HellBlazing

Show me someone below Odin physically beating Thanos.

The Nature Of Speed for N00BS

The Types of Speed:

• Maximum Speed: Many characters have an impressive maximum speed, something they can achieve in straight lines or over a decent period of time. However, this is rarely applicable without a solid....
• Acceleration: How quickly a character can achieve said speeds, and over what distance(can they do it in 2-3 step like the Flash, or do they need to move a good distance first)
• Combat Speed: A term loved by many, but kind of a crap term in the first place. Combat Speed has a ton of facets that don't all line up.
  • Reflexes: The time a character takes to perceive and react to external stimuli is their reaction time. Their reflexes is that, and their ability to move their body in said time. Many characters have these twitch reflexes that allow them to dodge bullets, but who are by no means faster than the speed of sound. It has the sub-category of...
  • Perception/Observation Speed: The speed at which a character can perceive events.
  • Striking Speed: The speed a character can perform attacks, most notably the speed they can attack with their limbs.
  • Recovery Speed: The speed that a character can recover from their attacks, motions, etc. On many characters this will match their striking speed; however, some characters are capable of specific attacks that break this mold. An example would be Gomu Gomu Gatling.

• Stopping Speed/Movement Recovery/Turn Radius: While not technically an aspect of "goes fast", this piece is important. Most characters cannot perform things like a zero point turn while running, or reverse directions while going very fast. These are the speeds and distances required for a character to stop forward motion and/or change direction. For examples on this, examine motor vehicles.

• Special: Many manga/anime characters are capable of "special" speed. Wherein they can do some form of linear movement burst over a short distance. This usually exceeds their speed in every other area by a significant margin. Many times this burst will cause the character to arrive at a point and then attack, or include an attack as part of the technique. A solid western example would be Ruby Rose's semblance. A good example of this in Anime would be Hohō(Shunpo/Flash Step) from Bleach

Things that look like speed, but aren't

• Prediction: Guessing what is going to happen and preemptively moving. Unlike reacting, a prediction does not include the characters reflexes to the same degree. For instance, aim-dodging. Aim-dodging is the act of simply not being where the assailant was aiming. This, and its superior form in precognition, are heavily tied with timing.

• Precognition: Almost identical to prediction, but significantly more powerful. When precognition is involved it should severely damage the credibility of most reaction, speed or skill feats.

• Timing: Some "speed" feats are more about timing your actions than how fast you do them. Timing is frequently the answer to characters catching or avoiding things that are incapable of changing course, like bullets. Catching arrows or a whip would be good examples of timing. Timing something in an incredibly small window does not mean a character is that fast.

Things that aid speed

• Training: Trained actions, like strikes or dodges, are going to be performed reflexively and at a much higher speed relative to the character than ones performed untrained. This is why Wonder Woman has better reflexes/reactions than than Superman.

• Scouting: This is similiar to prediction, but slightly different. When you are looking for or scouting out a particular action/stimuli and have prepared yourself to act on reaction, that significantly improves your reaction times for that particular action.

• Agility: The ability to move one's body in an efficient manner and change positions. Characters like Gambit, Spider-man and Nightwing are renowned for being able to move/evade in places where other characters would be completely unable to do so. Agility greatly aids in stopping speed, recovery speed and striking speed.

What does it mean?

• If a character has a high maximum speed, but can accelerate to that speed in short order, that is combat applicable. It is also applicable if they can fly faster than the other party can react/dodge.

• Stop using the term "Combat Speed"

• Characters must be able to perceive something for reflexes to kick in. Perception may be substituted for dumb luck or prediction.

• Striking speed can be augmented by movement speeds. IE, Superman can punch you while flying at you, his hand might only be moving 30 m/s relative to him, but 3c relative to you. However, the two must remain separate.

