Battle Kuroro vs Hisoka

[Phantron]

Hisoka is significantly stronger physically (separated by 4 places in the arm wrestling chart) though I'm inclined to think Hisoka will want to see some of Kuroro's abilities before killing him because he's someone who is more interested in the thrill of battle as opposed to just want to get someone dead for the sake of killing.

For a side detour when fighting someone two tiers below you in terms of physical strength affinity (how far away from Reinforcement) it should go exactly as Ubogin planned in his fight against Kurapika. He did NOT know what Kurapika's ability was but it doesn't matter because had Kurapika really been a Materialize or Manipulation type user, Ubogin getting the first hit in would've broke Kurapika's arm, and sure he might have a nasty effect on his chain but if you can break someone's arm in one hit you got to seize the opportunity.

In Kuroro's case it's even worse because he's always limited to one hand while using his ability and whatever ability he uses further decreases the APs he allocates to physical defense, which is already low compared to Hisoka due to him being the maximum distance possible from Reinforcement. Hisoka's fist certainly does a lot of damage and his slashing type attacks can kill, so from his point of view he doesn't even need to know what Kuroro's attacks do because if Hisoka punched him in the face or slashed him on the throat, you can't even trade evenly against these attacks with special abilities without borderline hack like ability like Feitan's, and even in Feitan's case, if you just simply continue attacking him instead of wandering why he suddenly started talking in a different language, then you probably can still kill him before he's done setting up his attack (his attack takes a while to setup, given everyone else was able to evacuate on time).

Now with all that said, Hisoka's nature is more like a Hunter than an Assassin. His goal in fighting isn't to kill the other guy but rather the challenge of the fight itself. Morel said that the best strategy is to just defeat your opponent before he has a chance to use his ability, but that's not how a man approach battle. That's pretty much Hisoka there, so I don't see him just using his superior physical ability in a straight beatdown even though that'd be a extremely effective on Kuroro (Kuroro cannot trade hits with Hisoka given the inherent difference in affinity for Reinforcement). From Hisoka's POV he's likely to let Kuroro use some of his ability because he's confident he can find a way to counter it, rather than just attacking aggressively to prevent Kuroro from using any ability.

That said if Kuroro has any upper hand I think he'll end up winning. He most certainly knows Kite's basic fighting 101: "Smash the head and they can't recover from that." Hisoka's camoflauge ability is useless against anyone who really understands this. It doesn't matter what illusions you create, the attacker knows if he smashed your head you can't recover from that. Actually, since Kite's advice is for fighting Ants, merely landing a fatal hit (decapitation, heart, major artery, whatever) is enough here too as no human character can possibly recover from that.

By the way I think people are way overrating the power of Kuroro's stealing ability. He used a pretty weak ability against the Zs and if he had something that's obviously better he'd have used it already since it was quite possible he got killed. It's pretty much impossible to even steal the ability of someone as strong as he is given the restriction unless Kuroro have help. It's not like most people will just tell you what their special abilities do.

 

[XXGenesis]

Hisoka is significantly stronger physically (separated by 4 places in the arm wrestling chart) though I'm inclined to think Hisoka will want to see some of Kuroro's abilities before killing him because he's someone who is more interested in the thrill of battle as opposed to just want to get someone dead for the sake of killing.

This could be Hisoka's downfall as he may not be able to find or a weakness or counter for a difficult ability.

In Kuroro's case it's even worse because he's always limited to one hand while using his ability and whatever ability he uses further decreases the APs he allocates to physical defense, which is already low compared to Hisoka due to him being the maximum distance possible from Reinforcement. Hisoka's fist certainly does a lot of damage and his slashing type attacks can kill, so from his point of view he doesn't even need to know what Kuroro's attacks do because if Hisoka punched him in the face or slashed him on the throat, you can't even trade evenly against these attacks with special abilities without borderline hack like ability like Feitan's, and even in Feitan's case, if you just simply continue attacking him instead of wandering why he suddenly started talking in a different language, then you probably can still kill him before he's done setting up his attack (his attack takes a while to setup, given everyone else was able to evacuate on time).

It's not like Chrollo isn't use to fighting with this way, it's how his ability is set up and how he fights. He did a pretty good job dodging Zeno's Dragon Head trying to close the distance between them while still keeping an eye on Silva. Also We've seen him take a strike from Silva who is a Transmuter just like Hisoka and I would think him physically stronger than Hisoka...Uvo and Hisoka's strength are different also is Chrollo's durability and Kurapica..That Nen calculator also comes into play so I don't see Hisoka smashing his face so easily, but he can and will do more damage physically than Chrollo can do to him.

Sidenote: Fietan is Chinese which is why he was speaking his native language he was just pissed off. His hatsu forms an armor I believe to protect him from his own ability while it dishes out everything you did to him. You can still attack but you'll be avoiding the fact your about to get burned to a cinder,

By the way I think people are way overrating the power of Kuroro's stealing ability. He used a pretty weak ability against the Zs and if he had something that's obviously better he'd have used it already since it was quite possible he got killed. It's pretty much impossible to even steal the ability of someone as strong as he is given the restriction unless Kuroro have help. It's not like most people will just tell you what their special abilities do.

It's hard to steal an opponent's ability given his conditions. Especially the touching the book part. His fight's with the Z's was very conditional. He wasn't trying to kill them, he was buying time..and Zeno mentioned with a little more showing he could have stole his ability. The thing is we don't know how many abilities he has in that book and it's clear that he only steal's those that are valuable good for defense or offense and those of good use to his trade of stealing. So that's the big factor we haven't seen Chrollo go all out neither have we seen Hisoka but we know what Hisoka is capable of and his lv of Skill as a fighter.

 

[Phantron]

Kuroro is calm in the face of death. It doesn't mean he's holding back. He's simply not afraid of death. In the situation he was in, there was no escape anyway. If the pager call didn't come, then he's definitely dead. But since Kuroro does not fear death he used this opportunity to try to steal Zeno's ability. If the pager call came late then Kuroro would've died, and it doesn't matter to him because he never cared about dying. Even if he had some kind of hax auto kill ability and used it on Zeno, Silva would almost certainly still have killed him given Zeno had him trapped. So he can either attempt to kill Zeno and then get killed by Silva, or he might as well try to steal Zeno's ability and hope the pager call comes on time. Given Kuroro sees no value in killing the Zs and he is totally fearless, he might as well go for the stealing option as the death of Zeno is totally meaningless to him.

Hisoka will probably fight like Morel, i.e. just stand back and let Kuroro use an ability first, since he is quite confident that he can react to any ability with his own. This will favor Kuroro since he has an incredible variety of special abilities, but Hisoka is still much stronger overall physically and you always have a chance to win if you're physically stronger in HXH.

