Discussion About Aura Combat & How Nen Works

[Phantron]

Ten: Basic protection. Allows you to resist even bullets well applied.
Zetsu: Basic hiding. Leaves you vulnerable to nenless attacks.
Ren: Basic Powerup.
Hatsu: Basic properties of the aura.
En: Sensing. It's Expanded Ren.
In: Advanced Hiding, included elements and Nen itself.
Shou: Advanced enhancing of an object. It's Ten expanded.
Gyou: Basic focus, usually in the eyes.
Kou: Advanced Gyou.
Ken: Advanced Ren, balanced Gyou.
Ryu: Advanced Ren, unbalanced Gyou. Basic-Advanced technique.

I've been thinking about the combat system, and here's some thoughts I organized...

Human physical body appear to be effectively the same amongst the elite. Way back in the Hunter exam, Gon headbutted Netero, and he appeared to wince from the impact. When Gon attempted to do it again, Netero said that most likely Gon will crack his head but there's also a chance he'll be the one hurting, so he ended up using his other hand to deflect the blow.

This means even someone as strong as Netero does not possess overwhelming physical power. He presumably never used aura in that fight, but that's no disadvantage since Gon isn't even capable of using it at this point, and he can't be certain if his stomach can withstand a headbutt from a 12 year old boy. Sure the head is probably the hardest part of your body and the stomach definitely is not, but this indicates that in an auraless environment, it is entirely possible even a novice can hurt him if their hits connect. Therefore you can assume that between equivalent level human characters, their physical body are essentially the same unless otherwise mentioned (e.g. Biscuit certainly has significantly above normal physical strength).

Now going back to the numbers given by Knuckles, the human scouter.

Gon has about 20K aura point.
Morel is about 70K AP.
Yupi is about 700K AP.

Gon's rock attack uses up about 2000 AP and does an unknown amount of damage.
Gon's paper attack uses up about 2000 AP and does 500 AP of damage.

Since Gon is inexperienced at using Emission techniques, it seems reasonable to assume rock uses up 2000 for 2000 AP of damage.

Now a key idea in HXH is that there is no free lunch. The easier the conditions you have, the weaker your abilities are, and vice versa. Let's look at what the rock does:

1. It's just a straight punch (opponent can dodge, block, whatever).
2. It takes a very long (in HXH universe) time to charge, and this time cannot be decreased (Uber Gon still appears to take just as long to prep up the move).
3. Everyone can see it coming from a mile away.
4. He appears mostly immobile while charging (though we did see him move once).
5. It is just pure damage.

It's said that Gon is inefficient at using aura, but I think this refers to more advanced techniques. As far as I can tell, rock just involves charging aura on your fist and then punch. If there's supposed to be a more effective way to put aura on your fist and punch, then discussing combat is meaningless because then it's always possible someone find a super effective way to do an aura punch. So I'm going to assume converting 1 AP to 1 damage is as good as it gets in HXH.

Now let's go to Netero. His attack has the following properties:

1. It has mega range.
2. It is ridiculously fast to the point of basically unavoidable, and opponent may not even have time to block (Meryem blocked it once, but that seems to be it).
3. It does not even have to hit the same direction he's facing. For example, in the aerial combat between Pitou and Netero, Netero was in a plane above Pitou but his fist hit him from the blindside on the same plane as Pitou.
4. He has to make a praying motion first, but the time it takes to pray can be reduced by training to a number that's basically irrelevent (Pitou's reaction speed is under 0.1s, so Netero has to be able to pray in under 0.1s to hit Pitou first).

No matter how you look at it, Netero has a far easier set of conditions. Even when he first started training, it says the prayer part took about ~5 seconds. That's not longer than the time it takes Gon to charge up the rock, and the time it takes to pray can be reduced by further training, while Gon's charge time seems to be fixed. He has an easier condition to fulfill, and his attack does far more than just mere damage.

Therefore it'd make no sense if Netero can generate 1 point of damage with just 1 point of aura because it'd violate the notion that risks rewards higher payout in HXH. Yes Netero is incredibly experienced and his mastery of aura is unparalleled, but again, how can you possibly get more efficient than just putting aura on your fist and punch? Maybe you can say his mastery is so great that he can add all these additional benefit at practically no cost, but he still shouldn't be able to do better than Gon's ratio (which we assume is 1 to 1) because his attack has an easier to meet criteria while generating far more additional side effects.

Netero hit Meryem hundreds, maybe even thousands of times. If each of his attack did as much damage as the rock, he'd have to use at least 2000 AP per attack. At 100 attacks, that'd put his AP reserve at 200K. At one thousand, that'd put him at 2 million AP, i.e. three times that of Yupi's.

Now the Ants possess overwhelming physical and aura reserve advantage. If Netero has more AP in reserve compared to a Royal, then that means the whole 'ovecome power with tactics' is pretty much meaningless when Netero has an AP total comparable to all 3 Royals put together (not to mention it'd mean he's crazy for suggesting Pitou is stronger than him if he has higher total AP than Pitou). Even at 200K, that'd put him at 3 times that of Morel. Since Knuckles can estimate how much total AP someone have by just looking at them, and it seems to be something derived from experience as opposed to a special only he has, that'd mean Netero is a ridiuclously bad liar, because he's saying Morel or Novu might be as strong as he is when it is apparent he has 3 times the AP reserve compared to him. Yes, AP reserve isn't everything, but it's not like anyone doubt Netero's mastery of aura combat, so if he started out with 3 times the AP reserve, there's no conceiveable way he'll ever lose.

So my conclusion is that Netero can't even be generating 2000 points of damage per fist. If he could, that'd also mean each of his hit can kill someone like Knuckles in one hit, and maybe two hits for someone like Morel. He clearly counted on their strength in the fight, and it'd be riduclous to count on someone you can kill in one punch against guys who are stronger than you. Even Yupi can't kill Knuckle with a glancing blow (did ~300ish damage, comparable to a very hard normal punch from Knuckle). If Netero can do it with ease, it'd mean his attack power is higher than Yupi. And in that case why did he wait so long to attack the Ants's nest?

