Discussion About Aura Combat & How Nen Works

[Tombadgerlock]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

I don't think kurapica started the effect of the chain until he made it visible. Uvo was able to use his big bang punch and get past kurapica's nen defense to break his arm. Such a thing would not have been possible if the chain had its effect on as uvo would have been in a forced zetsu state which would make any use of big bang impact impossible. I doubt uvo would have broken kurapica's nen guarded arm with his physical strength alone.

I see you are ignoring that Zetsu is not always perfect, that Kurapika was using in on his ability (so it might be muted and not off), and That Kurapika using his Chain Jail might very well mean he actually had almost no aura left for defense.

So it could have been nenless Ubo again aulmost nenless Kurapika.

 

[kkck]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

Yes but why should we assume that he used an imperfect zetsu rather than simply not activating his ability until he removed his in? Would it make sense that kurapica is able to use his chain ability when in is activated on it which is a more advanced application of zetsu? It is a far more reasonable and simpler explanation that kurapica delayed the activation of his ability rather than assuming he used a partial zetsu on the guy.

 

[Phantron]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

I have no idea where this 'partial' or 'delayed' Zetsu come from. Might as well say Rock is a partial Ko. You're either in Zetsu or you're not.

Kurapika had Kuroro completely trapped in the 1s Gon got him in the darkness. Kuroro never even called for help and made no attempt to struggle. He said he needed 0.5s to attack with Chain Jail. There's no reason to assume this isn't the time it takes him to activate his ability to full.

By the way, 0.5s is a very long time in HXH. Look at the aerial combat between Netero and Pitou. Pitou's 0.1s activation time was too slow versus Netero. Kurapika said that without a distraction the Spiders can easily dodge an attack that requires 0.5s to get ready.

But Ubogin clearly talked for far longer than 0.5s, which is why the Chain Jail worked on him.

There's a reason why the Ant arc has a clock on most of the fight. Everything in HXH happens in a ridiculously short time. If you've the time to even talk (no character talks faster than human), you're already taking way too much time. Netero's reflexes is too fast for even a 0.1s activation ability to hit him. It'd be pretty sad if a famed organization featuring guys mostly in their primes can't even react in 1/5 the time compared to Netero.

There is no sourcebook information on why the Kannon is what it is. This is question of popular debate since whatever it is, it sure is not Reinforcement, so it makes you wonder why he picked this as a move. Netero's decline of 50% from his prime is well-documented from the manga. We do not have any more information than that.

 

[kkck]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

I think he means an imperfect zetsu rather than a partial one. References to a zetsu not being completely capable of hiding the user have been made (kaluto when hisoka noticed him for instance).

Well, there is a sourcebook with netero and one of the pages shows hyakushiki kannon. I still lean towards netero becoming a specialization or naturally developing a specialization hatsu due to his insane training, metamorphosis and enlightenment.

 

[Phantron]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

I think he means an imperfect zetsu rather than a partial one. References to a zetsu not being completely capable of hiding the user have been made (kaluto when hisoka noticed him for instance).

Well, there is a sourcebook with netero and one of the pages shows hyakushiki kannon. I still lean towards netero becoming a specialization or naturally developing a specialization hatsu due to his insane training, metamorphosis and enlightenment.

The whole point of what makes Chain Jail strong is that you can only break it with your physical strength, and Kurapika still has to test it against Ubogin first to make sure it's unbreakable even against just that. If the Zetsu effect applied by Chain Jail isn't immediate, one would assume any decent Reinforcement user can just break it before the effect takes fully.

Now, it takes time for the Chain Jail to activate (0.5s), but I'm assuming that refers to the amount of time it takes the chain to wrap around its target completely. I'm guessing the Chain does not cause Zetsu on touch, or it'd be ridiuclously overpowered, and he should just swing it in a circle and nobody would have a chance to beat that.

The sourcebook says Netero is Reinforcement. This part isn't up to debate. I guess why he picked a non Reinforcement technique as his main attack is going to be one of those never solved mystery unless Togashi wants to sell another sourcebook to explain it.

