Discussion How strong is...

[Demonspeed]

@Phantron

Let's correct one thing first about Chrollo VS Zeno. Zeno didn't say he'd win 90% of the time when asked if they are not fighting to death, he said he'd win for sure. Because back then, Chrollo was not going for the kill, he was only on the defensive while Zeno was not. Zeno said things would be different if he was serious however which implies that Chrollo could beat him, in the end it means they are in the same ballpark. Chrollo also fought Silva one on one in the past and we don't know how it ended, but Silva said he had improved when they met at York Shin.

Spoiler: Image

Enhancers is effective in combat because of their raw power and defensive prowess but their abilities are simple. Manipulators and Conjurers have less raw power but their abilities are usually more complex, versatile and they have conditions which allow them to fight the others. In the first place, to be an excellent fighter in HxH you need to be able to fight any type of fighters. Kite gets stronger weapons because he doesn't choose by himself, Kurapika and his Chain Jail, Shizuku can't suck "living things" but with just an injury she can suck all the blood from someone.

You say Shalnark's Autopilot is useless but he doesn't have to use it first plus the Enhancer's ability and way to fight also matters. Uvo is smart but you can't say the same thing of someone like Bopobo for example. There are different types of Manipulators too, Shalnark is the type who uses a tool to control someone, Shoot, Morel and Kalluto fight differently, Shoot especially fights very well at close-mid range. As long as Shalnark gets you with one of his antennas he wins, he can even try to take a hit, protect himself and stick it to the body. If it doesn't work and his antennas are broken he uses his Autopilot. And he can give complex orders with his ability. Against the Ant he had just given the orders to annihilate the opponent, he can do more than that but he won't remember a thing and will be in pain or 2-3 days.

I think you are underestimating the because we have yet to see a Manipulator or Conjurer of Chrollo/Zeno/Silva in a balanced battle. Look at what Saiyu(who is most likely a Conjurer) said about his fighting style for example. He is able to take on Enhancers and is specialized in combat.

Spoiler: Saiyu's ability

 

[Phantron]

To Demonspeed:

You can't just assume Enhancers are somehow dumb. Netero is an Enhancer and likely one of the craftiest characters in HXH. Something like Automatic Mode has no chance of beating an Enhancer (or really, anyone) that knows anything about combat trickery. There is absolutely no reason to assume you can auto complex orders given that we've repeatedly seen manipulators do need to adjust their instructions if they want their puppets to do anything complicated. Shalunark for example can put the auctioneer on auto pilot but we assume that means all this guy can do is announce the next item and take bids. That kind of complexity would hardly be sufficient to fight anybody in HXH.

Saiyu's an example of a balanced Conjurer, and such characters are rare. As you pointed out, Conjurers/Manipulators tend to be physically weak and this is why they tend to rely on cheap abilities. However even for HXH it'd be too unorthodox to consistently win with an ability like Black Voice, so there's no way someone like Shalunark can actually win against anyone that matters because the fourth wall does matter. There's also the problem that a balanced Conjurer/Manipulator doesn't look all that different from someone in the Emission school (e.g. Razor) so it wouldn't be terribly interesting. If Saiyu can conjure or emit a monkey that can blind you, why wouldn't he just make a monkey that can paralyze you? Blind can be recovered from in mid combat, but paralyze cannot. We already know paralyze is not that difficult to do as a condition. That's because Saiyu looks like someone who is actually physically a match so he doesn't get to have cheap moves compared to guys who can't possibly go toe-to-toe. But being weak physically is not supposed to be an advantage, which is why Conjurers/Manipulators usually end up losing. Again, it takes Kurapika's level of power ups to actually overpower an Enhancer straight up while you're not one, and that's simply out of reach of the generic Conjurer/Manipulator that is portrayed as physically weak.

As an aside, Chrollo is unusually physically strong for his category, as he ranks #7 in arm wrestling strength despite being Specialization school. You can see in the same ranking chart that the bottom of the list is dominated by Conjurer/Manipulate/Special types, so he can actually have a chance of winning, and note that there's no credible way to believe that Chrollo was actually going to win against Hisoka using Black Voice directly on him. Even for him, that's too unbelievable for a Shonen manga and we can see that at most he uses Black Voice as some kind of threat (even though it's an instant kill ability) and most relied on fairly even moves. The only thing cheesy he had was that Sun & Moon was empowered by the 'becomes stronger after dead' deal but that's not hardly something unique to his school.