Now this doesn't mean Gon generating 2000+ points of damage makes him strong. His attack can be easily avoided or prevented, or even blocked. Netero's attack is far more practical when fighting against an opponent of comparable level. I think this fits with the HXH's theme quite well. It's never about pure power. Netero may very easily lose to Gon in terms of pure destruction, but Netero can hit guys Gon would have no chance (at least without transforming) of ever hitting. If Phinks can spin his arm a hundred times (or more), one would assume he has to be able to do more damage than Netero too, but what idiot would let a guy spin his arm in a circle one hundred times? Besides, even if he did that, he still has to connect the punch to do damage. Netero's techinques cannot be the strongest in terms of pure damage in HXH, but his attack is probably the only one that's even useful against opponents of his class (or higher).

 

[kkck]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

The reason it takes gon that long to charge is that he is inexperienced at nen IMO. This has been mentioned many times, gon is inexperience at fluidly moving his nen around his body. It is an awkward slow flow which can be read easily (as done by knuckle). If gon was more experienced and he could do that much fluidly charging his rock attack would be significantly faster. His attack against pitou did take a second to charge but even then you have to consider it packed a significantly greater amount of power than his regular rock and even then he did it a lot faster than normal. Uvo's punch is exactly the same as gons and even then he could charge it virtually instantly, I don't recall actually seeing him charge. Once gon becomes more adept at controlling his nen he should be capable of charging a similarly powerful punch much faster.

Also, the condition and pledge thing applies when you have conditions which use a pledge and a condition. Gon does not have a pledge or a condition, he does need them. Netero is mildly more ambiguous though. He summons his nen statue however to control it netero needs to pray. It is a difficult control mechanism and should be a part of the reason netero can use his ability to such an extreme. Also, it does not take netero 5 seconds to complete a prayer. It takes him less than 1 second, far less. Netero had a short confrontation with pitou and it was mentioned it took him 0.1 to summon his puppet thingy. In that time netero completed his prayer and even send pitou flying.

Also, I don't think netero's attacks probably don't waste nen in the same manner as gon. The only real power behind gons rock is that it has bunch of nen behind it. Gon uses that power to pack damage and thus it goes to work. Netero uses his ability to summon that statue which is already made of nen (thus there is no need to charge it for it to pack damage) and control it. It basically conserves the power. If I recall, some people can even create such things and then adsorb their power back thus the usage of the techniques does not represent a significant loss in nen (razor for instance).

 

[Phantron]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

Pledge doesn't have to be intentional. Franklin cut off his fingers because he thinks it looks cooler that way, and his aura machine gun power went up, because that's essentially a pledge. The time it takes for Gon to charge is part of the conditions that increases his power because it's a severe limitation. If it took him less time to charge, it wouldn't be nearly as powerful. Netero used to took all day to do his prayer routine 10000 times, and it averages out to be about 5 seconds per routine (86400 seconds in a day, he used roughly 2/3 of the day to do that). He improved over time to the point where it's under 0.1s, but it was never longer than 5 seconds.

Gon in adult form tossed Pitou in mid air and then charged his fist, and Pitou went flying a distance of at least several stories. It certainly takes at least 5 seconds for someone to fly that high up and then come down, and the illustration shows Gon used this time to charge up his fist. If it takes only one second to charge that, that action is completely unnecessray, since at that point his fist can stun an enemy for that length of time just from the impact (Pitou almost lost conscious from his regular fist). Gon in adult form is someone who can fight Meryem head on, i.e. a lot stronger than Netero, but he still needed to create separation to use either rock or paper (he pinned his arm against Pitou's body to charge up paper). Unless you think someone who can potentially fight Meryem head on is 'inexperienced', his charge time has to be intentional.

In HXH, the harder the pledge, the bigger the payoff. Netero essentially has one where he has to perform some action that, at one point, used to take him about 5 seconds, and with training it can be accomplished in under 0.1s.

Gon, on the other hand, always requires a fixed amount of time that cannot be lowered by training. The phrase he's saying is essentially a timer to help him keep at the same pace (note that he doesn't actually have to say those words, because he can use it while unable to speak). If his speed can be improved by training, does that mean he just has to speak faster for the same effect? If you assume the charge time is also 5 seconds (same as the maximum of time Netero needed at one point), then Gon's criteria is never any easier than Netero. How can that have a worse payoff than someone who can reduce the requirement with training?

Gon's rock at 2000 damage (which isn't even his maximum output) can kill Knuckle if it's not guarded correctly. So if you say Netero is so strong and can generate 2000 points of damage on demand, that means e can kill Knuckle in one hit from an attack that basically never misses. So he's relying on guys who he can kill with a swat of his hand to help out in a fight?

 

[kkck]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

Ok, I get what you are saying about franklin, but that is not comparable to what gon is doing. They are different things IMO. Obviously if gon spent less time charging his punch would be less powerful as he would not be able to put as much power in it. It is not like gon becoming stronger and more skilled using nen would not reduce the time it takes him to charge.

Also, gon saying "janken..." has never been stated to improve his nen (he was even specifically told not to do it by killua and bisk). It could eventually turn into something that in itself has an effect in making his punch stronger however it would still be unrelated to the amount of time it takes to charge. The charge time is a reflection on how long it takes gon to concentrate the nen on his fist, nothing more.

Knuckle was never meant to help netero fight either. His job was specifically with the guards. Netero hired zeno specifically so that he could fight the king alone. For his job it did not matter if netero could just step on him easily.

 

[Phantron]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

You don't need to cut off your fingers to make an aura machine gun. Franklin decided to do so, and it said he didn't even think of that as a requirement, but it improved his power because of his resolve. There is clearly some kind of God of Aura who knows all and sees all, and no risk is unrewarded in the world of HXH whether the user is aware of it or not. When Morel fought Leol, Leol pulled out some earplugs and Morel first thought he was using that to impair his hearing to increase his power. Even fairly trivial things can be thought of as a 'pledge', though trivial things won't give you much of a power increase.

