u/Far_Gur_7361

My personal power-scaling of the named waterbenders from ATLA, TLOK, the Kyoshi & Yangchen novels. Haven’t read the comics or the Roku novels; so didn’t include any who may have appeared in those. Also let’s get it out of the way rn; and just acknowledge that bloodbending is unfairly OP, and so ofc the bloodbenders are at the top of the list.

1. Amon/ Noatak. Obv a psychic bloodbender who doesn’t need the full moon is going straight to the top of the list. That said, ik a lot of ppl rate his father over him; bc of the courtroom scene; but I still think Amon outclasses him. For one, we have no reason to think Amon couldn’t do the same thing- for most of the series, Amon is hiding his bending, so he never has the opportunity to bloodbend a whole room of ppl like his father. And for another, Amon invented a way to use his bloodbending to take away other ppl’s bending. To me, that earns him the top spot.

2. Yakone. Another psychic bloodbender who doesn’t need the full moon. With that in mind, the top two were no-brainers.

3. Tarrlok. A powerful bloodbender who doesn’t need the full moon, but he can’t use his powers psychically, and he can’t shake off another bloodbender grip, so def he ranks behind his father and brother.

4. Katara. If there was ever any doubt in my mind, it was erased when I saw the leaked movie. I won’t get into spoilers, but her waterbending feats are unmatched. And then ofc, her healing feats are unmatched as well. If she’d dedicated herself to bloodbending, she may even have been able to outrank the three above her, considering how quickly she picked it up, and how easily she fought off Hama’s grip. But she chose not to, so ofc she can’t outrank them.

5. Korra. Her raw power is beyond anything we’ve seen in the verse, with the only possible exception being one or two feats we see from Katara. Korra can knock aside battleships, freeze giant platinum mechs, knock 3 pro-benders out of the ring in one go, slice airships to bits, and create giant tsunami/ tornadoes; and she can do it as if it’s no sweat at all to her. Add in the fact that she can heal, that she picked up Unalaq’s spirit-bending technique after only observing him do it once or twice; and that she managed to break out of Amon’s bloodbending grip w/o using the Avatar State; and it’s clear she’s a prodigy. I struggled placing her over our final bloodbender (Hama), but ultimately decided that the only reason Korra prob never bloodbent is simply bc she chose not to. I think her raw power makes it clear that she absolutely could outclass Hama in that, or any other category, if need be.

6. Hama. A bloodbender, so she had to outrank most others. But let’s also not forget that she managed to fend off dozens, if not hundreds, of Fire Navy soldiers over the years while her tribe was being raided. That’s very impressive in its own right.

7. Unalaq. I couldn’t justify ranking him above the bloodbenders or Korra; but really he’s just a step behind. He managed to 2v1 Mako and Bolin, two of the most talented benders of their time. He managed to fend off Mako, Bolin, AND Korra w/ only a single water pouch. He absolutely dominated Tonraq. And ofc, he put up a hell of a fight against Korra a number of times; but with and without the Dark Avatar State. And let’s not forget that he invented a sub-bending technique (spirit-bending). If it weren’t for how ridiculously overpowered bloodbending is, he’d prob be ranked 2 or 3 on this list.

8. Ming Hua. Incredible feats, amazing agility, and ofc she gets extra points for being a psychic bender. Ik a lot of ppl would put her above Unalaq; but I wouldn’t. Her disability clearly can be a hindrance when she runs out of water; which we see a number of times- when Korra bodies her w/ a giant boulder, when Mako corners her in the cave, and ofc when she’s imprisoned. She also doesn’t know any sub-bending techniques. Bc of that (and bc she lost to Mako, whereas Unalaq defeated Mako AND Bolin), I couldn’t rank her above Unalaq.

9. Pakku. Mostly hype; but it’s said he was the best waterbender of his time; and he did manage to defeat a bunch of comet-amped firebenders.

10. Kya. A master healer; prob only behind Katara herself; and no slouch in the combat category either. Def not on par w/ anyone ranked above her tho.

