The New World… a hive of scum and villainy unlike any other yet, a bastion of hope and freedom for change. The realm of the strongest powers in the world is a host to the battle between chaos and order. But just as the seas ever ebb and flow, the times… they are a-changin', and a new generation is rising to supplant the old. In that generation lies the successor, the guardian wolf of the country of Samurai. Born as a daughter to the strongest creature on the high seas, she claims the name of her hero as she sets sail for a journey to conquer the world.
Representative for the New World: Yamato
Up is down, down is up, right is left and left is right. The world of Soul Society and its court guard has been the stalwart defenders of the balance for eons. Protecting and maintaining the larger picture of the cosmos without fail. That is until one of their own aspired to break the natural order and betray their brothers. For decades, the curse of evil has plagued him but failed to maintain its grip. After all, how can you remain steadfast when the world around you is inverted? The captain of the 5th Division controls the laws of the very world itself, disrupting the very equilibrium the new world threatens to stand on.
Representative for Old World: Shinji Hirako
And now, the battle between the two world orders begins! FIG-
*energy crackles and explodes in the middle of the stage, a tear through dimensions opens*
“How are you up one? Did cutting that tree down mess with your head? Lost the ability to count? Well, whatever I could use a snack” The man draped in crimson strutted out of the gap between dimensions fracturing any semblance of balance the two had hoped to create with the outcome of the battle. After flipping off his former opponent in a manner that only brothers could, he finally noticed the two standing before him as the tear in space-time closed once more. Greeting his two new acquaintances, the son of hell quickly caught up to what was happening, leading to what could only be interpreted as a devil’s grin.
“Jackpot.”
New Challenger, The Son of the Demon: Dante
Credit to Darthjhawk for the intro
Rules
In character
Everyone is Current
Standard Gear, DMC5 Gear for Dante
Random Encounter
Win by Death, KO or Incapacitation
CAV Rules
This is a CAV so don't comment on who you think wins the fight or anything like that
At the end of the debate, vote for who you think made the better arguments, not which character you think wins
Give reasons for why you think they debated better
If you want to be tagged when the debate is over, just say "Tag for votes" (or T4V).
The fight takes place on Onigashima with no people around. Combatants start on the rooftop 50ft away from each other.
Sorry boys @maestromage, @deathhero61 I know we were supposed to start later, but I got too excited to talk about my girl. Let's do this.
The Frozen Wolf: Yamato The Successor
The Past is Prologue: The World at Large
Where do I begin? What can I say that has not already been explored by those more experienced and my betters have debated ad nauseam? At this point, all that's left is for me to gush over what is possibly my second favorite character in the series. It's time for me to throw my hat in the ring, and thus I want to open with the vastness of the world at large. The ever-expanding, ever-thriving, and downright insane world of One Piece:
Stop me if you've heard this one before, but the planet our story is set on is exceedingly large. While it does share many similarities with our native Earth, it is exceedingly different in just as many if not many more ways. One of the most notable is that it holds not just one but at least 5 celestial bodies in its orbital ring:
The sheer scale of this is replicated by a host of characters and races. And show a clear progression and elevation throughout the series. The begins with the Giant Captains Dorry and Broggy, who are virtually on their last legs and weapons that were so worn down after a century of battle that they fall apart after one last swing... eviscerating and blowing a clean hole, erasing everything in between(such that the Going Merry had a clear path of sea-going through the hole in the creature, meaning the effectively vaped its inner anatomical structure) the Sea King known as the Island-Eater:
Considering that the Sea King was known to swallow islands whole and its feces (which are nearly always smaller than the creature that produces them), the giants are effectively producing power capable of annihilating larger islands of the world with what is essentially a shockwave. As Usopp says cutting the ocean itself.
The scale of destruction is heightened once we return to the sky. Near the end of his story, Enel unleashed a scale of power that massively increases the scale of the series, unleashing his Advent of Thunder:
Dominion of Land, Air, & Sea: Wrath of the Four Emperors
In a word, the Yonko are... extraordinary. To use such a term after describing the extremities of the world of One Piece should say it all, but this is something mangaka Eichiro Oda seems to double down when it comes to his emperors of the sea:
Now any reasonable person would conclude I posted this scan to emphasize Whitebeard being stated to destroy the world, and to an extent, you would be right. Whether you feel it is hyperbole or not, whether it means full-on planetary destruction or the destabilizing of the socio-political structure, the point I want to get across is that the Four Emperors of the Sea defy nature. In fact not only do they defy nature, but they also conquer, subjugate and rule over it. They are simply echelons above the occurrences of the world and its people, as such even if destruction of the world is a priority, the results of their clashes will undoubtedly change the world irrevocably, something made abundantly clear on the very same page above.