Gon originally needed a long time to charge up his attack. He used that as an advantage because he figured if it takes him say, 5 seconds to charge up, he can just make a special that requires 5 seconds charging time. Now, this is actually a pretty significant restriction, so in exchange he got extra power for something he normally have to do anyway. So why doesn't everyone do this? Because after you improve, you no longer need that long of a time to charge an attack, but since he gave himself this requirement, even if it takes him no time to charge an attack, he still must do it every time for rock/paper/scissors. In his adult form, one normal hit from Gon can almost send Pitou unconscious. His power is said to be enough to take on Meryem head on. How on earth can he be inexperienced at this point? Yet both times he created considerable separation before using his move, so it has to be a requirement. Of course, at that point, he can easily incapaciate any Royal or less class enemies with a simple punch, so the charging requirement isn't a big deal, though if you can do that then charging up is overkill anyway.

 

[kkck]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

Yes, but it still does not change that the finger thing is neither a condition or a pledge. Calling it his resolve is more accurate though.


The manga still has never given us any indication that the resolve from gon's saying "janken..." makes his nen stronger. It is likely it will eventually come to that but right now it is impossible to prove. More so, gon NEVER calculated the time it takes him to charge an attack nor even less thought saying "janken.." would result in him getting a stronger nen. He is 11, he did that because he thought it was cool and made it look like a secret attack (that alone could work to strengthen the nen but then again the manga has never stated it).

 

[Tombadgerlock]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

Here is the thing. The 'restriction' isn't just about difficulty, nor is 5000AP worth 5000AP.

For example, let's say Rock's gon makes 5000AP damage of reinforcement lvl 10.
His training with emission is lacking, so it has only 1000AP in it or so- but how "effective" are those 1000AP in themselves? we don't know. i doubt they are more than lvl 3 emission, too.

Now, comes the 'restriction' part. Nen is primarily about doing something you 'feel is right'. As such, Gon's jajaken is already stronger than a normal Kou would be (his rock > Kou) because it 'feels right' for him.

It is the same with most so-called 'restrictions'. They are not just about the difficulty of use, but about how 'right' they are. Netero's years spent praying, and his vegetal-like mental state, makes his Kannon very, very powerful.

I doubt he even considers it a 'restriction' anymore Gon considers his speech one- it's just something he truly believes is worth doing.

 

[Phantron]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

Here is the thing. The 'restriction' isn't just about difficulty, nor is 5000AP worth 5000AP.

For example, let's say Rock's gon makes 5000AP damage of reinforcement lvl 10.
His training with emission is lacking, so it has only 1000AP in it or so- but how "effective" are those 1000AP in themselves? we don't know. i doubt they are more than lvl 3 emission, too.

Now, comes the 'restriction' part. Nen is primarily about doing something you 'feel is right'. As such, Gon's jajaken is already stronger than a normal Kou would be (his rock > Kou) because it 'feels right' for him.

It is the same with most so-called 'restrictions'. They are not just about the difficulty of use, but about how 'right' they are. Netero's years spent praying, and his vegetal-like mental state, makes his Kannon very, very powerful.

I doubt he even considers it a 'restriction' anymore Gon considers his speech one- it's just something he truly believes is worth doing.

Knuckles already said that Gong's jajaken uses 2000 AP per use, and that any of the three variation uses up 2000 AP regardless of the power. He also said the paper only did about 500 AP of damage, because Gon is not well trained in Emission, so we can assume this ratio is lower due to inexperience. I picked 1 to 1 just for the point of convenience. Knuckles also said if he get the debt piled up to 10K then he won't lose. That's 1000 per 10 seconds, and 2000 basically means he can take a jajaken head on every 20 seconds and still break even, which seems a pretty generous assumption.

Now the next question is how efficient is Gon at converting AP to damage. Well, the rock is just a straight aura punch. This seems to be the simplest possible action and a 100% affinity match for Gon, so I'm going to assume even Gon can hit max efficiency (100%) here. If you want to say it's possible to get 200% efficiency, then there's no point to talk about anything. The Ants have overwhelming AP total advantage, and it'd be meaningless if someone can simply train themselves to a 1000% efficiency.

Now Netero has mastered aura, so you can assume he can do all kinds of complicated stuff at 100% efficiency. But, he still won't be able to go above it. So, if using Gon as a reference point, Netero should never be able to break the 1 AP = 1 damage barrier. Note that his move does a ton of very useful side effects on top of damage, and they almost certailnly have to cost a bit more than 1 AP per damage.

Aura abilities are modified by the difficulty of the restriction. We know Netero needed around 5 seconds to finish praying originally, and this can be thought of as his restriction (must pray before attacking). We also know this time can be reduced to under 0.1s.

For sake of convenience, let's say Jajaken takes exactly 5 seconds to charge up. I realize we don't have any reference of time for Gon's charging time, but it sure looks like it takes a while. Can this charging time ever be shortened? I'm thinking no. The charging time itself is part of the limitation, i.e. 'must take at least 5 seconds to charge'. In his adult form where his power is staggeringly powerful, he still acted the same as he did as a kid, i.e. charging took nontrivial time.

So you got one ability that originally requires a 5 second charging time but can be reduced by training, while the latter cannot be reduced no matter what. For there to be any balance, the latter ability has to be more powerful.

I think people overlook the fact that invinicible X 0 = 0 in HXH. Say Phinks reworked his ability so that he has to:

1. Use it while opponent can see him charging up (no hiding in a corner to get rid of some absurd situations like spinning a ton while hiding).
2. Must spin arm at least 10000 times before attacking.

Now, if he made these restrictions, it wouldn't matter if his single punch can kill Meryem. Yes that move would be invinicible but it has no possible chance of working on anything except a stationary object. Even if someone is way overmatched against him, that's more than enough time to run away. Anyone capable of fighting back would just attack him long before he finished charging up. So his move is invincible but it's also useless, because nobody will ever let him finish using it.

