[worry]

pwn just has to do with the fact that p is next to o and the typo has been adopted as slang.

[The Seguleh 46th]

worrywort, on 04 June 2010 - 01:30 AM, said:

pwn just has to do with the fact that p is next to o and the typo has been adopted as slang.

Oh. Well, now i know! Thanks!

[L'oric]

Cotillion has to be the greatest until provided with someone else. As he is the GOD/Patron of assassins I will err on his being the best.

Apsalar is my second. She held off the hounds of shadow all by herself and did not recieve a scratch. Claws have NO...NONE...ZIP chance of killing her.

Vorcan. Simply because she is also a high mage and possibly a demon or capable of having a half-demon child.

Kalam. As long as he has is Otatoral blade.

Topper. Safe to say that he was better than Cowl.

Vorcans daughter.

Laseen would be above Topper but she is no longer relevant....unless she comes back as queen of shadows or something. I do not think anyone comes close to the above group.

Sincerely

[Arsiud]

Just two thing to say...
Cotillion in my opinion should be moved down to number two, due to the fact that Apsalar was able to perform the shadow dance better than he (as stated by the authors I believe in BH?).
Kalam is also pretty damn good even w/out Quick and managed to do an awesome job in Malaz city (also read the BH).

Lol seems that I've read the books too long ago and may not remember everything correctly though.

This post has been edited by Arsiud: 15 June 2010 - 08:07 AM

[Silencer]

Eh, the 'better than Cotillion' thing is not stated by the authors, or indeed even clearly stated by a character. Following the Dance, Shadowthrone says to Apsalar "Not even Cotillion...not even Cotillion..."
Which has a number of options.

1. Cotillion has never performed a Shadow Dance like that.
2. Cotillion couldn't have anticipated the skills his possession would leave Apsalar with.
3. Cotillion *couldn't* have performed a Shadow Dance like that.


Or even something else. Numbers 1 and 3 are unlikely, as he cleaned out two entire shiploads of Edur in HoC, which is easily of the order of taking out a couple of hundred Claws, many of whom started with their backs turned. It doesn't rule #3 out, but not only is this Shadowthrone talking, he doesn't speak explicitly, no doubt deliberately, and this makes it impossible to state that the answer is x.

So that is why most (reasonable ) members of the forums default to leaving Cotillion at the top, as he is the Patron God of Assassins and we've never seen him in his full capabilities on-screen, and there is no definitive, or even likely evidence claiming otherwise. Apsalar would probably lose to him even with his own skills, anyway, as she didn't gain complete copies of his memories or knowledge, leaving him the tactical advantage.

[The Seguleh 46th]

Silencer, on 15 June 2010 - 08:01 AM, said:

as he cleaned out two entire shiploads of Edur in HoC, which is easily of the order of taking out a couple of hundred Claws, many of whom started with their backs turned.

That's the point of assassination, am i correct? To stab a person in the back, or at least kill them and get away. They are not really doing their job right if they have stand-up fights, the way i have it anyways (obviously Cotillion and Laseen can get away with it, being supreme overall fighters and all, but still....). Not really arguing your position here, just pointing out that Apsalar pretty much did it the way she was supposed to in killing all them Claw. Stab here, stab there, and on to the next unfortunate Hand! That was pretty impressive indeed!

This post has been edited by The Seguleh 46th: 15 June 2010 - 12:20 PM

[Silencer]

Well, no, she did it like Cotillion does it. XD

It just happened that she hit them from behind by chance. 'Assassination' in the classical sense is killing an important person. None of those Claw were important, so none of them were assassinations. I think that what we hear of Dancer doing in RotCG - warping in on an enemy command post and taking out commanders then warping back out again - is more 'assassination' than anything they've done in the books.

And we don't know exactly how Cotillion did the Edur, either.

[The Seguleh 46th]

Silencer, on 15 June 2010 - 09:46 PM, said:

Well, no, she did it like Cotillion does it. XD

It just happened that she hit them from behind by chance. 'Assassination' in the classical sense is killing an important person. None of those Claw were important, so none of them were assassinations. I think that what we hear of Dancer doing in RotCG - warping in on an enemy command post and taking out commanders then warping back out again - is more 'assassination' than anything they've done in the books.

And we don't know exactly how Cotillion did the Edur, either.

