Discussion Is Enna Core too OP for regular standards ?

[hblock]

I-General hype

As we know, Enna core is normally impossible to use for a regular.
Khun managed to use it for two reasons. The first is the Enna-Core kit, Evan's statement is already quite explanatory, so I won't add anything to it :

By using an A-rank kit secretly manufactured by the Workshop for remodeling, the “Enna Core Upgrade Kit”. It’s an insane kit that can upgrade a normal lighthouse to a lighthouse that can use the Enna Core. By the way, it’s an expensive and “illegal kit”.

Evan Edrok -Season 2, chapter 236​

When Yuri asked Evan how could a regular use a skill of such a high level, bringing the A-rank kit was enough to persuade her. However, Evan didn't mention Beta, or rather the ignition weapon's calucation power, who was mandatory for Khun. Without him, even with the A-rank kit, it'd have been impossible to use Enna Core and that's the second reason.
Evan's statement was self explanatory (again) :

I didn’t tell the princess one more secret about the Enna Core. That inside of Koon’s lighthouse right now is the ignition weapon “Beta”. He’s been riding the Hell Train all this time as a “component” of the lighthouse. That way, he was recognized as a “weapon” and allowed to board the Hell Train.
It so happened that his presence was what made it possible for Koon to find a solution on how to use the Enna Core. It’s impossible for a regular to operate the Enna Core but it can be done with an “ignition weapon” for support.
It was extremely lucky that he was inside the lighthouse. Thanks to him doing the calculations, Enna Core can finally work. So strictly speaking, this Enna Core is a collaboration technique between Koon and Beta.

-Season 2, chapter 237​

Said in other words, even if Khun climbed up to the 133rd floor as a regular, he'd have been unable to use Enna Core without "BOTH" Beta and the A-rank Enna-Core kit. If either of them was lacking, it's impossible to activate.

Furtheremore, Evan went as far as entrusting their (him and Yuri) backs to Khun :

Yes. I think that regular can support us. Of course you may think differently.

-Season 2, chapter 236​

II-The lightbearer position

The lightbearer position isn't just about raw power and martial skill. It involves many other features such as gathering and transmitting informations about the ennemy and his weaknesses, the location, making complex calculations to measure the coordinates of a far away foe (in order to snipe him from long range), elaborating strategies, leading the team, etc.
And with the calculation power increased this much, these aspects also reach a whole another level.

SIU once said that the lightbearer position is special. It can't be filled with just shinsu or physical power.

Unlike other positions, the Lightbearer position cannot be covered for by physical power or Shinsu, so those unfamiliar, be it Rankers or even High Rankers, have trouble performing the Lightbearer Position well. Even a Regular Lightbearer can be a valuable asset.

-Season 3, chapter 27 blogpost​

And it just so happenned that Evan said something very similar to Yuri in the floor of death

We’re also at risk here in the Floor of Death. Think about what position among the regulars would be the most helpful to us. It would be the “lightbearer”.

-Season 2, chapter 236​

Therefore, I'd rather argue that the main reason why Evan teached Enna Core to Khun is because he was interested in his enhanced non-fighting abilities. Altough ofc, Enna Core is still a huge PU even in terms of defensive might and combat support.

III-Enna Core skills and potency

The signature skill of Enna Core is "Mystery Sphere", a blueish shinsu barrier which looks like a spherical honeycomb. Khun can furhter activate "red mode" (as the name suggests, the sphere's color turns into red), a technique which takes advantage of the force used by the enemy to rush out and break through the circle against them by teleporting them to a place the user wants to. Although it wasn't shown against a Ranker-tier ennemy, this specific ability received a major hype from Evan :

No matter who you are, if you get caught in this technique, it won’t be easy to escape.

-Season 2, chapter 236​

Overall, "Mystery Sphere" is almost unfairly powerful for regular standards. I mean, even Grand De Lee, a Ranker failed to scratch it with a named attack. You may argue that he was greatly nerfing himself and just he assumed this level of DC was enough to kill a bunch of regulars but it's still very impressive however you see it. Especially if we consier that he favored attacking/breaking the lighthouse containing Beta (Enna Core weak point which is discussed below) instead of oughtright overpowering Mystery Sphere despite the failure of his first attempt.

