Type-Moon: Fate/stay night, Tsukihime, and Kara no Kyoukai discussion

So basically she can't fight while it's active?

She can’t make an attack while Avalon is active

Avalon is the ultimate defense

It's very good when enemy has already fired their NP, but, boy, does Avalon sounds sucky for straightforward mano a mano brawl.

The Hippogriff was probably designed to riff off it

Considering Apo is The Force Awakens of Fate

The victory at the end of Fate route is hinges on Shirou and Saber understanding how to use Avalon and at the very last moment, triumphantly succeed.

I suppose the most optimal way to use Avalon in combat is to basically be the most precise counter fighter ever; use Avalon to stop the attack and then counter with your strongest attack. But then that’s contingent on your enemy going NANI like Gilgamesh

Honestly, Avalon works better as a passive healer than as a shield outright.

wait I thought Avalon also worked as a mana battery

Avalon is OP by design, which is why it's only used once in the entire franchise.

Shame the same doesn't apply to other OP stuff.

It honestly never sounded that amazing to me. It feels like it's only actually valuable as a surprise tactic to negate one big attack and then get an opening, which is a strategy that only works when your opponent doesn't know you can do that.

If you don't see the value of a unbreakable defense then I don't know what to tell you.

I mean, it's a amazing Noble Phantasm.

But way less so in a HGW, since that just forces the other-side's win condition to Kill the Master.

In a regular HGW I wouldn't expect it to be enough to carry a team until the end, bar circumstances coinciding.

Doesn't Avalon also gives Saber one hell of a Healing Factor?

Master getting killed is always a risk but if it was so easy the opponents would do it either way.

It wouldn't allow a weak Servant to win the war all on it's own, but in hands of Saber who is already a high-end Servant, it becomes a real game breaker.

Yeah it does. It also increases her prana reserves.

It's an unbreakable defense where you can't attack when using it and is extremely costly to use. I don't find it that valuable. I'd rather have defenses like Siegfried, Karna, Herk or Quetz. Hell, Quetz can No-Sell Saber 100% of the time at no cost. The other effects it grants seem more generally useful to me.

Really, Saber got power crept.

Edited by Arha on Oct 17th 2019 at 10:29:39 AM

At least until a retcon in FGO comes along and says "Oh, hey, Avalon can do this too!"

You know it's happening.

Lostbelt 6 is one giant NP interlude for Artoria.

Not the Artoria, mind you, but some alternate Artoria who wields a giant bubble blower that makes her a Caster for some reason.

Also she has thighs that would make Rin jealous

It's Arthur, and for some reason he's ten feet tall and part dragon.

Manaka is there too possessing Nero, Morgana, and BB, while Koyanskaya is on a leash alongside Manakas fellow Beast pet Revy-kun.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Oct 17th 2019 at 8:54:42 AM

Saber cut Gilgamesh when Avalon was still active, don't know where you getting that you can't attack while using it.

Also, extremely costly to use? Saber activated it while literally on her last legs. I don't think it even has to be activated, it's described as working from the instant it's grabbed.

All the lesser defenses just block weak attacks and the get worfed to show off how strong someone is. It's silly to even compare them to Avalon.

You have to get out of Avalon to attack

The final slash is her getting out quickly and being faster at activating Excalislash while Gil is too slow with Enuma Elish after being surprised

You do remember she actually got hit with Ea during that fight, right? Gilgamesh held back just enough that she wouldn't die, which she accounted for and used as part of her strategy. That means it was not active the entire fight. She used Avalon for a split second to block Ea, then dropped it and in that tiny split second gap she fired a point blank Excalibur before he could recover. That she only used it for a split second and once during the entire fight strongly implies that it's not easy to use consecutively.

Quetz's defense is never broken. Also, stop using story logic to point out that other Servants' defensive NPs have failed, of course they did. That doesn't mean they aren't more efficient, more generally useful and occasionally equally strong.

Edited by Arha on Oct 17th 2019 at 1:14:35 PM

It’s interesting to compare

Armor of Fafnir does not have the absolute rule of God Hand but has better innate defense for physical A Rank attacks because it subtracts value instead of not applying

Kavacha and Kundala has the unconditional 90% rule which applies to everything physical and conceptual which is supplemented by Karna having good innate regen if properly supplied with magical energy.

Akhilles Kosmos is great for countering different classifications of N Ps except for Anti-World, can be used offensively, and can only be broken by the most powerful of N Ps. Of course his other Divinity protection shits on everyone who doesn’t have Divinity

Lord Camelot is based on how much you believe in yourself so that has a high theoretical threshold.

Luminosite Eternelle uses the EX rank MR of its user to create an Ao E defense.

Quetz’s Authority is basically fuck you to anyone of Good Alignment; nothing you do then will have any affect.

Avalon comes with very good regen and extra reserves of magical energy while its untouchable state is even immune to all five Magics.

So our best defenses here rely on different methods to be most effective. If you want something always active defensively that lets you be free to fight, the armors are the best bet. For a period of absolute defense overall, the Arthurian N Ps are the best. To discriminate against certain types, the conditional defenses cannot be overturned. For more Ao E to protect the most people, you can also promote stuff like AK and LE.

Some aspects are stronger than others and even tho Avalon is the highest rank, doesn’t mean the other defenses are necessarily shittier.

You are using story reason (that a trump card is only used at the last moment and not spammed) to insist that Avalon has some great cost that is never mentioned.

The other defenses are not broken because "story reasons". They all have explicit limitations in either power or type of attack they can defend against. Only Avalon is effective against everything.

Funny enough, but that's never actually mentioned. At no point does the novel say that Saber deactivated Avalon.

Been thinking about finally getting my lazy bum out and actually reading the VN, if only for Heaven's Feel. Can I just skip right to that route, or do I have to read the other two first?

You can’t skip, nor should you

Avalon puts you in a state of absolute defense but you are removed from the area of action. You aren’t there to attack. What Saber did was use Avalon to stop Ea and then come out to shank a panicking Gilgamesh who was trying to release another Enuma Elish.

The scene in question does not suggest that Avalon is a convenient spot to camp and attack without repercussions