# Forum > Discussion > Media Discussions >  Bandwagons Ahoy: Corvo Attano (Dishonored) vs. Adam Jensen (Deus Ex)

## The Glyphstone

A matchup I've been noodling for a long time, and since Versus threads are in fashion again, why not.

Adam Jensen, a mechanically augmented cyborg who didn't ask for this. He's walking into this with all of his augments as of DE: Mankind Divided, except for Focus Enhancement and EMP Shielding, along with a pistol, stun gun, combat rifle, and tranquilizer rifle.

Corvo Attano, Royal Protector of the Empire 'gifted' with supernatural powers by the Outsider. He's bringing all his powers, weapons, and gadgets as of Dishonored 2, except for Bend Time.

Now, to make things more interesting, this is going to be a best-of-three encounter. In all scenarios, assume the two are immune to each other's insta-kill melee attacks and are carrying enough biocells/painkillers/elixirs to fully refill their resource meters once each.

Round 1: Corvo starts in Chicago, outside of Sarif Industries HQ on lockdown during a riot. His victory condition is to reach David Sarif's penthouse without being incapacitated. Adam starts in the security office, commanding the building's security guards and drones, and can monitor the camera network as long as he's in the office. He knows a hitman with bizarre, highly experimental augments is attempting to breach security and kill David.

Round 2: Adam starts in Dunwall, outside Dunwall Tower - his victory condition is to reach the throne room, again without being incapacitated. Corvo starts in his chambers, commanding the royal guards/City Watch and an assortment of Arc Pylons and Walls of Light he can deploy wherever he wants. He knows an assassin with supernaturally boosted strength, speed, and durability is attempting to infiltrate the tower and kill Emily.

Round 3: Direct head-to-head matchup in a large generic multi-level warehouse full of various-sized crates and boxes. Win condition is to incapacitate the opponent by any means.

So which action-adventure stealth protagonist reigns supreme? Can tech triumph over magic, or does the supernatural exceed science? 

Let the Playground decide!Meanwhile, Garrett robs them both blind while they're distracted.

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## Eldan

In a direct confrontation, can't Corvo just possess Adam and make him drop all his explosives at his feet?

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## The Glyphstone

> In a direct confrontation, can't Corvo just possess Adam and make him drop all his explosives at his feet?


IIRC, possessed people can't directly kill themselves, though they can be forced into environmental hazards or traps? Its been a while. Its not fair to make Adam immune to possession, though, so if Corvo can leverage it - walking Adam into a trap he set himself, perhaps, I'll call it a valid win.

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## Eldan

Yeah, I'd say that's his best bet then. Say, set up some mines, hand grenades, whatever Adam is packing, then walk him into it. Depending on how flexible "can't kill themselves" is.

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## The Glyphstone

Admittedly it might require Adam to have already rigged those traps - possessing him wouldn't give Corvo the knowledge needed to manipulate 21st-century tech, and it also doesn't last very long. It's still a powerful tool though, and one of the things Adam has no equivalent or counter for. I'd think it would actually be more useful in Scenario 1, for bypassing security checkpoints (the game mechanic of guards instantly recognizing possessed allies always sat poorly with me).

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## Rynjin

This really comes down to "does Corvo have the stopping power to actually hurt Adam?" and I think the answer is yes, if he headshots him with the pistol Adam just dies.

Given that, in the scenario 3 encounter, Corvo casts Slow Time rank 2 and kills Adam before he can react.

In scenario 1, I don't think there's anything Adam can do to stop Corvo from killing David. It doesn't even come to a direct conforntation at that point, there's just not much he can do to slow down Corvo's advance through the building, much less stop him.

The same sort of goes for Adam in scenario 2, except Corvo can just kind of wait next to Emily and see aforementioned "stop time and kill Adam" scenario playing out when Adam is done stealthing and/or rampaging through the city.


Edit: missed the "no Bend Time" restriction, which evens the matchup somewhat (though weird nerf; it's one of only TWO powers we know he definitely, canonically has outside of gameplay).

Corvo's best bet then is probably Possession then, yeah. Stack up a bunch of those Razorwire mines and possess Adam into shoving his face directly into one.

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## The Glyphstone

As far as that goes, I banned both of their respective time-manipulation abilities because it makes a boring match up when it boils down to 'who uses their speed ability first'. Corvo's is true magic time stop but Adam's can activate with a thought, much faster than a hand gesture. It might be nerfing him a bit, but I also stripped Adam of his electricity immunity to make Dunwall Tower actually remotely difficult. ATesla Coil Arc Pylon is still going to ruin Adam's day if he walks into one.