Obviously, even if De Lee didn't attack the lighthouse containing Beta, delaying him for long would've been impossible regardless as assumed by everyone else (Season 2, chapter 251).

The only anti-feat is Khun struggling a bit to numb a beast which was one shotted by Endorsi's "Shiffon Sword" (Yuri's skill), however Ennca Core was also far weaker than usual since it was repairsed in a hurry :

Since I only could do a quick repair It’s got only limited power output..!

-Season 2, chapter 262​

IV-Enna Core weakness

In Khun's case, Enna Core has a major weakness, Evan did a pretty good job explaining it :

The “real” Enna Core is only the lighthouse where Beta is in. It can’t be used if it gets overloaded. It’ll be fatal if that lighthouse gets caught because then the “Enna Core cannot be used”.

-Season 2, chapter 237​

If the ennemy knew about it, targetting the lighthouse containing Beta isn't very difficult matter. Obviously, you've to find this weakeness first which is no easy matter but in the case of Scout Rankers like De Lee, finding it is very easy. That's also the reason why he managed to neutralize Mystery Sphere so quickly.

NB : all translations come from jainarepellista's tumblr.

Your thoughts ?
-Can Data Maschenny put a scratch on Mystery Sphere ?
-Do you think Khun can delay Pan in a fight if he wraps himself from all sides with the Mystery Sphere ?
-Is Khun's usefulness in a fight above weak Rankers when he uses Enna Core ?
-Who is the weakest who can break Mystery Sphere in a single attack (assuming they use their strongest technique at max potency) among the following

• Pan (low level Ranker)
• Grand De Lee (average Ranker)
• Lero Ro (elite Ranker)
• Jordan (advanced Ranker)
• Dorian Frog (entry HR level)
• Yu Hansung (standard HR level)

 

[Demonspeed]

A.A already is a great support because of his intellect and now his Firefish ability. Enna Core is a great tool for him, but until we see more I wouldn't say it puts him far above some of his Regular friends.

A.A himself can also be targeted.

 

[hblock]

Enna Core is a great tool for him, but until we see more I wouldn't say it puts him far above some of his Regular friends.

Enna Core is mainly about defense and support, so I don't think it puts him any higher than what he previously was in 1v1 combat. However, he showed incredible feats in terms of support such as momentarily delaying a Ranker. This is something not even regular Endorsi on the 133rd floor can hope to achieve.
The hype he received from Evan also far bypass the regular standards.

 

[kkck]

SIU has made the point that enna core is an incredibly OP skill in blog posts. And evan originally meant for enna core aguero to serve as support for him and yuri. I would argue that any skill a regular has that serves two high rankers is pretty unquestionably OP for regulars. That is not to say aguero would be able to use it by himself against rankers. IIRC he didn't do that well in that scenario during the floor of death.

 

[Fish009]

Enna who? Lmao i honestly doubt SIU remembers this skill still, especially now that AA has his fire fish and is going down the weird healing/buffing position

one thing im curious tho is, can normal ignition weapons replace LIW? Like what if we throw black march in there? Its not like baam is using it anyway. what about other stuffs like souls or something? Will it work? if so, white might be useful; heavenly white mirror would be useful too since it can capture souls. Or maybe AA just need a super powerful lighthouse, who knows maybe he’ll just stumble upon one

back in hell train i thought siu would let them have emile instead of rachel, but now that rachel has 3 wishes, it seems to me that emile will continue to be rachel’s

anyway yeah ofc it super op, but i think its what he needs to keep up with baam, enna core is at least better than seeing a firefish being picked up out of nowhere

 

[kkck]

My guess is that enna core is going to return further along in the story. At a point where Aguero is sufficiently skilled to handle it on his own. With it aguero should be more than sufficient support for bam in general, potentially even against high rankers. Aguero would still probably have trouble competing against light bearing high rankers though.

