Board 8 > Could Donkey Kong defeat Kafka (Honkai: Star Rail) in a fight?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Arguments for Kafka:

• she's a brilliant surrealist writer famed for such works as The Metamorphosis...wait, no
• she's a mad clown who takes over the world...wait, wrong again
• okay I don't actually know who this is but here's a biography of her courtesy of the Mercenaries Wiki

Acrobatic, deft and deadly, Kafka is a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield. Equally adept with her katana as she is with her submachineguns, she can flit across the battlefield gracefully, dealing with anything the enemy team can throw at her. Her character trailer shows off her ability to handle even hordes of gunmen at once as easily as breathing. As a bonus, she is mercilessly adept at exploiting implanted weaknesses, able to forcibly reactivate status effects on enemies and afflict them with nasty lingering lightning shocks with all of her attacks. Pair her with, say, people capable of inflicting poisons that do Max HP percentile damage and watch even the toughest enemy drop easily!

• also she can turn DK into a monstrous vermin, probably

Arguments for DK:

• he has proven highly resistant, if not entirely immune, to mind control
• Pauline's singing might drown out Kafka's verbal commands
• if DK shoots Kafka, it's gonna hurt

Last topic the new and improved DK got newly and improvedly trounced by Alucard. Today is somebody known for having a dominating presence on the battlefield. Can DK overcome Kafka's mental tricks, or is the big ape about to get a lesson in mind over matter?

Because people generally won't know Kafka, here are some DETAILS.

Here is Kafka's 2 min trailer which shows some of her combat acumen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEUffI4nAIM

Anyways let's discuss Kafka:

• she is boss both in story and in endgame content - she is far more durable than what she looks like. She's boosted by being a Pathstrider of Finality
• She is a capable midrange fighter both with her uzis and her sword. Her sword doesn't require her to actually get in melee range as it creates giant web-things at a distance that electrocute her enemy
• All of her attacks will put a 'shock' damage over time effect on DK, with another instance of 'shock' being applied from her Patience is All You Need light cone. Most of her attacks will detonate this - so DK is taking a lot of shock damage both when he gets attacked by Kafka, and when he is attempting to attack Kafka (as that's when DoTs normally deal their damage - when the opponent takes action).
• Kafka is extremely slippery and by the time DK could potentially be in range of her, she'll have granted herself a 25% speed boost from her light cone partially mitigating the effects of the time slow from Snake.
• She can plant explosive mines in the terrain from a distance
• She can just waves her hands and summon 'webs' that will explode with electric damage on her opponent. DK will have a difficult time actually getting in range through these exploding webs.
• When she uses her Ultimate, she basically fires bullets in whatever direction she wants, effectively ricocheting them off of absolutely nothing, and the bullet trails explode with an explosion that can destroy steel beams (see her ultimate at ~1:30 in the trailer) - these aren't paltry explosions. They do a lot of damage
• She can throw her katana with enough accuracy impale a dude right in the face - and while she grabs it in the trailer, she also has the ability to disapparate and reapparate the katana at will when necessary

tl;dr Kafka has the ability to kite DK between her midrange weaponry, her electrowebs/mines, and her explosive bullet pathing from her ultimate. There's a reason she is the most wanted criminal in the entire HSR cosmos. If this weren't a 1v1 and dominate were allowed, she can also mind control someone, but since it's a 1v1 we ain't considering that.

Someone must have been telling lies about Donkey K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested.

It has been pointed out the trailer version of the ultimate has vfx over the steel beam exploding

please refer to this in-game combat image of the aftermath of the structures around her being destroyed

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/7/7c71c4f5.jpg

honkai kong

What's Donkey Kong's electrical resistance

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/c/c1f890bd.jpg

HMMMMMMMMM

None of this stuff sounds as tough as some other characters that DK has kept it close with in previous topics.

DK here.

Fun fact, there are not one but TWO gorilla boss enemies that show up regularly in Honkai Star Rail so Kafka has some experience in that regard.

https://youtu.be/Fej1macKCRs

If there's naturally a lot of electricity in an area, Donkey Kong can clap his hands and make lightning strike someone if they're holding metal. Also one of his pants from Bananza actively reduces shock damage; debatable if he'd have it equipped or that the rules are on "can DK change his pants in the middle of a fight", but there's a world where DK is just. Outright passively countering everything Kafka can do.