On the issue of Feitan, he not only has to generate enough heat via aura to kill the opponent but he also has to use aura to protect himself from heat (since he has no special heat resistance). This is simlar to Gensuru's explosives where he basically has to spend twice the AP for each attack (X to attack and X to protect his own arm from the explosives). This would mean his physical defense has to be very low while he's channeling his big move so you might as well try to finish him there. If his physical defense doesn't drop then that'd mean literally he take some damage and then can materialize a suit with invulnerable armor that allows him to charge up way beyond his normal capability (his Ko can't hurt Zanza) and that's just way too imbalanced for an ability. So even if you're dealing with a dangerous ability like Feitan's, you should still continue attacking if you're a physical advantage since you should be able to kill him before he finishes his incantation.

In general, there just isn't that many instant kill abilities in HXH. Even if you got hit by say Werefin's missiles you probably can kill Werefin before the effects kill you, and sure maybe killing Werefin doesn't make the effect go away but it's still better than standing there and hope it'll go away on its own. In a fight to the death it's pretty much always worth it to keep on beat the other guy to death against any special ability.

 

[Uriel]

Well, you can always overcome some situations with aura...But that's for weird cases.
Anyway, I think Hisoka would win. Leol has also the ability to steal abilities and that did not helped him. And He had lesser conditions to fulfill.

Thing is that Hisoka technique is WAY TOO VERSATILE, enough to allow him handle MANY users. And if it's special abilities...I guess He would enjoy it. We have seen how He handles users with unknown techniques before (As Gotoh) and was always overkill.

Kuroro has a wonderful technique, but in this case I tend to be biased to Transformation users which so far have the best techniques to adapt to any situation.

 

[XXGenesis]

Kuroro is calm in the face of death. It doesn't mean he's holding back. He's simply not afraid of death. In the situation he was in, there was no escape anyway. If the pager call didn't come, then he's definitely dead. But since Kuroro does not fear death he used this opportunity to try to steal Zeno's ability. If the pager call came late then Kuroro would've died, and it doesn't matter to him because he never cared about dying.

He doesn't fear death we learned this from his capture by Kurapicka, But I don't believe any of the Spiders fear death. He was holding back this is why Zeno mentioned it'll probably be a double K.O if he fought seriously on the offensive. He was Defensive the entire time. Zeno's comment prove he wasn't trying to kill the Z's......Also He most likely knew they would fall back after the Don's death. He had it planned out.

Even if he had some kind of hax auto kill ability and used it on Zeno, Silva would almost certainly still have killed him given Zeno had him trapped. So he can either attempt to kill Zeno and then get killed by Silva, or he might as well try to steal Zeno's ability and hope the pager call comes on time. Given Kuroro sees no value in killing the Zs and he is totally fearless, he might as well go for the stealing option as the death of Zeno is totally meaningless to him.

Yea, even if he was serious he would have died if it wasn't for that Phone Call. He would have taken a Z family member with him but death was inevitable.

Hisoka will probably fight like Morel, i.e. just stand back and let Kuroro use an ability first, since he is quite confident that he can react to any ability with his own. This will favor Kuroro since he has an incredible variety of special abilities, but Hisoka is still much stronger overall physically and you always have a chance to win if you're physically stronger in HXH.

Nah man that's a flawed Logic. This is a golden rule in HxH that Overall Power of Nen or Physical strength doesn't equal a win. Yupi would have been defeated if knuckle didn't take his Potclean off. Kurapicka beat Uvo through his ability of his Chain Jail. Gon almost beat Knuckle who was in every way superior but ran out of juice before he could connect.

On the issue of Feitan, he not only has to generate enough heat via aura to kill the opponent but he also has to use aura to protect himself from heat (since he has no special heat resistance). This is simlar to Gensuru's explosives where he basically has to spend twice the AP for each attack (X to attack and X to protect his own arm from the explosives). This would mean his physical defense has to be very low while he's channeling his big move so you might as well try to finish him there. If his physical defense doesn't drop then that'd mean literally he take some damage and then can materialize a suit with invulnerable armor that allows him to charge up way beyond his normal capability (his Ko can't hurt Zanza) and that's just way too imbalanced for an ability. So even if you're dealing with a dangerous ability like Feitan's, you should still continue attacking if you're a physical advantage since you should be able to kill him before he finishes his incantation.

Maybe we should make a Feitan thread but really quick...His Hatsu relates to how much damage you dished out on him, he activates this ability when he's ready. He throws on his suit and creates a mini sun that re-correlates that damage. Can't recall any charge up, no incantation either he was cursing in his native Chinese language..Also ZanZan had a TOUGH skull..Phinx mentioned that Feitan was outta shape so back in the day his KO would have did some damage...Feitan also has more abilities tan just his Pain Packer

Well, you can always overcome some situations with aura...But that's for weird cases.
Anyway, I think Hisoka would win. Leol has also the ability to steal abilities and that did not helped him. And He had lesser conditions to fulfill.

Thing is that Hisoka technique is WAY TOO VERSATILE, enough to allow him handle MANY users. And if it's special abilities...I guess He would enjoy it. We have seen how He handles users with unknown techniques before (As Gotoh) and was always overkill.

Kuroro has a wonderful technique, but in this case I tend to be biased to Transformation users which so far have the best techniques to adapt to any situation.

Hey to Chrollo defense Leol could only use these abilities once meaning he doesn't have practice with them. Chrollo can use his abilities as many times as possible as long as the person he stole it from is still alive. Chrollo stealing abilities doesn't mean he does this in all his fights. He steals what he likes, I doubt he would give his life up for an Hatsu ability.

Also Yea Trasmuters are the best they mostly seem to be very versatile fighters. Hisoka is very versatile and strong but look how he regards Chrollo, and we've seen his ranking system during the election arc. Chrollo could possibly be a 85-95.....I rate Chrollo so high simply because of Hisoka's interest in him and Zeno's statement of both them dying..And Silva's high dislike and wariness of him.

 

[quasiq]

Hisoka vs chrollo lucifer (place your bets)!

A bloodthirsty magician

versus

A class (A) bounty gang leader

 

[mousiehamster]

Re: Hisoka vs chrollo lucifer (place your bets)!

Well right off the bat, Hisoka is at a disadvantage because Chrollo knows about bungee gum. On the other hand, Hisoka knows about Chrollo's stealing powers but he probably doesn't know the abilities he's stolen, save for fun fun cloth, lovely ghost writer and teleportation.

 

[Phantron]

Re: Hisoka vs chrollo lucifer (place your bets)!

HXH has been trying to go away with the 'closer to Reinforcement = autowin' in recent volumes so right now this fight is uncertain. In classic HXH Hisoka would win by a landslide. In classic HXH, Kuroro's abilities are completely meaningless because the whole point is that you can't sidestep Reinforcement's strength with any equivalent level power. Someone with equivalent level as Ubogin can paralyze him with chains, except they'd have broke their hand and be unable to counterattack at all after taking even a direct punch (Kurapika violates this due to Emperor Time allow him to have higher defense than it is physically possible for a natural Materialization user), rendering their technique of choice irrelevent. Basically you'd expect Kuroro to use a lot of random abilities that will all turn out to be less useful than Hisoka's raw power and lose.