Gon can clearly use Jajaken without saying it. I'm guessing if that was a restriction, it's got to be minuscule because it's not like anyone can't tell he's charging up. So even if it was one, it's not one that matters at all. I mean you can easily make a restriction like "Must use this move against a human being", and the aura God will probably give you a small bonus because it's a restriction, but it definitely won't be anything worth mentioning. Like Morel said, even seemingly trivial things (Leol put on a headphone) can function as a restriction, though you'd only get trivial improvement for truly trivial restrictions.

 

[Uriel]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

I have some thought that just hit me and it's about second aptitudes. I don't understand if that means a second school or just a second ability.

And your question is solved for me merely with training and that was the cost for Netero to work it (To use almost 10 years alone swinging a punch and a pray and doing that alone seems a high cost able to reach that much power)
Anyway, I'm more biased to think that it's because a materialization statue which does not work in the same way as Intensification. About this, I think Knuckles had a very good set of info to see the fight between Intensification users but it's merely useless against more difficult abilities. Note that was used with Gon, Zitoh and Yupi...All three physical attackers or with techniques that weren't complicate in that sense (Note that Zitoh fought with an special ability with Morel only, not Knuckles)
I understand what you said about restrictions but I don't think the time used is a definite restriction or at least can be reduced by taking time training it as Netero did and He will be able to reduce the time. The cost will be all those years spent on it. Ok, He already sacrificed that so let's no talk about it :P

To the other point; I doubt the conversion of aura to damage is quite exactly reflected on the number in a proper way, even stated by Knuckles. My take goes like this: 1AP is different from each one. This thought started when I saw the particles of Nen that Meruem was able to do to feel the...well, everything. It may be a silly thought, but I think that there is some kind of relation between each one aura. I guess it's going too far but Togashi doesn't draw every aura the same way. When I look Kastro one it's kinda of pointy and "solid" while Gon is fluid and the one of Killua always seems in motion. Don't know if I'm being clear with this, but in the end what I'm trying to say that 1AP is a different measure for each fighter and it's the number of the energy required for the aura to move or act.

 

[kkck]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

I don't see why you think of the charging time as a part of the limitation in the same context as a condition/pledge/determination. When in the manga has such a thing been even vaguely implied? For gon to use rock he must move aura from around his body into his fist, that is the most basic thing about it, that is in itself the charging. Why wouldn't the charging time improve if gon becomes more adept at moving his own aura (which we know for a fact that for him it is still a slow, awkward and easy to read process even for regular attacks)? Gon has the liberty of adding any restrictions to his nen, that is his priviledge however when advised on the matter gon has been told he needs no such thing hence not to do it. He could do something franklin-ish to show his conviction (say, gon will always charge for 5 seconds regardless of the circumstances) however the manga has never even vaguely hinted at that either.

I also insist on taking a look at uvo for this matter. He used the big bang impact, a nen charged punch which is by all intents and purposes the same as gon's rock (except that it is much more powerful).
http://www.mangafox.com/manga/hunter_x_hunter/v09/c076/5.html
How long did it take him to charge? It took him the time it took him to punch. Of course putting in more time to charge would result in an user being able to put more nen in a punch. The charging time and the resulting power is a direct reflection of the power skill and power the user has. Nen users can only emit a limited amount of aura and move it around themselves at a limited speed. In that regard the charging time and resulting power depend initially on how much nen the user is initially covered with (which increases with training), how much of that the user intends to put into the punch and how fast nen moves around the body (which increases with training). Not all techniques require pledges and conditions, heck, the manga made a point of saying reinforcement users rarely use any and actually don't need them (Phinks is an exception though).

---------- Post added at 04:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:24 PM ----------

There are still two things which I have been wondering about for a while. I always found the explanation given in the manga about reinforcement to be too ambiguous. The basic techniques of nen are ten, ren, zetsu and hatsu. Gyo and then the more advanced relevant techniques are ken, ko, in and ryu. At least as far as ten, ren and zetsu I would think any type of nen user would be capable of implementing them and experience the same results unless there is an inherent difference in overall skill or physical power. So when exactly does the reinforcement part kicks in? We actually saw killua and gon training the advanced nen control techniques and when they were doing the ones that would seem to concern reinforcement more it seemed like killua was even better at it (killua could get more rocks with shu than gon for example) and when they practiced ryu (concentrating more aura in different parts of their body) killua never appeared to be at a disadvantage against gon even though gon was a reinforcement and killua wasn't. So where exactly does the reinforcement part kick in? Anyone can do ken, ryu, shu, or ko, those are simply advanced techniques.

Another thing is what could be the purpose of the rest of kurapica's chains. We have seen him use several effects. He has a healing chain, a trapping chain, a judgement chain, a dowsing chain and a number of other ones which have not been elaborated upon. He could give them any ability he wants however we could still speculate. He must want to have abilities to make up for the fact that he has one chain which can only be used against the ryodan and no one else and one that can only be used when the use will somehow concern the ryodan. Basically, 2 chains which are virtually useless in 99% of fighting situations. He has 5 chains so he could have at least 1 more ability on which he should put A LOT of thought since it will be his only real weapon once the spider is gone. I one possibility is that he could use it for manipulation. He would need very strict conditions to use it as he is somewhat far from that category (unless he is in emperor time). His condition to manipulate someone could be at least to trap him with the chain. Perhaps a more standard attack chain would fit better though, kinda like it extending and being capable of chasing someone around to cause damage- basically he has free control over it. In emperor time it would be extremely powerful once reinforcement is added (perhaps a restriction would have to be that he can't use the chain to trap enemies to keep the integrity of his other chain and not dying though).

---------- Post added at 05:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:58 PM ----------

I have some thought that just hit me and it's about second aptitudes. I don't understand if that means a second school or just a second ability.

