Badass Versus Thread

[Ronove]

It turns out two really high tier defenses that can cover for each other are really good, especially with someone who is in fact very good at fighting, planning and reacting to things who is also very durable beneath that.

It cuts down what Herc would be vulnerable to by a good amount, even in Gate of Bablyon. Someone like him could ignore a lot of attacks, and shoot at or punch at the attacks that are actually dangerous like Caladbolgs being shot at him and do quite well. I didn't think it needed explanation but here we are I guess.

But they don't cover each other's weaknesses. Both NPs combined would raise Heracles' protection however only when coupled with skill. In this case Nine Lives which is a NP in of itself. And neither NP would protect against a divine construct , which are almost entirely comprised of A rank and above weapons. The pelt is useless in these scenarios. If Heracles had it against Saber Alter nothing would have changed.

By contrast, Reincarnation Pandora is overpowered. Divine constructs or even conceptual noble phantasms can be stolen. Grail mud corrupts other servants regenerates his wounds and even suppress his conceptual weakness. From Hell raises his magic energy exponentially and gives him an advantage towards humans. In addition to all this, he's got all of Herc"s skill without the prevalent weakness to anti-divinity. Its really hard imagining Herc tops this with god hand. Especially when god hand is just resistance

[Menwearpink]

still perplexed at him being untouched by the GoB 360 degree sword spam in his introduction, considering this

You can move, and you can move a towel too.

then you shoot or punch what you can’t towel. It’s really as simple as that.

Would it be better if you considered it along the lines of a shield instead of a towel?

[SpoonyViking]

i have the book that covers his youth up until the big war that he won by himself.

he seemed to be mainly a swordsman there

His defining narrative is the Táin, where he fights with both sword and spear in equal measure, and only his spear really features in a prominent manner in what were arguably his most iconic battles, the ones with Ferdiad and Connla.
Yes, he was definitely *a* swordsman, and a damn good one, too, because he was pretty much good at everything; but I reiterate, *mainly* a swordsman seems like a stretch.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm pretty sure even a simple Berserker!Herakles with his sanity restored and capable of using Nine Lives would be a contender for the #2 spot, #3 at the lowest; that goes double for a Herakles who also had his bow and arrows and could use Nine Lives at a distance, regardless of what other toys he received as well (honestly, most of the King's Orders artifacts and summons don't feel like they add much to him).

[Holiday]

But they don't cover each other's weaknesses. Both NPs combined would raise Heracles' protection however only when coupled with skill. In this case Nine Lives which is a NP in of itself. And neither NP would protect against a divine construct , which are almost entirely comprised of A rank and above weapons. The pelt is useless in these scenarios. If Heracles had it against Saber Alter nothing would have changed.

By contrast, Reincarnation Pandora is overpowered. Divine constructs or even conceptual noble phantasms can be stolen. Grail mud corrupts other servants regenerates his wounds and even suppress his conceptual weakness. From Hell raises his magic energy exponentially and gives him an advantage towards humans. In addition to all this, he's got all of Herc"s skill without the prevalent weakness to anti-divinity. Its really hard imagining Herc tops this with god hand. Especially when god hand is just resistance

I think you're underselling God Hand quite a lot. Absolute nullification of anything ranked B or below is no joke, especially considering that NPs are ranked on a more demanding scale than regular attacks (there's a statement in Stay Night that an NP with the same firepower as a rank A+ regular attack would only be rank C). You can take the roster from pretty much any HGW we've seen, and at least a third of the Servants will have literally no way of piercing God Hand (and most of the rest will only be able to pierce it with their strongest NP). This is even true of very min-maxed HGWs with lots of prep time like Zero. It says a lot that Siegfried only has the damage reduction component of God Hand (with the added demerit of his back being vulnerable!) and he was still considered one of the Black Faction's aces in Apocrypha.

And then, on top of that, you've got the resurrection component, which shore up the vulnerability Herk would otherwise have to instant-death attacks like Gáe Bolg or Zabaniya (assuming they could break through the rank nullification). Plenty of Servants rely on instant-death NPs to compensate for their weaknesses in other areas, and they just plain don't work against God Hand. Well, they "work", but only in the sense of "great, you just took off one life, now do that again eleven times before Herk kills you". And then, on top of that, you've got Herk's defense tripling every time he experiences an attack. It's probably the least impressive component of God Hand, but it's not nothing.