I still lean toward the explanation that aura abilities decline slower than your physical ability, and Reinforcement clearly suffers from any physical decline you have.

---------- Post added at 11:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:13 PM ----------

I guess you can say if Ubogin was in Zetsu then he can he even see the chains at all? But I think Zetsu has some kind of instantaneous moment where you can still use aura before you lose it. Otherwise, how would Ko even work? If you're in a permanent state of Zetsu, you can't use Ko for sure. But Ko requires using Zetsu. Let's say you're using Ko on your hand, so you gather energy on hand, use Zetsu to increase output. Shouldn't whatever aura stored on your hand go away by definition because you're using Zetsu, thus negating the whole technique? And if you use Zetsu first, shouldn't your output just be 0 total so you would have nothing to focus your energy into?

There must be a nearly instantaneous moment where you can still use aura under Zetsu, or Ko would never work because the moment you use Zetsu, you'd lose all the energy you store up for Ko. I don't think you can use Zetsu on just a part of your body, because that basically has the same effect as Ryuu.

 

[kkck]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

I know what the sourcebook says. However one way or another the manga has never specified the details behind "becoming" a specialization. We only know that materialization and conjuration have the highest chance however that is not to say much. Lets consider a few things. If you can "become" a specialization, does that mean you effectively stop being your original type? Kurapica is effectively both, materialization and specialization. In that regard netero could be in a similar situation. Or say, if you become a specialization do you lose your original hatsu? If you are not originally an specialization naturally you would develop your techniques before the fact meaning that people who become specializations have their original hatsu (unless something is added to them through the specialization) plus whatever they acquire through it. Now, if the specialization acquired is another ability and the original remains, does that mean that rather than the user in itself being a specialization is not the case but rather that he simply has a specialization technique? Under this scenario netero himself would remain an enhancer while at the same time having a specialization technique.

Reinforcements techniques potentially increase the strength and defense of the user several tens on times. It is extremely unlikely (by which I mean outright impossible) any "emitted, transmutted, manipulated" or " conjured, manipulated" nen netero can develop would ever exceed netero's reinforced offense or defense. The math simply does not work.

 

[Phantron]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

Specialization is pretty much an unknown and there's no example of people who permanently changed to specialization. Kurapika's change is temporary and the manga says he still uses his base school (Materialization) to calculate what abilities he can learn.

Reinforcement at prime should easily beat any other school in direct damage, or there really isn't even a point to the school's existence. But if you lose half of your physical ability, that essentially means you lose half of your Reinforcement too since it's scaled on your body.

Let's say you lose primary arm, then you can't use Rock, ever. You might be able to use Kannon still (can at least use Zero), but it wouldn't be a stretch to say the regular Kannon might be disabled too if you don't got an arm. To put an exterme case, if you lose both of your arms, it seems like your attack power would have to go to nearly 0 no matter how good you are at Reinforcement, but you might be able to learn how to shoot fireball from your mouth like DBZ. It won't be super effective but it's still better than 0.

Zeno's got multiple moves where he projects aura in the shape of a dragon and hits enemy with it. At least based on the appearance, that move doesn't seem to be related to his physical strength. It can't be stronger than an equivalent Reinforcement's direct attack during his prime, but it might not decline as fast as a function of physical strength. Remember Netero is an anomaly. He's the only person who is the strongest in his relative grouping (humans) and out of his prime. Even in the case of Zeno, one would assume he should be weaker than Silva, who is the leader of the family.

 

[kkck]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

Not necessarily half but even under that scenario another nen type would not match up to a reinforced attack. A reinforced attack has power based on the strength of the limb used times the speed times the amount of nen in it. An emitted nen would have strength equivalent to the amount of nen in it times the speed at which it moves. We saw kannon did not exceed netero's speed and it certainly cannot have more nen than netero himself. If we consider the penalties that netero would incur from using a nen which is materialized and manipulated (both of which netero has a 60% acquisition rate) or emitted, transmutted and manipulated (80, 80 and 60%) then it becomes even more absurd that netero would in any way surpass his reinforcement with either of those combinations.