Corvos biggest problem in Sarif HQ will be his limited mana I think. If he has to burn through it early with Possession to bypass security checkpoints, his job gets a lot harder. Adam being able to coordinate response in real time over the cameras is helpful too, unless he leaves for a direct intercept.

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## Mr.Silver

> IIRC, possessed people can't directly kill themselves, though they can be forced into environmental hazards or traps?


Going by the wiki you linked, if Corvo's host is killed while he's possessing them, that also kills Corvo (aside from drowning, presumably for gameplay reasons) - so it's probably not a viable strategy regardless. To pull something like that off in scenario 3, he'd need to set a trap that won't trigger until after he's out of Jensen (and ideally blink'd out of any blast radius) and than walk Jensen into it. Which is still probably doable, if a little harder to set-up.
Unless he has the seperation trauma charm, in which case Possession is basically a KO button, but I don't know if you're including charms in Corvo's loadout or not.

wrt to scenario 3: Jensen doesn't really have an answer to possession, but iirc Corvo doesn't really have much of a counter to Jensen's invisibility1 which, along with the fact that Jensen is better armed and armoured than Corvo, I think balances it out a bit (note that, since the goal is incapacitate rather than just kill, the tranq rifle and stun gun are extremely relevant weapons). So, assuming they both have some idea of the other's capabilities by that point, it's probably going to turn into a cat-and-mouse game of who's able to line-up their shot on the other first.




> Corvos biggest problem in Sarif HQ will be his limited mana I think. If he has to burn through it early with Possession to bypass security checkpoints, his job gets a lot harder. Adam being able to coordinate response in real time over the cameras is helpful too, unless he leaves for a direct intercept.


Another potential difficulty for Corvo is that he probably doesn't know how to operate a computer. Which may become a problem if elevator and stairwell access gets shut-off electronically and need to be overridden, and it's not unreasonable to think that course of action would occur to Jensen at some point. Most electronic locks are likely to be a bit out his ability to open with the rewiring tool as well, I'd imagine.
Of course, there isn't really anything to stop him possessing a pidgeon and bypassing most of this at the start, but that does make the scenario a lot less interesting  :Small Tongue: 




1beyond maybe summoning some rats for increased scouting, and I don't know how effective that'd be.

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## Rynjin

> wrt to scenario 3: Jensen doesn't really have an answer to possession, but iirc Corvo doesn't really have much of a counter to Jensen's invisibility1


Dark Vision sees all. Even if you wanna argue it doesn't see invisibility (which...it can see through walls, so it's not a hard extrapolation), in Dishonored 2 it also has the ability to show where a person is going to walk, so Corvo could just follow that backwards.

Dark vision is also, notably, one of the few powers where Corvo's "limited mana" doesn't matter. Dark Vision, Blink, and Far Reach (which Corvo does not canonically have) consume low enough mana that they can be activated with the little bit of recharging mana you get.

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## DaedalusMkV

So, I think the smartest place to start is just by comparing the relative strengths and weaknesses of each character, where each has an edge over the other.

Corvo:
Can teleport through open space. He can't go through walls but can teleport through spaces too small to fit him, including small windows and bars as long as he can see a large enough space on the other side.
Can jump about 15 feet in the air, and much farther horizontally, as well as double-jump on thin air, and combine all of this with said teleportation ability for some genuinely absurd acrobatics.
Can see flawlessly in the dark and can see people through thin walls and doors. This also lets him see precisely where people are looking... Through supernatural means.
Can possess animals (only rats in game, but birds are fair game too by the lore) almost indefinitely, or humans for a reasonable period of time, as long as he can get within a few yards of said target. Humans possessed by Corvo are incapacitated after he leaves their body for several seconds from the shock of the experience.
Can conjure up a swarm of rats which will reduce a human body to nothing in seconds. More than capable of overcoming several armed soldiers. Guns are of little help here, but explosives deal with them no problem.
Is tough enough to take several gunshots from flintlock balls or slashes from a trained swordsman or survive a single hit from a grenade-tipped arrow. 
Runs at about twice the speed of a normal person.
Can create a burst of wind similar to telekinesis, at close range.
Anyone killed by his hand disintegrates into dust seconds after death.
Is one of the best swordsmen ever to live, and an expert marksman equipped with a crossbow that is... Maybe something approximating almost as good as a modern silenced pistol with much more limited ammunition capacity, and a pistol which is maybe about as good as an early 20th century pistol.