And, as Menwearpink pointed out, combining God Hand with the pelt has a cumulative effect. We've seen several times that Mind's Eye (Fake) basically amounts to "Herk can tell whenever an incoming attack can actually hurt him", meaning he never has to expend any effort on dodging or deflecting anything which isn't good enough to get past his defenses. And once you eliminate everything ranked B or below and everything man-made from the pool of attacks Herk has to bother defending against, the remaining number is so small that his high stats should be enough to keep him alive in all but a few highly exceptional circumstances. Yes, he still wouldn't win against Artoria Alter, but that's because Artoria is already a top Servant, and she's been supercharged with so much magical energy by the Grail that she can spam her most destructive NP with impunity. There are plenty of great Servants who would struggle against her.

[the god of world-0]

Okay, but wouldn't a Saber with Avalon just be invincible though?

[Mementore]

Okay, but wouldn't a Saber with Avalon just be invincible though?

She has to deactivate Avalon to beam the opponent into oblivion.

She has to, right?

[Menwearpink]

Tbh Herc might be able to do just fine against a Saber Alter with a grail if he doesn’t have to worry about energy either if he’s sane.

Nine Lives punch the beam to mitigate the damage so he only loses 3 or 4 lives, gain resistance, do it again, lose only 1 life, eventually just be unkillable by Beamu.

[Holiday]

She has to deactivate Avalon to beam the opponent into oblivion.

She has to, right?

Does she? I thought she was still invincible when she cleaved Gil at the end of their fight. After all, the reason he couldn't evade or retreat was because he was locked in place firing Ea, and she was standing right in front of him when she slashed him, which would mean she was standing directly in Ea's beam. Her not dying there would seem to indicate that she was able to remain invincible while she was attacking Gil.

My interpretation was that Saber can attack while Avalon is active, but Avalon's protection only lasts for a short time. Hence why she said she had to take a hit from Ea first to "get the timing right", and why she waited until the last moment to activate Avalon when Gil used Ea the second time. If Avalon had unlimited uptime, Saber wouldn't have to worry about the timing; she could just activate it at the start of the fight and then chase Gil around until she caught him.

[RoydGolden]

Not sure how accurate it is, but the DEEN adaptation shows her blocking Ea with Avalon and then slashing Gil while he was winding up for a second shot.

[fire_mountain_30]

His defining narrative is the Táin, where he fights with both sword and spear in equal measure, and only his spear really features in a prominent manner in what were arguably his most iconic battles, the ones with Ferdiad and Connla.
Yes, he was definitely *a* swordsman, and a damn good one, too, because he was pretty much good at everything; but I reiterate, *mainly* a swordsman seems like a stretch.

I know you are the expert on literature but I honestly can't recall a single time in the book I have where he used a spear as his main weapon. On top of that, the Gae Bolg was always a last resort one-shot weapon, not something he used for dueling others from start to finish

- - - Updated - - -

No love for the snake lady whose cumulative kit seems to revolve around buttfucking immortals? Cybelle is OP yo!

[Kubera]

Not sure how accurate it is, but the DEEN adaptation shows her blocking Ea with Avalon and then slashing Gil while he was winding up for a second shot.

Kinda what happens in the novel as well, only that it's all during the same Enuma Elish shot. She gets as close as possible thanks to Excalibur before activating Avalon and slashing him while he can't move.
So even in the case that she can't interact with others while in Avalon, she can still get close while charging Excalibur and only step out of Avalon for a single moment so it's hardly a weakness. She even has instinct telling her what the best moment to attack would be.

[eddyak]

She has to deactivate Avalon to beam the opponent into oblivion.

She has to, right?

There's a line from the VN that says that from the moment she took up Avalon, not a single drop of her blood ever touched the floor again. If she has Avalon activated, nothing can touch her without being able to attack someone whose defence is "I'm not where you're attacking", and if she doesn't have it activated, she can instantly recover even from usually fatal wounds. Avalon is EX for a reason, I'd be willing to bet that unless your attack instantly vaporised her, she'd recover just as fast.

