Marvel chars vs LOTR chars

1) Aragorn vs Daredevil (S1 black costume and batons)
2) Legolas vs Hawkeye (MCU)
3) Tauriel vs Elektra (Netflix)
4) Boromir, Legolas, Gimli, Aragorn vs Winter Soldier
5) Cave Troll vs Loki
6) Balrog vs a a Space Whale

Who takes these?

Book or movie versions of the LOTR characters?

[QUOTE=Dark Soul # 7;5488238]Book or movie versions of the LOTR characters?[/QUOTE]
Valid question, but default is usually book.

[QUOTE=Postmania;5488217]1) Aragorn vs Daredevil (S1 black costume and batons) [/QUOTE]
I feel like I’m leaning towards Aragorn.

[QUOTE=Postmania;5488217]2) Legolas vs Hawkeye (MCU) [/QUOTE]
Assuming this isn’t Movie Captain Magicpants Legolas, I feel like Hawkeye’s only got to get close with an exploding arrow and it all falls apart for Legolas. Close is only good in horseshoes and hand-grenades... and explosive arrows.

[QUOTE=Postmania;5488217] 3) Tauriel vs Elektra (Netflix) [/QUOTE]
Assuming Black Sky Elektra (the last version we saw), she tears through Tauriel.

[QUOTE=Postmania;5488217] 4) Boromir, Legolas, Gimli, Aragorn vs Winter Soldier [/QUOTE]
If he shoots Legolas first, he might be OK, but I suspect numbers will win out.

[QUOTE=Postmania;5488217] 5) Cave Troll vs Loki [/QUOTE]
Mind control for the win.

[QUOTE=Postmania;5488217] 6) Balrog vs a a Space Whale[/QUOTE]
Balrog has way more damage output options. And Space Whales are so slow moving that I don’t think it would hit the Balrog.

Primary source is books, but it only takes 30 seconds

1) Aragorn vs Daredevil (S1 black costume and batons)

I'd give the win to DD against book OR movie Aragorn. Aragorn's a good fighter... against normies. DD has a range game Aragorn can't do a damn thing about, and significantly better reaction speed. DD in S1 casually catches an arrow fired from close outside while in a taxi swerving and bouncing about, with his dying girlfriend in his lap, having a heated argument with his old sensei. That's way beyond any non-Hobbit-Legolas nonsense in the films or the books.

2) Legolas vs Hawkeye (MCU)

Hawkeye beats book Legolas or LOTR movie Legolas thanks to better toys; Hawkeye loses badly to Hobbit trilogy Legolas.

3) Tauriel vs Elektra (Netflix)

Elektra slaughters Tauriel. Period.

4) Boromir, Legolas, Gimli, Aragorn vs Winter Soldier

Given that it's now explicit (Falcon & WS series makes it completely clear, if Civil War wasn't enough) that Bucky is a full-on Cap-level Super Soldier, even before counting the Vibranium arm: he mows down the book versions. He'll gun them before most can react, and he's easily quick enough with the arm to block an arrow or two, given how frequently he blocks bullets with it (aim-blocking not bullet timing, but more than good enough for Legolas). The movie versions, though, have magic flying elf guy and he's probably going to magically stick two teleporting arrows into Bucky's eyes or something.

5) Cave Troll vs Loki

Loki wins by many methods, not the least of which is that the cave troll probably can't hurt him if Loki let it hit him - which he will not.

6) Balrog vs a a Space Whale

Hmmmmmmm. Movie Balrog isn't fast and isn't particularly impressive on the scale of a thing that glides through skyscrapers without noticing or slowing down. Iron Man's super cutty laser thingies can't scratch the paint. The Gandalf fight was less impressive in the movie than the description Gandalf gives in the book as well. Movie Balrog can't hurt the whale, but I don't know that the whale can hit the Balrog unless the Balrog gets stupid. Book Balrog... might be strong or damaging enough to hurt the whale. Really not sure on that.

I'll stick with primary canon where at all possible (huge surprise, I know).

1) Aragorn vs Daredevil (S1 black costume and batons)

Got a fight on our hands, here, but I'm giving this to book Aragorn. Matt isn't fast enough to blitz, though he enjoys a speed advantage. This is offset by Aragorn's clear strength advantage, armour (yep, by the end of the book he's running around in armour...Matt isn't, here), big reach advantage (sword), and tremendous skill. It's easy to forget that Aragorn has been fighting a fair chunk longer than Matt has been alive by this point, and has feats to prove it - he does stuff like 'fight his way across a battlefield at the head of an army (yes, leading from the front and killing everything in his way) then fight his way back across said battlefield, said battle lasting for hours.' Does he take a single injury? Nope. He's also fresh enough that long into the night he runs around doing stuff, like travel back and forth to different places in a city and outside of it to help heal people.

Worse, this is the arena - it's a straight-up fight, so Matt can't use stealth, the environment, or bounce his clubs off anything.

Going to give this to the scion of Númenor.

2) Legolas vs Hawkeye (MCU)

Interesting fight, but Book Legolas can remove arrows from his quiver, nock them, and draw faster than eyes can track (yet another feat straight from the book) and kill large, flying beasties by loosing a single arrow nearly straight-up into the air. The accuracy is easily enough to pin Clint at 100' range. Clint has explosive arrows and such, but he needs to take a moment to prep them (as shown in the movies), which...will get him killed, here (given Legolas's speed, taking a second to get the arrowhead on means Clint likely now has TWO arrows sticking out of him, with a third already on the way). His own accuracy isn't any worse than Legolas's - in fact, it's better - but since it's arrow against arrow at a range where neither has any difficulty hitting a man-sized thing somewhere mortal, I'm edging toward the guy who will 100% get his arrow in the air first: Legolas.

3) Tauriel vs Elektra (Netflix)

Having never seen Tauriel in action, and her not having any existence in the books, I cannot comment.

4) Boromir, Legolas, Gimli, Aragorn vs Winter Soldier

Winter Soldier is plenty fast, very tough, and has firearms. I'm not seeing him having a problem surviving an arrow if Legolas manages to hit him while he's shooting the crap out of everyone here. And, not being a dope, he's going to shoot the dude with the bow first.

5) Cave Troll vs Loki

Loki, given the kind of damage his knives do in the movies and the fact that he can simply render himself unseen or whatever else with illusions. I suspect this fight will get even worse when the series comes out, as Loki seems to get some better magic feats.

6) Balrog vs a a Space Whale

Book Balrog's fight with Gandalf wreaths an entire mountain-top with flames. And honestly, I'm having serious problems seeing the space-whale every actually getting it's teeth in the Balrog, given the speed with which Balrogs can fly/travel. The Demon of Might shouldn't have any problems playing keep-away, even by getting on the whale's back and hammering away with a big-ass sword. Might take a while, but I can't see the Balrog losing this.

Mileage may vary. :D

Here is my take.

1) I believe Daredevil. He has some supernatural abilities, and that would probably give him the edge. Still, Aragorn has a big motivation, born leader, unafraid of anything, led by love..., all those less touchable things are on his side. It would be a very interesting fight.

2) Oh, Legolas. They are not even close. For one, Legolas can just go away and live a thousand years :) Every capability is by far on Legolas's side, and if we are led with the Hobbit, it really is not even close. Tech that Hawkeye has is nothing, he wouldn't have any chance to do anything with it.

Here are a few of Legolas powers:

"He can hear what the stones are thinking. He can also sense the feelings of trees. Legolas does not need sleeping. He dreams while walking. When the rest are asleep, he stands by to watch. Later on, Legolas takes a nap with his eyes open. He is also very light, he does not sink into the snow, though he has the weight of a normal man. so this makes it difficult to track him. Elves have ties to a physical world, and they love it dearly. So they never die until the physical world dies. Elves do not get sick they don’t age, and they are difficult to kill." - credit [URL="https://fictionhorizon.com/what-kind-of-elf-is-legolas/"]Fiction Horizon[/URL]

3) Even though I would say Electra, Tauriel is an Elf, so as the answer above, and it could be explained from the same info, I would give this one to Tauriel.

4) Really? All of them against Winter Soldier? I would separately probably put on all of them. But to be certain, Legolas and Aragorn. WS has super serum and a vibrarium arm, but really nothing more, and certainly isn't really too smart.

5) Loki, by far.

6) I would say Balrog. They were spirits, actually spirits that came to Middle-earth to help 'gods'. And even though the fight between Balrog and Gandalf seemed short and simple in the movie, we can't forget that Gandalf was actually considered as a kind of god - as per Tolkien;[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandalf#:~:text=Tolkien%20once%20described%20Gandalf%20as,in%20his%20%22Wanderer%22%20guise."] Source Wiki[/URL]

For the record, I actually was thinking movie when I made this, but if asked I would have done the "have two versions where one is book and one is movie" any way :D

Also forgot Legolas actually got better feats in the Hobbit trilogy apparently, those prequel upgrades

Since apparently Elektra smacks Tauriel, how would Black Widow do against her?