Notably, with the stipulations in place he has limited available uses for human possession, rat swarm and wind burst abilities. He can use the others indefinitely, but only if he waits a few seconds in between uses; if he needs to teleport twice in rapid succession or teleport and then immediately use possession he'll reduce his available mana reserve.

Adam:
Is tough enough to take multiple direct hits from a 20mm grenade launcher or several bursts of sustained fire from a minigun.
Runs about three times the speed of a normal human and jumps about twice as high as an Olympic athlete.
Is strong enough to kill a normal person with a single punch or crush bricks with his bare hands.
Has incredibly sharp blades built into his arms which can cut through future-tech combat armour without too much trouble.
Can operate underwater or in a vacuum for extended periods of time.
Can see into the ultraviolet and infrared spectrum. Can see through some walls and doors.
Has many, many technological countermeasures that are of no use whatsoever against Corvo's whalepunk tech.
Can fall any distance without being harmed.
Can turn invisible for short periods of time.
Is much, much, much deadlier in ranged combat, with a heavily upgraded futuristic assault rifle and augmentations that completely eliminate recoil effect and allow him to fire with pinpoint accuracy to extreme range.
And, of course, is equipped with the Typhoon system which turns everything within 10 meters of Jensen into chunky salsa when activated.

Jensen's main limitations are battery power and ammunition. He can carry a few hundred rounds for his weapons and three uses of the Typhoon. Rules of the challenge says no grenades, so he's missing that option. His battery power for stuff like the cloaking and the fancier vision modes is limited, and he will eventually run out.



In a direct confrontation Jensen has the obvious edge. He's tough enough that Corvo's weaponry will be painfully ineffective against him; Corvo pretty much needs to put a bolt or bullet through Jensen's eye, or somehow find a weak point in Jensen's subdermal armour with his sword, to actually kill Jensen while a single burst of automatic rifle fire from Jensen will put Corvo down for the count. And of course the Typhoon just ends Corvo if Jensen ever realizes he's within range and decides to activate it, and also puts paid to any plan involving rat summoning to kill Jensen. Corvo is probably the better swordfighter, but... Well, Jensen's swords cut Titanium combat armour, and I'm not sure Corvo's sword can cut through Jensen's subdermal armour. That's a loss for Corvo. Corvo's only hope if Jensen ever confronts him directly is to immediately use Blink to reposition and go for a win with Possession or break line of sight. Corvo must rely on stealth and planning to win. Jensen simply has him too badly outmatched otherwise.

In terms of stealth and mobility I give Corvo the edge. Yes, Jensen has an invisibility cloak, but his ability to use it is sharply limited and most of his information-gathering augments are useless against a non-technological opponent. Corvo isn't quite as fast as full-sprint Jensen, but he can maintain that speed for longer, his vertical mobility is much better and Blink simply outmatches any tool Jensen has in both stealth and mobility while the supernatural elements of Dark Sight outmatch Jensen's vision modes (seriously, he can see 'places that are being observed'. This is huge). Possession lets him pass through places humans can't, or if necessary take over Jensen's employees to bypass security. All of Corvo's abilities work as well against Jensen's security measures as they do against his own. Most of Jensen's abilities don't work on things that don't use microchips. On the other hand, the only security measures Corvo has that mean _anything at all_ to Jensen are the Walls of Light and Arc Pylons. His guards are just worm-food if they try to do anything to stop Jensen. The reverse is not true; while Sarif's security guards aren't nearly as ridiculously overequipped as most in the setting, they're still packing modern weaponry including semi-automatic pistols and submachine guns. Corvo can kill them easily, but they can quickly do the same back to him.

So, the scenarios.

Scenario 1: Dark Sight works on Clockwork Men, so I have no particular reason to believe it wouldn't work on Jensen's cameras and drones. Thus, Corvo doesn't even need to know how Jensen's technology works to sneak past it. Just carefully examine where 'observation is happening', make some plans and then get to sneaking. Jensen will be utterly, horribly unprepared for Blink and Possession; Sarif Industries' defenses are designed to keep humans and drones out and built on the assumption that people must actually go from point A to point B, not just skip the intervening ground. Corvo can use Possession on a bird to get onto the roof and into the ventilation system, then sneak his way to his destination. The only true obstacle to him is going to be locked doors, but I expect he can probably figure out a way to get access to them eventually. Dark Sight used perfectly means Jensen will never get a location on Corvo, so there's not a lot he can do about any of this except maybe personally stand outside of Sarif's door. And even then, that throws away a lot of his advantages and means Corvo might be able to take him down with a sneak attack.

