Jedi vs Protoss Zealot

[Simon_Jester]

The reason the "run versus hunt" strategy is an issue is that it points out that Grievous may be masking weaknesses in his battle tactics and equipment by only engaging on favorable terms.

Now, he's certainly dangerous if he's a canny warrior who has a knack for only engaging Jedi on his own terms. But at the same time, that leads to the question "what places him at a disadvantage such that he has to keep breaking off his attacks so often?"

One, the organic parts of his body are still limited- he has tremendous limb strength and can probably swing his arms all day without getting tired because his arms are robotic. But that doesn't mean he's truly immune to fatigue, or to his species' equivalent of adrenaline poisoning. Maybe he uses combat stims or something so that his organic brain can keep up with the speed of his mechanical limbs... and that itself has limits. We don't know- but we do know that Grievous has a physically limited organic body inside his cyborg shell, and that in his fight with Obi-Wan Grievous displays symptoms of physical ill-health that could be a weakness.

Two, Grievous isn't psychic. He can't foresee the future, so his duels with Jedi have to revolve around creating a situation where either the Jedi cannot use prescience against him, or creating a situation where the Jedi is doomed no matter what they do.

Three, he has no defense against lightsabers other than physically parrying with his own collection of lightsabers- so he does not want to be caught fighting multiple Jedi opponents at once, or anything else that might make it possible for one of them to get a strike in.
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Now, Fenix shares the first weakness, at least in principle- but is a member of a species that are superhuman physical specimens in many ways, not just in terms of the speed and strength of their bodies. I think that Fenix will not be in any danger of hitting his physical limits against Obi-Wan; he may die but he is unlikely to die exhausted.

Fenix may not share the second weakness, since the Protoss are psychic and use their psychic abilities in combat. Whether this gives them any degree of Jedi-like prescience is unknown- it may not, because we know that Zealots do not use Jedi-style parrying of ranged attacks. Nor do they appear to do much dodging of enemy fire, relying instead on their armor and shielding to absorb the fire.

Fenix does not share the third weakness- he has personal shields that will likely protect him from a few lightsaber slashes, and which might even recharge at a tactically significant speed in a prolonged duel. Obi-Wan will have to hit him repeatedly, probably over a short period, to put him down- and Obi-Wan's fighting style does not lend itself to this kind of all-out attack. Anakin might actually be a better choice here because he's a more aggressive and dynamic swordsman.
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Conversely, Grievous may have a few advantages Fenix lacks. For one, Grievous DOES know when to retreat from a losing fight, whereas Fenix... well frankly, that's how he wound up in a Dragoon body in the first place. He was bold, aggressive, striding forward to confront what turned out to be one Hydralisk too many, although it's not clear to me why his psi-blades suddenly shorted out there.

For another, Grievous may be striking incrementally faster and harder than Fenix even if they're both superhumanly strong. Although that might not matter much, since just adding more strength doesn't seem to make it much harder for a Jedi to fight you.

[Lord Revan]

I dunno if it was ever officially stated one way or another, I when I played the orginal Starcraft I took it as Fenix getting exhausted/tired that he was no longer able to focus his powers into the blades and thus they turned off.

[Me2005]

Conversely, Grievous may have a few advantages Fenix lacks. For one, Grievous DOES know when to retreat from a losing fight, whereas Fenix... well frankly, that's how he wound up in a Dragoon body in the first place. He was bold, aggressive, striding forward to confront what turned out to be one Hydralisk too many, although it's not clear to me why his psi-blades suddenly shorted out there.

I thought it was some kind of interference from the Overmind messing up the psi-force those blades are made up of. Pretty sure there's no risk of that in this battle, any more so than Obi-Wan's lightsaber giving up.

They use them, but that's not the same as "they're effective." Gameplay is designed to be balanced, but that doesn't mean gameplay designs are actually effective.

I'm not sure whether 'they're effective' in this situation, but I know that the Protoss know how to use them effectively. Perhaps to their maximum effectiveness, something that may or may not be better than lightsaber dueling.

Wrist-blades are not as effective as swords. This isn't really in dispute. You can know how to use a hammer that has two claw-sides and no flat head as effectively as it's possible to use one, but it's not as effective as a hammer with a flat head.

I guess my point here was that, for the Protoss, they work. Perhaps their physiology is such that they have an extra wrist, or more flexibility in the way their arms move, enabling them to use a arm-mounted blade more effectively than a human could use it. Just looked it up, and apparently all Protoss bladed-weaponry (even the warp-blades the Dark Templar use) is arm-mounted. Would using a sword in hand be even better for them then? Perhaps. But I think that the Protoss wielding them will be more effective than we would expect from our historical examples, otherwise the Protoss would have stopped and switched to something else. In universe, they use them and are uncontested as the most powerful swordsmen in their galaxy. Just like how in universe, the Jedi use lightsabers (and maybe soon light-greatswords?) and are uncontested as the greatest swordsman in their galaxy. Would using light-katanas or light-greatswords or light-spears-and-light-shields be better? Possibly, but the Jedi use lightsabers.

As an aside, I do happen to know (From experiance! That was a fun experiment from a few years ago) that an advantage of an arm-mounted blade is that it is harder to deflect, as you've got your whole arm to control it with instead of just your wrist. It's like having a shield with a stabby-end. Against a strong opponent, it'd be very difficult to parry.

