Seeing as Nasu loves inventing rules and breaking them for dramatic effect, no, I don't have to deal with it.
So basically Author's Fiat is what determines the ranks, got it.
Type Moon General
And yet they still exist in universe, and are use to justify things.
I suppose you could alter your subtitles to replace "Rank" with "LALALALA! I'm not listening!" but other than that if you plan to watch F/SN you will be hearing about ranks.
Okay so take out ranks. Now explain how archers arrows do absolutly nothing to beserker while sabers sword strikes do damage while archers arrows seem to be much more powerful than simple sword strikes.
Seeing as the rank can apply to skills (even the ones like Riding), parameters (like Strength, Agility and even Luck), and Noble Phantasms (not even going there), you're going to have a hard time finding what these numbers actually mean, and how B rank-Noble Phantasm interacts with the A rank-Luck, for example.
The only ability that deals with the ranks directly that I remember is the infamous God Hand. And the mechanics of that ability are pretty unclear.
Archer's arrow explode more widely, but have less concentrated power.
It's like a difference between an explosive and armor-piercing round.
There, I explained it much simpler than I would with the Rank system.
Now explain why a regular gae bolg can not work. Or other attacks that explicitly by pass durability. Without using ranks.
Achilles and the armor of fafnir from fate Apocrypha also rely on ranks.
Achilles needs a C rank or higher in divinity to hurt him
armor of fafnir blocks all attacks below A and even at A rank it blocks a B rank worth of damage.
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"Now explain why a regular gae bolg can not work"? IIRC Lancer never fought Berserker, so I don't know where did you get that information.
Same about "durability passing" attacks.
Also, by mechanics, God Hand is supposed to make the user immune to being killed the second time by the same method. Yet the bullshit uber sword still manages to kill him 7 times in one strike. Which actually sounds like the "durability passing" attack. So, care to explain that?
Grue
滅亡迅雷
- Location
- -
He only gains immunity once he properly regenerates. Sufficiently powerful attacks like said ubersword can take out multiple lives before he gains immunity.
And you haven't adressed the other NPs that edplicitly work off Ranks.
Lancer vs Zerker is from Charachter Materials or a Nasu interview, I'm guessing.
Also, Gae Bolg has faced off against a version of 'Zerker in Prisma Ilya, though the relevance of that to the actua Berserker is dubious.
notthepenguins
Neither Spherical Nor Frictionless
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
Getting stabbed with Excalibur may be simple, and it may be a sword strike, but should certainly not be discounted as irrelevant because it doesn't always make a big shiny boom.
Lancer definitly fights beserker we just never see the fight. Lancer has fought every servant. Word of nasu says that gae bolg only works if runes are used to boost its rank to A.
A: Assassin and True Assassin by themselves wouldn't even be a fight. Lancer can use his runes and Noble Phantasm together to temporarily raise the rank to A, but it'd still be a very disadvantageous fight but "one with some chances". Caster has two front-line Saber-class defenders, so if she uses her high sorcery then she'd be able to deal damage, but that would be limited to 2 to 3 times. Also, in the game, Assassin was able to push Berserker back because of the terrain advantage and support from Caster (weighing down Berserker's body). ...Well, since the compatibility of Assassin and Berserker is horrible, the fact that Berserker was even pushed back is enough to say "whoah, Kojirou's amazing".
God hand is beserkers skin. Caliburn peirced through god hand(the skin) and then exploding in the inside which procedes to kill him multiple times as the atack is already past god hand(plus the immunity doesnt happen until he has regenerated). Calabolg II is supposed to warp space to peirce any target, but because archers projection lowers the rank he has to break it to hurt beserker I believe.
Grue
滅亡迅雷
- Location
- -
Basically, there's three ways to defeat Berserker for good:
-Have an A-rank with sufficient biggatons to blow away 'Zerker's lives. Examples:Excalibur, Caliburn, Fragarach I think
-Have a sufficient variety of A-Ranks to be able to switch between them to avoid 'Zerker's immunity. I believe the only two with this ability we've seen are Gil and EMIYA.
-Have everyone else wear down the stock of lives gradually
-Have an A-rank with sufficient biggatons to blow away 'Zerker's lives. Examples:Excalibur, Caliburn, Fragarach I think
-Have a sufficient variety of A-Ranks to be able to switch between them to avoid 'Zerker's immunity. I believe the only two with this ability we've seen are Gil and EMIYA.
-Have everyone else wear down the stock of lives gradually
Feng Lengshun
Z-Program Researcher
- Location
- Indonesia
Some explanations, courtesy of Reddit:
Those, and the budget they got from the profit from their other shows, like Fate/Zero and Kara no Kyoukai.
Something something red, something something three times faster.
Basically, he just used Trans-Am. And for further proof, look at Carnival Phantasm and Fate/Unlimited Codes. He is clearly a Transformer, thus, he is clearly a robot.
My logic is flawless, you can't proof otherwise.
See, that's just wrong, metaphysically.
Archer could just as easily have reinforced the concept of "precision" to the breaking point, and gotten a needlepoint shaped blast for his trouble.
It still wouldn't matter. Its Mystery - its legend, mystic might, historical presence - is insufficient. Biggatons don't really matter in the Nasuverse beyond a certain point; at high levels of magecraft, it all comes down to concepts.
This shows up in Kara no Kyoukai, too. Araya Souren reinforces his arm with the bone of a hundred-years-dead Buddha. Because its owner was one who ceased to exist without/before dying, the bone is highly resistant to things that try to actualize its death - like Shiki's eyes. In other words, it has high Mystery. But if you hit it with a rock or something, it'd break as easily as any other hundred-year-old bone.