So essentially we don't know then then how either did it? Both were badass feats, that's obvious, but my point is that we can't diminish one's acts of mayhem over the other's simply for how they got their respective jobs done. If Cots went in by Warren and out again, great! If Apsalar stabs 300+ random Claws in the back? Great! Also the Claw are the Claw for a reason, IMO. They may be simple butchery fodder for the likes of Apsalar and the Patron God of Assassins, but they are still elite human beings in the martial sense. Its hard for me to simply toss them aside and view them as knife and arrow butts.

Editing to add "Why are the Edur considered "important" in your opinion anyways? Okay, lemme rephrase. More wondering why they are considered stronger or more powerful than the Claw in your view? None of them were directly named, exactly the same as the Claw Sorry decimated. So they in essence were not assassinations in the context of slaying someone important either, IMO.

This post has been edited by The Seguleh 46th: 15 June 2010 - 11:04 PM

[Silencer]

The Seguleh 46th, on 15 June 2010 - 10:41 PM, said:

Silencer, on 15 June 2010 - 09:46 PM, said:

Well, no, she did it like Cotillion does it. XD

It just happened that she hit them from behind by chance. 'Assassination' in the classical sense is killing an important person. None of those Claw were important, so none of them were assassinations. I think that what we hear of Dancer doing in RotCG - warping in on an enemy command post and taking out commanders then warping back out again - is more 'assassination' than anything they've done in the books.

And we don't know exactly how Cotillion did the Edur, either.

So essentially we don't know then then how either did it? Both were badass feats, that's obvious, but my point is that we can't diminish one's acts of mayhem over the other's simply for how they got their respective jobs done. If Cots went in by Warren and out again, great! If Apsalar stabs 300+ random Claws in the back? Great! Also the Claw are the Claw for a reason, IMO. They may be simple butchery fodder for the likes of Apsalar and the Patron God of Assassins, but they are still elite human beings in the martial sense. Its hard for me to simply toss them aside and view them as knife and arrow butts.

Editing to add "Why are the Edur considered "important" in your opinion anyways? Okay, lemme rephrase. More wondering why they are considered stronger or more powerful than the Claw in your view? None of them were directly named, exactly the same as the Claw Sorry decimated. So they in essence were not assassinations in the context of slaying someone important either, IMO.

We know how Apsalar did it - we saw her Shadow Dance. And we know how Dancer used to operate in battles. We don't know how Cotillion did things on the Edur ships - the implication is that he did a Shadow Dance, however. And I never said the Edur were considered important, however in the terms of straight-up combat the Edur are most likely superior to your average Claw with their back turned. Now, my point with the fact that we don't know how Cotillion killed the Edur is that he might have done it in a proper stealthy style. They weren't important people, however.
As for the Claw...they're tools of fear, because they assassinate people and no-one sees them. Every time the Claw have tried a stand-up fight they have their ass handed to them swiftly. This is perhaps an unfair stance, as they usually fight someone like Kalam or Apsalar, but they aren't made for straight-up fighting. They're better than 90% of the population, sure, but they are by no means 'elite' after the decimation they regularly receive at the hands of ONE PERSON or other. And in that sense, I'm pretty confident that an Edur vs a Claw in a stand-up fight, wherein the Edur is aware that the Claw is an assassin (so no getting surprised by the fact that they throw knives or whatever) the Edur would win. Unless it's like Possum or above.

But anyway, that's irrelevant. My initial point was that a couple of ships' worth of Edur are pretty much an equivalent difficulty of taking out a couple of hundred Claw from behind. Not necessarily harder or easier, but around the same sort of level (given, if you turned around and saw this lighting-fast blur of knives cutting through your brothers like they were nothing, would you think you stand much chance?).
My subsequent point is that neither of the examples in question were really examples of assassination - of the Shadow Dance, yes, but not of an actual kill-important-people assassination. Whereas Dancer's past indicates he used to do that more often back in 'the day'.
And my final point was that, while we know that Apsalar did a Shadow Dance on the Claw in BH, hence not assassinating, we didn't actually see how Cotillion dealt with the remaining Edur - he may have warped in and knifed them quietly, or Danced his way to victory. *However* Apsalar's style in BH is basically Cotillion's style as far as we know - so hers wasn't any more or less of an assassination than his, regardless of the import of the victims.
And I agree that the style makes no difference to the badassery, but it does make a difference to the claim of 'best assassin', as presumably the bset assassin would use, well, assassination to get the job done. That being said, there isn't some textbook lying around of acceptable assassination techniques or anything - killing hundreds is fine, as long as the important person also dies, really. It's just that I've been conditioned to think of assassination as something stealthy, which Apsalar's Dance certainly was not. XD

I think that clears it up?

