Fem vs Darg Semis

Response 1
Blue really feels like Darg's MVP. Very good ranged offense, will tank fire from guns, reasonably fast. It's a good look. He presents a compelling case for how Fem's team will behave, and I mostly buy it. There are, of course, some weird arguments, such as Rook's supposed Charmcaster scaling. Disintegrating people like that is obviously some goofy magic, I don't accept it as good heat scaling. Rook has interesting edge case utility against Terminator and Bucky, and I'm sorry to see him not get more love, but since the tier, and this round especially is so heavily based around "I shoot you and win immediately" he gets less attention for his cool melee here. Tables are *chefs kiss* very good, enjoyed very much

Fem does very well in his first response. I particularly enjoy the sections on Death Knight, who honestly feels like more and more of a punching bag as the rounds go on. Fem demonstrates that Death Knight is the only combatant with no ranged attacks, and I really don't buy the idea that he's ever going to reach Fem's team before Zuko, Terminator and Bucky blast him apart.
My main disagreement with his post involves Blue. I think his interpretation of her speed is spurious, specifically claiming that the only reason the marines don't shoot her is because of friendly fire. The quote literally says she attacks multiple times and kills a marine before anyone can aim. While I agree there is an element of surprise here, at some point even normal people would be able to just raise their guns and shoot.
Fem also attempts to just paper over Blue's piercing with a single sentence, which I do not buy. "It has no relevance to Bucky or Terminator: source; Fem's ass" lol

Round 2

Good defense by Darg for how Rook's gun interacts with Fem's characters. Zuko doesn't know what the projectiles do, and it works differently from lighting, Terminator is stunned by less, and is slow to recover. Just cutting his losses arguing against Bucky's shield earns some points for me. Not every possible matchup needs to be a 10/10 mog, ya know? He also (rightfully) calls out Fem for ignoring the pulse rifle completely.

On the other hand, I am irked by some of the Zuko arguments presented in this tournament. Using Zhao as an example of Zuko standing and waiting around is clearly not a good example, just leave it out. I'm also feeling fairly lenient on "taking turns like an RPG character" when that feels like an artifact of how fights are animated/choreographed in ATLA. It's not unreal, it does happen, it's just something that I'm not willing to go super hard on as an example of "lol Zuko slow".
Darg's arguments for the speed of his blasts are better, and fairly real. I think Rook can dodge mosts blasts from any significant distance

Death Knight actually comes back up a bit in my estimation here. I think he'll still go down to any concentrated fire from Zuko or Bucky's grenades, but he should be able to serve as a mediocre meat (ironic for a skeleton) shield, and provide some amount of cover for Rook. There is at least one dumb point here (Terminator is explicitly trying not to kill people in the scene with the police) and I'm hoping Fem calls it out. I also think arguing the proportions of an animated sword as being "unusually thick" is meh, exact proportions of a sword are not the priority of underpaid sweatshop animators

Rook remains "fast animated character from a long running show" and attempting to pick holes in him while running Zuko is a touch hypocritical. Same basic thing for his and Bucky's durability, they can both be staggered by much less than what it takes to KO or seriously injure them, and they both recover in time to counter the follow up hits in their respective "staggered by the in tier blows" feat.

Fem's second response opens with a banger. I am always going to like "same standard shreds you" as an argument, I think it's very strong.

Zuko not dodging or taking any defensive action is a weird point imo. I lean towards Fem, Zuko will take some kind of defensive or offensive action since he's not stupid, but at the same time I find it somewhat believable that he'll take the wrong action, and get screwed over because of it. Posting the harpoon cannon scan seals things for me that Zuko will probably take the correct action. There still exists a possibility that he messes up and tries to dodge after the pulse rifle is fired, but it's not super high imo

I will call out the idea that Zuko blocking Azula is a function of strength as silly. C'mon man. Do you need me to say more on that?

A lot is being said about Rook speed compared to Zuko, and I feel like it's basically all been covered before. Darg's arguments about the seriousness of fights and how Rook is portrayed, come back to some of my statements about Zuko earlier. The show clearly thinks Rook is fast and a good fighter. Characters seeming to take turns while fighting is just... yeah an animation thing. Maybe I'm being too lenient to Zuko and Rook here and they both suck and get hit by attacks that take several seconds, since I'm the animated childrens media man, but there's clearly some parallels with how both sides are arguing against the other guy being fast, and it just comes across as a wash for me

I am hoping that Fem will still gimme a little teensy smooch, but I am giving the round, very very slightly to Darg.