Battle Class - Lesson #3 - Defense

It is vital that everyone knows how to write defenses properly. If your defenses don't measure or match up to the attack made against you, in effort and RP, it can make you seem like you are god moding, even more so than not roleplaying damage taken properly. It's important to respect your opponent at all times.

Matching Effort

This is the most important aspect of writing defense.

Say your opponent writes 200 words dedicated to a single action; an attack made against you. If you come along and write, “Crono dodged the blast,” that is not proper roleplaying. The battle ref might consider that a hit when determining a winner to the battle. Now, this doesn't mean you need to write 200 words yourself, but you should at least put some effort into writing your defense against it. You'll find you will get more mileage out of your writing that way as well.

The biggest suggestion I have is to describe their attack from your point of view. I'm not saying that you should copy and paste their description. I'm saying, write it in your own words; describe it again, as your character might see it. Put some of your character's thoughts down too and maybe even their strategy for how they are going to avoid letting it destroy them.

Blocking

Blocking should be the most common defense everyone uses. Not only is it strategically better to dodge (it gives you less FP,) but when you block you still take a bit of damage. This makes things more fair for your opponent rather than avoiding everything they throw at you.

Anytime your character directs damage to a different part of their body, it technically considered a block. If someone throws a punch at your face and you stop it with your hand, that is a block. If someone goes to kick you in the stomach and you stop it with your knee, that's a block as well. Also, if you put your hands out to stop an energy wave, that's a block too.

The augmentative ability known as deflection enhances your block. For example, someone hurls a ball of ki at you and you swat it aside with your foreram. Say your opponent unleashes a barrage of punches with Machine Gun Fist, and you meet each punch, that is deflection as well. Essentially, it betters your chances at making a block work for you, but on the downside, it tires you out more.

The line can kind of be blurry, but deflection is essentially for the more powerful abilities that your opponent uses against you. It lessens the damage you take from those attacks, a sort of mitigation tool. You wouldn't want to deflect simple punch, it would just give you unnecessary FP.

Get creative when describing your blocks. Also, keep in mind, if an ability is described as “hard to block,” you really shouldn't try blocking it, for your own good and to be fair.

Evading

Any time you avoid direct damage, it is considered evasion. If you duck out of the way from a punch, or side step a kick, those are examples of evasion. Evasion in general is far more trickier than blocking, as it relies on perception, speed and proper anticipation to pull off. Evading should be something you save for the obvious attacks your opponent uses against you. For example, if your opponent bum rushes you head on, it might be a good idea to simply dodge.

For good measure, try not to dodge higher power attacks, without using Powered Flight or Speed Burst. It can seem like Power Gaming if you do something like that. There's nothing more frustrating that writing a long description of a powerful attack and having your opponent simply move out of the way.

Be fair with dodging, and describe it well. Dodging gives you more FP than blocking, so it's best to use it wisely, or you might find yourself fatigued rather quickly.

The augmentative ability known as Powered Flight is when your character becomes surrounded by a fiery aura and accelerates beyond their normal speed. Think of Powered Flight as a set of after burners. It gives you that extra boost speed you might need to get out of the way. It's best to think of Powered Flight as “running” while all your other actions are at “walking” speed.

Speed Burst is the ultimate augmentative ability for evasion. Your character can only Speed Burst short distances, perhaps up to fifty yards at the most. To the naked eye, it would seem like you vanish into thin air and re-appear elsewhere. However, if your opponent is faster than you, they might be able to track your movements somewhat. Think of this one as “sprinting” while Powered Flight is “running,” and all your normal actions are “walking.”

Some abilities are “hard to dodge.” Typically when something is labeled hard to dodge, it is either so massive, tracks your movements, or is so fast that even the fastest warriors would struggle with getting out of the way. It's best to avoid dodging these for your own good and to be fair.

Assignment

Read the following passage. Write a defense to both of his attacks.

The cloaked warrior looked at his opponent, his eyes glowing red through the shadows of his hood. He gave them a malicious grin, before pointing a single milky white finger at them. A long fiendish yellow nail protruded from the end of it, curling downward.

“You've evaded me long enough. It is time you die!”

Fiery crimson ki exploded around his figure, his cape flapping wildly from the pressure of it. With a roar that would have sent a full grown man running to his mother's side. The demon blasted off, the ground dissolving away, forming a deep crater where he once stood.

