Board 8 > ~FIGHT!~ Raiden/Garrus/ Vrtra/Zeratul & Co Vs Zenos/Selvaria/Yu & Co

(+) Yeah! (+)

It could be, if the cake didn't pop from a distance

And the team wasn't, y'know, not suffering from terminal brain death

It's amusing but a dumb scenario. It's not how anything works, tbqh.

Depends on what "encountering the cake" means. I personally don't see standing like half a mile away and viewing the cake as "encountering it" particularly given the context is "he will leap out, attempting to surprise them"

I see it as getting reasonably close to the cake in which case Raiden immediately hellmurdering isn't outrageous to think of

Yeah my stance is 'within reasonable line of sight'

what reasonable means varies, but like, watching the cake through a pair of binoculars doesn't do it

Seeing the cake halfway down the street does

This isn't even something I'm arguing for my own benefit to be clear -- I just think it's ludicrously punishing to gunners and mages if the cake only pops when the merc that activated the cake ability is within, idk, 5 feet of it. It's a good ability, but it's not meant to instantly and automatically get every non-melee heavy mercenary killed as a matter of course.

Oh yeah if cake isn't here this isn't even debatable. Uninhibited Raiden at least kills everyone who isn't Zenos and the two rewinds ensure that Garrus basically gets to pick him off for free. Like Raiden will just eat the one Tetrakarn per body, probably lose an arm, and not miss a beat slaughtering them.

What's keeping me here is Yu, who has a canonical 1v1 (after an assist from the P4 villain) win against this with just Izanagi.

https://megamitensei.fandom.com/wiki/Hinokagutsuchi_(demon)

This is a malevolent demon made to manipulate people by creating false bodies that pop up out of nowhere and outright possession, with world-ending power by the point Yu fights it (it's absorbed a bunch of persona energy due to some red fog... stuff, look I really don't care for Ultimax's story at all outside of a few isolated character beats), and Narukami just... beats it up with his sword until it dies. No usual P4 power of friendship 11th hour power-up, just Yu being given an opening by the guy he hates the most to fight a big demon thing and winning. For reference, there is a parallel P3 story where Labrys takes his place, and Labrys actually has great combat feats of tearing down military installations and beating combat androids of her model and relative abilities while being vastly outnumbered, she's GREAT and I take her to win against Zeratul in almost every situation where he doesn't gank her, and even then I think he takes a lot of damage. Yu doesn't command that respect from me, but the fact that he can keep up and has good showings against Aigis in almost every telling of P4A's story makes me think that he really needs to be targeted if Zeratul's in his melee range.

That bit is keeping me hanging on; Zeratul and Garrus NEED to clear Yu/Tifa/Kiryu in three attempts, and Garrus doesn't know to change up his strategy for each attempt until he's in the middle of it. And this is presumably with Zeratul also avoiding Zenos (Selvaria I think Garrus just snipes as a matter of course at some point, probably without Tetrakarn as I see her going off to kill either the fleeing dragon or wherever she thinks the dragon was gonna go, and sadly I think Gael is just outclassed here in a way Kiryu isn't due to his persona support magic). I think this is POSSIBLE, but I think that Zeratul will not have the ability to measure one of Yu or Tifa's combat parameters properly in just three shots, will take a hit he didn't expect, and then Zenos ensures it's over. And from there, I don't see Garrus outpacing the healing before Zenos finds his vantage point and gets to him - I think he can kill Kiryu and one of Tifa or Yu, but not both in time.

I think that's the tipper - Zenos v Raiden, yeah, give it to Raiden, easy. But Zenos with Yu's buffs v Raiden, where Zenos can actually riposte the sword? Yeah that's gross.

Time is short and I can still be swung, but I'll toss a tentative to Team Narukami. Really tricky putting everything through its paces though, had to rewatch a bunch of Ultimax to figure out "how much DO I respect Yu beyond just spells?"

Also request that as soon as Raiden pops out of the cake, an electric rock version of "Happy Birthday" starts playimg.

KanzarisKelshen posted...

Yeah my stance is 'within reasonable line of sight'

what reasonable means varies, but like, watching the cake through a pair of binoculars doesn't do it

Seeing the cake halfway down the street does

This isn't even something I'm arguing for my own benefit to be clear -- I just think it's ludicrously punishing to gunners and mages if the cake only pops when the merc that activated the cake ability is within, idk, 5 feet of it. It's a good ability, but it's not meant to instantly and automatically get every non-melee heavy mercenary killed as a matter of course.