In the 'everyone sort of has a chance' new world of HXH you can probably handwave some random abilities that will make up the 2 positions these two differ in their proximity to Reinforcement.

 

[mousiehamster]

Re: Hisoka vs chrollo lucifer (place your bets)!

HXH has been trying to go away with the 'closer to Reinforcement = autowin' in recent volumes so right now this fight is uncertain. In classic HXH Hisoka would win by a landslide. In classic HXH, Kuroro's abilities are completely meaningless because the whole point is that you can't sidestep Reinforcement's strength with any equivalent level power. Someone with equivalent level as Ubogin can paralyze him with chains, except they'd have broke their hand and be unable to counterattack at all after taking even a direct punch (Kurapika violates this due to Emperor Time allow him to have higher defense than it is physically possible for a natural Materialization user), rendering their technique of choice irrelevent. Basically you'd expect Kuroro to use a lot of random abilities that will all turn out to be less useful than Hisoka's raw power and lose.

Huh? My impression is that Reinforcement users have the short end of the stick. They are completely outclassed by guys with unknown abilities because they can't even afford to close the distance without knowing what the other guy has (Kuroro v. Zeno: Zeno's analysis). With Emission based techniques you don't have to put yourself in danger, but even then there's nothing stopping somebody from creating a ranged ability that triggers from ranged attacks, it's just less likely as the ability would also require Emission as well.

Hisoka does have ranged attacks due to bungee gum + cards but what's scary about Kuroro is that his abilities are unknown. Furthermore, most people specialize one ability or at most, two. These abilities are usually not too far off from each other, Hisoka being the exception. On the other hand, Kuroro theoretically has a limitless amount of techniques he's stolen from other people. These aren't half assed techniques either: we're talking about signature moves here.

Reinforcement guys have been getting pwned so bad since the start, imo. Uvo couldn't hurt some douchebag with spikes on his bodies. In the ant arc the ants are strong but only because they have absurd defense which doesn't originate purely from their nen but rather from their carapace. With a fragile human body you have to block everything with Gyo or you get pulped.

IMO if you want to cut it as Reinforcement you at least need to keep your distance and not put your body at risk to attack. This means Emission. Fortunately, Emission is right next to the Reinforcement branch. It's just too damn risky otherwise.

In the 'everyone sort of has a chance' new world of HXH you can probably handwave some random abilities that will make up the 2 positions these two differ in their proximity to Reinforcement.

By new world you mean since when?

 

[Phantron]

Re: Hisoka vs chrollo lucifer (place your bets)!

Reinforcement is the strongest school in HXH by far. Emperor Time's strength is because it allows Kurapika to actually use Reinforcement school techs in a meaningful capacity, and his self-healing ability, which is pretty much total hax, is a Reinforcement tech.

The whole point of the Zeno versus Kuroro fight is that special abilities are meaningless against equally strong character. Let's say a pure Reinforcement user does X amount of physical damage, and a pure Emission user does Y amount of ranged damage. It cannot be possible to exceed X or Y in melee/ranged damage via special abilities if you're not the right school, and therefore the special ability is irrelevent. That is to say, if Shalunark autopiloted himself and fought Ubogin, he's going to get completely owned because if this isn't the case there's literally no reason why Reinforcement school should even exist. Note that Shalunark has no chance to stick an antennae in Ubogin either since the antennae cannot penetrate the carapace of a fodder Ant. You can't get around this with conditions either because say you make some kind of tough condition that makes you materialize the nearly unbreakable chains then the same Reinforcement user can use the same conditions to punch through your nearly unbreakable chains too.

Feitan's ability is the first example of a special ability that allows an unbelieveable comeback. It's basically take X damage and deal like 10X damage back, and apparently there's enough time for every one else to go "RUN FOR YOUR LIVES BIG MOVE COMING" while Zanza sort of just stands there and watch and get blown away. This kind of move would never have been possible in classic HXH because Feitan would've been killed while preparing for a move that takes long enough for everyone else to flail their hands and run for cover, not to mention return more damage than you take is pretty much the definition of non-equivalence. In light of this technique it is possible for some equally ridiculous special move to turn things around.

In HXH people don't worry about odds because worrying about these things would just get you killed, not because odds do not exist. Zeno literally has no chance of beating Meryem (Meryem could've killed him and Netero instantly in the initial encounter) but you don't see him worry about that, because he'd just get killed even sooner if he spends his time worrying about such things. Likewise nobody who knows how the combat system of HXH works is going to assume they cannot possibly lose a fight, because having that kind of pride is likely to get you killed very fast too. But, the odds still exist. For example we see Killua saying even all of them (Gon/Knuckles/etc/etc) put together they still don't have a chance of beating Pitou with one working arm and that's a consensus the rest of the team agrees. You don't worry about these things because if a fight breaks out at that moment, so be it. It doesn't mean the team was at all capable of fighting Pitou during that point in time.

Similar to Zeno's case, Hisoka has a stronger physical and ranged game than Kuroro due to proximity to the relevent schools. Unlike Zeno, Hisoka has more of a Hunter mentality compared to Assassin (e.g. he can actually wants to see the enemy's ability, whereas Zeno would prefer to kill his opponent before even seeing what their ability is) so Kuroro has at least chances to use his abilities.

That said, Kuroro appears to have higher base physical stats than anyone in the Spiders due to his 7th ranking in arm wrestling strength because his position breaks the aura tier model, while Hisoka's 3rd place is not. That is, assuming Phinx (2nd) is Reinforcement, then Hisoka is ahead of Franklin (Emission), Feitan (most likely Transformation), and Machi (Transformation), which means he has the highest physical stats out of anyone who is 1-away from Reinforcement, but still loses to the two Reinforcement user. Therefore, his physical strength is high but does not bypass the inherent aura system. Note that Gon is significantly stronger than him physically by the time GI rolls around. If the two simply just punch each other the whole time GI Gon would probably win this fight (Gon can keep up with him back in Celestial Arena in a straight punch exchange). On the other hand, Kuroro is 7th in arm strength even though he should be near the bottom (Specialization is furthest away from Reinforcement). Even ruling out some people who are clearly not combat-oriented, it'd seem Kuroro possess physical ablity about one tier higher than the average Spider, because he's physically stronger than all the Spiders who are 2-away from Reinforcement, even though he is 3-away from Reinforcement. So it's possible that the school deficit is not as severe as past anecdotes would predict.

In light of this the fight one can argue Kuroro's physical ability is closer to that of Razor than the average Spider or even Hisoka.

 

[mousiehamster]

Re: Hisoka vs chrollo lucifer (place your bets)!

Reinforcement is the strongest school in HXH by far. Emperor Time's strength is because it allows Kurapika to actually use Reinforcement school techs in a meaningful capacity, and his self-healing ability, which is pretty much total hax, is a Reinforcement tech.

I don't know about it being hax since in HxH battles tend to end quickly and when you sustain injury it's probably a fairly debilitating one rather than damage being gradually accumulated. But i think the only tenable explanation is that Kurapica's abilities is bullshit. I prefer cutting him out the equation.