He moved like a bolt of red lightning across the sky, pushing his speed to the limit as he neared his target. There was no turning back at this point, he was determined to ram straight through his opponent, hopefully leaving them nothing more than a gory mess on the ground. The clouds parted as he passed, revealing thousands of sparkling stars in the night's sky. Cackling aloud, he committed himself pushing his speed further at the last second, knowing if it landed the blow, he could finish the fight before it even began. If he hit his opponent, he wasn't even sure he would notice, for he was in pure bliss.

He was no fool either. After the Dragon Rush, he decided to add a little icing on the cake, to make sure his opponent was down for the count. After getting a bead on his opponent's last position, he lent chase, all the while gathering his energy. He could feel it, a warm sensation trickling down the length of his arm. It churned like a maelstrom within his hands, hungry, ready to destroy whatever it touched.

“Death is upon you!”

A gale force wind, like a tunnel of death, emitted form his hands as he streched them out. It was laced with violet lightning, and spiraled outward. Upon hitting his opponent, he knew that it would make a delightful explosion. So he waited, clicking his fanged teeth together, hoping to see fire, blood, and limbs flinging in all directions.

Oh, how that would make his day!

Actions:

1) Powered Flight + Dragon Rush
2) Flight + Destructive Wind

The sudden rush of energy Bardock's opposed was too much for any normal human, but he had trained, seen horrors such as large attacks, and even crushed by energy, killing him within seconds.

The enemy came rushing faster then ever toward him. By the looks of it Bardock will be dead if he didn't do something now. So without any regret he forced a large wave of ki through his body and shot, as fast as he could without doubt away from the enemy. Today, he was lucky. The opponent swiped past him, almost hitting him. Like Bardock's dad told him, almost isn't enough.

The enemy wasn't even close to done though. He forced a strange looking thing out of the palms of his indestructible hands. On the outside was a strong looking lighting force. The attack now described to him as a destructive wind came speeding toward him. In an attempt to stop the attack he crossed his hands across his face and tucked his knees into his body as he prepared for probable death. The attack struck against the fearless warrior. It pushed against him and explosions over took the sky,and his power was drained, he became weaker. Even though all of that happened he was still alive, alive and ready to fight.

The black haired Sayian, stood too electrified to attempt to escape the horrifying cloaked warrior's impact. He soared dynamically through the horizon, the clouds themselves were split as he pushed his speed at the very limit through them, bolts of crimson lightnings were dancing around his flying figure. It was just that Gohan couldn't just have sight of the scene anymore.

But perhaps that teen can have a chance to defend himself against the opponent's assault. The young boy, re-sighted back at the enemy's direction. Still finding him angrily rushing into here. The boy narrowed his eyes as he scanned the opponent's body language, attempting to know where would the warrior strike. From Gohan's guessing, which would probably be incorrect. He didn't really recognize where would he land his attack, so Gohan's last choice to prevent death was to power up and protect himself as possible as any real Sayian would do.

But basically the teen didn't have time to power up, so he'd a choice to do it while curling up into a defense stance. The teen narrowed his eyes even more, his unknown death just nearing in every second. He crossed his arms infront of his head, solidly pressing them into his forehead in order to block the few seconds away attack. Quickly, tucking his knees over his stomach as it was the solidest joint to be in the lower half of his structure.

In a flash, a blank alabaster aura grew intrusively, surrounding Gohan's defending frame. However, It flashed continually as it grew bigger and more gaiety as the opponent was just almost up ahead. Instantly, the oponnent rammed angrily into the Sayian's center point. The young warrior was sent automatically flying away, yet he was still in the sphere form. As the pain was unexpectedly unimaginable but he barely managed to tolerate it. Gohan's eyes squinted occasionally as he heard a loud frightening roar closing into take another clear sight of the oponnent, but instead there was an indignant scarlet hued beam, the same color of the enemy's visible power. As it was nearly going to burn through Gohan's off guarded body, it's speed was rather very startling.

There's no point in running, either face his fate or do the impossible. The teen realized that there was nothing to do about it, but little he could do to have a puny percentage in negating the wave. The Sayian quickly freed himself of the circular stance, to hover just upside down as the sky was in the ground's place and vice versa. The youth stuck the back of his palms into his forehead, generating the last little bit of energy from the very end of his arm to release into little golden bolts of lightning that clutched together to form a moderate sized ki sphere barely growing infront of his flattened hands.

The other beam was closing in quickly, there was no time for gathering up more energy for Gohan's blast. So he had no choice but to shout endlessly as he lugubriously launched his arms forward, allowing the yellow wave to swipe through the open sky, appearing to be somewhat like a sol ray. As both beams were nearly in size, the red one seemed to be slightly larger and wider. Suddenly, a bellicose explosion occurred, it sparkled beautifully with orange aura and bolts surrounding the impact. Gohan stood pondering to himself which assault would be negated, his eye sight blurred as he was lowered down to pass out onto the shadowy desert upon this unknown planet.

