Board Thread:News and Events/@comment-933831-20160127201216/@comment-10337166-20160129124358

Just something else to keep in mind here, Orion has on each blade of his axe, what is essentially a high powered nearly explosive shotgun (this will soon be important).

Most of Orion's attacking style centers around being up close and personal, weaving in strikes with his axes combined with blasts from his shotgun, mostly using his semblance to COUNTER attacks from an opponent. You want evidence of this, in his RP with Aurea which was combat based Orion blocked a rocked powered mace, swung by an amazonian woman with incredible base strength, he countered her attacks MULTIPLE times. I doubt that Ulric swings harder than a rocked powered hammer. Onto your point about blocking strikes we've seen evidence in the show of people kicking through, punching through boulders ice balls and the like without harm, and Orion has swung full force into blocks before, in aforementioned RP with Nox.

Now onto your point about Orion's early life. Yes being beaten up regularly doesn't make him a more skilled wielder of weapons etc etc, however it was a point I brought up to show why Orion has such high durability, and aura levels because he was forced to either get stronger or succumb. This along with his training at Signal him being a very skilled hunter as outlined in his profile, and strong team leader is what makes him such a skilled opponent. I feel like I'm banging my chest here, but I felt the need to iterate that considering your last post.

Now as to fighting against Ulric and his high speed unpredictable lance attacks, I really feel the need to point out once again that Orion and Liath both spar daily with both a lady who uses 3 chainsaws one of which is controlled by here hair and attacks in a random vortex of death, as well as a teleporter who constantly attacks from weird and different angles with an LMG. They are more than used to dealing with someone who uses an unpredictable mode of attack, I'm sorry for harping on about this but it's something you've brought up about how unpredictable Ulric is and Orion and Liath are used to that.

Now then, when fighting Ulric I can see Orion blocking Ulric's swings with his axe/s then countering with one while using the shotgun on the other, if anything the bright flash of ligh should at least startle Ulric if nothing else. As I outlined above, Orion can counter a rocked powered hammer, with his semblance I believe this shows that countering Ulric's swings is something Orion is more than capable of doing.

You mentioned Virdis Cramping Orion by taking potshots.....Liath is more than capable of doing this to and you also mentioned that trick with Orion jumping back and letting Liath smash him would work once......Liath is RWBY artillery, your shield isn't going to protect Ulric from everything Liath can hit him with, even if this tactic only works once, even if none of the variants of this tactic work more than once, that is an incredible amount of STUFF smashing into your OC.

Anyway, I've had fun with this debate, you've brought up some really cool points and an actual combat RP between Orion and Ulric could be cool. But I think Orion just has more versatility and options at those close ranges. He has been showing countering very hard hitting high impact attacks in the past and his shotguns while they may be blocked some percent of the time will still probably deal some damage and if he's working them into every combo as he does, punctuating swings with a blast or using them to increase the momentum of his swings.