This is a CaV, do not post on who you think would win until the debate is over.
When voting, give reasons for your vote.
Wan has all 4 elements, but no AS. He has his feats from when he was fused with Raava (his fight with Vaatu), but he is not experiencing strain from the fusion.
Both benders are bloodlusted.
Win by KO or death.
Fight takes place in the Spirit World by the Tree of Time:
When Aang's son and the first Avatar come face to face, who will come out on top?
Wan was originally a low class member of a lion turtle city in the era of Raava who relied on stealing food from the Chu family to survive. Through trickery, he managed to gain a hold of the power of fire, but was cast out of the city. Contrary to the predictions of his friends, he was able to survive in the wild, and gained the friendship of a group of spirits. Once he left, he was tricked by Vaatu, the spirit of darkness, into freeing him. Eventually, he worked together with Raava, the spirit of light, to master all four elements to try and stop Vaatu at Harmonic Convergence, eventually fusing with her permanently, forming the Avatar Spirit and locking away Vaatu for 10,000 years.
Offense
To start, I'd like to establish the incredible durability of Vaatu, the Spirit of Darkness and Wan's main opponent:
Vaatu, while much weaker then he was when he fought Wan, was able to completely no sell impacts large enough to smash enormous chunks out of hills made of solid rock. Not only was Wan able to hurt Vaatu, but he was able to do so casually and consistently and with every element save air. Tenzin hasn't even come close to showing he can defend against attacks with that much power behind them, and if Tenzin gets hit by a single shot from Wan, he's going down.
Firebending
Firebending was Wan's first element, and correspondingly his best. Like Iroh, Aang, and Zuko, Wan received dragon training, and has a wide variety of impressive firebending feats.
Here, Wan's casual, basic fire blasts (of the sort he can spam) are blowing holes in Vaatu, whose durability I established above. Wan was spamming these from aboard his cloud, showing extreme levels of power output with his regular attacks while moving at high speeds, showing he can combine his offense and his defense to a high degree.
Wan's AOE with firebending is also consistently enormous. This blast here is almost as large as Vaatu, and basically disrupts his entire body (again, recalling Vaatu's durability). For a size comparison, this is how large Vaatu is:
Wan is basically toy sized in comparison to Vaatu, despite Vaatu not being totally uncurled.
And here Wan generates a colossal fireblast from above. Considering the fact that much of Tenzin's mobility is vertical (look at his fight with Zaheer for instance), attacks from above are a significant advantage for Wan, as Tenzin will not be able to dodge these attacks by leaping over them, lest he jump straight into the attack itself.
Here's a still showing how large the blast was. Note how minuscule Wan looks next the fire he generated. I'd like to emphasize that Wan has a massive AOE advantage over Tenzin because of his firebending, which will help in pinning Tenzin down.
And last but not least, Wan can concentrate his fire into fire slices strong enough to cut Vaatu in half. Bloodlusted Wan won't hesitate to pull out this sort of move against Tenzin.
Other Elements
While Wan's best offense is from his firebending, his other elements are still capable of extremely potent offense that has a good chance of tagging Tenzin sooner or later.
To start, he lifts three human+ sized boulders an enormous distance in the air, and then hurls them at Vaatu with enough force to damage him (again recalling Vaatu's durability). This gives Wan the ability to attack from almost arbitrarily high up - he can lift the rocks up and then hurl them down, aided by gravity.
Wan's waterbending is also extremely powerful, able to blast large holes in Vaatu (against keeping his durability in mind).
I'd also make the case that Wan's basic elemental offense is faster than Tenzin's. As you saw in the gifs above, 5/6 of Wan's earth and water attacks against Vaatu landed, whereas Vaatu casually danced around Korra's basic attacks, implying that Wan's basic offense travels faster than Korra's.
And as you can see here, Tenzin's basic blasts travel at about the same speed as Korra's basic blasts. As such, Wan's basic offense aught to travel significantly faster than Tenzin's, giving him a major edge in a ranged confrontation.
Overall, I'd argue that Wan hits far harder than Tenzin (due to damaging Vaatu), has far greater AOE (due to his firebending), has attacks that can come from more angles (he can attack from both on - level and from above, whereas Tenzin can only attack from on - level), and has faster projectiles than Tenzin, giving him a major advantage in the offense department.