 

[XXGenesis]

Phantom it's like your contradicting yourself...HxH fights or simply any fictional fight has no absolutes to them....We all can give logical explanations of how Gon could of possibly beat Hisoka at Heavens arena. however we would have to stack all the variables & odds in Gon's favor...Get the drift? alright let's continue....

Yes, as I mentioned & what some believe or have realized..it's very common for Manipulators & Conjurer's to have weak body frames or physical stats; However the plot/Author balances this out by giving them stronger more complex abilities.......You can't argue with others that this means that they can never/will ever win a fight against a enhancer/emitter/transmuter...that's not up for you to decided..What you can argue is that ,they have very slim to zero chance of winning against those certain types & state why......

Also certain characters don't use certain abilities,strategies, tactics or skills because it's not within their capacity to..in other words they aren't written to do so & many things you bring up its just so far from the whole characters portryal, it's rather evident why they don't behave in a certain manner..or rather why are you reading a fiction your not enjoying or can't suspend your belief
About.

Illumi is the perfect paradox of this stereotype & is a perfect example of on hard it is to rank or power scale HxH characters...Illumi has a slim build & is non muscular yet, He is very strong being a Zoldyck, He can open his 60Ton Gate, so he has muscle.....Nen quantity, he's packing a lot of it. We have Hisoka's own personal rating, his Nen is constantly described as twisted & powerful......So now someone with high Nen quantities & high physical Strentgh like Illumi was to clash with a enhancer plz, speculate the results for me...

 

[Mylesime]

@Phantron:
You're greatly underestimating bungee gum, and the countless way hisoka can use it. The problem with the dogeball game was that it was centered exactly around razor specialities and his hatsu. We've seen countless times hisoka set traps against his opponents attached to his cards or various projectiles (for example gotoh's coins, or a stone against gon at the heaven arena). We've seen him throw spectators towards the fake chrollo thanks to the bangee gum, or immobilize machi in the last chapter , hell he even beat razor by fixing the ball to his arms during the dodgeball game. Hisoka is basically spider man out there.
In a death match, with what we've see hisoka do against an army of zombies, he can certainly kill razor without it being unbelivable.

Yeah, hisoka is stronger after having to go through this challenge, with the prothesis he's made this chapter , if he could do this before without much difficulty or time needed why not during his fight against chrollo? It's not to say that hisoka prothesis are better than his original limbs, it's just that he was unable to do this before being reanimated.
At first i was a bit unease with his command, but thinking about it again and remembering palm death, her coming back to life and being transformed into a chimera, and considering hisoka portrayal and popularity , that's not that strange.
The troupe should have been more cautious.

 

[Phantron]

@Phantron:
You're greatly underestimating bungee gum, and the countless way hisoka can use it. The problem with the dogeball game was that ti was centered exactly around razor specialities and his hatsu. We've seen countless time hisoka set traps against his opponents attached to his cards or various projectiles (for example gotoh's coins, or a stone against gon at the heaven arena). We've seen him throw spectators towards the fake chrollo thanks to the bangee gum, or immobilize machi in the last chapter , hell he even beat razor by fixing the ball to his arms during the dodgeball game. Hisoka is basically spider man out there.
In a death match, with what we've hisoka do against an army of zombies, he can certainly kill razor without it being unbelivable.

Yeah, hisoka is stronger after having to go through this challenge, with the prothesis he's made this chapter , if could do this before why not during his fight against chrollo?
At first i was a bit unease with his command, but thinking about it again and remembering palm death, coming back to life and being transformed into a chimera, and considering hisoka portrayal and popularity , that's not that strange.
The troupe should have been more cautious.

Is Togashi just that subtle or people just want to do whatever it takes to hype their favorite character? When Gon was preparing to use rock, Biscuit said Razor picked the wrong type of sports for his ability, since dodgeball gives an Enhancement user all the time in time in the world to charge up their attacks. As powerful as Razor was, having rules like the inability to interfere when the ball is on the other team's hands is enough to overcome him. If they're in any kind of normal combat, Razor will simply use his emission attacks whenever he sees an Enhancement user preparing for a big attack to attempt to interrupt it and it's only the rules of the game that prevented him from doing that. All the combined attacks done by Gon and friends amounted to just knocking Razor back a few steps, and it's because they're in a game of dodgeball that this was sufficient to defeat him (by forcing him out of bounds with the very short distance they were able to move him). He went 1on6 and basically ended up with maybe some burnt shoes while several of his opponents are wounded significantly and people really think Hisoka could take him 1on1? Yes anything can happen in a fight to the death but Hisoka would start out as a huge underdog.

