Board 8 > ~FIGHT!~ Lara Croft vs. Nathan Drake

(+) Yeah! (+)

Lara Croft has challenged Nathan Drake to a fight! Location of the fight: Oil Ocean Zone - One of Robotnik's more...interesting ideas, this mechanized refinery sits upon a literal ocean of oil. The badniks are gone, but everything else is still in place. Just be careful not to light that oil on fire. Attackers start at the first act starting point, while defenders will start the act 2 boss arena. It has become immensely more vertical, with conveniently placed footholds and hand grips to allow fighters to climb over obstacles and around. Teams will not have a view of each other's starting position regardless of the size of the terrain, and neither side will be considered to be familiar with the terrain.. Which side will win?

Guidelines

- The fight will occur in real-time (like an FMV sequence). Gameplay mechanics are less important than how the characters would function in a real-time environment.
- The members of each team are ideal teammates capable of a pre-selected plan of battle.
- "Broken" refers to a lot of things, including insta-death, auto-effects, a variety of status effects (e.g., Imp, Silence, Stop, *not* Poison), and revival. Unless stated otherwise, nobody has them, though do use your own discretion.
- There may be SPOILERS from all of the games the characters are from.

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- This match will end in 24 hours.
- The following conventions are in use for match topics: www.gamefaqs.com/boards/570224-mercs/75290480/878106427

Nathan Drake is as seen through the Uncharted series, with access to all of his weaponry save any miniguns he might have found, as well as all of his tools.

~VS~

Lara Croft is as she appears in the Tomb Raider reboot series (starting with Tomb Raider 2013), with all of her character upgrades and equipment. Walls do not necessarily have to be comprised of craggy rock for Lara to be able to scale them.

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Caught in unfamiliar, treacherous terrain, only one of these two adventurers will survive! Who will it be?
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before anyone else can say it:

Lara does not shoot a fire arrow into the oil ocean because she's not an idiot
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I mentioned it before but I love these two on this map. This is a situation where a misstep is dire for either of them. Falling into the oil is basically death unless they get lucky or both of them fall in together (and let's face it, these are two characters that both survive largely out of luck AND who are both likely to have shit break apart beneath them)

These two have extremely similar skillsets, and are both experienced in taking town teams of armored, heavily armed goons AND weird mystic people, both via stealth and run-gunning.

I'm immediately leaning toward Drake though. The main thing I think is gonna decide this is experience, which as of right now Drake has a decent bit more of than Lara. He's just a little less likely to get caught off guard and has a slightly larger arsenal of weapons
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Drake
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Tag

Waiting for arguments.
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Johnbobb posted...

Lara does not shoot a fire arrow into the oil ocean because she's not an idiot

yeah but what if she just HAPPENS to drop one due to an unfortunate accident
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without even thinking about it, drake just comes off as the better, more skilled fighter. lara is significantly less experienced.
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Lara. Getting stabbed through the gut, wading through a sewer and then acting like nothing happened five minutes later is pretty crazy
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X_Dante_X posted...

Johnbobb posted...

Lara does not shoot a fire arrow into the oil ocean because she's not an idiot

yeah but what if she just HAPPENS to drop one due to an unfortunate accident

I think Lara is more likely to drop herself into the oil than she is to drop a lit fire arrow
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Interestingly enough, I actually feel like weaponry/tools favor Lara by a long shot. I've been playing Tomb Raider 2013 lately and stuff like the rope ascender, the rope arrows, the pryaxe/climbaxe and so on give her a lot of good tools Drake doesn't get, AFAIK. And from what I hear, she gets stuff like cluster bomb arrows and poisons in Rise of the Tomb Raider, which gives her some extra tricks to do stuff with. Drake might be better in a straight up fight, but Lara feels like she has the tools to find the perfect overlook quicker, use her environment to her advantage, and just generally stack the deck in ways Nate won't be able to.
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yeah but causing lara to drop a fire arrow into the ocean would be bad enough for each of them that its something that drake would absolutely inadvertently do
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DeathChicken posted...

Lara. Getting stabbed through the gut, wading through a sewer and then acting like nothing happened five minutes later is pretty crazy

true, but I think Drake has survived enough to equal that

KanzarisKelshen posted...

