Phinks Vs Genthru?

[Meso]

Wow I love how large this has become. I love the what ifs and explanations you've come up with to back up your points. This is one of those things that only Togashi could come up with. I love the Troupe and Hisoka. But I hate how Hunter X Hunter makes all the strong antagonists toy with their enemies. HISOKA I'M LOOKING AT YOU! Can't we see them get down to the nitty gritty against a big threat? I mean I'd love to see more fights out of them. Especially Phinks Hisoka and Illumi. Illumi hasn't had a chance to show us what he can do other than manipulate people. It's said he's a combat expert though. But then again this is all from Gon's point of view. So there's probably not much more Togashi can do at this point. Well he's proven me wrong before so I'm sure he'll do it again haha

[Tombadgerlock]

A person's attack/defense is modified by the underlying physical attribute of whatever part is being used. Your face is not going to be as physically strong as your fist and it's unlikely to guard against anyone else's fist with your face regardless of the aura difference. While you can argue a person's head is actually pretty darn hard, it's also by far the part of your body where you'd take the most damage on any successful blow. When Killua attacked Machi in the dark, she blocked her head with her hands while leaving her heart unguarded. The logic is clearly that she figures she's got a layer of muscle to absorb the damage from a hit on her heart, so she'll take chances there (Killua's obviously trying to rip her heart out) rather than having her head hit by a direct blow. There's a clear implication that the head is indeed the most vulnerable part of the human body in HXH.

The problem here is that you are assuming that the "Gensuru's fist would do 100 (base) + 60 (Materialization mod) = 160 damage" is relevant to this case, when it's clearly not: Genthru doesn't punch, or does damage with his own physical capability here. He grabs his opponent and activates little flower. In such a case, only little's flower's own damage is relevant, and how much energy one needs to defende against it.

Thanksfully, Genthru gave us a clear and definite answer to Little flower's power:


This means that Genthru himself needs to become immune to little flower, and that only 25% of his own aura is enough to do it. This means that a reinforcement user with the same level of aura would also only need 15% of his own aura to become immune to it (KEN does 50% to the whole body).

That's... a pretty damn sucky technique TO FIGHT, because it doesn't take into account Genthru's own physical ability as a baseline.

However, it's a great ability for BULLYING and BLACKMAIL, which was the whole point of the ability.

EDIT:

For the movement during the charge up attacks, I'm going to call plot immunity here because if you can always just run around at full speed while charging (and Gon obviously can do that) then why on earth does Gon come to a complete stop in a move that is supposed to leave him extremely vulnerable? Why doesn't he just do like when he's fighting owl where he starts up charging from far away and then simply runs up to his opponent with his charged fist to deliver doom once the charging is complete? Whether it's Gon, Phinx, or Ubogin's move, you're pretty much looking at a power output comparable, possibly exceeding Ko. There's no such thing as a free lunch in HXH. Ko is a very dangerous move to use in HXH. A whiffed Ko can easily lead to instant death. I know these moves are basically meant to be 'totally safe version of Ko' and I think that's an inherent contradiction in HXH. You can't generate Ko level of power without taking Ko level of risk. It's only a matter of plot convenience that we don't see users get hit out of their Ko-equivalent moves and die instantly because that wouldn't make a very interesting fight.

I see, it seems you do not understand what is an Hatsu.

An Hatsu is taking a base skill, and training it so much that it exceeds the normal level it should attain.

Let's take Gon's ROCK for example. Gon has two restrictions on it: he needs to say 'first is rock', and he needs to put himself into a 'starting' position. However, both restriction are irrelevant to the fact this is a hatsu:
If say Gon's "KO" is using 100% of his apparent aura at the normal 'level 5' Reinforcement Gon arbitrarily has, then "ROCK" will use 150% of his apparent aura (taking aura from his reserve aura) and his mental state would be such that it would be 'Level 8' reinforcement.

The notion of 'Hatsu' means you take a skill, and trains it up until it is stronger than it should.

And, YES, Gon's Rock has it's vulnerabilities: Gon still needs to put all of his aura into his fists, and it's still ridiculously draining.

