Hanzo vs Takumi (Overwatch vs Fire Emblem) VS Prediction Blog
Hanzo, the disgraced heir of the Shimada Family from Overwatch
Takumi, the Hoshidan prince leading them to war from Fire Emblem Fates
Family can be a bit complicated sometimes, which no one knows better than these two. Originally born to a clan of high stature, these two were trained from a young age in all sorts of combat, using special abilities themed after a dragon in the process. Though this did come at the cost of their relationship with a sibling, as they would come into conflict with them after a perceived betrayal. This act left them with internal struggle and a drive to prove themselves, which they do with their peerless skill in archery. So, which of these two can land the bullseye to end the other’s journey? Let’s see.
Before We Begin
For Hanzo, this will be discussing all of the relevant information for Overwatch. This will include the main games, promotional shorts, comics, novels, and anything else which can be seen as officially part of Overwatch’s lore.
As for Takumi, since Fire Emblem Fates splits itself into several story paths, much like DB’s handling of Dimitri, this will be compositing him with details from all three routes to try and get a complete view of his entire potential as a fighter. Takumi will also be treated as if he’s at his max potential you can give him for stats and equipment as a player, and supplemental details will be included from the manga adaptation, which is a thing if you didn’t know
However, I’m not going to include scaling or abilities from the various interseries crossovers for Fire Emblem, such as Heroes, Warriors, or the various Amiibo summons. While there are arguments behind some of these being fair game, I don’t think it’d be in the spirit of the match to include them. This will simply be focusing on Takumi’s core titles, and any cross-scaling with other mainline games will only be brought up if it’s relevant to the story of Fates.
Also no crossover stuff for either of them, so don’t expect this to turn into Heroes of the Storm vs Smash Brothers scaling. With all that out of the way, let’s begin.
Background
Hanzo
"With every death comes honor. With honor, redemption."
Centuries ago, the Shimada family was established as an assassin clan, whose power grew into a massive criminal empire throughout Japan. Many years later, the latest master of the clan, Sojiro Shimada, would have two sons. The eldest of the two, Hanzo, had a lot of expectations hoisted upon him, as he was duty bound to become the next master of the clan when his father passed, and instilled the youth with a sense of honor. These expectations were not hoisted upon his younger brother, Genji, which led to him growing up to be far more carefree in his life of privilege. Despite this, the brothers remained close throughout the years.
Everything would change when Sojiro was assassinated by a rival clan. Now about to be thrust into a leadership position, Hanzo was instructed by the clan’s elders to straighten out his brother’s lifestyle, finding him disgraceful and believing he could help run the empire. However, when Genji consistently refused to listen to his brother, Hanzo was enraged, and in one fateful moment killed his brother with a stab to the back. His resolve shattered by this act, Hanzo would eventually grow to reject his father’s philosophies, abandoning his duty and the clan. He’d travel the world in a self-inflicted exile, resigning himself to a life of exile and swearing to never wield a blade again.
That is, until a fateful night ten years later. On the anniversary of the day he ended his brother’s life, Hanzo returned to his former family’s castle, fighting through the soldiers there to pay his respects to his passed brother. However, this time while he was doing this, he was accosted by a cybernetic ninja, who would promptly do battle with him. After a fight, Hanzo would be beaten, but the ninja would stop short of a killing blow. While Hanzo tried to encourage him to continue, believing death to be his one chance of redemption, the ninja would refuse, simply telling Hanzo that he still had a purpose in this life. At which point he would reveal that he was actually Genji, his brother who was believed dead.
As it turned out, on the night of Hanzo’s stabbing, he was found in critical condition by recruiters with a peacekeeping force known as Overwatch. They’d take him in, saving his life by outfitting him with a cybernetic body, which he would use to act as a black ops soldier. While he would initially channel his anger towards his current situation into his battles, after Overwatch ended up collapsing, he’d end up without purpose for the second time in his life. That is until he was found by a robotic monk named Zenyatta, who invited Genji to live with his order in Nepal. With the guidance of them, Genji would end up making peace with himself and his past, and after hearing that Overwatch was reforming, he’d seek out his brother, believing there was still hope for him to change.
After their duel, Genji would inform his brother that he had accepted his place and forgiven him for his mistake. He’d then suggest that Hanzo had to learn to forgive himself and end his time of solitude, as the time was soon coming where he would need to pick a side. Still shaken from his sudden appearance, Hanzo would initially refuse the call, but before he could demand more from him, Genji would vanish, leaving him alone with his thoughts. While how this reunion has affected him still has yet to be seen, perhaps this lone dragon’s path of redemption is one that is not as closed off as he believed.
Takumi
"You abandoned your family, and Hoshido... Now, pay for your betrayal!"
Long ago, twelve powerful dragons fought each other, granting humanity power to fight in wars for who would take over the world. This battle would end with many of the dragons perishing, forced to abandon their mortal forms. After this, human descendants of the ones granted power by these dragons would form nations across the world, though conflict remained a constant idea, especially for two in particular. The neighboring nations of Nohr and Hoshido, who had sworn fealty to the Dusk and Dawn Dragons respectively, had constant feelings of tension, as the bountiful land and harvests of Hoshido often drew envy from Nohr, whose dreary land was far less hospitable. Tensions would only escalate after the Hoshidan King was killed and his child ended up captured by Nohrian forces, who would secretly raise the child as one of their own. Hoshido, now under the control of the now widowed Queen Mikoto, would then create a magical barrier that prevented Nohrian warriors from fighting, which helped keep conflict from escalating into all out war, hoping to protect her other children. Among them was her youngest son, Takumi, who grew up with distrust towards Nohr due to these circumstances.