Defense
Stonewall Defenses and Basic Elemental Mobility
Generally speaking, Wan relies more on mobility than on stonewall defenses, but he can still block shots from Tenzin if he needs to do so.
Here Wan creates a sizable earth wall, which Tenzin does not have the destructive feats to blast through. Wan then kicks away the top of the wall and then the lower portion (note him kicking the lower portion of the wall through the ground - another nice power showing).
Here, Wan roots himself with earthbending (useful should Tenzin happen to knock him backwards) and then earth jumps an enormous distance into the air, showing how quickly he can move with elemental aids.
Lastly, Wan is the only firebender to actually use them to dodge attacks unamped, dodging Vaatu's beam attack, a nice showing of firebending skill. He also shows that he can lighten the impact of falls with firejets as well.
Wan's Cloud
The majority of Wan's defense comes from his Sun Wukong-esque flying nimbus cloud. This cloud offers Wan a level of speed and maneuverability that Tenzin can't hope to match, and I can't see Tenzin tagging Wan in flight.
First, Wan shows how quickly he can form his cloud (almost instantly).
However he can form his cloud even more quickly and with less movement. Here, you can see that at the beginning of the gif he's skidding along the ground, but when the camera angle shifts and he's above the stream, the cloud is already formed underneath him, nigh-instantly and without hand gestures.
This gif shows two important things about Wan's cloud. First, it shows that he can easily take it high off the ground, giving Wan a huge edge in terms of vertical mobility. Second, it shows Wan's mobility and dodging capability, as he completely dodges out Vaatu's tentacle attack and appears on the other side of Vaatu almost instantly. Third, it shows that Wan is fully capable of creating his cloud mid air should he need to do so.
Here, Wan matches Vaatu's travel speed, dodges his laser by jumping 50+ feet nigh instantly, then fires an enormous fire blast downwards, showcasing impressive speed and dodging capabilities.
And perhaps my favorite, Wan once again matching Vaatu's travel speed and dodging a flurry of tentacle attacks as well as dodging some earth spikes protruding from the ground while moving at extremely high speeds.
I've used the phrase "matching Vaatu's travel speed" a couple of times, but how fast is Vaatu? Even moving at a leisurely pace, Vaatu travels from one spirit portal to the other in seconds, showcasing speed far beyond what Tenzin is capable of. And Wan was matching a serious Vaatu in the middle of a fight, where he would logically be moving significantly faster.
Overall, Wan's cloud provides an enormous maneuverability advantage over Tenzin and allows him to dodge Tenzin's attacks pretty easily while controlling the range of the fight. He can create it almost instantly, and he can even do it in mid air.
Durability
While Wan is extremely hard to hit on his nimbus, he's still obscenely durable, able to go toe to toe with the Spirit of Darkness for several minutes while dying out of sheer willpower.
First, Wan tanked a massive hit from Vaatu that sent him flying 100+ feet.
And then he tanked an energy beam from Vaatu.
And another energy beam from Vaatu that ripped up the ground.
And another swat from Vaatu's tentacles (which can shatter stone).
And last but not least, a very nasty tentacle slam followed by another energy beam. Wan still gets up in moments before Vaatu pins him down. Keep in mind that he was dying thanks to Raava for several minutes as well.
This isn't even the whole feat (Wan took several smaller falls as well), just the most important parts of it. Wan's durability is utterly ridiculous, to the point where I'm confident that Tenzin is going to have an extremely difficult time even injuring Wan, let alone KOing or killing him.
Overall, Wan's defense is better than Tenzin's, although the gap here is much smaller then the gap between their respective offenses. Not only can he stonewall Tenzin's attacks with earthbending, but he should also be fully capable of dodging Tenzin's attacks, as he can easily make distance if he feels he's being pressured. Furthermore, even if Tenzin does manage to hit Wan, Wan can get right back up essentially undamaged and keep on swinging due to his obscene durability.