In Phinx's case, there is absolutely no rule about him needing to stay still. However, there probably is a rule about him using Ko during the whole 'charge-up', which means he is extremely vulnerable if the enemy manage to hit him.

[Phantron]

The problem here is that you are assuming that the "Gensuru's fist would do 100 (base) + 60 (Materialization mod) = 160 damage" is relevant to this case, when it's clearly not: Genthru doesn't punch, or does damage with his own physical capability here. He grabs his opponent and activates little flower. In such a case, only little's flower's own damage is relevant, and how much energy one needs to defende against it.

Thanksfully, Genthru gave us a clear and definite answer to Little flower's power:


This means that Genthru himself needs to become immune to little flower, and that only 25% of his own aura is enough to do it. This means that a reinforcement user with the same level of aura would also only need 15% of his own aura to become immune to it (KEN does 50% to the whole body).

That's... a pretty damn sucky technique TO FIGHT, because it doesn't take into account Genthru's own physical ability as a baseline.

However, it's a great ability for BULLYING and BLACKMAIL, which was the whole point of the ability.

EDIT:



I see, it seems you do not understand what is an Hatsu.

An Hatsu is taking a base skill, and training it so much that it exceeds the normal level it should attain.

Let's take Gon's ROCK for example. Gon has two restrictions on it: he needs to say 'first is rock', and he needs to put himself into a 'starting' position. However, both restriction are irrelevant to the fact this is a hatsu:
If say Gon's "KO" is using 100% of his apparent aura at the normal 'level 5' Reinforcement Gon arbitrarily has, then "ROCK" will use 150% of his apparent aura (taking aura from his reserve aura) and his mental state would be such that it would be 'Level 8' reinforcement.

The notion of 'Hatsu' means you take a skill, and trains it up until it is stronger than it should.

And, YES, Gon's Rock has it's vulnerabilities: Gon still needs to put all of his aura into his fists, and it's still ridiculously draining.

In Phinx's case, there is absolutely no rule about him needing to stay still. However, there probably is a rule about him using Ko during the whole 'charge-up', which means he is extremely vulnerable if the enemy manage to hit him.

Hatsu isn't this magic sauce of suddenly being better at everything (that's Emperor Time). Normally Hatsu empowers the user because of the restrictions/conditions it places upon the technique. Problem is that Ko is, outside of possibly Chain Jail, the most restrictive technique in HXH. A whiffed Ko basically kills you and it doesn't get more dangerous than that. And yet you're telling me as long as you make some bogus chant or ritual you can now suddenly get Ko+ power without paying any of the risk? Then in your world people should invent a Hatsu called "Ko squared" that is 'channels all aura into one point, user takes grevious/fatal damage if hit anywhere besides the point of attack". By your logic this attack would be way stronger than Ko because it's a Hatsu and this is an unbelievable amount of risk compared to the weak sauce restrictions most technique have, even though this technique is actually just Ko.

You seem to assume that just because Little Flower doesn't seem to have a physical component that it does not use the base '100', and that it somehow does less than 100 AP worth of damage, which is less than Gensuru's fist without aura. Yet Little Flower blew up Gon's hand when he didn't shield it with aura, and Gon is someone who can break Ilumi's hand with his physical strength back in the Hunter exam. Just because Little Flower does not have an apparent physical component doesn't mean it does less than 100 points of damage, otherwise it's literally pointless to have a move like that and it should have done no damage to Gon if it is so weak.

You also seem to assume Ken is some kind of mana shield as opposed to a general modifier, that Ken means X damage absorbed from anywhere so as long as you got enough AP left you're more or less invulnerable to hits that deal less than X damage, even though HXH shows that weak points in the human body clearly exist. Head + Ken is not the same thing as Fist + Ken. During Gon and Killua's practice at manipulating %s for attack/defense it went something like:

Killua: 80% on right foot
Gon: Guard with 85% on left hand

In your world they could be doing this instead:

Killua: 80% on right foot
Gon: Guard with 85% on face

---------- Post added at 03:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:41 PM ----------

Actually I noticed that screenshot shows some outright contradiction. Gon did 0% one hand, 30% other hand, 70% feet versus Gensuru which is 25% right hand, 25% left hand, 10% rest of body, and an implied 40% used for Little Flower.