Scenario 2: Jensen could sneak around, and will benefit from doing so, but... Well, he doesn't really have to. He can survive far worse than Corvo's guards can do to him, so the only real hope Corvo's security has is the Arc Pylons. Considering that the Tower of Dunwall is made of brick and mortar or wood, Walls of Light can be bypassed by Jensen just going through the actual walls. If he just blitzes his way through, engaging any guards he happens to run into with his weapons and smashing any obstacles in his way things get rough for Team Dunwall. Good Arc Pylon placement might hold him up for a bit, and Corvo will need to use whatever time that buys him in Jensen tracking down the whale oil generators to try to sneak up on Jensen and Possess him into an Arc Pylon or Wall of Light (or just shoot him in the eye while he's incapacitated). Jensen's ability to see electromagnetic fields should let him very quickly figure out the Walls of Light and Arc Pylons, so while this isn't quite as one-sided as Scenario 1 I'd still give Jensen roughly 80-20 odds of success. Corvo's advantages are just badly hampered by the extreme time pressure Jensen can exert by brute forcing his way to Emily as fast as he can... Of course, that's assuming Corvo thinks to go for Possession in the first place. Good odds in a scenario like this he just takes the opportunity to shoot Jensen in the back of the head, gets a nasty shock when Jensen's skull plating stops the bullet and Jensen turns around and blows him away with an assault rifle.

Scenario 3: Corvo wins by getting close enough to use Possession without alerting Jensen. Jensen wins by reducing the warehouse to splinters, eliminating anywhere for Corvo to hide, and then gunning him down or wiping him out with the Typhoon when Corvo makes a desperation play. I think a lot of this one comes down to information. If Corvo realizes that almost all of his weaponry is ineffectual against Jensen he might be able to pull it off, but I expect the likely outcome here if he doesn't realize how tough Jensen is is Corvo sneaking up behind him, sticking a sword in his spine, being shocked that it didn't work and getting blown to pieces by the Typhoon.

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## Rynjin

I'm not all that certain Jensen's armor would stop a thrust to the spine from Corvo. he's durable, but I'm pretty sure his armored skin is a modified Kevlar weave; great against bullets, not so much against stabbing attacks.

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## GloatingSwine

> I'm not all that certain Jensen's armor would stop a thrust to the spine from Corvo. he's durable, but I'm pretty sure his armored skin is a modified Kevlar weave; great against bullets, not so much against stabbing attacks.


Kevlar is still stab resistant, it's what they use in stab vests. You *can* force a knife through it, but it takes a hell of a lot more force and that means there's a lot less force left to do damage to whatever's underneath.

And in Jensen's case what's underneath isn't "soft squishy bits" it's "various cybernetic gubbins".

There's no way that Corvo can attack Jensen at close range and it be instantly fatal, and that's what he'd need to do if he's going to survive because Jensen can explode anything standing near him just by wanting it.

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## The Glyphstone

I guess its up to how much people think he can extrapolate from 'supernaturally boosted strength, speed, and durability'. He probably knows he's outmatched in a brawl, but if he's expecting a Clockwork Man wrapped in meat is another thing. I doubt Adam is expecting 'augments' that blatantly violate the laws of physics and reality, so they're both dealing with an outside context problem to some degree.

If he does deduce the Typhoon attack (say, after trying to eat Adam with rats), could he bait out the remaining charges with hit-and-run Blink attacks, try and bleed Adam out if he can't go for a killing blow?

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## DaedalusMkV

> Kevlar is still stab resistant, it's what they use in stab vests. You *can* force a knife through it, but it takes a hell of a lot more force and that means there's a lot less force left to do damage to whatever's underneath.
> 
> And in Jensen's case what's underneath isn't "soft squishy bits" it's "various cybernetic gubbins".
> 
> There's no way that Corvo can attack Jensen at close range and it be instantly fatal, and that's what he'd need to do if he's going to survive because Jensen can explode anything standing near him just by wanting it.


