Guts VS. Dimitri Q&A (Feat Lousy and Tiki)

 

 "The following is a fan-made blog, whose opinion is only those involved in its writing. It is not officially endorsed by Rooster Teeth Productions, or representative of the views of the Death Battle staff at large."


Can you elaborate on the Roar of the World? Why isn't the feat usable?

In Berserk Ch. 304, Skull Knight gets his sword redirected by Griffith towards Ganishka, who had reincarnated into a colossal world tree by this point. This caused a wound in the form of a supernatural rift to form that ultimately destroys Ganishka, causing ethereal light from the astral world to leak out of said wound, and form a new world tree. This Merges the astral world and the normal world in a giant burst of light that completely encompasses the globe.

https://mangasee123.com/read-online/Berserk-chapter-304-index-2-page-7.html
I think it’s an Elden Ring reference. /s

Obviously, something on such a huge scale should be impressive, but does Guts scale to it? Probably not. To elaborate on the tab, The Roar of the World wasn't destructive in nature. It was basically a magical wave of light that signified the barriers between the human and astral world dissipating. Everyone and everything on the planet was caught in the same blast of light, and wasn’t physically affected by it (since that wasn’t the point of the light).
https://mangasee123.com/read-online/Berserk-chapter-304-index-2-page-16.html

This is backed up by the light and winds created from the roar being described as ‘otherworldly’. https://mangasee123.com/read-online/Berserk-chapter-307-index-2-page-10.html 

We suppose you could still calc luminosity via the light created. Something we did, but the yield was small to the point of not even being worth mentioning.

But what about the initial cloud dispersion around the tree? Zodd was near the blast, so shouldn't Guts scale via him?

Scaling the dispersion to Zodd or Guts is also kind of questionable. Mostly because it’s unclear if there was a cloud dispersion in the first place.

The moment in question...
https://mangasee123.com/read-online/Berserk-chapter-304-index-2-page-15.html

The art doesn’t appear to show the clouds parting. It looks like the light from the roar is just encompassing everything, the clouds included. Which would make sense, given the light expands to encompass the planet moments later. No other cloud formations are dispersed by the light as can be seen in the image below.
https://mangasee123.com/read-online/Berserk-chapter-305-index-2-page-9.html

In addition, there are still clouds around the newly formed tree of light after the Roar of the world.
https://mangasee123.com/read-online/Berserk-chapter-307-index-2-page-14.html

It also doesn’t make much sense for the light from the Roar of the World to have physicality at ground zero, but be ethereal at every other point on the planet. Making it doubtful that there was a cloud dispersing blast in the first place.

But didn’t Ganishka make a huge storm that was no longer there after the roar of the world?

It is true Ganishka made a pretty large storm upon reincarnating in the World Tree that disappeared after the Roar of the World.
https://mangasee123.com/read-online/Berserk-chapter-296-index-2-page-17.html 

As for whether this storm disappeared due to the light (more specifically, a physical blast) from the Roar of the World, probably not? We suppose it’s somewhat debatable, but as we just mentioned, there are still clouds around the tree after the blast. It’s more likely the storm just disappeared because the source to it (Ganishka) died from the event.

People are free to disagree, but at the end of the day, it’s moot for this fight. Dimitri would still be considerably stronger via scaling to Sothis, and stronger when scaled to the Javelins of Light. To reiterate: The Javelin’s high end is 19 Gigatons assuming 1 javelin was used, the Mid-End is 3.27 Gigatons assuming 6, and the low end is 196 Megatons assuming 100. Speaking of which…

What about the 5 Angels sinking the Old Kingdom?

Granted, I haven't seen many people argue this, but it’s an interesting feat that would have put Guts above even the Javelins of Light. So what exactly is it?

According to Midland lore, five great angels were sent to a great Skull King and caused many storms and great earthquakes to sink the old Kingdom of Midland (https://mangasee123.com/read-online/Berserk-chapter-53-index-2-page-8.html). After hearing this tale, the Band of the Falcon navigate to this old kingdom in order to rescue Griffith. Note that Casca asks “weren't there four of them?”

From this distinction, we can conclude that because Femto had yet to retake his throne by virtue of Griffith’s Behelit, that the five angels were likely members of the Godhand. Especially since the Behelits and Eclipses are ordained by God itself. On top of which, Flora refers to the Godhand as the Five Angels (https://mangasee123.com/read-online/Berserk-chapter-202-index-2-page-6.html). It’s all but confirmed that the Godhand were responsible for the tragedy of the old Kingdom.

By calculating a fatal earthquake about the size of Constantinople, which Midland is based on, the power of an individual Godhand could reach 66 Gigatons of TNT. This wouldn’t be above Sothis’ flood, but safely above even the high end for the Javelins of Light. However, Guts currently does not scale fully to a single Godhand.

