[wareonia]

Hey i'm not saying it, Shadowthrone is. What i'm saying is there is no way ST was saying he's not seen Cortillion do that. If that was all he meant then why say it.

Plus Cortillion has his magic rope along with the rest of his god powers whereas mortals can do the shadow dance. Apsalar is just using what ahem.... what god give her. It seems Apsalars power is growing. 1 on 1 it would be a close fight.

What do you mean claw are not that good? They are the best assassin/mages in the empire. plus there was over 300 of them. Fair enough the one's at the back may not have been facing her but i'd say most would have turned round pretty quickly, there were 20 hands (100 claw) behind Pearl and he managed to get away from the intial slaughter at least so she didn't hit them all unaware.

[D'rek]

wareonia, on Apr 14 2009, 05:12 AM, said:

Plus Cortillion has his magic rope along with the rest of his god powers whereas mortals can do the shadow dance. Apsalar is just using what ahem.... what god give her. It seems Apsalars power is growing. 1 on 1 it would be a close fight.

The rope isn't magic, it's just a rope. It's just a nifty weapon that Cotillion uses, but no more magical than a random knife you pick up...

[dawnkiller]

*stays so far away from the Cotillion versus Apsalar versus debate *

Anyway, as to the original question, I think the fact Apsalar doesn't use a rope is actually a telling character trait. Since she possessed Cotillion's memories, there's probably no reason why she couldn't do it -- she chooses not to. As has been pointed out, all her skills originated from Cotillion. Considering the confusion that came of the possession, losing parts of her life, then basically "waking up" as a killer with all these skills imprinted on her, I sure as hell don't blame her for wanting to put as much distance as she can between her own identity and Cotillion's. I'm blanking on the precise book (I'm pretty sure it was tBH) where, near the beginning, her internal monologue reveals she's beginning to get comfortable with herself again. Edges softening, things like that. Her own identity is beginning to assert itself. Nothing will change how she fights, or where she got the ability, but she can certainly choose her weapons and how she further refines her skills. A certain amount was decided for her, but she can exert her own will over where she goes and how much she wants to be a Dancer clone.

This post has been edited by dawnkiller: 14 April 2009 - 04:55 PM

[Aptorian]

D'rek, on Apr 14 2009, 05:19 PM, said:

wareonia, on Apr 14 2009, 05:12 AM, said:

Plus Cortillion has his magic rope along with the rest of his god powers whereas mortals can do the shadow dance. Apsalar is just using what ahem.... what god give her. It seems Apsalars power is growing. 1 on 1 it would be a close fight.

The rope isn't magic, it's just a rope. It's just a nifty weapon that Cotillion uses, but no more magical than a random knife you pick up...

I can't quite remember the scene from HoC, but you don't kill shiploads of edur with a whip, doesn't matter if there's scythe like claws on the end.

It has to be magical, jumping about severing body parts and killing with a single lick.

[D'rek]

Aptorian, on Apr 14 2009, 12:00 PM, said:

D'rek, on Apr 14 2009, 05:19 PM, said:

wareonia, on Apr 14 2009, 05:12 AM, said:

Plus Cortillion has his magic rope along with the rest of his god powers whereas mortals can do the shadow dance. Apsalar is just using what ahem.... what god give her. It seems Apsalars power is growing. 1 on 1 it would be a close fight.

The rope isn't magic, it's just a rope. It's just a nifty weapon that Cotillion uses, but no more magical than a random knife you pick up...

I can't quite remember the scene from HoC, but you don't kill shiploads of edur with a whip, doesn't matter if there's scythe like claws on the end.

It has to be magical, jumping about severing body parts and killing with a single lick.

Sure you do. When you can whip-snap that piece of rope with the strength and precision of a god, it can be entirely mundane. The well-described lethal rope-strike that Cutter describes Cotillion sends it into the eye of an Edur warlock, which sounds about right to me. That and some quick godlike garroting is all it would take in my opinion. The "killing with a single lick" was descriptive of the knife Cotillion had in the other hand...

[Assail]

Illuyankas, on Mar 25 2009, 08:07 AM, said:

SUBTLE PENIS EUPHEMISM

SUBTLE PENIS EUPHEMISM ON YOUR SUBTLE PENIS EUPHEMISM

[Silencer]

IIRC, the wiki states a quote about Cotillion using a knife and a rope, "both which have more capacity to wound than would be thought" or some such...
Now, that doesn't say they are magical, at least not straight up, but it could be taken that way. Also, Cotillion's rope "writes as if it had a life of its own" in place - implying magic.

[Grief]

Yes, but why would dancer, on becoming a god, pick up a completely different weapon.
I imagine he could already use rope, just upon reaching godhood decided to make his weapon a bit better, because as a god, the nasties you could run into are nastier.

Also, as has been pointed out Cotillion kills more edut than Apsalar kills claw.

It has also been pointed out that soldiers(generally) are better than assassins(generally) in a striaght fight, so Cotillion is more impressive imo.