Responding to both this and Rynjin's post collectively... Even with the knife-resistance of Kevlar, whatever Jensen's internal armour is made of is _way_ tougher than Kevlar, and Jensen is far more durable than the most heavily armoured modern soldier. Any modern armour that can stop a military-grade rifle round is entirely knife and sword-proof in any of the parts that can actually stop bullets. Jensen doesn't just survive rifle rounds (and lots of them with all his durability upgrades in play), he can handle being hit by 20mm fragmentation grenades. There's not a ballistic shield on earth today that could keep a human alive in the case of a direct hit from one of those, much less body armour. Jensen can take _several_. If Corvo can find a gap in his armour _and_ hit a vulnerable part through it he might be able to manage a lethal blow, but I'm not giving Corvo good odds on managing that. Not unless the Heart decides to be much more helpful than usual with regards to details...




> I guess its up to how much people think he can extrapolate from 'supernaturally boosted strength, speed, and durability'. He probably knows he's outmatched in a brawl, but if he's expecting a Clockwork Man wrapped in meat is another thing. I doubt Adam is expecting 'augments' that blatantly violate the laws of physics and reality, so they're both dealing with an outside context problem to some degree.
> 
> If he does deduce the Typhoon attack (say, after trying to eat Adam with rats), could he bait out the remaining charges with hit-and-run Blink attacks, try and bleed Adam out if he can't go for a killing blow?


Yeah, the fact that both are outside the other's worldview is part of why I think both participants have a massive advantage in their respective 'infiltrate the enemy base' scenarios. Corvo just gets the short end of the information stick in direct confrontation because there's no particular reason you would look at Adam Jensen and say 'That man has the durability of a reinforced concrete wall. Conventional attacks will have minimal effect' while all of Jensen's usual methods of hurting people will be entirely effective against Corvo if he can ever pin the Royal Protector down long enough to employ them. 

As for running Jensen out of resources... Yeah, if Corvo gets really daring he might be able to bait out Jensen's Typhoon ammunition, but it feels like a very risky tactic. For one, to close the distance fast enough to make it matter he probably needs to Blink in, then Blink out again, and hope that his timing was good enough to both convince Adam to trigger the Typhoon and get out in the 1-2 second time frame he has before he dies to the shrapnel storm. So he's risking death and probably blowing through quite a bit of mana to make it happen. He might also need to Blink into position for the initial approach, and very well might need another Blink to escape. And even if it works... Well, it's not like Jensen doesn't have other close-ranged options to kill Corvo, between his guns and fists and blades. It potentially opens up the possibility of using the rats to attack Jensen, but they're probably minimally effective against any part of Adam but his head, so he'd have lots of time to get away from the swarm and stomp the remaining rats to death, and summoning rats is very mana-intensive (IIRC only Bend Time is costlier).

Honestly, his best (and only really effective) tactic in a direct confrontation is to Blink up to Jensen and immediately use Possession, then take advantage of the disorientation effect to try to deliver a lethal blow to a momentarily helpless target. A pistol round to the eyes, or a sword thrust through the mouth, should be able to bypass Jensen's defenses to kill him.

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## The Glyphstone

We can always modify scenario parameters if the match up looks too stale or one-sided. I think there's a solid case that Adam's going to be dominant in the 1v1 round. Corvos only real ace card is Possession and if he uses it to make Adam suicide, he dies too and it ends up a draw by mutual death.

Does anything change if the 1v1 is, somehow, sequential to the others? Since both are likely to win their infiltration, they'd go into the tiebreaker with a much more complete picture of the other's respective abilities - does knowing how tough Adam is help Corvo or does it just rub salt in the wound of how screwed he is?

What if we give them both access to their complement of grenades and mines? Explosives will definitely boost Corvos offense, but Adam has a wider variety of boom and doom, including the ability to rig mines.

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## Rynjin

I thought we were already giving them access to their full suite of weapons? In any case, without Bend Time, Corvo has basically no chance in a straight up fight unless he has the ability that lets him kill with Possession without dying.

I'll admit, I still find it...odd that a vs thread specifically removes one of the main advantages one combatant has over the other, if "straight up fight" is one of the rounds. And the character's signature move at that. Bend Time is the only power to show up in a cutscene besides Blink (essentially universal to every character marked by the Outsider), and was the power given the most focus in side interactions with other characters (eg. special attention being paid to how Bend Time interacts with Daud, who has an even better mastery of the ability).

Losing Bend Time is a significantly bigger nerf to Corvo's overall capabilities than Jensen losing shock immunity.