The whole point of the Zeno versus Kuroro fight is that special abilities are meaningless against equally strong character. Let's say a pure Reinforcement user does X amount of physical damage, and a pure Emission user does Y amount of ranged damage. It cannot be possible to exceed X or Y in melee/ranged damage via special abilities if you're not the right school, and therefore the special ability is irrelevent. That is to say, if Shalunark autopiloted himself and fought Ubogin, he's going to get completely owned because if this isn't the case there's literally no reason why Reinforcement school should even exist. Note that Shalunark has no chance to stick an antennae in Ubogin either since the antennae cannot penetrate the carapace of a fodder Ant. You can't get around this with conditions either because say you make some kind of tough condition that makes you materialize the nearly unbreakable chains then the same Reinforcement user can use the same conditions to punch through your nearly unbreakable chains too.

I get what you're saying but how does the conclusion follow from the Zeno v. Kuroro fight? I also think it's fair to say that Reinforcement users have less of a tendency to impose conditions. When they do it is usually to further enhance the destructive powers of their reinforcement abilities. Of course, by definition the school that is the best at dealing physical damage is going to be the school that ultimately does the most physical damage. But reinforcement users are usually susceptible to status effects, poison and crap like that and without emission techniques they have to get close - very close. For example, fun fun cloth can shrink anybody and anything into the size of an ant. How the hell is anybody supposed to know, just from observation, what the hell the cloak does? An emission user can spam nen blasts. A conjurer can use his conjured weapon or conjured creature. Transmuters? No idea since the school is too varied. But reinforcement users have no options available to them: either they head into the unknown or they fight very, very cautiously. In the former case, what the hell is a reinforcement user to do when he gets touched by fun fun cloth? The status effect (shrinkage) is not dependent on the opponent's nen level: you get covered, you get shrunk. End of story. Physical defense does not change any of that. So there's no real need to attain an equivalence of destructive capability if you've got abilities that help you win fights in other ways. It is also because of this seemingly infinitely open-ended nature of Nen that had me scratching my head - imo it makes fights too unpredictable. And reinforcement users can't even BE unpredictable so i consider them to be at a big disadvantage against other schools.

Feitan's ability is the first example of a special ability that allows an unbelieveable comeback. It's basically take X damage and deal like 10X damage back, and apparently there's enough time for every one else to go "RUN FOR YOUR LIVES BIG MOVE COMING" while Zanza sort of just stands there and watch and get blown away. This kind of move would never have been possible in classic HXH because Feitan would've been killed while preparing for a move that takes long enough for everyone else to flail their hands and run for cover, not to mention return more damage than you take is pretty much the definition of non-equivalence. In light of this technique it is possible for some equally ridiculous special move to turn things around.

Perhaps it's just a case of Zazan having poor fire resistance. The carapace is great for soaking up physical blows but probably not so much - at least not AS much - against heat, radiation, electrocution etc. Which is perhaps again support for the idea that different types of damage might, in real terms, supersede pure physical force.

In HXH people don't worry about odds because worrying about these things would just get you killed, not because odds do not exist. Zeno literally has no chance of beating Meryem (Meryem could've killed him and Netero instantly in the initial encounter) but you don't see him worry about that, because he'd just get killed even sooner if he spends his time worrying about such things. Likewise nobody who knows how the combat system of HXH works is going to assume they cannot possibly lose a fight, because having that kind of pride is likely to get you killed very fast too. But, the odds still exist. For example we see Killua saying even all of them (Gon/Knuckles/etc/etc) put together they still don't have a chance of beating Pitou with one working arm and that's a consensus the rest of the team agrees. You don't worry about these things because if a fight breaks out at that moment, so be it. It doesn't mean the team was at all capable of fighting Pitou during that point in time.

That doesn't mean people can just charge into combat. A reinforcement user won't just run into a guy waving around a nen conjured (emitted? transmuted?) rainbow colored bolo, for example. That bolo does SOMETHING that you cannot predict and it does not make sense to charge into it. You only have one life. Best thing to do is to put the bolo to the test by cautiously moving in and out of range and try to figure out what it does. The possession of an unknown quantity is a big advantage. Against non-reinforcement users, there is an equivalence of the unknown - both users have unknown abilities. Against a reinforcement user you know precisely what he is capable of. And reinforcement users are pretty easy to spot - just check out their Ten. If the guy's level (using a rough estimate) is level X, and his Ten is really good, then he's obviously reinforcement. Plus it's really easy to deduce their nen types just from their personality.

Similar to Zeno's case, Hisoka has a stronger physical and ranged game than Kuroro due to proximity to the relevent schools. Unlike Zeno, Hisoka has more of a Hunter mentality compared to Assassin (e.g. he can actually wants to see the enemy's ability, whereas Zeno would prefer to kill his opponent before even seeing what their ability is) so Kuroro has at least chances to use his abilities.

This is something that i've always wondered: are Kuroro's stolen abilities dependent on his own nen level of the respective discipline of the ability or is it under the "specialization" discipline? Or is the nen level of the ability the nen level of the original user's? This would affect who has the better ranged game (individual differences in ability aside).

That said, Kuroro appears to have higher base physical stats than anyone in the Spiders due to his 7th ranking in arm wrestling strength because his position breaks the aura tier model, while Hisoka's 3rd place is not. That is, assuming Phinx (2nd) is Reinforcement, then Hisoka is ahead of Franklin (Emission), Feitan (most likely Transformation), and Machi (Transformation), which means he has the highest physical stats out of anyone who is 1-away from Reinforcement, but still loses to the two Reinforcement user. Therefore, his physical strength is high but does not bypass the inherent aura system. Note that Gon is significantly stronger than him physically by the time GI rolls around. If the two simply just punch each other the whole time GI Gon would probably win this fight (Gon can keep up with him back in Celestial Arena in a straight punch exchange).

I thought Hisoka was clearly going easy on Gon.

On the other hand, Kuroro is 7th in arm strength even though he should be near the bottom (Specialization is furthest away from Reinforcement). Even ruling out some people who are clearly not combat-oriented, it'd seem Kuroro possess physical ablity about one tier higher than the average Spider, because he's physically stronger than all the Spiders who are 2-away from Reinforcement, even though he is 3-away from Reinforcement. So it's possible that the school deficit is not as severe as past anecdotes would predict.

In light of this the fight one can argue Kuroro's physical ability is closer to that of Razor than the average Spider or even Hisoka.

That said, there's no evidence to suggest that physical specs correlate with nen quantities so in a punching contest, who knows what would happen? Hisoka certainly has the tendency of finishing people off melee though, so he's probably pretty good at it. On the other hand, according to Zeno, Kuroro prefers shutting down his opponent's game before taking him out. This does not sound like someone who specializes in hand to hand, although he did nick Silva with a knife.

 

[EverEndingStory]

Re: Hisoka vs chrollo lucifer (place your bets)!