• Recovery speed needs the most explanation. Many characters are capable of dodging a single very fast attack, but are left in a compromised position to do so. Against a character who can recover from their attack faster, they are left unable to dodge or defend adequately. Characters like Monkey D. Luffy and Chun Li are capable of repeatable low recovery attacks. While something like Yusuke's spirit gun or Ryu's Shoryuken has a fairly high recovery.

• Stopping speed and the like can be shortened to maneuverability, and it explains how people who are very fast can run into things or be surprised. This is because while they may very well be fast enough to normally move out of the way of something, the fact that they were moving towards it and had very little physical space to evade means they had no option to move out of the way or evade.

How to interpret speed feats

• The most basic and simple feats to determine are ones where time and distance are given outright(Character traveled Y distance in X time). This is almost indisputable. Speed = Distance/Time
• Next we have were time is given, but distance must be extrapolated. This can be done with known things, like size of an area, or two points.
• Then we have scenarios where distance is known, but time is uncertain. When time is uncertain, one may attempt to use external factors to quantify the time. Like a lower bound for the travel speed of a bullet from the variety of gun, or other characters carrying on conversation.
• Both having to be extrapolated isn't really a problem as long as work is shown.
• When something is dodged or evaded, it does not make the thing dodging or evading quicker than said thing. To be as fast or faster than the projectile, a character would have to move equal or greater distance than the projectile in the same period of time.
• Special note: Energy projectiles and "lightning". Do not assume all energy projectiles(things that look like lasers) or lightning(or things that look like it) to travel the speed of light or ground to cloud lightning. If something looks like it is a laser, but it isn't specified do not assume, try and figure out on your own how fast it was going.

Closing bits

• Blitzing does not automatically make one character faster than the other. Offense is frequently faster than defense, especially when paired with reactions being required to evade. It is perfectly possible for a character to be roughly the same speed as the person they are blitzing. However, this doesn't mean that blitzing isn't usable to demonstrate superior speed, just that it isn't automatic.

• Degree of difference A character does not need to be much faster than another to be untouchable. A real world example is TJ Dillashaw vs. Renan Barao. Dillashaw isn't really that much faster than Barao, it was mostly his superior footwork. But that footwork accounts for no more than a 10% decrease in response time. The required difference(percentage wise) becomes significantly smaller as speed increases. For instance, if a character(A) is 2xlightspeed with 100 nanosecond reaction times, and their opponent(B) is 1% faster than they are, they can move a full 5 meters before the other character reacts off the same stimuli. And this difference only increases as speed goes up.

@hellblazing: You reasoning is that if you can see something it can't kill you ? Ok.

It's not worth speaking with you.

Bye. :)

You don't make the difference between the perception of speed, the reaction time (reflexes) and the recovery speed ? Shame on you.

Moreover Cap, like Batman, avoid bullets easily (aim dodge).

Yeah. Who cares that he can see bullets fly in slow motion and act in that manner.

Street-leveler like Batman or Cap see bullets in slow-motion.

Nothing impressive here.

That clearly does not matter. When anyone battles Thanos they all forget about their superpowers and bend over for him lubricated.

Or not.

The team takes a big beat down.

Moreover you posted a scan from a crossover and crossovers aren't canon.

Who cares about Superman's reaction time ?

He gets stomped.

@hellblazing:

Ease up man. Obviously folks feel that their are multiple ways for both teams to win. Never understood ppl's lust for locking threads. If you think its a godstomp, don't comment.

Scans of what you say as proof ?

Superman (post crisis) can measure the time between nanoseconds, his perception of time is smaller than nanoseconds

Superman also has femtosecond reaction

And we all know Surfer is no speedster in fighting and is slow in combat speed, can't even dodge slow punches from Thor Thanos etc ...

Until Surfer does things like this, rebuilding a city in an instant, then only thing he has over Superman in terms of speed is flying on his board in hyperspace, Superman is much faster than him in combat and fighting movement speeds

Kind of being a dick.

@dre_savage: Which version of Superman and Manhunter (Silver Age, Post Crisis, or N52) are we talking about here in this thread? The answer will affect my analysis.