Through the path of the Khala, zealots learn to hone their innate battle rage to a fine edge, though they can invoke a near-berserker rage when in battle if need be

You say that like battle rage is a good thing. Good warriors over history have been cool, collected, professional. The "berserker" who waded into battle frenzy-mad with rage didn't ever really exist. From what I understand, the reason they're called "Zealots" is because they're fanatically devoted to self-control, because without that control, Protoss become filled with hatred and self-destructive.

The quote is from the SC wiki, which is probably in turn quoting the manual. For the Zealots, controlled battle rage is a good thing. I'm pretty sure I quoted it earlier saying the rage increases the power of their psi-blades.

[Simon_Jester]

I dunno if it was ever officially stated one way or another, I when I played the orginal Starcraft I took it as Fenix getting exhausted/tired that he was no longer able to focus his powers into the blades and thus they turned off.

In that case he definitely has a problem with not knowing when to quit.

[Terralthra]

I guess my point here was that, for the Protoss, they work. Perhaps their physiology is such that they have an extra wrist, or more flexibility in the way their arms move, enabling them to use a arm-mounted blade more effectively than a human could use it. Just looked it up, and apparently all Protoss bladed-weaponry (even the warp-blades the Dark Templar use) is arm-mounted. Would using a sword in hand be even better for them then? Perhaps. But I think that the Protoss wielding them will be more effective than we would expect from our historical examples, otherwise the Protoss would have stopped and switched to something else. In universe, they use them and are uncontested as the most powerful swordsmen in their galaxy. Just like how in universe, the Jedi use lightsabers (and maybe soon light-greatswords?) and are uncontested as the greatest swordsman in their galaxy. Would using light-katanas or light-greatswords or light-spears-and-light-shields be better? Possibly, but the Jedi use lightsabers.

Lightsabre-users have used a number of variants on a lightsabre over the millenia. Light-pikes, light-clubs (larger, thicker, heavier), light-epees, shorter lightsabres, pairs of lightsabres, light-staffs, light-whips, all have made appearances. The standard 1-1.2m longsword-style seems to dominate (just like 0.9-1.2m blades have dominated real-life swordfighting for most of human history). Notably, spears tend to be better when they're in groups of soldiers, while an individual combatant has more flexibility with a medium-length sword. Curved swords are at least partially designed to be able to slash more efficiently through something while lowering the chance of the blade getting stuck in the target, which is not an issue for lightsabres.

In other words, Jedi have experimented with - and continue to experiment with - different styles of weapons and manners of using them, despite multiple millenia of history and doctrine.

There are a number of reasons why Protoss (or anyone) might continue to use ineffective weapons even when there are better options. That you think "they use them, therefore they're the best option" in the light of history is hilarious.

The quote is from the SC wiki, which is probably in turn quoting the manual. For the Zealots, controlled battle rage is a good thing. I'm pretty sure I quoted it earlier saying the rage increases the power of their psi-blades.

Maybe the stupid "battle rage is good" thing explains why Fenix died stupidly.

[Me2005]

The quote is from the SC wiki, which is probably in turn quoting the manual. For the Zealots, controlled battle rage is a good thing. I'm pretty sure I quoted it earlier saying the rage increases the power of their psi-blades.

Maybe the stupid "battle rage is good" thing explains why Fenix died stupidly.

I dunno if it was ever officially stated one way or another, I when I played the orginal Starcraft I took it as Fenix getting exhausted/tired that he was no longer able to focus his powers into the blades and thus they turned off.

In that case he definitely has a problem with not knowing when to quit.

I thought it was some kind of interference from the Overmind messing up the psi-force those blades are made up of. ...

I'm pretty sure it's heavily implied that my speculation is the issue. It could also be true that he was finally exhausted, but in this case, it'd be because he was defending his homeworld and couldn't really retreat to anywhere.

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...In other words, Jedi have experimented with - and continue to experiment with - different styles of weapons and manners of using them, despite multiple millenia of history and doctrine.

Is any of that still cannon? Again, I'm largely using just the movies, but at the most I've seen duel-weilders and a double-bladed sword/staff in addition to the regular varied-length saber.

There are a number of reasons why Protoss (or anyone) might continue to use ineffective weapons even when there are better options. That you think "they use them, therefore they're the best option" in the light of history is hilarious.

No, no; I think "they use them, therefore they're the best option for that race in their universe." That doesn't mean that they'll be an instant-win against Obi-Wan's lightsaber, but it doesn't mean they are an explicit disadvantage either. Our history is irrelevant as it is not in their universe and we are not Protoss. If Obi-Wan was using one, you'd have good reason to use our history as an example, because he is human and at least shares our physiology.

And to clarify, I think it's possible Fenix is at a slight disadvantage blade-for-blade against the lightsaber, but I feel that his having two blades puts him on the level there.