 

[Phantron]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

Razor says his aura projectiles do comparable damage to his Reinforcement attack (i.e. throwing the ball with his hand). Now in this case he's an Emission user, but even if he is a Reinforcement user, there's no reason to expect his Emission abilities to go way down. If Emission attacks don't depend on, or at least decline slower as a function of physical strength, then we'd expect Razor, as he gets older, would have a bigger difference between Emission and Reinforcement.

Emission is also portrayed as the 'play safe' school, so to speak. See Zeno versus Kuroro fight for a perfect example. If you're not sure what the enemy is up to, just throw a mid range attack and see how they react. I think it make sense that during your prime you can just fight hand-to-hand against everything as a Reinforcement, but as you get older and less physically capable, the range nature of Emission becomes more attractive because you can't count on dodging/blocking everything with just your body as you get old.

 

[kkck]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

True but then again as you said razor is not a reinforcement. His training would always be focused primarily on emission. I don't think emission is portrayed as a play safe school either. Tell that too knuckle who basically has to overpower any enemy he fights through physical combat. Even zeno actually got into some pretty real physical combat with kururo is spite of his own age, he did not even fully relied on his dragon. I would think that a hunter that gets so old that he can't even use his body properly and can't use his reinforcement techniques with enough strength for them to be worth it would most likely be unable to do any form of nen combat. Even emission users require their bodies to move to use their techniques meaning that their physical condition is important to them even if not in the exact same manner as a reinforcement (knuckle needs to punch to use hakoware, razor needs to do the volleyball movement to through his nen ball, zeno needs both hands to make the dragons, franklin needs to aim with his hands directly). None of them would be able to aim or even make their techniques properly without physical conditions, emission is not an answer to aging as you suggest.

 

[Jack Van Burace]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

Guys, have you ever considered that an aura under Zetsu or In won't take effect? A person using Zetsu is completely vulnerable an unable to use any techniques, so how would the Chain Jail work under those effects?

Imo, it's clear Kurapica had to remove the In state of his chain for its effects to kick in. Otherwise it would be just a regular but invisible chain that Uvo could break without a worry.

 

[Tombadgerlock]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

'In' still has aura- it hides it, but it's still there.

This is how Hisoka uses 'in' in order to hide his pansy gum, and so on.

 

[Phantron]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

In, as described, is probably overpowered because everything you do still has full effect except it's invisible. I guess you got to use more aura to maintain In but nobody sure has ran out of AP from doing In. Sure it is easily countered but in theory you can say even a guy like Netero or Meryem can have a newbie moment and just get totally owned by any ability that can be hidden. This is probably why we stop seeing anyone use In, since it's just assumed against an experienced user they'd always be in a constant state of aura vision.

For that matter it's pretty bizarre you got a guy like Ubogin making a newbie mistake, or that Kuroro needs to remind Machi and Shizuku to remember to use aura vision. You'd think in a world of like HXH the first thing you should learn is assume the enemy always has In, because otherwise you can get owned really fast. It clearly costs next to nothing to maintain the aura vision state, so why don't people just stay in it for the whole time?

 

[Jack Van Burace]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

Well, indeed you're correct. I misinterpreted In. However, Ubogin was only using 50% of his strength on that punch, and Kurapica used all of his to defend. And still got his arm broken. I think Ubo did use everything he could (at 50%) and wasn't diminished one bit by the chain's effects. Kurapica did sustain a 20% hit without any major injury, it only makes sense he got a broken arm with 50% (2.5x the previous hit).