Let's start with the old man himself, Edward Newgate, the same feat above already surpasses levels in the real world. One of the greatest quakes and consequential tsunamis from 2004 in the Indian Ocean produced total energy yields of nearly 10,000 gigatons or 10 teratons of TNT, aka enough to affect or destroy a country. The waves produced reached 30 meters high. The tsunamis produced by Whitebeard dwarf this power considerably. Eclipsing the island of Marineford in every dimension possible. Displaying power, an order of magnitude above everything we've seen before merely as a greeting to war. Later genuine efforts violently convulsing the oceans themselves:
All this is a side effect of Newgate destroying a giant, (the power of normal giants at their arguable weakest mentioned before) with a singular blow. I don't think it needs to be said how powerful Newgate is when this is him at his proverbial weakest, so I'll continue with the next Emperor, Big Mom:
Her moveset is so versatile and powerful, that she could essentially replicate the effects of Enel's full might of Deathpeia without any truly significant effort, the supernovas comparing her to natural disaster personified. The abilities of her Soul Fruit enhance and empower the effects to match and surpass the realms of nature. Consistent with the fact that, at the mere age of five, Linlin was destroying not just captains but heroes of the giant race, indicating a level of power far above what the world had seen that only continued to grow. A power that would eventually grow to match the being known as the strongest creature in the world... Kaido:
Kaido of course not just being the strongest man but creature would denote a clear difference in sheer portrayal for Oda, and that's simply true. The splitting of the heavens is seen as the pinnacle of power as it can only be achieved by those who have obtained and displayed mastery of one of the most powerful systems in the series. The Color of the Conqueror. Haki and Conqueror's Haki is treated as one of, if not the ultimate level of power one can achieve, the advanced version being a level that Kaido himself states a few of the very strongest of the universe can attain. It is how they split the heavens, strike opponents without even touching them, and dominate the will of others and the sea itself. In fact, people who have reached this level are among the few that Kaido considers capable of not just fighting, but truly challenging him:
A level of power that our main attraction has clearly reached. The successor to Kaido and his heir someone whose strength he values, and defection he considers especially painful for taking up the name of the man who permanently scarred him, this is the Wolf of Wano. The Scion of Kaido: Yamato
===============================================
Come The Conqueror: The White Fang of Wano Country
Yamato's power is rather awesome, and she's proven more than worthy of standing near the top of the world alongside the most powerful and lethal. As I said, one worthy of Kaido's acknowledgment enduring years of torture and beatdowns from him, alongside his desire for her to rule Wano in his stead, even over his right-hand men in King, Queen, and Jack:
This relativity even extends to Yamato's sheer durability and endurance. Frankly, she's a monster in the category, as she's endured all types of attacks from Kaido from her youth ranging. Experiencing and enduring all kinds of assault. Be it by piercing force, blunt force, energy, or even his haki, getting back up each and every time. She's even shown the means of infusing her attacks with the color of the conqueror to damage Kaido even further, matching Gear 4th infused blows:
I would love to go on and on, but I think you get the main point I want to assert here. Yamato is a physical monster, a skillful warrior capable of contending with those who defy and subjugate mother nature itself. She holds all three types of Haki, even observation alongside an extremely potent devil fruit that I can't wait to explore in just a bit and further on in the discussion. You've already seen Thunder and White Serpent both she has shown to infuse with advanced armament and conqueror's haki But that's not all as she has several more techniques at her disposal combining both her haki and fruit:
In essence, Yamato is a complete package, capable of attacking and defending from any and all angles, the combination of her haki, devil fruit, physicality, and skills offers the potentially sturdiest opponent on the battlefield. I have no doubt in my mind that this will ultimately turn into a battle of endurance and attrition, one that I am confident Yamato will be the last man standing. The fact that she holds an elemental edge in ice gives her additional means to wear her opponents down and she can project her haki to attack more than just the physical body, but even their very wills. This is a character and discussion I look forward to exploring more with you two but for now! Good luck and fun to us all, but I have no doubt Yamato will do her best and push you to your limits. After all, if she didn't...