11. Aang. This might be unpopular; but I always thought water was one of Aang’s weakest elements; with fire being the only one he seemed to do worse with (and even that was prob simply bc he only had a few episodes to work w/ it before the finale). Ofc he’s an Avatar, so he has a lot of raw power, and natural talent, but other than that nothing ever really stood out to me abt his waterbending abilities.

12. Atuat. A master healer; prob better than even Kya and Katara; who had a very unique style (to the point where it could maybe even be considered a sub-element, or at the very least a sub-skill). However, she never learned any form of combat, so it’s impossible to rank her any higher, and difficult to figure out where to even rank her at all.

13/ 14. Eska/ Desna. Talented benders, and skilled in combat, but the only fight we see them win is against Mako and Bolin, and they had a huge terrain advantage at that time. Also, I’m not sure how well they’d do individually, as a huge part of their strength seems to be that they fight together as a seamless unit.

15. Tagaka. Only one real feat; and it’s a good one; but other than that she’s all hype; and she gets taken down even tho she has the numbers and the terrain advantage.

16. Tonraq. Clearly he’s strong, and experienced as a warrior and a bender, but we really only ever see him lose.

17. Any other Avatar who we see little-to-no waterbending feats from (Roku, Kuruk, Yangchen, Szeto, etc.). Obv they are prob far stronger than most of the others on this list; but it’s almost impossible to rank them w/o knowing more.

18. Kirima. She can obv fight well enough; but we never see her win against anyone but fodder. And we never see her perform any feat more impressive than mist-stepping (which, tbf, is a good one).

19. Kavik. Nothing to write home abt.

Lmk ur thoughts!

There’s a lot of debate abt Korra’s AS, so instead let’s discuss how powerful she was WITHOUT it, by focusing on her best non-AS feats

1. Korra was competently bending 3 out of the 4 elements by the age of what- four years old? This is something no other Avatar has ever achieved. The vast majority of the Avatars we know of weren’t bending their secondary/ tertiary elements until their late teens, with Aang being the only exception. And even for Aang, it took until he was 12-13, and learning the skills from other masters.

2. Ppl shit on Korra’s airbending all the time; but pushing back Kuvira’s giant mech w/ a singular air (non AS-powered), air blast might be the best airbending feat we’ve ever seen; and is certainly one of Korra’s best feats (whether with or w/o the AS). It took an entire platoon of other airbenders (which included Tenzin and his kids), to accomplish the same thing that Korra accomplished on her own when she did this. Entire teams of the most talented benders we’ve seen in the verse couldn’t slow down that mech, and yet Korra managed to do it on her own w/ no Avatar state (twice, actually! Bc she did it again w/ the wave, which I’ll get into later).

3. She learned metalbending w/in about 30-60 seconds. No other Avatar, including Aang, has ever metalbent before. We know that the skill is rare; with Bolin telling us that only 1 out of 100 earthbenders can achieve it. Bolin also says that no one gets it right away, if they can get it at all- and then Korra goes and does exactly that. W/in just a few days, she’s talented enough to defeat Suyin’s son in a sparring match; someone who is not only naturally talented (being a Beifong), but also who had been learning the skill since childhood.

4. She managed to break Amon’s bloodbending grip. Aang himself could not break Hama’s grip (tho tbf, he didn’t know what it was at the time), and had to use the AS to break Yakone’s grip. W/o an Avatar state, Katara is the only other person we’ve ever seen accomplish this; and the bender she accomplished it against (Hama), was far less powerful than Amon. This puts Korra on or above the level of talent that Katara (arguably the most powerful waterbender in the verse), was operating with.

5. With only a split second of reaction time; Korra managed to create an air bubble powerful enough to hold off a massive amount of explosives being detonated at point-blank range. The explosion that occurred destroyed an entire building; and it went off, what, like a foot away from Korra? I can’t even imagine how powerful an air current would have to be to effectively hold off something of that nature. And again, she did this w/ almost no reaction time to be had. Like I said, Korra’s airbending is heavily overlooked. It’s a hot take, but by EOS, I think it may have been her second-best element (at the very least it was her third-best), and I also think that she was the third-best airbender we’ve ever seen; right after Aang and Tenzin.