Book-
1. Aragorn. Numenorians (Aragorn being a direct descendant) were superhuman by about every meaning of the word. And Aragorn, being in his 80s by the time LOTR rolls around, also gives him a huge experience advantage over the blind hero.
2. Legolas. While not medieval ninja of the movies, his archery puts Hawkeye to shame.
3. Tauriel does not exist so, Elektra wins by default.
4. Oof. Poor Bucky. Going against just one of these heroes would be a nightmare. But all of them? LOTR boys take it.
5. Cave trolls, while big and strong as hell, are also pretty stupid. Loki, should he not be stupid about things, should take it.
6. Er, I'm sadly unfamiliar with space whale. But Balrogs can basically be viewed as fallen/twisted angels. Hence why Gandalf (himself of that level) was the one to fight the Balrog.

Movies-
1. Closer, but I still give the advantage to Aragorn here.
2. Legolas. Elf ninja takes it. Too OP.
3. Tauriel takes it. Elves are not to overlooked. Even OC inserts like Tauriel.
4. Much closer, but with Elf-ninja, angry little man, and Super King, the trio takes it.
5. Loki.
6. I still lean towards Balrog.

[QUOTE=Jackalope89;5489410]4. Oof. Poor Bucky. Going against just one of these heroes would be a nightmare. But all of them? LOTR boys take it.[/QUOTE]

I really need to ask - how is the group taking this, given Bucky's ridiculous feats and the fact that the Winter Soldier comes with firearms (pistols, minimum, and usually some kind of assault rifle) as standard equipment? Starting distance is 100', recall. Legolas is the only one with a chance, here, and Bucky stands at least an equal-to-better chance of simply shooting him dead (possibly while collecting an arrow somewhere painful).

The other guys need to cross 100' with him pumping them full of military-issue bullets.

I'm seeing some stuff here in the thread that I'd like to address.

While the Balrog is a fallen Maia trapped in a physical Fana, on Rumbles we don't consider such things to be important. What we consider are FEATS. Now, the Balrog has some pretty darned good feats, so I'm not going to complain about the way people are voting. However, 'because he is a fallen angel' or 'because he was a Maia' or whathaveyou isn't a good reason to put the Balrog up as the victor.

He wreathes the tops of mountains with fire, he survives week-long battles against Gandalf, his death tears down part of a mountainside, he travels a ridiculous distance in a really short period of time when Morgoth is whining for his assistance, he has tons of stone fall on him and it does...meh, he's quite large with a honking big flaming sword...all of these are things we might use as reasons.

Secondly, Gandalf - I'm going here because it seems to come up a lot, and I feel it needs clarification.

Gandalf is not a Maia.

Olórin is a Maia. GANDALF is one of the[I] Istari[/I], Olórin stuffed into a mortal (if long-lived and inhumanly tough) body by his boss, and limited by such. He's subject to the frailties of mortality, he can die, and his powers are [I]limited[/I]. Tolkien is pretty explicit about this, and goes into great detail in his essay on the subject, [U]The Istari[/U] (a fun read if you find it - it's in Unfinished Tales, among other places).

'For with the consent of Eru [the Valar] sent members of their own high order, but clad in bodies as of Men, real and not feigned, but subject to the fears and pains and weariness of earth, able to hunger and thirst and be slain...whereas now [the Valar's] emissaries were forbidden to reveal themselves in forms of majesty, or to seek to rule the wills of Men or Elves by open display of power, but coming in shapes weak and humble were bidden to advise and persuade Men and Elves to good...'

'Who would go? For they must be mighty, peers of Sauron, but must forgo might, and clothe themselves in flesh so as to treat on equality and win the trust of Elves and Men. But this would imperil them, dimming their wisdom and knowledge, and confusing them with fears, cares, and weariness coming from the flesh.'

All quotes from 'The Istari', Unfinished Tales.

Their bodies are not Fana taken on by Maiar; they are 'real', not 'feigned', and subject to the 'fears and pains and weariness of earth'.

For all of that, they were powerful, and Gandalf - pushed to his limit - could defeat another similarly 'mortal' spirit: a Balrog, a spirit of fire and darkness that had cut itself off from Ilúvatar and taken on a body...much like one of the [I]Istari,[/I] but without a whole lot of choice in the matter.

But he's not a Maia/an 'angel' of Tolkien's works. He's a Maia that has been explicitly limited and made mortal. Even Gandalf the White is still limited, though less-so than before he was brought back to life.

[QUOTE=Sharpandpointies;5489958]I really need to ask - how is the group taking this, given Bucky's ridiculous feats and the fact that the Winter Soldier comes with firearms (pistols, minimum, and usually some kind of assault rifle) as standard equipment? Starting distance is 100', recall. Legolas is the only one with a chance, here, and Bucky stands at least an equal-to-better chance of simply shooting him dead (possibly while collecting an arrow somewhere painful).

The other guys need to cross 100' with him pumping them full of military-issue bullets.[/QUOTE]

What if we just let Bucky have knives/metal arm as his only weapons?

[QUOTE=Postmania;5490005]What if we just let Bucky have knives/metal arm as his only weapons?[/QUOTE]

...then he has trouble. Mostly due to him getting a couple of arrows in the wrong place before he gets into hand to hand.

And he's going with a knife and a metal arm against a trio of armoured (to various extents), highly skilled killing machines armed with longer weapons that'll happily cut up every area of his body that isn't made of metal, while the super-archer wanders around the edges of the battle looking for another opportunity to feather him.

If it's not clear, I don't really like his odds. :D

Mileage may vary.

[QUOTE=Sharpandpointies;5490008]...then he has trouble. Mostly due to him getting a couple of arrows in the wrong place before he gets into hand to hand.

And he's going with a knife and a metal arm against a trio of armoured (to various extents), highly skilled killing machines armed with longer weapons that'll happily cut up every area of his body that isn't made of metal, while the super-archer wanders around the edges of the battle looking for another opportunity to feather him.

If it's not clear, I don't really like his odds. :D

Mileage may vary.[/QUOTE]

I agree that giving one side ranged gear and the other no ranged gear makes the odds much longer (and likely impossible), but Bucky is still faster, [I]much[/I] stronger, more skilled then any of the three killing machines here, and has an arm that can trivially [I]break[/I] the weapons of the other side, as well as the repeatedly-demonstrated reactions to do so. Fighting vastly superhuman beings is a Tuesday to him, beings pretty far beyond Aragorn/Boromir/Gimli. Put another way: Bucky with a knife would still be a strong favorite over Aragorn, Gimli and Boromir to me. Bucky is [I]at least[/I] equal to Cap in such a fight, with the advantage that he has a literally unbreakable arm that is stronger still than the rest of him, and multiple, repeated feats of using that to block close range bullets, including automatic weapons fire. Again to clarify, I'm not claiming bullet time status for him, rather aim-block status that places him in the CBPH-ish discussion, with [I]significantly[/I] better-than-that strength and durability (as an MCU Super Soldier), plus the blocker/breaker/one-shot arm.

He'd be able to one-shot those guys straight through any armor they wear, even straight through a shield.

That said, if he has to deal with the three of them AND Legolas, his chances go down drastically, of course. Having arrows arrive from a distance into owie-parts while also fighting 3 very respectable combattants does not favor him.

[QUOTE=big_adventure;5490433]I agree that giving one side ranged gear and the other no ranged gear makes the odds much longer (and likely impossible), but Bucky is still faster, [I]much[/I] stronger, more skilled then any of the three killing machines here, and has an arm that can trivially [I]break[/I] the weapons of the other side, as well as the repeatedly-demonstrated reactions to do so. Fighting vastly superhuman beings is a Tuesday to him, beings pretty far beyond Aragorn/Boromir/Gimli. Put another way: Bucky with a knife would still be a strong favorite over Aragorn, Gimli and Boromir to me. Bucky is [I]at least[/I] equal to Cap in such a fight, with the advantage that he has a literally unbreakable arm that is stronger still than the rest of him, and multiple, repeated feats of using that to block close range bullets, including automatic weapons fire. Again to clarify, I'm not claiming bullet time status for him, rather aim-block status that places him in the CBPH-ish discussion, with [I]significantly[/I] better-than-that strength and durability (as an MCU Super Soldier), plus the blocker/breaker/one-shot arm.[/quote]

I would have zero problems with Bucky having a good chance of winning against the melee fighters alone. Here, he's against a group that's backed up by an archer with absolutely stellar accuracy feats, who also happens to be faster - reflex-wise - than Bucky himself. As Bucky has no feats for moving faster than the eye can follow. And Bucky would need to cross 100' distance between the two groups, then deal with the fight while the archer continues to plunk arrows into unfortunate places. But against the melee fighters alone, he'll make it into melee. He'll have a rough go of it once he arrives there, based on his performance against name-level characters of any skill, but should have a decent chance.

What I disagree with is some of your assessment, which requires clarifying.

