Kipeci, I barely give shits about technique ranks myself for the reasons Esquilax elaborated, but I find them a cheap way of communicating "dude we are fucking good at this" (ie. progression) so I do it anyway.
So you know that it's bullshit but you say it anyway to convince voters to your side. How heroic.
Now, I hope you aren't arguing that Zhang Jue's Shouwang Claws (his signature technique) is a poor offense. Yes, I happen to believe it can plow through the abbot's defense and kill him.
I'm not saying it's a poor offense; rather, I think that it's on the higher spectrum of our offensive power and that those sorts of moves will be the only way to think about harming the Abbot while he's actively using his technique unless he starts getting tricky. What I don't believe is that we think that his flesh will suddenly become tissue paper and that his heavily scarred, intense body pumped up by all that defensive ability will be completely shredded to bits, leading to an instant fatality to one of the heads of Chinese pugilism from one technique.
For instance: "Style Four - White Tortoiseshell Breaker - a style of forming claws strong and sharp enough to puncture the defences of the opponent, no matter their ability." Then we have "Style Six - Raging Claws of the Mad Lion - qi-enhanced swipes with the potential to tear up the earth and bring down trees in a wide swathe of destruction."
Aside from against Zhang Jue (whom we presumably used both against), we've used at least style 6 as explicitly named against Xuxian and Zuo Qingfeng, to say nothing of any times the technique wasn't mentioned by name or the other times when Jing used 'everything he knew' without things specifically being mentioned. Myself, I can't see why Jing pouring all of his strength into one last screw-you move against zhang wouldn't be as penetrative as the style four. Anyway, you'll note that the curious thing about the folks that I named about those folks is that they're still alive... as is Jing, who we know took Zhang Jue's style six from one of the very first fights in the chapter as well as the extremely probable knowledge that Zhang Jue utilized Style 4 against him in their training fights, because why wouldn't he? That's his role as a teacher, and Zhang Jue doesn't hold back.
Despite our best efforts, Xu Jing is also alive. You'll notice that this means that these techniques aren't buttons to press to instantly kill the opponent, at least provided that you don't have the intent to or else that they're sufficiently skilled. Xu Jing doesn't want to kill the Abbot and, operating at about 70%, I don't think he has it in him to actually straight up kill the Abbot. Maybe if he was supercharged still.
ZJ is pretty good at his shit, and if I had to guess, he did have Jingzhongzhou (and whatever other defense the Abbot Fangzhang might use) in mind when he came up with Style 4.
Right, I'm on board with that, and the thing is that they fought. Now, if this technique is so good that Xu Jing not trying to kill the highly experienced and capable Abbot will instantly slice him up, how is it that Fangzhang survived the encounter when we know that Zhang Jue doesn't hold anything back?
S'yeah, I think killing the abbot is a real possibility if we get reckless, but if that doesn't convince you, have a treave quote:
That quote is a hypothetical that was presented well before we gave up the chance for a supercharge. You'll have a lot of things to be paranoid about when the actual update comes up, don't build up arguments before we're even presented with the choices.
You started it, Baltika...
