For Fate and UBW none cuz Shirou needs Avalon to heal him, that is if they make it past the heartstab and Herk fight
For HF I guess anyone that can beat Herk, which even with grail juice might only be Lancelot and Gawain
For Fate and UBW none cuz Shirou needs Avalon to heal him, that is if they make it past the heartstab and Herk fight
For HF I guess anyone that can beat Herk, which even with grail juice might only be Lancelot and Gawain
Gawain is probably way weaker in a normal grail war where he doesn't get constant sunlight buffs. I'd really only bet on Lancelot or a hypothetical non-Mashu Gallahad.Originally Posted by Zurvan
"We have entered an infinite recursion of Saber."
It's true that most HGW fights tend to be at night but Gawain would still be a strong contender just not super broken. Unfortunately against people like Gil "strong contender" isn't good enough.
You are correct, I'm just being lenient on Grail-juiced Gawain. That might allow him to walk around with his buff regardless of the sun but who knows
To be fair, if we didn't metagame and bring up "fake caliburn can kill Herc seven times at once," would we ever assume that Saber could beat Herc either?
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Only if you include that one bad end that has Ilya suggest using full force Excalibur could have killed Berserker
Rin-backed Saber "would not lose even to Berserker", Salter slapped him down a few times, Illya says the thing about Excalibur.
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But even before that, you get Saber saying that even without being hold back by Shirou's mana issues, she couldn't have a chance against Berserker, and Berserker could see having the chance to win against the former even if she regained her strength if he fights in top condition. So yeah, there's always a statement issue about that.
Alter at least has the large pool of mana to backing up in the fight
For that particular fight you don't even need that. Saber Alter fights Herc during the day, doesn't she?
Also, Medea's whole plan hinges on getting Saber to kill Herakles, and she'd presumably be better than most at evaluating whether Excalibur can go the distance.
Oh I have no doubt that Excalibur could kill Herk.
My problem is with it (or really, anything) killing him multiple times at once.
We see Grail-backed Saber Alter kill Herk like 4 times in a row with Excaliblasts and he's still standing back up again. How exactly is being stabbed in the gut with a projected Caliburn taking seven lives? Nevermind God Hand, Battle Continuation should be more than enough to protect him from that.
As for all the quotes saying Saber can beat Herk under whatever circumstance, let me draw your attention to the following quotes from the VN:
"Saber is the strongest Servant."
"No wait Berserker is clearly the strongest Servant, he could take the other six single-handedly"
"Hold on Saber is the strongest Servant again, she made her sword not invisible anymore."
"Oh wait, Gilgamesh is here? He must be the strongest Servant."
But we all know God Hand's real ability is "stay alive until the story needs you to stop being alive," so it doesn't really matter in the end. As long as Shirou is still the protagonist, Herk will die to some BS or other.
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Berserker losing a bunch of lives to Archer, then Illya thinking they're safe now, then Shirou pulling the same BS again would be a pretty sweet sight, ngl. Wasted opportunity.
For me I don't really see what the rest of the KoTR have to deal with GH, let alone Gil later on.
How about replacing Artoria with Shirou's obvious compatibility match, Siegfried?
Wouldn't he also get a nerf bat to his stats? Not sure how much better that is compared to Saber.
Salter only used Excalibur against him once in the VN. Even in the movie, we can probably handwave it away with Berserker gaining more and more resistance to Excalibur every time he's hit by it. (I also think getting physically stabbed would do more damage, because the sword would pin him in place and force him to tank the full beam, whereas at long range he could try to dodge and maybe only get grazed by it; but that's just my headcanon.)
There's also this:
Caliburn isn't actually weaker than Excalibur in terms of firepower. It's just considered a worse NP because it breaks after one use.
None of these quotes really contradict each other in context. What was actually meant by each of them was:
"The Saber class is usually the strongest, so whoever is summoned as Saber will probably be the strongest Servant in this HGW"
"The stats and abilities of several Servants have been revealed. Taking this new information into account, Berserker seems to be the strongest Servant in this HGW"
"Saber has revealed the super-powerful NP she was hiding until now. Taking this new information into account, Saber seems to be the strongest Servant in this HGW"
"An unexpected eighth Servant has been revealed, and his abilities are super-powerful. Taking this new information into account, he seems to be the strongest Servant in this HGW"
Any statement about Servant strength is made with the implicit riders "in this HGW" and "based on the information we have so far". Therefore, statements made later when the characters have more accurate information should always be preferred when determining who is actually strongest.
- - - Updated - - -
In the first statement, Saber says "it would be difficult to defeat him" and "it may be impossible for Servants to beat that giant". She's not optimistic about her chances, but she never gives a hard no when asked if she could beat him at full power.
