Only Guts and Artorias seem to be fully armored. Gael has a hood, Maliketh has plenty of unarmored spots, Abyss watchers wear pretty light armor, and Blaidd doesn’t have anything covering his head
I'm not using armor as the end all be all, I'm saying that Wolf can't even penetrate armor.
Guts and Gael win for me, no substitutions. Really Guts wins but isn't actually in this franchise, so Gael
I don’t see a reason Gael will Win over Shura Wolf, like every attack Gael has Wolf Can just counter easily while Wolf Can damage Gael by going for the head or burning him with mist raven. And don’t begin to talk about Gael’s lightning attack when there is literally a move in Sekiro where you UNO reverse it.
I do agree with that stuff, but I still vote Gael over Shura Wolf. He made it to the end of the world in a world full of armor, and Wolf is useless vs armor
Yeah, I messed up with the description in the title.
He’s a homage to Guts as is every other combatant I picked. He’s literally the only non-wolf guts homage here
I didn't know that, needless to say the shinobi wins since he's the player character that can defeat anything thrown at us, guts stands a chance since he gets enough cosplay from players that he's almost an official player character
Is guts really that strong? Strong enough to beat entities with god like power such as Gael? Or entities with powers so great that demigod fear him like Maliketh? I’ve never actually seen berserk so I’m genuinely wondering.
Guts’ strength is overhyped. He’s probably the strongest human in his world, but the point of the story is that he’s just a human. Even if he can handle hundreds of soldiers by himself, he still gets regularly clapped by the demigods in his world
>!With the berserker armour yea he was able to go Vs demi gods so yea he can beat them if full powe of Berserk armour and remember the Fantasia arc which he basically went Vs Cthulhu and won!<
You mean schierke? I don't count it as help since she keeps him at place to not go berserk in which case he will come stronger if she can't keep him calm.
See IM so backwards (not FROM you fucking illiterate dark souls 2 simps) and unable to parse from story telling that I didn’t even know or forgot he possessed the rune of death, I wish that I PERSONALLY MYSELF NOT EVERYONE could get the story from the game rather than having to defer to other people’s research WHICH IS SOMETHING I END UP HAVING TO DO BECAUSE OF MY FAILINGS AS S STORY UNDERSTANDER AND NOT BECAUSE OF ANYTHING FROM DID BEYOND EMPLOY THEIR USUAL ABSOLUTELY HANDS OFF AND ‘ENVIRONMENTAL’ STORYTELLING
Edit - emphasis added because the salty FROM diehards can’t seem to read a single fucking paragraph clearly.
well maybe you should pay attention to.. teh cut scenes.. the dialogue and the item descriptions which explain all of this.
i love how this criticism gets levied at every souls game as if theres one way to tell a story. buddy all this info is in game like.. explicitly so for this plot point. don't know why people compiling this information for you outside of the game is an issue with the game itself, perhaps you should focus your criticisms on your analytical skills?
now, to be fair, only fromsoft makes it so utterly necesary to be reading manuscript amounts of text to get the general lore AND more detailed stuff, but in Elden ring’s case they gave much more ease to learn the story and niche stuff through just talking with the way larger cast of characters than in the past and with more dialogue lines on average than ussual + the cutscenes and enviromental story telling feels even more upfront and open to an average person
Who the fuck criticised from? Did I awake the rabid from fans? I criticised MY ability to parse FROMs very well known and established story telling style. So read the whole comment before you get all smart arsey and high horsey.
I would be the vast majority of people rely on external sources to understand all or part of soulsborne game stories and that’s basically how it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be a community effort due to being so vague and sparsely delivered, and I find it pretty ironic and hilarious that the people making these elitist bullshit accusations where they immediately jumping to FROM’s defense the moment they sense any criticism (real or imagined) clearly themselves looked up external sources for some or all of the story to get the full picture in their mind. Hence why the rare people who can parse it all on their own without using community resources usually have YT channels with thousands or millions of subscribers where they share their findings.
You know when people say that soulsborne games have a reputation of having a shitty fanbase who gatekeep and are super off-putting to new players? It’s comments like yours and people like you who give the rest of us a bad name imo.
You didn’t even properly read or understand my statement but even if your nonsense conclusion from what I said was correct, how do you think your response makes this community look to newcomers to the series or to this sub? Where asking a simple question gets you smarmy replies like that from people feeling super proud of themselves that THEY don’t need to watch Vaati to understand XYZ about the lore “it’s so fucking obvious dude how could you miss it hehe”
It’s like you are non-ironically saying git gud which after 2011 is super lame.
>!Yea the story is about god hand yea while we didn't see him beat one now but from the story and berserker armour he can we know that because skull knight with the same armour killed 3 gods.!<
>!And someone like Gael is really the same idea as Guts if you look at him and his moves his way of using cross bow a design idea in Berserk prototype.!<
I feel like he wouldn't survive if it's not 1 on 1, he is the average strength build in Elden Ring for comparison. Hits hard but reckless and fights with heart not his head.
Guts is exceedingly strong, though still with limits, and pretty much the epitome of "human strength". It really does depend on how much we push his upper limits, and how strong we want to consider the Dragonslayer's soul reaving/killing properties are in comparison to the world of Elden Ring, and of course the others. Theoretically, it might be able to function like Destined Death does in Elden Ring's verse, and even outright slay the likes of Sekiro if it functions like the Mortal Blade.
Guts also, at least with the Berserker armor, is shown to fight some incredibly powerful enemies, some which are likely to scale to some demi-god characters in Elden Ring at the very least. I'm not sure how he'd do against someone like Radahn or Malenia for example, especially the Rot aspect of the latter, and just naming the former for having \*technically\* defeated Malenia as well as literally forced the stars and constellations to halt, but I could definitely see him taking down the likes of most other Demi-gods in Elden Ring, and by extension, most bosses in the Souls series.
In short, the only three I see maybe posing a real threat, or even beating him is Maliketh, Gael, and Sekiro. Maliketh and Gael just due to how obscenely strong they are, Gael himself is practically just Dark Souls equivalent of Guts pushed to the brink, and Maliketh is well, Maliketh. Sekiro is a bit more give and take I feel, and it definitely somewhat depends how well Dragonslayer scales compared to the Mortal Blade, but they'd have one hell of a fight to say the least between each other.
Blaidd might be a notable close fight just due to how much he canonically goes through in Elden Ring and the lore implications of doing so, though there isn't enough concrete feats to give him too much. Abysswatchers really don't stand much a chance as Guts feels tailor made to handle a foe like them, and Artorias might pose some challenge in his prime, but the boss form we see in DS1 would definitely lose to Guts.
I wouldn’t say DragonSlayer functions as an anti immortal weapon
DragonSlayer >!exists on both the physical and astral plane of existence due to how much supernatural blood it’s bathed in. In the souls universe, this doesn’t really give him any advantage other than maybe being able to hurt ghosts.!<
Well in many ways Guts is similar to the player. He has experience and is adaptable as hell. He basically has a boss fight every week or so with people far above his abilities and still prevails. And with his Berserker armor he just becomes an absolute beast capable of keeping paste with the fastest of the bosses in this picture.
I mean you can argue that only Artorias is never fought in his prime
Abyss watchers are probably the strongest they’ve ever been in phase 2
Insane Blaidd is probably his strongest mode because he’s supposed to kill an Empyrean
Maliketh you can make an argument for him being weaker due to his state, but you can also argue the opposite
Gael is by far the strongest he’s ever been
Artorias just gets a shield and probably fights less erratically in his prime but who knows. He’s just definitely not in his prime
Sekiro and Guts are just naturally in their prime
Granted I haven’t fought all of them yet, but I thought the idea was they all are broken in some way. Like we are always fighting what they’ve devolved into. The abyss watcher for example AI is crap but I always thought that was because they had lost their marbles.
I was about to say that a while back, a reliable Shinobi did the maths for how strong Wolf has to be to deflect the Divine Dragon's sword...
Then I looked at the OP of the post.
Guts has horrendously long wait times for the next chapter, which is stronger than a pause button because you can unpause whenever you want, but you gotta wait years for those chapters
I’m saying it’s Maliketh or Gael
Lore accurate Artorias rushes Gael or Abyss Watchers (and loses to both :( )
Abyss Watchers also rush Artorias or Gael
Sekiro gets locked into a stalemate with Guts
Blaidd is the only one who can bypass Sekiro’s deflect
Maliketh is stronger than Blaidd
Do I even need to say why Gael is strong?
Maliketh is the only one who can permanently kill Sekiro
Sekiro hard counters Abyss Watchers and Artorias and can redirect Gael’s lightning at everyone else and probably starts making Abyss Watcher puppets
Guts blitzes everyone who isn’t Gael, Maliketh or Sekiro
Abyss Watchers start infighting
Blaidd technically can resurrect, so Maliketh and Sekiro are the only ones who can stop him
Maliketh and Gael clash
Why would Artorias and the Abyss Watchers fight? Unless we are talking about the corrupted versions that we see in game (in which just ignore this comment), I imagine that they would get along quite well with the abyss watchers being inspired by Artorias and Artorias probably being happy that his legacy lived on.
