How good is Nu52 Cassandra Cain?

[Carabas]

No I'm not arguing because they are "tough enough" they'll ignore pressure points . I'm arguing that they have higher pain tolerance . Not durability.

Now this does vary from writer to writer and character to character, but usually in my experience, pressure point strikes don't hurt. They just incapacitate. Jab. There, you didn't feel it, but you're not using that arm for the next hour or so.

[Sharpandpointies]

This is the answer I was looking for and what I thought unfortunately happened to Cassandra.

I never found Cassandra 'overrpowered' to begin with. She was behind in the technical, detective, and the social skills compared to the rest of the Bat Family. However, in the fighting department, she excelled at it due to the sacrificing other skills in order to get to where she is.

So 52 Cass has the same difficulties as her pre-flashpoint but now she doesn't maintain the extraordinary strengths either.

That was the appeal to Cassandra Cain and why she was (and still is) my favorite heroine. How she coped with both her strengths and difficulties.

DC really doesn't get it.

Yeah, same deal here.

People ask me 'what's the interest in a character who is so overwhelmingly capable at the fighting? Where's the tension?'

Setting aside the fact that Batman is going to win, we all know that, so the same situation exists with him (and speaking of overwhelmingly capable, that's Bruce at everything)....

The best part about Cassandra's Batgirl series was her character, her interaction with other characters, her stumbling attempts to find a way in a world totally foreign for her, and her lack of ability with everything outside of fighting (cripes, she had to go to Spoiler to read a note that was an important clue). Sure, the fights were good and the writers managed to put tension in them anyway because she wasn't always facing 'people trying to hit her'. But it was all of the other stuff, the places where she struggled, and her actual character/personality that was and still is interesting to me.

I don't feel her hyper-competence with fighting dilutes any of the other Batfamily's skills. I guess Rumbles might make people get that opinion, but if the Rumbles were 'Batman with prep in Gotham versus Cass' or 'Tim Drake versus Cass - solving mysteries/hacking computers', or heck, even 'Nightwing with prep (why does it need to be Bruce?) versus Cass in Gotham', and the situation would be different. Anything but 'straight-up fight', and yeah, things change. Often drastically. I've never had a problem with stating that, myself.

So for me, her being massively skewed toward one thing and not terribly great at other stuff makes for:

1. A good contrast with the others in the Batfamily, which helps them show off THEIR strengths;
2. A good reason to collaborate;
3. Some really hilarious/interesting character situations.

For a funny example of #3, consider Cass' first attempt to fly the Batplane, with everyone aboard (Tim, Dick, and Bruce) close to peeing their pants because of how bad she was (then suddenly she's an ace when written by Beechen...). For an interesting character moment, there's Cass going to wake up Spoiler in the middle of the night and having to explain (shamefully) that she can't read, or Oracle losing her cool with Cass in a stressful situation because Cass can't read and that leading to serious tension between them for a long time.

Her being stupidly good at fighting? That was just part of the whole character.

Buuuut...that's me. Mileage may vary. ^_^

[Sharpandpointies]

Now this does vary from writer to writer and character to character, but usually in my experience, pressure point strikes don't hurt. They just incapacitate. Jab. There, you didn't feel it, but you're not using that arm for the next hour or so.

That's mostly how it's presented in comics. There are a few places - mostly with Daredevil, he has the one with Frank Castle where the pain is noted as being horrific on top of his arm going completely dead, and another where he uses pain specifically for interrogation as I recall - where they cause massive pain as well, but the THEORY behind them is that it's some kind of weird neural damage or 'shutting down the nerves' or some comic book stuff like that.

Heck, Cass uses one to completely shut down Oracle - she's still awake, but she can't move, speak, do ANYTHING - and obviously isn't causing her pain. Shiva does the same to Cass, one-shotting her with a pressure point strike when her defences are crap and stopping her dead.

And normally Cass can take multiple hits from Shiva and keep on fighting, Shiva being...rather powerful when it comes to hitting stuff.

[Nik Hasta]

Now this does vary from writer to writer and character to character, but usually in my experience, pressure point strikes don't hurt. They just incapacitate. Jab. There, you didn't feel it, but you're not using that arm for the next hour or so.

Kenshiro would like a word. ^_^

[Carabas]

Kenshiro would like a word. ^_^

What Kenshiro does doesn't really fall under 'pressure points', no matter what he calls it.

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

Now this does vary from writer to writer and character to character, but usually in my experience, pressure point strikes don't hurt. They just incapacitate. Jab. There, you didn't feel it, but you're not using that arm for the next hour or so.

[The Chou Lives]

Kenshiro would like a word. ^_^

Well truthfully Kenshiros pressure points work that way because he's so meta strong he could explode you via punches anyway. Pressure points are just for fun and mystic stuff.

HSK has a great work out plan obviously.

[Nik Hasta]

What Kenshiro does doesn't really fall under 'pressure points', no matter what he calls it.

There are 1,108 pressure points on the human body, Kenshiro can use them to resurrect the dead, permanently destroy specific muscle groups, turn off superpowers, make people sleep, make people fall in love with the next person they see, explode people, make people explode when they see a certain thing, greatly amp physical power, disconnect optic nerves and make your blood shoot out of your sweat glands.

It's pressure points brah.

Kenshiro.

Pressure point man.

S'awesome.

He does have other weird **** with his kung fu that's basically just magic - phasing through objects, warping the fabric of space, instantly learning any technique he sees or experiences, energy blasts and other such chicanery but a lot of Hokuto Shinken is totes magoats pressure points.

[Cody]

Every time you say the name of some kind of nonsense martial art, an angel gets its wings, and Val Armorr learns the martial art, retroactively founds it, then super karates the angel unconscious with it.

