I never understood how durability works in FT. Can someone explain to me? First, in the Aldoron arc Natsu suffered damage against Gajeel. But Natsu in the base form was doing fine against God Seed Aldoron(provided weakened Aldoron was not on Gajeel level), even tanking a few punches until he resorted to his thicket of arms. In Alvarez, Natsu took minor cuts from amp neinhart's wind attack but was able to tank Acno's attack with no damage. If you can tank attacks from stronger foes shouldn't you just remain completely unharmed against weaker foes? Does Natsu foe increase his durability?
@Axiomus what do u think?
I think for the topic of durability, I have always likened it to a character's maximum ability to brace himself/herself from oncoming damage.
So against weaker opponents, Natsu might not see the need to put in maximum effort into the fight, so he can just take the bruises and cuts no problem because he knows that he's far superior anyways.
In contrast, against stronger opponents, Natsu will make sure to brace for impact against powerful spells in order to
minimize the amount of damage taken, so it can be viewed as his ability to counter or suppress incoming damage (
this is what I really consider to be durability).
Personally, when I assess the durability of any character, I always go for their maximum performance in bracing against damage. This is
very context-dependent on the manga fights and can mostly be measured by how long they are able to remain in shape for battle after tanking an onslaught of attacks.
Now obviously, there are other inherent stats that can also naturally increase your durability; for example, possessing dragon scales, other non-human properties, and even magical-type spells that are specific for defense.
In the aggregate, you would have to take all the above into account in order to look at who would be most likely to win a battle, but the
"bracing for impact" idea kinda explains how and why characters can show visible injuries against weaker opponents, but be able to tank far stronger attacks without much difference to their physical condition - at least that's how I see it in my mind.