Does she? I thought she was still invincible when she cleaved Gil at the end of their fight. After all, the reason he couldn't evade or retreat was because he was locked in place firing Ea, and she was standing right in front of him when she slashed him, which would mean she was standing directly in Ea's beam. Her not dying there would seem to indicate that she was able to remain invincible while she was attacking Gil.

My interpretation was that Saber can attack while Avalon is active, but Avalon's protection only lasts for a short time. Hence why she said she had to take a hit from Ea first to "get the timing right", and why she waited until the last moment to activate Avalon when Gil used Ea the second time. If Avalon had unlimited uptime, Saber wouldn't have to worry about the timing; she could just activate it at the start of the fight and then chase Gil around until she caught him.

Or that she couldn't keep it going for a long time, or she was worried about Gil having an answer to it. Shirou wasn't the greatest Master, remember, that was the route where they had to magic circuit fuckery and then CGI dragon and Shirou still only had a single circuit that worked, and also Gil has the prototypes of all kinds of bullshit, there's no reason he wouldn't have "you may not leave my realm", "get over here" or "get back here" NPs.

[Holiday]

Ea is still emitting magical energy and bringing forth destruction.
But Saber steps forward into that tumbling storm of light.
Her armor screams out.
Cracks run through every wall of magical energy protecting her.
In the period shorter than a second that they endure the attack, Saber steps up to Gilgamesh and…
"EXCALIBUR—!"
She opposes Ea's destruction with the greatest power she is permitted—!
Heat and light rumble wildly.
The crash of the greatest swords push against each other with pure power, creating a boundary in space.
But—is it not useless?
Excalibur cannot beat Ea.
Even if she approaches at the risk of her life, she can only push back just a little.
The balance easily favors Ea and Excalibur's light is repelled back along with Saber.
"—I see, you must have lost your mind...!"
Readying Ea, the golden knight looks at the enemy approaching him again and puts magical energy into Ea.
This will be it.
He will totally annihilate Saber with all his power.
Ea's turns reach their maximum speed and the light surrounding Saber mows down Excalibur.
—But just before that.
Saber's body jumps forward.
A small space created by Excalibur, a place where she can take one more step…
The instant she reaches it…
Her Noble Phantasm appears.

*

—And like that.
With Ea straight ahead of her, her Noble Phantasm is activated.
"Wh—at—!?"
That which is released and scattered before her is the holy sword's sheath.

No one knows what kind of a divine mystery it is made from, but the sheath repels all light emitted by Ea.
No. It goes beyond the level of "defending".
It is complete isolation.
The barrier of fairyland that keeps out all filth from the outside lands. A complete world separate from this one that can never be reached.
As Saber is protected by the sheath of the holy sword, she is blocked off from all matter in this world.
The greatest protection in this world.
The greatest that cannot be infringed by anything not even by the five sorceries.
For that reason, the sheath is named Avalon, the Everdistant Utopia.
The place where King Arthur is said to have gone after his death. The utopia the king dreamed of that will never be reached.
"—"
Gilgamesh sees the death running up his spine.
But he won't make it.
The raised Ea will not stop turning, and Gilgamesh cannot manage to jump back.
It is only natural.
Who would even think that an attack with this much magical energy and this much power could be blocked...!?
"Guhhh…!! Damn, such a trick—!"
"—"
Blue clothes run in.
There is no armor on Saber.
She has released the armor protecting her, put the magical energy gained into her sword, and—
"EX—"
"SABER—!!!!!"
"CALIBUR—!!"

*

The golden sword was swung.
She must not even have the energy to raise it back up.
Saber keeps her sword and her face down.
Slashed up, the man beholds the knight that has defeated him.
"—"
The sound of wind echoes through the compound.
The waves of light like a flood are no more.
The two knights share no words as they place themselves in a parting called the battle's end.
"—"
And the man sighs.
He raises his weak hand and touches the cheek of the knight in front of him as if making sure she exists.

For reference. Gil being able to touch her cheek at the end implies Avalon's protection has worn off by then.

[Ronove]

I think you're underselling God Hand quite a lot. Absolute nullification of anything ranked B or below is no joke, especially considering that NPs are ranked on a more demanding scale than regular attacks (there's a statement in Stay Night that an NP with the same firepower as a rank A+ regular attack would only be rank C). You can take the roster from pretty much any HGW we've seen, and at least a third of the Servants will have literally no way of piercing God Hand (and most of the rest will only be able to pierce it with their strongest NP). This is even true of very min-maxed HGWs with lots of prep time like Zero. It says a lot that Siegfried only has the damage reduction component of God Hand (with the added demerit of his back being vulnerable!) and he was still considered one of the Black Faction's aces in Apocrypha.

