User blog comment:Imosa1/Why even Beacon/@comment-5726563-20140103222901

One thing about you saying they are trained to be all around badasses. There is a reason for that, and that's because with Grimm having so many different abilities, you never know what you're going to have to face. What if you're a ground based combatant, and a Nevermore shows up that you weren't expecting? What if a Grimm knocks you off a cliff while you're fighting, or picks you up and throws/drops you? You need to be trained to react to any situation, and have a way to fight it.

As for SNK, the entire show is about them losing to the Titans, over and over. And part of that is because the best aren't in the recon group. Most of the group dies everytime they go out. Now imagine if the entire squad was made of Levi's and Mikasa's, training together for years to be one cohesive force. Notice something else about them, they all have the same skills to deal with Titans. Some are better at it, Levi and Mikasa, but every single one has the skills to deal with any titan they come up against, if they can beat it (except for the shifters but they're a different story). That is essentially what every Hunter team is supposed to be. A force with the skills to take on any Grimm they come up against, no matter what the situation or what Grimm. (Just so you know, i only say Hunter because it seems more gender neutral than Huntress, and i don't feel like typing them both everytime.)

Finally, there is the fact of numbers. We've seen how powerful students are, and a glimpse of the power of full Hunters. So why are there still Grimm? Hell, we've even seen robots, which are slightly lower than Beacon students. Couldn't they just mass produce them? The line at the beginning of the show says they are holding the Grimm back. That's it. What that means is that with all the Hunters they have, the more they're training, and possibly a constant stream of mass produced robots, they can just hold them back. Which means not only are there an enormous number of them, there are also extremely strong ones, and some way for more to come into existence and get stronger. This has been going on for centuries, and they are still just holding their lands, the cities and country they stay in.

So what to infer from that is that there are such a huge amount of Grimm, of differing strength and types, that Hunters to this day only are able to hold them back from wiping out humanity. The Grimm aren't even on the ropes, just stuck in a deadlock, waiting for their enemy to make a mistake. In situations like this, a Hunter can't make a mistake. A single death would shift the balance a little in the Grimm's favor. They have to be prepared for anything, because the Grimm could throw anything at them. They have to be badasses, dealing with everything, because any less means annihilation.