As shown in his recent defeat at Chrollo's hands, HXH isn't One Piece where rubber can be considered a top tier power. It turns out that like any normal people would expect, having the ability to create sticky stuff isn't really that great compared to just say the ability to blow stuff up or control powerful puppets.

 

[Goral]

Is Togashi just that subtle or people just want to do whatever it takes to hype their favorite character? (...)

Well, Hisoka has been hyped by Togashi himself. He has some extraordinary feats, like killing 3 (three) Phantom Troupe members, cornering Chrollo like no one before or killing some top tier hunters (maybe not absolute top but a 2 star hunter is nothing to sneeze at). He was also rating Zodiacs below himself (I'm guessing he used himself as measuring stick and he was 100, Illumi 95, etc.). While it couldn't have been 100% accurate I think it was Togashi's way to show us in what league Hisoka plays.

Regarding Razor, he would have been an extremely difficult opponent for Hisoka, no doubt about it. But I seriously doubt that Razor would be able to produce as many projectiles (and as fast) as Chrollo's living bombs (which he might have prepared beforehand or someone helped him by making more copies) and Hisoka could dodge most of them. Razor's single digit nen puppets are weaklings and I'm not sure if they could help Razor much if Hisoka could one shot them (Goreinu had no problems with #4). Probably it would be best for Razor to either not use any or use only the strongest ones against him. As for "a ball was enough to break his fingers", he wasn't using any Ko. I doubt that anyone except Uvogin, Biscuit and Razor himself (plus a few others like Silva) would fare any better in this situation.

I also wonder what would Razor do if Hisoka would glue his hands. Could he tear the gum by force alone (because I'm guessing that with his hands glued it would be difficult for him to create nen balls)? And this is just one of many applications that Hisoka's hatsu has. Depending on the location Hisoka would be extremely hard to hit (if his fight with Chrollo wasn't in the arena or other confined space with not much to stick to Chrollo would have no chances IMO). And no matter how tough you are, you can be decapitated (or cut in general) which Hisoka has shown.

Anyway, you can't really judge their battle potential by watching this game. Because it was only a game, no one besides kids and Goreinu was serious there - including Razor (if he wouldn't be using any nen puppets his attack would most likely be even more powerful). Biscuit was there only to fill the gap, she was observing and not doing much even though we know she could most likely catch most of the balls herself (but she would show her ugly side for that). The same goes for Hisoka IMO, he had a more active role than Biscuit but still was only a support for Killua and Gon. I'm pretty sure that if he was in charge he would have made different decisions.

 

[Demonspeed]

@Goral The Zodiacs are not necessarily below him. He can't know their abilities and other important things.

 

[Goral]

@Goral The Zodiacs are not necessarily below him. He can't know their abilities and other important things.

I know, that's why I've written:

While it couldn't have been 100% accurate I think it was Togashi's way to show us in what league Hisoka plays.

I'm not saying it's the absolute truth, it only indicates that he's in their league at least (among the best zodiacs who are the best among hunters). And his instincts and "scouter" have been proven to be extraordinary (e.g. when he detected Kalluto).

 

[Phantron]

Well, Hisoka has been hyped by Togashi himself. He has some extraordinary feats, like killing 3 (three) Phantom Troupe members, cornering Chrollo like no one before or killing some top tier hunters (maybe not absolute top but a 2 star hunter is nothing to sneeze at). He was also rating Zodiacs below himself (I'm guessing he used himself as measuring stick and he was 100, Illumi 95, etc.). While it couldn't have been 100% accurate I think it was Togashi's way to show us in what league Hisoka plays.

Regarding Razor, he would have been an extremely difficult opponent for Hisoka, no doubt about it. But I seriously doubt that Razor would be able to produce as many projectiles (and as fast) as Chrollo's living bombs (which he might have prepared beforehand or someone helped him by making more copies) and Hisoka could dodge most of them. Razor's single digit nen puppets are weaklings and I'm not sure if they could help Razor much if Hisoka could one shot them (Goreinu had no problems with #4). Probably it would be best for Razor to either not use any or use only the strongest ones against him. As for "a ball was enough to break his fingers", he wasn't using any Ko. I doubt that anyone except Uvogin, Biscuit and Razor himself (plus a few others like Silva) would fare any better in this situation.