That said, there's no evidence to suggest that physical specs correlate with nen quantities so in a punching contest, who knows what would happen? Hisoka certainly has the tendency of finishing people off melee though, so he's probably pretty good at it. On the other hand, according to Zeno, Kuroro prefers shutting down his opponent's game before taking him out. This does not sound like someone who specializes in hand to hand, although he did nick Silva with a knife.

I always thought that there was only a loose correlation between physical specs and nen quality. Uvo has high physical specs BECAUSE he is a Reinforcement type. His Nen type influences his style of fighting, a style of fighting which works him physically and thus gives him incredible physical abilities. Regardless of whether Phinx is Reinforcement or not, his ABILITY makes him a PHYSICAL FIGHTER, and fighting that way increases his physical stats. Hisoka isn't a Reinforcement type, but he fights physically, and thus gets stronger. Franklin at #4 can be excused because of his size justifying why he has such high physical strength. Feitan and Nobunaga are both swordsmen, but they fight in very different ways - Nobunaga is very still, and kills people in one slash. Feitan is much more movement heavy, speeding around a lot and using many sword slashes - because he exerts himself more physically, his physical specs are higher.

Again, with the POSSIBLE exceptions of Franklin and Bonolenov, the physical hierarchy of the Phantom Troupe seems to correspond very well with how much each physically exerts his or herself.




And Uvogin does have long-range abilities. His scream, as well as his ability to turn any object in the physical environment into a lethal projectile.

 

[Phantron]

There's really no such thing as a 'ranged status attack' in HXH. The closest thing to that might be Pufu's pollens but Morel just held his breath, and Pufu remarked that is the natural reaction to an ability like his. Yes normal people can't hold their breath for an hour like Morel but you'd just simply get out of the area of effect while holding your breath and that's pretty trivial to do.

Now the problem with using melee ranged status attack is that it is strictly inferior to the Poisoned Dagger (TM). That is, if a special attack requires a melee hit to connect you might as well go buy some poisoned weapons like Kuroro does. Outside of very few exceptions poison resistance is nonexistent amongst humans. So say you're Ubogin, your regular physical attacks are strong enough to break someone's arm. When you connect a hit the opponent may retaliate with an unknown special ability, but as long as the ability requires connecting a melee hit (and again there's really no indication that you can do ranged status attack) it is no different than the opponent simply pulling out a poisoned dagger and try to stab you, and that'd work just as well on virtually any character in HXH. So you're not taking any additional risk beyond just the enemy having a poisoned dagger even if all you're doing is running up to someone and punch him to death.

The fun fun cloth was mentioned and that's actually a good example of special abilities being irrelvent. We can completely rule out possibilty like say it shrinks someone and then you just crush the guy inside the cloth (otherwise Nobunaga should've already died). So presumably whoever gets shrunk is in some kind of limbo status. So you're facing this guy with a cloth that you're not sure what it does, but you see an opening that lets you do at least arm-breaking level of damage. Well first breaking someone's arm might very well stop the ability altogether (presumably the hand channels the aura to materialize the cloth). Even if it doesn't stop the ability, you're still ahead by an arm. I guess it's possible whoever captured you then goes to his 10 friends while you're in the limbo and then unshrink you and deliver a total beatdown, but in that case it's your fault for being alone while the other guy has 10 friends. If you have your own friends they clearly can break you out of the cloth.

The arm wrestling chart is a straight up indication of each character's ability at hand-to-hand combat. There's no reason why in a world where everyone knows aura you wouldn't use aura while arm wrestling, and this is about as straightforward as it gets. Hisoka's position at #3 puts him as 'best out of 1-away characters' but Kuroro's #7 spot is ahead of even any 2-away characters, implying his base physical stat is even higher. Hisoka's composite physical strength is obviously higher than Kuroro, but Kuroro likely has superior base physical strength. This offsets the usual disadvantage for fighting guys who are closer to Reinforcement than you. For example Razor and Hisoka are both 1 away from Reinforcement but there's no way Hisoka can block Razor's punch straight up, which implies Razor's base physical strength is much higher than Hisoka's since their aura modifier should be the same.

There's no reason to believe Hisoka was holding back in the Celestial Arena without invoking techniques that does not exist at this point. He even said Gon could win in 10 more tries. The Celestial Arena, after all, is a rule-based battlefield. Even as crazy as Hisoka is, he still respects the rules. The Arena obviously frowns upon purposely trying to kill someone even though they do not forbid it, so Hisoka can't exactly just open up by cutting Gon's arteries like he did against Gotoh. Note that if you talk about a no rules fight, Kastro could've chopped off Hisoka's head from the start and that'd be the end of that fight (Hisoka clearly had no idea where the clone was going to appear from at first). Yes people do die in the arena but there's an implicit rule that you don't just start by trying to chop people's head off or Hisoka wouldn't even be alive now. So you're a completely open battlefield with no obstruction, and most fatal attacks are frowned upon and that's an enviornment that greatly favors Reinforcement. It'd be weird if Gon can't win like this, since this type of style is very disadvantageous for Hisoka.

Yes Hisoka did thought about killing Gon, but it's not clear if he'd even succeed before a TKO (the judge is clearly aware of what's happening) and it's not like the damage he took was just for show or because he's bored.

 

[mousiehamster]

There's really no such thing as a 'ranged status attack' in HXH. The closest thing to that might be Pufu's pollens but Morel just held his breath, and Pufu remarked that is the natural reaction to an ability like his. Yes normal people can't hold their breath for an hour like Morel but you'd just simply get out of the area of effect while holding your breath and that's pretty trivial to do.

Of course, HxH is built upon risk and reward so it makes sense that status effects that trigger at range are rare because they can shut down a melee reinforcement user pretty easily but you can't discount the possibility of it being in the HxH universe - that is to say, there's no conceptual and systemic reason why these sort of things are precluded under the Nen framework.

Now the problem with using melee ranged status attack is that it is strictly inferior to the Poisoned Dagger (TM). That is, if a special attack requires a melee hit to connect you might as well go buy some poisoned weapons like Kuroro does. Outside of very few exceptions poison resistance is nonexistent amongst humans. So say you're Ubogin, your regular physical attacks are strong enough to break someone's arm. When you connect a hit the opponent may retaliate with an unknown special ability, but as long as the ability requires connecting a melee hit (and again there's really no indication that you can do ranged status attack) it is no different than the opponent simply pulling out a poisoned dagger and try to stab you, and that'd work just as well on virtually any character in HXH. So you're not taking any additional risk beyond just the enemy having a poisoned dagger even if all you're doing is running up to someone and punch him to death.