Yes the point is to PUT gunners and mages in it because it's very much a bad thing for them

I do think Raiden is a very bad target for it for this reason

Anyway interp but yeah

To be clear I don't think like the other team is totally caught off guard by someone being in the cake

I do think "within line of sight" is cherry picking the function of the cake to be as much of a detriment as possible and not any reasonable definition of "encounter"

I do think they're not necessarily in melee range of the cake or anything, but reasonably close yes. And while they know someone is in there what could surprise them is the speed of with which he leaps out of the cake.

I think Team Zenos just has too many revives here to lose. I can't see Garrus or Zeratul taking out everyone they need to with Tetrakarns around, and if they can't, I don't see Raiden beating Zenos with buffs.

Mail-in vote by Mistaya:

Okay so I waited a bit to post cuz I wanted to see arguments and even though they're ahead in votes I just don't see how the cakebois with this fight. Absolutely nobody thinks Estinien is gonna do anything but leave a stain on the floor, so he doesn't even count. Vrtra is a big fuckoff dragon who is now stuck in a 1v5 with an even bigger, even fuck-offer dragon, three persona-wielders, and a berserked Selvaria. Does he get out? No, he doesn't. Even if all he tries to do is flee, Zenos has chased far faster, far worse foes at the edge of the universe. Maybe they get out of the hall of the griffin before he dies, and if he realizes he's cornered he might even turn and take out one of the human combatants, but here's the actual problem the cakebois face: this is a battle of attrition. Anything that Vrtra does is going to be healed back up by Yu Narukami. In fact, Yu Narukami is the MVP here and the entire reason that his team can't lose this fight. So Esty and Vrtra are down and Zenos and crew move out into Garrus' and Zeratul's domain, the middle/city streets area of the map. Kiryu has had time to put up Tetrakarn, which is a full physical damage reflect, on his whole team. Zeratul probably attempts to shank (pick any) of the squishies, realizes that he would suicide with his rewinds, and holds back. Garrus pings himself with a few sniper shots, but I think Garrus is used to the idea of fighting people who have tech-or-magic based shields, even reflective ones, and he could probably puzzle out how it works in time to kill somebody- though he will have wounded himself at least somewhat. However if the little guys are shielded he might try going after the big guy, Zenos the Dragon, and that is going to aggro Selvaria, who is going to go HUNTING for Garrus. (Even in her berserked state she'll still have 'protect my lord' as her main objective.)
I'll take a moment to mention Haurche and Gael here because the battle of the squishies is important. So we have Yu, the healer, protected by Tifa and Kiryu, who are both known to be very sympathetic and protective of children! Tifa (with her provoke and defensive materias) can tank Gael long enough for Yu and Kiryu (with their personas) to mulch Gael. I strongly believe Haurchefant would meet up with Garrus for long enough to try and defend him from Selvaria, allowing him to escape for a moment, before sadly being impaled (again.) This is giving him more usefulness than if he tries to hang out with Gael and runs into Kiryu and Tifa because... yeah. Again, the issue is even if Gael manages to do significant damage before he dies, even if Zeratul manages to gib one or two folks, Yu can raise them and heal them up and if Yu, who is the MOST protected, actually gets gibbed himself, Tifa sends out Carbuncle to reset the fight. Garrus is great but even he can't deal with the level of heal and shield spam coming out of this team. And that's assuming Zenos isn't barfing horrible magic all over the city trying to find the annoying sniper man.
So, eventually, after a nasty awful fight, Garrus and Zeratul finally fall, and then team Persona (and Zenos) finally make it to the cake. Raiden leaps out, yells SURPRISE, ITS TIME TO RIP, and- well the funniest thing is if he manages to bisect himself on a tetrakarn (which Kiryu has had time to reapply) but even if tetrakarn did not exist, Raiden does not win the 1v5. Because it is a 1v5. And while I firmly believe Raiden CAN 1v1 Zenos, I don't think he can deal with a bunch of physical reflect and heals. Not without any support of his own. So... Yeah. If this was just a battle of power vs. power, that's definitely on Raiden's side, but it's not. You've all done enough PVP to know that if you're on a team with a healer and the other team doesn't have one, they can either kill that healer or lose slowly to attrition. Which is exactly what happens here. So my vote is for Team PERSONA

PS: also it's been three days you goddamn forums let me POST

https://media.tenor.com/bHGUqVIKzhoAAAAC/let-me-in-eric-andre.gif

Raiden cleans up a close one

Let them eat cake

Team Raiden

I have to agree with the arguments given and although the invulnerability is annoying, I don't think it's unbreakable with this team. Interesting fight though.