#duelists

Hooray for Fun Fact Friday!

Hooray for Jurakan!

Fun Fact Friday! 👏🎉🎆🎈

AW YEAH

Well, it's Black History Month! So! How about an Awesome French fencer? No, not that one!

Today You Learned about Jean-Louis Michel!

Born in Haiti in 1785 as the son of a fencing teacher, Jean-Louis Michel was trained by his father to be the ultimate fencing badass. And he was, friend. He was. At a young age, he won a fencing tournament. He went on to serve in the French Imperial Army of Napoleon Bonaparte because hot dang, you have skillz like that, you put them to use.

While stationed in Spain in 1814, the French soldiers and the Italian allies got in argument, and swords were drawn. The way the fight went, duelists would fight, and when one lost, the next guy in line duked it out with the victor of the last match. In these duels to the death, Jean-Louis fought--and defeated!--over a dozen other Italian fencing masters in a row.

At one point, sick of hearing racist nonsense, he challenged a guy to a duel, sticking to a training foil while the other guy used a blade. And he won, smacking the other guy across the face after his opponent had tired himself out.

After his illustrious career, which earned him medals, honors, and knighthood, Jean-Louis opened a fencing school. Also, according to Wikipedia at least, he taught his daughter to fight, and she became a fencing champion (because of course she did, look at who her dad is).

He didn't write any manuals, but he was a huge influence on French fencing for decades afterward, as you can imagine they'd want to preserve those skillz for posterity.

So I found this rather dashing “Pure Hearted Challenger” design on Hero Forge’s community page who kinda reminded me of The Mask of Zorro-era Catherine Zeta-Jones (link: https://www.heroforge.com/load_config%3D35287714/). And since I have this thing about wanting to give every dashing heroine I encounter a bad-girl crush, I decided to design for her a brawny Scottish fencer to become rivals and/or frenemies-with-benefits with.

(Link: https://www.heroforge.com/load_config%3D35287844/)

Leaving aside how well Hypergriff has designed the subclass, they did indeed design the Dreadnoughts with a concept in mind.

Especially Matoimaru and Franka, whose similarities and differences help paint the story of their characters.

Matoimaru and Franka are the only Dreadnought Guards who set their DEF to absolute zero to use their best DPS Skills, and it means the same thing for both of them, but they do it for different reasons.

Matoimaru rates only 'Standard' in Combat Skill and 'Normal' in Tactical Acumen. Her records and voice-lines make it clear over and over again: She's dumb muscle, and in battle she thinks of nothing but cutting her enemies down without considering her own self-preservation or preparing for the enemy's tricks.

Meanwhile, Franka rates 'Excellent' in both Combat Skill and Tactical Acumen... indeed, she is the only Dreadnought Guard whose Tactical Acumen is rated above 'Standard'. Yet she likewise neglects her own defense like Matoimaru, whose Tactical Acumen is ranked the lowest of the entire subclass.

But as I said, the reasons for this reckless aggression are different.

Where Matoimaru forsakes defense because she just cannot bring herself to think of it, Franka forsakes her defense as a deliberate choice. Unlike Matoimaru, Franka is very much thinking ahead and trying to anticipate her opponent's actions to better guide her all-out offense... but she's still taking the same fundamental risk of racing the enemy to see who kills the other first.

And compared to Matoimaru, Franka is less equipped to handle losing that race.

Matoimaru's personal stat balance favors HP over DEF even more than other Dreadnought Guards, and then her Talent takes it further. She has more Max HP than even Skadi, and practically no DEF even before using her S2. Her S2's self-debuff is practically inconsequential. (Narratively, she bases her survival on rapid regenerative healing, matched or exceeded only by the likes of an Abyssal Hunter.)

In comparison, Franka's stat balance is more conventional for the Dreadnought Guards; her HP and DEF are worse than Skadi's, but better than Melantha's. Her DEF is higher than Flamebringer's, but her HP is lower.

But when Franka uses her S2 and sets her DEF to zero, her prioritization of DEF over HP hurts her, because now she has no DEF and she has less HP than anyone in the subclass except Melantha.

Other Dreadnought Guards aren't quite as narratively reckless as these two, of course, so all of the others operate differently.

Melantha is still learning the basics, and remains relatively timid in her inexperience. Though since she's learning under Franka, it will be interesting to see what a Future-Alter Melantha looks like.

Flamebringer only feels alive on the verge of death, but he's apparently much more cautious in battle than Matoimaru or Franka. Perhaps he finds more joy in a back-and-forth exchange of swordplay before he kills his opponent, as his Talent and Skills represent him "coming alive" from fighting and killing.