Interestingly enough, I actually feel like weaponry/tools favor Lara by a long shot. I've been playing Tomb Raider 2013 lately and stuff like the rope ascender, the rope arrows, the pryaxe/climbaxe and so on give her a lot of good tools Drake doesn't get, AFAIK. And from what I hear, she gets stuff like cluster bomb arrows and poisons in Rise of the Tomb Raider, which gives her some extra tricks to do stuff with. Drake might be better in a straight up fight, but Lara feels like she has the tools to find the perfect overlook quicker, use her environment to her advantage, and just generally stack the deck in ways Nate won't be able to.

She does, but I think Drake largely counters her different arrow types (she gets poison gas arrows, fire arrows, and bomb arrows) with things like RPGs, grenade launchers, etc. His grappling hook in 4 also helps keep him fairly even with her ropes. The rope ascender does honestly help her a good bit, I'll give you that.
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X_Dante_X posted...

yeah but causing lara to drop a fire arrow into the ocean would be bad enough for each of them that its something that drake would absolutely inadvertently do

Fuckin true that
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quick check:

reboot Lara: 21, fresh out of college, her first adventure or... much of anything with real combat, really.
second game is a year later. i don't know how exact "a year" is there but eh.
third game which isn't even out yet i think takes place 2 months after that.

she's been in active combat for less than a year and a half.

meanwhile drake is... i dunno how old considering that by description, it's probably UC4? first 3 games cover his mid 30s, last one he's pushing 40 i think is the general accepted view.

she's either gotta have a much better arsenal of weapons or be that much more skilled.
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The other thing is that this place is like, tailormade for Lara making new shit up to help her. She's got a lot of McGyver DNA in the new games from what I've played, she mostly doesn't get new tools but rather makes them. Given how much weird techy shit is lying around, it might be possible for her to use the environment to her advantage.
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so are we ruling out the possibility that Drake attempts to flirt with her upon the two meeting
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Johnbobb posted...

so are we ruling out the possibility that Drake attempts to flirt with her upon the two meeting

absolutely not
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I mean they both have grenade launchers, but either of them using them would be an *incredibly* terrible idea
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Lara

Tomb Raider Reboot Lara is close to being a human Terminator. Both have survived death-defying scenarios and both have basically the same skillset, so the deciding factor is going to end up being Lara's resilience when being flat-out injured (as opposed to just being roughed up in a generic action hero way). She should have been dead so many times.
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Charizard
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KanzarisKelshen posted...

The other thing is that this place is like, tailormade for Lara making new shit up to help her. She's got a lot of McGyver DNA in the new games from what I've played, she mostly doesn't get new tools but rather makes them. Given how much weird techy shit is lying around, it might be possible for her to use the environment to her advantage.

that's true. In Rise I think she can find enemy communicators and just like, wrap some cloth and gunpowder around it and somehow make a make it into a motion-sensing landmine

the issue is, as resourceful as she is with stuff like that, I feel like Drake already has it in his arsenal to begin with. If we're including everything except miniguns, that gives him plenty of things like grenades and heavy-duty weaponry
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DeathChicken posted...

I mean they both have grenade launchers, but either of them using them would be an *incredibly* terrible idea

which means they definitely get used at some point
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Johnbobb posted...

KanzarisKelshen posted...

The other thing is that this place is like, tailormade for Lara making new shit up to help her. She's got a lot of McGyver DNA in the new games from what I've played, she mostly doesn't get new tools but rather makes them. Given how much weird techy shit is lying around, it might be possible for her to use the environment to her advantage.

that's true. In Rise I think she can find enemy communicators and just like, wrap some cloth and gunpowder around it and somehow make a make it into a motion-sensing landmine

the issue is, as resourceful as she is with stuff like that, I feel like Drake already has it in his arsenal to begin with. If we're including everything except miniguns, that gives him plenty of things like grenades and heavy-duty weaponry