DK is a uniquely bad match-up for Kafka. Bananza DK actively just walks through electric goop whilst taking damage, so his actual 'stun' time is bad, he has good showings WITH lightning, and he has active mind control resistance from not really doing much. Even if you wanna argue Kafka mind controlling Pauline, DK has broken her out of a reduced mental state (Odd Rock) before by simply beating his chest really, really hard. There are times where Kafka CAN win this, but DK has a ton of options to close the gap and oddly specifically has gotten through her best tricks.

Making a somewhat more detailed writeup of Kafka, since people may not be familiar with her:

-She has a degree of either bullet control, or bonkers precise aim. At one point, while fighting the protagonists of HSR (and really, really not tryingit's explicitly clarified that she's sandbagging because she wants to lose the fight but has to make it interesting to avoid raising suspicions), she raises her guns up into the air, straight up, and seemingly fires them wildly. This forces a precognitive character to reveal herself and quickly alter the trajectories of the bullets mid flight so they collide into each other harmlessly, as otherwise they would've killed everyone confronting Kafka (she immediately gives up after, as her entire goal was to get said character to show up and take her prisoner for a scheme). I don't know a lot of gunners who can make upwards gunfire into a huge threat.

-Her uzis are not basic uzis. Aside from Path Energy (the thing pumping up the characters of HSR to do special feats, which scales up hard. Like, really hard. Like, the people with the most path energy have cleaved planets in half super casually) making any attacks stronger, they pack enough power to cut through solid ground and steel and leave laser trails behind. This is likely the way her Path Energy manifests in combat, as she can also supercharge simple silken strings to turn them laserlike in turn. In other words, the actual major threat is that she's channeling the energy of the end of all things into her strikes (as that is what the Finality path is about).

-Pathstriders are tough. Like, real tough. The baby-ass Trailblazer (protagonist of HSR) who was legit 'born' (its complicated but tl;dr a body was made for them and they got punted into it when the game starts) maybe a week before what I'm about to discuss, gets impaled by an enormous lance in combat in their first real scuffle after becoming a Pathstrider that is basically the size of their chest, and then proceeds to pull said lance out of their chest, get up and continue fighting against the enemy who sent it. Said enemy then basically pulls a Sephiroth and drops an enormous meteor on top of the Trailblazer and their allies, and just bracing their guard is enough for TB to facetank it. This is not something that happens just in gameplay, mindthe fight is a forcible tutorial where you HAVE to use a damage mitigating skill to survive. Various lore collectibles corroborate that this is just a standard feature of all Pathstriders, as the energy that circulates within their bodies allows them to withstand thing that would kill normal people like extreme temperature variances or dangerous attacks without issue.

-She possesses the ability of Spirit Whisper. This is an effect that allows her to utilize her voice to manipulate others into doing her bidding, a sort of psychic domination. However, this isn't the only effect it has. Spirit Whisper is also an extremely strong mood neutralizer. One of Kafka's allies, Blade, is an immortal (as in he regenerates from any wound he takes) who has been driven hopelessly mad by his regenerative powers. At baseline, he is a senseless berserker. However, Kafka's ability to Spirit Whisper lets her calm him down, allowing him to be functional enough to perform complex tasks, such as driving a car or infiltration, for prolonged periods of time. Range is not a meaningful limitation, and neither does it have to be selective. Case in point from one of her lore tidbits:

"...This woman's name is Kafka, a new Hunter without any information on file, and belongs to no particular organization. She has an ability called Spirit Whisper that allows her to hypnotically manipulate others through language. Recently, she has appeared in Riverland, New Babylon. She was seen communicating with its overchief, Shilde, and absconded with him in witness of 143 people. She then made an appearance at a clothing store and stole a black jacket, two white shirts, and a red dress with 6 witnesses. After that, she was seen by 28 people at an old music record store where she purchased nothing. Before she emerged at the Riverland Guard Station to claim her rewards, she was spotted at the central park with 2695 citizens present. We want Kafka's head, as her lethal crimes cannot go unpunished."

Why does this matter? Because it's likely she can shut down DK's Bananzas by psyching him and Pauline out of a singing mood. If you can't sing well and get in the mood, you can't Bananza. This means Kafka doesn't have to deal with a lot of DK's gimmicks at all.

---

There's a bunch of other stuff to cover but this is probably enough to start setting the stage. If anybody has any questions I'm all ears. I think this is a weird matchup but also kinda, uh, lopsided against DK, knowing both characters. I'm not sure how he deals with someone who can just shut down his best tricks and actually take his punches while ranging him really hard.

I think this is incredibly difficult because lore power versus what's been shown on screen for HSR is such a vast chasm of difference with very little exception.

Like, supposedly this is Kafka

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/3/3ace1f0b.jpg
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/d/d7a67ff0.jpg

But what does that actually mean.

