Discussion About Aura Combat & How Nen Works

[Jack Van Burace]

@ Phantron: The fact that emission skills can be hidden doesn't change the fact one bit, as Ubo was certain Kurapica was Manipulation oriented, hence, no shots would be fired beyond 1m distance from Kurapica, and weak ones (not enough to damage him anyway).

 

[kkck]

I don't think kurapica tricking uvi into thinking he was a manipulation user had anything to do with making him think he could not fire shots. From what I recall the purpose of that was to make uvo fixate on the chain as without it kurapica would have been theoretically defenseless. Making uvo think the chain was manipulated rather than materialized allowed kurapica to hide his chain with in, which would be impossible with a real chain.

 

[Phantron]

Look at Pufu for an example of a manipulate user having powerful Emission attacks. Emission is very close to Manipulate so you'd have to assume a Manipulate user is capable of Emission attacks. After all, Kurapika's aura level diagram indicates that he pretty much learns all schools to his maximum capability as opposed to just specialize in one.

If Kurapika was truly a Manipulate user, the only difference would be that he'd throw an Emission attack instead of Chain Jail and killing Ubogin instead of incapaciating him (no way you survive a major Emission attack in the face without seeing it).

The actual difference between Manipulate/Materialize is actually pretty irrelevent because Emission + In would definitely kill you if you don't see it coming, so your enemy should always be prepared against Emission + In anyway.

 

[Uriel]

Pakunoda was a non fighting member of the ryodan, I don't think that really was a newbie mistake.

She has been on an assassin group for almost 20 years to say the least. Instant Ten and defense should be something She SHOULD manage perfectly.
BTW, not only a group but THE group.

gon was able to fool hisoka without even using zetsu (and the guy is able to detect the presence of someone under a perfect zetsu).

Gon had more distance than Kalluto when Hisoka detected it. And He's more effective at it.
Kalluto was pretty near and using Zetsu, Gon had not used Nen at all so even using En wouldn't be enough to detect him.

Although I do admit that you guys are kinda right and those were not newbies mistakes. I still think that they got a bit revised in the chimera arc anyway xD

 

[Phantron]

Gon is physically stronger than Pakunoda. Although later it seems to be implied that you can't even hurt someone in Ken without using at least Ryuu, this concept seems to be built into combat. Otherwise, what is the point of the Hisoka versus Gon match in the Tower? It should just go like:

Hisoka uses Ken.
Gon does no damage (because he doesn't know how to use Ryuu).
The end.

Also in the darkness it's not possible to know where the enemy is attacking so at best you can manage is Ken, and a full strength attack can penetrate Ken even before Ken existed as a concept. Either that or all the pre-Ken fights are a joke with guys pretending they get smacked for large amount of damage when they could've just used Ken instead.

For the detection bit, Zetsu is not invisiblity. If someone with perfect Zetsu walked in front of you, you will still be able to detect him because he is visible. If a guy using Zetsu trips on the floor, you'll still hear the sound of his face hitting the floor. If you look at the time Gon sneaked up to Hisoka, you'll see that Gon only moved when Hisoka moved, and he did it at the exact same time so that the sound of say him stepping on the leaves is canceled out by Hisoka stepping on those same leaves elsewhere. It's always been said Gon is essentially 'one with nature', and it wouldn't be a stretch to say that this skill surpasses even the stealth of the Z family.

On the other hand, En is perfect detection within its radius of effect. It's equivalent of physically touching every object in the radius. The only way to stop it is if you bring a cardboard box from MGS since En cannot penetrate solid objects. That said, the user of En will still notice there's a cardboard box around, but he wouldn't be able to tell what's inside (this is how they tricked Meryem). En will beat arbitarily level of stealth unless you can be so stealthy that people cannot tell you're a human being even when they touch you.

 

[kkck]

She has been on an assassin group for almost 20 years to say the least. Instant Ten and defense should be something She SHOULD manage perfectly.
BTW, not only a group but THE group.

Gon had more distance than Kalluto when Hisoka detected it. And He's more effective at it.
Kalluto was pretty near and using Zetsu, Gon had not used Nen at all so even using En wouldn't be enough to detect him.