The reason I think he'd win the fight is the stack of little things he has going for him, not any one item on the list. He has shields that will absorb a few hits (and possibly recharge to absorb more), Obi doesn't. He has two blades to Obi's one. He is bigger, stronger, and faster. He has some form of precognition to at least partially negate Obi's. He wears protective armor, Obi doesn't. He likely has greater control of his emotions than Obi-Wan does. He has decades more training and experience in combat than Obi has life experience. His life is dedicated to war and combat, Jedi are meant largely as peacekeepers and ambassadors with (still great) fighting capabilities. He has no fear, even in the face of death - especially considering he knows he will be whisked away before he dies and can expect to live on. The fight is on terms more favorable to him than to Obi, the arena is shown to be difficult for the Jedi and many of them get slaughtered there, while Fenix thrives in open combat (shoot, same match, but in the Emperor's throne room in the DS2? Obi gets the advantage and it'd be a much more difficult call).

[Terralthra]

I thought it was some kind of interference from the Overmind messing up the psi-force those blades are made up of. ...

I'm pretty sure it's heavily implied that my speculation is the issue. It could also be true that he was finally exhausted, but in this case, it'd be because he was defending his homeworld and couldn't really retreat to anywhere.

Implied...by what? If psychic interference from the Zerg can shut down his psiblade, why can't Obi-Wan do the same? Also, he was defending a provincial outpost on his homeworld. He could obviously retreat, because his "comrades" retrieved his body and retreated with it to implant his mind into a Dragoon (direct quote).

...In other words, Jedi have experimented with - and continue to experiment with - different styles of weapons and manners of using them, despite multiple millenia of history and doctrine.

Is any of that still cannon? Again, I'm largely using just the movies, but at the most I've seen duel-wielders and a double-bladed sword/staff in addition to the regular varied-length saber.

Dooku used an epee-style handle optimized for one-handed use, effectively an epee- or foil-styled lightsabre. Ahsoka uses a shoto (short) lightsabre in her off-hand. Asajj Ventress uses two foil-style sabres that can connect to be a staff.

There are a number of reasons why Protoss (or anyone) might continue to use ineffective weapons even when there are better options. That you think "they use them, therefore they're the best option" in the light of history is hilarious.

No, no; I think "they use them, therefore they're the best option for that race in their universe." That doesn't mean that they'll be an instant-win against Obi-Wan's lightsaber, but it doesn't mean they are an explicit disadvantage either. Our history is irrelevant as it is not in their universe and we are not Protoss. If Obi-Wan was using one, you'd have good reason to use our history as an example, because he is human and at least shares our physiology.

Militaries can continue to use weapons that are less effective than the alternative if the disadvantage is sufficiently overpowered by other advantages elsewhere in their military-industrial complex. In the case of Protoss, they're the "best sword users in the region", with zero visible other contenders. Terran marines don't use melee weapons, and Zerg use natural claws, not separate melee weapons. Versus anyone seen, the fact that their weapons can cut through anything makes them ridiculously powerful, enough so that it doesn't particularly matter how they wield it. Faced with a weapon that can block it, the relative ineffectiveness will be more meaningful.

And to clarify, I think it's possible Fenix is at a slight disadvantage blade-for-blade against the lightsaber, but I feel that his having two blades puts him on the level there.

Kenobi has plenty of experience dueling opponents with 2-4 blades. I don't think he's at all at a disadvantage.

The reason I think he'd win the fight is the stack of little things he has going for him, not any one item on the list. He has shields that will absorb a few hits (and possibly recharge to absorb more), Obi doesn't. He has two blades to Obi's one. He is bigger, stronger, and faster. He has some form of precognition to at least partially negate Obi's. He wears protective armor, Obi doesn't. He likely has greater control of his emotions than Obi-Wan does. He has decades more training and experience in combat than Obi has life experience. His life is dedicated to war and combat, Jedi are meant largely as peacekeepers and ambassadors with (still great) fighting capabilities. He has no fear, even in the face of death - especially considering he knows he will be whisked away before he dies and can expect to live on. The fight is on terms more favorable to him than to Obi, the arena is shown to be difficult for the Jedi and many of them get slaughtered there, while Fenix thrives in open combat (shoot, same match, but in the Emperor's throne room in the DS2? Obi gets the advantage and it'd be a much more difficult call).

He has shields that might absorb a few hits. He has two blades, but Kenobi is experienced at combating two blades. He's bigger, but stronger and faster is not in evidence. Obi-Wan can and has moved fast enough to blur, and has enough strength to overpower cyborgs and robots with high mechanical strength. No evidence that Fenix's (non-head, non-upper-arm, non-lower torso covering) armor will protect against a lightsabre. Jedi are peacekeepers and ambassadors, yes, but as stated, Kenobi isn't just another Jedi, he's acknowledged by the Order of the time as one of the supreme masters of the lightsabre of the time, and the master of defensive techniques.

Kenobi also has several large advantages: Jedi combat precognition is demonstrated on screen to be incredibly good; it's good enough to reflexively, while having a conversation, not only block blaster shots, but reflect them back at the shooter. Kenobi can throw large objects at Fenix, which Fenix will have to dodge or deal with somehow, and he can also push Fenix himself around.

[Lord Revan]

We should also remember that the Protoss were highly arrogant, the very fact Fenix and Tassadar accepted that humans could used for something else then target practice made them practically paragons of humility for their culture and even that took major effort to be achivied

[Me2005]

Implied...by what? If psychic interference from the Zerg can shut down his psiblade, why can't Obi-Wan do the same? Also, he was defending a provincial outpost on his homeworld. He could obviously retreat, because his "comrades" retrieved his body and retreated with it to implant his mind into a Dragoon (direct quote).