Devil May Cry is a series I've always vaguely thought was kinda cool but never actually played or got into at all, until the last few months where I played through all four good games and a tiny amount of the one we don't talk about. And after getting around to it after all these years, I finally get it. What makes this character and the series by extension so beloved and iconic, what appealed to me about him all this time, it all just clicks. Because these games are downright stylish. That's not me trying to be witty, that's genuinely the only word I can use to accurately describe what Dante and Devil May Cry are all about. DMC is more than simply being cool or being fun and Dante is more than simply a cool character or even an interesting one;
He's a fucking stylish one.
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Devil Hunter [01] | SMOKIN'
Long ago, the Demon King Mundus waged war against the human world, seeking to return two worlds to the singular state they once were. All hope seemed lost for humanity, and it would have been, if not for the actions of one sole demon. This demon single-handedly overturned the tide of the war, defeating Mundus and sealing him and all demons back in the Demon World, and though as a demon himself he was weakened in the process, the Human world knew peace. This demon was Sparda, the father of Dante and Vergil.
Devil May Cry's lore and story are relatively simple, but still quite interesting. Two worlds, Human and Demon, in a constant struggle for supremacy in a setting where the Demons hold all the power. DMC1 introduces and simultaneously wraps up the core story of the setting, with Dante defeating Mundus just as his father did, and the other game and extended media simply spin-off from there in various ways. Dante himself, however, is surprisingly much more in line with your typical shounen protagonist. He continuously grows stronger over time as he battles various enemies and opponents and gradually gains both powers and friends as he goes on his journey. So let's start at the beginning.
In the very opening cutscene of the game, Dante and Vergil are shown battling each other in the rain, moving so fast that they make the nearby raindrops look like statues and cutting down so many raindrops that they temporarily create a small rainless "vacuum" of sorts around them. Doing so obviously requires some fairly ridiculous speed from them both, putting these rookie versions of Dante and Vergil into the sub-relativistic range (See here for a detailed breakdown). As we go further forward in time we meet even more formidable and dangerous demonic foes, such as the Beastheads whose power was enough to shake the entire planet, but the pinnacle of power comes, of course, once we reach the Demon Kings.
Yes, I did say Kings plural. Whilst Mundus was introduced as the main King of demons, the series later introduces a few other Demon Kings who are peers to Mundus in power. In fact, it is one of these other Kings who gives us what's perhaps the best standalone feat in the series:
Meet Abigail. Or rather, meet Sid. Sid is a human but here in the DMC anime he was using the power of Abigail, one of the previous Kings of the Demon World, and Sid demonstrates perfectly why these kings are so feared, casually parting clouds across the country at massive speeds with his demonic energy. Such a feat would easily put Abigail and the other Demon Kings well into the large country-level ranges, if not higher. The speed of these characters also increases in tandem, with the Dante who struggled with Mundus easily deflecting a particle beam immediately before fighting him. Now, whilst in the first game Dante required help both from Trish and his father's sword to defeat an opponent of this calibre, DMC goes full shounen and doubles down on it by having Dante defeat a Demon King solo not once, not twice, but three separate times in the immediate stories that follow.
That said, we're still not quite done yet. I did say that Dante was a shounen protagonist, didn't I? So in true shounen fashion, DMC 5 throws everything out the window and ramps up the power scale to a ridiculous degree.
Right out of the gate, the new antagonist Urizen one-shots Devil Trigger Dante so badly that he shatters his iconic blade Rebellion and knocks him out for a month straight. Urizen then goes on to juice up on human blood for the duration of said month (as human blood makes demons stronger) before going on to eat the fruit of the Qliphoth tree, which DMC5 explains is what all those previous Demon Kings used to gain their massive power in the first place, and yet despite all this still ends up receiving fatal injuries from base Dante later in the game. "What the hell?" I hear you ask. Well, it turns out that the Qliphoth tree that was helping Urizen power up confused Dante for him because **SPOILERS** Urizen is just the demon half of Vergil, Dante's brother. As such it also gave Dante the same month-long juice session when he was knocked out inside part of the tree. But more importantly, Dante would go on to use the fractured rebellion to gain a new power-up, fusing both it and his father's sword the Sparda into himself. In doing so he not only increased his own general power drastically but also created a new sword, the Devil Sword Dante or DSD, and unlocked a new second transformation, a Sin Devil Trigger. Think of it like his Bijuu Mode or his Bankai. What makes current Dante even more impressive is that prior to his sword infusion he was shown reacting to and actively moving faster than a Fury with ease. The impressiveness of this stems from the later establishment that Furies move so fast they warp space-time, a feat explicitly requiring relativistic speeds. This is in line with the previous feats and scaling and puts Dante in the upper end of relativistic and into continental in base before his significant amp and not factoring in the two transformations he now has to fall back on, both of which amp all his stats notably.