I would disagree with the 'more skilled' part. The second Bucky goes up against someone who is physically his equal, and not a perfectly normal human, he gets hit. A LOT. As an example, look at his fight with Walker. Walker basically beats all hell out of him - Bucky is flat-out losing that fight, with Walker landing more hits than he does.

In this case, his skill is getting compared against:

1. A dude who has about 70 years of experience/training, who fights his way across a battlefield over the course of several hours and doesn't take a single injury;
2. A dude who has probably at least as much experience, who fights his way through a pitched battle explicitly cutting heads off his enemies, kills some 50 of them this way, and gets hit once in that entire mess.
3. A dude who, lightly armored, casually stomps a group of 'dozens' of enemies before the rest flee, then gets attacked by over a hundred enemies loosing a 'rain' of arrows at him, and manages to avoid most of said rain. And when he's sitting there full of arrows his enemies leave over twenty more of their people behind to finish him, he then gets up and proceeds to murder all of that group.

That thanks to the detail of television we get to see a lot of acrobatic martial arts and fancy knife use from Bucky doesn't change the fact that again, Bucky eats a lot of hits. He powers through them, but let's have a look at his fights.

1. Fighting Tony Stark, he tussles with Tony. Sure, he has been hit with some blinding stuff before this, but it's explicit in the film this barely affects him. Tony and he do a little tussle for the gun, which is fun, then when he and Stark are standing facing each other after Stark disarms him, Tony backfists him across the face from a standing start - hit lands;
2. Sharon Carter and Widow fight him next, and land hits on him. That's in a two-on-one situation, and if we're going with the idea that Bucky is faster than normals (he is), it's not a great showing for Bucky with regards to skill. Had this been, for example, Boromir and Gimli, Bucky would be potentially missing parts of his body (including his head, which sounds outlandish until one realizes Gimli decapitates between 40 and 50 orcs in a single battle, and those dudes were armored);
3. The 'super-soldiers' in Falcon and Winter Soldier are civilians, essentially, who have been enhanced. They seem to be at least somewhat trained, but they're not 'super-special trained villains' or anything. In groups (and alone) they land all kinds of hits on Bucky.
4. John Walker, Super-Soldier, beats the living crap out of Bucky.

Bucky takes a whole lot of hits, in contrast to a group of guys whose feats are basically 'annihilate everyone they face in battle, only losing when there's over a hundred guys with a large contingent of archers who are noted to loose "rains" of arrows at them...and despite being shot full of arrows, still win against twenty enemies'.

I am absolutely not convinced on the point of Bucky being 'more skilled' than they are. I would actually tend more toward the idea that there's an argument to be made in the opposite direction. Just because there isn't fancy choreography in the actual writing of the Lord of the Rings does not invalidate the feats of the characters, just as fancy choreography doesn't automatically make for fantastic skill.

Second, your assertion that Bucky will 'trivially' break any of the weapons here falls flat when it comes face to face with Andúril. The Flame of the West was originally forged by Telchar of Nogrod, a guy who makes knives that 'cut iron like rude cloth'. It takes Sauron to bust this sword, at a time where Sauron is putting off enough heat to incinerate people he's fighting against. It gets reforged by the immortal smiths of Imladris. Aragorn, for example, uses it to split an iron helmet in half (and the skull beneath said iron helmet). No big deal, sword fine.

This is not something Bucky is 'trivially' breaking.

Lastly, the idea that he's casually one-shotting these people through armor and even a shield. Let's take Boromir as an example. Boromir is a guy who literally forces his way through packed snow that's to the height of his chest in order to make a trail for people behind him. He does this for an extended length of time, while carrying all kinds of stuff as well. He eats a whole whack of arrows (many) in the books, and proceeds to kill his way through twenty+ more enemies after that, stopping because there are no more enemies to kill. He then sits around and waits a while for Aragorn to show up before kicking off.

Given that Bucky hits normals with his arm and they don't die or explode, I'm having problems seeing him casually one-shotting Boromir. Through his shield.

Mileage may vary.

Edited due to edit that left Sharon Carter and Widow hitting on Bucky. Needed to correct that. O_o

[QUOTE=Sharpandpointies;5490515]I would have zero problems with Bucky having a good chance of winning against the melee fighters alone. Here, he's against a group that's backed up by an archer with absolutely stellar accuracy feats, who also happens to be faster - reflex-wise - than Bucky himself. As Bucky has no feats for moving faster than the eye can follow. And Bucky would need to cross 100' distance between the two groups, then deal with the fight while the archer continues to plunk arrows into unfortunate places. But against the melee fighters alone, he'll make it into melee. He'll have a rough go of it once he arrives there, based on his performance against name-level characters of any skill, but should have a decent chance.

What I disagree with is some of your assessment, which requires clarifying.

I would disagree with the 'more skilled' part. The second Bucky goes up against someone who is physically his equal, and not a perfectly normal human, he gets hit. A LOT. As an example, look at his fight with Walker. Walker basically beats all hell out of him - Bucky is flat-out losing that fight, with Walker landing more hits than he does.

In this case, his skill is getting compared against:

1. A dude who has about 70 years of experience/training, who fights his way across a battlefield over the course of several hours and doesn't take a single injury;
2. A dude who has probably at least as much experience, who fights his way through a pitched battle explicitly cutting heads off his enemies, kills some 50 of them this way, and gets hit once in that entire mess.
3. A dude who, lightly armored, casually stomps a group of 'dozens' of enemies before the rest flee, then gets attacked by over a hundred enemies loosing a 'rain' of arrows at him, and manages to avoid most of said rain. And when he's sitting there full of arrows his enemies leave over twenty more of their people behind to finish him, he then gets up and proceeds to murder all of that group.

That thanks to the detail of television we get to see a lot of acrobatic martial arts and fancy knife use from Bucky doesn't change the fact that again, Bucky eats a lot of hits. He powers through them, but let's have a look at his fights.

1. Fighting Tony Stark, he tussles with Tony. Sure, he has been hit with some blinding stuff before this, but it's explicit in the film this barely affects him. Tony and he do a little tussle for the gun, which is fun, then when he and Stark are standing facing each other after Stark disarms him, Tony backfists him across the face from a standing start - hit lands;
2. Sharon Carter and Widow fight him next, and land hits on him. That's in a two-on-one situation, and if we're going with the idea that Bucky is faster than normals (he is), it's not a great showing for Bucky with regards to skill. Had this been, for example, Boromir and Gimli, Bucky would be potentially missing parts of his body (including his head, which sounds outlandish until one realizes Gimli decapitates between 40 and 50 orcs in a single battle, and those dudes were armored);
3. The 'super-soldiers' in Falcon and Winter Soldier are civilians, essentially, who have been enhanced. They seem to be at least somewhat trained, but they're not 'super-special trained villains' or anything. In groups (and alone) they land all kinds of hits on Bucky.
4. John Walker, Super-Soldier, beats the living crap out of Bucky.

Bucky takes a whole lot of hits, in contrast to a group of guys whose feats are basically 'annihilate everyone they face in battle, only losing when there's over a hundred guys with a large contingent of archers who are noted to loose "rains" of arrows at them...and despite being shot full of arrows, still win against twenty enemies'.

I am absolutely not convinced on the point of Bucky being 'more skilled' than they are. I would actually tend more toward the idea that there's an argument to be made in the opposite direction. Just because there isn't fancy choreography in the actual writing of the Lord of the Rings does not invalidate the feats of the characters, just as fancy choreography doesn't automatically make for fantastic skill.

Second, your assertion that Bucky will 'trivially' break any of the weapons here falls flat when it comes face to face with Andúril. The Flame of the West was originally forged by Telchar of Nogrod, a guy who makes knives that 'cut iron like rude cloth'. It takes Sauron to bust this sword, at a time where Sauron is putting off enough heat to incinerate people he's fighting against. It gets reforged by the immortal smiths of Imladris. Aragorn, for example, uses it to split an iron helmet in half (and the skull beneath said iron helmet). No big deal, sword fine.

This is not something Bucky is 'trivially' breaking.

Lastly, the idea that he's casually one-shotting these people through armor and even a shield. Let's take Boromir as an example. Boromir is a guy who literally forces his way through packed snow that's to the height of his chest in order to make a trail for people behind him. He does this for an extended length of time, while carrying all kinds of stuff as well. He eats a whole whack of arrows (many) in the books, and proceeds to kill his way through twenty+ more enemies after that, stopping because there are no more enemies to kill. He then sits around and waits a while for Aragorn to show up before kicking off.

Given that Bucky hits normals with his arm and they don't die or explode, I'm having problems seeing him casually one-shotting Boromir. Through his shield.

Mileage may vary.[/QUOTE]

Fair enough assessment - as usual with you. :D

For Anduril, despite who forged it, it has no real durability feats over "steel" and has a feat for being broken. Yes, that was Sauron, but remember, that was a human-ish person swinging the sword that broke it on Sauron. Sauron didn't reach out and snap it, it didn't break parrying a shot from Sauron, it broke on him. And there is nothing to indicate that Sauron was more durable than Vibranium, which is what Bucky's arm is made of. So, I'll absolutely stip that Anduril is likely stronger than other ME steel, the degree to which it is is kind of up in the air.