Since Ken is 50% everywhere then clearly that attack would've been guardable by just doing Ken, except Gensuru stated that Gon cannot guard 2XLittle Flower and that seems like a reasonable assessment of what happened in the fight. Gon already knows Ken at that point, and Ken is a simpler state to maintain compared to any other non uniform state, so if Ken is sufficient to defend against Little Flower there's no reason for him to do anything else. Gon's weakness, at that point, is his inability to sustain aura extendedly or move it quickly. However, Ken is the easiest state to maintain out of all possible distribution of AP, so it'd still be best to simply stay in Ken the whole time. Given Gon's max output easily exceeds even a Spider tier character at that point (Gon is the only person who can knock Razor back with the dodgeball), his Ken should not be any weaker than any Spider-tier character's Ken (he'd have problem maintaining it, but that's a different issue).

So therefore the conclusion you get is that Little Flower can penetrate Ken and has to do at least 150 points worth of damage.

[Tombadgerlock]

Hatsu isn't this magic sauce of suddenly being better at everything (that's Emperor Time). Normally Hatsu empowers the user because of the restrictions/conditions it places upon the technique. Problem is that Ko is, outside of possibly Chain Jail, the most restrictive technique in HXH. A whiffed Ko basically kills you and it doesn't get more dangerous than that. And yet you're telling me as long as you make some bogus chant or ritual you can now suddenly get Ko+ power without paying any of the risk? Then in your world people should invent a Hatsu called "Ko squared" that is 'channels all aura into one point, user takes grevious/fatal damage if hit anywhere besides the point of attack". By your logic this attack would be way stronger than Ko because it's a Hatsu and this is an unbelievable amount of risk compared to the weak sauce restrictions most technique have, even though this technique is actually just Ko.

No, i am saying that the difference between 'Ko' and a Hatsu like Rock are twofolds: first is that Rock has two restrictions (like Kurapika's own restriction for chainjails) which enhance the power, and second because it's a Hatsu.

"Beign a Hatsu" means that it's a technique that has been practiced for years in its current form, which means that Gon's affinity with this particular trend of Ko would be 'stronger' than if he did a normal Ko.

And, no, it won't be 'magically stronger'. It would, for example, take energy from Gon's reserve Aura, not just his apparent Aura (which we know Jajanken does), and it would also up his overall level of reinforcement, as his mastery of this parituclar type of reinforcement would be higher.

You also seem to assume Ken is some kind of mana shield as opposed to a general modifier, that Ken means X damage absorbed from anywhere so as long as you got enough AP left you're more or less invulnerable to hits that deal less than X damage, even though HXH shows that weak points in the human body clearly exist. Head + Ken is not the same thing as Fist + Ken. During Gon and Killua's practice at manipulating %s for attack/defense it went something like:

Killua: 80% on right foot
Gon: Guard with 85% on left hand

In your world they could be doing this instead:

Killua: 80% on right foot
Gon: Guard with 85% on face

Of course they could be doing this instead, as long as Gon's head is strong enough, as well as his reinforcement. You actually SAW it being done in the manga by multiple characters, you know?

In the actual case you quoted though, Killua's physical ability > Gon's, and it was a actual physical attack, so it 'counts'.

---------- Post added at 03:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:41 PM ----------

Actually I noticed that screenshot shows some outright contradiction. Gon did 0% one hand, 30% other hand, 70% feet versus Gensuru which is 25% right hand, 25% left hand, 10% rest of body, and an implied 40% used for Little Flower.

Since Ken is 50% everywhere then clearly that attack would've been guardable by just doing Ken, except Gensuru stated that Gon cannot guard 2XLittle Flower and that seems like a reasonable assessment of what happened in the fight. Gon already knows Ken at that point, and Ken is a simpler state to maintain compared to any other non uniform state, so if Ken is sufficient to defend against Little Flower there's no reason for him to do anything else. Gon's weakness, at that point, is his inability to sustain aura extendedly or move it quickly. However, Ken is the easiest state to maintain out of all possible distribution of AP, so it'd still be best to simply stay in Ken the whole time. Given Gon's max output easily exceeds even a Spider tier character at that point (Gon is the only person who can knock Razor back with the dodgeball), his Ken should not be any weaker than any Spider-tier character's Ken (he'd have problem maintaining it, but that's a different issue).