Although I do admit that you guys are kinda right and those were not newbies mistakes. I still think that they got a bit revised in the chimera arc anyway xD

20 years? There is no way the group is that old. I still think you are too severe on pakunoda and other ryodan members. Even pitou took 1/10 of a second to set up his offense. Killua knew what was coming and probably thought about the move he was going to use before the light went off. One way or another, even if pakunoda could set up her ten in a second killua had the element of surprise in his favor. That fraction of a second made a huge difference in the end.

I think you are wrong about the en part though. En allows you to detect anything within your radius, not having nen would make you even more detectable. If hisoka had used his en (assuming he could) gon would have been screwed.

 

[Phantron]

20 years? There is no way the group is that old. I still think you are too severe on pakunoda and other ryodan members. Even pitou took 1/10 of a second to set up his offense. Killua knew what was coming and probably thought about the move he was going to use before the light went off. One way or another, even if pakunoda could set up her ten in a second killua had the element of surprise in his favor. That fraction of a second made a huge difference in the end.

I think you are wrong about the en part though. En allows you to detect anything within your radius, not having nen would make you even more detectable. If hisoka had used his en (assuming he could) gon would have been screwed.

Kuroro is in his late 20s. In the picture where they first formed the Spiders none of the member look younger than teens. Since Pakunoda can't possibly know where she's being attacked, at most she can manage is Ken, and you can penetrate Ken with a full powered attack even before Ken/Ryuu became a concept, otherwise none of the early fights would make any sense (or the guy who could use Ken just wants to get hurt for no reason).

En is not more or less sensitive to aura. It's merely physically detecting every object in its radius. When Meryem used it, he said he detected an octopus-shaped object and some human-shaped object (his En is special and can detect aura too). He wasn't able to detect Komugi since she's covered in Palm's hair. A cardboard box would stop En but the user of En should be suspicious why there's a cardboard box behind him. That said En is always said to be a tiresome technique to use and maintain. Nobody uses it in mid-combat, probably because En is taking whatever aura you'd have had around your body and project it in its radius, so that'd leave yourself extremely vulnerable. Pitou specifically turned off En after he detected the enemies, implying that combat while in En is a very bad idea.

 

[Uriel]

About En, you're both right. Silly me >_>

Gon is physically stronger than Pakunoda. Although later it seems to be implied that you can't even hurt someone in Ken without using at least Ryuu, this concept seems to be built into combat. Otherwise, what is the point of the Hisoka versus Gon match in the Tower? It should just go like:
Hisoka uses Ken.
Gon does no damage (because he doesn't know how to use Ryuu).
The end.

Even Hisoka stated that it was not a real fight. He was testing and playing with him all along. He's meticulous also into showing his skills, so I wouldn't put that as an example.

Also in the darkness it's not possible to know where the enemy is attacking so at best you can manage is Ken, and a full strength attack can penetrate Ken even before Ken existed as a concept. Either that or all the pre-Ken fights are a joke with guys pretending they get smacked for large amount of damage when they could've just used Ken instead.

Because you can't attack it's pertinent then to go all defense. Ten or Ren would have been enough to avoid damage from that nenless kick.

On the other hand, En is perfect detection within its radius of effect. It's equivalent of physically touching every object in the radius. The only way to stop it is if you bring a cardboard box from MGS since En cannot penetrate solid objects. That said, the user of En will still notice there's a cardboard box around, but he wouldn't be able to tell what's inside (this is how they tricked Meryem). En will beat arbitarily level of stealth unless you can be so stealthy that people cannot tell you're a human being even when they touch you.

With that said let's remember that regular En should not be more than 50m (Zeno, and that was a HUGE range as recall) and Gon was even more far away than that. So it was impossible for Hisoka to detect Gon with En at that time.

20 years? There is no way the group is that old. I still think you are too severe on pakunoda and other ryodan members. Even pitou took 1/10 of a second to set up his offense. Killua knew what was coming and probably thought about the move he was going to use before the light went off. One way or another, even if pakunoda could set up her ten in a second killua had the element of surprise in his favor. That fraction of a second made a huge difference in the end.