Legolas doesn't have better reaction feat than a guy who repeatedly blocks bullets, catches Cap's shield in flight repeatedly, matches and surpasses Cap in HtH, comes close to matching a suited-up, enraged Panther in HtH despite trying to flee and not wanting to fight, etc. The fact that he also has lots of low-end feats doesn't downgrade those feats, given that those feats are absolutely consistent with his presentation as "Super Soldier."

Boromir is tough and strong - no argument. He's not me or you. He's got willpower, skill, strength, toughness. But Bucky, with the previous arm, punches through steel and easily overpowers Captain "I curl helicopters" America. I'm really fine with him breaking limbs, punching right through shields or ME armor, etc, and remember, he's also got his own knife and numerous feats for appropriating weapons from his foes. If he KO's Gimli first, he's got an axe! Boromir or Aragorn, and he's got a sword! Hell, he is strong enough to literally just pick Gimli up one-handed and swing the guy as a weapon. Which, c'mon, be honest, you'd LOVE to see him pick up movie Gimli and use him as a weapon against movie Aragorn and Boromir.

For the fight, I think we are in agreement - given his physical superiority, I'd take knife-only Bucky against the melee guys for the majority. Add Legolas and it's a bridge way too far.

Big, you are mixing up books and movies. They are not the same.

Legolas totally has feats for being faster than Bucky in the book, being fully capable of drawing, nocking, and readying an arrow literally faster than can be seen. And he's surrounded by a crowd of people all looking at him.

Andúril, in the book, is broken by Sauron, not by the person wielding it. It cleaves through iron helmets without damage. The smiths, who lay the elvish equivalent of enchantments on it, say 'so your new sword can't be busted'. Bucky isn't 'trivially' breaking it.

And no I don't want to see Gimli used as a weapon - ugh, that film stuff really hurts. And I don't feel that Bucky is casually one-shotting anyone here, who are - by our standards - somewhat superhuman themselves, though not on his level. Can he hurt them? Take them out with a few hits? Sure. But one-shot? Given what Boromir suffers, I would say 'no'.

Mileage may vary.

Just to further touch on the Andúril bit, and correct a mistake I made.

Andúril is a 'named weapon' made by Telchar of Nogrod, a First Age dwarven smith so good that he gave pointers to Cúrufin, the most talented smith who learned from his insane daddy Fëanor and the guy who taught Celebrimbor (his son, and the dude who was part of the team who made the Rings of Power). Telchar also made stuff like the Angrist, a knife that cut iron 'like rude cloth'. Narsil, the original sword, was held by Elendil, head of one of the noble houses of Númenor, so it's a safe bet it wasn't one of Telchar's cheap knock-offs.

It has been brought up that Narsil was broken. Sure. Who broke it? Sauron (and yes, book version Sauron breaks it, it's not 'whack on Sauron's arm and sword breaks like glass', jeez). Sauron being a guy whose [I]hand[/I] is so hot it incinerates the fully kitted-out Noldorin High King, scion of one of the greatest of the Noldor houses (depending on which Tolkien scholar with whom you will argue, but canon, yeah). Sauron being a guy who gives a solid, physical fight to Huan.

Which brings us to Huan.

Huan is (presumably) a Maia in a physical body, that of a very lorge doggo. Huan has sufficient oomph that he can fight against (and kill, dying in the process) a being that powers through a country-surrounding magical maze created by one of the more powerful Maia, which repels stuff like Balrogs and Dragons. Lest we argue that it's not so much a physical feat, Huan's fight with Carcharoth has both of them baying and bellowing such that boulders are shattering from the sounds, which sunders entire cliff faces to the point that it plugs up a rather large river. That's just from the sound of them fighting (said rock-shattering noise not really impinging much on Huan and Carcharoth themselves, nope, it's just them making sounds as they duke it out).

Sauron takes on Huan physically - he's a shapeshifter - and puts up enough of a physical fight against this monster dog that it lasts a fair bit before Huan basically pins him.

Sauron also being a guy who withstands lightning sent by Valar, said lightning having feats like 'blows up important buildings made by the same people who made freaking Orthanc, that nigh-indestructible tower'. If Huan can take him out, that speaks to Huan's strength as well...which indicates that Sauron managing to put up a fight against him for a bit is even more impressive.

So, that's Sauron - High-King incinerating, Huan-fighting, Valar-lightning defying spirit of vast power. The guy who breaks Narsil.

Onward!

I was wrong about Andúril getting further enchanted towards durability by the Elven-smiths of Imladris. They just remade it into a 'magic by Lord of the Rings standard' sword, in world where non-enchanted material like Mithril makes normal steel look like a joke. Nope, the unbreakability comes later. See, Galadriel gives Aragorn a special sheath for Andúril. She then tells him 'yeah, any sword drawn from this sheath shall not be broken or stained, even in defeat.'

This is Galadriel: third generation Noldor, thousands upon thousands of years old, taught by the Valar and the Maia themselves, creator of the Mirror of Galadrial, person who personally blows up Sauron's summer cottage. She's not likely speaking in metaphor, here.

Does this make it impossible for Andúril to be broken? By no means. I'm not going to claim that beings more powerful than Galadriel, or stronger than anything seen in Middle Earth to this point couldn't break the sword. However, we have a Very Special Sword made by one of the superlative smiths of all of history in Middle Earth (a place where all kinds of crazy stuff gets made), whose edge doesn't nick or anything when it cleaves through iron, that is 'enchanted' (just made by elvish arts, but to humans that's magic) in a world where normal materials can be many times stronger than steel, and now carries an enchantment on it from someone of Galadriel's level of power that says 'No breakee'.

I find the idea that Bucky is going to 'trivially' break this sword to be rather dubious. Heck, I'm finding the idea of Bucky breaking the sword - period - to be rather dubious, especially when it's in the hands of a superhumanly skilled swordsman like Aragorn.

But the qualifier, 'trivially', that's waaaay off.

[QUOTE=Sharpandpointies;5490575]Big, you are mixing up books and movies. They are not the same.[/QUOTE]

I'm not doing that intentionally - I'll address individual points below.

[QUOTE=Sharpandpointies;5490575]Legolas totally has feats for being faster than Bucky in the book, being fully capable of drawing, nocking, and readying an arrow literally faster than can be seen. And he's surrounded by a crowd of people all looking at him. [/QUOTE]

That, to me, isn't [I]better[/I] than blocking automatic weapon fire at close range with an arm. It's not better than matching Cap and Panther in HtH - speed included - and dominating Black Widow, who only accomplished anything at all through trickery, surprise, deception and SHIELD tech.

ALSO - I said that Bucky is faster than the "three killing machines" (I borrowed your term for the melee guys) but I actually didn't say he was faster than Leggy. Minor point. I actually do think that he's at least as fast as book Legolas, based on the info above, but I didn't actually claim faster.

[QUOTE=Sharpandpointies;5490575]Andúril, in the book, is broken by Sauron, not by the person wielding it. It cleaves through iron helmets without damage. The smiths, who lay the elvish equivalent of enchantments on it, say 'so your new sword can't be busted'. Bucky isn't 'trivially' breaking it. [/QUOTE]

Two points:

1. I actually didn't mean to "still" imply that Bucky is trivially breaking Anduril after your post above. He will trivially destroy, if he so desires, all of the other gear, but I granted that Anduril is stronger than other ME steel. And of course, it's likely in Bucky's advantage to [I]not[/I] break the thing, as it'll make a better weapon for him if it's unbroken.
2. I'll dig out a copy of Fellowship (I think?) to re-read the scene of the initial Anduril breaking. I undoubtedly could have let the horrible movie scene cloud my judgement there - and you are far more expert on it than I - another fact I'll stip gladly. :D

[QUOTE=Sharpandpointies;5490575]And no I don't want to see Gimli used as a weapon - ugh, that film stuff really hurts. And I don't feel that Bucky is casually one-shotting anyone here, who are - by our standards - somewhat superhuman themselves, though not on his level. Can he hurt them? Take them out with a few hits? Sure. But one-shot? Given what Boromir suffers, I would say 'no'. [/QUOTE]

First - sorry. :D You and I feel the same way about these films, and I'm sure it's significantly worse for you, given the significantly higher place in your personal pantheon of fantasy Tolkien holds compared to my own. Those films felt like... finding out a childhood crush was actually a porn star or something.

By "one shot," I'm including "render combat inactive" or "cripple" as much as anything, as I absolutely believe that Bucky can [I]easily[/I] break arms, wrists, legs, ankles, etc. pretty trivially, given what he does to steel and such. There isn't anything saying that Boromir has significantly stronger bones or muscles or ligaments or tendons than stuff Bucky shreds with ease. Cap, who Bucky fights the longest with out of the films, has ridiculous physical durability, suffering impacts and such that would powder a normal human's bones. Boromir? Not so much. This isn't to say the guy is anything other than slightly superhuman in toughness - he definitely is. If he'd eaten a punch from a cave troll in the face and shook it off, no worries, he's going to do the same to Bucky's blows. He never does that, nor do the other two.