While the two nations remained on bad terms, conflict only amounted to minor skirmishes. That is, until a fateful day where a chance meeting led to Corrin being led to Hoshido’s royal family, where they were informed of the truth of their heritage. While his siblings were ecstatic to see their long lost brother / sister, Takumi remained distrustful of them, believing them to be a Nohrian spy. This suspicion ended up justified in their eyes when their Nohrian blade was taken by spies and used to create a blast, which ended up killing Mikoto in the process. Takumi felt betrayed by this act, but couldn’t stay around for long, as this act was enough to push the two nations into conflict. With the looming march of war coming, Corrin was left to make a choice on their fate. This is where the story of Takumi ends up splitting up, as what happens next is dependent on who Corrin / the player decides to side with.
In a world where Corrin sided with Hoshido, they would end up fighting alongside Takumi throughout the war. Takumi initially treated their sibling with hostility, not fully trusting them due to the death of his mother, which was only exacerbated when they suspected there was a spy on their side. As it turned out, however, Takumi was actually the unwitting spy, as he had been brainwashed by a soldier of Nohr. After being freed of the brainwashing, he’d ultimately change his tune, fully trusting in his sibling. After the war ended, he’d go on to help the countryside recover by repairing war torn villages, growing into a better leader.
Though in a world where Corrin instead returned to Nohr, things weren’t as peachy. His feelings seemingly justified by this betrayal, Takumi and his family would do battle with the forces of Nohr in a grueling war which his anger overtook. This all came to a head when, after the Nohrian forces took the battle straight to the capital of Hoshido, Takumi would end up seemingly killing himself to prevent his capture. However, it turned out that something hidden had been egging his anger on, and would end up puppeting his corpse in one final battle with the Nohrian forces. After defeating him, Takumi’s spirit would be at peace in the next life, having finally ended his anger.
Finally, in a world where Corrin opted to seek their own path away from the two sides, they would end up forming a third faction of their own to seek the truth of the world. Both sides would end up turning on Corrin, but when they uncovered a secret faction of invisible soldiers that were manipulating things behind the scenes, they would ultimately put their differences aside to seek out the dragon Anankos, who had been goading each side into war from the shadows. Together, the new nations would defeat the fell dragon, seemingly bringing both of them to peace.
Regardless of which choice you choose, you’d do well to not underestimate this prince. As the young man can easily transform from youthful anger to the might of a fearsome dragon, willing to strike down anyone who dares to stand against his nation.
Intelligence & Skill
Hanzo
From a young age, Hanzo had been trained by the Shinada family. He displayed a natural aptitude for leadership and possessed an innate understanding of strategy and tactics. He was a prodigy in martial arts, bowmanship, and swordplay, and received personal training from Asa Yamagami, a master of swordplay and ninja stuff, alongside his brother and her daughter. After leaving the clan, Hanzo became a lone warrior, keeping his skills sharp while seeking to regain his honor. He’s fought past many assassins sent by the Shinada family, and was able to take out an entire base of them on his own at least 10 times. He was able to keep up in a fight with Genji for an extended period, who was similarly trained and has kept up with many members of the Overwatch team, though he did ultimately lose. He’s also very skilled with his bow, as he can draw and fire it while grappling a guy to hit the phone of someone a good few meters away, as well as being able to fire quickly and casually making a curved shot.
Takumi
Takumi and the rest of the royal family are rather skilled in warfare, as all of them have been trained by the best fighters in Hoshido and are able to act as the commanders of the Hoshidan military throughout a long campaign. Takumi himself is rather skilled, working tirelessly to make himself an archer without peer. Though his skills aren’t just in archery, as he can also be trained to pick up the skills of a variety of other classes, ranging from sword and lance fighters to mobile pegasus knights to more out there stuff like ninjas or mechanists.
Equipment
Hanzo
Storm Bow
Hanzo’s main weapon of choice is this, which is a composite recurve bow Hanzo fires arrows from. His main ammo consists of metal tipped arrows which he can hold back to charge up their power, and can be activated to form his various trick arrows. He also has the skill to use the bow itself as a melee weapon should he run out of arrows.
Sonic Arrow
This arrow contains a sonar tracking device. When fired, it creates a detection radius that can mark enemies, making them visible to him and his allies through walls for the next 6 seconds.
Storm Arrows
When using this, Hanzo’s next 5 arrows will be instantly at full charge, can bounce off surfaces once, and have a faster firing rate to boot. However, this does come at the cost of lowering the strength of each arrow individually.
Scatter Arrow
When using this, Hanzo fires an arrows that will split up into 6 arrows that will randomly bounce off walls, potentially dealing heavy damage to anyone within an enclosed space. While this ability has been scrapped, he did explicitly use it as part of the Dragons short, as seen above, and there hasn’t been a reason given for how or if he might have lost it canonically, so I feel it’s still fair game.
Takumi
Fujin Yumi
Takumi’s personal weapon of choice, this is a magic bow which, instead of using standard arrows, can summon magical bowstrings and arrows made of wind magic whenever he concentrates and summons it. It also has a special ability that allows him to ignore terrain movement penalties while wielding it. Also worth noting is that, unlike most other Fire Emblem games, weapons in Fates have infinite durability, so you don’t have to do the “save all the strong stuff for the bosses” thing you definitely do in other games.
Other Yumi & Bows
A Yumi is a traditional Japanese bow which was commonly used by Feudal Samurai. Takumi can wield a variety of them. He can also use more traditional bows, which are fielded by soldiers of Nohr and can be given to him on the Revelations route.