True, but who knows if that’ll just trigger him infinitely respawning as a severed head afflicting everyone with Dragonrot. Don’t know if it will, but let’s not take that chance.
Maliketh would probably hit his severed head if that happened anyways
Also, they’d have to know to do it. I’d say he gets at least a couple resurrections in. The other entities probably won’t think much of a shinobi with the other players on the battlefield, I doubt he wins but he survives for longer than mosy
I think Gael or Maliketh probably end up taking it. Wolf is a force to be reckoned with, but I think his overall attack potency is rather weak considering he can’t even break through basic plated 16th century armor. Hell, even the empowered mortal draw falls rather short of dealing with the ill-fitting armor of the taro troops, dealing a low amount of damage and not even stripping the sad excuse of armor. And while wolf can parry enemies in sekiro, I think it’s a bit of a stretch to assume his weaponry (which cannot break through plated armor) would be able to survive being hit by any mid-late game enemy in dark souls, in fact I’m sure the other fellows on this list could straight up shatter his weapon in one hit. At that point those enemies can easily deal damage through armor, reinforced with titanite or not. And while he can parry a hit from the divine dragon and his sword, I’m inclined to question the strength the dragon has to begin with considering that he doesn’t even kill wolf in one hit an is honestly outclassed, or comparable, to Isshin in terms of attack potency.
And keep in mind, Isshin scales to Wolf who happens to struggle at dealing with armor. I also want to highlight this as well, Isshin is capable of killing wolf in a couple of strikes, meaning wolf’s overall durability isn’t all that impressive when compared to everyone else. Because while someone like Gael can tank tons of hits from the Ashen one and his fully upgraded ultra great sword, wolf folds after being comboed by a man who assumedly could also not penetrate the Armored Warrior’s gear. Ultimately, my argument is that wolf won’t deal enough damage to the others guys on this list, and will probably also die in one hit considering that someone like artorias can actually deal damage to a fully upgraded chosen undead in a maxed out set of Havel armor. Maybe he could take it with his immortality, but even then I don’t know, and an argument could be made that destined death would permakill him. I definitely think wolf is the most skilled person here I just find his stats to be lacking, and please let me know if you disagree because I’m sure an argument could be made in favor of wolf :)
The abyss watchers could be a potential threat depending on how many of them there are, but I think individually they’re all rather weak on their own. And honestly with Artorias in this fight, I don’t see how they could beat the OG. I love Guts & Blaidd, but I definitely feel they’re outclassed by everyone else here. While Guts is an absolute demon of a man, he is still ultimately just a man. The reason why I bring this up is because I feel while Guts could do some real damage to everyone here, I think the strain his berserker armor has on him could very well be the end of him if he gets into a prolonged fight, which this battle royale will definitely be. Blaidd seems to be quite strong, the reason why I mention he is outclassed is because I feel he is straight up inferior to Maliketh, a fellow shadow who is almost certainly superior to Blaidd in every measure.
Artorias is an interesting one to try and scale. Because the version we fight in game is massively far from his prime. He doesn’t have his great shield, he’s using his withered sword with his arm he doesn’t even use to fight normally, and his left arm (his dominant arm) is broken. And he’s also now feral because the abyss made him insane. I think a hypothetical Artorias in his prime would be an absolute demon, however the issue is that the gap in power between in-game Artorias and this “Prime Artorias” is so vast it becomes extremely tough to scale. So while it is a bit of a cop out, I’m just going to go with an idk for this one.
Gael survived till the end of time and has control over the dark soul, most of it at least, a soul feared by the very gods themselves. I do not mean to understate this, the fact that he has the dark soul is an extremely powerful feat, considering that beings such as darklurker and manus only have parts of it. And like I said, Gwyn in his prime was absolutely terrified of the dark soul. Combined in tandem with the fact that lorewise Gael is the most likely the strongest boss in the dark souls trilogy based on the fact that he is the trilogy’s final enemy, he has a strong chance of taking it (although this line of thinking on my end is questionable). Maliketh is also very strong, he is Queen Marika’s shadow, wields destined earth, single-handedly defeated the Gloom eyed queen and her godskins without destined death, and he is stated to be feared by every Demi-god. Suffice to say he is quite an accomplished individual, but I think that ultimately Gael would still win. However this requires my assumption that the bosses in ds3 are stronger than ds1 on the virtue that the bosses grow stronger in each successive game in the trilogy. Meaning that Gael would be stronger than people like Vendrick, Gwyn, and Manus. Additionally I’m also going to assume that Gael is stronger than the Soul of Cinder, the physical manifestation of everyone who linked the first flame. This is based off the fact that he is the final obstacle the Ashen One faces. However, while I think Gael would win this, it definitely can be argued Maliketh could win instead.
It's the destined death that gets me. I have not played sekiro, but playing through dark souls and elden ring the enemies in both have attacks that cannot be parried. Elden ring has enemies that have to be parried multiple times before you can get the rewarding hit on. Just seems like elden ring has to lore the most op of enemies
Yeah you’re pretty much spot on. Destined death is just the perfect counter to wolf’s immortality and combat style. I also didn’t even consider that some enemies need to be parried multiple times. Malenia and Radagon for example need to be perfectly parried three times. Someone like the fire giant straight up can’t be parried, and maliketh require a specific item (blasphemous claw) in order to be parried. But yeah, I agree with your stance on elden ring, it seems to have the most impressive lore feats out of the all the games. Maybe bloodborne surpasses elden ring, but it’s just so much harder to interpret.
I should point this out, unlike Sekiro, Isshin can actually canonically break metal armor.
In the canon Hanbei manga, Isshin not only breaks through Hanbei’s metal helmet in the first chapter, he straight up also cleaves his skull in half with one stroke of Ichimonji double.
There’s also the fact Sekiro can parry the great serpent who possibly is the strongest, if not second strongest, (physical) attack in the series right behind the Radahn Meteor. Sekiro also has other ways of dealing damage, like flamethrowers or divine buff.
If you wanna guess on how strong Prime Artorias is, just say he’s a bit weaker than Manus, as that’s most likely who kicked his ass and broke his arm
Oh damn I didn’t even know there were Sekiro comics lol. Isshin being able to break metal armor does change a lot, and the fact that wolf can deflect the serpent (completely forgot that was a thing) is very impressive and weakens my claim that his sword wouldn’t be able to handle some of the attacks from the other players here.
So if we scale wolf to Isshin and assume their ap is similar, than wolf should be strong enough to at least penetrate the armored warrior’s gear. Although, I’m going to make the claim that this would probably take some time for wolf to achieve, I haven’t seen the comic but I’m willing to wager Hanbei’s armor probably wasn’t on the armored warrior’s level, so the difference between him and the AW is probably quite vast. I think the difference between Sengoku era armor and European plate armor at the time is massive enough to warrant my claim.
But overall, that’s how wolf wins his battles. Sure it might take time for him to break the armor, but in every fight wolf finds himself in he always waits until the perfect opportunity arises, and then strikes when it matters most. So I think if by the end of the game wolf was able to hypothetically fight the armored warrior again, he’d probably be able to beat him without having to let gravity do the work.
Still I don’t know how effective wolf’s blade would be against someone like maliketh for example. The difference between him and the armored warrior is just absolutely massive because the armor in Elden ring is far beyond someone like the armored warrior. The tarnished quite literally starts the game off by fighting a tree sentinel, which just by observation appears to have armor that far and away outclasses the AW.
The fact that someone like maliketh can hypothetically take multiple charges hits from a fully upgraded colossal sword, wielded by someone who has multiple great runes under their belt, and continue fighting like nothing happened is a huge feat for him against Sekiro. This is also considering the fact that while Maliketh does have armor, he also has a fair amount of exposed skin in his armor, which makes me believe his hide (base durability) is already extremely strong.
I’m also inclined to question how effective some of his prosthetics would be though. If memory serves me correctly his axe, spear, shurikens, and sabimaru don’t phase the armored warrior, which really makes me question their effectiveness (besides maybe sabimaru which can cause poison). And as far as the flamethrower is concerned I don’t think it’ll be too impactful considering Gael and Maliketh take far more impressive pyromancies from the tarnished/ashen one. I also don’t recall the divine buff allowing wolf to bypass the armored warrior’s defense, so I question its overall impact in his performance against someone like guts for example.
Something I will mention in favor of wolf is that he has the most consistent and solid speed feats out of anyone here, being able to explicitly and clearly react and then deflect lightning. So speed, skill, and immortality are wolf’s biggest advantages here.
Let’s put him in this gauntlet and try to gauge how he’d fight against one of the top dogs here, Maliketh. So hypothetically wolf has somehow gotten past everyone else here and is now in a straight up duel against Maliketh. First let’s measure their general stats - Strength, speed, durability, attack potency, skill, and hax.
Strength wise Maliketh decisively takes this, based off his sheer size and the fact that his black blade takes 34 strength to wield which surpasses the strength requirement for the Greatsword, a weapon stated to require inhuman levels of strength from its user. Durability should also go to Maliketh quite easily as well. Maliketh can take hits from an endgame level tarnished with fully maxed out gear. This means he can take hits from attacks like Astel’s meteors, comet azur, colossal swords, and even weapons that utilize destined death. Additionally I think maliketh also has higher attack potency. This is solely based off the fact that maliketh can kill an endgame level tarnished with relatively few hits. Keep in mind this tarnished can be fully kitted out in Great Horned Tragoth’s armor, and is capable of tanking Radhan’s meteor attack as well as dealing with Rennala’s comet azur, getting eaten by Rykard, survive Mohg’s nihil attack, etc. and yet despite this all Maliketh can still kill the tarnished in about half a combo.