Edit: And thinking about it more, I had forgotten just HOW durable Jensen is until other people brought up his durability feats. I'm not sure Corvo would even be able to kill him given multiple seconds to just blast him with his pistol. Thinking on it, even his eyes aren't really a vulnerable spot except insofar as destroying them would blind Jensen.

I still think Corvo takes the infiltration rounds (in round 2, Possession IS actually a factor since Corvo could just possess Jensen, make him jump into the ocean, and Blink to safety), but he has no reasonable way of winning the combat round.

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## Thomas Cardew

Possession ends with the target being nauseous and stumbling forward. One of the classic ways of fulfilling the unintentional suicide achievement was to possess a character, move them in front of a wall of light, and then end it. The target gets staggered forward and fried, this would work perfectly as presented in the challenge. Something comparable could work in the Deus Ex setting using fragmentation mines if the stagger counts as fast enough movement to trigger them.

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## The Glyphstone

> I thought we were already giving them access to their full suite of weapons? In any case, without Bend Time, Corvo has basically no chance in a straight up fight unless he has the ability that lets him kill with Possession without dying.
> 
> I'll admit, I still find it...odd that a vs thread specifically removes one of the main advantages one combatant has over the other, if "straight up fight" is one of the rounds. And the character's signature move at that. Bend Time is the only power to show up in a cutscene besides Blink (essentially universal to every character marked by the Outsider), and was the power given the most focus in side interactions with other characters (eg. special attention being paid to how Bend Time interacts with Daud, who has an even better mastery of the ability).
> 
> Losing Bend Time is a significantly bigger nerf to Corvo's overall capabilities than Jensen losing shock immunity.


I mentioned that previously; stripping both of them of their speed blitz powers was needed, otherwise nothing in the scenario matters except who activates theirs first. If Corvo gets his Bend Time off, he wins. If Adam triggers Focus Enhancement before Corvo can finish the hand gesture needed to Bend Time, he empties a clip into Corvo and wins. Adam also losing his shock immunity was an equalizer to give Dunwall at least a snowballs chance in hell.

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## Rynjin

> I mentioned that previously; stripping both of them of their speed blitz powers was needed, otherwise nothing in the scenario matters except who activates theirs first. If Corvo gets his Bend Time off, he wins. If Adam triggers Focus Enhancement before Corvo can finish the hand gesture needed to Bend Time, he empties a clip into Corvo and wins. Adam also losing his shock immunity was an equalizer to give Dunwall at least a snowballs chance in hell.


See above edits; I'm not sure Bend Time actually gives Corvo the win, I just think it's weird he doesn't have it.

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## The Glyphstone

> See above edits; I'm not sure Bend Time actually gives Corvo the win, I just think it's weird he doesn't have it.


It is weird, yeah. Let's say its a deliberate choice by the Mysterious Entities who arranged this whole thing to begin with, equalizing the field so they get more entertainment.

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## GloatingSwine

With Bend Time it really comes down to "Can Corvo inflict sufficiently massive damage on Jensen in 8 seconds to actually kill him?"

I suspect the answer is no, because he would have to know how to do that to a massively augmented individual and most of his normal instincts to attack are not going to work quickly enough.

And he can't do it twice in quick succession, nor can he chain it into Possession.

Corvo's problem is that most of his powers are not _directly_ offensive or defensive, when it comes to dishing out or taking hits he's still mostly a pretty fit and strong dude. Whereas Jensen has a lot of utility stuff _and_ chisels in his arms and can punch through walls and shrug off grenade fire, even if he can't match Corvo for utility powers. 

In a scenario that allows Corvo to avoid Jensen he can win, he can reach and assassinate a target Jensen is protecting* (even on close protection via possession or bend time), but he can't stop Jensen doing whatever he wants nor can he meaningfully attack him in a head to head.

So Jensen takes this one 2-1


* Jensen is historically bad at this...

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## DaedalusMkV

> Corvo's problem is that most of his powers are not _directly_ offensive or defensive, when it comes to dishing out or taking hits he's still mostly a pretty fit and strong dude. Whereas Jensen has a lot of utility stuff _and_ chisels in his arms and can punch through walls and shrug off grenade fire, even if he can't match Corvo for utility powers.