Devil Hunter [02] | SEXY
Ebony and Ivory. Dr Faus. Double Kalina Ann. Coyote-A. Devil Sword Dante. King Cerberus. Cavaliere. Balrog.
Dante is a character famous for the wide variety of weapons and abilities, conventional or otherwise, that he uses with consistent proficiency across the various games. The eight named above are those he has access to by the end of Devil May Cry 5 and they're what we'll be talking about here. Even with this technically limited arsenal, there is still a lot Dante can do, but first, it's important to understand the nature of these weapons. Almost all of Dante's weapons are Devil Arms. These are special kinds of weapons and most are made from the soul of a powerful demon that Dante killed or beat. This is shown nicely at the beginning of DMC 3 when Dante defeats Cerberus, who then offers their soul to Dante to be used as a Devil Arm. As a result, Dante is left with a weapon that contains the crystallised powers/abilities of the devil, allowing him to use their abilities as his own. The other key advantage to devil arms is that they can be summoned out of thin air freely mid-combat, allowing him to switch between them with ease. There are only three weapons for which it's unclear if it applies to, which I'll talk about first, but given the logistical issues of physically having them on his person at all times, I assume it does.
The Basics
Ebony and Ivory: Dante's default and one of the two staple weapons that he uses in all the games. A pair of pistols, one made for rapid-fire and the other for more precise fire. Should go without saying but they're intentionally made for superhuman usage and Dante also upgrades them as he goes along, hence their ability to remain relevant in his tier despite getting stronger. Can also be charged with his own demonic energy for extra damage.
Coyote-A: A shotgun. That's basically it. Though like E&I it's also made to kill demons and can similarly be charged.
Double Kalina Ann: A matching pair of rocket launchers that Dante dual wields. They can also be combined to allow for extra attacks.
The last of Dante's ranged weapons is Dr Faust, a magic hat that lets Dante shoot crystalized demon blood as projectiles.
Now for his melee weapons:
Devil Sword Dante: His new main sword, replacing his old staple. Can shoot a few energy attacks but more importantly can summon external ethereal swords to assist Dante.
King Cerberus: Shapeshifting Nunchuks/Three-Sectioned-Staff/Bo Staff with each form utilising elemental Ice/Lightning/Fire attacks respectively.
Balrog: Armoured melee gear to enhance Dantes punches and kicks, can ignite itself with hellfire to further supplement his attacks.
Cavaliere: Just a whole ass motorbike that splits into what's effectively two massive chainsaw blades, as seen in the opening video of this section.
Dante has a few other abilities that are worth mentioning:
Devil Trigger: As mentioned, this is basically his Super Saiyan. Dante can freely and relatively easily enter or exit this form, though he generally doesn't use it unless he needs to. Overall it enhances his stats as well as the power of all of his abilities on top of allowing him to fly.
Sin Devil Trigger: SSJ2. Does the same thing at a higher level except it's more taxing to enter and also allows for the usage of some exclusive abilities.
Application
Being able to do a lot of different things is cool, but personally, I think that what can actually be achieved with them in practice is much more important, as I'm sure anyone who has read a lot of my debates could tell you.
Though Dante's ranged weapons are versatile, his melee weapons take it a step further in their variation, particularly in comparison to one another.
Credit to Nyazalea for the gameplay
Balrog is Dante's kick/punch weapon this time around, but it functions differently from his previous ones. First, it has two modes, each with a distinct style. In blow mode, his moves resemble those of a boxer; quick jabs and dodges with a focus on punches. Conversely, his movements in kick mode resemble a Capoeira fighter, with a focus on agility, acrobatics, and longer and larger reaching kicks. Further augmenting these two styles is Balrog's key mechanic: Ignition. Through certain moves Dante can ignite Balrog, enhancing all of his attacks in it with the powerful Hellfire that the original demon was feared for. DMC's hellfire is no ordinary fire either. In DMC1, it's noted that the Frosts, whose icy nature lets them go below absolute zero, are vulnerable to Hellfire from weapons like Ifrit, despite them being completely impervious to ordinary flames. Other fiery demons like Berial are able to cover mountain ranges with their hellfire, and yet Balrog stands above them all. That link interestingly also states that simply wielding Balrog's gauntlets would be enough to incinerate anyone else, yet Dante can freely use them unharmed, which speaks to his own resistance to temperatures.