I also wonder what would Razor do if Hisoka would glue his hands. Could he tear the gum by force alone (because I'm guessing that with his hands glued it would be difficult for him to create nen balls)? And this is just one of many applications that Hisoka's hatsu has. Depending on the location Hisoka would be extremely hard to hit (if his fight with Chrollo wasn't in the arena or other confined space with not much to stick to Chrollo would have no chances IMO). And no matter how tough you are, you can be decapitated (or cut in general) which Hisoka has shown.

Anyway, you can't really judge their battle potential by watching this game. Because it was only a game, no one besides kids and Goreinu was serious there - including Razor (if he wouldn't be using any nen puppets his attack would most likely be even more powerful). Biscuit was there only to fill the gap, she was observing and not doing much even though we know she could most likely catch most of the balls herself (but she would show her ugly side for that). The same goes for Hisoka IMO, he had a more active role than Biscuit but still was only a support for Killua and Gon. I'm pretty sure that if he was in charge he would have made different decisions.

Hisoka's strategy centers around that he has exceptional physical stats for anyone in his age group (no older than 20s), and that his versatile technique generally prevents his opponent from using their Hatsu to neutralize his strength advantage. Whenever Hisoka is fighting someone physically weaker than him (pretty much anyone besides Kastro), he relentlessly punishes his opponent with his superior strength and melee skills and his usage of cards can be thought of as a short bladed weapon/minor projectile. Note that in the fight against Kastro, it's crucial that he fooled him with In, because if Kastro can see the Bungee Gum, he's an Enhancement user and likely beats him in physical strength, which means all he has to do is pull the Bungee Gum and he'll pull Hisoka as opposed to the other way around and thus negating Hisoka's Hatsu.

However, this doesn't work on Razor who greatly outclasses him on physical strength. By just fusing 2 of his clones into #13 he can create an entity with greater physical strength than Hisoka (otherwise Hisoka will just pull #13 into his court and get the ball back), and we know Razor is significantly stronger than his clones. Of course, Razor is not in Hisoka's age group and likely has at least a decade of training and experience more compared to him. That's why Hisoka no longer has his normal advantage. You can't assume that Hisoka found out ways to use aura that nobody has ever thought of that can magically defeat the years of training and experience someone like Razor has on him. Nobody has ever commented that Hisoka's power is an unimaginably powerful ability. It's annoying and versatile, but it's certainly not something to lose your sleep over.

Hisoka can't use Ko against Razor because he's not suicidal. Biscuit explained that using Ko to block a powerful attack means if you misjudge the impact location at all you just die since the rest of your body is at effectively Zetsu. Razor, despite his brutish appearance, is surprisingly devious, as shown in the scene where he threw the ball at Killua and then angled it 90 degrees to try to sneak attack Hisoka and Biscuit. Both Hisoka and Biscuit weren't expecting the ball to turn like that based on their reaction. So if the ball was initially aimed at them, and suppose Hisoka used Ko to block it like suggested, he'd misread the fact that the ball is going to turn, and whiffing on a Ko against a powerful opponent is basically instant death. The only reason Gon can do it is that he doesn't care if he whiffs on a Ko and he can't die because he is the main character. Hisoka is nowhere as suicidal as he to try the same trick. In fact, in that fight we see Hisoka constantly use Bungee Gum to spread over a relatively large area. It's almost the opposite of Ko, as he's trying to spread Razor's attack over as large an area as possible and then relying on his Ken to defend. He knows that his opponent can do exceptional damage at a single point and that he cannot be expected to always read his attack correctly so he opt for taking significant damage overall as opposed to taking possibly fatal damage in a single point. That shows Hisoka is indeed quite skilled in tactics, though it also shows that you can't easily overcome a large difference in base power.

Now, there is no doubt that Razor is meant to be the boss of Greed Island and likely given power levels that exceed what a 'friend of Ging' normally can do to justify the difficulty of the fight. However I don't see him lowered to the level where he'd be at a physical disadvantage compared to Hisoka, so all the general matchup issues will still apply. Hisoka will still be unable to cleanly block his major attacks, though it might be the difference of coughing blood instead of breaking his hand. There is no reason that Hisoka is supposed to magically find an opening and slit Razor's throat over any other outcome. Again, Razor is almost certainly far more experienced just for being significantly older, and it'd be more likely if he shows off some tricks he's picked up in his longer career that takes Hisoka off guard than the other way around. Of course it's not absolute, but the deck is stacked against him, though that's never stopped Hisoka from trying.