Implied by the way the game plays out. It seemed (to me) that the Overmind was messing with the psionic forces. Obi-wan might be able to replicate that, but not in the timescale of one duel.

His retreat was of the automated type - all Zealots' armor is equipped to teleport them back to medical when they are near death. Where the medical facilities that preform those services are isn't really clarified, and must be mobile as Aiur is overrun but the Protoss continue to do it.

Dooku used an epee-style handle optimized for one-handed use, effectively an epee- or foil-styled lightsabre. Ahsoka uses a shoto (short) lightsabre in her off-hand. Asajj Ventress uses two foil-style sabres that can connect to be a staff.

Those sound essentially like variations that I already mentioned, barring the one-handed optimizations, and a lightsaber is already shown used one-handed without modification.

Kenobi has plenty of experience dueling opponents with 2-4 blades. I don't think he's at all at a disadvantage.

His having experience doing a thing has nothing to do with whether or not Fenix's having two blades is better than his having one, unless Kenobi is an expert at dispatching multi-bladed opponents and not nearly as good against single-bladed opponents. If having one arm-mounted blade is a disadvantage, two arm-mounted blades is at least less of a disadvantage, which is all I was trying to get across.

He's bigger, but stronger and faster is not in evidence. Obi-Wan can and has moved fast enough to blur, and has enough strength to overpower cyborgs and robots with high mechanical strength.

I don't think he's moved fast enough to blur for long periods. Fenix is, in game mechanic terms, among the fastest ground units in Starcraft. Faster are the normal and upgraded Vulture, upgraded Zergling, broodling (barely), and upgraded Ultralisk. As fast are stimpacked Marines/Firebats, the Lurker, and infested Terrans. That doesn't really compare well apples-to-apples, but I'd guess that Fenix is consistently faster than Obi-Wan, and Obi-wan can outrun Fenix over short sprints.

No evidence that Fenix's (non-head, non-upper-arm, non-lower torso covering) armor will protect against a lightsabre.

(To preface this: I've only got game data to go off of) but his armor is as strong as his shield and his shields are 4x the strength of standard Zealots (that take 3-4 bursts of 4-10 rounds from the Marine gauss-gun that should punch holes in reinforced concrete). So he'd take 12-16 bursts of fire to drop shields, than another 12-16 to finish off - in short succession. If they aren't in short-succession; if he holds back to recharge, it'll take another 12-16 bursts before he actually starts getting hurt. All this while each round is approximately the power of a blaster shot, and it only takes one (well placed) of those to finish Grevious. So call it ~96 blaster shots delivered all at once to kill Fenix. Even if each burst is approximately the power of a blaster shot instead of each round, it'd take 24 blaster shots to finish him. Jedi, on the other hand, are shown felled with only 1-2 blaster hits.

I don't know how well blaster shots translate to lightsaber hits, but if we assume a regular Zealot's shield should block a few hits, his should block several (10ish), and his armor should absorb about as many, unless lightsabers can only be blocked by shields. Even then, we do see Zealots fight each other, and their armor does take several hits from blades we've established are similar to lightsabers.

That seems borderline absurd, but really, making a few reasonable assumptions (lightsabers ~ psi blades, blaster shots ~ marine rounds) and using game data, Fenix appears to have stunning durability.

Jedi are peacekeepers and ambassadors, yes, but as stated, Kenobi isn't just another Jedi, he's acknowledged by the Order of the time as one of the supreme masters of the lightsabre of the time, and the master of defensive techniques.

His mastery in one universe does not make him competitive in all universes. Plunked into 40k, I'd expect him to get wasted one way or another. Plunked into a fight against a hero from Starcraft, I'm expecting him to get beat in the end, barring plot armor.

Kenobi also has several large advantages: Jedi combat precognition is demonstrated on screen to be incredibly good; it's good enough to reflexively, while having a conversation, not only block blaster shots, but reflect them back at the shooter. Kenobi can throw large objects at Fenix, which Fenix will have to dodge or deal with somehow, and he can also push Fenix himself around.

I do not recall Kenobi throwing large objects in the arena in question, excepting droid parts that won't be present.

[Terralthra]

Implied...by what? If psychic interference from the Zerg can shut down his psiblade, why can't Obi-Wan do the same? Also, he was defending a provincial outpost on his homeworld. He could obviously retreat, because his "comrades" retrieved his body and retreated with it to implant his mind into a Dragoon (direct quote).

Implied by the way the game plays out. It seemed (to me) that the Overmind was messing with the psionic forces. Obi-wan might be able to replicate that, but not in the timescale of one duel.

His retreat was of the automated type - all Zealots' armor is equipped to teleport them back to medical when they are near death. Where the medical facilities that preform those services are isn't really clarified, and must be mobile as Aiur is overrun but the Protoss continue to do it.

In game, he says his "ruined body was recovered by [his] brethren". That doesn't sound like an automated process to me.

Dooku used an epee-style handle optimized for one-handed use, effectively an epee- or foil-styled lightsabre. Ahsoka uses a shoto (short) lightsabre in her off-hand. Asajj Ventress uses two foil-style sabres that can connect to be a staff.