Brass Yumi - The weakest physically, though it grants a bonus to evading critical attacks
Iron Yumi - The standard one with no real drawbacks or benefits
Steel Yumi - Stronger than iron, though it cannot double attack
Silver Yumi - Extremely powerful, but at the cost of lower critical rate and a debuff to strength after a battle
Illusory Yumi - Imbued with magic, this bow boosts the resistance of the wielder, making them more resistant to magical attacks
Surefire Yumi - This bow has a very enhanced accuracy, which comes at the cost of lowering the wielder’s defense and agility
Pursuer - The most powerful Yumi, which lowers defense while racing you and your foe’s attacking speed
Raider Yumi - This can strip opponents of their clothes if the user happens to have the weapon triangle advantage over them. Yep.
Spellbane Yumi - This bow has increased effectiveness against magic wielders, though it drops the welder's defenses and makes them weak to damage from any other source
Mikoto's Yumi - Named after his mother, this can restore HP to the wielder every turn they wield it for, at the cost of reducing defense and giving a slight debuff to the wielder’s strength post-battle
Setsuna's Yumi - Named after his sister’s absentminded retainer, this bow has relatively low damage. However, every time it hits a foe, they will be debuffed in Skill, Speed, and Defense for -4, with the stats recovering by 1 each turn.
Killer Bow - A special bow which has a boosted critical rate and deals quadruple the damage of a normal critical hit when they are hit.
Shining Bow - This bow deals magical damage instead of physical, but cannot inflict critical attacks or offensive skills.
Cupid Bow - A bow with a high hit rate that can heal 20% of the opponent’s health after a battle. Yes you read that right, it heals the enemy.
Anna’s Bow - Named after a certain redheaded shopkeep, this can boost your Luck by +5, at the cost of temporarily lowering your Strength and Skill by 2 after combat.
Other Weapons
First off, <insert overused joke about Smash making it look like people in Fire Emblem only use swords here>. Anyways, while Takumi by default favors the use of bows, the player is able to reclass him into other weapon wielders to train him in those, allowing him access to a variety of other weapon types. He can likely wield many of these in conjunction with his bow assuming there’s no game mechanics restricting him. This isn’t going to be a complete list, but will just be going over more notable choices, so here’s a full list if you need it.
Takumi's Shinai - A bamboo blade meant for training, this has low power and cannot kill foes with more than 1 health, as it will only bring them to the brink of death.
Venge Katana - A blade which doubles in power when a foe initiates battle
Subaki's Pike - Named after his sister’s perfection seeking retainer, this Naginata will double in strength if the weilder’s Skill (as in the stat, not actual skill) is above their foe’s.
Bolt Naginata - A magical lance which casts electricity alongside it’s blows
Caltrop - A throwing dagger which can debuff a foe’s Speed, Defense, and Resistance by 8 when it hits foes, at the cost of debuffing the user’s Strength and Skill by 2
Consumable Items
Takumi can also utilize a variety of items to help him in a battle, which are all single use unless otherwise noted. This will just be going over options which are relevant to a fight, and a full list of items is available to read here.
Vulnerary - Heals for 10 HP 3 times
Concoction - Heals for 20 HP 2 times
Gunter's Potion - Heals for 25 HP
Elixir - Heals for 40 HP
HP Tonic - Boosts Maximum HP until the end of a battle
Strength Tonic - Boosts physical attacking power until the end of a battle
Magic Tonic - Boosts magical power until the end of a battle
Skill Tonic - Boosts hit rate until the end of a battle
Speed Tonic - Boosts speed until the end of a battle
Luck Tonic - Boosts activation of special abilities until the end of a battle
Defense Tonic - Boosts physical defense until the end of a battle
Resistance Tonic - Boosts magical defense until the end of a battle
Asugi's Confect - Restores 10 HP and boosts strength, skill, and speed until the end of a battle
Rainbow Tonic - Boosts all stats until the end of a battle
Allegro Harp - Boosts speed for all allies in a radius for one turn
Shell Horn - Boosts defense for all allies in a radius for one turn
Abilities
Hanzo
Wall Climb
Yep he sure can climb walls.
Lunge
Another mobility option is this, letting him double jump. Quite impressive given he is not trans nor brazilian.
Dragonstrike
"龍が我が敵を喰らう！"
(“Let the dragon consume you!”)
This is Hanzo’s ultimate ability. After firing an arrow, two spiritual dragons will be summoned, and will charge forward in a straight line, constantly damaging any foe that’s within it. This attack can go through walls and even shields, and can potentially wipe out an entire enemy team if placed correctly. The dragons themselves seem to be a power passed down through the Shimada family, though what exactly they can do besides act as a projectile is a bit unclear.
Enhanced Senses
In the Dragons short, he was able to tell Genji was following him despite remaining hidden. This could potentially be due to his own stealth training as a child.
Takumi
Dragon Vein
As a noble of dragon descendance, Takumi is able to utilize their power to bend the earth. By going to certain spots on a battlefield, he’s able to summon forth their power to manipulate the battlefield to his army’s favor. This is mainly in the form of terrain effects, such as evaporating a river, forming bridges, cooling large lava, and changing tile types to ones which are more beneficial. They can also have more active effects, like creating tornadoes, healing allies, and destroying equipment.
While it is reliant on the battlefield to utilize, meaning the use of it is a bit questionable on a fight with neutral ground, it is worth noting that the Veins are able to physically boost your power, can change depending on who’s using it, and has effects which can last years. This implies that it’s a power the user has to channel through themselves. and therefore it would be reliant on the power of their user to an extent.
Skills
Through personal training, accessing specific items, and mastering classes, Takumi is able to equip a variety of passive skills which can give certain effects. There are a lot of them, but this is just going to be going over notable ones.
Competitive - Takumi’s personal skill that only he can use. When paired up with another unit with him in the lead, if his level is lower than or equal to his supporter, he will get +10 to his critical hit chance, +3 to damage dealt and -1 to damage received.
