There is a conception around the vs debating community that Starfire is street level or somewhere above that but below Herald Level based on some vague conception that she doesn't "seem" that strong. This blog is going to be my argument for why she is in fact Herald Level.
So what number of feats in the herald (Planetary or above range) is required to make someone herald level? I don't know what feat number it is, either as a set number or in proportional to number of appearances. That said I'm going to tally all of Starfire's Herald Level Feats. This is including everything on Earth-1 since Rebirth made all that canon though I will divide by age in case you just want a specific time period. I'm obviously not including recursive feats (IE I'm not saying Starfire fighting Blackfire is a Herald Level feat because Blackfire would only be Herald Level scaling to Starfire, nor am I saying Starfire surviving her own attacks is a Herald Level Feat) because doing so would be dumb. I'm not including things that seem questionable, though I will mention them in a separate section afterwards as possibly secondary support if wanted. I am not listing Starfire fighting the same person multiple times as seperate instances, though I will list her fighting different versions of the same person as different instances (IE Starfire fighting Donna Troy and then Donna Troy is counted as one, but Starfire fighting Donna Troy and then later Troia, the Titaness Form of Donna Troy will be counted as 2). These are just power feats as I think her speed is already well agreed on. Also she has less herald level speed feats and less speed anti-feats, only really having 1 which I'll get too.
Pre-Crisis:
1: Starfire's starbolt is effective against Pre-Crisis Wonder Woman
2: Starfire survives an attack from the Titan Hyperion
3: Starfire blasts and survives a blast from the Titan King Cronos
4: Starfire overpowers Pre-Crisis Donna Troy in strength
5: Starfire fights the Titaness Thia
6: Starfire slays a giant on the same level as the Titans
Count: 6
Post-Crisis:
1: Starfight battles the Manhunters who are roughly Green Lantern Level and were comparable to Harbinger, even being barely wounded from a surprise attack from one
2: Starfire is said to be the only one of the Titans, including Cyborg and Donna Troy, capable of defeating Demon Raven and her starbolt actually does work on her
3: Starfire takes an attack from the Mad Titaness version of Donna Troy, Troia
4: Starfire needed to pull her punch or kill a Darkstar which are Green Lantern Level
5: Starfire survives a blast from Orion
6: Starfire survives the sonic attack of Silver Swan which just one issue later knocked around Wonder Woman
7: Starfire was confident in her ability to restrain both Wonder Girl and Superboy
8: Starfire vs Post-Crisis Wonder Woman, notably WW doesn't even win that fight. It's broken off by the arrival of a third party.
9: Starfire fought and harmed Brainiac 8, who was sent back in time to kill Donna Troy
10: Destroys Brainiac's ship
11: Takes hits from Sabbac, the Demon Shazam
12: Throws and Harms Firestorm
13: Battles Enhanced Blackfire who had previously been mistaken for X'Hal in power.
14: Survives near a galactic sized black hole that was moving the universe off center and threatening the universe
15: Survives the massive energy of the above black hole being closed
16: Defeats the New God Devilance
17: Fights Envy with Wonder Woman's powers
18: Requires Donna Troy and Mon-El to hold back
19: One-Shot Black Lantern Terra
20: Starfire and Donna Troy's power working on Atlas who was said to be nearly as strong as Superman
21: Withstands the power of Peak Blackfire who was stronger then the previous form of Blackfire
22: Starbolt is effective against a Green Lantern
Count: 22
New 52:
1: Is said several times to be one of the strongest aliens on the New 52 Earth
2: Harms Lord Helspont
3: Describes herself as nearly as strong and fast as New 52 Superman
Count: 3
Convergence/Rebirth:
1: Starfire and Donna fight the Extremists who are several times said to be planet-destroyers who have fought the Justice League
2: Beast Boy calls Starfire the strongest of the Titans
3: Starfire blasts Sinestro
4: Survives Radiation that was threatening Green Lantern Jessica Cruz
Count: 4
Total: 35
Starfire has been around for 39 years meaning this is a herald level feat on an almost annual basis. And that's not even including how Starfire was originally weaker in the pre-flashpoint and post-flashpoint timelines and how she was briefly depowered in the 00s. AND it's not allowing for all the times Starfire fought Donna Troy.
The general idea that Starfire is generally depicted as a street level fighter I can't find myself agreeing with despite reading literally ALL of her Earth-1 appearenences. Caveat: Rebirth does make everyone seem somewhat closer in terms of power and recent issues had her struggling with people like Killer Shark or Black Manta. That said Rebirth has a lot of examples like that where characters far separated in power are treated as somewhat close.
Most of the time Starfire's power is not very clearly defined. For instance, in one early issue a Demon monster attacks Titan Tower. Robin and Beast Boy couldn't harm it but Cyborg and Starfire were able to and drove it back. What does that prove? Does it "prove" Starfire is barely above Robin in power because she didn't one-shot an enemy that didn't one-shot Robin? Or it could be that the creatures' speed and power didn't correlated to it's durability, or any other number of other reasons. All that fight showed was that Starfire and Cyborg at that time were an unknown amount stronger then Robin and Beast Boy at the time. It's not really a feat or anti-feat save for scaling the former to the latter.
Limitations:
I also kept track of every time Starfire showed a limit, any limit, or an anti-feat during the late Post-Crisis Era (near or after her fight with Brainiac 8 where it was revealed she had been holding back on Earth and she released her limit...some of the latter feats might be her holding back, but I listed all of them just to be clear). I will also give any possible reason for why this anti-feat is and or other relevant context (IE if instead of a low-end outlier for Starfire it's a high end outlier for her opponent, which can be told if the character also beats other characters that are independently herald tier like Donna Troy or Supergirl).
1: Superman tanks Starfire's attack and one-shots her. He also tanked the starbolt on a separate occasion
Response: It's Superman. He's regularly said to be the strongest person on the planet. This isn't much of a low-end feat.
2: New 52 Superman tanks Starfire's attack
Response: This is related to Starfire's statement in the New 52 that she's nearly as strong and fast as Superman (New 52) and seems to contradict it. However the first scan comes from Red Hood and the Outlaws, and early issue taking place near the start of the New 52 timeline. Conversely the second statement comes from Starfire's solo series near the end of the New 52. In between these 2 at the end of Red Hood and the Outlaws New 52 Starfire fought the Superman Villain Lord Helspont. The implication seems to be she grew in strength until she was nearing Superman's level.
3: Starfire supposedly can't fly at translight speeds
Response: Outside generic "this character should just be able to search everywhere in a city" standard dramatic convenience which applies to pretty much every mftl character in fiction, this is the only speed "Anti-feat". Not only is it heavily contradicted as Starfire was able to fly lightyears even in her origin story, but it's contradicted in the same series as Starfire tells Animal Man that she can fly lightyears and just after the series she flies lightyears just to retrieve Animal Man's jacket. It's far more likely Adam Strange didn't know her capacities. And he doesn't even say that she can't fly faster then light, just that she can't fly them the translight speeds to get from the world they're on to Home. BTW apparently people are finding it hard to find the source for the scan where she tells Adam Strange that she can fly lightyears. It's from 52, Issue 17, listed as page 12 on readcomiconline.to
4: Bizarro overpowers Starfire and Donna Troy
Response: This is Bizarro, an alternate universe counterpart to Superman, and this is supposed to be early Starfire and Donna Troy (Donna has her red costume instead of her black one). Also Starfire beats him by using her solar power to depower him.