And then, on top of that, you've got the resurrection component, which shore up the vulnerability Herk would otherwise have to instant-death attacks like Gáe Bolg or Zabaniya (assuming they could break through the rank nullification). Plenty of Servants rely on instant-death NPs to compensate for their weaknesses in other areas, and they just plain don't work against God Hand. Well, they "work", but only in the sense of "great, you just took off one life, now do that again eleven times before Herk kills you". And then, on top of that, you've got Herk's defense tripling every time he experiences an attack. It's probably the least impressive component of God Hand, but it's not nothing.

And, as Menwearpink pointed out, combining God Hand with the pelt has a cumulative effect. We've seen several times that Mind's Eye (Fake) basically amounts to "Herk can tell whenever an incoming attack can actually hurt him", meaning he never has to expend any effort on dodging or deflecting anything which isn't good enough to get past his defenses. And once you eliminate everything ranked B or below and everything man-made from the pool of attacks Herk has to bother defending against, the remaining number is so small that his high stats should be enough to keep him alive in all but a few highly exceptional circumstances. Yes, he still wouldn't win against Artoria Alter, but that's because Artoria is already a top Servant, and she's been supercharged with so much magical energy by the Grail that she can spam her most destructive NP with impunity. There are plenty of great Servants who would struggle against her.

I'd say this is a bit off the mark. It's not about underselling God Hand. It's about the combination of it and the Lion's Pelt not being a great one at all. God Hand is best described by Nasu as a killer of mediocre servants.

Takeuchi: On paper, I imagine there are many Servants who can't even touch Berserker under normal circumstances.
Nasu: It does take an EX rank Noble Phantasm or the A rank Saber to defeat Berserker in a square fight. He is quite literally a killer of mediocre heroes.

Against servants of that level, God Hand grants Herc full-body immunity to NPs below A rank. The stronger Herc's enemies are, the less effective God Hand becomes. Therefore, you can say the pelt would be useful against noble phantasms that can threaten Herc at A rank and above . . . but here is the issue, noble phantasms at that rank are often non-human in origin. Many of the strongest noble phantasms like Excalibur are divine constructs and can shave off multiple lives, some potentially all of them, with a direct hit. And God Hand has limits. After resurrecting, all it does is give Herc some resistance to what killed him, not immunity. This is why Alter will shred him without caring about it. The Nemean Lion's pelt becomes redundant except to a very small number of circumstances that GH wouldn't have an absolute advantage towards already - assuming GH is working as it should on-paper. And in those cases, Herc would still have to rely on his skill if the enemy deduces its gimmick nature.

I didn't pick Saber Alter for some power level comparison. It's to show how Alcides has the edge over merely GH and the Pelt. Put in that exact situation, and all he'd need to do is steal Excalibur using Reincarnation Pandora and Saber is finished, grail buff or not. Meanwhile Alcides now gets the strongest holy sword to swing at whoever he wants. The ability to steal noble phantasms is an obscene advantage that GH can't compensate for. Heracles is only potentially more suitable than Alcides for groups of lower-class servants. And even that isn't a sure bet.

[Tobias]

On Avalon, earlier in the VN saber was able to increase Avalon’s healing of shirou by increasing its magical energy. And against Gil it demonstrated increased healing speed with magical energy flow. It’s heavily implied that there is no upper limit on its healing speed provided the magic channeled into it is increased.

to put that another way its extremely likely that if saber had a strong enough magical energy supply she would be functionally invulnerable to any attack which did not kill her in a single blow, and would have a NP capable of withstanding any high damage single blow.

EX ranked indeed.

[Holiday]

I'd say this is a bit off the mark. It's not about underselling God Hand. It's about the combination of it and the Lion's Pelt not being a great one at all. God Hand is best described by Nasu as a killer of mediocre servants.