I read shadowthrones comment as Cotillion hadn't done that, not couldn't.

If we're going down best assassin road, it is also mentioned that Dancer versus Kalam would be close, though now Dancer's a god I doubt it would be anymore.

[D'rek]

Grief, on Apr 14 2009, 06:59 PM, said:

If we're going down best assassin road, it is also mentioned that Dancer versus Kalam would be close, though now Dancer's a god I doubt it would be anymore.

Yeah, some like QB said something like that once, but Kalam's own opinion of himself vs Dancer was more modest. And then after Cotillion bailed him out of Bidithal's temple he felt extremely humbled by Cot's awesome skill...

[iRFNA]

Cotillion's rope is described as pulling the brains out of the edur that gets the rope in this eye... I really doubt a mundane rope could do that.

[Jumpy]

Cotillion's rope is not magical. I feel that when he uses it HIS magic and HIS skill are what make it do the things he does with it. For instance I picture him being able to control the rope through impressive use of his warren, like to change the direction of the rope's attack, mid-attack. By being able to do this with his warren, and not to mention all the other assets of being a god, he fights completely differently than he would have done as Dancer. I do not think Dancer fought the way Cotillion does, now. He took the Rope as a weapon when he became The Rope, after his ascension. Deadly symbolism.

Cotillion did more than humble Kalam, he horrified him.
It was said that Dancer and Kalam, knife versus knife, would be a close match. Cotillion himself has said this. Kalam could also very possibly take out Lassen, Topper, Pearl, and even Miss Apsalar. Kalam is so good because of his size, his impressive and suprising speed, his tenacity and willpower matched with years of experience at being badass. I think all of the other known assassins in the book that have mused about Kalam's skill all have a healthy amount of respect for him

This post has been edited by Jumpy: 15 April 2009 - 05:23 PM

[Icarium Kalam]

she is the greatest god-damn ninja there ever was

apsalar would destroy Kalam

This post has been edited by Icarium Kalam: 15 April 2009 - 05:35 PM

[Bauchelain the Evil]

Whie I would essentially agree, Apsalar herself was a bit waryof Kalam and it was implied that she didn't really want to face Kalam in a fight. After all what amazaed Kalam of Cotillion was mostly his Rope which is the only thing that Cotillion-copy-Apsalar doesn't have.

[Aptorian]

Apsalar can kick a Hound of Shadow through a wall... when its charging her. Cot and Aps are able to kill hundreds of warriors with out needing a break.

Kalam's strengths are his bulk and his speed. They all come up short against Cot and Aps. And Cots and Aps are weary of his skill, so he wouldn't be able to "surprise" them.

Face it, Aps is at least 99% ascendant assassin and Cots is a fullblown Assassin Shadow God. It's not a shame to admit that Kalam can't match them.

[D'rek]

Here's the quote I was talking about, just in case there was ever any doubt:

HoC said:

Kalam stepped outside. His clothes were in tatters, but he was whole. Though decidedly shaken. He had always considered himself one of the ablest of assassins, and he had drawn a blade against a veritable host of inimical, deadly foes over the years. But Cotillion had put him to shame.
No wonder the bastard's a god. Hood's breath, I've never before seen such skill. And that damned rope!

And while I'm at it, here's your rope in action:

HoC said:

In its hands, a rope, that seemed to writhe with a life of its own. Cutter saw it snap out to strike a sorcerer in one eye, and when the rope whipped back out, a stream of blood and minced brains followed. The sorcerer's magic winked out and the Edur toppled.
The rope was too fast to follow, as its wielder moved among the three remaining mages, but in its twisting wake a head tumbled from shoulders, intestines spilled out from a gaping rip, and whatever felled the last sorcerer happened in a blue that left no obvious result, except that the Edur was dead before he hit the ground.

So it is said to writhe with a life of its own, but the whole pulling the break out of his eye is over-exaggeration on your part. Minced brains could just be a bit of chunky flesh stuck to the threads of the rope, perfectly reasonable. Having made a study of the effects of ropes passing through eye sockets, I would clearly know...

[Kryphon]

Damnit, we need a SE MMORPG to test all this out! I need to see Cot and Apsalar and Kalam (I assume the devs will take them as handles and characters for when they join us in-game) go head to head!

[D'rek]

Kryphon, on Apr 15 2009, 08:24 PM, said:

Damnit, we need a SE MMORPG to test all this out! I need to see Cot and Apsalar and Kalam (I assume the devs will take them as handles and characters for when they join us in-game) go head to head!

They're working on it, but it'll take a while. Still working on the demo, actually...

[wareonia]

Is this a computer game?

[Silencer]

Yup. That's what he's talking about.

Work is slowly progressing. *sigh*

[Eispeis]

Really, a computer game?

Don't know how to feel about that. The WoT-game was craptacular, and I'd rather not get my hopes up.

The pros for a MBotF based game is that technology has come a long way since the crappy WoT-game was released, but I'm still skeptical.