Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-27123758-20191202204135/@comment-37173421-20200205213724

Promestein wrote: This is focusing on more martial skill. If we were bringing up magic stuff I wouldn't be bothering with Raphael. Valev's precog is really good though. As for pure martial skill, I could go on for a while about all the things he can stab, but in the end it's an utterly absurd end game of, to his own eyes,

Martial arts, techniques, etc. have stopped mattering. To take another war quote - Prussian Field Marshall Helmuth von Moltke the Elder speaks that “No plan survives first contact with the enemy." and Valev purely agrees. Any formalized martial arts or overall strategy is utterly useless against an unknown enemy of his caliber - 'martial arts' are simply categories of hand to hand combat in The Lord's eyes. Even if you have every conceivable martial arts, you're missing out on the in between, or the techniques that blend them together. Overall, worthless.

What's more important is to have the raw skill capability to completely adapt and react to any given opposing strategy or techniques not by any named martial arts or strategy, but by just being really, really fucking good. He understands not martial arts, but the entire wheel of techniques related to hand-to-hand combat that he can master, and applies it in conjunction with analyzing any and all possible weaknesses in his being and stance to secure absolute victory.