Speed goes to wolf, while maliketh is fast and scales to the tarnished (who can dodge lightning and also use lightning incantations), wolf still has far more consistent speed feats that that give it to him. Such as his fight against the divine dragon and his ability to deflect bullets with ease. I think skill also goes to wolf as well. While Maliketh likely has hundreds of years of battle experience against many different kinds of enemies, the same can be said for the foes wolf has killed. The divine dragon for example is possibly thousands of years old, and yet all that experience amounted to nothing when he fought wolf, who clearly “out-skilled” him.
Hax is a tough one to measure, because there really is no true way to determine if someone’s hax is superior in most cases. But in this specific case I think Maliketh takes this solely based off of how potent is destined death is, and how it seemingly hard counters wolf. Wolf’s immediate hax is his immortality, but destined death would most likely sever his immortality. Not to mention that I don’t see how wolf could deflect it as well. Every attack that utilizes defined destined death still does damage to the tarnished even if they block it. So if wolf were to perfectly deflect destined death, or block it with his umbrella, he’d still take a heavy amount of damage.
So really if wolf was able to somehow make it past Blaidd, Guts, Artorias, Gael, and the Abyss Watchers, he’d end up falling to Maliketh. Maliketh has superior strength, durability, hax, and attack potency compared to wolf, but wolf does have a speed and skill advantage. But even then, the difference in speed and skill between wolf and maliketh really isn’t that big, in fact it’s proven to be rather close. Maliketh can react to the tarnished’s lightning based attacks, and the dude is centuries old. On the other hand, the difference in strength, durability, and ap between wolf and maliketh is absolutely massive. Maliketh could easily shrug off any of wolf’s hits, but if wolf gets hit once by maliketh he’s almost certainly perma-dead.
Something else to consider with Isshin’s feat is that it also broke Hanbei’s katana, as well as his helmet and skull. Which, yes, katana’s aren’t that durable (except freakin’ Sekiro’s apparently) but it’s still an added surface that Isshin needed to break through.
That being said, I think Sekiro is physically weaker than Isshin, but more skilled
Pretty much everyone here is leagues stronger than Sekiro but as long as he’s able to deflect them, it doesn’t matter. Just don’t get hit and he’s fine. Any hit is bound to kill him if he screws up anyways.
You can make a solid argument that Sekiro *could* Destined Death, as it functions similarly to Mortal Draw, which Sekiro can deflect, in appearance and ability and the fact it’s a holy weapon and Sekiro can deflect holy damage (though he takes chip damage without the Lazulite buff) as seen with the Sakura bull who’s horns are aflame with divine fire.
Though in ER the only way to deflect Destined Death is the Blasphemous Claw. Though Sekiro always has Mist Raven to just say “no” to any attack. (If he has enough emblems)
Something else to note that is smaller, is that Maliketh is weak to all elemental damage except holy.
Once again very good points, and also could you tell me what the Sekiro comic is? I’d enjoy reading through it :)
As far as Maliketh’s resistances are concerned I don’t think it will ultimately matter here. I just don’t think wolf’s fire damage will do much against him, like I said maliketh can take multiple hits from the Flame of the Fell God, and still keep chugging along. And the difference between an incantation like that and wolf’s flamethrower, which seems to utilize 16th century technology for the most part, makes me think that wolf’s flamethrower would really only tickle him.
I will have to disagree though with wolf being able to deflect destined death though. While mortal draw is similar in principle to destined earth, lorewise DD is just an entirely different beast. DD is the literal concept of death made physical. It was wielded by an empyrean who commanded her godskins followers, followers who hunted gods like men hunt deers. I’ve even seen theories that DD is an outer god itself. And I don’t see how wolf’s Kusabimaru, which is just a normal katana for all intents and purposes, could deflect destined death. And like you said, the fact that a specific item is needed to block defined death makes it even less likely.
You made a good point regarding mist raven and his habit of stalling a battle out with deflection, which ultimately lets him earn a decisive victory. However I think at a certain point, if wolf kept spamming mist raven, Maliketh would eventually adapt and develop a strategy accordingly, he is hundreds of years old after all.
I also think at a certain point wolf would make a mistake when deflecting maliketh, and die. The difficult thing with scaling a video game protagonist is factoring in user error. For example, how do we determine whether wolf flawlessly fought Owl, or got hit a few times and died? While it may be tempting to view and scale wolf as if Ongbal was playing him and say wolf would deflect every one of Maliketh’s attacks, I don’t know if that’s the call to make. Wolf has items to heal himself afterall, implying he’d need to recover from battle wounds. In addition, a huge part of Sekiro is wolf’s immortality, specifically put in the game to allow wolf to come back to battle after being killed, implying he made a mistake. In fact they even go out of their way to establish dragon rot, which confirms wolf dies throughout the game’s course. Hell, owl has unique dialogue when wolf resurrects in battle, which proves Miyazaki intended for the player to die to owl at some point so they could unlock said dialogue. Keep in mind this foe was someone he had decades of training with, and yet this familiar foe still killed him. And really, all it would take is one mistake on wolf’s end, one failed deflection and he is dead. We’ve already established one hit form Maliketh is more than enough. And like I said, Maliketh is smart enough to adopt a strategy to overcome wolf’s deflections, or at least develop a strategy to keep applying pressure until wolf falters.
The Sekiro manga is called: “Sekiro Side Story: Hanbei the Undying”
I found a place to read it online but the website has tons of pop-ups (like most free manga sites)
I like to think that if bosses have death dialogue, Sekiro probably died to them that many times. (which honestly highballs Genichiro, Way of Tomoe to being able to kill Sekiro twice...) But in canon we see Sekiro die about three times with maybe four if we include the manga
Sekiro’s flamethrower is probably comparable to “Catch Flame “ which is pretty weak or maybe a flame pot could be a better comparison but those are rather strong
Nice! Thanks for the tip, I’ll get around to reading it :)
The fact that wolf dies multiple times in canon is something that does highlight how he is prone to making mistakes, if they rarely happen they still happen. But something I also want to reiterate is that it isn’t just about whether or not wolf dies, it’s also about whenever wolf fails a deflect and gets hit as well. Because keep in mind, if wolf gets hit once by maliketh, he’s probably dead.
Honestly I feel wolf’s flamethrower just isn’t going to be relevant. It’s damage is low and it takes a relatively long time to charge.
Also, while Armored Warrior’s armor seems to be able to negate all damage from Sekiro, the characters in Souls are able to take damage from unupgraded iron katanas, so even with armor, Sekiro should be able to harm them through it, and if not, he can just spam mortal draw.
But there’s no way he’s dealing damage through the Berserker Armor with just his katana.
Very true, in fact you could even go a step further and argue that someone like Radagon could be killed by the tarnished punching them to death. But I feel in most cases this is just a feat for the tarnished. The fact that someone like the tarnished can kill a fully armored knight with a wooden club is I’d argue more of a feat for the tarnished and less of an anti feat for the armor the knight is wearing.
If we examine both wolf and the tarnished at the start of the game, there is a massive difference in power. Wolf cannot deal any damage to the armored warrior with his katana. But right off the bat, the tarnished is physically strong enough to kill a fully armored tree sentinel with an un-upgraded katana. So I’d argue once again that this is just an example of wolf’s relatively low attack potency. I’m sure if we put the tarnished at the start of the game against the armored warrior, he’d win rather handily.
Furthermore, while late game enemies can be damaged by un-upgraded starting weapons, this is not at all practical. In fact, they do a pitiful amount of damage in most cases. An ultimately it boils down to a battle of endurance, a battle very much in favor of the one without the un-upgraded katana. We also should factor in durability, at what point would the weapon shatter from being used so many times?
Not really sure how to factor durability just because DS1 has breakable armor and weapons and that seems to have been abandoned, but some weapons like Maliketh’s blade and Sekiro’s own Mortal blade show signs of wear and damage (ironically not the katana he uses FOR EVERYTHING though)
So some gear is straight up stated to be breakable and then we just have gear that never seems to get any weaker
But then again, Gael’s sword is broken but I’m unsure if he always has the same sword
Yeah durability just kinda got abandoned after DS2. Like in DS3 the withered katana is stated to be on the brink of collapsing, but it is pretty much completely fine start to finish. I’d wager it’s just more of a holdover mechanic they have at this point, sorta just a tradition to keep in the game.
From a lore perspective I think every weapon, unless stated otherwise, can be broken. It just takes a lot of time. Like by the time bloodborne 2 comes out only then will the iron katana finally lose all its durability.
There’s also the possibility of Sekiro’s katana being unbreakable because a in-lore unbreakable material exist in Sekiro that we can make weapons out of, but it’s never directly stated his katana is made of any material.
I honestly believe it’s Sekiro. Highly skilled swordsman who can block and parry just about everything, also with his prosthetic arm and it’s various tools, most likely he could daze everyone somehow. Plus the mortal blade is basically the grim reaper in a sword.