 

[Demonspeed]

We don't know who has more physical strength between the two. Hisoka is a Transmuter while Razor is an Emitter so both can use Enhancement at 80%. Number 13 is his most powerful combination and when he emits the Devils, his own body is weaker. The physical strength of N.13 represents Razor's Aura. It's not a testament of Razor's own physical strength. In terms of pure physical strength, Franklin, also an Emitter with a build similar to Razor is confirmed to be inferior to Hisoka at arm wrestling(Just below him, the two were only surpassed by the Enhancers Uvo and Phinks).

Also, Hisoka managed to return Razor's attack after his absorption of all his Devils with two broken fingers.

 

[Phantron]

We don't know who has more physical strength between the two. Hisoka is a Transmuter while Razor is an Emitter so both can use Enhancement at 80%. Number 13 is his most powerful combination and when he emits the Devils, his own body is weaker. The physical strength of N.13 represents Razor's Aura. It's not a testament of Razor's own physical strength. In terms of pure physical strength, Franklin, also an Emitter with a build similar to Razor is confirmed to be inferior to Hisoka at arm wrestling(Just below him, the two were only surpassed by the Enhancers Uvo and Phinks).

Also, Hisoka managed to return Razor's attack after his absorption of all his Devils with two broken fingers.

After Gon knocked down #13 with rock, he said that the real Razor could've caught the ball without being knocked down. He is most definitely physically stronger than #13. Hisoka broke all his fingers from trying to deflect the final attack (which was from Gon's attack deflected by Razor anyway), while Razor can block the same attack while only being knocked a few feet back. He broke 2 fingers blocking Razor's attack after the ball went out of bounds, and Hisoka noted that Razor's power diminishes significantly once the ball goes out of bounds. It's never actually explained why, but either the clone has to absorb the attack first to redirect it, or it can simply be a condition placed that allows the clones to redirect Razor's attack given none of his clones should be strong enough to redirect Razor's attack in the first place.

Hisoka is only in his 20s. Suppose he decide to dedicate the next 10 years to training intensely. Do people really think he'd still be at the same level 10 years later compared to now? I'd hope not, so why would an opponent with at least 10 years more of training/experience not have a significant advantage? Hisoka is powerful for his age, but you're comparing him to guys that have between 10-20 years more of training and experience (guys that are >20 years might start declining due to old age, but certainly someone like Razor isn't on the decline yet). I can easily see Hisoka bridging the gap after 10 years, when he'd be roughly the same age as Ging is now, but this isn't his time yet. That doesn't mean he can't win, but we're told repeatedly there is no substitute for training and experience, and there's no way Hisoka at his 20s has already reached his limits.

 

[Demonspeed]

After Gon knocked down #13 with rock, he said that the real Razor could've caught the ball without being knocked down. He is most definitely physically stronger than #13. Hisoka broke all his fingers from trying to deflect the final attack (which was from Gon's attack deflected by Razor anyway), while Razor can block the same attack while only being knocked a few feet back. He broke 2 fingers blocking Razor's attack after the ball went out of bounds, and Hisoka noted that Razor's power diminishes significantly once the ball goes out of bounds. It's never actually explained why, but either the clone has to absorb the attack first to redirect it, or it can simply be a condition placed that allows the clones to redirect Razor's attack given none of his clones should be strong enough to redirect Razor's attack in the first place.

Hisoka is only in his 20s. Suppose he decide to dedicate the next 10 years to training intensely. Do people really think he'd still be at the same level 10 years later compared to now? I'd hope not, so why would an opponent with at least 10 years more of training/experience not have a significant advantage? Hisoka is powerful for his age, but you're comparing him to guys that have between 10-20 years more of training and experience (guys that are >20 years might start declining due to old age, but certainly someone like Razor isn't on the decline yet). I can easily see Hisoka bridging the gap after 10 years, when he'd be roughly the same age as Ging is now, but this isn't his time yet. That doesn't mean he can't win, but we're told repeatedly there is no substitute for training and experience, and there's no way Hisoka at his 20s has already reached his limits.

What I was saying is that Number 13 is a mass of Aura, his "physical strength" represents the Aura output of Razor here. The 14 Devils split his Aura so when he absorbs them all his Aura output is at max, but his physical strength never diminishes. There is no way Razor could have stopped Gon's Rock with physical strength alone, it's physical strength + Aura(and Razor also used technical moves to stop the ball a few times) while Number 13 feats are pure Aura even though it looks like he has muscles, he is missing them, it's not like the Conjured Doppelganger. Hisoka said the power diminishes when the ball changes directions, not when it's out of bounds. The ball Hisoka returned was a straight one so no power was lost.

