Rank these assets in combat.
Probably been done before. Assume all stats are maxed out up to but not above a universal level. (Speed-flash, intelligence-reed, prep-batman etc.)
In no particular order
1. Prep
2. Speed
3. Healing Factor
4. Strength
5. Invulnerability
6. Intelligence
7. Energy projection/manipulation
8. Item (mjolnir,gl ring, quantum bands etc.)
9. Daddy come save me (a powerful being that will help when needed (Odin, trigon, Zeus etc. )
Prep
Speed
Energy Projection
Invulnerability
Strength
Healing
Intelligence is a wildcard and therefore difficult to rank. On its own it isn’t particularly useful in a pure forum fight — Reed would get slaughtered here if he doesn’t get prep, etc. However it makes the other powers (especially prep) exponentially more useful.
The last two are too open ended. I guess I’d always rather have a maxed out item than say, just maxed out healing, but the rank really depends on the item.
Originally posted by Smurph
Prep
Speed
Energy Projection
Invulnerability
Strength
HealingIntelligence is a wildcard and therefore difficult to rank. On its own it isn’t particularly useful in a pure forum fight — Reed would get slaughtered here if he doesn’t get prep, etc. However it makes the other powers (especially prep) exponentially more useful.
The last two are too open ended. I guess I’d always rather have a maxed out item than say, just maxed out healing, but the rank really depends on the item.
Intelligence is a wildcard and therefore difficult to rank. On its own it isn’t particularly useful in a pure forum fight — Reed would get slaughtered here if he doesn’t get prep, etc. However it makes the other powers (especially prep) exponentially more useful.
Well said.
Reed, Pym and McCoy are often totally helpess in combat... but when they have prep, it's a different story.
Originally posted by DarkSaint85Yeah. Midnighter’s battle computer gives him a sort of super intelligence, for another example.
Yeah, we've seen Amadeus doing things with almost no prep, but with intelligence (throwing shrapnel to blow missiles up etc) - and he's only meant to be the 8th smartest.Conversely, prep without intelligence isn't that useful - imagine giving Rhino a day's prep lol, Vs say, Banner.
For the sake of the thread if my prep stat is “maxed out” I’m assuming I can prep as well as the elites even with a Rhino IQ. Not sure if there’s any example of that sort of comic character tho…
TBH, I think there is also the factor that sometimes Speed and Intelligence seem to be mixed in some degree.
For examples:
Originally posted by Galan007
^ Barry(in the DCnU) has also used his speed to calculate an infinite number of possibilities, in the space of a single page:🙂
And:
https://ibb.co/pxR6HZh
https://ibb.co/5824TjT
https://ibb.co/yXrYXrG
And:
Originally posted by qwertyuiop1998
Barring Flash, Who can read every medical text ever published in seconds?The time period
https://ibb.co/Rc8Kxmn
Originally posted by qwertyuiop1998
I knew this probably has been done to death....But yeah, Superspeed and Superintelligence probably are the most broken basic powers
Originally posted by abhilegend
Strength is almost always the trump card in comics. There are exceptions, sure but probably 95 times out of 100 you'll see somebody punch really hard to solve all the problems.
Originally posted by carver9
Strength is always the deciding factor tbh.
Abhi and Carv, bffs
Originally posted by ShadowFyre
I've always assumed that strength always ended up winning due to1. Writers lack of imagination/writing ability
2. Seeing the end shot be a physical punch is about the only attack regular ol Humans can relate to
And I suppose intelligence and prep would benefit the most from speed,
Look at how little strength is used in BZs. That tells us prep is king. Then the usual go-to is a speedblitz.
Even Carv and Abhi would never rely on strength in a BZ. Comic fights are one thing- on a forum, with no PIS (and arguably no CIS), just punching something really hard doesn't cut it.
Strong brick types in comics, also have durability/HF backing them up, incidentally, if not speed. Because writers know that a strong brick is useless without the other powers.
OTOH, you can have speed without durability (Flash), durability without strength (Brick), HFs without strength (Wolverine) etc etc.....
Originally posted by DarkSaint85
Yeah, we've seen Amadeus doing things with almost no prep, but with intelligence (throwing shrapnel to blow missiles up etc) - and he's only meant to be the 8th smartest.Conversely, prep without intelligence isn't that useful - imagine giving Rhino a day's prep lol, Vs say, Banner.
To be fair, that's Pak-Math, which is a superpower in its own.