And your question is solved for me merely with training and that was the cost for Netero to work it (To use almost 10 years alone swinging a punch and a pray and doing that alone seems a high cost able to reach that much power)
Anyway, I'm more biased to think that it's because a materialization statue which does not work in the same way as Intensification. About this, I think Knuckles had a very good set of info to see the fight between Intensification users but it's merely useless against more difficult abilities. Note that was used with Gon, Zitoh and Yupi...All three physical attackers or with techniques that weren't complicate in that sense (Note that Zitoh fought with an special ability with Morel only, not Knuckles)
I understand what you said about restrictions but I don't think the time used is a definite restriction or at least can be reduced by taking time training it as Netero did and He will be able to reduce the time. The cost will be all those years spent on it. Ok, He already sacrificed that so let's no talk about it :P

To the other point; I doubt the conversion of aura to damage is quite exactly reflected on the number in a proper way, even stated by Knuckles. My take goes like this: 1AP is different from each one. This thought started when I saw the particles of Nen that Meruem was able to do to feel the...well, everything. It may be a silly thought, but I think that there is some kind of relation between each one aura. I guess it's going too far but Togashi doesn't draw every aura the same way. When I look Kastro one it's kinda of pointy and "solid" while Gon is fluid and the one of Killua always seems in motion. Don't know if I'm being clear with this, but in the end what I'm trying to say that 1AP is a different measure for each fighter and it's the number of the energy required for the aura to move or act.

The way I understood it, the secondary aptitudes are simply about which other nen type you lean towards other than the original one. Gon has reinforcement which means the nen types which suit him best to learn after that are either emission or transmutation. However, you won't have the same acquisition rate for the two of them (that is a generalization). For example, during gon's training with bisk we learned that gon is an enhancer leaning towards emission. I don't think it necessarily implies anything in particular. Someone developing an ability could go about it either way IMO. For example, gon created 3 separate techniques corresponding to 3 different nen types. Other people use techniques which require their main type in conjunction with other nen types (for example kurapica uses materialization with reinforcement to heal and genzuru used emission, manipulation and conjuration).

Also, are we sure the statue is materialized? It could as easily be emission like razon's nen puppets or the ones kurapica fought in the mansion. If it was emission then it probably also used transformation to take that shape though.


Dunno, for me 1 ap would invariably be one AP. That is the whole point of having a measuring system. Now, the issue is a thing of skill along with physical prowess. Gon's paper used the same amount of nen as his rock however since he is still not very adequate at emission he wastes a lot of power doing that. Its not that the same amount of power yields less result, its just that he is not good at making the technique efficiently in the first place.

As far as taking a look at the auras there are a few things to consider though. Is the user using ten? Or is it a ren or even a ken?

 

[Phantron]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

Reinforcement effect kicks in virtually everything that involves physical damage. Refer to Kurapika's teacher first going over what happens in the simplest case a Reinforcement user attempts to punch you at 100% output and a Materialize user defend at 100% output. The problem is that the Materialize can use 100% of his AP, but will only get 60% the effect because Reinforcement isn't his school (you're reinforcing your body), so he takes damage equal to 40% of the Reinforcement user's maximum power and that's bad. It's actually worse than that, because he also only learn Reinforcment to 60% the level compared to the natural, so you're really taking damage equal to 64% of the opponent's output.

100 + 100 - (100 + 36) = -64.

Kurapika's special ability negates the modifier but not the level modifier, so he takes 40% damage in that case. You can see that he broke his arm blocking Ubogin's attack, so he is not at the same level as Ubogin. But a broken arm is a relatively minor wound in HXH. If he didn't have special ability, he might be missing an arm completely, though in HXH even that isn't terible.

You can see this in the Kurapika versus Ubogin fight almost exactly. Ubogin said he was holding back, but presumably this means aura power not physical power (he sure doesn't look like he's trying to punch weaker than normal). Kurapika has a modifier of 1.6. Ubogin at 20% power (1.2) did no damage to Kurapika. Ubogin then went to 50% power (1.5), and Kurapika avoided his attack easily, but also didn't do any damage to Ubogin. At this point, they're essentially equal (1.6 versus 1.5), which is why Kurapika says it's just a waste of time if you're holding back. Ubogin then went to 100% (2.0) and was able to hurt to Kurapika immediately. However, a broken arm just isn't that big of a deal in HXH, so while Kurapika took damage, it's an amount he can certainly manage. Note that if he didn't have his special abliity, he'd be a 1.36 (0.6^2), and in that case he might be looking at a missing arm as opposed to a broken arm, and that'd be pretty bad.

The calculation is only for people with identical base stats. Obviously someone who is physically stronger than you can make up some differences. Razor is Emission and Biscuit is Transformation, and both are clearly in a higher physical strength class compared to other characters at that point. It also gives you a relative idea of where the classes stand. Hisoka broke his finger from the ball thrown by one of Razor's clone, while Gon sustained minor injuries from Razor himself. The manga doesn't make a big deal about fighting in the '1 away' situation. You know the Reinforcement guy is always the strongest by force but it's not an amount that cannot be handled by someone who is one away.

There's also considerable overlapping in terms of creating helpers for Manipulation/Materialize/Emission. I guess the interpretation is that you can project your aura and give it some relatively simple command and that'd be within the realm of Emission, not Materialize/Manipulation. It may have something to do with the difficulty of the helpers you're creating. Razor's clones do relatively simple things (catch ball, throw ball). Kastro's clone is sentinent so it uses Materialize/Manipulation.

For the various basic application of aura, it can be assumed anyone at a high level automatically uses whatever they need for the situation. It's only explained for the main characters because they're newbies so they might actually forget these things (though pretty strange the Spiders needed to be reminded of that too).

Kurapika already said he doesn't care about whether his abiltiies are of any use against other people. It's part of his resolve which is why his abilities against the Spiders are strong. If he made an ability 'just in case' against other people, it'd basically weaken his resolve against the Spiders and he'd never be so strong against them in the first place. You don't bargain with the God of Aura. Netero's prayer is a borderline crazy action. It used to take him 5 seconds to do that too and anybody of reasonable power can attack him during that time. He didn't start this ability expecting he'll eventually be able to pray so fast (it said he was surprised when he was done with the daily prayer routine and the sun hasn't set yet). If Netero said, "I'm going to pray but just in case I can't do it fast enough, I'll make the praying part optional", then the Kannon will be greatly weakened because he has dramatically lowered the risk.