Okay, now for Ranks. Funnily enough, if you say "X has more Y than Z," people will want to know "well how much more? And is it transitive? If X can beat Y, does that mean it can beat Z too?" (This is particularly important to users of Z, who would like to know in advance if their defenses will be ignored so that they can write their funeral rites.) But quantifying Mystery is kind of difficult - what units would you even use? Bits? Bits would sort of work, but measuring it would be extremely inaccurate, since so much comes down to rock-paper-scissors type concept battles.
So you just give a rough approximation. "A Rank." "C Rank".
And then that Rank system gets co-opted to talk about other things, because it already exists in the literature.
Meh
Rather Outraged
- Location
- Philippines
Those numbers are only for the Physical stats. 10x Peak Human, 20x Peak Human, and so on. Or as some would put it, 10 Kotomines, 20 Kotomines, and so on.
True. I think I read somewhere that dropping a Nuke on a Servant would only kill them since it was likely to hit the master as well and if it didn't then it was just a waste.
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What effect can Mystery have on abilities which the heroes do not have in their stories?
Eg. Gae Bolg does not have the causation reversal effect in the story. What gives?
Also, Excalibur. Not supposed to shoot out blasts of energy. Very much not supposed to.
How can the Mystery and Legend reinforce the strengths of weapons which they did not have in the Legend?
Eg. Gae Bolg does not have the causation reversal effect in the story. What gives?
Also, Excalibur. Not supposed to shoot out blasts of energy. Very much not supposed to.
How can the Mystery and Legend reinforce the strengths of weapons which they did not have in the Legend?
Meh
Rather Outraged
- Location
- Philippines
NP's are the manifestations of a Heroic Spirit's feats and mysteries.
Cu Chuulain managed to always stab the heart with Gae Bolg. How he did this with 100% accuracy was a mystery and that mystery translated to an ability to "pierce heart first, stab spear later".
I have no idea about Excalibur actually. Something about the light being the hopes and dreams of mankind and Excalibur being able to hold it or something or somesuch idfk.
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Kolper
Ugh
Look at Hercules. How was he summoned if he didn't exist? Simple. Belief and awe at his legend gave him a place in the Throne of Heroes, even if he never lived.
That is a possible explanation for why the weapons works as they do. The other explanation is that the legend doesn't cover everything the heroes did or owned in their life, so the fact that excalibur shoots blasts of energy was simply not reported by the legends... Or maybe it was actually mentioned in the legends, but seeing as they live in a different universe we will never know.
These two explanations are not opposite of each other, rather they are the two sides that compose an Heroic Spirit, their deeds and their legends.
... From a doylistic prespective, causation reversal and blasts of energy are cool.
Because they're old.
That is the actual reason. Old things are powerful, just because they are old.
For example, IIRC in Kara no Kyoukai, there was a 200+ year old katana that destroyed bounded fields when drawn. It hadn't been enchanted or anything, it had just been around for a while, and that's all you need to accumulate mystery.
There's also the 'Nasu history is weird, and most of the time, the heroes actually had that power in life' factor.
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Cannongerbil
I came here to nep at you
- Location
- Soviet Lunar Base
That's less to do with the ranking system and more to do with the fact that Servants are spiritual entities. Non-magic attacks just don't affect them. Even Angra Mainyu, the weakest servant barely capable of going toe to toe with a regular human, would be capable of soloing an entire conventional army by virtue of being a servant alone.
Kolper
Ugh
Don't know how accurate that is. Tiredness is a thing.
Guile
Having a really great time right now
Didn't Saber, the strongest class, get her ass kicked by a human with Reinforcement?
A. Reinforcement is magic, and it counts.
B. Saber Arturia is still alive. Also why she can't astralize. She's one of those Servants who explicitly can be killed with mundane biggatons. Gilgamesh in Stay Night is also killable through sufficient mundane means, since he has a physical body now.
A lot of that has to do with how servants can become intangible at will. While intangible they can't really attack but can't be affected by physical attacks unless they are magical(so its useless to dodge when servants are fighting other servants).
Casters reinforcement. Note he is also capable of destroying rins head in one hit, and pierce straight through shirou. He breaks shirous projected noble phantasms with ease, and can catch invisible air between his elbow and knee. He also kills rider. Kuzuki is a person who could be considered superhuman with his skills, then got boosted to be equal to a saber class by caster.
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Guile
Having a really great time right now
So it's kind of like God Hand and Rank A? Servants check your attack, and go 'Okay, it's magic, it counts. Proceed.' while a nuke can't pass the check and is ignored?
A good point, but how does any of that square with the next guy, who says
If he kills Rider too, then all that stuff about special snowflake Servants like Arturia and Gil isn't really applicable to the main point, and you can just slap Reinforcement on a non-magic attack to turn an attack from 'Servant ignores all conventional armaments' to 'normal dude punches a hole in Servant'
Also, I realize this is pedantic, but how can a non-magic human be considered superhuman?
I think I hate nasu just for getting me involved in this argument.
Remember, fundamentally, at their very core, Servants are ghosts. High-density ghosts, sure, but they are still ghosts.
Nobody in the whole world should be at all surprised by the fact that you can't kill a ghost with ordinary bullets. Nobody should be shocked at the argument that a nuke won't kill a ghost. It's a ghost.
You can slap Reinforcement on a non-magic attack and make it all magical because you Reinforce things by filling them with magic. When there's no magic filling up that space, it is no longer reinforced.
This... really isn't that hard to grasp.
Basically, Reinforcement does in fact give you the ability to punch out incorpoerals in addition to it's stat boosts. If a reinforced Kuzuki wants to beat up Casper the friendly ghost, he could do so.
As for how normal Kuzuki is superhuman, he's kind of ridiculous even without reinforcement when you compare him to real life people. Think comic book Batman or something.