Board Thread:News and Events/@comment-933831-20160127201216/@comment-24684131-20160128204831

Counterpoints

- Saying Liath needs to concentrate on his target to hit it is a moot point - a soldier needs to concentrate in order to land his shots. It's common sense above anything else. Now, to use a term coined by Tsu and Jord, Liath is walking talking artillery. If he has anything less than unreserved confidence that his attack will either fail to harm his friend or miss him outright, he is not going to attack from that position. He will maneuver to a better fire position or jump into close quarters if no suitable position is found, or - radical idea as it may be - he'll maintain faith in his partner and go hunting for Viridis, which is honestly the most likely course of action. If he see's Orion holding his own, he will not interfere. To put a finer point on it and further reinforce it, Liath and Orion have been fighting side by side for several years. They are best friends, teammates, and partners. You are correct, Ulric and Viridis are not going to be an uncoordinated mess, but they are beaten by a significant measure by Liath and Orion who scarcely need to communicate their intents to one another.

- This one is more a matter of opinion. If a person is trained to fell a beast many times more deadly than a simple human with ease, a weak squishy little human is childsplay by comparison. We have been shown time and time again that hunters fight one another for both training and for sport. Maybe being trained to deal with humans help, maybe, but hunters are far from average human beings. Unless Ulric was trained to tackle a hunter, the field is still level in that regard. Again, opinion.

- Liath and Orion are two fighters who require room to maneuver. They aren't gonna stick close for long if at all. It's gonna be hard to get them both in the opening seconds when they are already dozens of meters apart. Furthermore, unless the area his semblance affects is extremely large, the attack you described is simply not possible.

- Liath, can, cast, MANY, things. There will not be a waste of time, because the grass will be ash in seconds. Viridis keeps hiding? Liath keeps burning and peppering areas he suspects Viridis to be hiding in with assorted attacks alongside the inferno.

- Another assumption. Liath and Orion are not rank novices and nor are they new to this entire fighting business. I cannot speak so much for Orion, but Liath is not going to get tired through simple maneuvers. Additionally, you are assuming that they will do nothing BUT bounce around. This is not the case, just because he can does not mean it's his first and last choice. Again, thinking that Liath and Orion haven't been building the way they fight for years and that simple maneuvers at speed will tire them out is a mistake.

- It might help, sure, and i'll concede that he may be stumbled if a flashbang goes off in his face, but if it becomes little more than ambient brightness, Liath is going to close his eyes and retreat before he becomes a target, or take a page from Viridis book at conceal himself in the undergrowth. He isn't going to stumble around like some fool in a tv-show. Furthermore - as I mentioned earlier - there is no way in hell that Liath is going to launch a powerful bombardment at a target if Orion is in the way and there is no way to signal him.

To round up with a point of my own, Liath has been compared to artillery thus far due to his semblance. It's a fair assessment, and i'll even go so far to say that I love the moniker of walking artillery. However, Liath has been training to use dust for over a decade, whereas he's only known of his semblance for two or three years. He can perform pin point attacks with surprising ease, and can even alter the fire patterns of his large scale bombardments so that they DO focus down with precision. In simpler terms - and repeating it for a third time - Liath is not going to attack Orions target unless he has total faith in his attack not causing him harm, so he will ALTER his attack pattern so he can.