 

[Phantron]

What I was saying is that Number 13 is a mass of Aura, his "physical strength" represents the Aura output of Razor here. The 14 Devils split his Aura so when he absorbs them all his Aura output is at max, but his physical strength never diminishes. There is no way Razor could have stopped Gon's Rock with physical strength alone, it's physical strength + Aura(and Razor also used technical moves to stop the ball a few times) while Number 13 feats are pure Aura even though it looks like he has muscles, he is missing them, it's not like the Conjured Doppelganger. Hisoka said the power diminishes when the ball changes directions, not when it's out of bounds. The ball Hisoka returned was a straight one so no power was lost.

Well I make an assumption that any measure of physical strength also include that user's inherent aura improvement since nobody actually does any activity that matters without aura. I assume the arm wrestling chart is done with all the members using aura because it's hard for me to see why a bunch of guys who is used to use aura on everything would have separate rules for arm wrestling. #13 can exert an amount of force that is at least equal to Hisoka's normal combined strength (physical + aura), because otherwise Hisoka would've immediately just yanked #13 like he does against opponents with a lower strength than him. An attack that can knock #13 down from Gon is said to be insufficient against Razor (Gon needed to gather more energy), so Razor can exert more total force than #13 even while his total aura power is split amongst his clones. Razor has very strong techniques, but even without it, we see in the final exchange that after Hisoka negated his deflection technique with Bungee Gum, all that did was knock him a few feet back and he suffered no damage.

As described in the GI fight, Hisoka would likely only be able to wound Razor if he somehow made a huge mistake and there is no basis for why Razor has to screw up. He cannot rely on stuff like Ko because his opponent controls multiples clones and almost certainly has better ranged attacks than him (emission attacks versus Hisoka just flinging random objects with Bungee Gum) which can abuse the all or nothing nature of Ko. In a more realistic world where Razor is not the boss fight of GI, the magnitude of his dominance would be significantly diminished, but I see no way for Hisoka to beat him in total combined strength even accounting for his boss status.

Throughout HXH, Hisoka's move has never been described as dominant. It's handy, versatile, and quite annoying, but it's not an ability you fear. After all, Bungee Gum has no restrictions to begin with (breaking after a certain distance is an inherent limitation of transmute type moves), and while HXH isn't about piling up the most crazy number of restrictions possible, it'd be pretty odd if the most powerful move in HXH is something that requires no additional commitment from the user whatsoever. Normally, Hisoka's extremely strong physical power (he might physically be the strongest non Enhancement user of his age group) combined with his versatility is enough, but this falls apart when you've an age gap. It's hard to imagine Biscuit not be able to utterly overpower Hisoka in a straight up match of strength, for example, since she's got about 20 years of training and experience and a strong focus for strength. Now, that doesn't mean Hisoka can't beat Biscuit either, especially given Biscuit's Hatsu has no combat application. It just means he can't rely on his usual method of using superior power to punish the opponent and would start out as an underdog instead.

--- Double Post Merged, Jun 10, 2016, Original Post Date: Jun 10, 2016 ---

Now that I think about it, Razor's deflection technique is totally boss level haxor. It's not even a Hatsu, but he can take a very strong attack and either deflect it harmlessly to the side, or direct it back at his opponent at full strength. Based on his stance, it's not a Ko type of 'pinpoint precision' requirement, as he's using both of his hands to deflect an attack, and if you try to deflect an attack with two hands and whiffed, your judgment in general must be so bad that you deserved to die anyway, so it's pretty much risk free. Hisoka managed to duplicate the same feat using a Hatsu, but his hand still took the force of the impact. Compared to that, Razor appears to be able to simply reflect 100% of the force used without any damage to himself.

When Zeno talked about how Netero is strong because nobody can read him, I was hoping we'd see similar techniques like the one Razor used. They'd basically be some kind of mastery of basic concepts that isn't even a Hatsu. It's a shame that we never saw more stuff like that, though I guess techniques like the one Razor used would be extremely problematic to deal with and presents a significant narrative challenge when a guy can negate moves without even using a Hatsu.