Why Wan Wins
Wan's got quite a few things going for him in this fight. To start, his offense is more powerful, travels faster, has better AOE, and also has better range (virtually all of Wan's feats are long range feats, whereas Tenzin is much more of close to mid range fighter), while his defense is more multilayered (Wan can block, dodge more easily thanks to his cloud, or even tank Tenzin's shots, whereas Tenzin will be forced to dodge Wan's offense). This comes out to Wan landing more hits and doing more damage then Tenzin. I think Wan's greatest weapon in this fight is his maneuverability, as it allows him to control the terms of the engagement. If Tenzin manages to pressure him, Wan can always back up and escape, whereas if Tenzin is getting overwhelmed Wan can keep the pressure on until Tenzin is dead or KOed. On a similar note, Wan controls the range of this fight. Wan can and will generally keep the fight long distance, where Tenzin's speed isn't much of a factor and where Wan's faster projectiles and bigger AOE will be a huge advantage. Overall, Wan is going to pass this test with flying colors.
Tenzin was born to Avatar Aang and Katara in 199 AG. As the son of Aang, and the only airbending child of his, he was tasked with carrying on the tradition and teachings of the Air Nomads. After his father's death, Tenzin grew to become the one living airbending master in the world. Eventually, he married Pema, and had children with her, Jinora, Ikki and Meelo, the next generations' airbenders, as well as a newborn, Rohan. Tasked personally by Katara and the White Lotus with training Avatar Korra, passing on the knowledge and training he gained from Aang to his next lifetime, Tenzin has served as Korra's mentor throughout her journeys and has taken on many threats around the globe, including the Equalists, the Dark Spirits, the Red Lotus and the Earth Empire. To date, Tenzin remains one of the finest elemental masters in history.
Airbending: Skill.
It is rather difficult to distinguish between Tenzin's raw physical abilities and martial skills and his overall efficiency as a result of his mastery over the element of air, so I decided to fit most of his skill set into this category.
Before anything, airbending as an art enhanses the bender's sensory, their situational awareness and agility. Tenzin is shaved bald for life in order to be more in touch with his element, resulting to a skill of processing air currents of the slightest motion around him and reacting accordingly. An impressive demonstration of all this is his first solo encounter with an Equalist unit.
He evades their sneak attack of powered up bola throws with a quick handstand maneuver from behind, and despite having his hands tied up as a result of getting caught off guard, he quickly recovers and casually dodges repeated attempts from the chi blockers before creating a massive tornado on the spot, elevating himself many stories up in the air while twirling the attackers around like ragdolls. This is a unqiue use of the air spout, an already advanced airbending technique, as without making a single movement - still with his hands tied up mind you - he doesn't only control the tornado itself as a whole, but even the base and higher levels of the spout individually, precisely using them for offence and defence. He launches a chi blocker crushing into a nearby wall, even causing a crater in the process, with concentrated force on the bottom of the spout and disposes of the others by throwing them several buildings away with the sheer momentum of the technique.
Tenzin can shape the element into various complex techniques, such as an air vortex, a cushion, a disc or a sphere and so on. One of these signature techniques is him forming an air ring to ride on, a variant of the air scooter invented by his father, but suitable enough to fit Tenzin's size and build and a lot more potentially destructive.
The ring surrounds Tenzin and combines speed and omnidirection defence, evidenced by how it was used to help Tenzin close in on 2 of the Equalists' mecha tanks launching high speed wires and hooks his way, maneuvering in between them and knocking them away. This also serves as a decent mobility tool.
Due to his mastery over airbending, and the speed, agility and flexibility that comes with it, Tenzin is particularly quick on his feet for a bender. Combined with the nature of airbending, an art that allows for larger scale and multidirectional, fast attacks on the spot, it allows Tenzin to be an avid ranged fighter.
Tenzin was the first person to land a clean strike on Amon. After he takes down one of his chi blockers, he moves on to knock away both him and his Leutenant. With an air swipe from below, he forces Amon, someone both quite fast and respectably agile, into a bad position he cannot get himself out of and sends him flying.
Another clear instance would be his 1 on 1 exchange with Zaheer. Throughout the fight, Tenzin covers more distance than Zaheer using airbending as leverage, lands a couple of hits that his opponent barely manages to defend against, negates several blasts and abuses the right openings to quickly beat him down, dodging a blast with a traditional airbending stance, applying evasion and offence simultaneously, and landing the first clean hit in the fight, which was enough to put Zaheer down and ready to be finished off before P'Li interfered.