Quick Draw - Unit will deal +4 damage if they are the one to initiate combat
Point Blank - Allows Bow users to attack foes who are one space away
Wary Fighter - During battle, neither the user or enemy can double attack
Natural Cover - When user fights in terrain with terrain effects, -3 damage received
Amaterasu - Allies close to user restore 20% maximum HP at the start of a turn.
Certain Blow - Grants +40% hit rate when initiating combat
Bowfaire - If user is wielding a bow, +5 to attacking strength during combat
Seal Defense - If user survived combat, foe will be debuffed -6 in defense
Seal Speed - If user survived combat, foe will be debuffed -6 in speed
Rend Heaven - When attacking with a physical weapon, add half of the foe’s strength to the user's own attack.
Quixotic - Grants +30% hit rate and +15 skill activation rate to the user and their target.
Duelist's Blow - Grants Avoid +30% when initiating battle
Vantage - When user is below half health, they will attack first when enemies initiate attack
Astra - When activated, allows the user to perform 5 consecutive attacks in a row with halved damage.
Life and Death - Increases damage taken and dealt by 10
Vengeance - Adds half of his accrued damage as damage to attacks.
Bowbreaker - Hit Rate and Evasion +50% when the enemy is equipped with a Bow
Lifetaker - When attacking, restores 50% HP if the enemy is defeated
Luna - Halves the defense and resistance of foes
Lethality - When activated, allows the user to instantly kill a selected enemy unit, provided that the unit would be able to deal at least 1 damage in direct battle.
Death Blow - When user triggers the battle, buffs Critical rate by +20%
Counter - If the user receives non-fatal damage from an adjacent enemy, the user deals the full damage taken back at the enemy
Replicate
One ability worth its own section is this. By mastering the Mechanist job, Takumi gets the ability to spawn a replica of himself. Said replica shares everything that the original is using, including skills, current stats, current class, and inventory. However, temporary buffs will not carry over. Though the replica can act as a separate unit from the original, it shares its HP with the original, and the death of the replica also counts as the death of the original.
Forms
Hanzo
Nothing lol
Takumi
Infested
“I am Betrayal…”
Takumi has had a bit of a history in struggling with demonic possession. Or draconic possession in this case. On the Conquest route, due to his anger at Corrin exasperating thanks to their more explicit betrayal, he’d end up becoming even more unstable. This was then shown to have resulted in him going off the deep end while emitting purple energy, and after killing himself, he’d end up serving as the ultimate final boss of this route. This was noted to be the result of a possession on his corpse, which the Revelations route would reveal to be the doing of Anankos, an evil dragon who serves as the final boss of that route.
This form greatly enhances Takumi’s power, as he was able to defeat Corrin in a single shot, despite them having upgraded their power with the Shadow Yato, which was also shattered in this attack. This is backed up by gameplay, as he is powerful enough to take on your entire army, and is mechanically the strongest boss in the whole of Fates save for Anankos himself. Beyond that, he can create powerful energy shockwaves which can deal half a foe's health if they’re not behind cover, and he is able to create a duplicate of himself to attack alongside.
This form also has unique abilities which he does not have access outside of it:
Draconic Hex - After battle, if both units survive, all enemy’s stats are debuffed -4, with the stats recovering by 1 each turn that passes
Dragonskin - Halves damage while negating Counter and instant death attacks
Feats
Hanzo
Overall
Was the successor of the Shimada clan before abandoning it
Traveled around the world for years, honing his skills and dodging assassins
Snuck into the Shimada castle yearly for a decade
Was able to keep up in a fight with Genji after he got a new cyborg body
Power
Able to harm and take down every other Overwatch hero in gameplay
Can fire arrows with enough force to send Genji flying through a screen even though he blocked it
Speed
Durability
(this is the best I could do in terms of gifs)
Able to take hits from every other Overwatch hero in gameplay
Took hits from Genji in a duel
Takumi
Overall
Leader of the Hoshidan Army
On the Birthright route, aided Hoshido in the defeat of the Nohrian forces
On the Conquest route, fought a hard battle against the Nohrian army, even serving as the final boss while possessed.
On the Revelation route, aided Corrin’s army in the defeat of Anankos and bringing peace to the two nations.
Power
Can potentially damage and defeat every foe in his game
Can fire arrows strong enough to send men in full armor flying while breaking parts of said armor
Infested Takumi can make shockwaves which can destroy several large rocks (0.855 tons)
Infested Takumi was able to one shot Corrin and shatter the Shadow Yato
Speed
Can dodge physical attacks from various foes in his games
Can dodge projectiles such as arrows, shurikens, and thrown axes.
Can dodge various magical projectiles
Durability
Can potentially take hits from every foe in his game
Endured the humiliation of admitting he got outsniped by his own son
Scaling
Hanzo
Genji
Hanzo’s brother, who got a cyber ninja makeover after his seeming death at the hands of him, after which he really needed healing. Beyond the two being able to take each other out in gameplay, the Dragons short has the two fight on fairly equal terms for a bit. While Hanzo ends up losing said duel, he was able to put Genji on the backfoot at a few points, and he seemed to have only ended up in the position to lose because he ran out of arrows and Genji kind of hard countering him in terms of fighting style. So I feel it should be fairly uncontroversial to scale the brothers to each other.