Now, you could make the argument that Bucky doesn't break the bones of every normal-ish person he punches - but that's also just the nature of fiction, and, as you well know, we go by high end feats consistent with presentation.

Presentation: Bucky is an MCU Super Soldier with all that entails, and also has a relatively (for this fight) indestructible arm that is significantly stronger still. He has decades of fighting experience, and for most of that, he was so good that he was basically a myth.

High-end feats consistent with that: outfighting and equally-fighting Captain America. Fighting equally with a suited up, enraged Black Panther, despite not wanting to engage him at all. Dominating Widow despite all of the advantages she rigged for their head-to-head. Blocking gunfire with the arm repeatedly. Aim-dodging gunfire from close range repeatedly. Ripping through steel casually. Catching Cap's shield without moving when it's thrown from behind him at him as he's running away. Throwing it back so hard that catching it pushed Cap back like two meters. Catching that same shield at MUCH closer range with a casual backhand grab mid-fight when engaging multiple super-soldiers, and flipping it back to NewCap. I ignore the Iron Man stuff from CW because it's ridiculous. Outrunning a truck on foot - so running likely 60 or so MPH - in F&WS.

He also, for the sake of the plot, has a stack of low end feats, but so do almost all "hero" characters.

[QUOTE=Sharpandpointies;5490575]
Mileage may vary.[/QUOTE]

That it does, my friend, that it does.

[QUOTE=big_adventure;5490682]That, to me, isn't [I]better[/I] than blocking automatic weapon fire at close range with an arm. It's not better than matching Cap and Panther in HtH - speed included - and dominating Black Widow, who only accomplished anything at all through trickery, surprise, deception and SHIELD tech.

ALSO - I said that Bucky is faster than the "three killing machines" (I borrowed your term for the melee guys) but I actually didn't say he was faster than Leggy. Minor point. I actually do think that he's at least as fast as book Legolas, based on the info above, but I didn't actually claim faster. [/quote]

The fact that Bucky never does complex movements 'faster than the eye can see' indicates to me that he's operating at a speed deficit when considering him versus Legolas. This isn't blurred movement - this is Legolas is standing there, whoops, he's now pointing a drawn arrow in my face, how'd that happen?

Bucky never, ever is shown using that kind of speed, nor do the people he fights.

[quote]Two points:

1. I actually didn't mean to "still" imply that Bucky is trivially breaking Anduril after your post above. He will trivially destroy, if he so desires, all of the other gear, but I granted that Anduril is stronger than other ME steel. And of course, it's likely in Bucky's advantage to [I]not[/I] break the thing, as it'll make a better weapon for him if it's unbroken.
2. I'll dig out a copy of Fellowship (I think?) to re-read the scene of the initial Anduril breaking. I undoubtedly could have let the horrible movie scene cloud my judgement there - and you are far more expert on it than I - another fact I'll stip gladly. :D[/quote]

That's fair. Sauron kills Elendil, and Narsil 'breaks beneath him in his fall'. We can take that two ways -

1. Elendil fell on Narsil and it broke, which is frankly ridiculous and down-playing;
2. Tolkien is waxing poetic as he often does, and Sauron busted Narsil in the killing of Elendil.

[quote]First - sorry. :D You and I feel the same way about these films, and I'm sure it's significantly worse for you, given the significantly higher place in your personal pantheon of fantasy Tolkien holds compared to my own. Those films felt like... finding out a childhood crush was actually a porn star or something.[/quote]

No worries on that part, I wasn't highly offended or anything. :)

[quote]By "one shot," I'm including "render combat inactive" or "cripple" as much as anything, as I absolutely believe that Bucky can [I]easily[/I] break arms, wrists, legs, ankles, etc. pretty trivially, given what he does to steel and such. There isn't anything saying that Boromir has significantly stronger bones or muscles or ligaments or tendons than stuff Bucky shreds with ease. Cap, who Bucky fights the longest with out of the films, has ridiculous physical durability, suffering impacts and such that would powder a normal human's bones. Boromir? Not so much. This isn't to say the guy is anything other than slightly superhuman in toughness - he definitely is. If he'd eaten a punch from a cave troll in the face and shook it off, no worries, he's going to do the same to Bucky's blows. He never does that, nor do the other two.[/quote]

I am still somewhat iffy on Bucky one-shot removing Boromir from a fight, Boromir being a guy who gets literally filled with 'many' arrows in the book scene as the Uruk-Hai loose a 'rain' of arrows at him, over and over, then goes on to kill the **** out of another twenty+ warriors before not collapsing but running out of people to kill. And the fact is that even with 'many' arrows stuck in him, he's clearly avoiding a lot of arrows given there's a over a hundred Uruk-Hai with a large contingent of archers (enough to shoot a 'rain' of arrows) and the description isn't 'he looks like a hedgehog, only the quills are going in the wrong direction'.

Getting even a dozen arrows stuck in oneself would tend to be as 100% debilitating as a busted bone or such, and yet Boromir just...meh, keeps fighting and killing stuff until he runs out of enemies. Then sits down and waits for Aragorn to show up.

[quote]Presentation: Bucky is an MCU Super Soldier with all that entails, and also has a relatively (for this fight) indestructible arm that is significantly stronger still. He has decades of fighting experience, and for most of that, he was so good that he was basically a myth.

High-end feats consistent with that: outfighting and equally-fighting Captain America. Fighting equally with a suited up, enraged Black Panther, despite not wanting to engage him at all. Dominating Widow despite all of the advantages she rigged for their head-to-head. Blocking gunfire with the arm repeatedly. Aim-dodging gunfire from close range repeatedly. Ripping through steel casually. Catching Cap's shield without moving when it's thrown from behind him at him as he's running away. Throwing it back so hard that catching it pushed Cap back like two meters. Catching that same shield at MUCH closer range with a casual backhand grab mid-fight when engaging multiple super-soldiers, and flipping it back to NewCap. I ignore the Iron Man stuff from CW because it's ridiculous. Outrunning a truck on foot - so running likely 60 or so MPH - in F&WS.

He also, for the sake of the plot, has a stack of low end feats, but so do almost all "hero" characters.[/quote]

These are all great feats, and I have never seen a problem with Bucky beating the group of three if he gets into melee with them, unharmed. Rougher fight than you seem to think it will be, but I think he can take them.

As noted, my problem with it is that he's NOT getting into melee with them unharmed. He's getting feathered a couple of times on the way in, then he's getting shot with arrows while he's trying to fight. And THAT is the issue.

OK, going back and reading the passage from the council where Elrond describes the fall of Sauron:

" I beheld the last combat on the slopes of Orodruin, where Gil-galad died, and Elendil fell, and Narsil broke beneath him; but Sauron himself was overthrown, and Isildur cut the Ring from his hand with the hiltshard of his father's sword, and took it for his own."

That implies, and what I understood before, is that Gil-Galad and Elendil, armed with Aiglos and Narsil, killed Sauron, and that doing so damaged the blade, which then broke when Elendil fell on it. Isildur picked up the hilt fragment and lopped off Sauron's finger to grab himself a ring.

Now, ISTR that the version in the Silmarillion is different - there, Isildur claims that he dealt the killing blow to Sauron? I don't have a copy of it around to look that up.

No matter the version, Isildur was a chump.

In any case, I'll stip that Bucky cannot effectively break Anduril, especially with the magic sword condom passed to him by Galadriel. Anduril also isn't going to cut Bucky's arm.

[QUOTE=big_adventure;5490726]OK, going back and reading the passage from the council where Elrond describes the fall of Sauron:

" I beheld the last combat on the slopes of Orodruin, where Gil-galad died, and Elendil fell, and Narsil broke beneath him; but Sauron himself was overthrown, and Isildur cut the Ring from his hand with the hiltshard of his father's sword, and took it for his own."

That implies, and what I understood before, is that Gil-Galad and Elendil, armed with Aiglos and Narsil, killed Sauron, and that doing so damaged the blade, which then broke when Elendil fell on it. Isildur picked up the hilt fragment and lopped off Sauron's finger to grab himself a ring.[/quote]

You can look at it this way with regards to Narsil breaking, or look at it the other way, but either way, it took Sauron to mess up the blade to the point where it broke. Take your pick. Sauron's own feats as noted.

As for how the fight went, that's effectively it. All three 'died' in the fight (Sauron being more 'was taken out' rather than 'died').

[quote]Now, ISTR that the version in the Silmarillion is different - there, Isildur claims that he dealt the killing blow to Sauron? I don't have a copy of it around to look that up.[/quote]

I could look it up, but the point of the whole 'Isildur dealt the killing blow' is a misunderstanding of the writing. Basically, it comes from some passage in one of the books where it says 'Yeah, Sauron went down. Then Isildur cut the Ring from his hand and that was too much, and Sauron went poof.'