5: Starfire is stopped cold by the gravitational pull of a sun
Response: This doesn't seem to be a particular anti-feat for Starfire as it also clearly affected Miss Martian and Donna Troy about equally to Starfire and both of them are generally accepted at Herald Class. Also that issue was generally inconsistent as it claimed Supergirl could "only" stagger a mountain and could do nothing to a star despite her having far higher feats.
6: Starfire's starbolt does nothing to Synnar
Response: ...It's Synnar. Synnar at his weakest was able to take on the Justice League by himself. Also if you wanna go down that route, Starfire survived a casual blast from Synnar.
7: Demon Raven solos the Teen Titans including Starfire (1) (2) (3)
Response: Demon Raven is very powerful, as can be seen also fodderizing Donna Troy and Wally West in said issues. It's also possibly inconsistent as Starfire was much earlier said to be able to drive off Demon Raven. Or Demon Raven got stronger, which would make this "limitation" unquantifiable.
8: Starfire gets fodderized by a particular version of Joseph (1) (2)
Response: Same version also fodderized Donna Troy (1) (2)
9: Deathstroke defeats The Titans, including Starfire and Donna Troy
Response: These were early versions (time travel story), and also it's more of a high-end outlier for Deathstroke as he also defeats Donna here.
10: Starfire gets blasted back by an Animal Man Villainess
Response: She just reflected Starfire's power back at her
11: Starfire gets defeated by Prometheus, low level villain
Response: This is part of Cry for Justice and one of the most famously PIS scenes in comics where Prometheus defeats basically the entire JLA at the time including Zatanna, Supergirl, Green Lantern, Flash, and Red Tornado. This is clearly not good evidence.
12: Black Lantern Superboy Prime tanks Starfire's attack
Response: Superboy Prime can survive universe busting attacks in his base form. Him tanking Starfire's attacks is not a very low-end feat.
13: Starfire is blasted by one of Starro's minions
Response: Starfire is shown again 2 pages later, it didn't actually affect her much, just briefly stunned her.
Potential Feats:
Oh and just in case it helps, here are some potential Herald Level Feats I found but weren't sure about or thought were too ambigious.
1: Starfire could have killed Cyborg (disguised as Wildabeast)
Wasn't sure how strong Post-Crisis Cyborg was. I do know LATER he was stated to be able to potentially defeat Troia but at this point wasn't sure what his durability was.
2: Starfire crashes through Trigon's skeleton
Again wasn't sure how durable Trigon's skeleton was. Obviously for humans bone is much harder then flesh but I didn't know if there was any way to assume how tough Trigon's bones were compared to his flesh.
3: Starfire absorbs the solar energy of Hyperion
While she wasn't overwhelmed by his sheer power, this seems like just an energy absorption feat rather then any kind of real power feat.
4: Starfire energy-drains and beats a Kryptonian
Wasn't sure how much of this was Starfire's energy-draining and how much of it was her strength
5: Starfire is able to conjure the living flame of a star
The New 52 has several statements that sound really strong like this but are ambigious if they are literal
6: Starfire has the power of the sun raging within her 24/7
Another ambiguous New 52 statement
7: Starfire is called "essentially a walking solar flare"
Another ambiguous New 52 statement
8: Starfire makes a comparison to flying into a black hole as if she had done so
Might just be a figure of speech
9: Starfire matches Jon Kent's Heat Vision with her Starbolt
Jon Kent's powers are inconsistent
TLDR: Are Starfire's Herald Level Feats outliers? She has 2 direct herald level durability feats, a few dozen feats from scaling (33 scaling feats), some hype of her being that strong, and the only limits shown for her since she started to not hold back were about a half dozen anti-feats against high herald level+ entities and about a half-dozen PIS showings that also apply to other characters who also have Herald Level direct feats. No, they're probably not outliers.
Friday, June 7, 2019
Monday, June 3, 2019
Worst to Best Tiers for Versus Debating
I categorize characters into 16 tiers, which are really just 8 "scales" (Local, City, Planetary, Stellar, Galactic, Universal, Multiversal, and Omniversal) mixed with being an immediate threat and a gradual threat. I wanted to make a quick fun blog talking about my least favorite to favorite tiers to versus debate typically and why.
16: Tier 3 (Immediate Multiversal Threat)
The Top 4 Tiers I semi categorize by the Tegmark Classification of multiverse types and Tier 3 roughly corresponds to a Type 2 or a Finite Type 3 Multiverse, a multiverse that includes every finite possibility or includes different physical constants (such as dimensionality) in other universes.
Does that sound really obscure? Yeah, it is. There's almost no one in Tier 3. That's partially what makes it so annoying to debate, there's so few characters to matchup here. But that's just the start of the problems.
First of all it's almost impossible to have an even match with this tier. Because the number of universes is finite, but growing exponentially that means that if a series is set even 1 second after another series, then the series that is one second later, assuming it's growing at the same rate, is going to be so much larger that in raw power it's a complete stomp. And if the rates are different then it's also going to be an exponential stomp in power unless by some cosmic miracle they happen to get in the same ballpark which is nigh-impossible statistically.
There's also a sort of general spirit in versus debates I find that you want to not privilege characters based on where or when they were made. We don't want to give preference to characters strictly because they are from older series or from newer series, because they were made in any one place. Yet we have to do that from exponential growth theories because a finite but exponentially growing multiverse is going to be cosmically bigger if it's newer meaning it's inherently going to privilege newer series that have this set up.
And that's not everything. The verse not only sets up stomps but also don't give much way around stomps. There's not really much hax abilities that start coming in generally around tier 3, the same way there is with a lot of tiers. Tiers often have abilities associated as starting to come in around this tier (though obviously some verses are very unhax for their tier and some are very hax for their tier). Tier 3 doesn't really outside of maybe quantum manipulation.
And beyond that the tier is just not very fun to think about. It's not very easy to imagine sets of universes in general, and it doesn't have the transcendent abstract imagery of tier 2 and tier 1, it's just a sort of intermediate stage that's not that impressive.
15: Tier 16 (Gradual Local Threat)
The Lowest Tier. The Tier an unarmed human would be about even with. Fights on this tier are better then the prior one because you can have some maybe interesting or funny scenarios with the terrain, with the personalities (think the standard comical fight in a live-action sitcom) but that's about it. At this low level, just having ANY combat training or experience is a massive advantage, which should tell you just how generally uninteresting the tier is here.
Granted it's usually more debatable then Tier 16 and there's no godstomps when everyone is so close in power. But because the power versatility is usually so similar, in that it's nonexistent, there's not much to actually debate. It's basically just trying to find tiny edges which is not very exciting.
There are some characters with abilities at this tier, but they are few and far between. This tier unlike tier 3 is pretty easy to debate or depict, it's just really hard to actually have fun debating or depicting since it's usually so mundane.
14: Tier 6 (Gradual Universal Threat)
The Multi-Galactic Range. This Tier is sort of like a micro Tier 3 in my views. There's not many Multi-Galactic Characters in existence, since most characters that strong usually just make the jump to universal. Likewise this tier is a bit tricky to depict, debate, and doesn't have a lot of interesting abilities.
However this tier is a bit better in that regard. The abilities on this tier do tend to be more relevant since it's not as huge stomps as tier 3, which means even if there's not usually many interesting abilities that start to emerge at this tier, the characters do have some interesting enough power rosters to use.