[The Seguleh 46th]

Silencer, on 15 June 2010 - 09:46 PM, said:

I think that clears it up?

Why not....i'll buy it. Those poor Claw always do seem to get pitted against the major players.

[Soulessdreamer]

IMNSHO the best assassin of the series is SE himself

TTFN

[Crix]

Anyways, on topic, I have to agree and disagree with a number of people. Based on direct evidence and circumstanstial evidence: Cotillion is the best, Apsalar is either 2nd. My logic is simple:

My list (Top 5): Based on experience and reputation:

Cotillion
Cowl
Topper
Apsalar
Vorcan
Kalam


When Kalam saw Cot fight, he was awed and scared. Same situation with both QB and him in GOTM. Also, the fight with Edur and Icarium, you see the skills of Cotillion. The description and the witnessing of this skill is beyond what you have seen from the legendary Kalam. Kalam is infact very much humbled after seeing it. And even though Sorry is good too doing that shadowdance, I got the impression that the shadowdance isn't everything when it comes to killing. Perhaps she is better than Cotillion in the dance but in every other aspect of being an assassin, Cotillion surpasses? I don't know but she cannot be better than Cotillion. Also, the reason Apsalar/Sorry can't be better than Dancer is because Dancer has been doing this a very long time and still keeping up his skills since ascending. Since her character has been introduced, there is no way Apsalar could have gone over Cotillion. COnsider her 'work' experience compared to the stories you have heard of Cotillion. Cot was doing the assassin thing for years and Apsalar apart from a few fights and Pearl, has not actually assassinated anyone.

Thoughts?

[Jingospice]

I definitely think that Cotillion should be ranked number one if we are counting the full scope of each person's abilities. Cotillion has the powers of a god which give him a definite advantage over everyone else on the list. Apsalar would be a close second because she can shadow dance on the level (or possibly better than) Cotillion THE Shadow Dancer (hence the names Dancer, and Cotillion). While I'll agree that Vorcan is an excellent assassin I would not put her above Cowl or Topper. It is stated a number of times that Cowl and Dancer were rivals and no one really knew who was better which would put Topper and Cowl tied for number 4 under my girl Laseen. Its a given that Laseen is more powerful than Topper seeing as she was his master, furthermore she broke even with Cowl after a night of killing dozens of assassins. She dismantled Skinner like it was nothing (Im sorry I think I meant to say KILLED). She is for sure in the top three. Kalam is a mystery to me still because he has yet to actually fight someone on his level. There have been hints that he is as good as Topper. Nonetheless, he completely destroys a city full of assassins......twice. It is clear that there is not a Claw with the possible exception of Topper or maybe Possum that can handle Kalam. Kalam is also the only other assassin on the list besides Laseen who does not fight with magic, which always impresses me.
Vorcan, while a skilled assassin, is not on the level of these guys so she would be the last on the list. Rallick doesnt make the list since he got deuced on by Cutter.

Cotillion
Apsalar
Laseen
Topper/Cowl
Kalam
Vorcan

[Jingospice]

Silencer, on 15 June 2010 - 11:35 PM, said:

The Seguleh 46th, on 15 June 2010 - 10:41 PM, said:

Silencer, on 15 June 2010 - 09:46 PM, said:

Well, no, she did it like Cotillion does it. XD

It just happened that she hit them from behind by chance. 'Assassination' in the classical sense is killing an important person. None of those Claw were important, so none of them were assassinations. I think that what we hear of Dancer doing in RotCG - warping in on an enemy command post and taking out commanders then warping back out again - is more 'assassination' than anything they've done in the books.

And we don't know exactly how Cotillion did the Edur, either.

So essentially we don't know then then how either did it? Both were badass feats, that's obvious, but my point is that we can't diminish one's acts of mayhem over the other's simply for how they got their respective jobs done. If Cots went in by Warren and out again, great! If Apsalar stabs 300+ random Claws in the back? Great! Also the Claw are the Claw for a reason, IMO. They may be simple butchery fodder for the likes of Apsalar and the Patron God of Assassins, but they are still elite human beings in the martial sense. Its hard for me to simply toss them aside and view them as knife and arrow butts.

