but he is never okay with genuine guild-related dishonor. He also started kicking everyone's ass in Sabertooh. mwhahahaha.
Makes me wish Natsu had much higher stats. He's consistently touted as being "special" by everyone. I don't want that specialness just to be his "naruto" ninja way...if that makes sense. I want him to be genuinely powerful in his own right. He's strong, alright...but not THAT strong compared to people like Makarov and Gildarts.
Q99, could you make a list, based on a c-b-a-S class ranking system?
You can use D and F if you need to. Only rank Fairy Tail.
I won't disagree too much with your rankings. I will be nice on this one, lol...promise.
Well his specialness obviously comes from his Slayer magic. As for comparing him to Makarov or Gildarts. They've had years to hone their already incredibly powerful magic to mastery. Natsu's only like 17. Although it would be great if they just showed him walking over everyone.
Yea. His stat total is about the same as Grey, *and* he can be amped, sometimes by massive amounts.
I've considered it, but most of the characters are in just a few power bands.
And I'd want to rank non-FT members if I did ^^ Though it's made moderately tricky by not all guilds ranking things the same (Phantom's S-class mages wouldn't be A in FT. Also, most of FT's near-Ss fight S-class foes pretty often).
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May 2nd, 2012 01:28 AM
