Rock, Paper, Scissors

The "best"

There was some chatter in some or other Facebook about the best red fighter in California and eventually it set me to thinking about what that claim really means.  The thing is there isn't just one kind of redsman.  There are lots of different ways to do that job and a person who excels in one of them may be bad at other skillsets.

For instance.  A person who excels at being a glaive in a line likely has a long (heavy) weapon and is good at generating torque to land shield breaking swings, or perhaps they've become really adept at stabbing and working pockets.  But the thing they probably aren't awesome at is dealing with people charging them directly.  But I've seen redsman who are, often equipped with some version of a red sword, some armor and a back shield, so that they can take or dodge hits while swinging very very quickly.  That person tends to be pretty useless on a line, unless they're able to stand on the edge and work their way in though which means that in both cases the redsman's relative skills and proficiencies are determined more by the gear they've chosen to pick up then by the actual skill of the fighter themselves.

Now, that's not to say that skill doesn't matter; I, as a person picking up a line pole can still duel relatively well (yesterday I won a few of the 2boardsvmewithalinepole rounds even though theoretically I should have lost almost all of those), but that fight would have been much easier with a lighter weapon and a little bit less reach.  So, for the rest of this particular discussion I'll assume that the fighters I talk about are all equally skilled at their chosen weapon set ...but that's just the thing.  If you get the gear that you need to excel in a particular niche it inherently makes you bad at doing the other kinds of jobs you could do, not because you're unskilled, just because your gear inhibits you from being successful.  Again, that doesn't mean you'll automatically fail, it just means that given a different set of gear it would be easier.

Rock, Paper, Scissors

In my mind it came down to rock, paper and scissors.  The first time I ever saw this in action was during a chaos wars several years ago.  There were 3 of us florentine fighters sparring, myself, a guy I don't know, and peter the quick.  I was fighting with a set of short swords built from red cores, at the time my primary strategy of attack was to close fast, and then unload a flurry of stabs and slashes until my opponent fell over.  The second gentleman whose name I have forgotten was wielding bats and his primary strategy to win seemed to be basically throwing a feint or two and then going for a Hail Mary stab.  Peter the quick's strategy back then (and I think it hasn't changed much) was to keep his range and beat you hand for hand, punishing you when you made even the tiniest mistake.  I was able to beat the guy who threw stabs consistently, because the second he missed I was all over him.  Peter the quick consistently handed me my ass (and still does) every time I went to close because he can make quick work of the openings that are available to him.  The gentleman whose name I've forgotten was consistently killing Peter the quick because his stabs always seemed to make it in, and while he'd lose an arm in the process to peter's counter attack it meant that for the majority of the fights we took part in he'd trade arm for torso.

From watching that particular interplay the idea of a triangle came to me because it wasn't as though any of the three of us were bad fighters, quite the opposite, we'd all become adept at doing a particular thing well.  The issue wasn't so much whether or not one of us was better then the others the issue was simply which strategy we chose to use and what was effective or not against the other two.  Being hyper aggressive against a person with excellent range control and hand speed is a great way to get murdered, trying to throw deep stabs against a person who is hyper aggressive is a bad idea because if you miss you're toast, and trying to snap arms and throw counter shots when your enemy only ever is trying to impale you in the torso is also a losing game.

As far as I can tell, in any particular weapon set or job there's going to be (usually) 3 best fighters.  Each fighter will have gear and a practiced skillset that makes them a master of either; short range, mid range, or long range.  Short range fighters I call brawlers, because trying to remember rock, paper, scissors with fighting is confusing to me.  Mid range fighters, I call technical fighters and long range fighters I call snipers.

Design decisions, strengths and weaknesses

A short range fighter is all about closing and getting in your face.  With a red, it's the person who's tanked out with a sword, with a florentine set, it's the person who get's all up in your business and drowns you in shots.  Brawlers in general tend to be very good at blocking/having an active defense because in order for them to be in their comfort zone they have to close the gap between themselves and their opponents.  The main advantage they have is that many people aren't comfortable with close range and so once a brawler closes the opposing fighter flinches or no longer knows what to do.  Brawlers send to set the pace for the fighter because they determine when they will and won't be in range.  Brawlers also tend to throw a lot of shots knowing well in advance that the majority of them won't connect, and that's just fine because their shots can be feints, used to position the enemy's feet or other body parts, the shots can be to suppress the opponent, so they don't swing while you close, or the shots can be a setup either to get them to swing, or to move their guard so that another shot becomes available

A mid range fighter is all about outwitting you.  They are the masters of chess.  With a red it's a person with a 6' pole that's built to be light and maneuverable.  They probably have a buckler strapped to their arm and a mask on their face so that they can comfortably stand alone in a line and do work, but also have the freedom to roam without having to worry overmuch of being found by an archer.  As a florentine fighter it's the guy who seems to hit you effortless over and over again in openings you didn't even know you had.  Technical fighters don't have amazing offense or defense but they do tend to have incredible footwork.  By setting the distance the fight happens at they get to throw feints until you bite on one and then take advantage and punish your mistake.  Since they tend to set the range of the engage they don't often wind up having to spend that much time blocking, and because they can reasonably expect that the other person will make mistakes they don't have to swing nearly as often as you'd expect a brawler to.