For gunz yes

I was thinking more in terms of tools though. Like imagine she manages to unhook one of the bumpers the stage has and take it with her to use its kinetic force to bring down parts of the scaffolding or whatever. It feels like something she might try and that Nate can't replicate because, AFAIK, he doesn't really make tools or anything, he just handles things with pure wits and luck for the most part.
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Drake btw

I think at the end of the day his experience far, far outweighs Lara's. Guns are more or less even so yeah, comes down to that imo
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ok but what if there's a really tricky puzzle
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Johnbobb posted...

ok but what if there's a really tricky puzzle

there is totally a ton of really tricky puzzles with this terrain

like there's no way half the fight isn't shit blowing up spectacularly and both sides having to improvise escapes super quickly to get out of danger
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so long as he doesn't have to line up the shadows of statues perfectly, drake can handle some puzzles
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it's a shame this terrain is like ALL metal, Lara's broadhead arrows could be a big help here

what kind of credit are we giving her rope arrows btw? In game she can only use them against things with rope on them, but I don't know if we should just write that off as a game mechanic. Would they help when the terrain is mostly metal?
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now watch Shadow of the Tomb Raider give Lara some weapon that'll make this a shutout
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Johnbobb posted...

it's a shame this terrain is like ALL metal, Lara's broadhead arrows could be a big help here

what kind of credit are we giving her rope arrows btw? In game she can only use them against things with rope on them, but I don't know if we should just write that off as a game mechanic. Would they help when the terrain is mostly metal?

Yes, absolutely. Lara's a skilled enough archer to nail three dudes at once with a bowshot, she totally can just hook the arrow around something imo
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Johnbobb posted...

now watch Shadow of the Tomb Raider give Lara some weapon that'll make this a shutout

I kicked myself when I saw it was coming out four days from now

talk about bad timing
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How do you make a Sonic zone MORE vertical?

Is it just a wall with oil waterfalls.

Anyway, does Lara have any experience with urban environments post-reboot? I know Drake does, but survivalism is totally different in artificial environments versus Neutral, Nondescript Jungle Mountains. If anyone's gonna abuse terrible Robotnik architecture, it's gonna be Drake, and I'd take "knocking the floor underneath them down" over "they have more explosives" with the sheer verticality and time it'll take for the flames to reach them if they're not already on oil slides.
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Kamekguy posted...

How do you make a Sonic zone MORE vertical?

Is it just a wall with oil waterfalls.

Anyway, does Lara have any experience with urban environments post-reboot? I know Drake does, but survivalism is totally different in artificial environments versus Neutral, Nondescript Jungle Mountains. If anyone's gonna abuse terrible Robotnik architecture, it's gonna be Drake, and I'd take "knocking the floor underneath them down" over "they have more explosives" with the sheer verticality and time it'll take for the flames to reach them if they're not already on oil slides.

Ironically, I literally just now (and I mean, just now, 15 mins before I got this topic) got a gadget in TR2013 that lets you do exactly that and knock the floor and walls down

Weird coincidence

But yeah, she has combat experience in artificial environments. Just in what I've played you go through a WW2 bunker, a really vertical shanty town, a japanese monastery and palace that is blowing up and forcing you to constantly gain height to not die (I bet this sounds familiar...) and a bunch of broken up shipwrecks. No idea what she does in Rise of the Tomb Raider but I assume there'll be some more urban combat too.
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KanzarisKelshen posted...

No idea what she does in Rise of the Tomb Raider but I assume there'll be some more urban combat too.

not much, tbh

there's one area that's a bunch of old Soviet architecture but the majority of the game is Siberian wilderness

one of the reasons I preferred 2013TR to Rise was for its awesome environments
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Also that monastery was being attacked by some kind of hurricane goddess who was throwing bolts of lightning at random
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DeathChicken posted...

Also that monastery was being attacked by some kind of hurricane goddess who was throwing bolts of lightning at random

oh yeah, that's true

like straight up gale force winds the whole way through and Lara makes do anyway
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why are they fighting

wouldn't these two be friends
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also coincidentally I am literally playing Rise of the Tomb Raider while refreshing the topic

about 80% in and shit just got real good
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Drake

While Lara has the edge in durability, she still can't shrug off bullets and regardless of the game Drake has the immense edge. Reboot Lara is effectively treated as a punching bag by her own games and often gets through things through luck rather than her own abilities.

