@Steps said:
@Jezer said:
@nick_hero22 said:
I say Batman in a good fight. Liu Kang definitely possesses the skills to get him a fight decent fight due being trained since a child in martial arts and he has shown to be capable of beating some pretty impressive people, but Batman possesses more knowledge and a variety of it, and on top of that he has better h2h showings.
Does possessing more knowledge on a large variety of different martial arts actually translate to being better theoretically than someone who possesses more intensive knowledge on only one or a few?
Let me put it another way: Does partaking in every sport make you more athletic than a person who chooses to focus, and train intensely, for one or two sports? I feel like knowing too many different martial arts would be like spreading yourself too thin. I mean, different martial arts have different philosophies that contradict each other. And, when it comes down to it, he's not going to be using all of those styles when he's fighting...
But in regards to a fight having knowledge in a variety of martial arts allows you to have an arsenal to choose from, that if a move doesn't work you can try a different tactic and keep the opponent guessing as opposed to the one with knowledge in only one area where his fighting style becomes predictable. You can know different martial arts but you don't have to try and apply their philosophies simultaneously you just have to apply what's at the moment and I'm pretty sure Batman's knowledge on these is sufficent enough that even if he is spread thin he would still be sufficient in using all of them.
Let's consider your sports analogy, I find it to be not as strong as it could be because when I look at it the "sport" represents the type of fighting be it hand to hand or with weapons or ranged. To me it's more like this if in a game of basketball a player only focus' on his 3 point shooting is put up against someone who is a great perimeter defender, stealer, and shot blocker the defender has more ways to prevent the offense from scoring whereas the offense who has no skill on the inside would struggle outside if the perimeter defense is tight enough and would surely get blocked if he drives to the hoop.
In theory, but that isn't how it actually works. From watching MMA, I know that different martial arts help you develop different parts of your overall style. Boxing will develop good striking skills and footwork. Wrestling could develop good grappling skills. You're not really picking up specific moves, but developing better skills in specific areas. Because, when it comes down to it, you have your own unique fighting style. Different fighting styles place different emphasis on which foot to put your weight on, how rigid your stance should be, where you should aim, ect.
I don't agree with your analogy because no fighting style focuses solely on one aspect of fighting. No fighting style is equatable to a player who only focuses on 3 point shots. Kung fu teaches punches, kicks, throws, and joint locks. Even boxing, which is primarily punching, works footwork, timing, and dodging as well. If it works a variety of different areas, one fighting style is sufficient enough to match someone who's picked up relevant skills from many different ones.
In my sports analogy, the sport represents the different range of motions and skills required for that sport. The different muscles it works. Basketball involves alot of sprinting, sudden acceleration, hand coordination, footwork, ect. These are all the different muscles it works:
http://www.livestrong.com/article/458042-what-muscles-do-you-use-when-playing-basketball/
Considering the fact that athletic can be defined as "3. Physically strong and well-developed; muscular"[thefreedictionary.com]
playing basketball helps your overall athleticism because, even though it's one sport, it develops your strength in all those variety of ways that a person would get from playing different sports. To train intensely for basketball(by playing basketball) would require you to focus on improving your athleticism, while playing many different sports means you can't train intensely for any single one. Thus, it doesn't necessarily make you more athletic.
@Soulstealer said:
@drgnx said:
@Vance Astro said:
@drgnx said:
I'm not sure how many styles Batman has, but Shang Tsung has a quite a few souls under his belt (at least the hundreds...I think the movie said 1000), and therefor that many skill sets (yes there will be some overlap), plus he has hundreds of years of combat experience. Lui Kang still beat him.
I don't think it's the same thing.Batman has feats to go with his stated mastery.
I'm not saying this is evidence that Lui Kang will beat Batman. I'm just pointing out that knowing more schools of martial arts does not guarantee a win for Batman because it didn't for Shang Tsung.
Batman has more feats because he has been around longer and applies to a different media which better allows him to show his feats. To do Lui Kang justice, you would need to show the fighting skills of every fighter Shang Tsung soul stole from before getting his butt handed to him. There just is not room to do that anywhere for the purpose of this video game.
If you looked at Batman's fighting feats in the videos games and movie only, he is not nearly as impressive as the comics. I find this for most characters.
Actually I'd argue that who said Shang Tsung has access to all of this knowledge at once? As he shapeshifts his styles change, but I can't remember a time that he was not directly using the style of the form he was in. I can't say that holds true in the movies or not, seeing as most of his forms there are of unknown fighters, but his style did change as he did while fighting. That's not to say that I know one way or another but that's to say that it's something that needs to be proved one way or another.
Also on the experience of the fighters he's faced and again I argue that as a feat because I think it was Vance that said it, but "Long life does not automatically translate into fighting skill." Heck, fighting experience doesn't automatically translate into skill. I use this as an example, but if you fight the same kind of battles everyday for a thousand years that doesn't make you prepared for a brand new type of battle on the fly that you've never experienced or even a fighting style or even a true master of a fighting style you've seen arbitrarily. That's to say that it might have been much easier for Shang Tsung before Lui Kang, who's to say that every fighting force he ever faced was unparalleled fighters or that they didn't just panic and run away at the sight of Ice ninjas or flaming skeletons.
I guess what I'm trying to get at is that all of this is full of a great many variables that you can't address without actual knowledge about the things the character has faced. That's why feats are so important in these battles because they are a quantifiable measure of what a character explicitly is or isn't capable of.
Well his shape shifting is actually separate from his soul stealing because he can Shape-Shift into people who are not dead (kung-loa when he killed Lui-Kang in deadly Alliance). Also, Quan Chi took on Sub-Zero's appearance when he killed Scorpion's family. Game-wise, its not possible for him to do everyone's move in one form, and if he could, he would be overpowered.
It wouldn't make sense for him to not have access to the fighting knowledge in base form, even if he can't do some abilities, but I can't prove either way.
Out of Game: just an FYI
The was show once where it was shown that shape shifting was an ability of a sorcerer, Quan Chi was able to change his appearance and that of others and he lacks soul absorption abilities. In the movie, he never shifted to actually fight but did so to play mind games.
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I agree that long life does not equal fighting skill, but the same goes for learning more fighting arts, that's the point I was trying to make in that last statement. You can master 127 or whatever, but if someone learns 6 martial arts and that trumps every move you use in the 127, you're still going to lose. This is why I'm saying, who knows more arts does not prove anything. And to be clear, that is all I'm trying to say.
If you want to have a straight-up feat fight, just posting feats is pointless if you can't quantify them and compare them because they are in the same realm of strength and abilities. Its like you watching you're neighbor beat a boxer then saying he can beat another boxer because you have not seen him fight. Forget the fact the other guy is a boxer and everyone is telling you he beat Tyson in a street fight, no one has pictures of the fight and all media pertaining to Tyson's fight were lost in a fire. Your neighbor has feats that can be shown, so he wins. Kang beat a god, but we didn't see a cannon fight sequence so it does not count?
If someone wants to use double standards, and because Authors love to say "he knows every martial art known to man" one could also be extremely anal and tell you:
- List every martial art listed in any particular DC universe
- On top of that, show me every move for that style in that universe (and show me batman can do it)
- if it is not specifically listed, it does not exist in that universe (each fighting style and each move for each fighting style)
- And you can't compile a master list from each different universe
- And prove to me that move 4, 50, and 100 are not different stages of the same kick.
(don't actually post ... lol)
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