Those sound essentially like variations that I already mentioned, barring the one-handed optimizations, and a lightsaber is already shown used one-handed without modification.

Variations from epee to longsword are pretty significant across the history of swordfighting. You're either glossing over centuries of evolution in the sword, or you're professing a profound ignorance of swordfighting.

Kenobi has plenty of experience dueling opponents with 2-4 blades. I don't think he's at all at a disadvantage.

His having experience doing a thing has nothing to do with whether or not Fenix's having two blades is better than his having one, unless Kenobi is an expert at dispatching multi-bladed opponents and not nearly as good against single-bladed opponents. If having one arm-mounted blade is a disadvantage, two arm-mounted blades is at least less of a disadvantage, which is all I was trying to get across.

Sure, slightly less of a disadvantage. But it's still nowhere close to an advantage.

He's bigger, but stronger and faster is not in evidence. Obi-Wan can and has moved fast enough to blur, and has enough strength to overpower cyborgs and robots with high mechanical strength.

I don't think he's moved fast enough to blur for long periods. Fenix is, in game mechanic terms, among the fastest ground units in Starcraft. Faster are the normal and upgraded Vulture, upgraded Zergling, broodling (barely), and upgraded Ultralisk. As fast are stimpacked Marines/Firebats, the Lurker, and infested Terrans. That doesn't really compare well apples-to-apples, but I'd guess that Fenix is consistently faster than Obi-Wan, and Obi-wan can outrun Fenix over short sprints.

Obi-Wan is way faster, and that corridor may be a sprint, but the arena is not big enough for it to be a marathon. Sprint speed matters far more for combat, and Obi-Wan's got it.

No evidence that Fenix's (non-head, non-upper-arm, non-lower torso covering) armor will protect against a lightsabre.

(To preface this: I've only got game data to go off of) but his armor is as strong as his shield and his shields are 4x the strength of standard Zealots (that take 3-4 bursts of 4-10 rounds from the Marine gauss-gun that should punch holes in reinforced concrete). So he'd take 12-16 bursts of fire to drop shields, than another 12-16 to finish off - in short succession. If they aren't in short-succession; if he holds back to recharge, it'll take another 12-16 bursts before he actually starts getting hurt. All this while each round is approximately the power of a blaster shot, and it only takes one (well placed) of those to finish Grevious. So call it ~96 blaster shots delivered all at once to kill Fenix. Even if each burst is approximately the power of a blaster shot instead of each round, it'd take 24 blaster shots to finish him. Jedi, on the other hand, are shown felled with only 1-2 blaster hits.

I don't know how well blaster shots translate to lightsaber hits, but if we assume a regular Zealot's shield should block a few hits, his should block several (10ish), and his armor should absorb about as many, unless lightsabers can only be blocked by shields. Even then, we do see Zealots fight each other, and their armor does take several hits from blades we've established are similar to lightsabers.

That seems borderline absurd, but really, making a few reasonable assumptions (lightsabers ~ psi blades, blaster shots ~ marine rounds) and using game data, Fenix appears to have stunning durability.

Do we see Zealots fighting each other in cutscenes? If so, link them. If it's in gameplay, sorry, don't buy it. The gameplay is not particularly acceptable as evidence because it has to be balanced. By gameplay standards, lightsabres take several swipes to slice through an average stormtrooper, and can't damage walls, floors, or ceilings at all. It's nonsensical, and done to have a game that's competitive. If lightsabres were as powerful as they're shown in the movies, the JK/JA games would be ridiculous walkovers of everything except lightsabre fights, as locked doors and squads of stormtroopers are meaningless to a 12 year-old youngling, let alone a full Knight.

Jedi are peacekeepers and ambassadors, yes, but as stated, Kenobi isn't just another Jedi, he's acknowledged by the Order of the time as one of the supreme masters of the lightsabre of the time, and the master of defensive techniques.

His mastery in one universe does not make him competitive in all universes. Plunked into 40k, I'd expect him to get wasted one way or another. Plunked into a fight against a hero from Starcraft, I'm expecting him to get beat in the end, barring plot armor.

Mastery in one universe doesn't apply to other universes....but magically Fenix's mastery applies to lightsabre combat? What? Make up your mind. If you're saying that the overall swordfighting skill in StarCraft is just that much incredibly better than that in Star Wars, I'll ask for some evidence, because that seems relatively outlandish. Swordfighting in SC is depicted as "some dudes with glowing Wolverine claws punch everyone".

Kenobi also has several large advantages: Jedi combat precognition is demonstrated on screen to be incredibly good; it's good enough to reflexively, while having a conversation, not only block blaster shots, but reflect them back at the shooter. Kenobi can throw large objects at Fenix, which Fenix will have to dodge or deal with somehow, and he can also push Fenix himself around.

I do not recall Kenobi throwing large objects in the arena in question, excepting droid parts that won't be present.