Pak's Leader was Bullseye-lite 😂
I put prep and intelligence in the same category -- yes, you can be smart but not have big resources to prep, but you can aquire them if needed. That said, in terms of forum fights, prep is one of those things you kind of need some leeway from the person you're talking to in order to actually have a discussion -- especially once you move away from the Reed/Doom/Batman's of the world who have a variety of prep-tech/feats to choose from against a multitude of abilities and types of characters.
In comics the way it usually works is:
"How does Doom counter Magneto?" Well, he has anti-electromagnetic Magneto prep. Ok.
"How does Lex Luthor counter Martian Manhunter?" Well, it just so happens that he has prepped to negate both telepathy and shapeshifting from Martian Manhunter. Ok.
"How does Batman counter Wonder Woman?" Well, he just so happens to have an anti-Wonder Woman lasso. Ok. etc.
But on the forum, if you go "How does Batman counter Thor?", it's generally not accepted to simply say "He's smart and resourceful, he'd make an anti-uru device" or "how does Doom counter Captain Marvel?" to simply say "Oh, he's smart, he'd create something to cut him off from the gods". And we've not even gotten into characters with intelligence/prep that don't have the showings the top ones have, where making a case is much harder. In that sense, sometimes prep fights don't dwelve into possibilities, but more into "who built the biggest armor?" or "who created the biggest gun?" -- which kind of makes it overlap with some other categories.
I think speed is the most broken ability -- for most of the items on the list there's some sort of counter, but with speed it's either you have it, or you don't, and the answer to these questions take the answer to a thread towards one extreme or the other. It's moved past even the basic "I not only can not get hit, but I can hit you as many times as I want and you have no ideea the fight has even started" [which is already broken]. Even the extended applications like intangibility, invisibility, infinite-mass punchiness etc.. Now it can also be "You'll fight a nigh-infinite number of time clones and they'll kill you before you even open your eyes at the start of the match. Oh you also have some speed? Let me steal that, too." I know the latter is not really a forum part, only tourney, but the fact that it's an options is absurd.
I think healing factor and durability are nice to survive, but unless you're in a team-setting and you're just there to be used as a shield or whatnot, it's just prolonging the inevitable, unless your opponent has few options or shitty stamina. They're only moderately good in tandem with another ability [like Hulk's strength/healing combo] to make you a tank, but even so it can only take you so far until you come up against somebody with abilities that you simply don't have an answer to when you can't punch [which is rare, but still]. Strength gets you through most of the comic book fights but, as above, you kind of need something more to go along with it for the most complex fights [at least you have to be able to close the distance]. Energy projection/manipulation is pretty great, but most of the time it encounters a 'tank' it gets shitcanned -- I think the potential for bullshit on this is high in terms of what it can allow you to do [see recently Vulcan just pulling "Hulk is Hulk energy is energy" card: https://ibb.co/TM3kZpR -- though his whole thing is that he can manipulate all energy, even magic, so eh] It's good for when you want to get tricky [i.e. manipulating brainwaves or whatever] --but in terms of 'raw' stuff the strength/invulnerability combo mostly allows you to plow through it.
Weapons are good as long as you have them -- I wanted to make a compilation a few years ago of how many times Thor drops Mjolnir when he gets hit in a fight, but I stopped at about 25-30 times since I didn't have the patience to keep going. They leave the character vulnerable in as far as if they get removed [temporarily or not], he's kind of caught with his pants down. But, I think a Green Lantern ring or Mjolnir or whatnot takes you very far on the forum in terms of options, as long as you're proficient with it and don't use it to blast, or bludgeon. Maybe surprisingly I think weapons are generally portrayed as more powerful than characters with the innate abilities sans-weapons [i.e. Mjolnir is more powerful than Surfer, Hal is more powerful than, well, almost everyone etc.], though I'm sure there's counter examples. Sometimes characters with innate abilities are even shown as more vulnerable to losing their power than the ones who have weapons, funnily enough.
Daddy come save me is essentially having other characters fight for you, which is shit. I will ignore it.
So if I had to rank, in comics it's something like:
Strength/Prep [yeah, I know...I'm being generous with prep here]
Weapons/Invulnerability
Energy/Speed
Healing
On the forum [and in terms of how I'd rank to have them in general], it's something like:
Speed
Intelligence/Prep [assuming chars with extensive histories]
Weapons
Energy projection/manipulation
Strength
Healing/Invulnerability
-ish