A long range fighter is all about only having to swing once knowing full well that their shot will hit and will kill you.  With a red that person is a line glaive, because the weapon is so heavy they cannot afford to throw a swing that doesn't either connect with a person's body part or put a point of red onto a shield.  With a florentine fighter you either see a person who throws all in deep stabs or a counter fighter, one who blocks your swing and then immediately retaliates by taking shoulder or gut somewhere.  These fighters tend to have the best passive guard which means that there's no shots to get at the outset and you have to work really hard to make something land but, when pressed or overwhelmed by a flurry of shots they tend to fall apart.  This usually plays out with an opponent who walks up to them, throws a swing that can't possibly hit, and is then immediately executed by the sniper who knows exactly the spot they've now left unguarded and can hit that throw close to 100% of the time.

Ro, Sham, Bo

Generally speaking and assuming all fighters are equally skilled
technical > brawlers > snipers 

snipers > technical > brawlers
brawlers > snipers > technical

The how and why -
Generally speaking a brawler is used to overwhelming their opponents defenses and once they are able to close with an opponent that person's only option is to keep blocking or die.  A sniper is a person who generally kills someone in one shot, so if they don't get that kill immediately they are soon overwhelmed by the pressure of someone right up in their grill raining down blows.  The point where the brawler is weakest is when they are trying to close because at that point they don't have good swings, and if they are throwing shots to try to suppress the enemy it's compromising their own defenses.  Even if they aren't compromising their own defenses in order to take those swings it means that instead they're letting the enemy just take shots at them for free while they get into the range that is their comfort zone.  Since mid range is where technical fighters excel, they'll happily let the brawler begin to engage, and then just keep kiting away from them so that the technical fighter remains in their sweet spot while the brawler is never able to achieve their sweet spot.  This means that either a) the technical fighter gets to sit there and swing at the brawler without retaliation or b) the brawler is throwing lots of swings that aren't going to hit which leaves them vulnerable to counterattacks.  Both of these situations are bad news for a brawler.  Additionally, since a brawler tends to have an active guard they are more susceptible to being manipulated by the feints, mind games, and other bits of chess that a technical fighter has mastered.

While a technical fighter, with their excellent range control, can deny the brawler an engage almost indefinitely their choice to try and win at mid range puts them at a significant disadvantage against the sniper.  Most snipers tend to have reach on their opponents and an excellent resting guard.  This means that a technical fighter moving to engage a sniper is either a) walking into the striking zone of the sniper without being able to swing back or b) is trying to hit something from a distance with an incredible amount of passive defense.  In the case of a) think of an 8' glaive vs a 6' glaive, it's not to say that the 6' glaive is inherently inferior but it does mean that there's a 2' gap where they can swing at you and you can't swing at them.  If you're not used to closing that means you're giving your opponent some time to kill you before you even try to retaliate.  In the case of high passive defense, that's usually in regards to a person with a board, especially if it's a bigger one.  Many knights have chosen to learn to fight this way because of their heater shields which provide excellent defense but limit the amount of offense you get in return.  If you walk up to knight they probably know what they're doing and if you're close enough to hit them, odds are they're close enough to hit you.  Because of these mechanics a technical fighter attempting to engage a sniper by picking away at them is going to have that fight end unfavorably, their bread and butter manipulation of convincing the other person to make a mistake rarely works on a sniper because, due to their high passive guard they don't have to move to block most things, so they won't be caught out except by very aggressive play but if the mid range fighter opts to be aggressive they leave openings the sniper can easily exploit.  Since the mid range fighters sweet spot is mid range, they don't usually bring the amount of pressure required to overwhelm a sniper's resting defense nor are they comfortable at closing since their focus on the field tends to be on maintaining a specific distance rather then eliminating it.

So the next time someone claims to be the best reds fighter, or the best sword and board fighter, or the best florentine fighter ask them what they mean by that, because it's unlikely they're simultaneously the best brawler, technical fighter and sniper the sport has ever seen.