He can still push Fenix around quite a bit (considering what else he pushes on-screen), and I note you don't address how ridiculously good Jedi combat precognition is, to the point that, and I realize I'm belaboring this point: on screen, an at-best adolescent initiate is shown attacking and defeating a squadron of armored, blaster-toting stormtroopers casually, in seconds, before more squads further away overwhelm him with fire (taking casualties in the process from blaster bolt reflection). That's a little kid Jedi, not even a padawan, defeating a squadron of elite marines and part of another. And you think the best defensive Jedi in the galaxy is safe to bet against? How would Fenix do vs. 10 marines?

[Jub]

I think the effectiveness of a zealot's shields is being a bit overstated here, mainly due to how pathetic the weapons in the star craft universe actually are. As seen at 11:24 of the video linked below we see no damage done to walls from missed shots. At 11:37 we see the rounds impacting and failing to harm hydralisks, also we fail to see or hear any signs of these rounds being hypersonic. This is repeated at 20:30 in the same video. This is all we get marine wise in SC1.

In SC2, we see tracer fire from gauss rifles at 58:52 of the same video, it is clearly not moving at hypersonic speeds. At 1:09:19 we see that these weapons most likely aren't gauss/railguns at all as they use cased ammunition. At 1:47:19 we see that even their heavier vehicle mounted weapons don't have bullet velocities much beyond our current guns.

Even looking at things like the dragoon, seen at 17:04 in the video, isn't overly impressive based on what the game's fluff would have us think. Nothing they do in that scene couldn't be done by a modern day unit armed with a grenade launcher.

Frankly, the fluff doesn't match the cutscenes and what we see in the cutscenes just isn't that powerful.

[Simon_Jester]

I'm not sure I'd take the cutscenes as the most reliable source to represent the Starcraft universe, though. It's one thing in a TV or movie series where the visuals are the main product which had the bulk of the artists' time and energy put into it. But here the cutscenes are a minor value-added product; someone may have put real effort into them but that doesn't mean it's the best representation or that the artistic team which did them was talking seriously to the people who designed the fluff.

It's like, in Star Wars, if the novelization contradicts the film, you go with the film, because the novelization is secondary compared to the film.

[Jub]

I'm not sure I'd take the cutscenes as the most reliable source to represent the Starcraft universe, though. It's one thing in a TV or movie series where the visuals are the main product which had the bulk of the artists' time and energy put into it. But here the cutscenes are a minor value-added product; someone may have put real effort into them but that doesn't mean it's the best representation or that the artistic team which did them was talking seriously to the people who designed the fluff.

It's like, in Star Wars, if the novelization contradicts the film, you go with the film, because the novelization is secondary compared to the film.

So what do you suggest we use to get a baseline for the power level of the Starcraft universe?

The gameplay is patently unrealistic with groups of units carrying small arms surrounding a building to destroy it instead of clearing the building or setting charges to render it useless. Or would you rather I use the example of supply depots being used as frontline walls? Better yet, how about resources not only being gathered on the front lines but also depleting over the course of a skirmish, or the fact that you literally build your base up again before each skirmish instead of shipping units to the front lines from a preestablished homeland? If you can get numbers from that I'm not sure that I'd trust your methodology.

Also, Blizzards cutscenes are not minor value adds, this is a company that has always prided itself on the cutscenes added to their games. They often vied with Square, and later Square Enix, for the best cutscenes in the business. I doubt they consider their cutscenes secondary to the game.

[Me2005]

I'm not sure I'd take the cutscenes as the most reliable source to represent the Starcraft universe, though. It's one thing in a TV or movie series where the visuals are the main product which had the bulk of the artists' time and energy put into it. But here the cutscenes are a minor value-added product; someone may have put real effort into them but that doesn't mean it's the best representation or that the artistic team which did them was talking seriously to the people who designed the fluff.

It's like, in Star Wars, if the novelization contradicts the film, you go with the film, because the novelization is secondary compared to the film.

So what do you suggest we use to get a baseline for the power level of the Starcraft universe?

I've been trying to use the fluff from the manual and information from the campaign.

The gameplay is patently unrealistic with groups of units carrying small arms surrounding a building to destroy it instead of clearing the building or setting charges to render it useless. Or would you rather I use the example of supply depots being used as frontline walls? Better yet, how about resources not only being gathered on the front lines but also depleting over the course of a skirmish, or the fact that you literally build your base up again before each skirmish instead of shipping units to the front lines from a preestablished homeland? If you can get numbers from that I'm not sure that I'd trust your methodology.

I admitted at the outset that I was using in-game data, but when we're talking about a game, that's really all we've got to go off of.

Also, Blizzards cutscenes are not minor value adds, this is a company that has always prided itself on the cutscenes added to their games. They often vied with Square, and later Square Enix, for the best cutscenes in the business. I doubt they consider their cutscenes secondary to the game.

While they were/are good for their time, they are not very consistent with the rest of the information provided - and that's in many of their games. They are valuable for storyline information, but not for baseline capabilities. They aren't secondary, but where they contradict the manual I'd take the manual, which is often pretty explicit in what kind of power to expect from varying units.

[TheFeniX]

I think the effectiveness of a zealot's shields is being a bit overstated here, mainly due to how pathetic the weapons in the star craft universe actually are. As seen at 11:24 of the video linked below we see no damage done to walls from missed shots.

Looking for deformation like that in a 1998 cutscene would be rough. With the technology at the time, animators had enough resources to basically show what they wanted to show with little fluff allowed. Now Blizzard can throw money hand over first into their cutscene work and it pays off.