Lastly, probably Tenzin's most impressive showing of speed and combat efficiency is when he took on 3/4s of the Red Lotus in a last stand after his siblings got taken out by Ming Hua and Ghazan. At that point in time, Tenzin had just dominated Zaheer, took a cheap shot combustion blast from P'Li, got sent crushing on a wall. Ghazan and Ming Hua then started attacking from every direction, hitting him with ice and rock projectiles shattering in his face from behind, even though he does manage to defend against an initial attack. Zaheer blasts him with a sustained air stream and knocks him down. They surround him and take combat ready stances to finish him off but he still gets up and fights them off.
Tenzin sends Ghazan flying. The lavabender is a sitting duck, he clearly couldn't even process what happened. Immediately afterwards, Zaheer and Ming Hua attack, and Tenzin shatters Ming Hua's ice shards with an air shield and simultaneously turns 180 degrees while dodging an air swipe from Zaheer, landing a clean blast and knocking him away before he can react too. He remains completely untagged even after Ming Hua attacks against with some ice shards, he attempts to close in on her before P'Li blasts him again out of nowhere.
Of course a master bender is not without extreme levels of raw power, and Tenzin is not lacking in this category either. He's a very powerful airbender and can utilise this power for both offence and defence. In the first encounter with the mecha tanks, Tenzin went toe to toe with them, repeatedly blasting one away with his basic offence. Worth noting that the same mecha tank was no selling Korra's fire blasts while closing in.
And in another encounter, with a slightly charged blast, Tenzin could launch a mecha tank dozens of feet up in the air, taking it down. This is the distance he sent multiple tons flying at with little effort.
When the Red Lotus attacked the Northern Air Temple, Tenzin initiated the battle with a large air blast that sent Ghazan, Zaheer and Ming Hua flying crushing onto the opposite wall, KOing them for a few seconds.
Okay so first off, let's get something out of the way regarding Wan's damage output.
Vaatu, while much weaker then he was when he fought Wan, was able to completely no sell impacts large enough to smash enormous chunks out of hills made of solid rock. Not only was Wan able to hurt Vaatu, but he was able to do so casually and consistently and with every element save air. Tenzin hasn't even come close to showing he can defend against attacks with that much power behind them, and if Tenzin gets hit by a single shot from Wan, he's going down.
That scaling isn't valid in most of the instances you brought up. Water blasts, fire blasts and boulders blowing holes on Vaatu's body (which is nothing but dark matter) is neither quantifiable nor very impressive. Tanking slams does not compare to this; it's a completely different type of durability. It's like comparing surviving a high fall to surviving a gunshot wound. We know these concentrated blasts from benders have an amount of concentrated blunt force output at their core that is just strong enough to penetrate objects [1], [2], [3] for instance - the exact same way bullets work.
Now, you did show one valid showing for Wan regarding the potency of his fire blasts, which is disrupting Vaatu's entire body. That is really impressive indeed, but I don't think it's something that puts him above someone like Tenzin, who should be able to replicate it based on his showing against P'Li in particular.
The blast Tenzin effectively stopped dead was powerful enough to blow a large, deep crater on the ground. P'Li even put down the Firelord's dragon in one hit, even without having bent for over a dozen years and with her bending weakened as a result of the temperature in the North Pole.
Wan's AOE with firebending is also consistently enormous. This blast here is almost as large as Vaatu, and basically disrupts his entire body (again, recalling Vaatu's durability). For a size comparison, this is how large Vaatu is:
Wan is indeed a powerful firebender, but let's not forget that not everyone of his blasts is almost as large as Vaatu. That is absolutely not taking anything away from his best feats, but I wanted to clear up that just as not all of Tenzin's blasts are enormous, the same applies to Wan. But I also believe Tenzin has surpassed Wan's best showings as far as scale goes:
Wan's never covered this much radius with his attacks outside the Avatar State. Tenzin's greatest AoE (which he can perform just as casually as Wan) is noticably bigger than Vaatu by all means.