Likewise while fights that take place on a galactic cluster+ scale is not easily visualize-able for the standard evidence, it's far easier then the quantum multiverse as it's still dealing with physical objects, just ones that are on a macrocosmic scale.
Likewise debates on this tier, when they happen given the scarcity of characters at this tier, tend to be easier then tier 3 since the characters feats still tend to be on the lower to mid cosmic range rather then on a vague unspecified supercosmic range.
13: Tier 15 (Immediate Local Threat)
The characters that can wreck a room quickly. Roughly superhuman to room level. Equal to an armed entity from a person wearing light armor with a sword to a modern infantry with firearms.
Just as Tier 6 acts as a sort of mini-Tier 3, this tier acts as a sort of mini-Tier 16.
Fights here tend to still be a bit simplistic in tactics, but are usually more versatile, generally encompassing interesting movement based options that are basically irrelevant at higher tiers (sticking to walls, swinging from ropes etc.) and using ranged attacks for a tactical option. As such the tactics tend to be a lot more diverse and interesting to talk about.
In addition there's often a lot more punch and gravity to a tier 15 fight then a tier 16 fight, as the characters are performing superhuman feats, with or without the usage of technology that gives things a clear weight.
12: Tier 10 (Gradual Stellar Threat)
Characters that can threaten a star system, casual planet busters or large/multi planet busters.
This tier doesn't have a huge amount of fighters I find, since most people tend towards either planet busters or star busters rather then this intermediate area. These fights are often interesting since characters on this tier often have very casual forms of the abilities of characters weaker then them since they generally are presented as a lot stronger to the lower bound planet busters that said it seems like kinda of an awkward tier to write. Usually this level isn't given speeds to quickly dart between star systems, sometimes even within one star system, meaning that a fight can't really go darting blowing up lots of planets since there isn't usually that many planets to blow up in the first place.
I do like how it seems this verse tends to start affecting the really high planes, like spiritual and abstract abilities to make fights more interesting that said there isn't a huge amount of characters on this tier to really talk about.
11: Tier 2 (Gradual Omniversal Threat)
Characters with infinite physical power are here. Mathematically you can't get physically bigger then this. Adding to it, multiplying it, or raising it to a power (like adding a dimension, ie Squaring it) will change the value of countable infinity.
This is an interesting tier, as characters start gaining transcendence over physical existence meaning that their powers start getting more abstract as might be expected for characters affecting infinities areas.
The sheer scale can allow for abstract and esoteric imagery for things to get more interesting as the physics of the prior tiers starts giving way to philosophy and ontology.
Absolute Plane Abilities start really coming into play here which gives this tier a unique flavor compared to the lower multiversals.
10: Tier 1 (Immediate Omniversal Threat)
Characters here can destroy not just physical existence but conceptual existence, destroying not just being but the possibility but the potential for being. Characters here are defined by their transcendence over lower concepts mostly.
In other words, what makes this tier interesting is it sort of flips the usual versus debating paradism on it's head. Instead of asking what the character CAN do, it instead becomes a question of what the character CAN'T do.
This while hard to visualize and debate at times is unique and often requires a more thorough understanding of the character and what bounds they have rather then general versus debating. I should note all fictional characters do have SOME bounds if only that they are a fictional character. There is no such thing as an actual fictional omnipotent. That is blatantly paradoxical.
But yeah this tier has an elegance was semi-formed in the prior tier, an elegance where the character can usually do more things and resist most things so it becomes less about all their quirky abilities and more so a measure of the lesser amount of differences between them. Tier 16 is one of the most even tiers, and the other most even tier is Tier 1, where characters powers start to become very similar again.
9: Tier 13 (Immediate City Threat)
Characters that can immediately destroy a human settlement ranging from a small village to a large metropolis are sort of the classic tipping point of when a character goes from being less of a "metahuman" that is still something containable by human forces and into a demigod or a force of nature which at best a nuke can deal with and at worst can singlehandedly destroy all human civilization.
This tier is when MHS speeds start to become more common as well as when haxes start to develop. They can be found on lower tiers certainly but it seems this tier is when they start to get a bit more common and those two things can make the fights seem a lot more again like bouts between demigods or forces of nature rather then just amped humans.
To be honest while I do like this tier, I think maybe it's a bit overrated. There's a lot of verses on this tier and a lot of fights on this tier and IDK I don't find it as interesting as some people. Hard to explain why but I think it's mainly because it's not into the even sort of cosmic tier yet like a sub-planetary yet it's also clearly above some sort of mythic thing about humanity, and that's not a conceptual space that my mind grasps very much. IDK.
8: Tier 4 (Gradual Multiversal Threat)
Characters that can destroy some universes but not a full multiverse.
This is a neat tier. It's a supercosmic tier since it can destroy more then a universe, but it's not so big that it's hard to conceptualize or visualize at this point. Possibly this is because supercosmic haxes are not usually a thing on this tier. Universal haxes are a thing which are interesting to imagine, like soul absorbing a universe, or creating a mental dimension as big as a universe. But this is the lower bound multiversals who fodderize universes but aren't crazy multiversal. I like this tier, I think it's interesting if you can grasp your head around the physics and scale of things.
There's also just a lot of abilities that tend to cluster around this area, partially because it's right before the dead zone of Tier 3, but universal+ spacetime manipulation, mid-godly regen, the creation of (or powering up to) universal level entities, having multiversal scale range, this verse gives a lot of interesting abilities for crazy crazy battles that feel ultra high powerful without being too hard to understand or philosophical.
7: Tier 14 (Gradual City Threat)
Characters are strong as an army from a prehistoric hunter-gatherer squad to a modern army complete with artillery. From the room to multi-city block level. Characters that can wipe out cities with their fights overtime.
This is a good tier! Abilities that are commonplace later start to appear here as major tactical factors like flight, manipulation of the battlefield, city scale range, element manipulation, weather manipulation etc.
This tier is really good at emphasis and weight since the fights are just low enough in power that they can still be intuitively "felt" it seems, while being massively above anything likely to happen in real life.
Fights on this tier are also little masterpieces of tactics for the low tiers, since one-shot attacks are still relatively rare but the fights still have very definitive tactical elements are not mostly even like lower tiers. They can match factors common to low tier fights like surface area, armoring etc. things that are important factors in real life fights with factors that are more fantastical
6: Tier 7 (Immediate Galactic Threat)
Not too common, but this tier is a fun tier. While it's not a huge range to play in, the galaxy busters have a level of inutitive and cosmological imagery being able to fight through the constellations.
There are a lot of fun abilities that start to become common this tier, like planetary to stellar spacetime manipulation, planetary to stellar soul/mind hax, planetary creation/reality-warping, and galactic scale energy/matter abilities. Beings here really take the transition from being seemingly demigod like to godlike, and there's a majesty to the fights.
And the tactics of this tier! Fights on this tier tend to have so many cool tactical abilities just because the abilities and feats start to get really crazy and out there outside just raw power.
5: Tier 12 (Gradual Planetary Threat)
Characters whose power can significantly alter the face of the planet they are in. Basically Island to Multi-Continent Level.
This tier is rare but it's a fun one to play at. Characters here often have a good variety of abilities without being so hax that raw power becomes not the major focus. After this tier, how hax a character is usually seems to become the primary point while raw power becomes secondary unless it can stomp (and thus is treated as a hax in it's own right).
The Gradual Planetary Threat is the last tier where it seems power is the primary component of fights but where haxes and special abilities become so versatile and useful a backup that it make fights very interesting beyond just raw power.