Moving onward, we next have Cavaliere, the crazy motorbike chainsaw weapon. Cavaliere has two main benefits. The first is simple, the inherent Chainsaw-esque nature of its attacks inherently makes it difficult to block or tank compared to any ordinary piercing attack. Especially as, thanks to its gear system, Dante can make these hits last a while. It's for this reason that Cavaliere is one of Dante's highest damaging weapons. The second main benefit it brings is both obvious and unexpected; mobility. At the end of the day, Cavaliere is still a motorbike, and Dante can and does ride it when fighting. The bike itself is adorned with several spikes, as the video at the start of this section showed, and Dante is skilled enough at riding it to swing it around so that the wheels hit his opponents. What makes this even easier to use is the fact that Cavaliere can also be used to launch Dante through the air at high speed without requiring any traction. Dante will also sometimes just chuck the entire bike at you, which I find hilarious.
Credit to StormCloudLOL for the gameplay
King Cerberus, as the name implies, is basically three weapons in one. Ice Nunchuks/Fire Staff/Lightning Three-Sectioned-Staff. This is in reflection of the demon it was made from, whose three heads utilised different elemental powers. The lightning form is great for AOE and indirect attacks, the fire form is useful for more precise and direct attacks with a greater range, and the ice form's main utility comes from its ability to create various defensive constructs. As with Balrog, the potency of these abilities must be considered. We're not given much to compare KC's lightning to but the man (dog?) himself brags to Dante about how inferior other elemental bosses in the series like Cerberus Bael and Berial are to him, clearly indicating that similar to Balrog, he's on another level than most demons. His ice abilities are particularly impressive; for one, KC's ice manipulation can reach absolute zero, which was used to cool the fruit of the Qliphoth tree, but his constructs are also very durable. The inferior Cerberus was used to block attacks from Balrog and its defensive ability is stated to be impervious, which may only be slightly hyperbolic given that in DMC5 it's the only thing in Dante's arsenal that can block Vergil's Judgement Cut End outside of Royal Guard. Its fire abilities, as with Balrog, are Hellfire, but notably, all of King Cerberus' elemental abilities are used to override one another in his boss fight, demonstrating their general parity.
Dante's last main ability is his Devil Trigger, which is independent of any of his weapons. As mentioned earlier, this is his super form and doesn't do much beyond amping all of his stats a decent amount and letting him fly. Though it is worth mentioning that, due to their nature as Devil Arms, all of Dante weapons inherently become more powerful when he's in DT. Ebony & Ivory, for example, no longer require charging as they just shoot "charged" shots as a default when Dante's in DT. However, Dante's Sin Devil Trigger is a little more interesting. SDT, presumably due to its greater power, has a few moves that can only be used when Dante is in it, and they're just as over the top as you might expect. He can shoot energy blasts from his bare hands, spin around like a Beyblade tornado, barrage you with a bajillion projectiles at once, and even trigger a massive explosion from inside you. It also just looks incredibly sexy, because of course it does.
Devil Hunter [03] | STYLE
Having just said so much about Dante's crazy versatility, don't let me fool you into thinking he needs it. He has it, and he'll happily use all of it because he loves to do crazy stuff, but even with just his basic equipment of Ebony & Ivory and a normal (relatively speaking) sword, Dante is still an incredibly formidable opponent. The simplest and most well-known example of this would be one of the four main "Styles" that you can use when playing as Dante, that being Royal Guard.
Royal Guard and the other Styles were introduced in DMC 3, where it is described as "almost like a form of demon martial arts". This is an appropriate description but it is interesting to consider that Royal Guard is just a skill given what can be accomplished with it. The style is primarily defensive in nature, and the core mechanic of it revolves around Dante parrying oncoming moves and storing up the damage that would have been dealt so that he can return it at a later date. RG is a bit of a meme in the community, mainly because of how effective it is against Vergil's boss fights in DMC 3, but honestly, I think its meme status is just indicative of how effective this ability actually is. By the time of DMC 5, Dante can parry every single attack in the entire game with Royal Guard, even if it's from a boss. It doesn't matter if it's physical, elemental, a laser, or even from an opponent more powerful than himself like Vergil in his Sin Devil trigger, Royal Guard stops it all. The last of those is doubly impressive, as Vergil's blade the Yamato is sharp enough to cut through space itself and is used multiple times in this very game to cut open doorways through space, yet Dante can parry this just fine. I'd also like to point out that Royal Guard isn't just something the game allows the player to do. Rather, irrespective of the player, it's something that Dante himself does to you in his own boss fight in Vergil's DLC.
