Winter Soldier vs League of Assassins

this could go either way ima say the lwague of ass ftw 6/10

League of Assasins

@nickzambuto: That whole highway scene was pretty tactically brilliant on the Winter Soldier's part though

Bucky

@nfactor1995: How so? I think you're confusing efficiency with strategy. Like I said, think of Bucky as a machine - he can do whatever he's programmed to do and do it perfectly, but he's incapable of any outside, indapenedent planning or thinking outside of that. If a curve ball is thrown his way - in this case Black Widow using stealth, gear, and strategy against him - he can't think his way out, he can only keep marching forward like a machine until he eventually wears them out with his sheer power. Of course that's not Bucky's fault, he was under mind control, maybe in later movies he'll regain his consciousness and become as strategically talented as Steve is, but until then, tactics is a big disadvantage against him, this was explicitly displayed during his fight with Black Widow.

@nickzambuto: Just an example I can think of: even though Widow outsmarted him during the highway battle, his strategy to kill her was pretty sound. Rolling that grenade under the car where he thought she was so she would run out and get shot was a good tactical move; it didn't work because she is tactically brilliant herself. And he would have shot her dead if not for Steve intervening.

Using a grenade isn't tactically brilliant, it's the bare basics of tactics. The highway scene hardly puts Winter Soldier anywhere near Oliver's level of intelligence, he possesses the best skills of both Widow and Cap into one, if you think the idea of using a grenade makes Bucky "much more tactical in fights than Oliver" than you're just underrating Oliver.

Team.

@nickzambuto: Eh I don't even know if tactics really would matter much in this scenario. I was just curious if people thought that Bucky's brute strength and fighting ability would be enough to put down some of the League assassins in these conditions.

Well the original point was that Bucky can beat Al-Owal because Arrow beat him and Bucky is superior to Oliver, which I countered with pointing out that Bucky lacks Oliver's tactical abilities and (level) of fighting skill. I'm not saying Winter Soldier couldn't win this, but do you agree with that much?

@nickzambuto: Yeah that makes sense. I was just thinking that in this scenario neither side has a huge tactical advantage over the other and Bucky's brute force plus his fighting skills would be enough to overwhelm Al Owal.

True, I don't think Al-Owal would last long against Winter Soldier on his own, I was just defending Oliver. As far as I see it, LoA's best bet is Nyssa tagging Bucky with one of those snake venom arrows.

@nickzambuto: I actually think Oliver is one of the more tactically sound characters I've seen in live action comic shows/movies. However, that fight against Flash was one of the worst I've ever seen though...I don't see how Arrow would even have a fighting chance against Barry in that kind of fight.

What was wrong with it? Oliver used his martial arts skill to outmaneuver Barry and force him to run into a punch, used his versatile weaponry to catch Barry off guard, and his endurance allowed him to tank whatever Barry threw out in the mean time.

@nickzambuto: At least looking at it from a comics perspective it seems like Flash was super nerfed in that fight. How would Arrow even really see Barry during the fight let alone land a hit/shoot him? And those punches by Barry should've been hurting Oliver a lot more than they were I think.

It's all about context. Let me break down the fight.

The fight begins with Oliver sneaking up on Barry and hitting him with a rope arrow. No problems there, Barry was caught off guard, all the speed in the world wouldn't have saved him. However, before Oliver can do anything else, Barry grabs hold of the rope and drags him through the streets before easily freeing himself. So far Flash is definitely not being nerfed. If Oliver responded by filling Barry with arrows, THAT would be nerfing because we know Barry can run three times faster than the fastest arrow. However, Oliver does something different. He fires two arrows into the wall behind Barry, which suddenly explode and knock him to the ground. That is an example of tactics, without having to lowball The Flash. It was impossible for Barry to have known those were explosive arrows, and since he's not mach 25, he couldn't have outraced the explosion once he realized they were. Of course Flash gets back up almost immediately, which is the opposite of nerfing, rather it's one of the best durability/healing feats he's had yet. However Oliver was smart enough to use his stealth skills to get behind Barry in anticipation of this, and fire a tranquilizer at him, again giving Barry no way to dodge. However Barry is fast enough to actually vibrate the tranquilizer out of him -- again, the opposite of nerfing, Flash actually got a nice feat from this fight. After that Barry runs circles around Oliver, cementing his super speed as something Oliver isn't matching in the fight, but Oliver escapes by grappling to the roof, only for Barry to outrace him and pluck out the arrow, sending Oliver plummeting to the pavement. Oliver barely saves himself with another grapple. So far there's been no nerfing of Barry, Oliver is just using his gear and thinking extremely quickly.