A fight between two gradual planetary threats can be highly visually impressive with massive shifting of the planet and large displays of power while still involving interesting displays of various abilities to aid in the usage of that power.
4: Tier 11 (Immediate Planetary Threat)
One of the most common tiers. Planetoid to Planet Level fighters.
If Tier 12 is a tier where abilities and raw power work in unison where raw power is the primary tactic, Tier 11 is where abilities and raw power work in unison where abilities is the primary tactic.
Tier 11 is a very common tier, planetbusters is a common enough thing in fiction. Yet it has such diversity in abilities. Space Manipulation, Time Manipulation, Mind Manipulation, Soul Manipulation, Energy Manipulation, Matter Manipulation. All of these have dedicated users of them in the planetary tier and it seems fairly even even with the relatively hax planet busters, just because the tier is relatively even with low level haxes being common but high level haxes being uncommon.
It helps that Planet Busters tend to have similar speeds, at either MHS or Low FTL, meaning that speeds tend to be comparable and keep everyone again at a competitive range.
The fights are tactical just like the preceding tier, but in a different way, focused around various win conditions as haxes tend to be a common form of win, but not so much that raw power also can't be used for a win.
3: Tier 9 (Immediate Stellar Threat)
Starbusters.
This is a really cool and evocative tier, capable of creating the kind of cosmic events that are the biggest that most people know, supernova and black holes and the like. There's a lot of characters here yet the speeds seem to be within 2 clusters, the low FTL and the Trillions-Quadrillions FTL range that speedblitzes don't seem that common. And even despite that passive spacetime warping appears sometimes here, meaning even those aren't necessarily speedblitzes.
Besides that the verse has a sort of sneak preview version of the tier right above it, with notable abilities like control of the fundamental forces, inter-dimensional travel/range, time travel, or energy absorption. This tier is the highest tier of the lower half of the tier list and it really does feel like it, being a precursor of the cosmic and mythic abilities of the higher half of the tier list. There's a lot of majesty to fights here I feel, as not only is stellar imagery very beautiful to me, but the abilities often here tend to be quite majestic to look at as the first glimpses into proper cosmic abilities.
2: Tier 8 (Gradual Galactic Threat)
Probably the most underrated tier in my view. There's not a huge amount of characters here, but destroying multi-stellar dimensions does still happen at times.
While the tier right above is probably the transition to god level, this level feels at times the dividing line between god and demigod, the demigod awakening to godhood, cosmic yet at the same time the feats often not as immediatly absurd and crazy as the above tiers as to make them seem more elegant.
Powers that tend to appear at this stage are planetary+ matter/energy manipulation, dimension creation/destruction, minor reality-warping, all things that allow for spectacular displays but tend to appear more grounded then the bigger scale displays of the Immediate Galactic Tiers.
DC Post-Crisis Powerhouses, Full Power Base Sailor Senshi, Lower Tier Gold Saints, there are so many cool characters on this tier despite it not having that many overall.
1: Tier 5 (Immediate Universal Threats)
Have you noticed a lot of my favorite verses either max at universe level or have a lot of characters there? Sailor Moon, DC Comics, Saint Seiya, CLAMP, Divine Comedy, Undertale, Stanley Parable, Wander over Yonder, God of War, Pretty Cure, Madoka, Yu-gi-oh!, Yuki Yuna is a Hero.
The Universal Level is my favorite tier to discuss and to write. It's all an encompassing tier, where terms like reality, creation and the cosmos can be used justifiably while still remaining empirical to the senses. It's tactical and philosophical at times. It's tactics are intricate and based in the strange quicky powers and feats of each character, yet starting to become elegant by the massive versatility of a lot of the characters.
Large scale manipulation of higher planes like the spiritual and the abstract start to become apparent, universal scale manipulation of physical substances like matter, energy, space and time, mean that haxes are all cosmic, none super-cosmic and none strictly local, yet there is also a clear hierarchy of abilities complexity. Stranger abilities like causality manipulation, abstract embodiment, creation of avatars, start to manifest here and make fights way more tactical to discuss, yet at the same time they are not so strong in potency yet that they might fights all about them.
Speeds can vary to anything you want from barely superhuman to comically comically mftl, yet at the same time passive spacetime abilities, existing outside a timeline, or acasuality can also mean that there are counters to higher speed yet at the same time speeds are not yet irrelevant since physical maneuvering in space still matters here.
Tier 5 is my favorite Tier. Just in general it seems to have everything you could want in a tier.
16: Tier 3 (Immediate Multiversal Threat)
The Top 4 Tiers I semi categorize by the Tegmark Classification of multiverse types and Tier 3 roughly corresponds to a Type 2 or a Finite Type 3 Multiverse, a multiverse that includes every finite possibility or includes different physical constants (such as dimensionality) in other universes.
Does that sound really obscure? Yeah, it is. There's almost no one in Tier 3. That's partially what makes it so annoying to debate, there's so few characters to matchup here. But that's just the start of the problems.
First of all it's almost impossible to have an even match with this tier. Because the number of universes is finite, but growing exponentially that means that if a series is set even 1 second after another series, then the series that is one second later, assuming it's growing at the same rate, is going to be so much larger that in raw power it's a complete stomp. And if the rates are different then it's also going to be an exponential stomp in power unless by some cosmic miracle they happen to get in the same ballpark which is nigh-impossible statistically.
There's also a sort of general spirit in versus debates I find that you want to not privilege characters based on where or when they were made. We don't want to give preference to characters strictly because they are from older series or from newer series, because they were made in any one place. Yet we have to do that from exponential growth theories because a finite but exponentially growing multiverse is going to be cosmically bigger if it's newer meaning it's inherently going to privilege newer series that have this set up.
And that's not everything. The verse not only sets up stomps but also don't give much way around stomps. There's not really much hax abilities that start coming in generally around tier 3, the same way there is with a lot of tiers. Tiers often have abilities associated as starting to come in around this tier (though obviously some verses are very unhax for their tier and some are very hax for their tier). Tier 3 doesn't really outside of maybe quantum manipulation.
And beyond that the tier is just not very fun to think about. It's not very easy to imagine sets of universes in general, and it doesn't have the transcendent abstract imagery of tier 2 and tier 1, it's just a sort of intermediate stage that's not that impressive.
15: Tier 16 (Gradual Local Threat)
The Lowest Tier. The Tier an unarmed human would be about even with. Fights on this tier are better then the prior one because you can have some maybe interesting or funny scenarios with the terrain, with the personalities (think the standard comical fight in a live-action sitcom) but that's about it. At this low level, just having ANY combat training or experience is a massive advantage, which should tell you just how generally uninteresting the tier is here.
Granted it's usually more debatable then Tier 16 and there's no godstomps when everyone is so close in power. But because the power versatility is usually so similar, in that it's nonexistent, there's not much to actually debate. It's basically just trying to find tiny edges which is not very exciting.
There are some characters with abilities at this tier, but they are few and far between. This tier unlike tier 3 is pretty easy to debate or depict, it's just really hard to actually have fun debating or depicting since it's usually so mundane.
14: Tier 6 (Gradual Universal Threat)
The Multi-Galactic Range. This Tier is sort of like a micro Tier 3 in my views. There's not many Multi-Galactic Characters in existence, since most characters that strong usually just make the jump to universal. Likewise this tier is a bit tricky to depict, debate, and doesn't have a lot of interesting abilities.