 

[mousiehamster]

Throughout HXH, Hisoka's move has never been described as dominant. It's handy, versatile, and quite annoying, but it's not an ability you fear. After all, Bungee Gum has no restrictions to begin with (breaking after a certain distance is an inherent limitation of transmute type moves), and while HXH isn't about piling up the most crazy number of restrictions possible, it'd be pretty odd if the most powerful move in HXH is something that requires no additional commitment from the user whatsoever. Normally, Hisoka's extremely strong physical power (he might physically be the strongest non Enhancement user of his age group) combined with his versatility is enough, but this falls apart when you've an age gap. It's hard to imagine Biscuit not be able to utterly overpower Hisoka in a straight up match of strength, for example, since she's got about 20 years of training and experience and a strong focus for strength. Now, that doesn't mean Hisoka can't beat Biscuit either, especially given Biscuit's Hatsu has no combat application. It just means he can't rely on his usual method of using superior power to punish the opponent and would start out as an underdog instead.

The gum can be attached to different surfaces and manually made to contract, i.e. one end of gum to opponent, one end of gum to wall, maximum contract. The contraction strength is then probably only limited by Hisoka's nen in transmutation, not reinforcement; hence, Machi, an enhancer, rendered completely immobile by Bungee Gum.

 

[ordoghaz]

In a fight between rAzor and Hisoka of course you can say anything can happen in a nen fight that Togashi wills. But Hisoka has to be lucky like to win against Razor on a straight up combat.
Including this fight against Chrollo which he hadn't managed to do anything but hit him once, If he did connect, he hadn't showed anything really that could suggest he can take razor on. Razor's physical str is above and beyond Hisoka as the dodgeball demonstrated. There was no indication there of the opposite.
In terms of raw nen output - razor would also be above Hisoka but at least a tier more. Doing that dodgeball game, and simultaneously running the GI should show that and yes, game or not it was 6 vs 1.
Hisoka's only chance is getting him on a surprise attach he does most of his kills. He distracts people and slash them although most of them are physically inferior to begin with.
But razor a hardcore criminal- notorious enough for Ging to get involved with I'm sure won't go down that easily.

--- Double Post Merged, Jun 11, 2016, Original Post Date: Jun 11, 2016 ---

Hisoka's estimation of the zodiacs don't mean anything, as he's learned himself, he's conceited. He thought he could take netero on as well. Well, of course we all know how that will turn out.

 

[XXGenesis]

The fact that Razor's Emitter Clones were physically stronger than Hisoka. It's more than safe to say Razor himself is also physically stronger than his clone & Hisoka. I believe Razor has more Nen quantity & is physically stronger than Hisoka...Pre-Death.

I don't know who would win, Hisoka may be a bit more crafty & skilled with his hatsu ability...But I do think Razor is a bit superior in just stats alone.

Whether an Nen practitioner is old & on a physically decline.....They still surpass the youngster in overall Aura & aura usage....basically skill & experience is all they would need once they are physically outdone but their techniques, Skill, experience should outweigh & outrank the youngsters...

 

[ordoghaz]

I guess that is the right way of addressing it: razor has higher stat points than Hisoka and we don't know what will happen in a actual fight which of course depends on circumstances, settings, rules in place etc.

 

[Phantron]

Since we're talking about hypothetical fights, not fights in actual HXH, stuff like plot armor goes out of the window. For example, Gon is always immune to 'whiff on Ko' penalty in the story. He uses Ko quite liberally and nobody is ever able to hit him while he leaves himself vulnerable because he's the main character and can't die. But in a hypothetical fight you can't just assume every one of his opponent will magically fail to connect while he leaves himself open. Likewise, Hisoka is shown to be great at fooling his opponent, but there isn't an inherent property that says Hisoka will always surprise his opponent. In fact we can see quite clearly that Chrollo did not fall for any of his tricks, at least not in a significant way, as his preparation overcome any possible advantage of surprise (the location probably helped a lot to negate the element of surprise).

It's true that just because A is more powerful by numbers than B doesn't mean A will always win. But it is certainly not the case that B is advantaged against A. It's also true that the veterans don't always know more than the rookies as shown in the chapter where Gon learns about making counterfeit items and used that knowledge to fool a Spider. However, in general it cannot be the case that the rookies can fool the veteran, and Hisoka and Chrollo are rookies compared to guys like Ging or Razor on both age and experience. It is far more likely a more experienced opponent uses a nasty trick he picked up to surprise the newbie than the other way around even if the newbie is Hisoka or Chrollo. When Chrollo fought Zeno, he remarked that Zeno easily saw through his plan to stall time, so not even Chrollo can be expected to be able to fool someone with Zeno's experience.