Drake meanwhile is actively lucky. And if nothing else I can count on his luck here being better than Reboot Lara's, because jesus christ she's the unluckiest daughter of a bitch there's ever been in video gaming.

Alany posted...

and often gets through things through luck rather than her own abilities.

jesus christ she's the unluckiest daughter of a bitch there's ever been in video gaming.

These are two pretty conflicting statements.
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Yeah, when you somehow manage to fall off cliffs bouncing all the way down like Wile E. Coyote and more or less walk it off you are decidedly not lucky. You are very tough though
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Yeah uh, about that 'shrugging off bullets' thing, I can think of at least two instances in TR2013 where Lara gets straight up shot at and keeps going. She also gets through literally the entire game with a gut wound inflicted by falling into a rusty old spike at high speeds, and when that wound opens, the only way she has to treat it is to cauterize it by stabbing herself with a white hot arrowhead...and then she keeps going because that was around the game's halfway point, at best.

Lara.

The way I see it, Drake has an advantage in pure combat experience, but not a huge one - Lara has gone through two whole adventures and gotten into a ton of gunfights based on her writeup. She's much tankier than he is, too, and significantly better at making use of her environment (see: the way she fashions all her weapons with random shit and pieces of scrap she finds, taking a WW2 SMG into becoming a state of the art commando rifle through pure ingenuity), and these two things compensate for the slight skill edge of Drake. If they go more or less blow-for-blow, Lara will find ways to keep going, but Nate will get progressively more fucked up until he can't fight. And I don't think either one gets a clean decisive strike off on the other.
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Also, and keep in mind I consider this a much less impressive durability feat than the whole 'made it through the entire game with a mostly untreated gut wound', she does have at least one example of just taking a bullet and giving no fucks from the comic series they made for Rise of the Tomb Raider:

https://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/11117/111173561/5977427-6150815405--019..jpg

But really, it's mostly the whole 'I healed getting stabbed by stabbing myself with hot metal' thing that impresses me, cause jesus girl that's hardcore
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Drake and Lara are both the definition of ridiculously lucky AND unlucky

everything will always go wrong for them but they will always survive it
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KanzarisKelshen posted...

jesus girl that's hardcore

well yeah nobody's denying Lara's a total badass
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well I'm definitely less leaning Drake but I'm still pretty on the fence here.

While I think Lara can really take some damage, I do think she's more likely than Drake to slip up and make a costly mistake

but at the same time Lara has some incredible aim with the bow (late-game has autolock which gives you automatic headshots on multiple people at once, which I don't think Drake could really pull off)
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Yeah, my line of thinking is that Lara is probably gonna get like, shot twice or something before she can hit Nate

And then she's gonna hit Drake once with a shot through the gut that not only hurts him but causes him to start hallucinating (cause she has a weird bow in RotR that does that to people apparently?) and it's curtains for him.
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KanzarisKelshen posted...

And then she's gonna hit Drake once with a shot through the gut that not only hurts him but causes him to start hallucinating (cause she has a weird bow in RotR that does that to people apparently?) and it's curtains for him.

actually it's a certain arrow type and it wouldn't actually need to hit him. It explodes on contact with anything and releases a poison gas cloud that causes hallucinations

edit: very similar to how the poison works in the Assassin's Creed games, where enemies will wildly attack anyone near them, only it's not as necessarily fatal as in AC
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KanzarisKelshen posted...

And then she's gonna hit Drake once with a shot through the gut that not only hurts him but causes him to start hallucinating (cause she has a weird bow in RotR that does that to people apparently?) and it's curtains for him.

She's got two variations. The first is the poison arrow which puts down an AoE poison area of effect. The next is the Dreamstinger (picture below) which is a special bow that gives every arrow(?) the Witches' Pollen effect, which is the hallucinogen effect you mentioned.
https://imgur.com/umPc20B

You sure? Because I'm looking it up and multiple sources agree that the Dreamstinger bow (which she has) auto-imbues any arrows with poison. That's what I was thinking of there.

EDIT: Ninja'd! So I wasn't imagining this after all, whew
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