I may be too severe, but they were on a mission, expecting to kill. Having all your senses to the top is almost basic.

And fraction of second shouldn't be an issue since we all know that fights in HxH are decided in less than that.

 

[Jack Van Burace]

Emission is very close to Manipulate so you'd have to assume a Manipulate user is capable of Emission attacks.

Reinforcement is as well, but look at Gon's ability with Paper, even after the "growing up" boost. I believe nobody besides Emitters are actually capable of deadly "In hidden" shots. Those made by others would likely hurt, but either be close range compared to an actual emitter or too weak for hurting Ubo's Reinforced body.

 

[Phantron]

Reinforcement is as well, but look at Gon's ability with Paper, even after the "growing up" boost. I believe nobody besides Emitters are actually capable of deadly "In hidden" shots. Those made by others would likely hurt, but either be close range compared to an actual emitter or too weak for hurting Ubo's Reinforced body.

If you're a guy who has fought countless battles to the death, you shouldn't just assume 'maybe the other guy sucks at his secondary school'. Gon's bad at Emission because he lacked training. Not to mention Ubogin can't decide if Kurapika was Reinforcement or Manipulate or Materialize, which implies he sees Kurapika's showing a high level of skill in every school.

Nobody in the story has actually done damaging Emission attacks + In, but if you just read In as is, there's no reason why it shouldn't work. I'm guessing originally there might be some limitation to whether you can combo Emission with In, but eventually Togashi realized that'd really make no sense because by the time you get to a guy like Razor, he has to be capable of using deadly Emission attacks with In at the same time, and that means anyone who doesn't know how to deal with In dies immediately if they fight a Razor class opponent. Now Razor is of course one of the stronger characters we've seen so far in HXH, but if you assume it's common to get fooled by In, that'd mean in a hypothetical Spiders versus Razor fight, a fearsome organization could lose a bunch of guys before they figured out the enemy is using In.

I think In originally is intended to be a supplemental skill, except if you combine it with any powerful Emission attacks it is now instant kill, and since In works on any aura-based technique, you really can't explain why people wouldn't just hide their powerful aura blasts when it's clearly advantageous to do so. Therefore it got phased out and it's assumed that everyone of reasonable skill just has have aura vision maintained permanently and you never see anyone talking about In again. I mean, people can maintain Ken for the entire duration of the battle, and that's way harder than just maintaining vision, and given the risk involved (a missed In pretty much can kill you), there's no reason not to maintain vision all the time.

---------- Post added at 03:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:07 PM ----------

About En, you're both right. Silly me >_>

Even Hisoka stated that it was not a real fight. He was testing and playing with him all along. He's meticulous also into showing his skills, so I wouldn't put that as an example.


Because you can't attack it's pertinent then to go all defense. Ten or Ren would have been enough to avoid damage from that nenless kick.

With that said let's remember that regular En should not be more than 50m (Zeno, and that was a HUGE range as recall) and Gon was even more far away than that. So it was impossible for Hisoka to detect Gon with En at that time.


I may be too severe, but they were on a mission, expecting to kill. Having all your senses to the top is almost basic.

And fraction of second shouldn't be an issue since we all know that fights in HxH are decided in less than that.

Ken alone cannot stop a concentrated attack even if the attacker doesn't know how to use Ryuu. Otherwise all the guys who knew Ken (as indicated later) but took damage must just be fond of pain for no reason. You can't use Ryuu or Ko if you don't know where the enemy is attacking since you'd probably die if you block the wrong spot, so all Pakunoda can do is Ken. I really see nothing strange that a person physically stronger than you can hurt you through your Ken.

 

[Uriel]

Ken alone cannot stop a concentrated attack even if the attacker doesn't know how to use Ryuu. Otherwise all the guys who knew Ken (as indicated later) but took damage must just be fond of pain for no reason. You can't use Ryuu or Ko if you don't know where the enemy is attacking since you'd probably die if you block the wrong spot, so all Pakunoda can do is Ken. I really see nothing strange that a person physically stronger than you can hurt you through your Ken.