Both of these styles are further compounded by Dante's general skill in combat. Anyone who's played a DMC game other than 2 could tell you that Dante is a highly skilled individual. Every time he gets a new weapon he's never used before he'll pick it up and swing it around like he's been using it for years, and his cutscenes just have him doing frankly silly shit for no reason beyond it looking cool. The video at the start of this section is a perfect example of this, with him shooting a pool ball in such a way that it bounces into the many other midair pool balls and doing that in such a way that all the pool balls bounce into his opponents, all whilst making sure to hit the white ball first because Dante ain't no cheater.
That said, the DMC novels take Dante's skill to an even higher level, particularly through his fight with Chen.
This fight is particularly impressive just because of Dante's ability to hold his own against Chen, and actually landing what would have been a fatal injury had Chen not just grown a new head. Why is holding his own against this guy impressive? Well:
Chen had used the Beastheads to assimilate the skills of Sparda, Dante's father and superior who taught him how to fight;
He was also stated by the narrator to be moving so fast that Dante could barely perceive him;
Chen supposedly had "infinite knowledge" thanks to the Beastheads and could also see the future and was using this to foresee Dante's every move;
Dante's regen seemingly wasn't working, presumably due to them fighting in a room that Chen had previously used to negate his abilities. Chen on the other hand easily healed both his broken leg and his bisected head.
To say that the deck was stacked against him would be putting it mildly, and whilst he did require help from Beryl to seal the deal, the fact that he was able to fight Chen with any parity in the first place is indicative of the incredible skill that Dante possesses. The fact that is is this skilled just makes everything I've mentioned so far all the more dangerous, as it means it'll be relatively easy to put a lot of these things in practice.
What makes all of this somehow even more problematic for Dante's opponents is his healing factor and overall stamina because both are fairly ridiculous. The former is something displayed from the very start of the franchise, back in the third cutscene of DMC 1. As you can see above, after being impaled by Alastor, Dante nonchalantly pulls himself up through the blade, taking Alastor's entire massive crossguard through his chest and emerging on the other side no worse for wear. Something that would undoubtedly be a fatal injury in anyone with remotely human biology is the kind of thing that barely bothers Dante. Now, whilst DMC3 introduced the idea that Dante and Vergil can still be worn down and tired overtime to beat them, you must also consider that this was Dante and Vergil as teenagers and before their many powerups. By the time of DMC5, the brothers' stamina is outright absurd, with them battling each other practically non-stop in the Demon World from the 15th of June to the 24th of July, over a month straight.
Put plainly: putting Dante down is an absolute chore.
Devil Hunter [04] | The Hunt Begins
All in all, Dante is a bit of a beast to fight against. He's fast, he's strong, he's skilled and experienced out the ass, and has about eleventy different abilities at his disposal to help him last longer, hit harder, move around easier, and pretty much everything in between. But the attentive among you may have noticed that I missed something. A little something by the name of Devil Sword Dante. I wanted to save Dante's ironically titled weapon for last instead of discussing it with the other weapons because it has one key ability that, put simply, takes every single thing Dante can do and makes it better. This ability is swords formation.
Credit to Sigma Games for the gameplay
DSD allows Dante to summon Ethereal Extra swords that float around him, which he can control to fight, but what really makes this ability crazy is the fact that the swords can essentially be made to mimic whatever moves Dante is doing automatically, as shown above. So if Dante tries to stab you with his sword you now also get stabbed at by four extra summoned swords. He swings Cavaliere or kicks you with Balrog? Every one of those attacks is now supported by extra swords completely detached from Dante's body. And it goes beyond simply helping with melee attacks. As the beginning of this video shows, the swords can also be used to aid his mobility, shown in-game by granting him extra dashes, and they can also be used to automatically block attacks for him when he's using Royal Guard as well as just being used as raw projectiles. What makes the last of those even better is the fact that when used like this the swords will automatically counter any ranged attacks used against Dante. On top of this, when Dante does want to use them manually he can do so completely mentally, i.e. without physical movement. Oh, and Swords Formation activates automatically when Dante uses his Devil Trigger.
In short, DSD somehow makes Dante even more cracked than he already was, in a way that's perfectly befitting of a weapon he named after himself. So have fun!
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