You are reducing every non-reinforcement ability to something that requires physical contact. The knife isn't the be-all-end-all anyway since its effectiveness is probably dependent on the user (Kuroro could cut Silva with a Benz knife but could Gon do the same with his Nen? Maybe, maybe not.) Thing is you could get borked by stuff like Bungee Gum for example. Say you charge Hisoka and punch. He blocks, or ducks, or he's weaved a cloak of pink looking aura. You can't tell what it is but you punch him anyway. Well great, now you've got bungee gum all over you. Now he can remotely attach strands of the gum from your fist to the floor or to your limbs and tie you up. Or he can yank you towards him or away from him. Even if you're strong enough to overpower it, you now have to keep an eye on where the gum is attached to and what it's doing on a moment to moment basis. You also have to dynamically react to where it pushes/pulls/restrains you instantaneously. You are now at a big disadvantage and this is despite the fact that bungee gum is rather physical in nature and so can be physically overpowered by reinforcement users. The utility of bungee gum is far greater than poisoned knives in many contexts as a consequence.

The fun fun cloth was mentioned and that's actually a good example of special abilities being irrelvent. We can completely rule out possibilty like say it shrinks someone and then you just crush the guy inside the cloth (otherwise Nobunaga should've already died). So presumably whoever gets shrunk is in some kind of limbo status. So you're facing this guy with a cloth that you're not sure what it does, but you see an opening that lets you do at least arm-breaking level of damage. Well first breaking someone's arm might very well stop the ability altogether (presumably the hand channels the aura to materialize the cloth). Even if it doesn't stop the ability, you're still ahead by an arm. I guess it's possible whoever captured you then goes to his 10 friends while you're in the limbo and then unshrink you and deliver a total beatdown, but in that case it's your fault for being alone while the other guy has 10 friends. If you have your own friends they clearly can break you out of the cloth.

No, no, no! You think being captured is not a disadvantage? You charge him, he nabs you and then he runs off. You're effectively taken out of the battle. Maybe the guy keeps you in the sack and starve to death. Or maybe he empties the contents of the bag (i.e. you) into a volcano or something. Even if he doesn't, the guy has just taken you out of battle in a snap. That's a terrible consequence and is evidence that charging somebody with an unknown ability is a really bad idea.

The arm wrestling chart is a straight up indication of each character's ability at hand-to-hand combat. There's no reason why in a world where everyone knows aura you wouldn't use aura while arm wrestling, and this is about as straightforward as it gets. Hisoka's position at #3 puts him as 'best out of 1-away characters' but Kuroro's #7 spot is ahead of even any 2-away characters, implying his base physical stat is even higher. Hisoka's composite physical strength is obviously higher than Kuroro, but Kuroro likely has superior base physical strength. This offsets the usual disadvantage for fighting guys who are closer to Reinforcement than you. For example Razor and Hisoka are both 1 away from Reinforcement but there's no way Hisoka can block Razor's punch straight up, which implies Razor's base physical strength is much higher than Hisoka's since their aura modifier should be the same.

I think this is true. Specialization users generally break all the rules anyway.

There's no reason to believe Hisoka was holding back in the Celestial Arena without invoking techniques that does not exist at this point. He even said Gon could win in 10 more tries. The Celestial Arena, after all, is a rule-based battlefield. Even as crazy as Hisoka is, he still respects the rules. The Arena obviously frowns upon purposely trying to kill someone even though they do not forbid it, so Hisoka can't exactly just open up by cutting Gon's arteries like he did against Gotoh. Note that if you talk about a no rules fight, Kastro could've chopped off Hisoka's head from the start and that'd be the end of that fight (Hisoka clearly had no idea where the clone was going to appear from at first). Yes people do die in the arena but there's an implicit rule that you don't just start by trying to chop people's head off or Hisoka wouldn't even be alive now. So you're a completely open battlefield with no obstruction, and most fatal attacks are frowned upon and that's an enviornment that greatly favors Reinforcement. It'd be weird if Gon can't win like this, since this type of style is very disadvantageous for Hisoka.

All his victories, other than against Gon, were fatalities. Kastro was stupid. I guarantee that if he wanted Gon dead, it would have happened and he could do it with his fists. Also he said it would be "interesting" after 10 tries but one has to understand that togashi is constantly revising power levels as he goes along. It's perfectly understandable and unrealistic to expect the guy to have a clear idea of the power hierarchy from that point in the series. He's done a good job though, IMO. There are of course a few points not thought out too well i.e. the distinction between conjured stuff granting abilities and specialized abilities (basho's conjured poetry thing vs. Kuroro's book - why is one specialization whilst the other is not? Why isn't potclean merely conjuration?) and so on.

addendum:

the only possible way, imo (pursuant to the above), for reinforcement users to hold their own is if they can tell what their opponents' hatsus do. Then at least they could USE their reinforcement nen. There is some support for the idea that nen users have some idea from simple observation as to what their opponents' hatsus involve. For instance, Meryem was able to divine exactly how Netero's statue operates by means of prayer and how it took decades of meditation. This makes some sense: hatsus are drawn from the psyche of its users. Some hatsus (like Bomber's) also requires disclosure of its mechanism before capable of use, so that puts a bit of a cap on unpredictable abilities totally screwing over reinforcement users (actually, as well as effectively making the "meta-game" between all nen combatants - not just reinforcement users - a total crap shoot). Unfortunately stuff like fun-fun cloth isn't dependent on disclosure. I suppose one could stick with the universal principle: AVOID THE CONJURED ITEM FROM TOUCHING YOU but the hatsu could be equally strange shit that triggers on inaction or proximity or something.

 

[Phantron]

The person with the most hax abilities is Kurapika by far. All 3 of his major abilities (Jail/Emperor/healing) are pretty much far above what anyone has used in terms of power thus far. And if you fight someone assuming he's going to have a hax ability, let alone 3 of them, you'll just turn into Killua who runs away prior removing the needle before even fighting because the enemy may have a hack ability.

It's not just ranged status abilities are rare. They're clearly impossible in HXH, and if someone happens to be able to do the impossible you can't possibly be prepared for that, just like nobody assumes an enemy starts with an ability like Emperor Time to begin with, otherwise you might as well surrender before the fight even started.

Silva praised the quality of the knife for being able to hurt him, not the quality of the user, which implies anybody with such a weapon could hurt him. Any status effect that can be made with an item affected by aura can pretty much be effectively duplicated by a poisoned weapon. For example Shalunark surmised one way to defeat Ubogin would be to have a chain that causes slumber on touch. They got weapons that do that just fine using modern medicine in the Hunter Exam. Note that 'on touch' almost certainly doesn't mean 'just touching the item without any other qualified condition', because you might as well call that deathtouch in the world of HXH given falling into a slumber would almost certainly cause you to get immediately killed. The 'on touch' qualifier usually implies the same item can inflict damage. We see plenty of characters carrying poison around them and the opponent has to be wounded for them to apply poison. For example the mosquito Ant tried to use poison on Killua to no effect, but the fact that the mosquito could inject poison implies she can at least penetrate Killua's skin, and that can be considered as 'wounded'. So with the qualifier of 'on touch' and 'inflict damage', that pretty much covers things like the paralyzing darts/arrows used in the 4th round of Hunter Exam, and that's already sufficient to kill anyone who isn't immune to it. Yes a weak character using a paralyzing dart will probably just see the dart bounce off, but a weak conjured object would also bounce off. Kurapika's master said in terms of the strength of the object you're pretty much looking at legendary weapon as the limit of what Materialization can do without considering restrictions, and legendary weapons are clearly strong enough to harm any human being, so if your goal is simply to create a potent object you might as well just invest in a legendary weapon.

