Question Do you think stats are important to judge of the outcome of a battle?

[Lucy>Wendy&Elfman]

I wanted to people's opinion

 

[Loke]

Yeah? Stats in most cases trump hax since if you're not relative to your opponent to make use of said hax you'll get blitzed and one tapped

 

[WoWfan]

That only really happens if a character is explicitly stats to be physically weak with hax or stated that hax only works on a certain level of strength.

 

[Nemispelled]

I voted No, because while they are important to consider, I personally don't see them as being very predictive of an outcome in a battle.

And for most cases in FT, I find it pretty difficult to quantify each character's stats to begin with. Usually, character stats involve a lot of guesswork and subjective formulas because they are rarely explicitly stated in the manga.

On the rare occasion that the author does release character stats (via Tartaros character cards, for example), those numbers still seem somewhat arbitrary when compared to the actual battles themselves. However, I do believe that those stats can be a decent estimate when it comes to classifying the characters by tiers.

Anyways, when it comes to judging the outcome of a battle, I prefer to look at the situational or external factors involved in the particular match-up. For many fights in the FT manga, I actually think that the results of the battles could have gone either way, depending on the characters' individual performances at the time.

Sure, there are cases where stats become more obvious - in the case of higher-tier characters vs. lower-tier characters.

But if stats were extremely crucial in determining the outcome of a battle, then you would rarely see the characters try to outclass their opponents through the use of advantages/disadvantages.

 

[Sanity Check]

Stats can be important for profiling the outcome of conflicts.

But key stats like the size of someone's heart, or capacity to learn, can't be measured.

 

[Seven777]

Not at all. The only factor for a character's victory is if Mashima thinks they're stronger OR if Mashima just needs them to win to progress the plot. The best you can do is make a guess of how strong Mashima thinks a character is based on the feats he gives them and the way he portrays them. How fast they actually are or how hard the character hits or how much MP they have isn't really a factor

Even if you're so fast you should speed blitz whoever you fight, or so durable you can no-sell everyone's attacks, you could still be oneshot by hax, like Natsu is every other fight. Similarly having OP hax that should let you beat literally anyone is also meaningless, because the person you use it on could just outright ignore it even if they're equal or below you, eg. Macro.

 

[Cosmicstar]

Who the writer wants to win is far greater than Stats. Haku is described as faster than Light but a character like Wendy in base was able to react to him and she is far from FTL. Then you had Madmole who was so durable Elfman in Lion form hurt himself from punching Madmole that he reverted back to human form. However somehow off screen this changed without any explanation. None of Mirajane attacks work against Skullion physical or nukes but somehow off screen this changes. Basically feats aren't consistent enough to determine exact stats for any character. In 100 year quest alone there are multiple contradictions in power that don't make sense and aren't explained or if explained fail to give a good explanation. Lucy in Taurus form could not physically contend with Mimi however in a weaker physical Virgo form she was able to physically harm Mimi. How Erza and Wendy were overpowered by a few of Youka Yokai even after Wendy enchanted them with Spiror the first time but the second round they were able to easily defeat infinite amounts of Yokai. How Hakune one shot Natsu and Gray but somehow the second time Gray began immune because of the BS explanation of him changing his power, which based upon the description of Hakune magic shouldn't have really mattered. This is just the 100 year quest. There are other examples in the original manga.

I mean Stats can't accurately be determined because Natsu goes from having Fire strong enough to burn away infinite magic and time to not being strong enough to use fire in water. Lucy AquaMetria goes from turning a huge area of land into flowing earth to the same attack being barely room size. Aquarius water struggles to block Jackal while the same magic later casually blocks his nukes.

With that said in ideal writing then stats would be a role but so would specific magics, haxs and counters. For example if Lucy and Jacob were written accurately then while Jacob would have had more magical power and greater hax and overall skills than Lucy the battle would more than likely be in Lucy's favor given her ability to counter majority of his power from his Stealth(Leo Light), Transport(Hologium), and Combat(Leo/Capricorn).

 

[ShaLIGHTNING]

In fights involving good guys, absolutely not, as will power always reign supreme.

While for side character, oh yes it does.