At 11:37 we see the rounds impacting and failing to harm hydralisks

It's funny, I knew exactly what cutscene you were talking about before looking. That one was all kinds of bad with the Ghost (super-psychic badass panics like a green recruit before smashing the detonator) also being a sore point. Blizzard cutscenes were always ahead of the times, but they are still fluff, at least when it comes to anything other than storytelling. That said, I talked with another nerd years back who claimed the marines may have been using under-powered rounds in order to not breach the hull. Doesn't make a lot of sense since they were going to blow the place up anyway.

Frankly, the fluff doesn't match the cutscenes and what we see in the cutscenes just isn't that powerful.

And that's really an artifact of the time and from Blizzard not really caring about consistency in their work. They've always run by rule of cool vs anything else. That said, their later work in SC2 with Zeratul shows a bit more:


But any game where 12 marines can blow up a Battlecruiser or Carrier is going to have wildly inconsistent "evidence" to pull from.

[Jub]

<snip>

[Jub]

<snip>

You'll notice that I also used scenes of the gauss rifle from SC2, you seem to have cut that bit from your argument...

-----

I've been trying to use the fluff from the manual and information from the campaign.

How is the manual, aside from fitting your view of how strong things ought to be, any more reliable than the cutscenes?

I admitted at the outset that I was using in-game data, but when we're talking about a game, that's really all we've got to go off of.

By that standard, we need to look at the weakest things that wind up hitting a zealots shields to find the energy it takes to down them. Those would be strikes from a non-upgraded zergling. In both gameplay and fluff these creatures kill zealots, in gameplay and cutscenes they clearly don't deliver the energy of a burst of gauss rounds. How do we reconcile this discrepancy?

Assuming that these 8mm rounds are roughly the same dimensions as a 200 grain 8 mm Mauser round, gauss rifle spikes weigh in at roughly 337 grains (21.8 grams). Going at Mach 5 (~1,700 m/s) these rounds would carry a muzzle energy of around 31,835 J. This means that we're looking at 95,505 J for a burst from a marine. Now how do we get those kinds of energy levels from a zerglings melee attack?

A baseball bat weighing 1kg swung by a professional batter is moving at 80 mph (~35 m/s) which only brings 612.5 J of energy to the table. A zergling would need to have 1 kilogram claws swung at 252 m/s to match the output of a single bullet, but they don't just need to match a single bullet. Based on the chart a zergling does 5/6th the damage of a marine's burst with a single claw attack. That means that each claw needs to carry 79,588 J of energy. This means that a 1 kilogram claw needs to be moving at transonic speeds (399 m/s) to impart this level of energy, a 2 kilogram claw, which would be very dense indeed given the size of a zergling, would still need to move at transonic speeds (282 m/s) to impart that level of energy. This clearly isn't what we see in game.

While they were/are good for their time, they are not very consistent with the rest of the information provided - and that's in many of their games. They are valuable for storyline information, but not for baseline capabilities. They aren't secondary, but where they contradict the manual I'd take the manual, which is often pretty explicit in what kind of power to expect from varying units.

The cutscenes at worst contradict the fluff, but they certainly don't contradict gameplay.

[Simon_Jester]

Zerglings' claws are dangerous because they cut, not just because they carry kinetic energy.

A baseball bat does considerably less 'damage' to an unarmored human than a sword of equal mass does, despite carrying the same kinetic energy.

At 11:37 we see the rounds impacting and failing to harm hydralisks

It's funny, I knew exactly what cutscene you were talking about before looking. That one was all kinds of bad with the Ghost (super-psychic badass panics like a green recruit before smashing the detonator) also being a sore point. Blizzard cutscenes were always ahead of the times, but they are still fluff, at least when it comes to anything other than storytelling. That said, I talked with another nerd years back who claimed the marines may have been using under-powered rounds in order to not breach the hull. Doesn't make a lot of sense since they were going to blow the place up anyway.

Honestly, pretty much every cutscene in Starcraft 1 that features Terrans was part of an attempt by Blizzard to make a good horror movie about Zerg, using the Terrans as a disposable protagonist. Being in a horror movie automatically makes your weapons miserably ineffective.

On another note, hydralisks in gameplay are only marginally less tough than some armored vehicles. Granted the inconsistency of gameplay, but I would not assume that this means they are fragile and fleshy in 'real life.' I would expect that it means their carapaces are extremely thick and durable, and probably made out of materials rather more exotic than we would find in terrestrial lifeforms.

[Terralthra]

Zerglings' claws are dangerous because they cut, not just because they carry kinetic energy.

A baseball bat does considerably less 'damage' to an unarmored human than a sword of equal mass does, despite carrying the same kinetic energy.

Yeah, but we're talking about shields and armor. Unless you're suggesting that Zerg claws are potent against Protoss plasma shields because they're sharp? I mean, ok, I guess, but...

[Simon_Jester]

There may be a 'slow blade passes' issue. The shields might well be more effective against beam weapons and bullets than they are against swords and spears.

[TheFeniX]

You'll notice that I also used scenes of the gauss rifle from SC2, you seem to have cut that bit from your argument...

Fair enough, though them using tracer rounds at all is pretty hilarious considering the tech base.

