Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-110.146.149.161-20150813074512/@comment-25555436-20150901163452

Zolnir wrote: Or maybe because it's simply inefficient. There is conjuring a basic Fireball from a basic Fire Dust, and then there is conjuring a homing-to-will highly concentrated Firebeam through spatial manipulation Semblance from a liquefied, purified and compressed basic Fire Dust fired with the cylindrical precision of a high grade weapon. It is even be arguable that the calculation, Aura manipulation and timing are much more demanding with the latter that training it will be the equivalent of training the basics many times.

And finally, we're talking about Weiss Schnee. I doubt she can live with the rumor that her high grades are only due to her technology, or worse live with the notion that Ruby may do better at the basics than her.

-She would have to use her Aura to activate the Dust, followed by activating her Semblance and creating 1 or more Glyphs. Instead of just having to use her Aura, just activate the Dust and send it flying, without the extra Aura cost for each Glyph.

Tell me, what is more efficient and/or practical: Creating a statue that can move on it's own, or a statue that doesn't and as such you have to move yourself, if not pay others to do it? Obviously, the former is the most efficient. The same with Aura and Dust here.

Plus, the example you gave falls flat from the sheer difference of the spells mentioned. Your "example" can be defined as this: "One thing is making a small ice cube, another thing is freezing all of Vale like an Elsa-wannabe". Obviously, the latter is much more demanding in Aura cost, and much more difficult and advanced. It's like expecting a mage apprentice to be capable of doing the exact same spells as a mage master despite having a helluva lot less training, experience and skill.

Couldn't you think of a better example? The point still stands, even for the most simple Dust attacks Weiss has needed to use her Glyphs if not Myrtenaster. Hell, when she was just launching some small Dust shots at the Nevermore in ep8, she was using her bloody Glyphs to launch them. And those were not some mega-inferno-hellstorm firestorm barrage, no, they were small, diminute shots barely bigger than her hand.

We're talking not about a mage that can perform the basics alone yet needs help for the advanced. We're talking about a mage that needs help for even the basics.

-Oh come on, don't tell me you actually believe such bullshit? A Hunter trains in more than just Dust and Aura control, hell we have like 10+ characters that do not even use Dust in the first place. And no one minds.

Her high grades would come more from her results in the theorical tests and her performance in the practical tests. Given nothing forces a Hunter to train in X, and the system is most likely designed to encourage Hunters to train in the areas they prefer, a Hunter can have high grades even if they fail hard at using their Aura to control Dust.

Ruby would definitely get bad-to-mediocre grades when it comes to Dust Control if there's even a class for it, but she still easily could get high general grades. Why? Because she makes up for it with having a Scyfle and being overly-skilled with it, and her fighting neither uses nor even needs Dust to be involved for anything except extra ammo.

Weiss's grades would be high, no matter how good or bad she is at controlling Dust with just Aura, and she still wins half that battle anyway. If she prefers to use Myrtenaster's Dust-blade function instead of Aura-to-Dust, no one would give 2 damns about it, especially if they have a weapon with a similar or identical function.