u/nerolyn

Today I'll carefully analyze this matchup and who was the best win conditions, safe-guards and reasonings (and explain why it's Hades). It's Staff Buddha, so no Nirvana Sword!

To start off, throughout the entirety of R6 Hades was shown to read through Buddha - anticipating his actions, understanding his abilities, comprehending his attitude. Even with no prior knowledge, he was the first to correctly infer Pure Enlightenment would start working again. This is something even other characters with high IQ/BIQ like Zeus, Hermes and Brunhilde couldn't tell. And they had already seen it in action, unlike Hades.

All of R7 is, basically, Qin coming up with a new OP hax and Hades overcoming it through adaptation, experience and sharp rationality (in other words, BIQ). Hades is a pragmatical and precise fighter that doesn't make any action he doesn't explicitly need to. He's faced with an obstacle, breaks it down logically, comes up with a counter strategy and goes for the kill.

So we already know Hades:

• Is fully aware of how Buddha's FS works
• Is fully aware of Buddha's mentality, attitude and fighting style
• Fights strategically and aiming to outwit his opponent

Now we have the theory, but what could Hades do against Buddha in practice?

Well, there are multiple tactics and moves Hades could employ. Although his arsenal may seem straightforward at first, he is always shown to play his cards wisely and use them in unorthodox ways.

I'll now list some of his options:

• Wear down Buddha with wind-blades, that is invisible and unavoidable (it's just the stirred up wind, after all).
• Throw off his balance and stance with Kallichoron into Roa, a combo made to assure a hit on Qin that was constantly dodging. The wind-blade damage + massive destruction made Qin lose his ground and stagger.
• Use Persephone Roa's area of effect to injure or at least break Buddha's guard, creating an opening for a subsequent attack. Ichor Eos' also has an even greater AoE, but I don't think all that would be necessary.
• Use the arena in his favor to surprise Buddha, such as lifting a piece of the floor to cover himself from Buddha's field of view (like Lu-Bu does in his spin-off).
• Break Buddha's guard if they trade attacks, which he did against Beelzebub in the anime; this basically guarantees a hit due to the strength gap.

A more detailed breakdown on Hades' wind-blade and AoE can be found here

Fun fact: in the series' official game, Kallichoron has the unique ability to nerf the enemy's evasion.

Narratively, the author wouldn't make Hades fight like an incompetent idiot if he battled Buddha, and these are some methods he could use to avoid that.

What about the shield?

Ahimsa's best feat is withstanding a blow from Zerofuku. Hades casually went relative with Palmyra and his named techniques are massively stronger than that. He only needs to hit the shield once with a powerful attack and it's already out of comission.

Buddha's win conditions

Buddha has 3 win-cons: FS counter, scythe and the final after-image. Let's go through each of them.

Countering with future sight

FS counter, although really troublesome in general, does not guarantee hits. We have the likes of Sasaki - who at the time could see even further into the future - aiming where Poseidon would go and still not being able to land a blow. This happens because FS counters still stem from the character's natural speed and travels space normally. If a fighter has high reflexes he can still block, parry or even dodge it.

Does Hades have high reflexes?

Yes, without a doubt. He has some of the best reaction speed feats and narratives in the verse.

When Hades coated himself in blood to notice Tortoise Ripple, he charged towards Qin who then shot bubble. Since it's invisible, Hades could only notice it when it was at point-blank and bypassing the thin blood layer. Like aforementioned, Hades was charging towards Qin, and he has great travel-speed. Not only he perceived it in that instant but simultaneously reacted to it, changing his stance to shift his star before bubble reached it. He could even do that during Ichor Eos' charge, that is even faster, hence why Qin didn't use TR against it.

This feat is supported by Hades' portrayal and statements. Brunhilde believes only Qin stands a chance against Hades, and even if you don't think this is definitive proof he beats every human, it at least proves he wouldn't be instantly dominated by any Einherjar. So Hades could react to Okita, for example, who is terrifyingly fast.