Here's where the controversy comes in. Barry brings it close quarters and begins running circles around all of Oliver's hits, only for Ollie to actually land a punch. People immediately jumped to conclusions and screamed PIS, but if you actually look at what Oliver did, it just becomes another example of skills overcoming super powers. Oliver was anticipating all of Barry's moves and attacking in advance, he would throw a punch then kick behind himself before Barry even started to dodge. Oliver's punch landing wasn't an example of reflexes or speed, it was Barry ducking underneath one punch and then standing right into a second punch, just as Oliver planned, and it's consistent with Barry not being a very skilled fighter. It's pretty much the exact same tactic Deathstroke used against Wally West in Final Crisis, except Oliver didn't plan it, he improvised it. Barry then gets mad and stops playing around, he blitzes Oliver with dozens of super speed punches, which clearly take their toll on the archer, however Oliver has always specialized in endurance and pain threshold, so he's able to stay conscious. That's not lowballing Barry, that's just Oliver having conviction.

While still on the ground, Oliver stealthily presses a button which launches two arrows out of a crossbow stationed far away. I'd like to point out that planting this crossbow was Oliver's only use of prep, people try to downplay the fight by claiming Arrow had tons of prep time, when really planting an extra crossbow was literally the extent of it. Anyway the arrows come hurdling towards Barry, but he is SOMEHOW able to sense them and turn around to catch. He comments "fool me once" referencing their previous training session where Oliver tagged him using the same trick. I don't know how people can say this fight nerfed Flash when sensing and anticipating those arrows is literally the greatest feat of skill and intelligence he's ever displayed in combat. Again, the fight is the opposite of nerfing, Flash is far more competent during his fight with The Arrow than he was in any past fight. Anyway even though Barry anticipated the crossbow, he didn't account for Oliver throwing a flechette through his leg while he's busy catching the arrows, which is simply another example of Oliver out-thinking Barry. Anyway after injuring his leg, Oliver is able to catch a punch from Barry (which is a great feat of reflexes on Oliver's part since Flash's arms can still move at super speed. This is the only part of the fight that I can understand someone calling PIS, but I still disagree because Oliver has shown the ability to react to supersonic projectiles, so catching the punch is just a good feat) and then put him in a headlock. Than Wells shows up and cancels Barry's brainwashing, however if the fight were to the death, it's clear that Arrow was winning, from that position it only would have taken him a second to snap Barry's neck, or even choke him out non-lethally.

@frozen Just wanted you to see this and see if you disagree.

@nickzambuto: Nice breakdown. But Barry didn't use superspeed in his last punch, so that would be chalked up to either his injury or CIS

@nickzambuto: Great breakdown of the fight. I'll point out my issues and see if you think they are valid. When Barry drags Oliver down the street at the beginning, he's running at hundreds of miles per hour and that should: pull the bow out of Oliver's hands, or, severely injure Oliver's arm(s)/body from the sudden jolt and when he comes to a sudden stop a few moments later. When Barry starts running around Oliver, I was under the impression that doing that would pretty much cause the person to suffocate but Oliver showed no ill effects whatsoever (maybe I'm wrong about that). And personally I think the punch Oliver landed was just unlucky on Barry's part because he could essentially slow time down enough to see anything coming at him and he just lost focus/was being too cocky at that moment. Still, those punches by Barry are moving at superspeed and he's landing dozens per second so unless Barry is really weak, Oliver should pretty much be broken at the end of the fight, like literally broken. And how did Oliver throw that arrow or knife or whatever it was with enough force to fully go through Barry's leg from the position he was in? Finally, the last punch Barry threw was just kind of confusing because Oliver shouldn't be able to catch Barry's punches at all but he didn't seem to be using superspeed on that last one. My feeling is, it didn't seem like Flash was really trying all that hard throughout most of the fight and he could've ended it quickly if he truly wanted to seriously injure or kill Oliver. But then when he did get serious they nerfed his punches so Oliver could keep the fight going.