 

[Jubei_Kibagami]

Enna core basically allows someone that can't control more lighthouses to be able to control more than they naturally would be able to be to do so.

Whereas 1 lighthouse now has the GPU power of 9. 9 lighthouses then allow for certain tricks that couldn't be replicated with fewer lighthouses that a regular would typically be able to operate simultaneously.

When a low-grade reg can control a handful of lighthouses (it seems to be 2-5ish?), they get a +9 with EC.

Higher-grade and even ranker light bearers would then also get a +9 in theory, but that would be increasingly less of a buff as they can already control more boxes (buff % to box manipulation being inversely proportional).

Arbitrarily, a reg that can control 3 (1+1+1) with EC now has 11 (1+1+1x9). That's almost a 400% increase in 'power' (computational power, not raw strength as has been said).

Similar but different is a ranker that can already control 11 out of the box (pun). They go from 11 (1+1+1... 11 iterations) to 19 (1x9+1+1... 11 iterations) or an almost 200% increase in GPU power. So, still a great buff but not as much as a reg would see, as a function or percentage. That's half the buffing power the 3-lighthouse reg would see (+200% vs +400% respectively).

This effect is lessened the greater amount they can naturally control. A higher-ranked LB that can control 100+ would get a nominal boost% - <10% - that may be functionally useless as they have a sufficient amount already to do whatever the task/trick is.

Particularly when one considers that X lighthouses can produce Y effect. To accomplish Mystery Sphere obviously requires no less than the compu-power of 9 lighthouses (arguably 10+ would be able to do the same). That's great. Especially for a regular.

But what we don't know is - can a LB that can control 9 lighthouses do the same without EC? I'd argue yes. (or at least something similar)

Because we have seen similar high-level lighthouse tricks that require higher amounts of boxes.

30+ boxes used by Sophia to do Hexagon Crystal comes to mind. This move is obviously superior to Mystery Sphere in every way, even though it is similar to it in appearance and function, and as such requires more boxes thus compu-power.

50+ boxes in Elpathion's arsenal he was able to use tricks as Wall of Despair and Crystal Mirror Room (yes, I had to fact-check the numbers and names).

However, no matter whether it is the weakest move by a regular using a couple of lighthouses or the strongest move by a HR using an Opera - it's not about raw power/strength and someone is always going to be able to bust through.

- the weaknesses of EC have been itemized by OP
- Elpathion's Crystal Mirror Room didn't last but 10 some odd seconds against EVK
- Urek claims an Opera could only slow him for a small fraction of a second

So, as with, er, other things, it's not the SIZE of your field it's... how you use it (or at least that's what I tell 'em). Light Bearers are mostly useful with their buffing effects, knowledge-gathering/disseminating abilities, and/or compounding with WC's abilities. Against pure strength isn't the best of use or a fair match-up.

Although there is something to be said about the strength (in some form) of the bearer in conjunction with the number of lighthouses - for example Sophia's shield seems sufficient to stave off cannon fire from the Z ships. It probably couldn't stop, say, a CC-level individual trying to break through though (or it could for some unknown amount of time, but not indefinitely). But, it seems to be enough for DC's. And so on.

So, in the hands of a regular Enna Core would be formidable against almost any other regular, and even lower rankers - to a point. Rankers - particularly HRs - can see EC's weaknesses enough to bypass and/or just smash through entirely if shinsoo-buffed enough (akin Urek through an Opera).

 

[Vitala]

Enna Core is mainly about defense and support, so I don't think it puts him any higher than what he previously was in 1v1 combat. However, he showed incredible feats in terms of support such as momentarily delaying a Ranker. This is something not even regular Endorsi on the 133rd floor can hope to achieve.
The hype he received from Evan also far bypass the regular standards.

What bs are you telling lmao. Regular androssi will destroy AA and you want to compare him with 133rd floor androssi, she is a princess, he is not, siu can give him all bs power it will change nothing that AA is a choker and need multiple power up to stay relevant.