Thanks to the bubble feat we also know Hades' reaction time scales to his perception time. And funnily enough, Hades was the only one able to keep up with Buddha on the end of R6, not being tricked by the after-image and remaining unimpressed by Mahapari Nirvana. That's Buddha's fastest strike, that he doesn't even have access to in this fight.

Due to all of this, it's safe to say Hades wouldn't get tagged or blitzed by Buddha.

Salakayas Scythe

To preface, I don't think the scythe has any context to be summoned here. It only popped up when Hajun (a demonic evil monster) told Buddha he had just eaten the friend that begged him for help. Hades is an incredibly respectful, honored and dignified fighter. I actually see them getting along quite well if anything. I can't fathom Buddha feeling pure hatred towards him.

But anyways, even if he somehow does, it's still not a definitive win-con. I already went through Hades reaction time, so all that's left is a way of defending it. Does he have that? Yes. Although many don't know it, Bident is an incredibly durable weapon, and is constantly praised for its toughness and durability. Hades also has better reflexes and strength than Hajun.

A more detailed breakdown on Bident's durability can be found here

The Final After-Image

I've basically answered this one already. Hades was the only one that didn't fall for it, even when the likes of Okita, Zeus, Hermes, Sasaki and Brunhilde did.

Some people might say he was just "acting nonchalant", but that's simply untrue. He expressively reacted to the scythe being destroyed and was pretty invested in the fight. Hades isn't an apathetic person. Even in Beelzebub's flashback he was completely shocked by Lilith's curse. Why would he notably react when Salakayas lost the clash but remain entirely neutral when Buddha was sliced in half? That makes 0 sense.

The author was trying to hype up Hades for the next fight, and that's one of the ways he did it.

Conclusion

I could use multiple other narrative arguments; name other feats, scalings, statements, but I think this is enough. I've showed how Hades has better chances of winning, more solid win-cons and reliable safe-guards to Buddha's.

Thanks for reading, I hope you liked!

Sanity check

There's a largely spread misconception regarding the archetype of 3 characters that lead the community to not see them the way the author wanted.

These 3 characters are Lu-Bu, Thor and Hades. Those 3 fighters are fundamentally written as all-rounder oustaters that excel at every area, but multiple factors (misinterpretations, mistranslations, lack of reading comprehension, neglect of authorial intent, agenda and others) left them known as simple "strong bonk" kind of characters.

I'm not saying they don't have "strong bonks"; I'm saying that's a massive understatement of their archetypes that ignores several of their essential aspects. It gets to the point that them being B/C tier in speed is a common take to see in powerscaling debates.

That couldn't be farther from the truth, and in this post I'll show why. I'll focus on R1 duo since I've already covered Hades' case in multiple occasions.

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Lu-Bu's spin-off is an excellent source to understand his and Thor's archetype.

To start off, Lu-bu is stated to be the pinnacle of human race, and that's given in the context of a running race against Red Hare (that is able to even outpace Thor). All his stats are ultra-high, and in fact, he's the human with the highest stats, generally speaking. That doesn't mean he's physically stronger than Raiden or faster than Okita, but that he has the best overall amongst all humanity. Him being "B/C tier" in speed is completely nonsensical and incompatible with what the author intended. His speed is, at bare minimum, comfortably A tier.

We also have multiple feats in the spin-off meant to specifically highlight his speed and the agility of his movements. I'll leave a few in the post.

Another point that supports this is Lu-Bu being written as the embodiment of might, a warrior god and the ultimate definition of what it means to be a combatant. A frequent term used for Lu-Bu's themes is 武, that can't be fully translated to english in a single word. It basically means "the way of the warrior", in the most poetic and romantic way possible. Lu-Bu is, in several episodes, presented as the greatest example of such: he's powerful, strong, fast, brave, determined, skillful, unyielding, collected, sharp, talented, durable and even virtuous. He's a perfect, flawless warrior.

If you think a character with that portrayal is somehow intended as "B/C tier" in speed then I don't know what else to tell you.