The jerk of Barry running and then stopping was very sudden, and a real human would probably get his arm torn from it's socket, but the problem here is that you're thinking of Oliver Queen as a 'real' man. The fact of the matter is, he's a peak human, and given his consistent feats of strength and durability, getting jerked like that isn't anything that should harm him. If you watch Arrow you should know that Oliver takes far more deadly attacks on a regular basis (Mirakuru soldiers).

Running around an opponent to suck the air out of their lungs is a tactic Flash uses in the comics somewhat regularly, and I assume that is what he was trying to do to Oliver in that scene, but a person wouldn't be instantly knocked out by a lack of oxygen. I can hold my breath for almost two minutes, and I'm sure that The Arrow can for a lot longer than that, but Oliver was only exposed for a couple seconds.

The idea is that Barry didn't see the punch coming. He ducked underneath Oliver's first attack, then stood up, into the second one. And again that's not Oliver reacting, that's him anticipating Barry's moves. So you could call it luck that Barry did exactly what Oliver was hoping he would do, but personally I call it skill.

Oliver survived punches from Mirakuru soldiers regularly during season 2 of Arrow, so enduring Flash's blitz isn't out of the question. Even if you think it's better than all of his other durability feats, that just makes it his best durability feat, it's not so wildly inconsistent that we have to call it PIS.

The weapon Oliver used is called a flechette, the equivalent of a throwing knife. I don't know how often you watch Arrow, but it's one of his basic weapons, and he's pulled off tougher shots with those things than just putting one through Barry's leg. That's actually not a very big deal.

Barry's last punch wasn't fast for one of two reasons:

A) The flechette through his leg weakened him.

B) It WAS fast and Oliver was lucky he reacted to it, but the scene is edited in such a way that we don't see his super speed in full action do to his leg being dead.

League of Assasins.

@nickzambuto: Great breakdown of the fight. I doubt anyone could've done it better.

Thanks a lot. I'm just tired of people waving away Oliver's fight with Barry as PIS simply because "Oliver is just a human", but then if I made a Batman vs CW Flash thread people would say Batman can stomp with ease.

@rbt: Is Al Owwl really the most dangerous assassin the League has besides Ra's?

This is so inappropriately accurate.

@nfactor1995: Looked like it to me. It took both Sara and Oliver to defeat him. He is the one who trained Malcolm Merlyn.

Bucky stares at them like this and they die instantly

@nfactor1995: No. Not at all. Your usual peak human.

@rbt: What about Roy? How strong was he before and after the Mirakuru?

@nfactor1995: On Mirakuru, he could punch through a bomb proof container. That was his best strength feat IIRC.

@nickzambuto: Why wouldn't Flash just run up behind Oliver, take one of his arrows and stab him a bunch of times? Or some variation of that? I've heard a lot of people saying that Oliver was simply protected by plot and that is the only reason that Flash didn't curbstomp him.

Character.

Well. You have to remember that Barry in flash has no knowledge of how to fight. Remember the fight vs Cap Cold and sidekick. Instead of just blitzing them he made their streams cross. SImply because he doesnt know how to kick ass :D

@chimeroid: Any thoughts on the actual fight this thread is about? (Bucky or the League?)

@nfactor1995: Bucky brainwashed are free to think? That is important here. If he is brainwashed he will lose. He wont be able to dispatch all of them without getting at least a cut. And they commonly poison their weapons.

Neither wins. LoA recruites Bucky.

@chimeroid: The mindset he had when he fought Cap, Black Widow, and Falcon on the highway. Or when he fought Cap at the end on the helicarrier. Essentially where he is like a machine sent to complete a mission and that is his sole focus.

@nfactor1995: he would win. Weapon advantage is big and they are coming in 1 by 1. Tho, if it was Maseo in and 5 seconds later the rest come. He would lose.

@chimeroid: Well what I was trying to simulate in this battle was the scenario when the League members captured Oliver in that back alley in "The Climb." Where the first guy arrives to alert Bucky to the League's presence then the rest drop around him within a second or two of each other. Would he win in that scenario?

@nfactor1995: Most probably yes. Maseo is insanely skilled but he is underequipped to fight Bucky and then a second is all he needs to dispatch them 1 by 1