Did people ever notice that Chain Jail has a fatal flaw once you know it's criteria? Hisoka quit the group on his own will, so it'd appear other members can quit too. Kuroro can certainly kick someone off the group. He can even say we're now reforming as the Killer Frogs. Remember, Kurapika doesn't even know what all the members of the Spider look like (Pakunoda was the one who handed him the fake Scarlet Eyes on the auction). Therefore his condition has to be that there are these group of people known as "Phantom Troupe" and even though he has no idea who they are, it only works on these guys. But if the Phantom Troupe changed their name, then his ability is completely useless. Of course, Kuroro isn't someone who will wimp out like that, but certainly all the members of the Spider can choose to quit given Hisoka's example. Presumably most of the Spiders view their membership as a badge of honor and would rather die than quit, but someone like Kalluto probably doesn't value the tag so much.

 

[kkck]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

Using the exact same ambiguous explanation given in the manga and which you have used in other posts does not help lol.

When exactly does reinforcement start? If two people, one of reinforcement and one of materialization, fight using exclusively ren -a generic nen technique- would the reinforcement have an advantage in spite of the two of them being of the same skill and physical capacity? Or is reinforcement something else other than generically covering something with aura? Or does reinforcement work in such a way that there is a difference between a fist with nen and a fist reinforced with nen? The manga has never even implied that during training gon's ren, gyo, ken or ko are in any way superior to killua's and that is considering the two spared a few times using said techniques (for example using ryu which required the user to concentrate nen in different areas).

 

[Phantron]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

Using the exact same ambiguous explanation given in the manga and which you have used in other posts does not help lol.

When exactly does reinforcement start? If two people, one of reinforcement and one of materialization, fight using exclusively ren -a generic nen technique- would the reinforcement have an advantage in spite of the two of them being of the same skill and physical capacity? Or is reinforcement something else other than generically covering something with aura? Or does reinforcement work in such a way that there is a difference between a fist with nen and a fist reinforced with nen? The manga has never even implied that during training gon's ren, gyo, ken or ko are in any way superior to killua's and that is considering the two spared a few times using said techniques (for example using ryu which required the user to concentrate nen in different areas).

The reinforcement guy has to have an advantage or what's the point to even be in that school if you can't reinforce your body?

The affinity refers to potential, not talent. Let's say that level 10 is the max anyone can ever reach in HXH (if cap is variable then affinity is pointless, someone could have a cap of level 1000). This means Gon can learn up to level 10 Reinforcement, and Killua can learn up to level 8 Reinforcement. However, this says NOTHING on how quickly they can learn these levels. Indeed, what if Gon just decided he didn't need to train at all because he's special? Killua shows superior talent compared to Gon in all his training. He can master the same techinque in less time than Gon, and since they're only beginners at this point, neither is close to hitting their ceiling. It's entirely possible Killua learned up to say, level 6 Reinforcement already while Gon is still at level 5. The base case in the manga only applies to two people with identical stats.

But at some point, Killua will hit a bottleneck due to his natural limit, and Gon can surpass him if he chooses to put in the training effort. Killua will peak earlier than Gon, but Gon will have higher potential (at least in the Reinforcement school). We also see Gon took less time to learn Emission level 1 compared to Transform level 1. Again, according to the manga his potential is the same in both, but he clearly favors Emission over Transform. So, using the same scale, Gon may train Emission up to level 8, but decide to quit earlier on Transform because it's taking too long to learn. After all, training in HXH is extremely time intensive. If it'd take him 100 years to learn up to Transform level 8, then it's clearly not worth spending the time to learn.

Later on, most advanced techniques actually use multiple schools at once (Kannon can't be just one school). So without knowing what mix of ability is involved, you can't predict much. Let's say there are two Neteros, one is Emission and other is Reinforcement. If Togashi reveals that Kannon is actually 99% Emission and 1% Reinforcement, then you'd expect the Emission type Netero to always have an edge over the Reinforcement type Netero when both use the same technique. I'm guessing the point of advanced technique is that something like the Kannon might be 50% Emission 50% Reinforce, so whether you're Reinforce or Emission naturally, it'd still be the same, so you don't have Reinforcement absolutely dominating.

 

[kkck]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

I am not saying the reinforcements guys do not have an advantage and you did not quite answer the question. I guess it comes down to this, "does reinforcement work in such a way that there is a difference between a fist with nen -which anyone can do and is basically ren, ten or their applications- and a fist reinforced with nen?".

Now, the issue as far as reinforcement during training goes is that based on what we have seen what gon does is pretty much all there is to it. So when does the difference in the learning curve start? Unless of course there is a difference between putting nen into something (which would make ten, ren, ko, shu, ryu and so on not everything reinforcement is about) and actually using nen to reinforce something -which would be visually the same as using nen on something while at the same time producing a much stronger result-.

 

[Phantron]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

I just noticed we're arguing between basic and advanced technique. They're very different in terms of affinity because conditions are a multiplier while basic techniques are mostly additive.

Using Knuckle's scale, Gon's fist hits for about 100 damage. He strengthen it to 200, and a Materialize type clone of Gon defends with 100 + 36 and takes 64 damage. Reinforcement Gon has a significant edge here.

However, moves like Jajaken is multiplicative. Knuckles say he feels a debt of 10000 is safe. That's 1000 per 10 second of interest, so using 1 AP -> 1 damage for rock, that'd imply his worst case scenario is 'get hit by rock every 20 seconds'. That seems to be a reasonable worst case, so we'll use X10 as modifier for damage done by Jajaken compared to a normal punch. It certainly appears to hit a lot harder than that.