Last edited by Holiday; August 21st, 2020 at 03:15 AM.
Kind of irrelevant, as he's still alive after that one Excalibur. And still doesn't answer the glaring issue of "how do you kill someone more than once simultaneously." The core of the issue is that Nasu cheated to get out of the Saber vs Herk fight because there was no plausible way for Saber to actually win. And if Saber couldn't do it, it's hard to believe any of the other KotR could.
Now if Saber had her super-retconned-destroy-Mars-from-three-galaxies-away Excalibur, then maybe she could have beat Herk, but SOMEBODY had to Command Spell her into not using Excalibur during that fight, so even that doesn't seem feasible.
Ah yes, with a bunch of extra addendums and caveats, they aren't lies anymore.None of these quotes really contradict each other in context.
Even if I accepted those implicit assumptions (which I'm not sure I do), that undermines the whole point of including those lines in the first place. The reader isn't supposed to read "Berserker is the strongest Servant, he can probably take the other six down single-handedly" and say "oh but that's just SO FAR, I'm sure we'll revisit this evaluation in the future when we have more information." No one is going to read it like that, and its very clearly not meant to be read like that, as all of those kind of lines are used to set up payoffs later in the story when the lie is revealed to be a lie.
Both the narration and the characters are frequently wrong in F/SN, so relying on the opinions of characters isn't especially helpful.
But the bottom line is the Saber vs Herk fight in the woods was executed terribly, and you can't make me like it.
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Siegfried also has a powerful always on Noble Phantasm and should just cost more in his base state even if he suppresses it. Saber had pretty remarkable compatability for Shirou because she was really good at conserving energy thoguh mana burst and being really careful with her NP. I don't think he could win with many other servants.
"We have entered an infinite recursion of Saber."
They weren't excaliblasts they were just prana bursts
Spoiler:
Though abandoned, forgotten, and scorned as out-of-date dolls, they continue to carry out their mission, unchanged from the time they were designed.
Machines do not lose their worth when a newer model appears.
Their worth (life) ends when humans can no longer bear that purity.
Why wouldn't he be? Caliburn only took off seven lives, and as we've established, Caliburn and Excalibur have the same firepower. Why would you expect Excalibur to take off all twelve lives in one shot?
It's probably something like "he dies, then immediately resurrects, then immediately dies again". Especially if he's pinned in place with the sword and forced to tank the full beam at point-blank range. We saw something similar with Ark of the Covenant in FGO; he fell on top of it and immediately lost all his remaining lives, because its power is "kill anyone who touches it", and after dying and resurrecting, he was still touching it.And still doesn't answer the glaring issue of "how do you kill someone more than once simultaneously."
Those "extra addendums and caveats" are really fucking obvious from the context of the story. Rin says "Saber is the strongest" before she's even summoned her Servant or met anyone else's; you'd have to be seriously dense (or deliberately trying to misinterpret her) to take that statement as "the character named Saber, who will appear later in the story, will be the strongest Servant" rather than "Servants summoned in the Saber class are typically the strongest Servants in their respective HGWs". Similarly, getting mad at these purported "lies" just because they don't factor in Gilgamesh, a character who most of the other characters don't even know exists, just seems asinine.Ah yes, with a bunch of extra addendums and caveats, they aren't lies anymore.
It isn't "a lie being revealed to be a lie" when a statement is made explaning how things usually are (eg. "the Saber class is the strongest" or "Servants fight on the frontline and Masters support them") and then later an exception is introduced (eg. "in this specific HGW, Berserker is stronger" or "oh no, Kuzuki is punching me"). One or two exceptions do not make a statement about how things usually are false. If the bus timetable says "the bus arrives at 9:00am", but the bus is five minutes late because it got caught in traffic, you don't throw up your arms and say "the bus timetable lied to me!". You're just inserting an implicit "absolutely always" where none exists.The reader isn't supposed to read "Berserker is the strongest Servant, he can probably take the other six down single-handedly" and say "oh but that's just SO FAR, I'm sure we'll revisit this evaluation in the future when we have more information." No one is going to read it like that, and its very clearly not meant to be read like that, as all of those kind of lines are used to set up payoffs later in the story when the lie is revealed to be a lie.
It's fine so long as you take who the characters are and what they know at the time into account. Eg. Shirou saying on the first night "Berserker is strongest" is less reliable than him saying on the final night "Gil is strongest", because the latter Shirou has seen more fights, more Servants, more NPs, etc, and is generally better-informed.Both the narration and the characters are frequently wrong in F/SN, so relying on the opinions of characters isn't especially helpful.
Last edited by Holiday; August 21st, 2020 at 04:39 AM.
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