Is capable of deflecting various projectiles, which include:
Lucio’s sound waves (Default: Mach 3.17 Dragonblade: Mach 6.31)
Sombra’s machine gun fire (Default: Mach 6.78 Dragonblade: Mach 13.53)
Widowmakers sniper rifle fire (Default: Mach 7.87 Dragonblade: Mach 15.70)
Bastions minigun fire (Default: Mach 9.69 Dragonblade: Mach 19.33)
Ilarri’s lightspeed projectiles (Default: 3.14c Dragonblade: 6.28c)
He is also capable of moving as fast as these projectiles in gameplay by dashing
He was able to deflect attacks from and slice through the hand of an Omnic Titan
They are able to briefly survive a hit from Torbjörn’s big turret, which is stated to be powered by the energy of a volcanic eruption (3.35 - 33.5 Megatons of TNT)
They are capable of making massive holes in buildings (84 - 455 Tons of TNT)
They are capable of blasting lasers hard enough to slice through the thick metal of a transport shuttle (25.44 Tons of TNT)
Overwatch
Through scaling to Genji, Hanzo should broadly scale to many of the heroes of Overwatch, as not only are both brothers able to harm members of them in gameplay, but Genji in story is often shown to be on par with many other members of the team.
Tracer is able to move fast enough to blitz the reactions of multiple Omnics, which are able to casually perceive down to “a microfraction of a microsecond” (130,069.98 c)
D.Va’s mech is able to cause a big explosion by self destructing (2.51 Kilotons of TNT)
Mei’s ice cannon was able to completely freeze an Omnic Titan
Talon
Not only is Hanzo similarly able to keep up with members of this group in gameplay, but they’re also shown to be on par with Genji, who was briefly able to keep up in a fight with and took a big hit from Doomfist, the main leader of the group.
Sigma can use Kinetic Grasp to convert projectiles into energy, such as:
Ana’s bullets (348 Kilotons)
Orisa’s spear (29.23 - 68.2 Megatons)
Pharah’s Rocket Launcher (38.97 Megatons)
Widowmaker was able to keep up with Tracer’s movements for an extended chase
Sombra survived this explosion which Mauga was near the center of
Misc Heroes
This section is for the unaffiliated heroes that Hanzo scales to for basically the same reasons as the other sections.
Takumi
Corrin
This guy/girl is the main playable lord of Fates, and is everyone’s real favorite Smash character. In standard gameplay Takumi can fight alongside them in 2 routes and against them in 1, which should give a level of general scaling. Additionally, as Takumi was able to act as the final boss of one route, it’s fair to assume he could compare to them at best.
Other Royalty
The various royals of both Hoshido and Nohr are repeatedly shown to be able to scale to and fight on par with each other, both as allies and enemies.
Ryoma wields Raijinto, a blade which can seemingly summon lightning
Hinoka can swing her Naginata fast enough to briefly hold her weight
Using a Dragon Vein, Camilla was able to evaporate a river (2.07 kilotons)
Anankos
The true big villain of Fates, Anankos acts as the final boss for the Revelations route, a battle which Takumi is fully capable of contributing to. This foes mean he should realistically downscale from the higher tier stuff at best, though since he’s still one of the royals and can be directly granted power by him when he’s possessed, it’s likely not by the same amount as one of the more “normal” units.
Created a quasi-black hole which sucked up several small floating islands (16.38 Megatons)
His soul self was able to reverse some of the destruction to the world caused by Grima
As he is one of the First Dragons, he should be comparable to the other First Dragons
Other Units
Takumi being one of the royals, which are narratively treated as the top dogs of the game’s units, should also make him generally superior to other potential units of the army.
Flora was able to create a storm which froze part of an ocean (1.433 - 47.4 Kilotons)
Zola and his cronies survived being in an ice bomb going off, which covered a village in a thick layer of ice (32.87 - 61.47 Kilotons)
Selena, Odin, and Laslow are actually Severa, Owain, and Inigo from Awakening
They were able to contribute to the defeat of Grima, likely giving them similar levels of downscaling to Takumi and Anankos
Grima’s revival was able to create a blast that made a hole in a storm (261.84 Kilotons - 2.09 Megatons)
Grima can generate 340.4 gigatons of energy just to fly around
In a battle with Mila and Duma, they were able to split the earth, part the seas, and sunder the land and sky.
They scale to Tiki, who scales to fighters of Marth’s games
Caeda was able to fly from one end of the Island of Talys to the other in a short time frame (Mach 49.02 - 980.33)
Units are able to dodge Bolting, which summons cloud to ground lightning (Mach 183.13 - 804.66)
Units are able to dodge light based magic (0.627 c)
These are also in the same world as the Jugdral titles, which feature foes able to cast and survive Meteor (15.64 kilotons off TNT)
Weaknesses
Hanzo
For starters, Hanzo’s weapon of choice is more suited for medium range kills, meaning he can struggle to stay consistently effective at longer or shorter ranges, and he can be caught out by more coordinated teams if he gets overzealous due to not having as many options for close range. Beyond mechanical weaknesses, he also follows a rather strict code of honor, and can get enraged if someone attempts to lecture him on it. Finally, the Dragons short shows he has a limited supply of arrows that he needs to stay conservative with, though that’s not a weakness you’ll see in gameplay due to everyone having infinite ammo.
Also he canonically has delicate ankles.
Takumi
Takumi’s most notable weakness is his severe inferiority complex, which often makes him standoffish and quick to anger, and his distrustfulness and anger has landed him in some tight spots. Beyond that, he’s primarily skilled in the use of taking out key targets with high damage, which can make him struggle to contribute in battles with larger amounts of foes, and his lower than average defense and resistance growth means he can struggle to take much punishment. And Fates’ overhauled weapon triangle means that, when wielding bows, he can take more damage from foes with swords or magic.