Honestly, pretty much every cutscene in Starcraft 1 that features Terrans was part of an attempt by Blizzard to make a good horror movie about Zerg, using the Terrans as a disposable protagonist. Being in a horror movie automatically makes your weapons miserably ineffective.

On another note, hydralisks in gameplay are only marginally less tough than some armored vehicles. Granted the inconsistency of gameplay, but I would not assume that this means they are fragile and fleshy in 'real life.' I would expect that it means their carapaces are extremely thick and durable, and probably made out of materials rather more exotic than we would find in terrestrial lifeforms.

Hydralisks are supposed to be super tough, but their DPS is way to high, so they have to be balanced for gameplay reasons. You basically have to have Roaches as meat shields (much like Zealots are the meat shield for Stalkers). In SC1, they could be tougher because their fire rate was much lower.

Yea, there's never been anything all that consistent in Starcraft. The Protoss were supposed to be technologically superior to the Terran in almost every way and capable of glassing their planets at will. It wasn't until their Homeworld got wrecked and they had far less access to resources that the Terran could put up a fight. But in-game, the Terran had parity in almost every way, so the idea didn't hold.

But Star Wars isn't even all that consistent. Jedi are naturally stupid-tough. Falling hundreds of feet means nothing and even an unconscious Obi-Wan suffers no long-term effects from having a platform crush his lower body. But one blaster bolt takes them down? Even bullets don't kill a normal person immediately on something like a lung shot. And there just can't be that much energy transfer since named a protag takes a shoulder hit from Blaster Rifles and was barely hurt. This same gun will blast holes in concrete. It should be blowing/burning limbs off, not sparking a bit.

Why would a torso hit immediately down a Jedi, but an arm hit merely disable a normal person for a few minutes? Try either with a 5.56 NATO round: torso hit vs shoulder hit. Even the shoulder hit will be life-threatening and, at the least, leave the person with a destroyed shoulder.

[Jub]

Zerglings' claws are dangerous because they cut, not just because they carry kinetic energy.

A baseball bat does considerably less 'damage' to an unarmored human than a sword of equal mass does, despite carrying the same kinetic energy.

They do equal damage to shields and are equally stopped by armor upgrades, not to mention that a bullets smaller cross section should be better than the sword at causing localized failures of the shield than larger claws. The slow blade cuts idea also fails; zergling claws don't do additional damage to shields across the spectrum of Protoss ground units.

Fair enough, though them using tracer rounds at all is pretty hilarious considering the tech base.

Agreed, and they must be high tech, or have extradimensional space in their magazines, to fit the stated 500 cased rounds per gauss rifle...

But Star Wars isn't even all that consistent. Jedi are naturally stupid-tough. Falling hundreds of feet means nothing and even an unconscious Obi-Wan suffers no long-term effects from having a platform crush his lower body. But one blaster bolt takes them down? Even bullets don't kill a normal person immediately on something like a lung shot. And there just can't be that much energy transfer since named a protag takes a shoulder hit from Blaster Rifles and was barely hurt. This same gun will blast holes in concrete. It should be blowing/burning limbs off, not sparking a bit.

Why would a torso hit immediately down a Jedi, but an arm hit merely disable a normal person for a few minutes? Try either with a 5.56 NATO round: torso hit vs shoulder hit. Even the shoulder hit will be life-threatening and, at the least, leave the person with a destroyed shoulder.

Star Wars as a whole is still at least average for consistency given the medium it's in. StarCraft can't get any of fluff, gameplay, or cutscenes to agree on anything. It's why most people refuse to even debate anything versus SC.

[Lord Revan]

that and that the most consistent is the gameplay and that's not really a relible source, unless you want to argue that a single marine could kill a Zerg levathian by shooting it from the outside (btw Levathian isn't a bad name for those things as they're huge even compared to Terran Battleships that are quite large to begin with).

[Terralthra]

But Star Wars isn't even all that consistent. Jedi are naturally stupid-tough. Falling hundreds of feet means nothing and even an unconscious Obi-Wan suffers no long-term effects from having a platform crush his lower body. But one blaster bolt takes them down? Even bullets don't kill a normal person immediately on something like a lung shot. And there just can't be that much energy transfer since named a protag takes a shoulder hit from Blaster Rifles and was barely hurt. This same gun will blast holes in concrete. It should be blowing/burning limbs off, not sparking a bit.

Re-watch the Order 66 sequence from RotS. Ki-Adi-Mundi takes at least 6 blaster rifle shots to the chest in quick succession. Aayla Secura takes at least 4 before she falls, and they pump bunches more into her to make sure she stays down. In the arena battle in AotC, Coleman Trebor (the green-skinned alien who jumps up to try and attack Dooku) takes 3-4 shots to the chest to knock him over the wall to the floor below, and canonically, the fall killed him, not the shots. That's the same blaster pistol that kills/incapacitates the three-horned reek in one shot.

In other words, fairly typically in the prequels, Jedi do take multiple blaster shots to be taken down. Of note, Leia is also force-sensitive. Some of Jedi toughness may be unconscious, not trained.

[Thanas]

Question to everybody who is opposed to this: why shouldn't the cutscenes be taken as the only real proof we have of weapons power in the SC universe?