The idea is not that Isildur took him out. The idea is that Sauron's body was down, beaten, ruined, he was done. But with the Ring, he could hang on. Without the Ring, he couldn't. Basically, Isildur did pretty much squat except take the thing that was keeping an already beaten foe together.

[quote]Anduril also isn't going to cut Bucky's arm.[/QUOTE]

Something I have never had issue with. If Bucky had his original arm, maybe. The vibranium one, no.

[QUOTE=Sharpandpointies;5490706]The fact that Bucky never does complex movements 'faster than the eye can see' indicates to me that he's operating at a speed deficit when considering him versus Legolas. This isn't blurred movement - this is Legolas is standing there, whoops, he's now pointing a drawn arrow in my face, how'd that happen?

Bucky never, ever is shown using that kind of speed, nor do the people he fights.[/QUOTE]

Here is the one thing we may wind up in "agree to disagree" territory - as it doesn't really affect the fight. Things like that are explicitly things that people who trivially aim-dodge do, all the time. One of Batman's classic speed feats that used to come up was something like him sitting across the table from someone and putting something in their coffee while they were fixed on him watching him, without them noticing anything. That's the same kind of thing. Bucky is someone who trivially aim dodges (and aim blocks) bullets, and fights as equal (Cap, Panther) or superior (Widow) to other people who do the same. I don't think that there is an appreciable difference in speed between the two of them.


[QUOTE=Sharpandpointies;5490706]As noted, my problem with it is that he's NOT getting into melee with them unharmed. He's getting feathered a couple of times on the way in, then he's getting shot with arrows while he's trying to fight. And THAT is the issue.[/QUOTE]

On everything else I think we are close enough to wash it out. And on this point, we agree entirely (and haven't disagreed at any point) - he's not beating the four of them without his guns, as the incoming arrows are too much for him to deal with ON TOP OF the really skilled, well-armed melee fighters. Give him the guns, he's obviously winning, take them away, and he's got some serious issues.

He has one edge that gives him a chance - he's probably three times as fast, running, as any of them, so he might be able to use the movement speed edge to single-combat people.

[QUOTE=big_adventure;5490755]Here is the one thing we may wind up in "agree to disagree" territory - as it doesn't really affect the fight. Things like that are explicitly things that people who trivially aim-dodge do, all the time. One of Batman's classic speed feats that used to come up was something like him sitting across the table from someone and putting something in their coffee while they were fixed on him watching him, without them noticing anything. That's the same kind of thing. Bucky is someone who trivially aim dodges (and aim blocks) bullets, and fights as equal (Cap, Panther) or superior (Widow) to other people who do the same. I don't think that there is an appreciable difference in speed between the two of them.[/quote]

And here I'm going to need to go to the uncomfortable place of stating that you are completely wrong, both by Rumbles' rules and by logic.

By Rumbles' rules, we don't have 'categories'. Aim-dodgers do not get all of Batman's feats - there is no aim-dodge category of speed that grants people who aim-dodge the speed feats of other people who do this. Nor do 'trivial aim-dodgers' do invisible movement, all the time. Not at all - in fact, in comics it's viewed as something pretty damn special among the martial artist crowd (witness Constantine Drakon versus...well, any number of people who have no problems at least following Batman's movement).

And if we carry your logic to its next step, MCU Bucky is therefore as fast as Batman. If so, why doesn't Bucky simply catch the arrows? If he's as fast as Batman, who catches Green Arrow's arrows from behind, he should be able to do that.

And by that logic, Tim Drake Robin (early) is as fast as Batman, because he aim-dodges large groups of thugs armed with automatic weapons. Ergo, he must be capable of invisible movement. So should Silver Sable, who does the same, all the time. So should Black Widow (comic book), and other common, non-comic book peak humans. They should all be as fast as Cap and Batman, and be capable of invisible movement.

That's the logic of what you're saying, rather than 'there is a speed and skill necessary to aim-dodge. That doesn't translate to Batman's speed, as Batman has speed-feats that are better than 'common' aim-dodgers in comics.' And neither MCU Bucky, nor Tim Drake, nor Silver Sable are as fast as Batman by feats, though they all aim-dodge.

To give another example, going by your logic anyone who bullet-times should be able to replicate Iron Fist's speedfeats. I mean, they bullet-time, right? So does he. So they should be getting his feats. But that's not how we operate. Invisible movement is not aim-dodging. It's more in the same line of stuff as Constantine Drakon, who pulls off things like that and is quite a bit in excess of Batman's own speed (Drakon does better than Legolas - though going by the logic you're presenting, because both of them can pull off 'invisible movement', Legolas should have Drakon's other speedfeats...I myself would argue strongly against this).

On TOP of that, Batman's feat of switching tea-cups happens in the space of someone blinking, explicitly. Which is plenty fast - 0.2 seconds, on average, as I recall - but Legolas does the whole 'invisible movement' thing in front of a crowd of people, all of whom cannot be blinking at the same time. So it's not equivalent, no.

If you like, we can call a mod in to judge the soundness of your argument for Bucky - an aim-dodger, like Tim Drake and Silver Sable, both who aim-dodge gunfire and automatic weapons at close range - getting Batman's speedfeats as a whole. But honestly, I suspect it's pretty obvious that it's not a good argument.

I would postulate Tim Drake as being faster than Bucky as well, him being someone who (way back when) cut arrows out of the air with his hands. Arrows coming at him two or more at a time (and mostly succeeded), Bucky not having any speedfeats on that level. Aim-dodging is kind of a [I]really[/I] low bar for comic book martial artists, many having better speedfeats than that, and CBPH types having even more egregious speedfeats.

[quote]On everything else I think we are close enough to wash it out. And on this point, we agree entirely (and haven't disagreed at any point) - he's not beating the four of them without his guns, as the incoming arrows are too much for him to deal with ON TOP OF the really skilled, well-armed melee fighters. Give him the guns, he's obviously winning, take them away, and he's got some serious issues.

He has one edge that gives him a chance - he's probably three times as fast, running, as any of them, so he might be able to use the movement speed edge to single-combat people.[/QUOTE]

I'm fine with that assessment, but I can't let pass the stuff with which I have disagreed through this thread.

[QUOTE=Sharpandpointies;5490790]And here I'm going to need to go to the uncomfortable place of stating that you are completely wrong, both by Rumbles' rules and by logic.

By Rumbles' rules, we don't have 'categories'. Aim-dodgers do not get all of Batman's feats - there is no aim-dodge category of speed that grants people who aim-dodge the speed feats of other people who do this. Nor do 'trivial aim-dodgers' do invisible movement, all the time. Not at all - in fact, in comics it's viewed as something pretty damn special among the martial artist crowd (witness Constantine Drakon versus...well, any number of people who have no problems at least following Batman's movement).

And if we carry your logic to its next step, MCU Bucky is therefore as fast as Batman. If so, why doesn't Bucky simply catch the arrows? If he's as fast as Batman, who catches Green Arrow's arrows from behind, he should be able to do that.

And by that logic, Tim Drake Robin (early) is as fast as Batman, because he aim-dodges large groups of thugs armed with automatic weapons. Ergo, he must be capable of invisible movement. So should Silver Sable, who does the same, all the time. So should Black Widow (comic book), and other common, non-comic book peak humans. They should all be as fast as Cap and Batman, and be capable of invisible movement.

That's the logic of what you're saying, rather than 'there is a speed and skill necessary to aim-dodge. That doesn't translate to Batman's speed, as Batman has speed-feats that are better than 'common' aim-dodgers in comics.' And neither MCU Bucky, nor Tim Drake, nor Silver Sable are as fast as Batman by feats, though they all aim-dodge.

To give another example, going by your logic anyone who bullet-times should be able to replicate Iron Fist's speedfeats. I mean, they bullet-time, right? So does he. So they should be getting his feats. But that's not how we operate. Invisible movement is not aim-dodging. It's more in the same line of stuff as Constantine Drakon, who pulls off things like that and is quite a bit in excess of Batman's own speed (Drakon does better than Legolas - though going by the logic you're presenting, because both of them can pull off 'invisible movement', Legolas should have Drakon's other speedfeats...I myself would argue strongly against this).

On TOP of that, Batman's feat of switching tea-cups happens in the space of someone blinking, explicitly. Which is plenty fast - 0.2 seconds, on average, as I recall - but Legolas does the whole 'invisible movement' thing in front of a crowd of people, all of whom cannot be blinking at the same time. So it's not equivalent, no.

If you like, we can call a mod in to judge the soundness of your argument for Bucky - an aim-dodger, like Tim Drake and Silver Sable, both who aim-dodge gunfire and automatic weapons at close range - getting Batman's speedfeats as a whole. But honestly, I suspect it's pretty obvious that it's not a good argument.[/QUOTE]

We are having a misunderstanding - I am not, in any way, claiming that Bucky should get DC Batman's feats exactly. What I am saying is that having the speed to easily and consistently aim-dodge and block bullets from 2 meters away (Bucky does this more than once) implies the [I]kind of[/I] speed that it takes to do complex actions so quickly that normals who aren't expecting it don't really see it happen, because that's what people capable of the first have always been shown to be capable of throughout fiction.