Before the Verdict
City & MFTL Overwatch
POV: Medic tried to fight Mercy
If you haven’t been keeping up with Overwatch stats, you might be surprised at how high some of the numbers have been for them, given the common perception of them for a while was just in the city block and hypersonic range. But some recent discussions have brought up solid arguments for them being this strong in my opinion. This is mainly going to be discussing points from Matchup Madness’s take on Ramattra vs Adam Taurus, which I would recommend reading, as this will be more of a brief summary. To go over the city level stuff, the Null Sector’s Omnic Titans were explicitly able to survive a blast which was compared to that of a volcanic eruption. While this blast did defeat the Titan in context, the fact its body was not completely destroyed means it should likely scale to the blast as the extreme end of its durability. This is important, as both Genji and Mei were shown to be able to keep up with another Titan on foot, with Genji outright being able to cut through the Titan’s armor, implying they should scale to its full strength to an extent. Hanzo directly scales to Genji, so that’s fairly simple as a scaling chain. This level of power is also backed up by Sigma’s energy conversion, which gets to a similar level of power, and should also be able to scale Genji to since he was able to keep up in a fight with Doomfist, Sigma’s direct superior in Talon. Both of these are likely stuff Hanzo realistically downscales from, but the exact amount is a bit difficult to calculate.
As for the speed stuff, that’s also surprisingly fairly consistent. Not only do the light based projectiles of characters like Symmetra and Ilarri give fairly solid evidence for putting them at the relativistic end, but Tracer being able to outspeed the perception of a group of Omnics is very notable, given the novels have established they can casually perceive down to “a microfraction of a microsecond”. This means they can react within a picosecond, or about a trillionth of a second, which is very impressive. While you might assume that Tracer being the resident speedster means she’s the only one who should scale to it, there is a lot of evidence to the contrary. Not only is everyone fully capable of tagging her within gameplay, there’s also several in lore cases of characters directly keeping up with her movements, including Genji regularly sparring with her, Widowmaker keeping up with her movements over an extended chase, and Doomfist outright grabbing her mid dash. There’s also other cases of characters blitzing other Omnics’ reactions, such as Cassidy beating an Omnic sniper in a quick draw, Genji grabbing Maximillon before he could react, Reaper outspeeding several soldiers, and Sojourn being able to slip past an entire group of them. Finally, the Omnics in question here were portrayed as bog standard and fairly casual in accomplishing this feat, so there’s no real reason to assume they'd be faster than more prominent Omnic characters like Ramattra, Bastion, or Zenyatta, whom are portrayed as on par with the rest of the cast, or the various Omnic mooks you can kill en masse in the PvE modes, which have been explicitly noted to be better than standard Omnics in the very same story the feat in question comes from. So yeah, MFTL Overwatch is also fair game in my books.
Archanea Scaling
Fire Emblem scaling can be rather convoluted, and given there has been some significant contention in regards to a lot of stuff people have cited, I’m going to try and do my best to explain what’s going on here. Now for starters, while Fates might seem fairly disconnected from the more connected FE titles, there is a pretty explicit link between it and Awakening. 3 potential units of your army, Selena, Odin, and Laslow are in reality Severa, Owain, and Inigo from Awakening in disguise. The reasoning behind this is elaborated on in the Hidden Truths DLC chapter, but even in the base game all three of them have support conversations in which they confirm it, so this was a link that was always there. This in turn leads into all of Awakening’s connections to past games, such as Tiki directly linking it to Marth’s games, Grima fighting Alm as a secret boss in Echoes which links to those games, and the Jugdral games taking place in the same world as well. So yes, even without the interseries crossover shenanigans, these games are explicitly linked. And given many of these links are units from armies being in wars where everyone fights on par with each other, it makes sense to generally scale everyone to these instances
It is worth noting though that the cross scaling doesn’t extend to all of the Fire Emblem games. The worlds of Elibe (Binding Blade and Blazing Blade), Magvel (Sacred Stones), Tellius (Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn), and Fódlan (Three Houses and Three Hopes) all are explicitly tied to their own lore and have no real link to titles which Fate is connected to. The only mainline title which could arguably cross over everyone is Engage thanks to the ring stuff, but that is it’s own can of worms I am not opening because this was already a mess to track down stuff for even with just these titles. Just know I’d personally classify that under the “Kratos fighting Shovel Knight” camp of crossovers. Yes, technically there’s nothing against them happening canonically, but including them will lead to you going over a lot of otherwise irrelevant details that are only tangentially related to the original character at hand, so I’m opting not to bring it up. The link between Fates and Awakening is a more explicit link for those games, as not only is it relevant to the backstories of three units, them being in the Fates world at all also informs a major element of the narrative in Anankos’ motivation to stop himself after growing mad.
Now when it comes to specific scaling, there are a couple points where I don’t agree with how VS Battles wiki handles the stuff for the series. Most notably, they apply values taken from the most visually impressive versions of recurring spells, and apply them to every game which has these spells regardless of the difference in attack power. I did try to figure out scaling chains to said impressive instances, but like I went over earlier, it’s not something that’s easy. That being said, it is shockingly consistent how many feats from both Fates and Archanea are consistently in the town range of power, so that’s a further point in favor of the scaling being fair game.
Cosmic Level Fire Emblem
POV: All Might tried to fight Arthur
While we’re vaguely on the topic, let’s get into the potential cosmic level stuff. Right off the bat, I’m not personally buying Anankos’s black hole as an actual black hole. Mainly because in my research I wasn’t able to find anything that made it fit the black hole characteristics besides being black, round, and sucking things. <insert creative innuendo here>. While it can be calculated higher if you treat it like that, I opted to stick with a lower tier calc that just goes over how strong it would need to be to suck up the small islands we see it suck up, since that feels more solidly defined. I’m also not buying some statements in regards to Mila and Duma creating the world, as a lot of these statements are inconsistent and fairly vague. However, the strongest feat I could find was also the one that had the most promising argument. Moro, one of the backstory dragons Anankos directly scales to, was able to grant Lilith the power to create pocket dimensions that contain a starry sky. This is directly stated to be how she gained this power in an artbook, and your characters do directly fight her at several points. That being said, there are arguments against this being a directly applicable feat of AP, so I’m not going to hinge any of the arguments for stats on it.