So I believe Tenzin has Wan beat both in sheer force and potential scale. You also mentioned this:
Here Wan creates a sizable earth wall, which Tenzin does not have the destructive feats to blast through.
Really, we know Tenzin can shatter rock and ice with his air blasts. He hasn't had a prolonged fight with an earthbender on screen so he won't have the "destructive feats" to just blast through this I guess, but he scales to a level of raw power where blasting through a rock defence with absolutely no feats is not even noteworthy.
Wan vs Tenzin: Attack Speed.
I'd also make the case that Wan's basic elemental offense is faster than Tenzin's. As you saw in the gifs above, 5/6 of Wan's earth and water attacks against Vaatu landed, whereas Vaatu casually danced around Korra's basic attacks, implying that Wan's basic offense travels faster than Korra's.
I don't have many concrete arguments regarding this because I don't think that's concrete scaling either. Vaatu is a character who, as he himself admits, cannot be hurt by regular benders. Without the Avatar State, no one can do anything to him outside of superficial, painless holes and/or blasts that merely stagger him. I mean, his whole attitude towards mortals and benders is that they're inferior and don't hold a candle to him. I wouldn't take his attitude towards dodging or just taking attacks too seriously. But I will agree that this is subjective to a degree. I just wouldn't feel comfortable making this comparison.
Wan vs Tenzin: Speed & Mobility.
First, I'll address a noteworthy part of your mobility section and then I'll try to focus on the "nimbus cloud", Wan's preferred and most effective option.
Here, Wan roots himself with earthbending (useful should Tenzin happen to knock him backwards)
It won't really be useful in that situation. If Tenzin hits Wan, it's both gonna hurt and it's going to completely throw him off balance. In your GIF, Wan is not recovering from any attack, he's just getting off his own cloud. Whenever Vaatu actually hit him he was dropped hard [1], [2] for reference.
This gif shows two important things about Wan's cloud. First, it shows that he can easily take it high off the ground, giving Wan a huge edge in terms of vertical mobility. Second, it shows Wan's mobility and dodging capability, as he completely dodges out Vaatu's tentacle attack and appears on the other side of Vaatu almost instantly. Third, it shows that Wan is fully capable of creating his cloud mid air should he need to do so.
The only thing I want to note here is that Vaatu tagged him immediately after he made that evasive maneuver. But I agree with more or less everything else up to this point.
I've used the phrase "matching Vaatu's travel speed" a couple of times, but how fast is Vaatu? Even moving at a leisurely pace, Vaatu travels from one spirit portal to the other in seconds, showcasing speed far beyond what Tenzin is capable of. And Wan was matching a serious Vaatu in the middle of a fight, where he would logically be moving significantly faster.
Honestly this just doesn't matter. This is a fight, not a race. What is Wan supposed to use that for? He needs to be close to fight.
Now, first off I want to take note of Tenzin's strongest mobility tool, his air spout, and why it compares to Wan's own ability just fine. I think I've analysed the technique enough in the first part of my post, so now I'll highlight a couple of advantages it offers over Wan's nimbus:
Tenzin can freely operate offensively and defensively while simultaneously in motion, without ever having the need to get off his spout. He controls it without the slightest of movements, and while the same applies to Wan to (a noticably lesser) degree, we know he has to get off the cloud to throw his heaviest attacks.
The air spout equips Tenzin with a pre-existing, powerful defence. All he needs to do is elevate or descend himself and he can defend against Wan's attacks without having to waste a single movement. These precious moments can be used to charge a more powerful attack amongst things.
And for a final point, I will question the statement that Tenzin cannot tag Wan in a fight. There's a lot to be said here. I think I've already highlighted how extremely capable Tenzin is at range because of his raw speed, timing and co ordination, and he far outclasses Wan in these categories by all means. This allowed him to outreact and quickly land clean hits on expert fighters like Zaheer, who has actual skill and has been tested against other fighters. Wan's never fought anyone with skill, he's only fought Vaatu, an angry spirit. That's not to say he cannot fight master benders of course, but I think it's worth keeping in mind that Tenzin presents a threat monumentally different than anyone Wan's gone up against.