He has fought only one so far, Slan. However, at the time Slan was taking on the visage of the troll corpses that Guts had just slain.
(https://mangasee123.com/read-online/Berserk-chapter-219-index-2-page-7.html | https://mangasee123.com/read-online/Berserk-chapter-219-index-2-page-9.html) 

Physically, she was not as powerful as she would have been during an Eclipse or sacrifice feast. Guts did not actually fight the real Slan. As far as we know, she will return at some point in the story. And while Zodd also stalemated the Skull Knight, when it came to fighting Femto, Skull Knight was usually outclassed.

It’s unlikely that Guts would scale to the power of a single Godhand member yet. When he does, he should reliably get the sinking of the old Midland. But as of right now, no.

How can you scale the House Leaders to Rhea when they have an army at their side to help them with major threats like her?

While every route’s finale takes place with a small army of allies at your side, and you can, in theory, fight the final boss with a large number of units, it’s shown in cut-scenes that every route's final boss, Rhea included, is fought either solo by the player character, or with the player character and the chosen house leader by their side. Byleth and Edelgard for example 2 v 1 Rhea in Crimson Flower’s finale.
https://youtu.be/95ieWPwEREQ?t=2369 (39:29)

Claude and Shez fight and defeat Rhea without their army backing them in Golden Wildfire.
https://youtu.be/rGXA1Mtgvqo?t=1183 (19:43)

Byleth defeats Rhea on their own in Silver Snow.
https://youtu.be/H39PDVT-pQc?t=3998

And so on.

We’ll also point out Rhea was significantly weakened when she survived the Javelins of Light in both Silver Snow and Verdant Wind, due to being in captivity for 5 years. To the extent that she wasn’t able to fight in the battle prior to the Javelin of Light feat.
https://youtu.be/u2Fxce8N2w8?t=66637

Meaning she should be far more powerful when fought in the Crimson Flower and Golden Wildfire routes.

There’s no reason Dimitri and the other house leaders shouldn’t scale to Rhea.

Why didn’t the episode mention Sothis’ flood? Is it legit?

I think it’s understandable why we didn’t have the episode’s argument hinge on an off-screen lore feat, found in a DLC area, that was performed by Fodlan’s literal God. Especially when the Javelins of Light sufficed for putting Dimitri's stats above Guts. We would have loved to have placed a tab mentioning it, but alas, only so much info can be crammed into 15 minutes of analysis.

Anyway, the feat is legit, and Dimitri should scale to it and Sothis, thanks to Byleth.

Upon fusing with Sothis, the goddess claims her power has been ‘found’ and 'reborn' within Byleth. And prior she outright states it would ‘take a god’ to escape the dimension Byleth was trapped in.
https://youtu.be/yUZo4pVux_Y?t=25039 (6:57:19)

Something Byleth does after fusing with Sothis. There are numerous other quotes and statements, but the short of it is that Byleth gains Sothis’ full power upon fusing with her, and should be comparable in terms of stats.

Besides the many statements of Sothis’ power being ‘reborn’ through them, this is backed up by the fact that Byleth and Claude can fight with Nemesis, who is the one that killed Sothis and used the Creator Sword (the weapon forged from Sothis’ corpse) originally.
https://youtu.be/rMD7tt8jxzM?t=3129  (52:06)

While Nemesis did kill Sothis while she was asleep and recovering after restoring the world that had been ravaged by war, there’s no reason to believe she was thousands of times less durable during this recovery. The same way a human’s bone density remains the same, whether they’re awake or stuck in a coma.

It’s not necessarily canon, but Sothis is also a secret playable character in Fire Emblem 3 Hopes, and isn’t treated any differently from the other units you can control.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amyBTiKVjA0

Dimitri and the other house leaders consistently fight with Byleth and characters who are threats to them. Ergo, they should scale.

Are we sure we can use the flood feat? It seems kind of vague.

For those wondering, the flood statement comes from an excerpt in Romance of the World’s Perdition in the Cindered Shadows DLC. Specifically, in the Abyss’ library.

“The False God must be defeated before the world sinks into a watery
grave. To this end, the children of men have erected pillars of light upon
the land. Thinis, Malum, Septen, and Llium were utterly destroyed.
Those lands have vanished from this world. Yet even still, the False God
stands. And soon, a flood aptly named Despair will drown this world.”
https://houses.fedatamine.com/en-us/library/83

At first glance, you wouldn’t be blamed for thinking the text is too flowery to be considered accurate. Some have compared the English and Japanese text, and argued the flood may very well be metaphorical. The details to that can be found here.
https://www.reddit.com/r/FireEmblemThreeHouses/comments/hd82ec/jpen_translation_comparison_of_the_abyss_shadow/

However, despite some oddities, we believe the evidence overwhelmingly favors the flood being literal for several reasons...