Verdict
(music)
Stats
When it comes to the two’s stats, neither have a lot themselves, but they are from universes where all the prominent characters generally scale to each other, so this is yet another fight between each verse’s scaling. Both have a lot of feats that can pretty consistently put them in the building to town range, with both of them having some of their highest feats in the city range. Directly comparing these, the best feat Takumi scales to here would be Anankos being able to suck up a bunch of islands at about 16.38 Megatons. While this was impressive, Hanzo had this beat with scaling to the Omnic Titan tanking the volcano gun at 33.5 Megatons and Sigma being able to convert Orisa’s spear at 68.2 megatons. While these are both values they should realistically downscale from, it's hard to place the exact numbers for by how much, so this is the most solid way of comparing them. This would make Hanzo about 2 - 4 times stronger than the best feat Takumi can scale to in his own game, which isn’t too far off from him, but would still give Takumi an AP disadvantage if that’s where you want to stop.
However, that’s where we get into Takumi’s highest tier scaling, which would be scaling to Grima via Anankos being on par with him and the secret Awakening units being able to defeat him. To be clear, I’m not trying to suggest Takumi ought to fully scale to Grima’s full strength. However, downscaling from it at all would still put him massively above Hanzo’s scaling. For context, just the energy Grima needs to fly around would be 340.4 gigatons, or over 10000 times stronger than the best numbers you could give Hanzo. And while the amount Takumi should downscale from this is a bit unclear, I don’t think there’s a reason to assume that amount would be enough to assume he’s still in the same ballpark as Hanzo. If we were talking about one of the more basic units of the army then maybe I could see it, but the royals were explicitly shown to be the strongest members of the army besides Corrin themselves. And that’s without even bringing up stuff like Grima’s fight with Mila and Duma allegedly destroying the world or Moro being able to grant Lilith the power to create pocket dimensions, both of which were more vague feats, but I don’t think I need to compare numbers to show how that would pretty unquestionably make Takumi massively stronger even with heavy downscaling. So it’s a pretty safe bet to assume Takumi is taking the AP and durability edge.
Speed, however, was a category that was pretty unquestionably in Hanzo’s favor. Both of the two had plenty of instances of dealing with all kinds of projectiles, could easily hit higher values in the Mach range, and could even hit the relativistic range due to reacting to various light based projectiles. However, even being generous with FE speeds, there was nothing within the mainline titles that could compare to the many Overwatch characters who were able to outspeed Omnics, many of which Hanzo directly scales to thanks to Genji. Even assuming he downscales from this, that would still make Hanzo hundreds to thousands of times faster.
So, Takumi massively takes strength and durability to the point where Hanzo would realistically struggle to even do damage, whereas Takumi would likely take Hanzo out in a single blow. However, Hanzo’s massive speed edge meant actually landing that blow would be easier said than done, and he might conceivably be able to outmaneuver him and come up with a strategy to deal with the gap.
Arsenal & Abilities
When it came to their arsenals, there really was no question Takumi had the edge. Hanzo’s trick arrows would be able to give him options under normal circumstances, but none of them really would be that useful in practice here. The Scatter Arrows would be unlikely to be more than a minor annoyance due to the stat gap, the Sonic Arrows wouldn’t be necessary due to his speed edge making keeping track of Takumi a non-issue, and the Storm Arrows really wouldn’t be worth the tradeoff, as their faster firing speed is irrelevant when Hanzo is already blitzing, and the lower damage would make them objectively a worst option. Meanwhile, Takumi had a wide potential arsenal of weaponry he could use besides his main bow, whether that be other bows that could give situational benefits, or other weapons entirely that could give him situational benefits. You could make the argument that Hanzo could use his superior speed to take these weapons and use them for himself, but there are a couple issues with that argument.
Hanzo has never fought like this nor taken on someone who did this, meaning it might not even be an option he thinks of
There’s not much reason to assume any of Takumi's weapons would be strong enough to turn around the stat gap
Hanzo's code of honor has made him not wield a blade for years, so he in character likely would not opt to swap to non-bow weapons
Takumi’s far superior strength meant that realistically Hanzo couldn’t forcibly disarm him in the first place
So this isn’t exactly a bulletproof argument to use either.
Now we move onto the abilities category, and that similarly is something which Takumi handily takes. While Hanzo’s mobility options would let him better capitalize on his speed edge, Takumi’s variety of potential skills gave him a lot of options over Hanzo. Offensive abilities like Quick Draw, Life and Death, and Lethality give him ways to further boost his massive power edge, and defensive abilities like Natural Cover or Duelist's Blow could make the odds of Hanzo getting even chip damage unlikely. Replicate would also give him a pretty notable edge, as not only would Hanzo now have two opponents to keep track of, but an exact clone of himself being on the field means he could take advantage of his personal ability which boosts his power even more. But perhaps the most crucial addition these abilities could provide is multiple ways to lock down Hanzo’s speed edge. He could use Certain Blow, Bowbreaker, or Quixotic to boost his personal speed, or use Seal Speed or Vantage to reduce Hanzo’s speed. Granted, these might not be effective in completely closing the gap given how wide it is, but they were things Takumi could utilize to actively increase his odds of landing the one hit he needs which Hanzo really had no way to counter. And if you took some functional uses of the abilities literally, Takumi could use Lethality or Counter to more actively get the attack, as those are designed to always hit foes.