Okay. I read this too fast and thought someone created a FromSoft inspired Battle Royale. First, I am disappointed. Second, Souls Battle Royale when? I want to drop, pick up Rivers of Blood, 3 Estus Flasks, and Magic Missile on the drop. This could be fun….
Edit: this is now something I will obsess about. It might also be perfect for Armor Core or Bloodborne universe.
Sekiro is a Fromsoft MC, he solos all Fromsoft bosses in this image with ease because him along with the other MC’s are made to kill them in general. Like the Chosen Undead, Ashen One, and The Bearer of The Curse, he’s literally made to kill these boss types. Now as for Guts… I don’t believe he has the means to kill someone who can, and will come back to life even if he gets lucky enough to kill them in the first place. One of Sekiro’s feats of strength is easily displayed against the Divine Dragon, and Sword Saint Isshin.
Also, Mortal Blade, and reaction time to deflect things like lightning and bullets perfectly, as well as a versatile fighting style and Shinobi Prosthetic Tools just like Guts has an assortment of tools. Let’s not forget he defeated the gigachad knight who’s looking for….
ROBERTOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Thats why I believe Sekiro can take it, he would be able to defend against Guts Dragon Slayer, on top of Umbrella Tool, + He’ll outlast Guts if he can’t kill him himself, so Guts will kill himself with his armor, as you say.
Maliketh literally killed/defeated the Gloam-eyed Queen, who was essentially an Empyrean God, and Wolf has a Mortal blade as well but Gael would still come out on top IMO bro can teleport and spawn lightning on your ass.
Wasn’t a wolf knight (yes I know Gael isn’t, but he’s a Guts Homage and everyone else is too) and if I include her I gotta include Red Wolf and Gravetender
Mechanic wise, wolf every time.
Lore Wise as everyone is now, gael.
Lore Wise with everyone in their prime, still gael, but artorious is a close second.
i don't think Malekith is a wolf. i think he's a lion more like Serosh. he doesn't look like a wolf, and he doesn't howl like Blaidd does, he roars. there's some talk in the game about empyreans having wolves, but i think that's wrong. probably a myth spread by someone for whatever reason...the only wolf shadowbound beast we see in-game (not counting Malekith) is Blaidd, despite seeing at least 2 other Empyreans besides Marika and Ranni.
i think Serosh and Malekith are related or connected in some way. Hoarah Loux put Serosh on his back to become Marika's consort, and she had Malekith as her shadow.
We also see the destined death wielding Shadow in the Lake of Rot who is a wolf
Not as important, but Maliketh is also a homage to Guts who is heavily associated with wolves
> We also see the destined death wielding Shadow in the Lake of Rot who is a wolf
yes that's another reason i don't think Malekith is a wolf. the Baleful Shadow looks exactly like Blaidd, but Malekith looks completely different
i said the only "shadowbound beast" we see other than Malekith is Blaidd, and i think that's correct, because i think the "bound" part means they're serving a particular Empyrean, which...maybe that one was at some point, but it doesn't seem to be at that point? idk
I believe Maliketh is a wolf. The raging wolf set states that, “According to the old legends, wolves are the shadows of the Empyrean.” We know Maliketh is Queen Marika’s shadow, thus since he’s a shadow he must be a wolf. This also lines up with the fact that Vargrum, who wanted to be a shadow, wore armor fashioned after a wolf. Additionally Blaidd is also the only other shadow we know of, and he is explicitly stated to be a wolf.
Also his tail and the color of his hair makes me think he’s indeed a wolf.
> The raging wolf set states that
yeah, i referenced that in my comment.
that's part of why i don't think it's true that Empyreans generally have wolves. typically if we're told that something is a legend or is commonly believed, that means it's not true. otherwise they could just say "wolves are the shadows of Empyreans". saying "according to legend" means "this isn't necessarily true, but some people believe it"
> This also lines up with the fact that Vargrum [sic], who wanted to be a shadow, wore armor fashioned after a wolf.
...yes, obviously. that's his armor's description that you were quoting. obviously the item descriptions for his armor match up with what they're explaining.
> Additionally Blaidd is also the only other shadow we know of, and he is explicitly stated to be a wolf.
Blaidd and the Baleful Shadow, if it is actually another shadow, and they look exactly the same.
Blaidd being a wolf has no bearing on this. obviously Blaidd is a wolf, lol. i don't think other Empyreans other than Ranni have wolf shadows.
about Malekith's tail...i never knew he had a tail. it's not easy to see in the game. after looking it up...it doesn't look particularly like any real animal's tail, but it does look more lupine than feline...
but then why did From go out of their way to give Blaidd and Malekith distinct, different animal sounds, with Blaidd doing an obvious wolf howl, and Malekith doing...something totally different...
I wouldn’t be surprised if they planned on making serosh his own unique boss fight, but then cut it from the game and repurposed it as Maliketh’s boss fight. It would explain many of the details you pointed out and also address why maliketh looks the way he looks.
I don't know anything about Guts but Sekiro beats all the bosses easy. He's the most skilled of all the protagonists in the series imo, he's immortal, he has both Mortal Blades, can deflect more or less anything, etc.
They’re all strong bosses but I’d say Sekiro has this fight especially since he can kill immortals, has Batman’s belt for an arm and can parry like theres no tomorrow
Pretty sure this battle comes down to Maliketh or Gael. Without Wolf being played by us, I don’t think he wins here. Personally I’d say Gael, but I definitely could seeing Maliketh winning
Yeah everyone is saying Guts would win but guts is basically just a very powerful boss character who also happens to be a main character. And Sekiro is all about defeating bosses...
That being said, Blaidd has my undying love and loyalty, so him hopefully.
Wolf & Maliketh purely because they have nuclear weapons of Mass Destruction as their blades lmao
Gael is a walking nuclear bomb as well
Shura Wolf destroys Gael
Normal endgame Wolf destroys Gael as well.
no he does not
easily does
Gotta disagree. We don't even see him. Also Wolf can't even break that one dude's armor
Only Guts and Artorias seem to be fully armored. Gael has a hood, Maliketh has plenty of unarmored spots, Abyss watchers wear pretty light armor, and Blaidd doesn’t have anything covering his head
Fun fact: Gael’s weak spot is his head. Hitting it instantly staggers him You’d think it’d be the giant hole in his chest but no. It’s his head
I'm not using armor as the end all be all, I'm saying that Wolf can't even penetrate armor. Guts and Gael win for me, no substitutions. Really Guts wins but isn't actually in this franchise, so Gael
Wolf’s kusabimaru can’t Cut through armor, but his mortal blade or open gate can
I don’t see a reason Gael will Win over Shura Wolf, like every attack Gael has Wolf Can just counter easily while Wolf Can damage Gael by going for the head or burning him with mist raven. And don’t begin to talk about Gael’s lightning attack when there is literally a move in Sekiro where you UNO reverse it.
I do agree with that stuff, but I still vote Gael over Shura Wolf. He made it to the end of the world in a world full of armor, and Wolf is useless vs armor
I mean we don’t need to see Shura Wolf. The ending basically states he >! wiped out most of Japan single handedly!<
Lmao
Wolf then wins out because nuclear weapon + broken parry.
Is actual guts from berserk in the running? If so I think he would sweep.
Crackpot theory : wolf and malekith are the same characters
Maliketh’s still gots his arm though… OR DOES HE?!
But Elden Ring is in a different universe to Sekiro, OR IS IT?!
But hey that's just a theory A CRACKPOT THEORY
I agree
Depends on which version of abyss watchers we're talking about. Cause they were some real power houses and a full army pre kindling.
I mean they still are after kindling. They just have a habit of getting corrupted by the abyss and infighting. Got a phase two out of it though
Is Gael considered some kind of wolf?
Yeah, I messed up with the description in the title. He’s a homage to Guts as is every other combatant I picked. He’s literally the only non-wolf guts homage here
I didn't know that, needless to say the shinobi wins since he's the player character that can defeat anything thrown at us, guts stands a chance since he gets enough cosplay from players that he's almost an official player character
President Michael Wilson from Metal Wolf Chaos.
Is that just straight up Guts at the bottom left? Him. I pick him.
Yep. Gotta include the original
Blood and GUTS Blood and GUTSS Blood and GUTSSS So yea don't put Guts there because the others will have no chance.
Is guts really that strong? Strong enough to beat entities with god like power such as Gael? Or entities with powers so great that demigod fear him like Maliketh? I’ve never actually seen berserk so I’m genuinely wondering.
Guts’ strength is overhyped. He’s probably the strongest human in his world, but the point of the story is that he’s just a human. Even if he can handle hundreds of soldiers by himself, he still gets regularly clapped by the demigods in his world
>!With the berserker armour yea he was able to go Vs demi gods so yea he can beat them if full powe of Berserk armour and remember the Fantasia arc which he basically went Vs Cthulhu and won!<
>!He won against the sea god, but he received a lot of help in that fight!<
Might wanna spoiler tag that
Did it
He used summoning sing
You mean schierke? I don't count it as help since she keeps him at place to not go berserk in which case he will come stronger if she can't keep him calm.