So therefore the conclusion you get is that Little Flower can penetrate Ken and has to do at least 150 points worth of damage.

No, you just are assuming that gon's aura is much, much stronger than it actually is. It was pretty clear in the fight between Gon and Genthru's fight that Genthru's actual Apparent Aura was MASSIVELY stronger than Gon's. By Apparent Aura, i mean 'actual aura power' there:

It is unknown how much aura Gon needed in order to counter "Little Flower", though i would tentatively put it at around 70% (which would mean Genthru's own aura is 5 times larger, which fits).

Keep in mind that Gon 'was the only character who could knock Razor back' solely because a°) Hisoka didn't try to punch the ball with Ko (nor bisuke), b°) Gon is a 'slow starter'. By that, i mean that his "actual aura power" grows during the fight, as he tends to constantly grow stronger as he fights. Each time he used 'rock' there, it was stronger than the precedent time, with both a stronger actual aura power when using it, and a higher level of reinforcement.

You seem to assume that just because Little Flower doesn't seem to have a physical component that it does not use the base '100', and that it somehow does less than 100 AP worth of damage, which is less than Gensuru's fist without aura. Yet Little Flower blew up Gon's hand when he didn't shield it with aura, and Gon is someone who can break Ilumi's hand with his physical strength back in the Hunter exam. Just because Little Flower does not have an apparent physical component doesn't mean it does less than 100 points of damage, otherwise it's literally pointless to have a move like that and it should have done no damage to Gon if it is so weak.

It only did damage to Gon because this Gon had a low-level aura yet (Chimera arc Gon would have had no problem noping it).

And, yes, my whole point is that 'Little Flower' is NOT a combat Hatsu. It's a Hatsu designed to: a°) Scare opponent and keep them in line for blackmail, B°) is the first step into creating his stronger 'Bomb' ability. A stepping stone, if you prefer.

[Phantron]

Note: all discussion here assumes every character is identical physical stats no matter who I happened to refer to, otherwise there isn't even a point to try to rank their power if their baseilne physical stats differ.

There's a lot of weirdness in the general way aura damage is calculated. Way back in Kurapika's training we know if you assume 100 is your maximum physical capability, the most damage you can do in a normal hit is 100 (physical) + 100 (Reinforcement natural mod) = 200, and characters further away from Reinforcement do even less. That is, there's no such thing as say Kurapika doing 100 (physical) + 60 (Materialization) + 60 (use more AP) = 220. He will never be able to do more physical damage or even comparable damage to a Reinforcement user if the two have identical stats. He can't borrow against AP pool even if he wanted to.

Without considering the conditional modifiers, the damage you can normally do should be hardcapped at 200% of your body strength.

By extension Ken would be a state of constant 150% attack/defense (Ko would be 200% attack/defense but only on one point). So what does it mean for someone to even have a bigger 'apparent aura'? If Gon is 150 AP offense/defense in Ken, does someone with twice the apparent aura as Gon have equivalent of 200 AP offense/defense in Ken? Then that means that guy is basically "Ko everywhere" equivalent just by having a bigger apparent aura? Of course that's ridiculous because "Ko everywhere" would be completely unstoppable and the only person who might fit this description is Meryem.

In the case of Gon you can argue that since he's new to learning this stuff his Ken isn't a full Ken, but it wouldn't make sense for this number to go up indefinitely. Otherwise by the time you get to the Ants you'd get that all their Ken state is > Ko of any human and attacking them literally causes you to self destruct (attacking something defended with Ko with anything but Ko is basically suicidal). We know Shoot and Killua both managed to do some admittedly minimal damage to Yupi, even though Yupi clearly blows them away in any measureable physical attribute.