Sigged. Just....sigged. That was beautiful man.

[The Dork Knight]

That point being because it stopped his arm. Not him.

Contrary to that, Matt has poked people with superhuman durability/toughness in the chest and flat-out dropped them. Why he did not do this to the Punisher? PIS, same as a lot of stuff in fights.

Ah but you're missing the point of the argument . I'm saying Matt would have KOd Frank if he had dropped from 10' above him on his face with his feet because Frank is not durable enough .

However something like a pressure point that merely causes pain can be shrugged off because they can tolerate pain better than others . It's like how Doom can tolerate pain better because of his supreme willpower

And we don't work much with PIS, here on Rumbles. In the Arena, hand to hand, Matt wanders up to Castle, blitzes him, and drops him with the kind of pressure point strike he used on Mr. Hyde on a day when Hyde was laughing off Matt falling from 10' above him and landing on his face with both feet.

I'm not arguing Matt doesn't stomp Frank, I'm saying Frank does better against pressure points specifically because he has a high pain tolerance . Like how Daredevil himself can keep fighting after being literally set on fire when the same fire is powerful enough to hurt metas like Jessica.

That would be more because that when two fighters are actually really close to each other in skill, speed, strength, and the like, it would be ridiculously difficult to hit a pin-point place on them unless one batters them into a stupor first.

Kind of like how all of the complicated techniques in martial arts that work on people who are massively less skilled than the person using them, fail miserably when attempted against someone who comes closer in skill...and suddenly everyone is going back to fundamentals.

Maybe . But that can also be interpreted as them being able to tolerate pain better when braced for it or even able to make the slightest adjustment even against faster opponents for the strikes to not quite be "free hits".

Like the examples you mentioned - Shiva was treating Cass like thrash and Oracle's literally in a wheelchair , they are basically "free hits" ( Cass even calls it "cheap", like her own unexpected "cheap shot" later )

Thing is, that works in both directions. Cass fights through multiple shots in the face from Shiva, eats Bruce's punches in the face and keeps on trucking, etc. And if she's landing the impairing blows before her opponent is, and faster, then it's stacking up on them faster than on her.

That's assuming we handwave away pressure points working as they normally do (in comics, always in comics...).

Sure sure which is why I said 50/50 . As far as being faster goes , that'd only be the case in the first blow , after which the peak human strikes , and she being, unable to read gets hammered. After that it's doubftul /speculation what she can avoid and how many hits she can get in given she avoided zero hits vs either Shiva or Batman without body reading

[Sharpandpointies]

Ah but you're missing the point of the argument . I'm saying Matt would have KOd Frank if he had dropped from 10' above him on his face with his feet because Frank is not durable enough .

However something like a pressure point that merely causes pain can be shrugged off because they can tolerate pain better than others . It's like how Doom can tolerate pain better because of his supreme willpower

Except it shuts stuff down. It isn't pain, it shuts stuff down. It might cause pain, but that seems to be a byproduct or a specific use. In Frank's case, his arm DID go dead. Yeah, it hurt. It also stopped working.

I'm not arguing Matt doesn't stomp Frank, I'm saying Frank does better against pressure points specifically because he has a high pain tolerance . Like how Daredevil himself can keep fighting after being literally set on fire when the same fire is powerful enough to hurt metas like Jessica.

Except Frank didn't - his arm still went dead. So that kind of removes that argument.

Maybe . But that can also be interpreted as them being able to tolerate pain better when braced for it or even able to make the slightest adjustment even against faster opponents for the strikes to not quite be "free hits".

Like the examples you mentioned - Shiva was treating Cass like thrash and Oracle's literally in a wheelchair , they are basically "free hits" ( Cass even calls it "cheap", like her own unexpected "cheap shot" later )

Cass calling it cheap is sour grapes. Shiva is beating the crap out of Cass casually, and Cass is pissed off about it. She walked into the encounter all wrong from the beginning, being quite snotty about it 'She doesn't look so dangerous' and the like, then getting angry when Shiva starts predicting her moves 'That was MY defence!', then in the panel before she gets nerve-hit she's most definitely honked off.

One character is blitzing, Cass being someone who can hit Bruce in a vital area without him being aware of it until later when he starts horking up blood, I'm pretty fine with them landing something accurately enough to get a result.

Sure sure which is why I said 50/50 . As far as being faster goes , that'd only be the case in the first blow , after which the peak human strikes , and she being, unable to read gets hammered. After that it's doubftul /speculation what she can avoid and how many hits she can get in given she avoided zero hits vs either Shiva or Batman without body reading

This isn't D&D. People don't wait for the other person to attack after attacking. It's not 'I punch, you punch, I punch' like in some bad Hollywood fights. If one character can blitz, who's to say they're not going to land a hit, opponent momentarily shocked or flinches or even just overwhelmed by speed, they get another shot in? Etc. It's far more likely than 'Okay, so person fast enough to blitz attacks first, but then the other guy definitely gets to attack...'

Shang Chi gets FIVE hits on Razorfist in a single blitz, for example.

Granted, there are times the peak human will weather the storm and get their own hits in, and they'll be sufficient to debilitate Cass/whoever due to lack of defences. That'll happen. But there will also be the times when Cass gets in multiple hits, or yeah, when Cass (who has her own rather stellar damage soak instances) takes the hits of the Peak Human and comes out on top.

I wouldn't put that at 50/50. I would put that closer to 7/10 for the faster person.

Mileage may vary.

[Sharpandpointies]

As another example, Bruce can blitz and pressure point hit - accurately - people. If he can do that when blitzing, why can't someone fast enough to blitz him hit HIS pressure points?