And for a second point that more or less just strengthens the first one, Wan's fighting style is not going to do him many favors against someone like Tenzin. Wan, maybe in part because he's never had to fight anyone skilled, just really fast and powerful (Vaatu) sacrifices a lot of things in favor of power and limited levitation. Take note of the majority of the time he attacks while on his cloud; he leaves himself open, a lot. He often moves in a straight line, jumps off the cloud in a very telegraphed manner etc. Tenzin has proven himself against highily trained acrobats like Amon and Zaheer, who are supposed to not leave themselves open. Tenzin actually managed to abuse openings against them - it should be much easier to abuse openings against Wan.
Wan vs Tenzin: Durability.
This isn't even the whole feat (Wan took several smaller falls as well), just the most important parts of it. Wan's durability is utterly ridiculous, to the point where I'm confident that Tenzin is going to have an extremely difficult time even injuring Wan, let alone KOing or killing him.
Okay, this is very important because admittedly airbending is not directly lethal like fire and lacks the versatile offence of earth and water so technically it should be more difficult for Tenzin than most to fight someone freakishly durable, but let's be clear here, this isn't the case. Yes, Wan took an absurd amount of damage in his fight with Vaatu, and yes, he kept coming back, but this is far from applicable against a serious Tenzin. As you'd see in his fights against the Red Lotus or the respective units of the Equalists, Tenzin leaves his opponents absolutely no room to breathe. He's not gonna stand above Wan's knocked down body and have an evil monologue. He won't give him time to recover. Wan was far from tanking many of these hits with little effort. He took many blasts and slaps from Vaatu but he was down for quite a few seconds. I'm willing to bet he can tank a couple of Tenzin's blasts and come back in time, but anything more than that is very, very questionable. He won't have an impossibly hard time KOing him, which you seem to believe.
Conclusion.
I don't believe Tenzin is outmatched power-wise, quite the opposite. He has stronger, and potentially larger attacks. He has comparably efficient mobility, but his own ranged game is complimented by the fact that he's much faster, much more co ordinated and much more tactical. This combined with the scale of his airbending should allow him to land the necessary hits to take Wan down.
@tektonic: I'm still trying to decide whether or not to reply. My internet connection is somewhat spotty, and I'm worried my reply is going to be erased again like last time.
@tektonic: I'm still trying to decide whether or not to reply. My internet connection is somewhat spotty, and I'm worried my reply is going to be erased again like last time.
What I do for super massive posts is constantly save portions of them or all of it on our personal blogs on CV so if anything happens I could just copy and paste everything right back there.
@tektonic: I'm still trying to decide whether or not to reply. My internet connection is somewhat spotty, and I'm worried my reply is going to be erased again like last time.
What I do for super massive posts is constantly save portions of them or all of it on our personal blogs on CV so if anything happens I could just copy and paste everything right back there.
See, that's what I did/do as well (I use PMs with just me in them). The problem was that I completed the response in one piece, and just as I was about to click submit (to then copy-paste to the thread), my internet went down.
Are you interested in finishing if I respond? If you don't want to finish (which would be completely fine - I did disappear for 8 months), I can delete the thread.
See, that's what I did/do as well (I use PMs with just me in them). The problem was that I completed the response in one piece, and just as I was about to click submit (to then copy-paste to the thread), my internet went down.
Okay so either you can save it in multiple PM's, than puzzle it together in the thread(or make multiple posts in the thread), or you can have the entire written part saved on something non internet reliant(Word).
It's gonna be a while. I just learned the hard way that spoiler blocks do not apply inside of private messages, which is what I was using to store my post. It was about 2/3 done, but now everything I put inside the blocks is gone, which is everything. I can't believe that this is the second time this has happened.
@mialthefencer: Sorry to hear about that. Maybe try what Tek said and save it to Microsoft word? It might not work for the images but at least you would have your text.
@mialthefencer: Sorry to hear about that. Maybe try what Tek said and save it to Microsoft word? It might not work for the images but at least you would have your text.
I was able to recover the text by viewing the source (CTRL-U) of the PM I made. I just need to redo all the formatting and I'll be most of the way done. In the future, I'm going to use blog posts like Tektonic recommended.
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