Now let's say Manipulate type Gon uses the Jajaken and he has mastered the limit of his Reinforcement abilities. It consumes 2000 AP, deailng (136*10) = 1360 damage. That's still way more than Reinforcement type Gon can do normally. We don't know how these numbers scale exactly, but 2000 was enough to knock out Knuckles from full health, so 1360 is still a signficant amount of damage. Of course, Reinforcement type Gon can simply use the exact same move for 2000 damage, but if Manipulate type Gon somehow got the attack off first, even a Reinforcement user could be severely wounded.

Now, knowing HXH, it's practically impossible a Manipulate user would have the personality that fits the Jajaken, but even if you halve the effectiveness, 720 is still comparable to about 4 hits from full strength, so it'll still hurt the opponent, though using 2000 AP for 720 damage has to be a pretty lousy trade.

---------- Post added at 07:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:35 PM ----------

I am not saying the reinforcements guys do not have an advantage and you did not quite answer the question. I guess it comes down to this, "does reinforcement work in such a way that there is a difference between a fist with nen -which anyone can do and is basically ren, ten or their applications- and a fist reinforced with nen?".

Now, the issue as far as reinforcement during training goes is that based on what we have seen what gon does is pretty much all there is to it. So when does the difference in the learning curve start? Unless of course there is a difference between putting nen into something (which would make ten, ren, ko, shu, ryu and so on not everything reinforcement is about) and actually using nen to reinforce something -which would be visually the same as using nen on something while at the same time producing a much stronger result-.

Reinforcement can be used on anything, but reinforcing anything besides your body isn't very smart usually. Take the guy in Celestial Tower who uses spinning tops as a weapon. Making the tops spin faster is reinforcement. However, if all you're doing is make them spin faster, that's not exactly useful. You've to have some way to turn it into a weapon, and you'd need Manipulate to control where these spinning tops go. Note that all the guy was able to do is make the tops spin around in random directions and hope they somehow hit someone.

Even for basic techniques, reinforcement only applies to stuff that's clearly related to damage. There's quite a few basic techniques that has nothing to do with damage. There's no reason to believe any school would naturally have a wider radius in the Circle ability, for example.

---------- Post added at 07:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:46 PM ----------

I think you can only reinforce physical objects, though, and not aura-based objects. If two identical users of Emission/Reinforce agreed to just shoot aura fireballs at each other, I don't think you can say "I reinforced the aura fireballs". Here you'd expect the Emission user to do more damage, though the Reinforcement user might be better able to shrug them off on the defense. Otherwise that'd make Reinforcement the God school, since you can just say "I reinforced my Manipulate ability!" "I reinforced my Materialize ability!"

 

[kkck]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

I don't think you can reinforce nen either.... I don't know how that would work as in a best case scenario that would mean just putting more aura into something. Reinforcing objects can be a good idea though. Take nobunaga. He reinforces a real sword which is bound to work phenomenally well if he actually knows how to use it. It would work even better if that particular sword has a special meaning to him. Reinforcing a nen created object would only work in a properly materialized object IMO however that would be limited by a materializer's skill is reinforcement which can't be much.

I was going through the fight between gon and knuckle and remembered an important detail. Knuckle said the aura that cover's gon's body was at around 1800 points however the aura from gon's rock was at 1800 points. In strictly numerical terms that makes no sense whatsoever as gon should only be able to put into rock as much aura as is covering his body at that moment. In that regard, I think that is where the reinforcement part kicks in. He gets better than expected results from concentrating a particular amount of aura in one particular area.

 

[Phantron]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

I think the Hunter's body is already close to the strongest material in the world (not counting Ants). Feitan attempted to reinforce his sword and broke it against Zanza. Nobunaga is a matter of Battou and that can easily be thought of a restriction, since Battou is one of those tecniques if you don't kill the enemy on first hit then you're dead (becuase you'd leave a huge opening). Kurapika's master told him if all he wanted to do is make a sharp sword you're better off just buying a sharp sword, so it seems like using aura to reinforce/create physical objects can't overcome the raw physical power of an equivalent skilled Hunter. Of course, aura created object can do more than just damage, but if you want just damage, you're better off buying a good sword (or invest in bombs).

I don't think the amount of AP you can use at once is related to school. Pufu and Pitou can both control an entire army at once. That sure sounds like using up a lot of AP at once even though neither are anywhere close to Reinforcement, not to mention the task itself has nothing to do with Reinforcement either.

I'm pretty sure Gon's ability to use a staggering amount of AP at once is partly heritage and partly tied to his special move. Defense in HXH appears subtractive. For example, Netero hit Meryem hundreds of times, and did no real damage. If one of his punch does 1000 damage, does that mean Meryem can withstand a punch that does 100000 damage? I doubt that. It's got to be something like Meryem's body can absorb 999 points of damage, so each hit only does 1 damage, and 100 hits at 1 damage = 100 damage to him. If it was possible to simply put more power in the Kannon, Netero would've done it already. So we can assume Kannon already uses his maximum AP output (not counting Zero, which has a nasty restriction). The only way Netero can increase his AP output is by using the Zero, which carries a considerable restriction (seems to suck up his life energy), and the Zero obviously did more damage to Meryem, so it has to use more AP too.

Going back to Gon, his move really has a very significant restriction. Like Knuckles say, there are many ways to deal with the charging motion. Also, you can just start running away in the opposite direction if you want to be safe (Gensuru said you can't hold that amount of aura in your hand for long, so even if Gon chases you, it'll likely dissapiate if you have enough distance). Even when Gon faked a Jajaken, he still uses up the same total AP, i.e.

1. Gon readies Jajaken (2000 AP used)
2. Enemy reacts
3. Gon cancels Jajaken
4. Gon uses the opening to do a second Jajaken (2000 more AP used)

Note that what makes his enemy nervous is the gathering of aura in his hand, so you can't fake that part. If he wants to look like he's gathering 2K of AP, he has to use up 2K AP. He can by pass the charging restriction by simply aborting the attack, but he still used up 2K AP and it's not even clear if this is a good idea. However since Jajaken is essentially a one hit kill move, I guess it's worth it if you land a hit even at the cost of 2X the AP.

