Board Thread:News and Events/@comment-933831-20160221033820/@comment-933831-20160222085808

Alright. So first let's see what we have.

Barth

Experience: Ten+ years dedicated experience, including his starting training, 16 years.

Training: 4 years under a signal student, 2 years under a signal teacher, 2 years in prison training and self defense, 5 years special forces, 3 years one-on-one training with another person of equal or greater training, and the current Beacon education.

Strength: Punched clean through a half foot thick concrete bunker wall in one hit (Pre-brace), hit a spider droid hard enough to knock it over (Pre-brace), can block hits from a deathstalker tail (Art) (Enough to break bridges), slashed through a tryannisaurus Grimm (Before I knew I didn't like using fan made grimm. bleh.)

Speed: Is capable of blocking automatic fire, as seen in Red Sun Over Paradise. Is a surprisingly agile fighter, regularly using advanced acrobatics in combat, and often throwing Reverend to move entirely unencumbered, Ike style, while setting up future attacks. Showed to be perfectly capable of fighting fast combatants like Clyde and Stjarnstill (The latter becomes canon when we see a Dust tattoo, until then, it's at most a mention of Author intent, so don't REALLY count it.) Against Clyde, Barth employed his strategy of planting Reverend, and fighting with exclusively CQC, which he was still perfectly adept at dodging attacks and parrying.

Durability: Effortlessly tanked a shot to the chest, and didn't break stride. Endured numerous hits from Tramonto Bermuda, a guy who can obliterate a dock with a hit. Endured having massive scissor blades closing around his neck for over 40 seconds without his aura giving out. Tanked a charging cut from Clyde without aura with his metal arm.

Intellect: Brilliant tactician with special forces squad leading experience, also a surprisingly excellent surgeon.

Weapon: Reverend, a blade that with a ten-fifteen second charge, was capable of disintegrating a spider droid and the concrete rubble that had landed on it. The ranged attacks are wind explosions.

Semblance: Reaches out to exposed dust crystals in 30 feet for 20 seconds. Said crystals have triple output, making his wind explosions bigger, and his swings even harder. After which, the dust crystals can't be used for 24 hours.

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Perry

Experience: Extremely ambiguous, but seemingly 7ish years?

Training: Current beacon education. The rest is training under Ignis. No mentioned field training.

Strength: Seems to lack strength, preferring speed.

Speed: Quite high, with excellent mobility.

Durability: Endured a lot of beatings from Iris, otherwise, average RWBYverse.

Intellect: Seems standard.

Weapon: Pistol that fires small weak electric lasers to stun. Can also put out a pulse to one meter that puts enemies into the air.

Semblance: Able to increase the gravity for himself.

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Hibiscus

Experience: 6 years training, no mentioned field experience.

Training: 2 years self taught, 4 years Sanctum, current Beacon.

Strength: High, can move and fight with heavy weapons, but be slowed. No notable feats.

Speed: Low speed as stated on his profile. No notable feats.

Durability: Armor and classification imply tankiness, so above average for RWBYverse, but again, no notable feats.

Intellect: Exceptionally book smart.

Weapon: Roman Gladius/ shotgun mix, and a legionaire tower shield with a slot for firing out of.

Semblance: Can effect metals and make them multiple times heavier. Needs to make contact with a weapon first to effect it.

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Alright, so what I'm getting from here is that Barth is more than enough to take on either of these two one on one without too many issues. To start, he's got more experience than both of them combined, and has a soldier mentality on the battlefield. He's not going to be shaken by their tactics, and is going to easily come up with his own to counter. Not only that, but the statement that Barth always blocks instead of dodging is outright wrong. Not only has he blocked automatic fire before WITH reverend, but he's undoubtedly fast enough with his acrobatic abilities to dodge the shots, which applies between both Perry's and Hib's ranged attacks. And Barth's handedness isn't an issue anymore. The brace makes sure of that. In addition, even Hib's semblance is going to be exceptionally unlikely to work very well here. Not only are ranged explosive attacks like Barth's projectiles perfect counters to a tower shield, simply by hitting beside the person instead of head on, but the wind energy applied to Barth's sword means that should Hib try to facetank Barth's hits to be able to effect Reverend, those hits will have been taken in vain, because the wind energy will be what's striking him, not the metal. Between Barth's lightning powerhouse nature in melee combat, and Hib's reliance on his shield, I don't see Hib being any problem for Barth. Perry is a bit trickier, but he relies on surprises, which are unlikely to work as well against someone with a keen aura, and fast kick based fighting. Barth actually has quite a bit of experience against fighters like that, as he's fought Clyde, and was more than capable of keeping pace and retaliating. In addition, Barth's sheer power output is likely too much for Perry to handle, and when mixed with his unorthodox Ike meets Marth while flirting on the side with captain falcon fighting style, it's going to take him off guard for the first bit of the fight, and by then it's too late.

Not to mention Barth's flashbangs for if he needs them, should he decide to charge Reverend or get disarmed. Ultimately, these two would have to be putting everything they have into double teaming Barth to really have a shot at winning, and even then, I'm not sure they would. Barth is smart enough to divide enemies and use assault strategies, and can use Hib's slower speed for kiting purposes. Barth is also quite adept in chaotic battles, such as when he won a battle royale among his own team, hospitalizing Finn in the process. And everyone was happy that day. Pretty sure Barth got laid... Anyhoo, this might actually be a pretty close match as it is... And then you remember that there is, in fact, someone on Barth's team. Her name is Olivia, and you know how archers have fared poorly so far in the tourney? This one does all the archery stuff right. Shooting straight at someone not oly gives away your location but makes you more likely to have your shot dodged or intercepted. Olivia though, uses her semblance to play portal, and Crysis at the same time. So not only does she have all her dust trick arrows, but she can fire them from all sorts of directions using the trees and terrain to place portals, and attack in ways the enemy can't really follow. Not only that, but Olivia herself can use these portals, and so can Barth. Knock knock. Who's there? Sudden Barth. Sudden Barth wh- And a room clearing wind explosion. And even assuming Hib and Perry DO manage to push enough that Barth is fighting at his max, he pops his ult, and goes Darius on them. His already crazy strength that's tripled from the brace soars up to a times nine. And the already scary wind explosions become bigger wind explosions. Remember how I said killing the birds was optional? Now it's accidental. And assuming Perry can deal with that, during Maximum Overload all of Olivia's arrows get even stronger too, without her entering the effect range. So she can retain dust arrows for after the effect ends. All in all, I don't see this being a fight Perry and Hib can win.