Board Thread:Role Plays (AU)/@comment-24617443-20170624224213/@comment-24828824-20170629082022

While i said that they both had an expert level of skill with swords, i didn't say they were equal. You fail to convince me that experience is not the deciding factor as all you really proved is that sanuye has more of it than the typical student or graduate her age. While i will admit that before he went to Signal Egil had only the basic level of training most students would have, from signal and onward he and his best friend Jack Serac had been training specifically to become the best at their craft. You also assume Egil's ranking as in the top 5 swordsmen in beacon has anything to do with his semblance and Dust abilities, it does not. I specifically wrote top 5 swordsmen because overall there were likely several students more powerful overall in combat, placing him more likely in the top 20 or 30 with all the scythe users, snipers, brawlers, etc. But when it came to straight up swordfighting, only four were better than him, three of which were the rest of his team and the rankings shifted around continuously due to the sparring matches within the team. That was when he was aged 20, and he's had two more decades of training and real combat experience, during which he amongst other things learned an entirely new style of swordplay well enough to teach his adopted daughter Merel Serac.

That is what i mean with experience trumping talent, you compared this battle to a Hare and the Tortoise race metaphore. This is closer to a hare and another older, slower hare with the slower of the two having a two day headstart. Egil simply has had more time to improve his skills at admittedly a slower rate than sanuye has, but the time he has had means he is so far ahead of her it doesn't matter how talented and how well trained she is just yet, she has not caught up to him yet!

Now when it comes to the actual combat i have to point out that Egil fully expects his interruptions to be only just that, interruptions. Sanuye can try to counteract the glyph's effects, but not after the fact. If Egil successfully stops her strike dead she'd basically have to start over from where she is in the motion of her strike, and if that happens, without a windup. If he saps away say 60% of the initial swing speed that still makes it a dangerously easy to deflect blow, if not parry. Regardless of her trying to resume with renewwed energy or even faster than before, it creates an opening, a pause in the combat for him to exploit. and that is even without the disconnect of her musclememory not reflecting reality when her intended heavy strike or fast jab move without the anticipated velocity. it'll likely not be a big distraction, but it is still there initially, and those early openings will matter, because while in the opening stages egil might overestimate or underestimate the precice velocity of her strikes, it won't harm him nearly as much as when the first interruptions allow egil to land those grenades or buckshot, or worse yet the thunderblast. quality over wuantity indeed, but Egil holds both as his attacks are far more dangerous and far more varied than hers.