During the preparation for the Ant arc, Killua and Gon's dialogue is illustrative of the two schools of thought in HXH. Killua said that he doesn't think a fight where you have 1% chance of winning is worth trying, and while Gon did not directly answer I'm sure everyone knows his response will be '1%? Sounds good to me!" Killua then said to increase their odds they need to study an opponent's Hatsu, gain intel, and plan for strategy/traps. Gon, of course, had a response that's roughly equal to 'preparing for battle is for wimps'. However, he's not entirely wrong. Gon is referencing events like NGL, where you're just walking down someone, and a powerful opponent (Pitou) jumped out from nowhere that you've never met before. At that point '1%? Sounds good!' is the best strategy. You can't possibly waste time thinking about intel or traps when it's an immediate fight to the death. Hisoka would also do well in chance encounters like that. Kurapika's ambush in the lights out scenario is an example where thinking is bad. If Gon, Killua, and Leorio are characters remotely comparable to Spiders instead of being deadweights, the result of that ambush would end up with 6 Spiders dead on the floor. Yet we know Chrollo was still thinking when the attack happen, such that it gave Kurapika enough time to take him out. Really, all he could've done is reason out that if this ambush was done by near peers (they had 6 Spiders, so Kurapika mobilizing a total of 4 near peers is hardly unreasonable), they'd have almost no chance of survival, and then die because he wasted time thinking about such an obvious thing. Would charging into battle change the outcome? Probably not, but sitting still and thinking is a guaranteed way to die in an unexpected encounter where your opponent obviously has figured out everything ahead of time.

Now, then there's the opposite end of the spectrum, namely how Hisoka and Gon pretty much outright refuses to make pre battle planning even when there is ample time to do this stuff. That's also flat out stupid. I get that neither of them wants to be dependent on such strategies, but you don't have to handicap yourself by pretending even fights you can easily prepare for are the ones you can't prepare for.

--- Double Post Merged, Jun 11, 2016, Original Post Date: Jun 11, 2016 ---

Whether an Nen practitioner is old & on a physically decline.....They still surpass the youngster in overall Aura & aura usage....basically skill & experience is all they would need once they are physically outdone but their techniques, Skill, experience should outweigh & outrank the youngsters...

Looking at the physique of characters, I'd say around 20s (Hisoka's age) is where the character's body is at their physical prime, and 30s is where a character have reach the realistic limits of what they can achieve via training on aura related (quantity, technique, etc). After 30s, you can make refinement to your abilities and still gain more experience, but there's no indication that stuff matters compared to the decline of your physical body. It's not clear when the physical decline kicks in since aura extends the prime far longer compared to real life, but it seems fairly safe to assume that must have started for someone at Zeno's age. Note that Zeno and Netero are the only old guys who is drawn in a way to show diminished physical abilities that sees significant combat time in HXH. Given Netero is a complete exception to the rule (his prime and his pace of decline is no way representative of a normal guy), that means out of all the guys who we see participate in fighting in HXH, only one guy is still active after hitting an age where his physical power declines. Even Netero would've gladly traded his experience if he could have his prime body back where he is said to be twice as strong in raw numbers, since we do see him lament how old age has robbed him of his full power.

 

[XXGenesis]

Wth Phantron......There's not a huge difference between the Zodiacs, Troupe, Zoldyck or other strong characters.... Besides Aura Quantity, Base Stats, Nen skills, intelligence & experience......Chrollo & Hisoka are not dwarf'd by the Zodiacs or Razor.

Hisoka in all his fights have managed to catch his opponenets off guard....Chrollo only got hit once because that's the only time he himself engaged Hisoka aside from the start of the fight.

Zeno physically superior than those younger than him no...but his skills with his Nen, battle, intelligence & Nen quantity overshadows their quite a bit...

Just like Morel said...In a Nen battle nothing is guaranteed.

 

[Kanmuru]

Just like Morel said...In a Nen battle nothing is guaranteed.

He said that along knov, and hours later they were shitting their pants because of how abysmal the difference between them and Pitou was.

What feats are you using to say Hisoka is in the TOP of nen users? Wins over kastro and gotoh? lol
He seems like a child compared to Netero's aura and hatsu caliber.
An old man who is less than 50% capable of what he was in his prime searching for a challenge his whole life didn't even look at him. That's how menacing he is to someone on the top