Netero is the strongest HXH character 50 years ago, and the flashback implies he didn't even need to use anything beyond his physical speed/body (there were no statues in his flashbacks) and he's a Reinforcement user. In the aerial scrimmage between Pitou and Netero it is a classic example of why special abilities are irrelevent against someone who is strong/fast enough. Pitou requires only 0.1s to charge his special ability (Kurapika's Chain Jail requires 0.5s) but Netero can hit him and knock him away in under that time. Netero has no idea what special ability Pitou has either but it doesn't matter because he knows he can knock Pitou far enough away so that the ability doesn't even matter. Either the abilty doesn't resolve because Pitou was hit out of the charging motion, or if it somehow resolved anyway Pitou would be too far away to do anything useful. When Netero is younger he can probably do this straight up using his physical speed. Reinforcement is not just strength. It's also speed (stronger body = faster speed, Uber Gon is so fast that Pitou can't even see his movements at all) and recovery.

Netero's move isn't actually all that specular. It's basically something that hits you very fast and very hard with a relatively weak requirement (it's not even clear another human being can tell Netero is actually praying, which means the liability of this move is very little versus human opponents. Yes the Ants can see that he's praying but they're obviously way beyond human beings in physical prowess). And at 50% of his prime it's not clear if anybody who is commonly in discussion for 'most powerful HXH character' can even do anything about a move that is basically just punching you very fast repeatedly. Certainly you can rule out any special move given Netero's base speed is > Pitou's 0.1s charge which is presumably much, much faster than any human would need to charge up a meaningful special move.

---------- Post added at 04:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:23 PM ----------

Expanding a bit more on the charge time concept.

We know Kurapika's Chain Jail requires 0.5s to charge which is why he needed Gon to distract the Spiders for at least 1s. It also implies that a Spider level character can normally easily get out of the way of an attack that takes 0.5s to charge.

Pitou's special attack requires 0.1s to charge. It's pointed out that this is an incredibly fast charge time, and it goes without saying that Pitou's quantifiable attributes (speed/AP/strength/etc) far exceeds the limit of human ability. Yet Netero, at 50% of his prime, can complete an attack in under 0.1s.

As speed is directly correlated to Reinforcement (stronger your physical body is, the faster you can move. Uber Gon is unbelieveably fast), this means as long as your speed allows you to complete an attack under the time it takes an opponent to charge his special move, it is completely irrelevent what the opponent's special move is. We see that the two strongest Reinforcement users (Uber Gon and Netero) have a rather simple strategy in combat. They hit hard and all their attacks knocks the opponent away from them. The initial attack is completely safe because their attack speed is faster than any character's charge speed, so it is impossible to stop their initial attack with a special move. Connecting the attack has a high probability of canceling the opponent's special move (hard to charge up when you're being pounded), but even if the enemy somehow succeeds in using their special move, the knockback effect means they'd be too far away to use their special move successfully.

Momentum is unguardable in HXH. That is, while Meryem is basically imprevious to physical attacks, his body moves in a way that is physically consistent with someone of normal weight. If you hit him with a standard strong attack and he wasn't able to guard it, his body will always fly in the expected direction even though this action does no damage to him whatsoever. You can see this even in Ubogin versus Kurapika. Ubogin says because he doesn't know what Kurapika's chains do, so he has to attack first. We see Ubogin's punch creates a lot of space via the knockback, and if not for Ubogin mysteriously failing aura 101 after he did his Big Bang punch there's no reason to believe why he can't avoid Kurapika's Chain Jail after that given how much distance the Big Bang Punch puts between the two characters. As long as you can complete an attack faster than someone can charge a special move (and this is easy, as this can be done on people who are unfathomably more powerful than you in any measureable quantities), the strategy for a Reinforcement is basically:

1. Attack with a space creating move.
2. Use the space to avoid retaliation (if any).
3. Go to 1.

Of course that'd be a very boring and cheap way to fight but there's really nothing you can do to stop it unless you're like Meryem who can prevent the space creating move from being used at all, and that's only because Meryem is practically all powerful.

 

[Uriel]

Somehow all your post reminded me the time when Meleoron started to think to become invisible and got taken out in a split second.

 

[Phantron]

Somehow all your post reminded me the time when Meleoron started to think to become invisible and got taken out in a split second.

Well in the martial arts genre there's this concept of 'the faster guy always win' and HXH is heavily influenced by the martial arts genre, and speed is undoubtedly tied to Reinforcement.

I mean really, what can you do if the other guy can hit you before you can even think about hitting back? Even at the human level, prime Netero's speed is well above the fastest charge time for Hatsu, which means he has no fear of any Hatsu no matter what they are. Speed eliminates Hatsu (you can hit them out of the Hatsu or at least knock them far enough away) and of course if you got no Hatsus, Reinforcement will always win in a straight up fight.

That said Hisoka and most characters are more like move-countermove type characters. That is, suppose they're playing a game of rock-paper-scissors they'd obviously go through thinking 'If I did this then he did that but if I do this and that then I totally win!" On the other hand someone like Kuroro is likely to come up with a solution of 'stab the guy with a poison knife and win by default' in the same game, and a Reinforcement user serious about winning would just use 'the bomb' which beats rock, paper, and scissors. If you look at Netero/Uber Gon's style of attack -> knockback -> repeat, that's virtually uncounterable. Actually, you can see a lot about how a character fights on whether their physical attacks does knockback or not. For example, Hisoka's attack pretty much does no knockback whatsoever. You can argue the Bungee Gum is a move that prevent knockback and it goes both ways (he can pull the opponent in but the opponent can pull him in too). This is because he's a move-countermove guy and enjoys in figuring out the right moves to win, as opposed to having an unstoppable strategy. Kuroro, on the other hand, is clearly more interested in winning if not just survival so he has no qualms using cheap tactics. In fact, if one is truly interested in survival in HXH, one should just load up on poisoned weapons and start throwing gas grenades (while wearing a gas mask) but that'd also be incredibly lame if everyone did that.

 

[mousiehamster]

It's not just ranged status abilities are rare. They're clearly impossible in HXH, and if someone happens to be able to do the impossible you can't possibly be prepared for that, just like nobody assumes an enemy starts with an ability like Emperor Time to begin with, otherwise you might as well surrender before the fight even started.

Potclean. Basho's poetry (attack me and get set on fire). They don't even have to be long ranged. They don't even have to be instantly fatal. Just getting screwed in some unexpected way is bad enough. Keep in mind this is a world where people possess strange ass abilities such as being able to transform into a goddamn motorcycle that sucks up its rider's nen for fuel. And Jaguar guy (run faster than me in my world space or lose: or something like that, I don't remember).