However this tier is a bit better in that regard. The abilities on this tier do tend to be more relevant since it's not as huge stomps as tier 3, which means even if there's not usually many interesting abilities that start to emerge at this tier, the characters do have some interesting enough power rosters to use.
Likewise while fights that take place on a galactic cluster+ scale is not easily visualize-able for the standard evidence, it's far easier then the quantum multiverse as it's still dealing with physical objects, just ones that are on a macrocosmic scale.
Likewise debates on this tier, when they happen given the scarcity of characters at this tier, tend to be easier then tier 3 since the characters feats still tend to be on the lower to mid cosmic range rather then on a vague unspecified supercosmic range.
13: Tier 15 (Immediate Local Threat)
The characters that can wreck a room quickly. Roughly superhuman to room level. Equal to an armed entity from a person wearing light armor with a sword to a modern infantry with firearms.
Just as Tier 6 acts as a sort of mini-Tier 3, this tier acts as a sort of mini-Tier 16.
Fights here tend to still be a bit simplistic in tactics, but are usually more versatile, generally encompassing interesting movement based options that are basically irrelevant at higher tiers (sticking to walls, swinging from ropes etc.) and using ranged attacks for a tactical option. As such the tactics tend to be a lot more diverse and interesting to talk about.
In addition there's often a lot more punch and gravity to a tier 15 fight then a tier 16 fight, as the characters are performing superhuman feats, with or without the usage of technology that gives things a clear weight.
12: Tier 10 (Gradual Stellar Threat)
Characters that can threaten a star system, casual planet busters or large/multi planet busters.
This tier doesn't have a huge amount of fighters I find, since most people tend towards either planet busters or star busters rather then this intermediate area. These fights are often interesting since characters on this tier often have very casual forms of the abilities of characters weaker then them since they generally are presented as a lot stronger to the lower bound planet busters that said it seems like kinda of an awkward tier to write. Usually this level isn't given speeds to quickly dart between star systems, sometimes even within one star system, meaning that a fight can't really go darting blowing up lots of planets since there isn't usually that many planets to blow up in the first place.
I do like how it seems this verse tends to start affecting the really high planes, like spiritual and abstract abilities to make fights more interesting that said there isn't a huge amount of characters on this tier to really talk about.
11: Tier 2 (Gradual Omniversal Threat)
Characters with infinite physical power are here. Mathematically you can't get physically bigger then this. Adding to it, multiplying it, or raising it to a power (like adding a dimension, ie Squaring it) will change the value of countable infinity.
This is an interesting tier, as characters start gaining transcendence over physical existence meaning that their powers start getting more abstract as might be expected for characters affecting infinities areas.
The sheer scale can allow for abstract and esoteric imagery for things to get more interesting as the physics of the prior tiers starts giving way to philosophy and ontology.
Absolute Plane Abilities start really coming into play here which gives this tier a unique flavor compared to the lower multiversals.
10: Tier 1 (Immediate Omniversal Threat)
Characters here can destroy not just physical existence but conceptual existence, destroying not just being but the possibility but the potential for being. Characters here are defined by their transcendence over lower concepts mostly.
In other words, what makes this tier interesting is it sort of flips the usual versus debating paradism on it's head. Instead of asking what the character CAN do, it instead becomes a question of what the character CAN'T do.
This while hard to visualize and debate at times is unique and often requires a more thorough understanding of the character and what bounds they have rather then general versus debating. I should note all fictional characters do have SOME bounds if only that they are a fictional character. There is no such thing as an actual fictional omnipotent. That is blatantly paradoxical.
But yeah this tier has an elegance was semi-formed in the prior tier, an elegance where the character can usually do more things and resist most things so it becomes less about all their quirky abilities and more so a measure of the lesser amount of differences between them. Tier 16 is one of the most even tiers, and the other most even tier is Tier 1, where characters powers start to become very similar again.
9: Tier 13 (Immediate City Threat)
Characters that can immediately destroy a human settlement ranging from a small village to a large metropolis are sort of the classic tipping point of when a character goes from being less of a "metahuman" that is still something containable by human forces and into a demigod or a force of nature which at best a nuke can deal with and at worst can singlehandedly destroy all human civilization.
This tier is when MHS speeds start to become more common as well as when haxes start to develop. They can be found on lower tiers certainly but it seems this tier is when they start to get a bit more common and those two things can make the fights seem a lot more again like bouts between demigods or forces of nature rather then just amped humans.
To be honest while I do like this tier, I think maybe it's a bit overrated. There's a lot of verses on this tier and a lot of fights on this tier and IDK I don't find it as interesting as some people. Hard to explain why but I think it's mainly because it's not into the even sort of cosmic tier yet like a sub-planetary yet it's also clearly above some sort of mythic thing about humanity, and that's not a conceptual space that my mind grasps very much. IDK.
8: Tier 4 (Gradual Multiversal Threat)
Characters that can destroy some universes but not a full multiverse.
This is a neat tier. It's a supercosmic tier since it can destroy more then a universe, but it's not so big that it's hard to conceptualize or visualize at this point. Possibly this is because supercosmic haxes are not usually a thing on this tier. Universal haxes are a thing which are interesting to imagine, like soul absorbing a universe, or creating a mental dimension as big as a universe. But this is the lower bound multiversals who fodderize universes but aren't crazy multiversal. I like this tier, I think it's interesting if you can grasp your head around the physics and scale of things.
There's also just a lot of abilities that tend to cluster around this area, partially because it's right before the dead zone of Tier 3, but universal+ spacetime manipulation, mid-godly regen, the creation of (or powering up to) universal level entities, having multiversal scale range, this verse gives a lot of interesting abilities for crazy crazy battles that feel ultra high powerful without being too hard to understand or philosophical.
7: Tier 14 (Gradual City Threat)
Characters are strong as an army from a prehistoric hunter-gatherer squad to a modern army complete with artillery. From the room to multi-city block level. Characters that can wipe out cities with their fights overtime.
This is a good tier! Abilities that are commonplace later start to appear here as major tactical factors like flight, manipulation of the battlefield, city scale range, element manipulation, weather manipulation etc.
This tier is really good at emphasis and weight since the fights are just low enough in power that they can still be intuitively "felt" it seems, while being massively above anything likely to happen in real life.
Fights on this tier are also little masterpieces of tactics for the low tiers, since one-shot attacks are still relatively rare but the fights still have very definitive tactical elements are not mostly even like lower tiers. They can match factors common to low tier fights like surface area, armoring etc. things that are important factors in real life fights with factors that are more fantastical
6: Tier 7 (Immediate Galactic Threat)
Not too common, but this tier is a fun tier. While it's not a huge range to play in, the galaxy busters have a level of inutitive and cosmological imagery being able to fight through the constellations.
There are a lot of fun abilities that start to become common this tier, like planetary to stellar spacetime manipulation, planetary to stellar soul/mind hax, planetary creation/reality-warping, and galactic scale energy/matter abilities. Beings here really take the transition from being seemingly demigod like to godlike, and there's a majesty to the fights.
And the tactics of this tier! Fights on this tier tend to have so many cool tactical abilities just because the abilities and feats start to get really crazy and out there outside just raw power.
5: Tier 12 (Gradual Planetary Threat)
Characters whose power can significantly alter the face of the planet they are in. Basically Island to Multi-Continent Level.
This tier is rare but it's a fun one to play at. Characters here often have a good variety of abilities without being so hax that raw power becomes not the major focus. After this tier, how hax a character is usually seems to become the primary point while raw power becomes secondary unless it can stomp (and thus is treated as a hax in it's own right).