It’s funny how the power system and level don’t make sense in this series anymore . It’s just fan favorite receiving PU that don’t make sense.

 

[Wha]

she is a princess, he is not,

going by that logic - no Kallavan in the top 100. No Evankhell. Not even the twins, since they are no princesses. No Luslec, no........there would only be princesses in the top 100, except for the Irregulars.

Although the common princess should be stronger than the common Regular/Ranker, it's not like there are many exceptions to that rule. And always have been. And Khun, being a direct descendant and all, isn't so far fetched (speaking of his potential, not of his powers right now).

 

[kkck]

Enna core has generally been framed as a BS powerup far beyond the scope of a regular. It's not really THAT big a stretch that with it aguero could take on a regular at floor 133. That said, androsi is a princess and is likely to reach ranker level well before that considering what the plot will require from bam's friends and the fact she also has conveniently found her shinsoo attributes. I will also add that enna core is the best way for aguero to remain relevant as bam's companion. Since we know for a fact light bearers and wave controllers make an insanely strong combination. If floor 43 aguero could have potentially served as support for evan and yuri then floor 100 aguero with enna core will be at least passable support for bam. Though by floor 100 bam will be vastly superior to yuri or evan of course.

 

[Vitala]

going by that logic - no Kallavan in the top 100. No Evankhell. Not even the twins, since they are no princesses. No Luslec, no........there would only be princesses in the top 100, except for the Irregulars.

Although the common princess should be stronger than the common Regular/Ranker, it's not like there are many exceptions to that rule. And always have been. And Khun, being a direct descendant and all, isn't so far fetched (speaking of his potential, not of his powers right now).

Kallavan and evankhell are people who were destined to be strong because of their power , AA is not special , he is just another son of khun among thousands of them. His only luck is to have encountered baam at the second floor. Also siu said he is not considered a DD .
he will never reach that level during the story .

 

[kkck]

Kallavan and evankhell are people who were destined to be strong because of their power , AA is not special , he is just another son of khun among thousands of them. His only luck is to have encountered baam at the second floor. Also siu said he is not considered a DD .
he will never reach that level during the story .

Aguero is literally eduan's biological child. The series is also unclear regarding what DD means. And I would maintain that the hidden floor went easily out of its way to frame aguero as being absurdly talented. It gave him a massive power boost from his shinsoo quality and made the point that aguero climbed over a third of the tower while basically half assing it by avoiding his talent like an STD. His reaction to the suggestion of becoming stronger was pretty much "what? Why would I bother with that?". Even data eduan was impressed by aguero's talent. Aguero might have murky status in his family but all things considered it's extremely likely he is on the upper end of the scale when it comes to talent in general.

That said, it is pretty unlikely we will ever see aguero's potential realized. As that will probably happen hundreds or thousands of years after he becomes a ranker.

I would still make the point that the gang learning their shinsoo attributes at the hidden floor is basically the setup for them to get ranker level before they become rankers. Aguero became insanely stronger after becoming capable of using some manner of ice spear... And even rak easily overpowered levi, a strong d class (though he lucked out that he wasn't targeted by his spell). Basically bam's friends were torpedoed right past the d class at least. Add to that, bam's friends usually were on the higher end of their current class even without shinsoo attributes. So it's not a stretch that they would be about comparable to B class regulars even now. It's speculation on my part of course but if aguero, rak and androsi have been pushed this far by their shinsoo attributes and rank A is the final rank before becoming rankers then becoming ranker level before floor 134 is pretty achievable.

 

[hblock]

Regular androssi will destroy AA and you want to compare him with 133rd floor androssi

I wasn't talking about overall power, just some specific stats or situations in which AA w Enna Core might perform better than some Rankers. That's all.
Actually, D-rank Endorsi would probably beat the floor of death version of AA with Enna Core.

she is a princess, he is not

This is out of subject but that's not how genetical lottery works. Having a better lineage doesn't "necessarily" imply inheriting a better DNA. Kaiser being born with a higher talent than DDs, Anna being born with a weak body, unfit to learn swordmanship, Khun Hynd Luch, a DD who lived several tens of thousands of years, being nothing more than a lowly DivCom, etc, ToG is full of examples where the genetical predisposition is either way above or way below par compared to what's expected from the said lineage.