-The text is located in The Abyss' forbidden library, which contains texts banned by the Church of Seiros. It makes sense they would ban a record stating their benevolent goddess flooded the continent, or anything that paints her in a bad light.

- While flowery, the text entry makes some pretty direct references that would only make sense if the flood was literal.

"The grotesque monstrosity resurrects to sink the world to watery depths."
"Defeat the one who is not god before the world sinks to watery depths"
"A flood named despair covered the world"
"To a place where the waters of despair do not enter."

It would be really silly to reference water and a flood 4 different times if it was just metaphorical.

-Another lore entry in (The Book of Seiros, Part II) states Fodlan emerged from a 'cloudless ocean'. ("In the beginning, amid the great cloudless ocean, Fódlan came to be.")

Most of Seiros' history is a fabrication made by the church, but this part would make sense if Sothis flooded the world prior.

-It is established in 3 Houses that Sothis wiped out most of the Agarthans across Fodlan, but never explicitly stated by what means. This is the closest we have to an answer for how she would have done it.

-Somewhat tertiary, but Lorenz mentions that the air in the underground city of Shambhala (the place Those Who Slither in The Dark hid in) is stagnant. This would make sense if it was meant to protect the Agarthans from a flood, since it would need to be air locked.

-Credit to the g1 blog for finding this last part, because it flew over my head. Arval, a character with memories from the war between Sothis and the Agarthans, specifically recounts his memories of the flood in 3 Hopes.
https://imgur.com/a/DeTDT73

The excerpt is 100% NOT being metaphorical.

TLDR: Byleth’s change of hair dye gave them power equivalent to a biblical flood.

Why did you give Dimitri magic in the episode? Isn’t that exclusive to classes he doesn’t normally have?

I think people have gotten a bit too caught up on this. Yes, Dimitri is noted for his crazy strength, and he's normally portrayed in non-magic classes. His actual magic stats are also notoriously poor (something we mention in his rundown). But just because his default class and style is oriented towards physical combat doesn’t mean he can’t use ANY magic at all.

In Fire Emblem, characters are normally restricted to either weapons and physical strength, or spells and magic depending on their class. But this is obviously a balancing decision, and not something reflective of the actual lore. Our proof? Several things...

-In 3 Hopes, we see Dimitri training with and using magic during his supports with Annette, regardless of what class he has at the time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgPqeeL0hUA

-Even on a mechanical level, hybrid classes such as the Dark Knight are able to use both magic and weapons.
https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/Dark_Knight_(Awakening)

-The combat arts that non-magic classes can use are, for all intents and purposes, magic. You cannot create pillars of ice, whirlwinds, and fire off lasers from your weapons just by swinging them really hard. In 3 Hopes a lot of combat arts straight up reuse animations from magic spells.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHqkhJ66uzw

-Lastly, Dimitri constantly uses lightning magic while in his default class in 3 Hopes. It’s how he can generate azure lightning through his lance.
https://youtu.be/V8FowEfdQuk?t=1548

There’s no reason for Dimitri to be restricted to just physical attacks. We’re going to look at whatever abilities or equipment fighters could have, within reason. That includes stuff that may not technically come up in a Strength-focused build.

It’s also not as if Dimitri needed his magic to win. His lightning being effective against Guts was one of the arguments we made, but Dimitri could have still just… Stabbed Guts until he died.

Is Dimitri as fast as lightning, given he can dodge the lightning spell?

While there are several solid speed feats in other FE games thanks to the lightning spell, the one in 3 Houses unfortunately comes down in a single frame, and can’t really be used (at least if we’re looking exclusively at the Fodlan games).

What about the light spells?

The closest applicable one would be Rhea’s Forgotten White Magic, which does last multiple frames and comes down as what looks like a beam of light.
https://youtu.be/FBb4z5qyifE?t=1385 (23:05)

But it also explodes on contact, and doesn’t meet any other qualifiers for being light speed. Not really usable.

Are there any potentially better speed feats for Dimitri that would be usable?

Maaaybe.

While the magic systems in FE are not always perfectly uniform, the actual spells casted, and their power, speed, and function remain mostly the same.

This is important, because Fire Emblem The Complete (basically a guidebook for the Archanae games) states the meteors called down in the Meteor spell are pulled from deep space.

The referenced calcs below are from Munchie. Translation is from PhantomFalcon and Nota.

"2メティオ 宇宙に散らばる流星の軌道を 変え、相手の頭上に隕石にして 降り注ぐ強力な魔法。邪悪な魔 道士が用いる。"

"2 Meteor: A powerful magic that changes the trajectory of meteors scattered throughout the universe, turning them into meteorites that rain down on the opponent's head. Used by evil mages."