The Gradual Planetary Threat is the last tier where it seems power is the primary component of fights but where haxes and special abilities become so versatile and useful a backup that it make fights very interesting beyond just raw power.
A fight between two gradual planetary threats can be highly visually impressive with massive shifting of the planet and large displays of power while still involving interesting displays of various abilities to aid in the usage of that power.
4: Tier 11 (Immediate Planetary Threat)
One of the most common tiers. Planetoid to Planet Level fighters.
If Tier 12 is a tier where abilities and raw power work in unison where raw power is the primary tactic, Tier 11 is where abilities and raw power work in unison where abilities is the primary tactic.
Tier 11 is a very common tier, planetbusters is a common enough thing in fiction. Yet it has such diversity in abilities. Space Manipulation, Time Manipulation, Mind Manipulation, Soul Manipulation, Energy Manipulation, Matter Manipulation. All of these have dedicated users of them in the planetary tier and it seems fairly even even with the relatively hax planet busters, just because the tier is relatively even with low level haxes being common but high level haxes being uncommon.
It helps that Planet Busters tend to have similar speeds, at either MHS or Low FTL, meaning that speeds tend to be comparable and keep everyone again at a competitive range.
The fights are tactical just like the preceding tier, but in a different way, focused around various win conditions as haxes tend to be a common form of win, but not so much that raw power also can't be used for a win.
3: Tier 9 (Immediate Stellar Threat)
Starbusters.
This is a really cool and evocative tier, capable of creating the kind of cosmic events that are the biggest that most people know, supernova and black holes and the like. There's a lot of characters here yet the speeds seem to be within 2 clusters, the low FTL and the Trillions-Quadrillions FTL range that speedblitzes don't seem that common. And even despite that passive spacetime warping appears sometimes here, meaning even those aren't necessarily speedblitzes.
Besides that the verse has a sort of sneak preview version of the tier right above it, with notable abilities like control of the fundamental forces, inter-dimensional travel/range, time travel, or energy absorption. This tier is the highest tier of the lower half of the tier list and it really does feel like it, being a precursor of the cosmic and mythic abilities of the higher half of the tier list. There's a lot of majesty to fights here I feel, as not only is stellar imagery very beautiful to me, but the abilities often here tend to be quite majestic to look at as the first glimpses into proper cosmic abilities.
Probably the most underrated tier in my view. There's not a huge amount of characters here, but destroying multi-stellar dimensions does still happen at times.
While the tier right above is probably the transition to god level, this level feels at times the dividing line between god and demigod, the demigod awakening to godhood, cosmic yet at the same time the feats often not as immediatly absurd and crazy as the above tiers as to make them seem more elegant.
Powers that tend to appear at this stage are planetary+ matter/energy manipulation, dimension creation/destruction, minor reality-warping, all things that allow for spectacular displays but tend to appear more grounded then the bigger scale displays of the Immediate Galactic Tiers.
DC Post-Crisis Powerhouses, Full Power Base Sailor Senshi, Lower Tier Gold Saints, there are so many cool characters on this tier despite it not having that many overall.
1: Tier 5 (Immediate Universal Threats)
Have you noticed a lot of my favorite verses either max at universe level or have a lot of characters there? Sailor Moon, DC Comics, Saint Seiya, CLAMP, Divine Comedy, Undertale, Stanley Parable, Wander over Yonder, God of War, Pretty Cure, Madoka, Yu-gi-oh!, Yuki Yuna is a Hero.
The Universal Level is my favorite tier to discuss and to write. It's all an encompassing tier, where terms like reality, creation and the cosmos can be used justifiably while still remaining empirical to the senses. It's tactical and philosophical at times. It's tactics are intricate and based in the strange quicky powers and feats of each character, yet starting to become elegant by the massive versatility of a lot of the characters.
Large scale manipulation of higher planes like the spiritual and the abstract start to become apparent, universal scale manipulation of physical substances like matter, energy, space and time, mean that haxes are all cosmic, none super-cosmic and none strictly local, yet there is also a clear hierarchy of abilities complexity. Stranger abilities like causality manipulation, abstract embodiment, creation of avatars, start to manifest here and make fights way more tactical to discuss, yet at the same time they are not so strong in potency yet that they might fights all about them.
Speeds can vary to anything you want from barely superhuman to comically comically mftl, yet at the same time passive spacetime abilities, existing outside a timeline, or acasuality can also mean that there are counters to higher speed yet at the same time speeds are not yet irrelevant since physical maneuvering in space still matters here.
Tier 5 is my favorite Tier. Just in general it seems to have everything you could want in a tier.
Saturday, June 1, 2019
Death Analysis: The Warrior Princess of Tamaran, The Ginger-Skinned Supermodel who can fly, Goddess of the Ghost Sector and New Titan, Starfire
(Because I know you are all just going to go to it anyway, here is a helpful link)
Origin:
Emotion has long been known to increase our capacities. Happiness improves health, sadness has been shown to increase creativity, and anger allows for bursts of strength beyond what is normally possible. Is it any surprise then that there might be a world that reveres the transformative power of emotion. On the distant world of Tamaran, emotion and passion rule all society. The Golden skinned natives absorb sunlight for power and release it in their emotional displays. Born to the Royal House of Tamaran were two sisters. However the older of the two, Princess Komand'r was born a genetic freak, unable to fly like the rest of the populace. Thus the crown princess became the second sister Koriand'r. Komand'r in envy sought to usurp the crown from her sister. She betrayed Tamaran, allying with their longstanding enemies the Gordanians and usurped control of Tamaran causing her sister Koriand'r to be sold into slavery.
For 6 years Koriand'r suffered unbearable physical torture and the degradation of slavery. But while her body was broken many times, her spirit was strong and could not be broken. In the course of her enslavement Koriand'r found herself in the possession of the Psions, a species of vile scientists. Curious to see how much energy the stellar-energy absorber could withstand before exploding, Koriand'r was put into a device designed to charge with ever increasing stellar energy. This experiment caused the machine to explode instead and Koriand'r to gain abilities beyond even those of her race.
With her newfound powers, Koriand'r instigated a slave revolt, overthrowing her captors and made her escape to Earth, foretold there by the Earth Psychic Raven. With the help of Raven's new team of Superheroes known as the Teen Titans, Princess Koriand'r defeated her pursuing captors driving them back. Joining the team, she took the Superhero Moniker that was a direct English translation of her Tamaranian Name and became...Starfire.
(For the record everything in DC is canon currently. Also the Teen Titans didn't seem affected by the timeline changes in COIE anyway.)
Strength:
Even without her solar based amp, Starfire's strength is at superhuman levels. Without her powers she was strong enough to crack a wall while holding back. Without a solar amp she should be at least comparable to other Tamaranians. Ancient Tamaranians were able to fight creatures capable of boiling away cool mountain lakes with their sheer strength.
Also while Starfire's durability and starbolt power are above her raw strength, her strength should scale to it as Starfire and her older sister Blackfire are regularly able to harm each other with their strikes. Also it should be noted that there is a misconception that Blackfire is more powerful then Starfire. While it is true that Blackfire absorbed more stellar energy and has more raw starbolt power, Blackfire spent too much time focusing on her starbolt power, and not enough on her physical power and so in physical strength, Starfire proved the superior.
