Board Thread:Off Topic/@comment-26299202-20150505005922/@comment-25555436-20150505223751

I say, it depends on what gunblade are we using in this comparison. If it's Squall's gunblade(s) then Gun Scythe would win. If not, then it depends.

But generally, a Gunblade would be a better weapon. Scythes are among the most impractical, if not the most impractical, weapons ever designed. Heck, battleaxes can do the same thing as Scythes, but much better. Reasons for this are that Scythes are heavy and require 2 hands to use effectively, reducing defense. They have a very thin area where the attacks will hit, because of the blade's shape, which means you have to be at a specific range. Which gets dificult when people are either getting away from you or running towards you. Plus, anyone with a hammer or mace can just crush the pole and leave you with an useless pair of sticks.

Swords (1-handed swords, I mean) however, are the 2nd most practical weapons in history. You can use them to slash and pierce, the weight is normally balanced, easy to use, attacks are reasonably fast, have a great effective area of attack thanks to the blade's form and as they only use 1 hand you can always use a shield in the other, improving defense. Or just use another sword, but that falls under Awesome But Impractical in RL unless you like to be a berserker. And even then, berserkering is not always the best idea.

Now, Gunblades. In real life, these are pretty impractical, though not as much as scythes. They were like swords, but much heavier thanks to the gun part. This makes attacking it and wielding it more difficult than it seems, both as a sword and as a gun. Reloading in most gunblades took more time than in normal guns, and shooting it could even cause you to hurt yourself because of the blade, though normally you would be mostly fine. The original idea was to make a weapon effective at long and close range, but the result was that you basically carried a heavy pistol and a heavy sword. Not as cool as it sounds. The most practical gunblade was basically a revolver with a knife attached, and it had terrible accuracy and a barrel of questionable quality, and the knife was pretty mediocre.

Still, they are more effective than Gunscythes. The reason: Scythes alone are still heavier than Gunblades. Adding a gun to them will make them much heavier, especially if you're like Ruby and add an already-pretty-heavy gun like a Sniper Rifle (the average sniper rifle weights around 30K not counting ammo). This would make a Gunscythe almost unwieldable out of it's sheer weight. This would make aiming pretty dificult in the middle of a fight, not to mention making slashes harder to land.

Ozpin wasn't exagerating when he called them one of the most dangerous weapons ever designed. The weight is huge which makes attacks difficult, both melee and ranged, and that's if you can even wield it well-enough in the first place. Add to that all the impracticality that scythes have already, some made even more impractical, with the weight making attacks even slower and more risky and harder to land. And depending on the gun itself, you could even break your arm firing it, if you are somehow able to aim it well enough to hit something other than the ground.

The only reason Ruby is able to use it well-enough is because she's got Aura, which is implied to make it's users much stronger both offensively and defensively, to the point of borderline-superhuman, some even become "more than man" thanks to it. That and basically she barely wields it herself; she actually just swings it and lets momentum and physics do all the job, maybe fire to increase momentum. And even then, she only is able to fire it without breaking her arms thanks to Aura.

So basically: If there was a fight between Gunscythe and Gunblade users, the Gunbladers would win because while both are terrible weapons compared to the rest, the Gunblade is more wieldable and practical in comparison to the Gunscythe.