 

[King Dryst]

This is out of subject but that's not how genetical lottery works. Having a better lineage doesn't "necessarily" imply inheriting a better DNA. Kaiser being born with a higher talent than DDs, Anna being born with a weak body, unfit to learn swordmanship, Khun Hynd Luch, a DD who lived several tens of thousands of years, being nothing more than a lowly DivCom, etc, ToG is full of examples where the genetical predisposition is either way above or way below par compared to what's expected from the said lineage.

The Princesses are made, not born. There's no genetic lottery involved. Rather, having nailed it is a prerequisite. Only the best of the best of the best are even considered to receive that position. An Anna would never have even gotten a look.

He's right about this.

 

[hblock]

The Princesses are made, not born. There's no genetic lottery involved

The fact that there're insanely massive power gaps among princesses proves that there's a genetical lottery to consider. We also know that the receptivity of Jahad's blood differs among individual, some are better than the others. The most important factor in selecting a princess is their ability to properly receive this power after all.
In other words, both the basic "natural predisposition" before receiving the blood and "natural predisposition" of receiving the blood are massive factors in determining a princess's power.
Not to mention that the princess position is highly political, I doubt that the selected princesses are really the absolute best possible female candidates in the tower atm.

 

[kkck]

The Princesses are made, not born. There's no genetic lottery involved. Rather, having nailed it is a prerequisite. Only the best of the best of the best are even considered to receive that position. An Anna would never have even gotten a look.

He's right about this.

If its the prerequisite then there kinda is a genetic lottery involved. But its true that anna is unlikely to ever have been considered if she was an arie without talent for the sword. Swords seem to be a big deal in the family so it does sound like she would have been ignored even if she had unconventional talents over someone with a particularly potent arie sword...

--- Double Post Merged, Jun 22, 2021, Original Post Date: Jun 22, 2021 ---

The fact that there're insanely massive power gaps among princesses proves that there's a genetical lottery to consider. We also know that the receptivity of Jahad's blood differs among individual, some are better than the others. The most important factor in selecting a princess is their ability to properly receive this power after all.
In other words, both the basic "natural predisposition" before receiving the blood and "natural predisposition" of receiving the blood are massive factors in determining a princess's power.
Not to mention that the princess position is highly political, I doubt that the selected princesses are really the absolute best possible female candidates in the tower atm.

All princesses we know of are pretty high up the pecking order though. And IIRC every single ranker princess we have seen to date is a high ranker. Add to that the regular princesses we have seen are invariably among the strongest of their given rank at any time.

it's true that the position is highly political of course. Even in the case of elaine it's likely that elaine was more talented than whoever was chosen... assuming someone was even chosen. but even then, it's simply a fact that princesses are unarguably exceptional even without zahard's blood. SIU has made the point that it is relatively common for princesses to become as strong as rankers even as regulars iirc. I wouldn't be surprised if princesses in general had the talent to reach high ranker.

And one thing... at the risk of stating the painfully obvious.. males are not considered for the position. So the comparison to males in terms of talent is not exactly fair. The comparison is a tad more fair when it comes to females in noble families but even then it doesn't seem like they are constantly out there looking for candidates.

 

[hblock]

All princesses we know of are pretty high up the pecking order though. And IIRC every single ranker princess we have seen to date is a high ranker. Add to that the regular princesses we have seen are invariably among the strongest of their given rank at any time.