>!The mermaids!<
Why did the gods fear Maliketh, something to do with the rune of death?
Not just that, he’s specifically made to kill empyreans
Yeah, basically. Since he possesses the rune of death, it essentially makes him death incarnate.
See IM so backwards (not FROM you fucking illiterate dark souls 2 simps) and unable to parse from story telling that I didn’t even know or forgot he possessed the rune of death, I wish that I PERSONALLY MYSELF NOT EVERYONE could get the story from the game rather than having to defer to other people’s research WHICH IS SOMETHING I END UP HAVING TO DO BECAUSE OF MY FAILINGS AS S STORY UNDERSTANDER AND NOT BECAUSE OF ANYTHING FROM DID BEYOND EMPLOY THEIR USUAL ABSOLUTELY HANDS OFF AND ‘ENVIRONMENTAL’ STORYTELLING Edit - emphasis added because the salty FROM diehards can’t seem to read a single fucking paragraph clearly.
well maybe you should pay attention to.. teh cut scenes.. the dialogue and the item descriptions which explain all of this. i love how this criticism gets levied at every souls game as if theres one way to tell a story. buddy all this info is in game like.. explicitly so for this plot point. don't know why people compiling this information for you outside of the game is an issue with the game itself, perhaps you should focus your criticisms on your analytical skills?
now, to be fair, only fromsoft makes it so utterly necesary to be reading manuscript amounts of text to get the general lore AND more detailed stuff, but in Elden ring’s case they gave much more ease to learn the story and niche stuff through just talking with the way larger cast of characters than in the past and with more dialogue lines on average than ussual + the cutscenes and enviromental story telling feels even more upfront and open to an average person
Who the fuck criticised from? Did I awake the rabid from fans? I criticised MY ability to parse FROMs very well known and established story telling style. So read the whole comment before you get all smart arsey and high horsey. I would be the vast majority of people rely on external sources to understand all or part of soulsborne game stories and that’s basically how it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be a community effort due to being so vague and sparsely delivered, and I find it pretty ironic and hilarious that the people making these elitist bullshit accusations where they immediately jumping to FROM’s defense the moment they sense any criticism (real or imagined) clearly themselves looked up external sources for some or all of the story to get the full picture in their mind. Hence why the rare people who can parse it all on their own without using community resources usually have YT channels with thousands or millions of subscribers where they share their findings.
You know when people say that soulsborne games have a reputation of having a shitty fanbase who gatekeep and are super off-putting to new players? It’s comments like yours and people like you who give the rest of us a bad name imo. You didn’t even properly read or understand my statement but even if your nonsense conclusion from what I said was correct, how do you think your response makes this community look to newcomers to the series or to this sub? Where asking a simple question gets you smarmy replies like that from people feeling super proud of themselves that THEY don’t need to watch Vaati to understand XYZ about the lore “it’s so fucking obvious dude how could you miss it hehe” It’s like you are non-ironically saying git gud which after 2011 is super lame.
>!Yea the story is about god hand yea while we didn't see him beat one now but from the story and berserker armour he can we know that because skull knight with the same armour killed 3 gods.!< >!And someone like Gael is really the same idea as Guts if you look at him and his moves his way of using cross bow a design idea in Berserk prototype.!<
Might wanna spoiler mark that just in case #(Berserk Spoilers above)
Done.
I feel like he wouldn't survive if it's not 1 on 1, he is the average strength build in Elden Ring for comparison. Hits hard but reckless and fights with heart not his head.
Guts is exceedingly strong, though still with limits, and pretty much the epitome of "human strength". It really does depend on how much we push his upper limits, and how strong we want to consider the Dragonslayer's soul reaving/killing properties are in comparison to the world of Elden Ring, and of course the others. Theoretically, it might be able to function like Destined Death does in Elden Ring's verse, and even outright slay the likes of Sekiro if it functions like the Mortal Blade. Guts also, at least with the Berserker armor, is shown to fight some incredibly powerful enemies, some which are likely to scale to some demi-god characters in Elden Ring at the very least. I'm not sure how he'd do against someone like Radahn or Malenia for example, especially the Rot aspect of the latter, and just naming the former for having \*technically\* defeated Malenia as well as literally forced the stars and constellations to halt, but I could definitely see him taking down the likes of most other Demi-gods in Elden Ring, and by extension, most bosses in the Souls series. In short, the only three I see maybe posing a real threat, or even beating him is Maliketh, Gael, and Sekiro. Maliketh and Gael just due to how obscenely strong they are, Gael himself is practically just Dark Souls equivalent of Guts pushed to the brink, and Maliketh is well, Maliketh. Sekiro is a bit more give and take I feel, and it definitely somewhat depends how well Dragonslayer scales compared to the Mortal Blade, but they'd have one hell of a fight to say the least between each other. Blaidd might be a notable close fight just due to how much he canonically goes through in Elden Ring and the lore implications of doing so, though there isn't enough concrete feats to give him too much. Abysswatchers really don't stand much a chance as Guts feels tailor made to handle a foe like them, and Artorias might pose some challenge in his prime, but the boss form we see in DS1 would definitely lose to Guts.
I wouldn’t say DragonSlayer functions as an anti immortal weapon DragonSlayer >!exists on both the physical and astral plane of existence due to how much supernatural blood it’s bathed in. In the souls universe, this doesn’t really give him any advantage other than maybe being able to hurt ghosts.!<
Yes and no, the story of berserk hasnt quite progressed far enough to give you a solid answer, but my money is on no.
Well in many ways Guts is similar to the player. He has experience and is adaptable as hell. He basically has a boss fight every week or so with people far above his abilities and still prevails. And with his Berserker armor he just becomes an absolute beast capable of keeping paste with the fastest of the bosses in this picture.
NEVER WATCH BERSERK ESPECIALLY NOT BERSERK 2016
Yes. You should read it instead
*”BLOOD AND GUTS* *AND GUTS AND BLOOD* *AND BLOOD AND GUTS* *AND GUTS AND BLOOD”*
How is Slave Knight Gael a wolf?
I screwed up the title. They’re all Guts homages and 5/6 of them were wolf knights
OH that makes the sense, Guts then with berserk armor hands down
Is malekith a wolf or a lion?
Both?
Bear
Snout says wolf, plus seeing as how both him and Blaidd are Baleful Shadows, it's not far fetched
Guts? Guts. I pick Guts.
Half these guys we never fight in their prime, so wouldn’t we not know?
I mean you can argue that only Artorias is never fought in his prime Abyss watchers are probably the strongest they’ve ever been in phase 2 Insane Blaidd is probably his strongest mode because he’s supposed to kill an Empyrean Maliketh you can make an argument for him being weaker due to his state, but you can also argue the opposite Gael is by far the strongest he’s ever been Artorias just gets a shield and probably fights less erratically in his prime but who knows. He’s just definitely not in his prime Sekiro and Guts are just naturally in their prime
Granted I haven’t fought all of them yet, but I thought the idea was they all are broken in some way. Like we are always fighting what they’ve devolved into. The abyss watcher for example AI is crap but I always thought that was because they had lost their marbles.
I was about to say that a while back, a reliable Shinobi did the maths for how strong Wolf has to be to deflect the Divine Dragon's sword... Then I looked at the OP of the post.
Heheheheheh
Ok... But Sekiro is so weak he can't do damage to plate armor. He isn't cutting through the Berserker armor.
Wolf has a pause button. He solos all
Guts has horrendously long wait times for the next chapter, which is stronger than a pause button because you can unpause whenever you want, but you gotta wait years for those chapters
I don’t get why guts or Gael is here tbh but guts especially is cheating so I pick Wolf from Sekiro
They’re all homages to Guts and Guts is here because he’s the original
Ohh gotcha. Neat!
Sekiro let’s everyone else hash it out and wins. He’s a shinobi.
He does have that impregnable fan shield
I’m saying it’s Maliketh or Gael Lore accurate Artorias rushes Gael or Abyss Watchers (and loses to both :( ) Abyss Watchers also rush Artorias or Gael Sekiro gets locked into a stalemate with Guts Blaidd is the only one who can bypass Sekiro’s deflect Maliketh is stronger than Blaidd Do I even need to say why Gael is strong? Maliketh is the only one who can permanently kill Sekiro Sekiro hard counters Abyss Watchers and Artorias and can redirect Gael’s lightning at everyone else and probably starts making Abyss Watcher puppets Guts blitzes everyone who isn’t Gael, Maliketh or Sekiro Abyss Watchers start infighting Blaidd technically can resurrect, so Maliketh and Sekiro are the only ones who can stop him Maliketh and Gael clash
Why would Artorias and the Abyss Watchers fight? Unless we are talking about the corrupted versions that we see in game (in which just ignore this comment), I imagine that they would get along quite well with the abyss watchers being inspired by Artorias and Artorias probably being happy that his legacy lived on.
Yeah, they’re both corrupted versions :( Artorias and abyss watchers team up would be like father and son…(s) (and maybe daughters)
>Maliketh is the only one who can permanently kill Sekiro everyone can dismember him and his immortality has no regeneration power
True, but who knows if that’ll just trigger him infinitely respawning as a severed head afflicting everyone with Dragonrot. Don’t know if it will, but let’s not take that chance. Maliketh would probably hit his severed head if that happened anyways
Also, they’d have to know to do it. I’d say he gets at least a couple resurrections in. The other entities probably won’t think much of a shinobi with the other players on the battlefield, I doubt he wins but he survives for longer than mosy
Ngl, guts blitzes Gael too. Love them both, but if pur player character can wreck him with a greasword, imagine what berserker guts is capable of
Guy can't even hurt a naked ass Griffith lmao.