Editing to add "Why are the Edur considered "important" in your opinion anyways? Okay, lemme rephrase. More wondering why they are considered stronger or more powerful than the Claw in your view? None of them were directly named, exactly the same as the Claw Sorry decimated. So they in essence were not assassinations in the context of slaying someone important either, IMO.

We know how Apsalar did it - we saw her Shadow Dance. And we know how Dancer used to operate in battles. We don't know how Cotillion did things on the Edur ships - the implication is that he did a Shadow Dance, however. And I never said the Edur were considered important, however in the terms of straight-up combat the Edur are most likely superior to your average Claw with their back turned. Now, my point with the fact that we don't know how Cotillion killed the Edur is that he might have done it in a proper stealthy style. They weren't important people, however.
As for the Claw...they're tools of fear, because they assassinate people and no-one sees them. Every time the Claw have tried a stand-up fight they have their ass handed to them swiftly. This is perhaps an unfair stance, as they usually fight someone like Kalam or Apsalar, but they aren't made for straight-up fighting. They're better than 90% of the population, sure, but they are by no means 'elite' after the decimation they regularly receive at the hands of ONE PERSON or other. And in that sense, I'm pretty confident that an Edur vs a Claw in a stand-up fight, wherein the Edur is aware that the Claw is an assassin (so no getting surprised by the fact that they throw knives or whatever) the Edur would win. Unless it's like Possum or above.

But anyway, that's irrelevant. My initial point was that a couple of ships' worth of Edur are pretty much an equivalent difficulty of taking out a couple of hundred Claw from behind. Not necessarily harder or easier, but around the same sort of level (given, if you turned around and saw this lighting-fast blur of knives cutting through your brothers like they were nothing, would you think you stand much chance?).
My subsequent point is that neither of the examples in question were really examples of assassination - of the Shadow Dance, yes, but not of an actual kill-important-people assassination. Whereas Dancer's past indicates he used to do that more often back in 'the day'.
And my final point was that, while we know that Apsalar did a Shadow Dance on the Claw in BH, hence not assassinating, we didn't actually see how Cotillion dealt with the remaining Edur - he may have warped in and knifed them quietly, or Danced his way to victory. *However* Apsalar's style in BH is basically Cotillion's style as far as we know - so hers wasn't any more or less of an assassination than his, regardless of the import of the victims.
And I agree that the style makes no difference to the badassery, but it does make a difference to the claim of 'best assassin', as presumably the bset assassin would use, well, assassination to get the job done. That being said, there isn't some textbook lying around of acceptable assassination techniques or anything - killing hundreds is fine, as long as the important person also dies, really. It's just that I've been conditioned to think of assassination as something stealthy, which Apsalar's Dance certainly was not. XD

I think that clears it up?

I dont know, I feel like a real assassination is supposed to be a very quick action. Its an ambush, probably a stab in the back, and it is over very quickly. However, it is hard for SE to truly convey just how awesome an assassin is when they are just sneaking up behind someone and stabbing them in the back. The best way to stress how good someone is, is by portraying their fighting abilities. However, if every awesome assassin in the story only fought people on their level, the series would run out of assassin pretty quickly. These guy are too good to just have them fight one normal person at a time, so SE has them fight outrageous numbers of normal (expendable) people to show how badass they are. If he limited them to only true assassinations their fights scenes would be quite boring.

[Seatiger]

I think Id personaly rate the list of best assassins as follows

1-Dancer
2-Apsalar
3-Vorcan
4-Laseen
5-Topper
6-Cowl
7-Kalem
8-Taya
9-Pearl
10-Possum
11-Cutter
12-Rallick

9-12 are hard to give an order to. 1-8 I feel are strongly where they need to be.

[Abberon]

Didn't Vorcan lose to a kid with a brick? Huge negative rep for that.

[Silk]

well if you take the "a real assassination is supposed to be a very quick action. Its an ambush, probably a stab in the back, and it is over very quickly" stance the best assasins are the t'lan imass as shown when they take out Cutter and company .... being dust has huge advantages

[Seatiger]

Possum The only real person I can remember as a sneaky assassin. Most of the others sneak around but when it comes to fighting they have dagger/magic/crossbow/H2H/rope/dancing fights that drag to show superiority.

[Bauchelain the Evil]

Actually I think the only one who seems to act as a "real" assassin is Rautos Hivanar's indebted from RG, who according to that Patriotist guy has killed lots of people,no matter how well protected and never being discovered,perfectly anonymous.

[Seatiger]

Hes so anonymous I forgot he was an assassin.