She certainly doesn't seem like a planet buster in the game yet. But maybe she is!

Yeah HSR is really weird for versus things because the power scaling in it is absolutely crazy.

However, Kafka's ability to Spirit Whisper lets her calm him down, allowing him to be functional enough to perform complex tasks, such as driving a car or infiltration, for prolonged periods of time.

literally uses her psychic ability to calm down her friends road rage

DK still solos only confirmed it at this point

One of the more recent major cutscenes has a guy crushing galaxies is in path Gurren Lagann style.

Theoretically I think Kafka is stronger than him!

From a lore perspective I think Kafka could Solo over 1000 Donkey Kongs. From an on screen feat perspective I do not think she could beat 1 Donkey Kong.

I abstain lol.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

I think this is incredibly difficult because lore power versus what's been shown on screen for HSR is such a vast chasm of difference with very little exception.

Like, supposedly this is Kafka

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/3/3ace1f0b.jpg
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/d/d7a67ff0.jpg

But what does that actually mean.

She certainly doesn't seem like a planet buster in the game yet. But maybe she is!

We saw what this means. Kafka doesn't destroy a planet by blowing it up, she destroys it by plunging it into a massive civil war and making all the inhabitants kill each other in a massive orgy of violence (see the Jepella Rebellion short, that one's all her). There's characters who can blow up planets by main force, Kafka is not one of them. She's just dangerous enough to ruin a planet if she's allowed to use her Spirit Whisper.

"Look at all the bananas," says Kafka, and then goes "Boom" when DK turns around.

I find this one hard to argue because Kafka should absolutely manhandle DK and it shouldn't be close, but I can't back it up with a lot of proof because she's not in the protagonist's party so her most impressive stuff is mostly off screen and talked about later in the vein of a natural disaster.

literally uses her psychic ability to calm down her friends road rage

Cute, but really it's more like Blade (her friend) has no tethers left to sanity if Kafka isn't directly giving him support. The fact that he can function as anything other than "HULK MAD" is entirely due to her influence. (He's also a very high tier, completely unkillable swordsman for whatever that's worth.)

is the battle with dk in elio's script? because if it is she might know exactly what she has to do to win

...or lose if the script calls for it >.>

(Elio is basically the boss of the group she's a part of and can basically see all possible futures and assigns "scripts" for the group members to follow to try and guide the universe to a particular future)

Thorn posted...

is the battle with dk in elio's script? because if it is she might know exactly what she has to do to win

...or lose if the script calls for it >.>

(Elio is basically the boss of the group she's a part of and can basically see all possible futures and assigns "scripts" for the group members to follow to try and guide the universe to a particular future)

I would say that it's a strange interlude the script said 'this is gonna happen' and little else about, tbh. makes it more fun to argue.

up

Yeah idk this one is hard for me because while Kafka doesn't seem suuuuper powerful, she's often mentioned to be as much of a threat as characters that we HAVE seen ridiculous feats from.

Even if you ignore that, it kind of comes down to "Do you think DK could resist Spirit Whisper?" which is frankly just a toss up, and then if you get past that and say ok he can, do you think Kafka could beat him in a straight up fight with what we've seen her do? In which case I'd say, honestly, I don't have a clue, because we haven't actually seen her DO much. It's mostly turn based gameplay versus characters said to be planetary scale (which she is also said to be).

It's too wonky to really call here from a strictly 'is this character stronger or not' analysis point of view.

Kafka's only on screen fight against a noteable character she lost on purpose lol.

Like I guess if I had to pick one I'd say Kafka just because HSR's powerscale is so absolutely bonkers, but that's not really a true versus fight lmao

up again

welp

picking someone both with no real feats and a funny name makes it real hard to argue

dk

Kafka

I buy her Path Energy-powered guns being able to bring down DK, if they hit him they're gonna hurt

Kafka

gotta get that vote in

Kafka, not close

Kafka takes it. I think she has too many small advantages in her favour. Coming from a much stronger universe, her path specifically deriving from a being that goes against the currents of time so time slows may not affect her, relying on an energy that has allowed for superhuman feats...I think DK is very good, but Kafka probably has his number between a range, agility, and countergimmick advantage.

Blood in the water. Going with lore rather than on screen feats.

Kafka

I will also break protocol and cast a vote - for the first time in this entire topic series - for Kafka. The lore sounds pretty impressive, and it seems like she's nimble enough to avoid DK and set up traps for him.

Well then I'm voting dk

Yeah I'm gonna go ahead and decide to vote for Kafka