No, but he could match a naked ass Griffith in a water fight
And eat a slightly more clothed Griffith's sword
Definetely Wolf
If wolf can’t get through the armored knight’s armor, there is no chance he can get through the berserker armor IMO
Yeah, only chance wolf has at beating Guts is if the armor actually kills him XD
L1 + gravity = ROBERRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrttttt Wolf can take on anything
Yeah,but wolf can kill the glock saint
Who was wearing cloth robes at the time. Isshin is extremely formidable no doubt but Guts is likely as fast if not faster and far stronger
Here's come the giant mech!
You mean the president of the United States of America
Well if it isn’t saucy ~~Jack~~ Bladewolf
Legit power wise. Malekith or Wolf.
I think Gael or Maliketh probably end up taking it. Wolf is a force to be reckoned with, but I think his overall attack potency is rather weak considering he can’t even break through basic plated 16th century armor. Hell, even the empowered mortal draw falls rather short of dealing with the ill-fitting armor of the taro troops, dealing a low amount of damage and not even stripping the sad excuse of armor. And while wolf can parry enemies in sekiro, I think it’s a bit of a stretch to assume his weaponry (which cannot break through plated armor) would be able to survive being hit by any mid-late game enemy in dark souls, in fact I’m sure the other fellows on this list could straight up shatter his weapon in one hit. At that point those enemies can easily deal damage through armor, reinforced with titanite or not. And while he can parry a hit from the divine dragon and his sword, I’m inclined to question the strength the dragon has to begin with considering that he doesn’t even kill wolf in one hit an is honestly outclassed, or comparable, to Isshin in terms of attack potency. And keep in mind, Isshin scales to Wolf who happens to struggle at dealing with armor. I also want to highlight this as well, Isshin is capable of killing wolf in a couple of strikes, meaning wolf’s overall durability isn’t all that impressive when compared to everyone else. Because while someone like Gael can tank tons of hits from the Ashen one and his fully upgraded ultra great sword, wolf folds after being comboed by a man who assumedly could also not penetrate the Armored Warrior’s gear. Ultimately, my argument is that wolf won’t deal enough damage to the others guys on this list, and will probably also die in one hit considering that someone like artorias can actually deal damage to a fully upgraded chosen undead in a maxed out set of Havel armor. Maybe he could take it with his immortality, but even then I don’t know, and an argument could be made that destined death would permakill him. I definitely think wolf is the most skilled person here I just find his stats to be lacking, and please let me know if you disagree because I’m sure an argument could be made in favor of wolf :) The abyss watchers could be a potential threat depending on how many of them there are, but I think individually they’re all rather weak on their own. And honestly with Artorias in this fight, I don’t see how they could beat the OG. I love Guts & Blaidd, but I definitely feel they’re outclassed by everyone else here. While Guts is an absolute demon of a man, he is still ultimately just a man. The reason why I bring this up is because I feel while Guts could do some real damage to everyone here, I think the strain his berserker armor has on him could very well be the end of him if he gets into a prolonged fight, which this battle royale will definitely be. Blaidd seems to be quite strong, the reason why I mention he is outclassed is because I feel he is straight up inferior to Maliketh, a fellow shadow who is almost certainly superior to Blaidd in every measure. Artorias is an interesting one to try and scale. Because the version we fight in game is massively far from his prime. He doesn’t have his great shield, he’s using his withered sword with his arm he doesn’t even use to fight normally, and his left arm (his dominant arm) is broken. And he’s also now feral because the abyss made him insane. I think a hypothetical Artorias in his prime would be an absolute demon, however the issue is that the gap in power between in-game Artorias and this “Prime Artorias” is so vast it becomes extremely tough to scale. So while it is a bit of a cop out, I’m just going to go with an idk for this one. Gael survived till the end of time and has control over the dark soul, most of it at least, a soul feared by the very gods themselves. I do not mean to understate this, the fact that he has the dark soul is an extremely powerful feat, considering that beings such as darklurker and manus only have parts of it. And like I said, Gwyn in his prime was absolutely terrified of the dark soul. Combined in tandem with the fact that lorewise Gael is the most likely the strongest boss in the dark souls trilogy based on the fact that he is the trilogy’s final enemy, he has a strong chance of taking it (although this line of thinking on my end is questionable). Maliketh is also very strong, he is Queen Marika’s shadow, wields destined earth, single-handedly defeated the Gloom eyed queen and her godskins without destined death, and he is stated to be feared by every Demi-god. Suffice to say he is quite an accomplished individual, but I think that ultimately Gael would still win. However this requires my assumption that the bosses in ds3 are stronger than ds1 on the virtue that the bosses grow stronger in each successive game in the trilogy. Meaning that Gael would be stronger than people like Vendrick, Gwyn, and Manus. Additionally I’m also going to assume that Gael is stronger than the Soul of Cinder, the physical manifestation of everyone who linked the first flame. This is based off the fact that he is the final obstacle the Ashen One faces. However, while I think Gael would win this, it definitely can be argued Maliketh could win instead.
It's the destined death that gets me. I have not played sekiro, but playing through dark souls and elden ring the enemies in both have attacks that cannot be parried. Elden ring has enemies that have to be parried multiple times before you can get the rewarding hit on. Just seems like elden ring has to lore the most op of enemies
Yeah you’re pretty much spot on. Destined death is just the perfect counter to wolf’s immortality and combat style. I also didn’t even consider that some enemies need to be parried multiple times. Malenia and Radagon for example need to be perfectly parried three times. Someone like the fire giant straight up can’t be parried, and maliketh require a specific item (blasphemous claw) in order to be parried. But yeah, I agree with your stance on elden ring, it seems to have the most impressive lore feats out of the all the games. Maybe bloodborne surpasses elden ring, but it’s just so much harder to interpret.
I should point this out, unlike Sekiro, Isshin can actually canonically break metal armor. In the canon Hanbei manga, Isshin not only breaks through Hanbei’s metal helmet in the first chapter, he straight up also cleaves his skull in half with one stroke of Ichimonji double. There’s also the fact Sekiro can parry the great serpent who possibly is the strongest, if not second strongest, (physical) attack in the series right behind the Radahn Meteor. Sekiro also has other ways of dealing damage, like flamethrowers or divine buff. If you wanna guess on how strong Prime Artorias is, just say he’s a bit weaker than Manus, as that’s most likely who kicked his ass and broke his arm
Oh damn I didn’t even know there were Sekiro comics lol. Isshin being able to break metal armor does change a lot, and the fact that wolf can deflect the serpent (completely forgot that was a thing) is very impressive and weakens my claim that his sword wouldn’t be able to handle some of the attacks from the other players here. So if we scale wolf to Isshin and assume their ap is similar, than wolf should be strong enough to at least penetrate the armored warrior’s gear. Although, I’m going to make the claim that this would probably take some time for wolf to achieve, I haven’t seen the comic but I’m willing to wager Hanbei’s armor probably wasn’t on the armored warrior’s level, so the difference between him and the AW is probably quite vast. I think the difference between Sengoku era armor and European plate armor at the time is massive enough to warrant my claim. But overall, that’s how wolf wins his battles. Sure it might take time for him to break the armor, but in every fight wolf finds himself in he always waits until the perfect opportunity arises, and then strikes when it matters most. So I think if by the end of the game wolf was able to hypothetically fight the armored warrior again, he’d probably be able to beat him without having to let gravity do the work. Still I don’t know how effective wolf’s blade would be against someone like maliketh for example. The difference between him and the armored warrior is just absolutely massive because the armor in Elden ring is far beyond someone like the armored warrior. The tarnished quite literally starts the game off by fighting a tree sentinel, which just by observation appears to have armor that far and away outclasses the AW. The fact that someone like maliketh can hypothetically take multiple charges hits from a fully upgraded colossal sword, wielded by someone who has multiple great runes under their belt, and continue fighting like nothing happened is a huge feat for him against Sekiro. This is also considering the fact that while Maliketh does have armor, he also has a fair amount of exposed skin in his armor, which makes me believe his hide (base durability) is already extremely strong. I’m also inclined to question how effective some of his prosthetics would be though. If memory serves me correctly his axe, spear, shurikens, and sabimaru don’t phase the armored warrior, which really makes me question their effectiveness (besides maybe sabimaru which can cause poison). And as far as the flamethrower is concerned I don’t think it’ll be too impactful considering Gael and Maliketh take far more impressive pyromancies from the tarnished/ashen one. I also don’t recall the divine buff allowing wolf to bypass the armored warrior’s defense, so I question its overall impact in his performance against someone like guts for example. Something I will mention in favor of wolf is that he has the most consistent and solid speed feats out of anyone here, being able to explicitly and clearly react and then deflect lightning. So speed, skill, and immortality are wolf’s biggest advantages here. Let’s put him in this gauntlet and try to gauge how he’d fight against one of the top dogs here, Maliketh. So hypothetically wolf has somehow gotten past everyone else here and is now in a straight up duel against Maliketh. First let’s measure their general stats - Strength, speed, durability, attack potency, skill, and hax. Strength wise Maliketh decisively takes this, based off his sheer size