In a world of completely identical base physical stat, you'd expect something like:

Netero's Ken - 150 O/D
Phinx's Ken - 150 O/D
Gensuru's Ken - 130 O/D (he gets 60% penalty on his Ken for school)
Gon (at GI)'s Ken - Something between 100-130 O/D (he's clearly weaker than Gensuru at that point), but Ken cannot be lower than 100.

Now of course Little Flower isn't a tech that exists solely for the sake of doing more damage (it's more to instill fear), but note that Gensuru switched to Little Flower when it was clear the normal hits aren't able to cause Gon to give up. That implies Little Flower has to do more than his 130 O in Ken, because otherwise it wouldn't achieve his goal (get Gon to give up by a display of force). We know Gon obviously isn't going to give up just because he got hit by Gensuru's Ken level power output. Given his choice of using Little Flower to break the stalemate, it cannot possibly do less damage than his Ken state (130).

Now back to the original question at hand, a 130+ attack wouldn't really bother Phinx, who can achieve 150 D everywhere unless it's a weak spot. Yes HXH acknowledges the human head is one of the hardest part of the body, but it is also the most important part of the body too. Take the Killua + Gon versus Netero mini game. Killua kicked Netero and almost hurt his foot. In the worst case maybe you break your foot kicking someone way stronger than you, which would really suck but you'll live. Gon, on the other hand, tries to headbutt Netero and indeed achieves more effect than Killua's kick, but Netero ultimately decided that he didn't want to risk getting hurt and giving Gon a concussion so he knocked him aside. If Ubogin headbutts a rocket instead of just block it, it wouldn't surprise me if he comes out alright but it sure won't be a smart thing. Reinforcement users have superior defenses but it's far from impenetrable. We know Ubogin can break ordinary weapons with his base defense, but if you see him just start headbutting swords, rocket launchers, and sniper rifles, that'd be utterly insane. He can do it if he has no choice, but I can guarantee you ramming your head into sharp and dangerous objects isn't a good idea in HXH.

So by the same token Gensuru has a small chance of hitting a weak point on Phinx, though it might as well be none as it's hard to see a combat expert just let someone else grab his head.

---------- Post added at 09:31 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:09 PM ----------

There's a fight way back with Ubogin versus the 3 fodder Injiyus. Obviously those 3 guys are nowhere near Ubogin's level, but they were able to wound him using bites and body hair.

Now would it make sense if instead Ubogin just let one of those guys try to bite his head and then count on his skull being strong enough to break the other guy's teeth? I mean his skull is indeed stronger than his shoulder, so there's a chance this might work. But no, that'd be silly because having a wound around your shoulder is not the same as having a wound on your skull. If the bite wasn't poisonous (though you'd think poision around the brain would be even worse anyway), Ubogin most likely can shake off the wound and continue fighting if the wound was around his shoulder. Around his skull? I'm not so sure about that, even fighting against guys who are nowhere close to him in power.

I mean if the story calls for Ubogin using Ko on his head and breaking the guy's teeth with sheer power, yeah I can buy that, but there's no way that can be the preferred strategy to fight people even for Reinforcement users.

[mousiehamster]

What about the damage type of Little Flower? Perhaps explosive damage (fire + pressure) is different, better, harder to guard then normal physical damage? I don't know.

Another thing to consider is that people are only considering the outcome based on a head on clash whereas the guy has a tendency of walking around, surreptitiously attaching bombs to people.

[Tombadgerlock]

Another thing to consider is that people are only considering the outcome based on a head on clash whereas the guy has a tendency of walking around, surreptitiously attaching bombs to people.

Pretty much- Genthru is not a direct fighter type at all, really. His Hatsu is geared toward shock value and blackmail, not direct combat- and it is indeed very, very good at that.

[TheAmericandream]

Yea, I believe Genthru probably could take on some spiders with proper prep time, but in a random what if tournament fight. I don't see him beating most melee oriented fighters who are on his level aka Phinx or probably anyone above Feitan-Machi level. You analysis on Chrollo vs Genthru was pretty interesting Phantron, that probably would be a slightly better match up for Genthru. Has this forum ever held a character tournament? That's something I'd be kind of interested in now that the manga has been on break this long.