Mid-end calcs using this tidbit safely fall into mach 462 or mach 809 (both fast enough to surpass Guts’ speed), and the high end exceeds mach 13,000 (enough to safely blitz Guts).

The calculation we made for Meteor applied re-entry speed, which is typically the default used if you can’t prove the meteors are being pulled from space. But obviously, if you can prove they are, you can get much more impressive speeds.

We didn’t use the deep space speeds because it would have introduced cross-scaling of sorts, and we wanted to focus on Fodlan and the feats in its games (plus, it was more interesting if Guts had a slight speed advantage). But there’s little reason to think Fodlan’s Meteor spell is functionally any different from Archanae’s. Meaning the speeds should be fair game.

Can you scale Dimitri to better feats through Engage?

Probably.

For those not in the know, the newest game in the series, Fire Emblem Engage, revolves around ‘Emblem Rings’. Which when worn, allow the user to summon a spirit version of past FE characters to assist them in battle.
https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/Fire_Emblem_Engage#Emblem_Rings

Naturally, people use this to argue the main lords in FE should all generally scale to one another. And there is a good bit of evidence to support this.

-While these ‘Emblems’ aren’t the original characters, they have the same abilities as their real counterparts. There are no statements hinting at them being any weaker from their real selves.
https://serenesforest.net/engage/pre-release/emblems/ 

-The emblems have the same memories and experiences as their real versions as well, regularly recounting events from their games (there are too many examples of this. Just play or watch some of Engage’s paralogues.)

-While they are spirits, emblems can obviously interact with people and even spar with Engage’s main cast.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9X9GPfpzJY

-Engage’s protagonist, Alear, becomes an emblem themself near the end of the game, and their stats are treated no differently from their ‘normal’ self.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAdEeF2TBKM

-This also isn’t the first time Fire Emblem games have had crossovers with one another. Fire Emblem Awakening for example has an assortment of DLC Xenologues featuring characters from prior games and worlds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqbLD5GXKsY&list=PL-UHDqcwcC4iRLufBhZ6cD6iRMzDDRLoz&index=7

In the past most people discounted this as simple fan service DLC. But in light of Engage, and all the other overlap between these worlds, that becomes more and more doubtful.

We will point out that there are a lot of people who are still against using this scaling for one reason or another, so make of it what you will.

My personal stance on the matter? Most of the Fire Emblem games were already connected to one another in some form. Archanae, Ylisse, Valentia, and Jugdral are all part of the same world, just in differing continents and eras. And whatever the FE Fates continent is supposed to be called resides in a parallel world that characters from Ylisse canonically go to.

I don’t see the issue with it. Engage scaling wasn’t used in the episode, but that was because Dimitri didn’t need it, we wanted to focus on Fodlan’s setting, and we didn’t want to cram a spiel about emblems and how they scale into Fire Emblem’s first 5 minute rundown.

Fire Emblem Heroes scaling?

Oh boy…

So, following the trend of many other series, Fire Emblem has a gacha game that acts as a large-scale crossover where characters from different titles are pulled from their worlds to assist in battle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP5iSUNyWh4
Yes, I’m still salty I wasn’t able to pull Summer Shamir, why do you ask?

On FE’s VS. scene, Heroes is notable because it has several feats that would potentially make the series much, MUCH more powerful than it currently is. But the question that’s inevitably proposed is should Heroes even be used? Is it canon?

The argument for the longest time in favor of using it was that Intelligent System listed and referred to Heroes as a ‘mainline’ entry in the Fire Emblem franchise, and… That’s about it.

Personally speaking, I don’t think this means much on its own. Something can be considered ‘mainline’ to a series and still not be part of a primary canon. But as of Engage’s DLC release, there’s a new tidbit to complicate matters. One of FE Heroes’ exclusive characters, Veronica, is an emblem in Engage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nVpJbvcX4Q

And all the arguments made for Engage scaling? They also apply to her. She mentions the ‘other world’ she is originally from (1:29), can spar with the main cast, and even has Heroes’ summoning mechanic as part of her skill set (3:09).

Which leads to a bit of a conundrum. It's tough to justify using Engage scaling while also dismissing Veronica and FE Heroes’ role in the game. But acknowledging her would inevitably mean scaling everyone to Heroes, and in turn make most FE matchup discussions, quite frankly, really boring.

To be clear, in spite of all this, we’re proooobably not going to use any feats or scaling in Heroes any time soon. It has been a sour talking point in some places, and more trouble than it’s worth.

Come to your own conclusions on it. But as of now, unless it’s a Xeno Trunks VS. Archie Silver situation, where we’re specifically using material that would normally be considered nonstandard, we’ll probably never hinge an argument on feats or scaling via Fire Emblem Heroes.

Support Lyn VS. Yasuo.