Was Gon using Nen in that kick? Was She protecting anyway with ANY technique? Togashi in all that arc showed pretty much obviously when a character was using any technique aside of Zetsu.

 

[Jack Van Burace]

@ Phantron: even so, one must consider Ubo's Reinforcement make him nearly undestructible. Why bother with emissions when they likely won't be able to penetrate his skin? The way he fought those mafia guys earlier that day says a lot about how reckless he can be towards damage.

Usually, for a guy like him, as long as the user can't put some condition on him, he's fine. He's the top on his school, and physically strong even without Nen, what makes him even deadlier for a Reinforcer. But since the condition schools suck at distance attacks, all he's gotta do is finish them asap if they ever come in close range, and keep his distance the rest of the time. His strategy suits him perfectly.

Imho, no Emitter would injure Ubo as much as Ubo would injure them. In order to deal with him, only conditions can apply (the three lower schools) and those need to get closer in order to pull their tricks. He was nearly invincibe if it weren't for Kurapica's preemptive arrangements. And not just invincible for Kurapica but for anyone.

 

[Phantron]

If you take an Emission attack in the face without seeing it coming without dying, then there's not even a chance the Emission guy can possibly defeat the Reinforcement guy at all.

When Kurapika punched Ubogin in the face while he was captured, he still bled. You can say a Reinforcement guy may be able to block the attack from a Materialized sword on his body, but he's not going to block that with say, his neck. Otherwise the Reinforcement user might as well be invulnerable against any other users that does physical-based attack. Forced Zetsu is an extremely difficult condition to meet. For that matter, paralyze alone wouldn't be enough because you can still use aura while paralyzed, so even if a Reinforcement user is paralyzed, he should not take any damage if his body is truly indestructible. We know this isn't the case as Shalunark says that paralyze would be enough to defeat Ubogin, implying that even with full mastery of aura and innate advantage of a Reinforcement, you're still not going to beat someone while you're completely incapable of moving.

If two identical Reinforcement both used Ko, one used it on his hand and the other used it on his head, you wouldn't expect the outcome to be neither takes damage. The guy using the head to attack is likely to have some kind of concussion compraed to the guy who used his hand.

Again in HXH it's more about exchange of damage as opposed to not taking damage. If Ubogin punches an Emission guy, that guy most likely blocks with hand and may get injuried roughly the same degree as Kurapika was (0.8^2 = 0.64, very close to 0.6*1 = 0.6). But if the Emission guy throws back a projectile at his face that he didn't dodge (or just didn't see at all), you can't expect his face to block that attack. It's hard to imagine Ubogin just take an attack in the face without dodging, but if he doesn't know how to deal with In, then that should be entirely possible. After all, you can't possibly dodge what you can't see.

 

[Jack Van Burace]

Forced Zetsu is an extremely difficult condition to meet. For that matter, paralyze alone wouldn't be enough because you can still use aura while paralyzed, so even if a Reinforcement user is paralyzed, he should not take any damage if his body is truly indestructible. We know this isn't the case as Shalunark says that paralyze would be enough to defeat Ubogin, implying that even with full mastery of aura and innate advantage of a Reinforcement, you're still not going to beat someone while you're completely incapable of moving.

Dump a paralized person on a bay and see if resilience will do any good. He could get drowned for once, buried alive, or left locked away to starve to death. Doesn't mean he's physically vulnerable to damage, being paralized is quite a disadvantage for many reasons. Imho, only people able to apply special conditions could defeat Ubo, no emitter or reinforcer, since he was both physically incredible and a top rank reinforcer.

 

[Phantron]

Kuroro cut open Silva's skin and Silva remarked "that's a good knife", implying that the sharpness of the knife is mostly responsible for the wound. If you stab a Reinforcement user in the head, it's still going to get through and you wouldn't need to make a very deep wound to kill someone when you stab them on the head.