 

[kkck]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

It is very unlikely feitan is an enhancer though. As far as hunters having stronger bodies than any material I have my doubts specially if nen comes into play. I don't think hunter bodies would be able to tank through bullets and other sort of weapons without nen for one thing. Even Uvo had at least his ren up when he took on a barrage of bullets and a bazooka. Other than that we have no reference of a nen user stopping bullets with their muscles alone and no nen though. A reinforced sword IMO would be something to watch out for, specially if the sword is of good quality, nobunaga cares for it and he reinforces it. I doubt there are many people around who would not get caught by it.

AP release in general is not necessarily related to school but it would be if we are talking special techniques. Kinda like with the difference between gon's rock and paper. I do doubt the amount of categories other than reinforcement would result in an AP output superior to what they can have around their bodies though.

Also, I get the impression you are making every detail you can scrape of a technique as a form of determination or condition to make it stronger. I don't think it works that way, sometimes it is just a flaw in the technique or simply outright ineptitude. Charging time for gon is not a condition to fulfill a pledge nor proof of his determination, he is simply lame at moving nen around his body and concentrating in on his hand. Enhancers do not need complicated techniques which would require conditions or pledges. Gon was specifically told not to go that way and the manga has not given us any indication that he has gone against this.

 

[Phantron]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

Feitan is above average in the arm wrestling chart so he can't be very far away from Reinforcement. He's obviously a fighter member of the Spiders too and most people in Spiders with special abilities that aren't geared for fighting tend to be far away Reinforcement (Shalunark, Pakunoda, Shizuku).

If you use aura to reinforce a physical object, the guy defending can use aura to reinforce his body. I've seen no indication of existence some materials that can trivially pierce the physical body of a Hunter unless you count the Rose. Let's take a regular gun, which is actually one of the most powerful weapons in terms of pure destructive power compared to say, a sword. There's no a way Hunter will die to a regular bullet shot even without using aura. Sure, some of them could be wounded by a bullet, I can buy that, but it can't possibly kill them in one shot. So, you reinforce bullets with aura, but the Hunter can defend by reinforcing his body. If the two guys are exactly equal, then it's just canceled out, so it's exactly the same as the physical object versus the body of the Hunter. I don't think Hunter's body are indestructible, but there doesn't appear to be any object that can trivially kill a Hunter if he's not using aura,

In the manga it says Gon's paper consumes just as much AP as rock. It did very little damage compared to rock because he is inefficient at Emission. So, for the same technique he can consume up to 4000 AP for 3 different schools (no reason to assume scissor would be any different), but if you're not trained in that school it'd just not do anything useful. Paper did 500 damage for 4000 AP and Knuckles can bat it away with his hand. On the other hand a 2000 AP rock (Gon before training completed) can knock him out while he's fully defending. The numbers in HXH seems to work more like a threshold, i.e. anything below 1000 can be easily handled, once you go above there it quickly get into the realm of one hit kills.

For the restriction I'm not saying because Gon used this ability on Sunday, so part of the restriction is that it's only usable on Sundays. Think about what he modeled his technique over: the game rock paper scissors. Would you even consider something called rock paper scissors if it took 0.1s from start to finish? You can argue that if you can pray in 0.1s it's still praying, but a game of rock paper scissor in 0.1s just isn't the same game anymore. There's a very distinct "get ready" phase in the game.

When Killua got hit by the guy with darts as special ability, the darts obey the scoring system of the real game. Why does it have to do that? Can't the guy just say I'll ignore the scoring system and keep on throw darts until the other guy dies? No because if he did that, then the darts would not do any meaningful damage, if they're even usable at all. It doesn't look like the guy ever pledged: "I pledge this ability by the scoring system of darts". He's a fan of the game and just figured an ability based on darts obviously have to obey the real rules. That's what makes his ability strong, but it's also what allowed Killua to counter his ability. Gon derives extra power from the charging phase of Jajaken, but it's balanced by the fact that it is also his weakness. If you have at least the same speed as Gon, you can counter Jajaken by just running away every single time you sensed Gon gathering his aura, since his long range attack is too weak to be of any threat.

 

[kkck]

Re: Aura combat thoughts

What does physical strength have to do with being close to reinforcement? I really don't think there is a correlation between then two in the least(not a direct one at least). Heck, nobunaga is a confirmed reinforcer and a swordsman and he is ranked 8 for arm strength in the ryodan. As for feitan, based on what we saw I would think he is a conjurer. He made the armor out of nowhere, I doubt he actually had it with him and instantaneously put it on so it has to be a conjured object at least. Emission is unlikely as the armor does not actually leave his body (the sun could be argued to be emission but the conjured armor would predate it so I would still lean towards conjuration). Transformation and reinforcement would not make sense. Since he has been mentioned to have several abilities, I get the impression he can actually conjure several armors perhaps each with different effects. Also worth noting, hisoka was about to cut the body of killua with a regular card, would it make a shred of sense that a reinforced sword could be stopped by a nen guard alone? I really don't think that makes a shred of sense. IMO a hunter would get hurt just the same as anyone else with a regular weapon in the case their nen guard is not up, I don't think the manga indicates otherwise.

Gon modeled his technique after janken but that does not mean he made actual aspects of the game restrictions for the technique. Such a thing has never been stated in the manga nor we have ever been given even the slightest indication that gon saying "janken...." results in stronger nen.

The ability of the ant guy is innately different. He didn't just base his ability on the game, his ability was the game and even had the darts and dart board...

Gon does not need a condition and a pledge to do meaningful damage, that is the greatest advantage of being an enhancer. He was specifically told by ling that the power enhancers are able to call forth with even basic abilities is already enough for it to be a finishing move. Anyways, I am tired of hearing this. There is not a shred of actual manga evidence to support this at all and if anything the exact opposite is the case. If you have a manga link which vaguely supports this notion then by all means post it though.