Really, Corvo's problem is that both characters have roughly comparable offense and defense relative to the expected level of their setting. It's just that Corvo's setting is whalepunk dystopian Victorian England, and Jensen's setting is cyberpunk dystopian Earth, and the difference in power level between whalepunk and cyberpunk is outrageous. Corvo is a murder machine when faced with guards with flintlock pistols and swords, and can take a decent amount of punishment by those standards. But Jensen is a murder machine when faced with guards using advanced body armour, high-end cybernetics and assault rifles, and can take a lot of punishment by _those_ standards. Corvo can defeat automatons made of wood and brass and iron, armed with swords, though they're a deadly threat to him thanks to their incredible durability. Jensen can defeat automatons made of Titanium and nanocomposite, armed with miniguns and lightning cannons, although they're a deadly threat to him thanks to their incredible durability and firepower. It's just a matter of technology. Corvo's stuff is legendary by the standards of his setting; modern Earth would consider them nifty but badly outdated, and Jensen would consider our stuff just badly outdated.

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## Forum Explorer

So how I see it:

Scenario 1: Corvo can inflitrate pretty darn easily and complete the mission, without ever even encountering Jensen.


Scenario 2: Jensen's tricks don't work on a lot of stuff Tower of Dunwall uses for defenses. But Jensen isn't threatened by any of it. However Corvo isn't an idiot. If Jensen goes loud, he can just evacuate Emily from the Tower, and I don't think Jensen could keep up. So I'd say it's a mission fail for Jensen here. I think he'd eventually just run into a guard on an off patrol, or someone will find a corpse he left behind since he doesn't have a way to eradicate corpses like Corvo does. The alarm goes off, Jensen murders anyone who encounters him which alerts Corvo to Jensen being an unnaturally tough opponent, and rather than risking Emily's life by fighting Jensen, he just evacuates Emily instead, keeping her safe, even if he eventually returns to fight Jensen and ends up dying. 


Scenario 3: Jensen 100%. Or 99% rather. There is a few very specific things Corvo could do to win. Pretty much anything Jensen does is very lethal to Corvo. It's a win for Jensen by the odds.

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## The Glyphstone

I hadn't really thought about Emily, but it does occur to me that her power suite might be even better suited to this than Corvo. His biggest problem is Adam's raw durability, its next to impossible for him to inflict serious injury. Emily can just Domino link him to a Doppelganger then shoot it with a tranq bolt or bullet, completely bypassing his armor.

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## DaedalusMkV

> I hadn't really thought about Emily, but it does occur to me that her power suite might be even better suited to this than Corvo. His biggest problem is Adam's raw durability, its next to impossible for him to inflict serious injury. Emily can just Domino link him to a Doppelganger then shoot it with a tranq bolt or bullet, completely bypassing his armor.


Emily definitely does better in scenarios 2 and 3. As you point out, Domino allows her to KO or kill Jensen regardless of his durability, since anyone without Outsider abilities is completely vulnerable to it. It's somewhat debatable how long he'd stay down if KO'd - his internal medical augments are good for dealing with 'status condition' type abilities, but she definitely has the ability to win it. The big disadvantage Emily faces is that she no longer has Possession or Blink - while in her own game Shadow Walk and Far Reach provide her useful tools, they aren't nearly as effective for stealth as Corvo's abilities. Security checkpoints and cameras are suddenly actually effective against Emily in a way that they aren't against Corvo.

Emily probably wins scenario 2. She can Domino link Jensen to a loyal guard, KO the guard and win the fight. Much, much more reliable than the tactics Corvo was forced to use and actually probably the first thing she'd think of when told to deal with a supernaturally tough foe. Jensen will actually need to stealth his way to a win here, and with no tech he can hack to get information that's rough for him. Scenario 3 winds up much more even than before - neither side really has a stealth advantage any more and Domino + Doppelganger takes more time to set up than 'burst of rifle fire'. I call it a toss-up. Emily has a minor advantage in information thanks to Dark Vision, but still a disadvantage in lethality. The big problem for Emily is scenario 1. I don't think she can completely bypass Sarif's security systems the way Corvo can, and that means she needs to deal with a small army of security goons at the same time as Jensen himself. My gut says that Emily just can't win that one; she still has Corvo's weakness to locked doors, but is now going to have to figure out how to open them in the face of aggressive security sweeps and constant harassment, and she still goes down fast if anyone draws a bead on her.

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## Rynjin

It's also worth noting that Far Reach is not teleportation (unlike Blink), and so is much more limited in where it can go in addition to having a travel time.

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