Now Hanzo did also have a major potential ace in the hole with Dragonstrike. Given its ability to bypass walls and shields, it could potentially act as a durability negating attack, and therefore it could take Takumi down regardless of the stat gap. Though there are issues with assuming this. First off, the attack does not deal equal amounts of damage to all foes, as tankier heroes can survive hits from it far longer than weaker ones, which wouldn’t exactly make sense if it could bypass natural durability. Even if you do assume it can do that, it’s also a rather slow and telegraphed attack. While Hanzo does have the speed edge, that’s mainly only in reaction and possibly movement speed, not attacking speed, meaning the projectile would not be moving massively faster than light like he can. So Takumi could conceivably dodge it if Hanzo tried busting it out. Additionally, the fact it’s his ultimate ability means he couldn’t just spam it a whole bunch, as that requires a meter to build to unleash it. It’s a little unclear if that meter is how he gets access to it out of gameplay, but there’s nothing suggesting other heroes could non stop spam similar abilities, so there’s no reason to assume Hanzo can.
The last major point to bring up would be forms. Hanzo obviously doesn’t have any, unless you wanted to assume Ana was randomly nearby ready to juice him up, whereas Takumi had his Infested form. Though granted, it is a little questionable if it counts as a full on “form” given it is explicitly done by a third party in Anankos possessing him, which could count as outside help. I still opted to list it as it’s a majorly important part of Takumi’s potential as a fighter and I’d imagine any animation of this fight would include it for the same reason, and I did allow for similar forms in the past with Bob. And similar to that, given Anankos is able to travel between worlds and was actively choosing Takumi as a pawn, it wouldn’t be unbelievable to assume it could still be a possibility, though admittedly it is realistically unlikely, as we've only seen it at full power when Takumi had died and left his body vulnerable to be possessed, which would be hard for Hanzo to do due to the aftermentioned advantages. And if it were to come into play, that just fucks Hanzo over even more, as not only does it possess even more passive abilities that just absolutely neuter Hanzo’s capabilities, it’s shockwaves would give a very powerful AOE attack that could catch out Hanzo without the chance to dodge. While these might not be able to kill him due to them only dealing half health, said blast could likely leave him vulnerable long enough to get wind arrowed.
So, while Hanzo does have a few options that could give him some edges over his foe, Takumi’s far wider spread of potential options meant he was far more equipped to access his win cons than Hanzo was for his.
Tertiary Factors
Finally, this category is a bit more even, as both had edges over each over. For Hanzo, he was the older of the two and had better confirmed training, as the training done by Takumi isn’t quite as clearly defined. On the other hand, Takumi definitely had the edge in experience. While Hanzo is older and had at least a decade of experience doing stuff on his own, there’s nothing to suggest he had any particularly noteworthy battles besides his one fight with Genji. As opposed to Takumi, who regardless of the route is a major active combatant in a long war with many other combatants. That simply was far more impressive than any of Hanzo’s offscreen assassin scuffles.
As for comparing weaknesses, both are rash and quick to anger, though generally that’s more an issue for Takumi, as Hanzo’s outbursts were more minor in comparison. Neither of the two’s mechanical weaknesses would likely hinder them, as “is more suited to taking out high priority targets” isn’t a massive hindrance when you’re in a one on one fight. Takumi being a glass cannon likely didn’t mean much, as that’s mainly in the context of his own world and not when against someone who’s massively weaker. And Hanzo potentially having to deal with limited ammo certainly did not help his case, as Takumi’s wider arsenal of infinite durability and main bow being magic based instead of relying on arrows meant he was far more prepared for a war of attrition than Hanzo. Just another log to the fire I suppose.
Conclusion
Advantages:
Slightly takes AP without Takumi’s high end scaling…
Definitely far faster speeds and better mobility
Dragonstrike may let him take Takumi out regardless of the stat edge…
Infested Takumi may not come into play realistically…
Likely superior in terms of skill and has the more stable personality
Dragons is the best animated short…
Paul Nakauchi’s voice acting
Hotter
Disadvantages:
…but is massively weaker with it.
Massively less versatile
Takumi had multiple ways to slow him enough to land the one blow he needed
…but it was questionable if it could and it was inferior to Takumi’s options regardless
…but if it did it just gave Takumi more options to screw him over
Inferior in overall experience
Toxic fanbase
…though Hanzo hasn’t been relevant in the lore since it released
Advantages:
Should massively take AP with high end scaling…
Massively more versatile
Had multiple ways to slow Hanzo enough to land the one blow he needed
Generally had more reliable wincons than Hanzo
Infested Takumi would give him even more options…
Superior in overall experience
Actually relevant to his series
Disadvantages:
…but a bit weaker without it.
Definitely far slower and less mobile
Dragonstrike may let Hanzo take him out regardless of the stat edge
…but it may not come into play realistically
Likely inferior in terms of skill and has the less stable personality
Toxic fanbase
The face rubbing getting cut in localization was a good thing and I will stand by it
While you might think Hanzo’s massive speed edge alone is enough to let him easily win on paper, when you break everything down, between his superior strength, greater versatility, and more relevant experience, Takumi had about everything he needed to ensure this dragon’s descent. Unfortunately for Hanzo, his defeat was fated from the start.
The winner is Takumi
Next Time
Conker vs The Postal Dude
(Conker’s Bad Fur Day vs Postal)
Sourcelist:
Special thanks to @notatruename, who made a lot of the Fire Emblem calcs here
One thing I don’t agree with about this blog is saying emblem ring scaling is in anyway comparable to shovel knight fighting kratos.
ReplyDeleteSpecifically because engage is straight up canon.
Just say you don’t wanna buy engage scaling. It’s totally fine if you don’t. But calling it a “crossover” when the only crossover happening is games between its own series is very silly lmao.
Otherwise this is really well done.