Generally superior is what I believe.
Yeah, I think our way of ranking power is definitely the key issue.
Alvarez makes me believe the opposite tbh. Jacob couldn't even beat Mirajane, despite having that great hax. You can call it PiS or whatever, but we have no way of knowing if he used Transport or not, the way I see it the stronger opponent simply won.
What suggests to me that he didn't use Transport is that Mira has absolutely no Spacial Magic to counter it. As we saw in the guild Spacial Magic was the only reason Natsu, Lucy and Happy didn't get snatched up.
You say the stronger opponent won but tbh I'm not seeing that at all. Jacob was fighting blind and for some reason just conveniently didn't use his main Magic that would have instantly won the fight. Yes, Mira had her own disadvantage in that she had only a fraction of her usual MP but I would say that disadvantage is almost entirely off-set when your opponent can't see.
At the end of day we can just look at their skill sets:
Jacob: Perfect stealth, weapons expert, Transport (AKA "I win" button)
Mira: Satan Souls (don't want to sound like I'm lowballing here, Satan Souls are powerful but not comparable to the hax of Transport)
I'm just not seeing someone who had to go all out against Spriggan lieutenants winning against a non-hindered, non-PIS Spriggan like Jacob.
Seemed to be as powerful/effective on Yukino as AoE was on everyone else. Kagura supposedly overcame it with simple pain, I don't see why that same method wouldn't work for everyone else with the AoE version.
The actual intensity isn't what I'm trying to say is better, I'm talking specifically about the effectiveness of pain as an escape. With the tentacles its possible to actually free yourself from their grasp during the brief bit of clarity pain brings whereas with the AoE version there's nothing stopping the spell from just continuing once the immediate pain has stopped.
Or why they simply couldn't power through it like Eileen did, or like Sting did with Hunger.
I've had a look and saying Irene powered through it is an exaggeration IMO, since she only endures it for a page or two and then Zeref gets Larcade to stop.
As for Sting, the bit that he powered through (cannibalism) isn't really useful in a 1 vs 1, and he was noticeably weaker when he tried to attack Larcade.
It didn't look like it had any chance of bringing down Natsu to me, looked like kinda a joke to him.
The man was trying so hard to stay alert to the point that he was punching himself in the head.
It also couldn't even kill or K.O the likes of Rogue, even after he was heavily injured and lost all his MP, Kagura could even still use magic.
Admittedly this is a weird thing with RIP. I personally think RIP is timed since that at least makes Natsu, Sting, Rogue and Kagura all staying conscious for the same amount of time somewhat logical. That's just my theory though.
It's just a very underwhelming magic imo
Tbh much like many of the Spriggans hax, RIP's biggest weakness (narratively) is that it would have forced Hiro to kill a character.
And we know Hiro doesn't kill good guys in the Alvarez arc (
laughs in Gajeel)
honestly it seems like the magic itself is all talk, much like Larcade himself is(all that I'm a secret weapon against Acno nonsense).
Ehhhhhh... if you're talking about RIP specifically then fair enough.
Even then though, while Larcade vs Acnologia has a very obvious conclusion, I do think people aren't inventive enough when imagining what Larcade's use actually was. IMO Zeref's plan was never to actually have Zeref anywhere near Acnologia, rather in the worst case scenario he was going to fight Acno himself and then have Larcade use Pleasure/Hunger/RIP (whatever is needed) to weaken/potentially kill him.
After all, unlike many of the hax in Fairy Tail we can at the very least say that Pleasure does not have a point where it stops affecting people. So while his "I'm the ultimate Wizard/the only one who can beat Acnologia" may be arrogant, at the same time I don't necessarily think he's all that wrong either. This is assuming his Magic would actually surpass Acno's Magic resistance though... oh well, that's a whole other beast of a debate.
Is it really that bad though? It barely seemed to have any effect on Sting.
I disagree here, Sting went from hitting Larcade with physical attacks and spells to getting slapped around.
Apply Hunger to Gildart's or Jellal, I'd still have them mid diff Larcade, if that. Assuming they don't oneshot him off the bat, which I think they could do if they went all out.
Agreed on them being able to one-shot them if they go all in from the start.
The Hunger point is hard to prove on my end since base Sting isn't exactly a good comparison to the likes of Jellal and Gildarts just due to the sheer difference in power, but I'll try my best. So straight off the bat I'm going to say that Hunger is pretty much pointless on anyone who has a great ranged attack, so Laxus and Jellal are out of this.
Its someone like Gildarts who relies purely on, magically enhanced or not, CQC that makes the water murky. Now Gildarts is powerful enough for me to comfortably agree that any of his magically enhanced attacks should severely injure if not outright one-shot Larcade. But I would argue that the hit would actually need to connect for it to deal that level of damage and that is where I think Hunger comes in. We've already seen what happened with Sting, for someone like Gildarts his punches becoming less accurate could be the difference between quickly ending the fight or letting Larcade get some hits in. Now I'm not saying Hunger alone is what could cost him the match, rather that the opportunities opened by Hunger might.
Both the cross and light blades are pretty mediocre. Light blades were blocked by Kagura easily. Cross did alright damage to Base Sting, when you hit him with it a couple of times on top of other attacks, but it's not like Sting is at the top of the food chain or anywhere close to it. I don't have Larcade surviving long enough to use hunger against END or Gray or anyone on their level anyway.
Good points!
Only thing I disagree on is Larcade not lasting long against E.N.D, but that's more because I have no idea where I rank E.N.D.
E.N.D didn't really particularly impress me (one-shotting base DiMaria isn't that great of a feat IMO), but at the same time it did manage to give DeS Gray a seemingly even fight, and we know that Slayer advantage is immense when it comes to Demons vs DeS...
I reckon E.N.D would win but mainly because Larcade just can't do much to it.
No? At least probably not. She said he could move through her time, which says to me she saw him coming and used Age Seal. I also doubt he wouldn't have been making noise as he busted out of his chair etc. Dimaria crapping her pants at the mere sight/memory of him also tells me it doesn't make a difference.
Ah right, I was just making sure because I couldn't remember if it was ever clarified.
Sure, it could prob freeze some spells, but if the spell is as powerful as base Gray's punch then it's getting shattered regardless. It also presents no threat to the ranged opponent, which was my actual point.
How powerful do you reckon base Gray's punch is? Genuine question because I have no idea.
For Natsu, I just take that as Natsu watching Gray fight, we know he was listening in. In reality Natsu can burn his fire so hot that it unfroze Lucy and Juvia instantaneously.
Wait, so you think Natsu could have broken out sooner but didn't?
Gray's DeS Ice is better than Invel's imo because he can't shatter it, but its true they clashed evenly after Invel realized what it was so they could be equal, which would still mean Ajeel can break out of it since he broke out of Gray's.
Fair enough.
Besides, if base Gray has the physical might to shatter Invel's strongest Ice Attack, Ice Kamui, with a single punch, then any character with comparable physical strength should be able to shatter any Ice Invel imprisons them with. So prob not Ajeel, but characters like Gajeel, Erza, maybe Mira, etc could all do it, probably.
Agreed, though I think Mira would have to be in Alegria to break it.
Is that right? My mistake then.
Well honestly I'm not sure tbh, I just didn't find anything to suggest they were his own Historias.
With that being said though, Historia of the Dead would make way more sense being S12 level Magic if he could bring back his own Historias.