But how does Thor scale from that?

Well, it's simple. Thor is Lu-Bu's direct, almost 1:1 parallel. They are worthy rivals, separated only by the race they were born as. Thor can't be "B/C tier" in speed if Lu-Bu is peak A tier. Sure, he might be a bit slower, but they should still be in the same league.

Sidenote: if you're a R1 fan and want the community to value Lu-Bu and Thor more, you should pay maximum respect to the narrative and author's intent. That's how R1 can shine the most.

Anyways, thanks for the reading!

I (and others) have been working hard to show Zeus isn’t the untouchable negs-all-the-Einherjar-at-once top 1 the community spent years calling him.

Zeus is a fighter like any other, and that’s not derogatory in the slightest. He has good matchups, bad matchups, excellent matchups and horrible matchups. There are fights he might win, and there are fights he might lose. Just like Odin, Tesla, Hades, Lu-Bu, Shiva, Okita and everyone else.

In the last months I’ve seen many more people willing to debate Zeus’ topics and matchups here past “muhh he obviously blitzes and one-shots”. That’s delightful, and I hope even more people can be open for normal discussions.

But now I’ve also been seeing multiple folks seriously claim Zeus is somehow C tier, slow, fraudulent and washed.

I can’t blame them entirely, because the way some people overly glaze Zeus can be annoying and compel them to assume the completely opposite stance. It’s called psychological reactance.

But that does much more harm than good, and is unreasonable simply for the sake of it. Let’s be fr now, Zeus is blatantly written as an S tier and any toddler that read RoR will intuitively understand that.

There’s also the other side of the coin, with 7 Hades slander posts being made whenever anyone remotely suggests he might be able to beat Zeus. No R2 fans, you are not the victims, drop the 🇮🇱 spirit.

Anyways, it’s almost a vicious cycle, just wanted to vent cause this was troubling me a bit lol

For the record I've already finished all her quests.

I'm wondering if this room is locked behind a secret task or owning Nicole. Or perhaps it's some kind of future content?

If anyone knows, please tell me. Otherwise, what do you think it will be? 🤔

I’m bored so here’s some Ahura Mazda AP scaling.

The Scaling

Upon awakening his new powers, Ahura Mazda was able to easily one-shot Azi Dahaka, a world-ender monster described as the harbinger of apocalypse.

The colossal creature was reduced to just a few small pieces, highlighting Ahura’s abilities also have a wide range of effect when needed (which is supported by all his other feats).

After killing Dahaka, Mazda casually massacred all the good and evil Persian gods. They should be significantly stronger than your average god (= NPC audience god) given they battled each other for hundreds of years and are decently notable warrior deities. Ahura also displayed more of his range when he destroyed them.

By wielding those opposite forces, Mazda’s power “transcended that of the gods” and elevated him to “the realm of the transcendent god”. This is the author blatantly denoting how mighty his power is.

Since Ahura’s abilities are the main source of his strength, we can also understand how powerful they are by looking at his overall narrative and placement in the story:

Ahura Mazda “has the combat power needed to be called the favorite to win APOC with no hindrances”, is relative to Morrigan and Ra, 2 gods who also have sizeable narratives (in fact, he’s implied stronger than them), and was off-limits to Shinigami, who has been putting up great feats throughout his fight right now. Ahura only lost due to a secret technique he had no way of knowing. The authorial intent requires him being as strong as presented to fulfill the idea of hyping-up Muramasa.

Now back to his on-screen feats, Mazda simply charging at his opponent made powerful gods like Zeus, Wukong and Cu get their guards ups, showing he poses real threat to them.

That’s especially impressive thanks to Wukong, that in all likelihood is the most durable character in the verse, or at least a fierce contender for that spot. He’s tougher than Prometheus, who is more durable than Acantha, a sacred treasure. With the remarkably safe assumption that WK is indeed top 1 in dura, we can also infer multiple other scalings through different methods. This demonstrates Ahura Mazda can comfortably destroy less durable/not defense centered sacred treasures.