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W.C.591
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Actions)
1) Block.
2) (Negate) Masenko Wave.

Jeraph has been giving his all against the unknown foe. The foe seemed to have had enough. He began to fly directly at Jeraph. Jeraph simply closed his eyes, instantly the image of the battlefield came to his mind. His opponents energy signature was drawing ever closer, at a very rapid speed. When the opponent was mere feet from him, Jeraph vanished into thin air, almost instantly reappearing a few feet behind the speeding opponent.

Jeraph then opened his eyes to get his bearings, the opponent was just hitting the spot he had been standing moments before. Immediately the opponent stopped his rush and turned towards the direction of Jeraph unleashing an attack known as destructive wind. Jeraph instinctively crossed his arms in front of himself to attempt to shield himself from the attack.

The wind began to pummel and push Jeraph back when the attack exploded right on the arms of Jeraph. The explosion left Jeraph battered, bruised and smoldering in a few spots but the Kaiser Armor took the brunt of the assault.

Sairai felt himself being chased by the being, and knew that escaping the creature was not an option. As the demonic being yelled something about him having evaded long enough, her turned around just in time to see the creature closing in on him with murderous intent. It looked as though he was intent on punching straight through him. You’ve got to be kidding me! Sairai nearly screamed in his head. The demon’s blinding red aura increased in strength as his speed increased.

Sairai didn’t really have many options here. He’d used up quite a bit of his own strength just narrowly avoiding getting killed so far. He would have to pull out all the stops. He turned up to look at the being above him, coming toward the ground with a velocity most interstellar ships would be jealous of, and steadied his breathing. He waited until he could feel the demon’s ki burning his own skin like fire, and then disappeared. He heard the attack miss in the background as he opened his eyes and turned toward the demonic figure.

“Don’t think I’ll go down that easy!” Sairai muttered under his breath. His body was burning, muscles straining. He gasped for air as his body was pushed even further past where it had been pushed before. “What is with this guy?”

Suddenly he felt the demonic ki surging forward once more. He doesn’t give up, does he? Sairai asked. Then he smiled. It was an almost wicked smile, one of joy and excitement. “I finally know why Saiyans enjoy this so much! This is the most exhilarating night of my life!”

The yell was enough to cause what was left of the wildlife in the area to evacuate the area, or perhaps it was because of the energy attack the demon was charging up to deal with the troublesome Changeling. Sairai prepared himself. He planted his tail solidly on the ground and braced his legs for the impact. “I’m not going to lose yet,” he promised himself as the attack crossed the boundaries between them.

The attack made contact, and Sairai could feel the concussive force, but he was not prepared for what came next. He started to relax his guard, until he felt the ki from the attack suddenly explode outwards. He was pushed backwards into a nearby tree with great force. A dull thud echoed through the area as he made contact.

He coughed up blood as he removed himself from the tree. “Well, that hurt…”

He looked up at the man who probably would have killed him had he not blocked the attack. “Alright, now it’s my turn,” he said with a smile reminiscent of Frieza.

Actions:
1) Speed Burst to evade Dragon Rush
2) Block Destructive Wind

Dabura

The sudden rush of energy Bardock's opposed was too much for any normal human, but he had trained, seen horrors such as large attacks, and even crushed by energy, killing him within seconds. The enemy came rushing faster then ever toward him. By the looks of it Bardock will be dead if he didn't do something now.

Grammatical errors aside (which made this a bit hard to understand,) you put that Bardock had witnessed attacks of this caliber before and thus was able to escape, although it was by a narrow margin. That's not bad, but I think next time try to describe some more things, such as anxiety or fear pushing his evasion, rather than he knew how to dodge it because he'd been there before.

And then you described Bardock tucking up to withstand the second attack, and you showed that he was hurt. You said it drained him, but you didn't describe any of the damage it did do. Blocking still hurts a bit, remember the last lesson, and apply it here as well.

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Gohan

Your description of your defense was not too bad. However, your negation had some problems. The Destructive Wind isn't a red beam, it's a burst of electrified force that explodes on contact. Like a charged Kiai-Ho. Check up on the attack next time, before you write your defense.

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Khaos

Short and sweet. This was a sound defense.

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Sairai

A+ Defense right here. A great example for everyone to read.