6. I won’t go a ton into this one; bc it’s talked about all the time; but freezing Kuvira’s mech in a giant wave. This is the rare Korra feat that actually gets appropriately rated by the fandom; we all acknowledge how badass it was; so ‘nuff said.

7. Knocking out 3 pro-benders w/ a singular water blast. This is impressive for several reasons. For one, Korra was new to pro-bending at this time; and facing off against more experienced opponents. This goes to show how quickly she was able to pick up new fighting styles. And then it also needs to be taken into consideration that in pro-bending you aren’t allowed to “hose” your opponents; meaning you can’t hit them w/ continuous jets of water. This means that Korra was not only being held back by only being able to use one element; but also by \*\*how she was allowed to use it\*\*. She only had a split second to hit her opponents w/ a singular water blast; and yet she managed to do it powerfully and effectively enough to knock them all out at once.

8. Bending the metal out of her own body. This is a very slept-on feat. Consider the fact that Suyin, who is undoubtedly one of the best metalbenders to have ever lived (only behind Toph herself, as well as- and even this is arguable- Kuvira and Lin), did not manage to get these little bits of metal poison out of Korra. Granted, Korra maybe had an easier time bc she could sense it w/in herself, but then again, we know it was harder in its own way, bc of how much physical/ mental trauma she was under at that time.

9. Kaiju Korra. Whether you liked the Kaiju fight or not; it needs to be acknowledged and appreciated that this is **hands down** the most powerful feat that we’ve ever seen anyone accomplish w/o the AS. Remember, at this time, Korra was separated not only from her past lives; but from Raava herself. This effectively means that she wasn’t the Avatar at all in this moment. And yet her own **personal inner spirit** was powerful enough for her to bend it like this. Tbf, Harmonic Convergence def played a role in her spiritual energy/ power being amped enough to accomplish this; but I still think it’s incredible that she managed to do this; and to then use that power to defeat a dark Avatar, while not being an Avatar herself. Think about it- we’ve never once seen any other normal person destroy an Avatar- except Korra, with no Raava, when she defeated Unavaatu.

10. (Couldn’t find a good image for this one, but), cleansing dark spirits w/ her waterbending. Tbf, there were times when she did need to use the AS to do this; but at least one of these times- when she was at the Air Temple w/ Tenzin- she managed to do it w/ no AS. This is super impressive, considering the fact that Unalaq is the only other bender we’ve ever known to possess this skill; and she’d only seen him use it once or twice up to this point.

11. (Again, couldn’t find a good image accompaniment, but), tapping into the spirit vines to basically become omniscient and see what’s going on anywhere in Republic City (if not the world??). This is another super slept-on Korra feat. We only ever saw Aang do this once; in the swamp; surrounded by vines. Then Korra goes on to do it pretty much anywhere around Republic City, sometimes while only just touching the pavement. Truly, her spiritual powers were unmatched in the verse, whether with or w/o AS, and I’m tired or pretending otherwise.

12. Recovering enough to move/ walk/ fight while **still carrying liquid mercury inside her body**. This is, IMO, hands down the most overlooked Korra feat. Not only do most ppl overlook it; but a lot of ppl actively shit on Korra for how “weak” she was during this time. And yet consider this: the lethal dose of mercury in a human is around 200mg. Korra was poisoned w/ a liter of mercury. There are 1,000,000mg to a liter. This means that even if Korra was only carrying around 0.02% (yes, I did the math!), of her original dose (which I actually think is being conservative, considering how much of it we see her bend out of herself later in the season), she was still carrying around a dose of poison that would kill a normal person. All while learning to move, walk, bend, and fight all over again.

What do you guys think?? Are there any I missed??