Theory Corner

I have a theory that Ahura Mazda’s light and darkness abilities have durability negation properties due to the opposing powers cancelling out each other and obliterating what it touches. This is supported by his thematic motifs, visual narrative and all his shown feats. Funnily enough, it’s the exact same hax as Tristan from 4 Knights of The Apocalypse for those of you that may have read it. Naturally I won’t use that for scaling in normal circumstances as it’s just a fun speculation of mine.

Conclusion

Ahura Mazda has great AP (+ AoE) feats, statements and portrayal, all which are transcribed into his overall narrative.

Thank you for reading!

I personally think some attacks could destroy a mountain, but just a few. I don’t buy the planetary or universal scalings, that doesn’t seem like what the author genuinely intended.

But where do you think RoR scales?

Just how strong is Miguel?

I’m bored so here’s some staffless Beelzebub scaling, I’ve seen many people act like he is Adamas level or something

First off, Helheim is as dangerous as Inferno. Inferno is a place Chief God level fighters can’t even come close carelessly. Therefore, anyone able to survive in the wild there automatically scales significantly above baseline Chief God level. Beelzebub not only did that but ravaged his way to Hades’ castle, and was also able to kill Hades’ guards that in theory should be stronger than most of Helheim’s dangers. Therefore, that Beelzebub should be massively above baseline Chief God level (somewhere around mid/high Chief God level I’d say).

Now for his fight with Hades:

Some people think injured Beelzebub has much worse stats than full HP Bel, but that’s a misconception. While he indeed wasn’t at full power, he wasn’t much weaker either. In fact, the only considerable nerf is in his endurance, which is exactly what the story demands (to justify why the battle ended so quickly).

This is shown in R8 after Beelzebub unleashed Chaos. Even though he was remarkably more injured than VS Hades, he could still maintain a comparable performance to before and even dodge Tesla’s blows in zone. I have a more thorough post on why end-of-R8 Beelzebub scales to Hades’ flashback Beelzebub in stats so check it out if you want that further explained: https://www.reddit.com/r/ShuumatsuNoValkyrie/s/6nkvTnqlC1

Holding back casual base Hades playing defense was relative to that Beelzebub and immediately blitzed him when he pumped up (still didn’t want to kill him though). I suggest watching the fight in the anime if you haven’t!

Thus

Holding back casual base Hades narratively scales to ~mid/high Chief God level. Thrilled holding back base Hades is a blitz tier above that (and his other stats should also increase along, naturally). This aligns with his portrayal and several other statements and implications.

Alright thank you for reading. My next post might be why R1 duo is really fast. Bye

And Beelzebub is even stated to know the tricks/methods of every god in the fanbook 🥹🤞

Shinigami produces more afterimages by purposefully slowing down and fluctuating his speed/rhythm. This (once again) proves a faster movement isn’t bound to leave more afterimages than a slower one, and thus using that as a metric of speed is essentially flawed.

This was already shown on R9 with Epikairus (Valhalla’s fastest technique) not creating a single afterimage.

Afterimages are obviously used to convey a character is particularly fast, but they are just one of the many methods the author can do that. There’s no room for direct scaling and comparison using them.

Sidenote, Shinigami is so fucking peak holy hell. I hope he wins. These were great chapters.

Gates of Hell is able to repel Mjolnir, so there's not much Thor can do. He'll be withered down by Beelzebub's techniques and eventually collapse to the internal damage. He could try to use some abilities or tactics, but Beel has reflexes, BIQ and defenses to react to them.

Beelzebub is also stated to know all the methods/tricks of the gods, and Thor in particular is pretty famous, so he should have prior knowledge on him too. That's terribly dangerous in the hands of someone like Beel.

💭 But what do you think?

Hades upscale since he’s a perfect antithesis of Qin’s kit meaning he’s the ultimate outstater which aligns with his portrayal and multiple official statements outside the manga 🥹🤞

I can’t believe this still has to be said, I thought we were making progress 💔