I'm not saying that Bucky is exactly as fast as Batman, but that he's a hell of a lot faster than a normal human, and that, to me, it's in the same "area" or "class" of speed as Legolas, based on feats and presentation.

I don't think you are saying that Legolas is somewhere massively faster than Batman, are you? Perhaps I have misinterpreted what you are trying to say and that IS what you mean. If it is, well, your interpretation of Legolas' speed isn't the same as mine. And, to be as fair as one might, your knowledge of LOTR is better than mine. But if you think that his speed is somewhere well above Batman's, and Bucky's is well less than Batman's, why wouldn't you think that Legolas can just solo Bucky?

As far as the arrow-catching and blocking, I think that Bucky could and would catch (or simply block) Legolas's arrows. The dude casually brings his hand up and blocks bullets fired from less than 2 meters away (again, aim, but these aren't 12 year olds with daddy's guns, they are trained military and SHIELD and such). Arrows are much larger, much more visible and much slower. His issue is that he can only do that when he's NOT engaged with three other really good fighters occupying him. So while they are 100 feet away, I don't see any way in hell he actually gets hit with one of book Legolas' arrows. Consistently blocking bullets from two meters, and defending comfortably against Panther and Cap is MUCH faster then you need to be to block arrows from 30 meters away. When the others charge him and engage (well, more likely he uses his significantly better travel speed to charge and engage them), THEN he's got a great chance of getting porcupined a bit, and that will lead to problems.

[QUOTE=Sharpandpointies;5490790]
I'm fine with that assessment, but I can't let pass the stuff with which I have disagreed through this thread.[/QUOTE]

I don't take it badly. :D I always enjoy a good discussion here, especially with you or anyone who knows a source better than I do.

To add one more tiny point - in written fiction, we see [I]really frequently[/I] people act doing extremely complex things so quickly that people around don't see it happen. And that's when they are just normal speed-ish people.

Of course, this is also the principle on lots of stage magic, and stage magicians aren't particularly superhuman. To me, that kind of feat is a bit oversold. Legolas has enough excellent combat feats that, as you put it yourself, Tolkien waxing poetic needs to be taken with a grain o' salt, as he's setting the scene.

Just my take on it. I don't think that either MCU Bucky or book Legolas are quite "top tier" CBPH speed level (616 Cap or DC Batman). I put them both a bit beneath that.

[QUOTE=big_adventure;5490840]We are having a misunderstanding - I am not, in any way, claiming that Bucky should get DC Batman's feats exactly. What I am saying is that having the speed to easily and consistently aim-dodge and block bullets from 2 meters away (Bucky does this more than once) implies the [I]kind of[/I] speed that it takes to do complex actions so quickly that normals who aren't expecting it don't really see it happen, because that's what people capable of the first have always been shown to be capable of throughout fiction.[/quote]

Except it doesn't, other than you say it does. I hate to put it that way, but there are bucketloads of people who are not comic book peak humans, who aim-dodge (and yes, at close range), and who don't have 'invisible movement' feats or the like. Not throughout fiction. Silver Sable doesn't. Loads of Robins don't. Etc. There are street-level martial artists through comics who aren't on Batman's level of speed who don't do invisible movement, themselves.

That's something - against total normals - I WOULD reserve for people in the CBPH ballpark, and would be a feat on it's own, not 'connected with the speed to aim-dodge'.

[quote]I'm not saying that Bucky is exactly as fast as Batman, but that he's a hell of a lot faster than a normal human, and that, to me, it's in the same "area" or "class" of speed as Legolas, based on feats and presentation.[/quote]

Except he's not, because you're giving him feats that people who aim-dodge don't 'automatically get'. And Bucky has never, ever shown that level of speed. Whereas Legolas has EXPLICIT stuff for 'standing in front of a crowd of people, draws an arrow, nocks it, draws the bow, all faster than anyone can see.'

These two things are not the same.

[quote]I don't think you are saying that Legolas is somewhere massively faster than Batman, are you? Perhaps I have misinterpreted what you are trying to say and that IS what you mean. If it is, well, your interpretation of Legolas' speed isn't the same as mine. And, to be as fair as one might, your knowledge of LOTR is better than mine. But if you think that his speed is somewhere well above Batman's, and Bucky's is well less than Batman's, why wouldn't you think that Legolas can just solo Bucky?[/quote]

I'm not. If anything, Legolas's speed by that feat - which is the only real speedfeat we have for him, while his presentation is 'He's Sindarin elf, an old one from a good bloodline, in a world where Elves are superior in every single way to humans that are superior in every single way to modern day, normal humans...other than at dying' - would for me put him somewhere around CBPH himself for speed, given Batman has speedfeats actually BETTER than his cup switch, if one works it out.

When I say that Legolas' feat is better than Bruce's cup switch, nowhere am I saying that Legolas is quicker than Bruce. Bruce does have better feats than the cup switch.

Bucky, himself, has nothing even in the area of CBPH.

Regarding Constantine Drakon, this brings in another reason why we can't just claim equivalence in speed based on feats. Legolas does his invisible movement stuff, right? So does Drakon. Equivalence? Nope. Drakon also does invisible movement stuff when fighting against people who CAN fight and react to Comic Book Peak Humans (like Arsenal, who isn't as fast as Dick Grayson but can certainly see him move and react to him). Drakon also catches storms of arrows with the tips of his fingers and deposits them in neat piles in front of himself. Legolas ain't Drakon.

[quote]As far as the arrow-catching and blocking, I think that Bucky could and would catch (or simply block) Legolas's arrows. The dude casually brings his hand up and blocks bullets fired from less than 2 meters away (again, aim, but these aren't 12 year olds with daddy's guns, they are trained military and SHIELD and such). Arrows are much larger, much more visible and much slower. His issue is that he can only do that when he's NOT engaged with three other really good fighters occupying him. So while they are 100 feet away, I don't see any way in hell he actually gets hit with one of book Legolas' arrows. Consistently blocking bullets from two meters, and defending comfortably against Panther and Cap is MUCH faster then you need to be to block arrows from 30 meters away. When the others charge him and engage (well, more likely he uses his significantly better travel speed to charge and engage them), THEN he's got a great chance of getting porcupined a bit, and that will lead to problems.[/quote]

Arrows are slower than people's movement? I highly doubt that. Given Legolas' ridiculous speed and the fact that he's using a gawdawful bow, and we've never actually SEEN Bucky block arrows, I'm somewhat iffy on Bucky slapping arrows out of the air on a dead sprint.

Regardless, Bucky arrives, starts the fight, and starts sprouting arrows. Either way, it's not a winning situation for him.

[QUOTE=big_adventure;5490856]To add one more tiny point - in written fiction, we see [I]really frequently[/I] people act doing extremely complex things so quickly that people around don't see it happen. And that's when they are just normal speed-ish people.

Of course, this is also the principle on lots of stage magic, and stage magicians aren't particularly superhuman. To me, that kind of feat is a bit oversold. Legolas has enough excellent combat feats that, as you put it yourself, Tolkien waxing poetic needs to be taken with a grain o' salt, as he's setting the scene.[/quote]

This is different than stage magic, which depends less on 'I can do complex things at speed you cannot see' and more on 'I can mislead you, misdirect you, get you to look at the wrong place while I'm doing something in a fast-but-still-human subtle fashion.'

Presentation? Eldar are ridiculously beyond real-world humans, who are lesser to the human heroes of Lord of the Rings. This is upheld by more extreme feats of even greater Eldar than Legolas doing stuff like 'I will bounce around avoiding gigantic explosions that are tearing enormous craters in the land around me, such that lava is oozing out of said craters, all the while wearing full armour.'

The feat? Legolas grabs an arrow, nocks it, and draws his rather powerful bow faster than a crowd of people around them can even see. Including people like Aragorn, btw.

I would put that past the realm of 'Can aim-dodge', which is pretty much what we have for Captain America and others Bucky has fought. And in a series with a lot of visual effects, even some scenes with Cap speeded up to make him look faster than normal, we never, ever see anything along the lines of 'I'm sorry, he's moving too fast for your 60 frames per second eye to make out the movement of doing the whole bit of arrow take out, nock, draw.'

Aim-dodging is not this. If an aim-dodger in fiction does invisible movement that normal people can't even see, they are above aim-dodgers who do not. The one feat trumps the other. One can debate if the invisible movement thing is actually CBPH, but I rest my case that -

1. MCU Bucky is not CBPH in speed, as he lacks the feats;
2. Aim-dodging isn't 'moves too fast for the eye to see'. It's 'moves too fast and too skilled to accurately track with one's weapon, when one is a slower person'.

Just my take on it. I don't think that either MCU Bucky or book Legolas are quite "top tier" CBPH speed level (616 Cap or DC Batman). I put them both a bit beneath that.[/QUOTE]

Seeing as this is getting really, really circular, but also seems to be rather important (do all aim-dodgers get the ability to move at 'faster than the eye can even see' speeds on Rumbles?), I've forwarded a request for a ruling to the Watcher and Guy1.