 

[Phantron]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

Well, indeed you're correct. I misinterpreted In. However, Ubogin was only using 50% of his strength on that punch, and Kurapica used all of his to defend. And still got his arm broken. I think Ubo did use everything he could (at 50%) and wasn't diminished one bit by the chain's effects. Kurapica did sustain a 20% hit without any major injury, it only makes sense he got a broken arm with 50% (2.5x the previous hit).

50% was the time Kurapika kicked him. The Big Bang was 100%.

 

[Jack Van Burace]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

Well, then Kurapica really took the whole impact of Big Bang and if he wasn't at 100% Reinforcement efficiency he would be dead. The picture with Ubo getting "tazered" is clearly the moment when Zetsu effect kicked in, so previously to it, Kurapica really was risking everything just to prove his strength against the Spiders, to prove nothing would get in his way even against the strongest on 1 on 1 fights.

Imo, despite having the 100% efficiency, he never developed his Reinforcement techniques (it's not like he can use it for training), so it only worked like a basic Reinforcement shielding with all the efficiency it could have as a basic technique.

 

[Phantron]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

Well, then Kurapica really took the whole impact of Big Bang and if he wasn't at 100% Reinforcement efficiency he would be dead. The picture with Ubo getting "tazered" is clearly the moment when Zetsu effect kicked in, so previously to it, Kurapica really was risking everything just to prove his strength against the Spiders, to prove nothing would get in his way even against the strongest on 1 on 1 fights.

Imo, despite having the 100% efficiency, he never developed his Reinforcement techniques (it's not like he can use it for training), so it only worked like a basic Reinforcement shielding with all the efficiency it could have as a basic technique.

Kurapika healed his arm which he said is a Reinforcement techinque. If you look at his aura level breakdown chart, it seems to imply he has already developed all his abilities to his maximum capability at that point.

Kurapika is considered an equivalent class character as Spiders (Spider sure treat him as an equal threat). I'd say a Reinforcement user equal to Ubogin would be able to block the Big Bang punch without suffering any noticeable injury, whereas Kurapika broke his arm. I think the point is that even at 100% there's a limitation to how far you can go, namely the inherent level penalty is something you cannot overcome. Otherwise Kurapika should be able to just block a 100% Big Bang punch head on. If this isn't possible, that'd imply there's some physical attack an equivalent Reinforcement user cannot block, and given Big Bang has very little restriction, that'd give way too much advantage to the attacker if there exists some low restriction attack that an equal affinity user cannot successfully defend.

On the other hand, in HXH it's not about taking no damage but taking less damage than your opponent. A broken arm is a relatively minor wound, so if you can get a good counterattack off, it'd be worth it. Razor's physical strength can easily be considered equivalent of a natural Reinforcement user relative to Hisoka, but Hisoka said if you avoid the initial hit from the ball, then you can catch Razor's ball without using Ko and only break a couple fingers. It's not the fact that breaking fingers is no big deal, but that in a fight to the death if someone broke your 2 fingers and you break his arm, then it's okay. When Ubogin hit Kurapika at 20%, Kurapika countered with his chain and it narrowly missed him, implying that attacking leaves Ubogin vulnerable to counterattacks. Shalunark said that you don't even need unbreakable chains to defeat Ubogin, something like sleep or paralyze is enough. If you assume either of those effect will activate faster than forced Zetsu (since they're weaker effects), maybe you don't even need to hide the chains after blocking a Big Bang. Shalunark assumes that Kurapika can do something like 'paralyze/sleep on touch' and such an effect would need a much smaller opening to succeed. And if Kurapika's attack did either of those effect, that'd be more than enough to win him the fight. He won't be able to get information from Ubogin easily (because he'd be back to 100% when he recovers), but he sure wouldn't have problem killing Ubogin if he's either paralyzed or asleep.

---------- Post added at 03:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:44 PM ----------

As an aside, Chain Jail isn't as powerful as it appears. Shalunark assumed Kurapika's ability is 'paralyze/sleep on touch', both are far easier and just as useful as having an unbreakable chain that forces Zetsu. There's clearly no difficulty in killing someone who is paralyzed or asleep in HXH. Kurapika won't be able to get information out of someone who is merely paralyzed or asleep, but it's not like any of the Spiders divulged any information to him due to threat. Kurapika uses Chain Jail presumably because he thinks the Spiders should be imprisoned for life to atone for their sins. If the goal is just to kill the enemy, there are way easier ways to do that.