Now of course nobody is going to be crazy enough to try to block a knife or a fireball wtih their head, but that's what you could end up doing if you can't handle In. Here's a very simple case. As a Materialize user, I use no weapons at all. I materialize an invisible sword and use it to cut through your neck. It doens't have to be very deep wound, because if you sever one of the main arteries near there the other guy is dead. They say the stuff you can materialize has a strength comparable to top quality real items, so if a knife can cut Silva (clearly one of the most powerful users), a materialized sword should be able to cut Ubogin too. You won't be able to cut very deep, but if you cut in the right places, you wouldn't need to.

Of course Ubogin's is described as someone having top notch physical skills too, but you can't dodge what you cannot see. There are just far too many ways you can lose to In in a variety of combos if you don't know how to handle it. Again, given how powerful In is, it'd be basically impossible for anyone to actually survive more than a couple fights without figuring how to counter it every single time because the time you missed it is most likely the time you'll end up dead. Therefore you should never be tricked into not using aura vision because it's simply too risky.

---------- Post added at 02:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:51 PM ----------

Actualy it's not even just limited to Reinforcement users. Say you got 2 Materialize users and both materialize a sword. It'd be reasonable to assume their sword can kill each other (both would have lowish physical defense due to distance from Reinforcement). So what's stopping the first guy just pretending he has no weapons and then use In on his sword and kill the other guy? After all if you see someone with no weapon you'll probably assume he's Reinforcement or Emission, and then you'd die to the sword + In combo.

It's not so much as what Kurapika did, but rather in the world of HXH it'd be unfathomable to survive without knowing how to handle In. You'd just randomly have your head chopped off or your face mauled by a fireball, and the first time you failed to counter In is likely to be your last time. Certainly we see failure to counter In leads to devastating consequences, and honestly neither Chain Jail nor Hisoka's bubblegum is an ability designed to kill you. As Shalunark said, it'd be way easier to materialize chains that paralyze you compared to Chain Jail, and that + In would definitely kill anyone too if they didn't see it coming.

---------- Post added at 02:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:06 PM ----------

Here's another one. Gon's scissor projects aura in the form of a sword and it's basically like a long claw attached to his hands. Given he totally sucks at Transformation, it can be inferred that projecting aura in the form of a sword/claw attached to your hand is pretty easy. This can be hidden by In, so you can just keep an open palm, try to hit someone, and if they don't see the claw/sword they have a chance to die from that thinking they only need to stay away the length of your hand. So even a Reinforcement user can kill you easily with In if you don't see it coming.

There's literally an endless number of ways you can die horribly to In if you don't know how to handle it, so it's pretty much inconceiveable that anyone from the Spiders do not know how to handle it, because if they don't they'd have already died. I don't mean this means that Ubogin is a newbie. I think he's just the last person to die to In before Togashi also realized there are an endless number of ways you can die to In and it'd be pretty lame if every fight goes "Oops I got tricked by In".

 

[Tombadgerlock]

Dump a paralized person on a bay and see if resilience will do any good. He could get drowned for once, buried alive, or left locked away to starve to death. Doesn't mean he's physically vulnerable to damage, being paralized is quite a disadvantage for many reasons. Imho, only people able to apply special conditions could defeat Ubo, no emitter or reinforcer, since he was both physically incredible and a top rank reinforcer.

We saw his physcal abilities could be bypassed quite easily by sufficiently powerful people, hence how he got bitten.

We also know that physical strength of movement multiplies reinforcement abilities, hence why a Paralyzed Ubo would still get owned by a weaker nen-user.

 

[Jack Van Burace]

Well, I still think Silva's example doesn't apply, simply because Silva seems to be Emission type and not Reinforcement. Thus, the aura-shielding might not apply to him the same way as it would with Ubo.

Here:
http://www.mangareader.net/207-14108-9/hunter-x-hunter/chapter-99.html

We can see Silva's hands throwing the spheres at Chloro. He wouldn't be able to keep such huge amount of aura away from his body if he wasn't Emission. At least in my understanding of Emission. My opinion remains: Ubo wouldn't be defeated if it wasn't a Nen user capable of setting conditions, and raw power users would all have a hard time with him.

 

[kkck]

^We don't actually see the balls leave his body....