Normally I would be okay with 'agree to disagree', but this kind of perspective can make for fproblems in the future.

I have to say, citing something comic book Batman has done as a feat for Bucky is not good argumentation.

Just because Batman is capable of aim dodging [I]and[/I] doing stuff in an eye blink, does not mean all aim dodgers are capable of doing stuff in an eye blink. I've not watched the new Winter Soldier show but Bucky, to my knowledge, has no feats on that level.

[QUOTE=Sharpandpointies;5491232]Seeing as this is getting really, really circular, but also seems to be rather important (do all aim-dodgers get the ability to move at 'faster than the eye can even see' speeds on Rumbles?), I've forwarded a request for a ruling to the Watcher and Guy1.

Normally I would be okay with 'agree to disagree', but this kind of perspective can make for fproblems in the future.[/QUOTE]

I'm OK with that.

What I'm saying, and what I tried to clarify in the follow-up is that, to me, based on the feats at bar, Bucky and Legolas are in the same speed tier. Yes, Legolas has his blink of an eye feat, but again, it's written from the perspective of him being both fast and nobody really focusing on him at that point. It seems you yourself say that you think that Bucky and Legolas are both some tier slower than Batman. Yet you think also that Legolas is "much faster" than Bucky. I don't get that tiering, really. To me, blocking bullets from a few feet away fired by trained soldiers, matching Cap and Panther in combat, all of the other things I've pointed out, go to show someone who is some decent fraction of CBPH. And also very, very capable of swatting arrows fired from 30 meters away out of the air, pretty contemptuously.

My piece is entirely stated, and the mod ruling (for whatever it will be - the relative speeds of Bucky and book Legolas?) I will obviously respect.

I'm just here to say I'm a fan of this discussion :D

[QUOTE=big_adventure;5491312]What I'm saying, and what I tried to clarify in the follow-up is that, to me, based on the feats at bar, Bucky and Legolas are in the same speed tier. Yes, Legolas has his blink of an eye feat, but again, it's written from the perspective of him being both fast and nobody really focusing on him at that point.[/quote]

'Nobody really focusing on him'?

Legolas is one of a trio of dudes in the middle of a ring of horses, everyone basically staring at those three dudes.

This is downplaying. The feat is Legolas, Gimli, and Aragorn in the middle of a ring of very hostile, very suspicious Rohirrim, and Legolas is noted as fitting an arrow to his bow (note - no arrow in-hand before now, thus he pulled it from his quiver) and drawing it 'quicker than sight'.

And your stance is that 'nobody is actually paying a lot of attention to Legolas at that point'.

Dude, no. That's not the situation at all. Again, you are downplaying what is happening in the situation.

[quote]It seems you yourself say that you think that Bucky and Legolas are both some tier slower than Batman.[/quote]

You're also misrepresenting my point on the matter, hopefully accidentally.

Here, I'll help by quoting me.

[quote=Me]I'm not. If anything, Legolas's speed by that feat - which is the only real speedfeat we have for him, while his presentation is 'He's Sindarin elf, an old one from a good bloodline, in a world where Elves are superior in every single way to humans that are superior in every single way to modern day, normal humans...other than at dying' - [B]would for me put him somewhere around CBPH himself for speed[/B], given Batman has speedfeats actually BETTER than his cup switch, if one works it out.

When I say that Legolas' feat is better than Bruce's cup switch, nowhere am I saying that Legolas is quicker than Bruce. Bruce does have better feats than the cup switch.[/quote]

Bolded for emphasis. Either you're not reading my responses at this point...or you're trying to catch me on something I didn't actually say? Between the downplaying and this, I'm starting to get a bad feeling here.

[quote]Yet you think also that Legolas is "much faster" than Bucky. I don't get that tiering, really. To me, blocking bullets from a few feet away fired by trained soldiers, matching Cap and Panther in combat, all of the other things I've pointed out, go to show someone who is some decent fraction of CBPH. And also very, very capable of swatting arrows fired from 30 meters away out of the air, pretty contemptuously.[/quote]

So, let's say I DID actually say Legolas is below Batman (I didn't, but let's run with it for a moment).

Batman is a guy who can catch crossbow bolts loosed at him in multiples from close range (like, a whack of them at a time, while knocking another out of the air with a Batarang, as I recall). He no-look-behind himself catches arrows from Green Arrow. He has a ton of other speedfeats, including the cup one you mention. Absolutely crazy stuff, to the point where we do say stuff like 'Bruce totally blitzes normal humans in groups', because his entire damn body would be nothing but a blur to a normal.

There's a pretty big gulf between that and 'Bucky, whose big speed feat is aim-dodging' - even in the clearly speeded up (and decently done) portions of the fights, I can still follow what happens. Plenty of room between there to slot someone in, especially someone who would be closer to the Bruce side of things than the Bucky, and still have room left over for 'there's a pretty heftly gap' (see below). Especially since the other feats for Bucky, matching Cap and Panther? Their big speed feats are pretty much identical to Bucky's on-screen - aim-dodging. It's not like MCU Captain America or Panther move so quickly their movements are invisible either.

Now, for me? If Legolas IS in the same ballpark as a CBPH for speed, given his feat, then sure, I'm pretty happy giving him a chunk of an advantage over Bucky.

Nowhere have I said 'Legolas blitzes Bucky all to hell.' He has a speed advantage, and it's a worthwhile one, not a wee tiny one. If I felt it was enough to be blitz-level, I would have mentioned it.

Meanwhile, you're saying that Bucky is on the 'same speed tier' as Legolas, when their feats are completely different. One of them never actually moves quicker than the eye. The other does.

As for the ruling, I'm more interested in a ruling that states 'No, all aim-dodgers are not automatically as fast as people who move so quickly the standard human eye cannot follow them at all', because all aim-dodgers clearly do not. I'm less concerned about the whole business of Legolas versus Bucky in speed.

*Edited out, due to likely not helping*

[B][U]MODERATOR
[/U][/B]

Having reviewed the evidence presented, I can't say that Bucky is quite as fast as Book Legolas. He's not a bullet timer, seems more like aim blocking and the people shooting him conveniently aiming for his metal arm, and he's certainly not on the level of disappearing speed. He's fast for a live action character but he's not really on that level. The Underworld Movies and Movie! Wesker are good examples of what I'm talking about. Those movies had characters doing speedster feats. The First Underworld Movie had Super Michael flash stepping around his enemy. Wesker was flat out bullet timing, blitzing and disappearing around his enemies.

Those are the kind of moves you need to be considered disappearing level speed. I haven't seen anything from MCU Bucky to say that he can ninja blitz like Book Legolas can either.

Thus, going by presented evidence, MCU Bucky is not on the same speed level as Legolas or Comic Book CMPH's.

To put it into a more general, Rumbles-based perspective, this is why we don't have 'tiers', except as shorthand. Why we don't use 'Arrow-timer' as an actual speed (because there's a pretty wide assortments of different levels of 'dealing with arrows'). That we only use 'bullet-timer' for shorthand, and don't assume that all bullet-timers are created equal, instead inspecting the feats the moment we have two people close enough that we can't use that shorthand anymore...because there's a pretty big gulf in speed between Ozymandius and Cassandra Cain.

This is why Rumbles depends on feats, not some 'tier system'.

'Aim-dodging' covers some ground. And it is not, in fact, indicative of anything other than 'sufficient speed and skill to carry out aim-dodging'. It's not some tier where 'Batman is an Aim-Dodger, Silver Sable is an Aim-Dodger, ergo their speed is at least comparable and Sable should be able to do what Bruce does'. Nope. Sable aim-dodges, sure. So does Bruce. But Bruce does a whole lot of other stuff that Sable cannot do.

[QUOTE=Guy1;5491969][B][U]MODERATOR
[/U][/B]

Having reviewed the evidence presented, I can't say that Bucky is quite as fast as Book Legolas. He's not a bullet timer, seems more like aim blocking and the people shooting him conveniently aiming for his metal arm, and he's certainly not on the level of disappearing speed. He's fast for a live action character but he's not really on that level. The Underworld Movies and Movie! Wesker are good examples of what I'm talking about. Those movies had characters doing speedster feats. The First Underworld Movie had Super Michael flash stepping around his enemy. Wesker was flat out bullet timing, blitzing and disappearing around his enemies.

Those are the kind of moves you need to be considered disappearing level speed. I haven't seen anything from MCU Bucky to say that he can ninja blitz like Book Legolas can either.

Thus, going by presented evidence, MCU Bucky is not on the same speed level as Legolas or Comic Book CMPH's.[/QUOTE]

Just with regards to this, I'm not claiming that Book-Legolas bounces around disappearing and appearing. He's not [I]that[/I] fast (which I don't think is what Guy1 is saying here, but clarity is good!). ^_^

He just stands in the middle of a ring of angry, suspicious warriors, pulls out an arrow, fits it to his bow, and draws the bow faster than the eye can see.