Durability:
Starfire has described her skin as "quite impervious" and I quite concur. First off, it clearly scales to her starbolt power. Back in the day, villains would use Starfire's own attack her ALL the time. Here's a little compilation I made of some of the times. Starfire has managed to survive an amped blast from Blackfire. At the time Blackfire was amped so that Starfire mistook her power for X'Hal's, the Goddess of the Tamaranians. How strong is X'Hal? X'Hal mere birth as the living god was enough to cause the energy of a supernova. X'Hal can casually consume a star with her power and it is said that X'Hal can destroy an entire star system, twice. Starfire has even withstood a blast from Blackfire when she was even stronger then that.
Starfire was able to survive the blast of a cannon that would later do damage to the Extremists who, as mentioned above, are planet destroyers that have fought the Justice League. A surprise blast from a Green Lantern Level Manhunter barely wounded Starfire. Starfire was able to shield Green Lantern Jessica Cruz from radiation that was threatening her.
Starfire's durability is high enough to let her not get one-shot by some of the world's heaviest hitters. She was able to survive a blast from New God Orion. For comparison Orion's shockwave threatened to destroy the Earth despite being on the Moon. Starfire was able to survive the Sonic attack of Silver Swan which just one issue later knocked around Wonder Woman (who if you recall can take stellar+ attacks without much trouble). Starfire was also able take a hit from Envy with Wonder Woman's powers. Context: Envy was copying the Titans' mentor figures trying to exploit their subconscious envy at their masters power and so did have their full capacity. Envy was specifically able to copy Barry Allen's power at his height. She was also able to endure a hit from the Demon Shazam, Sabbac.
Oh and one more feat. During Infinite Crisis there appeared a Galaxy Sized Black Hole that could destroy galaxies. This Cosmic Storm was moving the universe off-balance, threatened to destroy the universe and created an unprecedented warping of the spacetime continuum. Starfire was one of the heroes capable of surviving near the event horizon of this black hole, requiring massively cosmic durability to survive, even accounting for surface area and distance from center, and speeds capable of not being immediately sucked in.
Starfire can fly across the void of space on her own power. That planet was earlier stated to be half a parsec away. At even an hour of travel that would be ~14,300c. Even in her backstory she was able to fly vast distances in space to get to Earth. Starfire has flown light-years just to retrieve one of her friends' jacket.
When serious Starfire can go even faster, she was able to save Donna Troy from the inter-dimensional attack of Titaness Thia suggesting she's even faster then her. During the New 52 Era Starfire claimed to be nearly as fast as the New 52 Superman. How fast was this version of Superman? Fast enough to travel to Earth in 60 days from the edge of the universe. Even using the observable universe in real life this would require speeds of over 273 Billion c. This is consistent with how the Titans from earlier mentioned being able to traverse the universal seas.
However that's not even the limit as both are the speeds of an early Starfire. Later on Starfire was able to catch up to Supergirl despite Supergirl having a headstart. She was confident in her abilities to contain Superboy and Wonder Girl. Superboy and Supergirl were fast enough to fly to the Source Wall at the end of the universe in a short amount of time. Superboy was also faster then an Imperiex Probe who traveled across the universe to serve the will of Imperiex. Starfire was also able to catch up to Wonder Woman's invisible jet. The invisible jet was capable of flying into other dimensions in seconds. All of these feats would require speeds of quadrillions of times the speed of light.
Also she kind of tagged Jesse Quick one time, a speedforce user and one of the fastest people alive. She doesn't scale to this in movement speed but she was able to react and move her arm fast enough that Jesse didn't notice and avoid it, so it's likely her attack/reflex speed is even higher.
Starbolt:
Starfire's experimentation by the Psions gave her an ability not shared by her species, the ability to release bolts of stellar energy, called starbolts. It is said that Starfire wields power that defies measure and imagination. Starfire has the power of the sun raging within her 24/7 which is why she is called a walking solar flare and can conjure the living flame of a star.
Starfire's power is enough to destroy a wall by accident while she is sleeping. With just one finger she is able to reduce automatons to ash. She can destroy a building with a crook of her finger. Starfire's starbolt was able to tear through a distant mountain. Starfire was able to convincingly replicate the heat of a nuclear weapon being able to set a desert ablaze with the heat of 100 suns.
Getting more serious, Starfire's starbolt was able to break the grip of the Chida beast her strength could do nothing too despite the fact that Starfire was weakened. Her starbolt was also effective on Enhanced Blackfire who was earlier mistaken for X'Hal. It is also an effective weapon compared to her fellow Titans Members. The Starbolt was effective against Wonder Girl, could have killed Cyborg (disguised as Wildabeast) and was able to force back Demon Raven. Starfire in fact was said to be the only one of the Titans Assembled, Cyborg and Donna Troy included, that could put down Demon Raven.
Remember how powerful Green Lantern Auto-Shields are? Well Starfire's starbolts can overwhelm them. Her blast worked on a Green Lantern, as well as Sinestro and completely one-shot Black Lantern Terra. She was also able to blast a Manhunter on the same tier of power and cause it to release Harbinger. Starfire's starbolt can even be compared to the high tiers of the DC Earth. Starfire matched Jon Kent's Heat Vision with her starbolt. Starfire's starbolt worked on Atlas in combination with Donna Troy, and Atlas was said to be nearly as strong as Superman. During the New 52 Era, there was a Superman Enemy named Lord Helspont, a Galactic Warlord. Lord Helspont was strong enough to tank New 52 Superman's Heat Vision and overpower him. During the New 52, Blackfire and Starfire actually reconciled and Blackfire actually tried to change. When Lord Helspont killed Blackfire for trying to protect her sister, Starfire's power became strong enough to harm even him. Starfire's power has proven effective against Envy with Wonder Woman's powers and against Wonder Woman herself. Starfire's power lives up to the description of defying measure and imagination by challenging even the gods. Her Starbolt power proved able to harm Cronos, King of the Titans. In a fair fight she was able to defeat the powerful New God Devilance the Pursuer. The likely weaker New God Lightray was able to create a sun and shatter a planetoid while weak.
Starfire can control the intensity of her starbolts at will and can focus them to give them more damaging potential. She can concentrate her beam to a pencil thin point. She is very accurate with her starbolts. She can shoot the guns out of enemy hands and hit a missile at vast distance. She has at times demonstrated the ability to fire her starbolts hundreds of kilometers.
Starfire can fire several starbolts from each hand at once, at least 5. Also this one time she created an energy ball that fired several bolts from it. Not sure what advantage if any this gives. She also has a few other tricks she can do with her starbolts. She can create an impromptu shield with her starbolt beam or cauterize a wound with a low level starbolt. A flash of her starbolt can create a bright blinding light or Starfire instead can maintain a less bright light for a while
Starfire can also implode her starbolts rather then explode them, causing them to suck in nearby energy.
First usage of energy-draining, Starfire can make her starbolts implode rather then explode, sucking up nearby energy. Speaking of which...
Energy Absorption:
Starfire's power comes from sunlight. Interestingly Earth's Sun is weaker then Tamaran's, suggesting that most of Starfire's feats are technically slightly weakened Starfire. Starfire's solar based powerset does suggest she can run out overtime but this is unlikely in combat due to how efficient it is. A few hours of solar charging can allow Starfire to survive for days underground. Starfire can take in even more solar energy in systems with multiple suns. Too much light can overwhelm Starfire's body, though her body will adapt and process it eventually even making her stronger overtime.