The thing is that we've got a shtiload of tiers/power gaps among DDs themsleves, it's to the point that even geniuses who clearly standout are nothing more than cannon fodder material compared to say, the top 5 DDs of a said GF.
Let's take Hansung as an example. While he isn't a DD, it was noted that someone like him is hard to find even in the 10 GFs, so we can use him as a treshold. As shown in the hidden floor, folks like Asencio and Icardi stand on a whole another compared to him. Yet, the snake charmer said that he'd have chosen Hansung as a princess if he was a woman. So there is that.
The current Maschenny, a princess from the 10 GFs (the Khun, one of the top 3 at that) who lived for thousands of years, doesn't look any better than other corps commanders, at least she doesn't stand on a whole other level. Yet, she's one of the "strongest" princesses. Said in other words, most princesses don't make it to the top 100 even when they live for a very long time nor have they this much potential. Despite being very talented and acquiring Jahad's blood on top of their natural predispoitions, it's not enough and it seems like it's even worse for princesses who didn't originated from the 10 GFs.

 

[kkck]

The thing is that we've got a shtiload of tiers/power gaps among DDs themsleves, it's to the point that even geniuses who clearly standout are nothing more than cannon fodder material compared to say, the top 5 DDs of a said GF.
Let's take Hansung as an example. While he isn't a DD, it was noted that someone like him is hard to find even in the 10 GFs, so we can use him as a treshold. As shown in the hidden floor, folks like Asencio and Icardi stand on a whole another compared to him. Yet, the snake charmer said that he'd have chosen Hansung as a princess if he was a woman. So there is that.
The current Maschenny, a princess from the 10 GFs (the Khun, one of the top 3 at that) who lived for thousands of years, doesn't look any better than other corps commanders, at least she doesn't stand on a whole other level. Yet, she's one of the "strongest" princesses. Said in other words, most princesses don't make it to the top 100 even when they live for a very long time nor have they this much potential. Despite being very talented and acquiring Jahad's blood on top of their natural predispoitions, it's not enough and it seems like it's even worse for princesses who didn't originated from the 10 GFs.

Ah, definitely. that still doesn't take that much from princesses though.

It's really hard to say where exactly mascheny stands right now. To me there is the issue that SIU sort of juggles with PLs when it comes to characters like her. Take evankhel... We saw her during the cage arc and is of course incredibly powerful but she didn't seem to particularly stand out against yama or khel helam. Comes the war at the nest and it turns out she is seen as the biggest threat on the enemy side. When it comes to mascheny she was having way too much fun fighting jinsung and couldn't actually injure him.. But in turn we didn't see her use the redan or internal quality shinsoo control. So her actual cap might be anywhere between what we saw when she fought jinsung and popping kallavan like a balloon.

That's a big assumption considering we don't know most princesses' ranks. Add to that, we also know that the top 300 ranks are a bit of an exclusive club, pretty much requiring you to kill a top 300 member to get in without other extraordinary shenanigans. Even for princesses actual opportunities to get there should be rare (and perhaps involve killing princesses higher up in the ranks).

 

[Wha]

Kallavan and evankhell are people who were destined to be strong because of their power , AA is not special , he is just another son of khun among thousands of them. His only luck is to have encountered baam at the second floor. Also siu said he is not considered a DD .
he will never reach that level during the story .

Well, this problem goes for almost anyone in his corner. The only one who could help is Urek (or probably Luslec, ancient slayer?). So without some kind of timescip (or BS power ups), they can't really matter power wise.

Regarding Khun - remember that guy that fought (not seriously thoug) Evankhell on the last station? He had the ice shinsoo attribute, just like Khun. So being strong enough to be a Floor Admin isn't that bad.

The Princesses are made, not born. There's no genetic lottery involved. Rather, having nailed it is a prerequisite. Only the best of the best of the best are even considered to receive that position.

Although you are right, there are quite a few exceptions to that.

1) the whole blossom clan. No matter how talented they are, there shouldn't be any princesses

2) We saw that conversation between Yuri and her FH. At least in this scenario, she got to choose if she wants to be one, or not (probably only because of her special standing, but we don't know that). So, it is entirely possibly that some of the best candidates don't even want that fate and refuse

3) all male talents