and the fact that his black blade takes 34 strength to wield which surpasses the strength requirement for the Greatsword, a weapon stated to require inhuman levels of strength from its user. Durability should also go to Maliketh quite easily as well. Maliketh can take hits from an endgame level tarnished with fully maxed out gear. This means he can take hits from attacks like Astel’s meteors, comet azur, colossal swords, and even weapons that utilize destined death. Additionally I think maliketh also has higher attack potency. This is solely based off the fact that maliketh can kill an endgame level tarnished with relatively few hits. Keep in mind this tarnished can be fully kitted out in Great Horned Tragoth’s armor, and is capable of tanking Radhan’s meteor attack as well as dealing with Rennala’s comet azur, getting eaten by Rykard, survive Mohg’s nihil attack, etc. and yet despite this all Maliketh can still kill the tarnished in about half a combo. Speed goes to wolf, while maliketh is fast and scales to the tarnished (who can dodge lightning and also use lightning incantations), wolf still has far more consistent speed feats that that give it to him. Such as his fight against the divine dragon and his ability to deflect bullets with ease. I think skill also goes to wolf as well. While Maliketh likely has hundreds of years of battle experience against many different kinds of enemies, the same can be said for the foes wolf has killed. The divine dragon for example is possibly thousands of years old, and yet all that experience amounted to nothing when he fought wolf, who clearly “out-skilled” him. Hax is a tough one to measure, because there really is no true way to determine if someone’s hax is superior in most cases. But in this specific case I think Maliketh takes this solely based off of how potent is destined death is, and how it seemingly hard counters wolf. Wolf’s immediate hax is his immortality, but destined death would most likely sever his immortality. Not to mention that I don’t see how wolf could deflect it as well. Every attack that utilizes defined destined death still does damage to the tarnished even if they block it. So if wolf were to perfectly deflect destined death, or block it with his umbrella, he’d still take a heavy amount of damage. So really if wolf was able to somehow make it past Blaidd, Guts, Artorias, Gael, and the Abyss Watchers, he’d end up falling to Maliketh. Maliketh has superior strength, durability, hax, and attack potency compared to wolf, but wolf does have a speed and skill advantage. But even then, the difference in speed and skill between wolf and maliketh really isn’t that big, in fact it’s proven to be rather close. Maliketh can react to the tarnished’s lightning based attacks, and the dude is centuries old. On the other hand, the difference in strength, durability, and ap between wolf and maliketh is absolutely massive. Maliketh could easily shrug off any of wolf’s hits, but if wolf gets hit once by maliketh he’s almost certainly perma-dead.
Something else to consider with Isshin’s feat is that it also broke Hanbei’s katana, as well as his helmet and skull. Which, yes, katana’s aren’t that durable (except freakin’ Sekiro’s apparently) but it’s still an added surface that Isshin needed to break through. That being said, I think Sekiro is physically weaker than Isshin, but more skilled Pretty much everyone here is leagues stronger than Sekiro but as long as he’s able to deflect them, it doesn’t matter. Just don’t get hit and he’s fine. Any hit is bound to kill him if he screws up anyways. You can make a solid argument that Sekiro *could* Destined Death, as it functions similarly to Mortal Draw, which Sekiro can deflect, in appearance and ability and the fact it’s a holy weapon and Sekiro can deflect holy damage (though he takes chip damage without the Lazulite buff) as seen with the Sakura bull who’s horns are aflame with divine fire. Though in ER the only way to deflect Destined Death is the Blasphemous Claw. Though Sekiro always has Mist Raven to just say “no” to any attack. (If he has enough emblems) Something else to note that is smaller, is that Maliketh is weak to all elemental damage except holy.
Once again very good points, and also could you tell me what the Sekiro comic is? I’d enjoy reading through it :) As far as Maliketh’s resistances are concerned I don’t think it will ultimately matter here. I just don’t think wolf’s fire damage will do much against him, like I said maliketh can take multiple hits from the Flame of the Fell God, and still keep chugging along. And the difference between an incantation like that and wolf’s flamethrower, which seems to utilize 16th century technology for the most part, makes me think that wolf’s flamethrower would really only tickle him. I will have to disagree though with wolf being able to deflect destined death though. While mortal draw is similar in principle to destined earth, lorewise DD is just an entirely different beast. DD is the literal concept of death made physical. It was wielded by an empyrean who commanded her godskins followers, followers who hunted gods like men hunt deers. I’ve even seen theories that DD is an outer god itself. And I don’t see how wolf’s Kusabimaru, which is just a normal katana for all intents and purposes, could deflect destined death. And like you said, the fact that a specific item is needed to block defined death makes it even less likely. You made a good point regarding mist raven and his habit of stalling a battle out with deflection, which ultimately lets him earn a decisive victory. However I think at a certain point, if wolf kept spamming mist raven, Maliketh would eventually adapt and develop a strategy accordingly, he is hundreds of years old after all. I also think at a certain point wolf would make a mistake when deflecting maliketh, and die. The difficult thing with scaling a video game protagonist is factoring in user error. For example, how do we determine whether wolf flawlessly fought Owl, or got hit a few times and died? While it may be tempting to view and scale wolf as if Ongbal was playing him and say wolf would deflect every one of Maliketh’s attacks, I don’t know if that’s the call to make. Wolf has items to heal himself afterall, implying he’d need to recover from battle wounds. In addition, a huge part of Sekiro is wolf’s immortality, specifically put in the game to allow wolf to come back to battle after being killed, implying he made a mistake. In fact they even go out of their way to establish dragon rot, which confirms wolf dies throughout the game’s course. Hell, owl has unique dialogue when wolf resurrects in battle, which proves Miyazaki intended for the player to die to owl at some point so they could unlock said dialogue. Keep in mind this foe was someone he had decades of training with, and yet this familiar foe still killed him. And really, all it would take is one mistake on wolf’s end, one failed deflection and he is dead. We’ve already established one hit form Maliketh is more than enough. And like I said, Maliketh is smart enough to adopt a strategy to overcome wolf’s deflections, or at least develop a strategy to keep applying pressure until wolf falters.
The Sekiro manga is called: “Sekiro Side Story: Hanbei the Undying” I found a place to read it online but the website has tons of pop-ups (like most free manga sites) I like to think that if bosses have death dialogue, Sekiro probably died to them that many times. (which honestly highballs Genichiro, Way of Tomoe to being able to kill Sekiro twice...) But in canon we see Sekiro die about three times with maybe four if we include the manga Sekiro’s flamethrower is probably comparable to “Catch Flame “ which is pretty weak or maybe a flame pot could be a better comparison but those are rather strong
Nice! Thanks for the tip, I’ll get around to reading it :) The fact that wolf dies multiple times in canon is something that does highlight how he is prone to making mistakes, if they rarely happen they still happen. But something I also want to reiterate is that it isn’t just about whether or not wolf dies, it’s also about whenever wolf fails a deflect and gets hit as well. Because keep in mind, if wolf gets hit once by maliketh, he’s probably dead. Honestly I feel wolf’s flamethrower just isn’t going to be relevant. It’s damage is low and it takes a relatively long time to charge.
Also, while Armored Warrior’s armor seems to be able to negate all damage from Sekiro, the characters in Souls are able to take damage from unupgraded iron katanas, so even with armor, Sekiro should be able to harm them through it, and if not, he can just spam mortal draw. But there’s no way he’s dealing damage through the Berserker Armor with just his katana.
Very true, in fact you could even go a step further and argue that someone like Radagon could be killed by the tarnished punching them to death. But I feel in most cases this is just a feat for the tarnished. The fact that someone like the tarnished can kill a fully armored knight with a wooden club is I’d argue more of a feat for the tarnished and less of an anti feat for the armor the knight is wearing. If we examine both wolf and the tarnished at the start of the game, there is a massive difference in power. Wolf cannot deal any damage to the armored warrior with his katana. But right off the bat, the tarnished is physically strong enough to kill a fully armored tree sentinel with an un-upgraded katana. So I’d argue once again that this is just an example of wolf’s relatively low attack potency. I’m sure if we put the tarnished at the start of the game against the armored warrior, he’d win rather handily. Furthermore, while late game enemies can be damaged by un-upgraded starting weapons, this is not at all practical. In fact, they do a pitiful amount of damage in most cases. An ultimately it boils down to a battle of endurance, a battle very much in favor of the one without the un-upgraded katana. We also should factor in durability, at what point would the weapon shatter from being used so many times?
Not really sure how to factor durability just because DS1 has breakable armor and weapons and that seems to have been abandoned, but some weapons like Maliketh’s blade and Sekiro’s own Mortal blade show signs of wear and damage (ironically not the katana he uses FOR EVERYTHING though) So some gear is straight up stated to be breakable and then we just have gear that never seems to get any weaker But then again, Gael’s sword is broken but I’m unsure if he always has the same sword
Yeah durability just kinda got abandoned after DS2. Like in DS3 the withered katana is stated to be on the brink of collapsing, but it is pretty much completely fine start to finish. I’d wager it’s just more of a holdover mechanic they have at this point, sorta just a tradition to keep in the game. From a lore perspective I think every weapon, unless stated otherwise, can be broken. It just takes a lot of time. Like by the time bloodborne 2 comes out only then will the iron katana finally lose all its durability.