 

[Jack Van Burace]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

Yeah, the limitation is the development of those techniques. A.k.a. level penalty.

Surely one will learn and develop techniques from their schools easier than other schools. So even if Kurapica had maximum efficiency at all schools, he didn't learn/develop Reinforcement techniques like Ubo did. We would never see Kurapica using Big Bang attack, just basic Reinforcement skills. He had 100% efficiency, not learning predisposition. He could apply other schools into his main without being an issue, but he wouldn't learn techniques from other schools as well as he would with his own.

Imo, that's why his defense didn't work entirely.

 

[Phantron]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

I think the real problem is that although HXH alludes to these levels, it never explains what these levels actually do so it's really hard to predict what it means. I think Kurapika's case can be best explained as that he takes the penalty halfway compared to a normal user. If he's truly equivalent to a Reinforcement user, he should be able to block Big Bang head on without damage, since in HXH you're not supposed to easily damage another equivalent guy without taking on risk, and Big Bang doesn't really look that risky of a move (it's just a really strong punch). On the other hand, his defense appears to be far higher than what a normal Materialize/Manipulate user is capable of. I'd say Shizuku or Shalunark would easily get their entire arm blown off by Big Bang if they had to block it, since we know:

1. Gon is stronger than Shizuku in arm wrestling in a casual environment.
2. Nobunaga can beat Gon trivially in arm wrestling in a casual environment.
3. Nobunaga isn't even average in arm strength amongst Spiders.

Given these huge differences in raw physical strength, it'd be pretty unfathomable if Shalunark or Shizuku can get away with only a broken arm against Big Bang.

If you assume 60% penalty on level, no penalty on power, that's 60%, which is roughly equivalent to a Transform/Emission (80%^2 = 0.64). The broken arm damage seems consistent with what you'd expect for a Transform/Emission versus Reinforcement. You can't expect to beat a Reinforcement head on if you're not Reinforcement, but a broken arm is definitely a workable range of damage as long as you get off a good retaliation attack.

 

[Jack Van Burace]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

Phantron, I don't think level penalty relates to percentages, like what Kurapica's master was referring to. It's most likely the inability to attain higher level techniques.

Before Gon had invented Rock, he was already Reinforcement and likely used it to strengthen himself all the time. He survived a beating in Celestial Tower likely due to that, not just Nen blocking. That would be what I call basic techniques, which is the use of Reinforcement without any particularly developed move. Kastro could also create a clone. But in order to create a vacuum cleaner like Shizuku's or a chain with as much as one condition applyed to it, he would have to be Conjuration, otherwise his lack of talent would interfere in developing this skill.

A Kastro with Kurapica's red eyes would use his clone at full efficiency, but it would still be a lame clone and not the advanced conjurations that actual conjurers create. He would be as good as a pro-Conjurer in using that basic clone, but he wouldn't be able to develop anything much better than that. Same with Gon and Emission: he can create a lame emission, but not only he lacks efficiency, he lacks talent. So even with the red eyes, Gon would only use an effective Paper, but it would still be the same lame technique (nothing compared to Lazer's devils).

So imo, attaining 100% efficiency isn't attaining 100% learning ability. Surely the learning curve becomes more steep as one progresses, and becomes even steeper in a school that isn't yours, even with the red eyes. I'm positive Kurapica would waste his time if he ever tried creating an independent move from another school. It shouldn't affect combat other than the lack of refinement in the techniques you will be able to use (in Kurapica's case only).

This theory explains efficiently the need to diversify your hatsu later, since your own school might at some point become harder to progress than the neighbouring ones, and why would one still focus on their own main school even with Kurapica's eyes.