Against servants of that level, God Hand grants Herc full-body immunity to NPs below A rank. The stronger Herc's enemies are, the less effective God Hand becomes. Therefore, you can say the pelt would be useful against noble phantasms that can threaten Herc at A rank and above . . . but here is the issue, noble phantasms at that rank are often non-human in origin. Many of the strongest noble phantasms like Excalibur are divine constructs and can shave off multiple lives, some potentially all of them, with a direct hit. And God Hand has limits. After resurrecting, all it does is give Herc some resistance to what killed him, not immunity. This is why Alter will shred him without caring about it. The Nemean Lion's pelt becomes redundant except to a very small number of circumstances that GH wouldn't have an absolute advantage towards already - assuming GH is working as it should on-paper. And in those cases, Herc would still have to rely on his skill if the enemy deduces its gimmick nature.

I didn't pick Saber Alter for some power level comparison. It's to show how Alcides has the edge over merely GH and the Pelt. Put in that exact situation, and all he'd need to do is steal Excalibur using Reincarnation Pandora and Saber is finished, grail buff or not. Meanwhile Alcides now gets the strongest holy sword to swing at whoever he wants. The ability to steal noble phantasms is an obscene advantage that GH can't compensate for. Heracles is only potentially more suitable than Alcides for groups of lower-class servants. And even that isn't a sure bet.

God Hand's resistance doesn't just increase when Herk resurrects, it increases whenever he takes damage:

With Berserker's Noble Phantasm God Hand, you gain resistance to an attack once you're hit by it, but do you only gain this resistance by having died once? Would the same attack be effective multiple times as long as it was before he died? <Madao Gingetsu>
Nasu: You don't have to die. For example... if you were to take fire damage, once you recover you would gain +100 resistance to fire.
Takeuchi: Oh, feels like it has been toned-down. Wouldn't it have completely nullified it before?
Nasu: I said it won't work, but I don't think I've ever said it'll be negated. BB: "Mine is to nullify all attacks, Macho-san's is to triple his defense! What's the difference!?" Heracles: "It's not even close (to your hacked ability)!"
Takeuchi: No matter how you put it, it's an overpowered skill.

So even if the enemy has rank A strength, he'll very quickly build up an absurd resistance just from being hit repeatedly. The only attacks he really has to worry about are ones that can kill him in one hit; even if it can pierce God Hand's nullification, if it's just shaving away at him one wound at a time, then it'll never be able to take off all twelve lives. He'll just stack more and more resistance to it until it's completely useless.

Regarding the idea that many or most of the NPs ranked A or above are of non-human origin, I quickly did a rough count, and the split is about half-and-half. Depending on the luck of which Servants are drawn in the HGW he's summoned in, it's entirely possible for his enemies to have otherwise excellent NPs like God Force, Durindana or Sword of Paracelsus which are completely useless against the Nemean lion's pelt.

As far as I can recall, the only weapons which have been stated, in theory or in practice, to be able to take off more than one life in one hit are: Excalibur, Caliburn, the Ark of the Covenant, and the hydra's poison (due to its conceptual advantage). (Presumably Ea can also do it, considering it overwhelmed Excalibur in a head-to-head clash.) Even if they can go through God Hand and the pelt, I don't imagine most rank A NPs are capable of killing Herk more than once in one go.

I agree that Reincarnation Pandora is kinda a deal-breaker, but I'm leery about placing too much weight on it when we still don't know a lot about its limitations. Presumably it has limitations, otherwise Alk would've just stolen Gate of Babylon from Gil the first time they fought. Depending on what the conditions to steal an NP are, it's possible that Alk would simply get overpowered by Artoria Alter without ever having the opportunity to steal Excalibur.

[Menwearpink]

Or saber just punches alcides to death without a sword tbh

Also I wouldn’t say the ark kills him multiple
times. It doesn’t get rid of Herc by killing him, it just mana drains him to 0 so he poofs. Not actually a semantic in this case. It’s making someone run out of energy versus attacking their hp so they die.

[fire_mountain_30]

The pelt is also physically pretty durable btw

[You]

So even if the enemy has rank A strength, he'll very quickly build up an absurd resistance just from being hit repeatedly.

Can you even hit Herc repeatedly in the first place?

[Kubera]

It's been a long time since I read that volume, but didn't Alcides have to tank Jack's beams for a bit before stealing the NP? Not really viable against Excalibur.