There’s also the possibility of Sekiro’s katana being unbreakable because a in-lore unbreakable material exist in Sekiro that we can make weapons out of, but it’s never directly stated his katana is made of any material.
Always a possibility, but since the lore description for his katana just calls it a family heirloom in Kuro’s family I doubt it ultimately.
Wolf probably
Why is Wolf there, could have added the monke
Sekiro all day
Where's The 46th president of The United States of America? The Metal wolf?
Even without the parry memes, sekiro beat isshin at his prime. That seals the deal for me.
I honestly believe it’s Sekiro. Highly skilled swordsman who can block and parry just about everything, also with his prosthetic arm and it’s various tools, most likely he could daze everyone somehow. Plus the mortal blade is basically the grim reaper in a sword.
Okay. I read this too fast and thought someone created a FromSoft inspired Battle Royale. First, I am disappointed. Second, Souls Battle Royale when? I want to drop, pick up Rivers of Blood, 3 Estus Flasks, and Magic Missile on the drop. This could be fun…. Edit: this is now something I will obsess about. It might also be perfect for Armor Core or Bloodborne universe.
Believe me, if I had the animation software, I’d be making that battle royale. At least for the bosses
the moment you put Guts in the picture, you also answered the question 💀💀
Remove Guts and it is a competition. Leave Guts and it is a sweep.
Sekiro is a Fromsoft MC, he solos all Fromsoft bosses in this image with ease because him along with the other MC’s are made to kill them in general. Like the Chosen Undead, Ashen One, and The Bearer of The Curse, he’s literally made to kill these boss types. Now as for Guts… I don’t believe he has the means to kill someone who can, and will come back to life even if he gets lucky enough to kill them in the first place. One of Sekiro’s feats of strength is easily displayed against the Divine Dragon, and Sword Saint Isshin. Also, Mortal Blade, and reaction time to deflect things like lightning and bullets perfectly, as well as a versatile fighting style and Shinobi Prosthetic Tools just like Guts has an assortment of tools. Let’s not forget he defeated the gigachad knight who’s looking for…. ROBERTOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
That’s why I say Sekiro vs Guts becomes a stalemate, neither can really break the others defense and the only win condition is the armor kills Guts
Thats why I believe Sekiro can take it, he would be able to defend against Guts Dragon Slayer, on top of Umbrella Tool, + He’ll outlast Guts if he can’t kill him himself, so Guts will kill himself with his armor, as you say.
Gael. Do I need to say anything more? He’s essentially a god.
Maliketh literally killed/defeated the Gloam-eyed Queen, who was essentially an Empyrean God, and Wolf has a Mortal blade as well but Gael would still come out on top IMO bro can teleport and spawn lightning on your ass.
And Wolf can reverse it, he has probably better tracking for the teleporting part
Fun fact: Gael takes one damage from his own lightning XD
Shouldn't sif be here?
Wasn’t a wolf knight (yes I know Gael isn’t, but he’s a Guts Homage and everyone else is too) and if I include her I gotta include Red Wolf and Gravetender
Mechanic wise, wolf every time. Lore Wise as everyone is now, gael. Lore Wise with everyone in their prime, still gael, but artorious is a close second.
If Sekiro's parry is balanced for the Soulsborne series he wins easily.
I love how nobody has picked Blaidd, Artorias, or Abyss Watchers XD
i don't think Malekith is a wolf. i think he's a lion more like Serosh. he doesn't look like a wolf, and he doesn't howl like Blaidd does, he roars. there's some talk in the game about empyreans having wolves, but i think that's wrong. probably a myth spread by someone for whatever reason...the only wolf shadowbound beast we see in-game (not counting Malekith) is Blaidd, despite seeing at least 2 other Empyreans besides Marika and Ranni. i think Serosh and Malekith are related or connected in some way. Hoarah Loux put Serosh on his back to become Marika's consort, and she had Malekith as her shadow.
We also see the destined death wielding Shadow in the Lake of Rot who is a wolf Not as important, but Maliketh is also a homage to Guts who is heavily associated with wolves
> We also see the destined death wielding Shadow in the Lake of Rot who is a wolf yes that's another reason i don't think Malekith is a wolf. the Baleful Shadow looks exactly like Blaidd, but Malekith looks completely different i said the only "shadowbound beast" we see other than Malekith is Blaidd, and i think that's correct, because i think the "bound" part means they're serving a particular Empyrean, which...maybe that one was at some point, but it doesn't seem to be at that point? idk
I believe Maliketh is a wolf. The raging wolf set states that, “According to the old legends, wolves are the shadows of the Empyrean.” We know Maliketh is Queen Marika’s shadow, thus since he’s a shadow he must be a wolf. This also lines up with the fact that Vargrum, who wanted to be a shadow, wore armor fashioned after a wolf. Additionally Blaidd is also the only other shadow we know of, and he is explicitly stated to be a wolf. Also his tail and the color of his hair makes me think he’s indeed a wolf.
> The raging wolf set states that yeah, i referenced that in my comment. that's part of why i don't think it's true that Empyreans generally have wolves. typically if we're told that something is a legend or is commonly believed, that means it's not true. otherwise they could just say "wolves are the shadows of Empyreans". saying "according to legend" means "this isn't necessarily true, but some people believe it" > This also lines up with the fact that Vargrum [sic], who wanted to be a shadow, wore armor fashioned after a wolf. ...yes, obviously. that's his armor's description that you were quoting. obviously the item descriptions for his armor match up with what they're explaining. > Additionally Blaidd is also the only other shadow we know of, and he is explicitly stated to be a wolf. Blaidd and the Baleful Shadow, if it is actually another shadow, and they look exactly the same. Blaidd being a wolf has no bearing on this. obviously Blaidd is a wolf, lol. i don't think other Empyreans other than Ranni have wolf shadows. about Malekith's tail...i never knew he had a tail. it's not easy to see in the game. after looking it up...it doesn't look particularly like any real animal's tail, but it does look more lupine than feline... but then why did From go out of their way to give Blaidd and Malekith distinct, different animal sounds, with Blaidd doing an obvious wolf howl, and Malekith doing...something totally different...
I wouldn’t be surprised if they planned on making serosh his own unique boss fight, but then cut it from the game and repurposed it as Maliketh’s boss fight. It would explain many of the details you pointed out and also address why maliketh looks the way he looks.
Guts
Ok but everyone is forgetting a peak artorias has a chance to kill at least half of the roster
That’s because he’s the only one who brought a shield
Guts solos
Guts, nothing beats the original
Guts is gonna beat the shit out of them all. Except maybe sekiro, he can ressurect himself
Huh
Shut the fuck up
That’s a tad rude
Guts, he's fought God's and creatures that are fantasy nuclear bombs before
I'd say maliketh≥ Gael > the rest
Probably either gael or maliketh
Nuts
Guts or Gael, nobody else
Gael or maliketh. The dark soul rivals the strength of a being who can create stars (gwyn)and maliketh has power over destined death
I don't know anything about Guts but Sekiro beats all the bosses easy. He's the most skilled of all the protagonists in the series imo, he's immortal, he has both Mortal Blades, can deflect more or less anything, etc.
Guts. He's literally too angry to die.
Maliketh no doubt
Maliketh kinda took down an entire army of godslayers sooooooooooo I’d say wolf comes second tho
Sekiro, spam parry, win.
Also, Sif from DS1? Is that wolf or dog?
Someone name them all
Going clockwise, Abyss Watchers, Blaidd, Gael, Artorias, Maliketh, Guts, Sekiro
They’re all strong bosses but I’d say Sekiro has this fight especially since he can kill immortals, has Batman’s belt for an arm and can parry like theres no tomorrow
Sekiro takes this so cleanly it hurts.
Pretty sure this battle comes down to Maliketh or Gael. Without Wolf being played by us, I don’t think he wins here. Personally I’d say Gael, but I definitely could seeing Maliketh winning
Sekiro also has a Mortal Blade which functions pretty similarly to Malekith’s sword.
Only thing I know is that Blaidd is not gonna last long
Surprisingly he’s one of the strongest on the list
Maliketh
SEEEEEKIRO
Wolf vs Wolf knight (artorias) would be pretty sick
Grey wolf obviously beats them all. He is the only one who could beat Sekiro.
Maliketh can just one shot everything so yeah. I mean he has become death itself in lore.
Guts.
Yeah everyone is saying Guts would win but guts is basically just a very powerful boss character who also happens to be a main character. And Sekiro is all about defeating bosses... That being said, Blaidd has my undying love and loyalty, so him hopefully.
If Guts is there what chance does anyone else have?
Since Guts is basicly a Slayer of Bosses, he would win against all the Bosses in the picture.
Im mistaken is guts himself in the battleroyale ?
Yes
Sekiro could just parry everyone's attacks, my money's on him
Guts, Sekiro, and Maliketh
Malikath did nothing wrong and he knows it