Anyways, I would think the knife thing has to do with the quality of the knife. Silva implied it was a extremely high quality one at least. It is also fairly ambiguous whether kuroro had extended his aura over the knife or not.

I don't see any particular reason for a standard emission to not win against uvo though. It is not outright impossible for non enhancer to hold his ground with melee combat for one thing. More so, there is the rang element to consider which is quite an advantage. Under this logic people like franklin would have no chance against uvo which IMO makes no sense. For an enhancer of a similar level to an emission to outright block an emission attack with aura it would take a similar amount of aura. In this regard the only viable defense against a strong emission attack would be ko which as we know is not safe at all so the attackee would have to resort to ryu. Against a really strong emitter, a reinforcements defense is unlikely to be able to absorb all the damage on its own.

 

[Phantron]

Silva has extremely high physical strength since his blow potentially could have killed Zeno and Kuroro at the same time. We don't what type he is but physical attack and defense goes hand in hand in HXH so it can't be the case the his defense is weak. While Kuroro used a very good knife, we also know that you can materialize the equivalent of a very good sword. Therefore, a materialized weapon should have no problem wounding a Reinforcement user. If it's just a scratch like against Silva it won't be too useful, but even a scratch on a vulnerable spot could be devastating (say, your neck). Note that Silva did seal the wound even though it was minor, so it's not like you can just ignore a trivial wound.

Reinforcement is never going to lose if you go head on with equivalent attack, i.e. fist against fist, or even fist against a full on emission attack (since Emission has the range advantage it can't be as powerful). But nobody said you have to fight equally. If you put Ko on your head and try to headbutt a full scale Emission attack, you'll probably still lose, because your head isn't supposed to be something you block with. While nobody does anything crazy like that in HXH, if you can't handle In, you can easily get into a situation where you've to guard against an opponent's full power attack with your face or whatever. Since you can't even see their attack (assuming you can't handle In), you wouldn't be able to use Ko either. Reinforcement + Ken should lose to any school if you're attempting to block their attack with say, your face or your neck. Otherwise, it isn't even possible for a Reinforcement user to ever take damage.

If you're fighting like Knuckles versus Gon where you're just punching each other continously, of course the guy with the highest overall physical strength will always win. But just because you're physically stronger doesn't mean your weak spots can take a full power attack from a weaker opponent even without considering any potential side effects.

---------- Post added at 11:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:53 PM ----------

^We don't actually see the balls leave his body....

Anyways, I would think the knife thing has to do with the quality of the knife. Silva implied it was a extremely high quality one at least. It is also fairly ambiguous whether kuroro had extended his aura over the knife or not.

I don't see any particular reason for a standard emission to not win against uvo though. It is not outright impossible for non enhancer to hold his ground with melee combat for one thing. More so, there is the rang element to consider which is quite an advantage. Under this logic people like franklin would have no chance against uvo which IMO makes no sense. For an enhancer of a similar level to an emission to outright block an emission attack with aura it would take a similar amount of aura. In this regard the only viable defense against a strong emission attack would be ko which as we know is not safe at all so the attackee would have to resort to ryu. Against a really strong emitter, a reinforcements defense is unlikely to be able to absorb all the damage on its own.

Nobunaga did say neither he nor Franklin can beat Ubogin in a straight fight. But then Spiders obviously don't fight each other to the death. If Franklin uses his aura machine gun on Ubogin's body, most likely they'll just bounce off. But if they're fighting to the death, Franklin would be aiming for the face or some other vulnerable spot.

 

[kkck]

When does nobunaga said that? Didn't he mean simply a physical fight (when nobunaga is a swordsman and franklin an emitter)? The individual power of each of franklins bullets is bound to be small yet given the technique we know it is a quantity thing rather than quality. A given amount of nen can defend only from a given amount of nen. If the bullets are sufficiently powerful and fast enough then a barrage of them could be devastating against even uvo. Why would franklin develop a technique which is useless against a strong reinforcement user? Such a thing is plain moronic and that is the overwhelmingly sugarcoated way to put it. Reinforcement users have the best defense which is extremely far away from being invulnerable. Franklin is a high level nen user just as uvo, there is no way his technique would outright not work against him.