Because Starfire's body subsists on stellar energies, she does not need oxygen to breath and can survive in a vacuum fine. Starfire can drain energy from her surroundings as well, which she used against a Kryptonian. Humorously, just regular blasts of her solar power was enough to depower Bizarro.
Starfire can drain energy from others and absorb enemy fire.
Heat/Fire Manipulation:
Starfire can emanate heat and fire. Merely touching her skin melted Red Hood's gun. She can shoot fire from her hands or more commonly her hair can set alight and she can use it as a weapon theoretically. Her hair fire can burn tanks and regularly stretches long distances:
The last one of which demonstrates astronomical distances.
Language Absorption:
Starfire can assimilate languages through kissing. This takes about 1-2 minutes to fully absorb the language depending on it's complexity. Technically it's not just kissing but any physical contact that allows Starfire to absorb languages but kissing seems most efficient. Also Starfire finds it most fun. This ability extends to animals. Starfire has used this ability tactically once to figure out whether Superman was Superman or a Robot Duplicate.
Enhanced Senses:
Starfire is stated to have superior eyesight (sorry it's hard to read, can't find a clearer scan). She can see through cloaking devices, hear things while unconscious, and can feel alcohol stimulating her on a cellular level. As the Tamaraneans are descended from a catlike species, their enhanced senses make a degree of sense.
Interestingly these senses are all based on perceiving things close by more clearly rather then perceiving things at a greater distance which Starfire has no particular feats off.
General Resistances:
Starfire's energy are so overflowing that attempts to weaken her energy or power are resisted. An Energy dampener cannot contain Starfire's power, she can forcefully break out of power inhibiters and she was able to resist the power nullification technology of Crux.
Remember the giant cosmic storm from Infinite Crisis? It's closure caused massive amounts of energy to be released as well as massive time and reality warping yet Starfire survived perfectly fine near that event.
Enhanced Love:
Because of her strongly emotional nature, Starfire has a superhuman capacity for love, even redeeming one of The Dominators. This allowed her to destroy a Blight Lord with a kiss
Enhanced Beauty:
Starfire has a superhuman level of beauty that tends to distract her opponents in combat. Her beauty draws the attraction of men, women and animals. A species of sentient rock people found Starfire attractive. Starfire's beauty would make half the women in America envious and the other half want to kill her.
What I'm getting at here is she's very pretty.
Healing:
Starfire is trained and skilled at healing though it's at a fairly low non superhuman level (basically the equivalent of regen (low) )
Skill:
The Tamaraneans are a warrior race. There were no better fighters then them. Perhaps a biased source, but they clearly are on an interstellar level as in the distant future the Tamaraneans have conquered the entire space sector they live in.
Starfire herself has been fighting since before she learned to crawl. Even powerless Starfire was able to knock out people infected with murder-rage with her bare strikes despite hold back so as to not kill them. She also knows a nerve strike that can knock unconscious. She was taught to fight by the fabled Warlords of Okaara and is good enough to defeat Blackfire's best warriors.
Starfire's skill is like that of an Amazon, a race of immortal warrior women who have trained in the arts of war for thousands of years. In a way Starfire is more of an Amazon then Donna Troy ever was. Starfire can spar with the Amazon Artemis. Starfire was able to best Donna Troy in skill 4 times in a row. And outside of Starfire, only Wonder Woman was able to best Donna Troy in skill. Fittingly Starfire was said to rival Wonder Woman herself in skill. Bear in mind that Wonder Woman regularly fights Ares, who is all conflicts across history, all war and fighting skills. Also when Donna was the Mad Titaness Troia, Starfire was again able to match Troia in skill despite Troia trying to kill Starfire this time.
Intelligence:
While Starfire might be naive to Earth ways, she is very smart in general. She is described as a tactical genius for one of her clever plans. She is trained in the art of war and recognizes a trap and saved Rann and the Milky Way via clever deduction. She was also able to defeat an energy-absorber, her usual weakness, via clever tactical thinking Starfire also broke a bunch of children out of Hell from a demon's grip by clever manipulation. In addition she is a good tracker, able to track down Nightwing in Gotham despite his stealth skills.
Weaknesses:
Her power is dependent on sunlight and she can breath in the void of space since there is the same sunlight, even more sunlight since it's less diffused by atmosphere. However, underwater where light is more diffused or underground without prior solar charge, Starfire can't breath naturally. She also weakens with less sunlight.
Starfire is also holding back constantly as her full power (IE Nova) is highly draining to her. She also once claimed she was Honor Bound to introduce herself. This has only come up once.
Starfire is impulsive, emotional and prone to sudden bursts of passion. She is loving towards her friends and wrathful towards her enemies. While initially she was as much a Tamaranean as anyone, she acted as a reconciliation between the two worlds and philosophies, learning some level of self control and rationality from her Earth friends while also teaching them to be more free with their emotions. This union's philosophy led to a planetary utopia, and so while she does not wish to be she is worshipped as a goddess in the Ghost Sector.
Starfire's greatest trait is her uncontainable spirit. Despite enduring torture that no ordinary being could bear, in 6 years of the most wretched slavery and physical abuse, Starfire never once lost her resolve or dignity. And eventually Starfire even forgave her sister Blackfire. Because she knows the only way to be truly free of slavery is to be free of the past, to be free of hatred.
Starfire is the spirit of freedom and passion, a liberator of all bodies, minds and souls from slavery and despair.
Summary:
+Tier 9
+Stellar+ Strength/Durability, higher with Nova
+MFTL Speed (Quadrillions), possibly higher reflex/attack speed
+Energy Projection (multi-stellar energy blasts, can modulate intensity and focus, Stellar+ Level)
+Energy Constructs (Energy Ball and Shield)
+Energy Absorption
+Energy-Draining
+Elemental Projection (Heat/Fire, Light)
+Does not need oxygen to breath
+Language Absorption (Physical Contact)
+Enhanced Senses (Sight, Hearing, Touch)
+Enhanced Love and Beauty
+Low Level Healing
+Superhuman Skill (Low A Tier to Mid A Tier, Possibly High S Tier scaling from WW and Ares)
+Clever and Tactical Genius
+Resistance to Pain, Pressure Points, Sedatives, Knockout Gas, Freezing, Emotional Manipulation, Energy-Draining, Power Nullification
+Potential Resistance to Death Manipulation, Time Manipulation, Reality-Warping
-Reliant on Solar Energy (Can be overwhelmed by massive influx of energy, can run out if kept away from sunlight or if using Nova)
-Impulsive and Over-Emotional
-Holds Back
-Honor-Bound to introduce herself?
-Sucks at Tennis
Possible Opponents:
Starfire vs Gamora:
Apparently Gamora is Marvel Equivalent of Starfire. Did a quick preliminary research and seems even enough to do, and I know how much everyone wants another Marvel vs DC fight :P But anyway these two are both fairly well known due to their inclusions in the MCU and the Teen Titans animated series. As such it would probably go well.
Starfire vs Bubbles:
I've done profiles for both of these two now and I'm gonna be honest, it actually seems fairly even comparing their finished profiles. The two are both the hearts of their respective teams, and the bright optimistic girly ones. Also apparently CN tried to have a rivalry between these two with their two maligned adaptations Teen Titans Go and PPG2016 which means that something of quality might come from those two. ;)
Next Time:
Huge thanks to my friend Thor for making this outstanding Next Time Trailer. I really feel like he did an amazing job capturing the characters this time and contrasting them with this trailer.
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