Silva praised the quality of the knife for being able to hurt him, not the quality of the user, which implies anybody with such a weapon could hurt him. Any status effect that can be made with an item affected by aura can pretty much be effectively duplicated by a poisoned weapon. For example Shalunark surmised one way to defeat Ubogin would be to have a chain that causes slumber on touch. They got weapons that do that just fine using modern medicine in the Hunter Exam. Note that 'on touch' almost certainly doesn't mean 'just touching the item without any other qualified condition', because you might as well call that deathtouch in the world of HXH given falling into a slumber would almost certainly cause you to get immediately killed. The 'on touch' qualifier usually implies the same item can inflict damage. We see plenty of characters carrying poison around them and the opponent has to be wounded for them to apply poison. For example the mosquito Ant tried to use poison on Killua to no effect, but the fact that the mosquito could inject poison implies she can at least penetrate Killua's skin, and that can be considered as 'wounded'. So with the qualifier of 'on touch' and 'inflict damage', that pretty much covers things like the paralyzing darts/arrows used in the 4th round of Hunter Exam, and that's already sufficient to kill anyone who isn't immune to it. Yes a weak character using a paralyzing dart will probably just see the dart bounce off, but a weak conjured object would also bounce off. Kurapika's master said in terms of the strength of the object you're pretty much looking at legendary weapon as the limit of what Materialization can do without considering restrictions, and legendary weapons are clearly strong enough to harm any human being, so if your goal is simply to create a potent object you might as well just invest in a legendary weapon.

Anybody with a knife can cut Silva/Uvogin? Guys like Uvo can tank a bazooka rocket. You think somebody channeling a little nen through a knife can hurt him? If you can only possibly be better off by a substantial amount by using poison, then why doesn't everybody use poison? The Zoldycks being specialists would be the first in line for a cheap, easy and effective way of doing somebody in but not a single one of them utilize poison. Either this is a plot hole (likely) or Nen battles are generally so deadly it doesn't matter (failure to protect yourself from a nen based attack = obliteration of a limb at the very least).

Netero is the strongest HXH character 50 years ago, and the flashback implies he didn't even need to use anything beyond his physical speed/body (there were no statues in his flashbacks) and he's a Reinforcement user. In the aerial scrimmage between Pitou and Netero it is a classic example of why special abilities are irrelevent against someone who is strong/fast enough. Pitou requires only 0.1s to charge his special ability (Kurapika's Chain Jail requires 0.5s) but Netero can hit him and knock him away in under that time. Netero has no idea what special ability Pitou has either but it doesn't matter because he knows he can knock Pitou far enough away so that the ability doesn't even matter. Either the abilty doesn't resolve because Pitou was hit out of the charging motion, or if it somehow resolved anyway Pitou would be too far away to do anything useful. When Netero is younger he can probably do this straight up using his physical speed. Reinforcement is not just strength. It's also speed (stronger body = faster speed, Uber Gon is so fast that Pitou can't even see his movements at all) and recovery.

Netero's move isn't actually all that specular. It's basically something that hits you very fast and very hard with a relatively weak requirement (it's not even clear another human being can tell Netero is actually praying, which means the liability of this move is very little versus human opponents. Yes the Ants can see that he's praying but they're obviously way beyond human beings in physical prowess). And at 50% of his prime it's not clear if anybody who is commonly in discussion for 'most powerful HXH character' can even do anything about a move that is basically just punching you very fast repeatedly. Certainly you can rule out any special move given Netero's base speed is > Pitou's 0.1s charge which is presumably much, much faster than any human would need to charge up a meaningful special move.

Well first, you have already assumed that somebody who can move faster than his opponent can react will win against his opponent. This is obviously true but why assume that every reinforcement user is 10000x faster than guys of other nen disciplines? Truth is there are plenty of fast guys Hisoka, Knuckle, Feitan and so on, all of which aren't reinforcement. In fact, Uvo is pretty darn slow despite being monstrously strong. No doubt powerful guys are fast but you can't just generalize. But let's assume reinforcement guys are faster and stronger. The question is then: by how much? Your assertion is only valid if every reinforcement user moves at Meryem speed. But they don't. A level 10 conjurer isn't utterly helpless against a level 10 reinforcement user. Kuroro was doing fine against Zeno AND Silva, who is reinforcement and Kuroro is at least at a similar level to Zeno. So unless Silva is utterly shit him being able to keep up doesn't make much sense. Add to that the fact that good ole' Netero conjuring/emitting is death-dealing statue is further proof that you can be seriously screwed by other disciplines dishing out pure physical damage (a forte of reinforcement users). Uvo getting pushed into a corner by Injyuu - being completely unable to hit Dog.

 

[Uriel]

It's not that they're helpless, or so it is what I believe, it's that they're as Wing said the ones who doesn't need any special stuff because they're balanced between Offense and Defense. Reinforcements users also die and not everyone starts with the same gauge of aura, physical abilities and Nen proficiency. But they have the lead when it comes some stuff.

Obviously if you have a Conjurer with better proficiency at Nen (Like Kurapika versus Uvogin, in which the first focused his technique solely for the Spiders) the result will be always the same.

 

[Phantron]

It's not that they're helpless, or so it is what I believe, it's that they're as Wing said the ones who doesn't need any special stuff because they're balanced between Offense and Defense. Reinforcements users also die and not everyone starts with the same gauge of aura, physical abilities and Nen proficiency. But they have the lead when it comes some stuff.

Obviously if you have a Conjurer with better proficiency at Nen (Like Kurapika versus Uvogin, in which the first focused his technique solely for the Spiders) the result will be always the same.

If a Reinforcement user of Ubogin's calibur applies the same restrictions as Chain Jail he can definitely break Chain Jail from the outside (can't do it from inside due to Zetsu).

It's because Reinforcement starts with an overwhelming advantage in physical offense/defense that they generally have no need for dangerous restrictions on their techs, because they don't need to use them. The other schools, especially the ones that are far away from Reinforcement, need to take significant risks on their conditions to beat Reinforcement. But the risk still exists. Take the surfing guy's ability that Leol used against Morel. That is a pretty strong ability that can neutralize any strength advantage, but only if it's raining AND you're fighting in an underground, enclosed space. If it's not raining the ability won't work outright. If you're not underground, all the Reinforcement user has to do is punch a hole in the wall and the ability is effectively countered even if you started out in an enclosed room (and it's downright useless in open terrain, since the water it can conjure is limited).

---------- Post added December 31, 2012 at 02:29 AM ---------- Previous post was December 28, 2012 at 02:58 PM ----------

I saw an interesting point from another board. Hisoka's prediction (the true one) says he's supposed to fight Kuroro in the second week with Kurapika's help, and there was nothing after that. This means he was supposed to have died by the time the third week comes around. Further, Kuroro's prediction mentions nothing about fighting Hisoka, which means this fight is obviously not anything dangerous to him.

So unless Togashi just decided to not bother writing out the 3rd/4th line of Hisoka's prediction, that means Hisoka must have fought Kuroro and died, and it must have been a rather lopsided fight since it wasn't even mentioned in Kuroro's prediction.