Death Battle Predictions: Guts VS Dimitri

 

“Revenge is like a rolling stone, which, when a man hath forced up a hill, will return upon him with a greater violence, and break those bones whose sinews gave it motion.” 

- Jeremy Taylor

Guts, the legendary and terrifyingly brutal Black Swordsman of Berserk.

Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, the former leader of the Blue Lions & King of Faerghus from Fire Emblem: Three Houses.

Tragedy and misery are some of the worst things someone could experience. Whether it’s all your friends being murdered and eaten by demons that your other “friend” summoned, causing you to lose your arm and seek vengeance… or being ousted from your rightful title to the throne as king, while your stepsister whom you knew since childhood turns out to be working with the group that murdered your family. Your past never fails to follow you.

But as is the case with these two bloodthirsty heroes, tragedy can also motivate and empower a person to make a stand and get revenge on those who wronged them. While their past may be stained with blood, their future can still shine with the light of redemption. For these two, they just want to protect those they have left.

But when these unhinged berserkers meet, who will walk away to seek vengeance another day, and whose tale shall end in a violent bloodbath? Will Berserk’s Black Swordsman claim another win against an arguably even more nightmarish foe than his last, or will Fire Emblem’s Boar King of Faerghus make Guts reunite with his friends in the depths of hell? It’s time to find out who would win a DEATH BATTLE!

Before We Start…

For this fight, we will be focusing on Fire Emblem: Three Houses for Dimitri… obviously. The game does not present a single, definitive canon story, so we’ll be looking at all possible routes and options available to Dimitri as far as his story and abilities go. Additionally, we’ll be using Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, as it doesn’t contradict anything presented in Three Houses and more or less continues the idea that Dimitri’s story is divided into many branching paths, with none being the definitive ‘true’ story.

However, we will not be taking Fire Emblem Heroes or Fire Emblem Engage into account with this blog. While there are arguments abound with cases in favor of and against the use of scaling from these games, this blog simply does not deem them necessary to consider. This is not a stance on the validity of said scaling, to be clear; we are simply choosing not to involve or address anything past Dimitri’s core games.

Also worth noting, as can sometimes be the case with some blogs and fights, there will be some dark or disturbing content enclosed in this blog. Berserk is known for its incredibly graphic violence and sensitive subject matter; viewer (or rather, reader) discretion is advised. 

We will also be using all three Berserk games for scaling. The first game was written by Miura and takes place in between volume 22 and 23. The second game adapts the Millennium Empire Arc, and Berserk and the Band of the Hawk adapts material even past the 2016/2017 anime. Speaking of anime, we will also be using both anime adaptations and the films as well.

With that said, we hope you enjoy the blog.

Background

Guts

“I’d rather fight for my life than live it.”

Guts' life was tough from the start. Born from the corpse of his mother hanging from a tree, Guts was immediately left to die. Luckily, he was discovered by a mercenary group, and adopted by Shisu. Sadly, he enjoyed only three years of tender loving care from Shisu before she tragically died of the plague. Gambino took care of Guts, but didn't provide the same level of care and attention as Shisu did. Guts began sword training at six and joined Gambino's group at nine, viewing him as a father figure. At just nine years old, Guts killed someone for the first time. He didn’t have it easy out of battle either, being abused and violated multiple times during his time with Gambino. Eventually, when Guts killed Gambino in self-defense, he fled the closest thing he had to a home. History would repeat itself as he was left for dead and eventually discovered by another mercenary group who took him in. Guts traveled with that mercenary group for a while before he got captured and imprisoned.

He befriended Chitch, who saved his life at the cost of her own. After overthrowing his captors, Guts fulfilled a promise to Chitch by bringing her remains to a valley of flowers. He then interfered with a siege and defeated its leader, putting him in opposition to the Band of the Falcon. Guts was defeated by their leader, Griffith, but was offered a spot in his group, which he declined. They had a proper duel, with Griffith emerging victorious and Guts joining the Band of the Falcon. Guts became the raiders captain within three years, and they were enlisted to fight in the Hundred-Year War. Guts encountered an Apostle, Nosferatu Zodd, and wounded him, but was defeated. Guts remained loyal to Griffith and his dream, but incidents began to shake his faith. Following the unintentional killing of a noble in Midland and hearing Griffith's opinion that a "friend" like Guts was just a tool to achieve his dreams, Guts became concerned about the state of their friendship. Despite this, Guts stayed with the Band of the Falcon. 

After an encounter with Casca, during which he safeguarded her by defeating one hundred soldiers in a single night, Guts revealed the affection he had for her, and his support for the Band of the Falcon and their dreams, but didn't feel like he belonged. Emerging victorious at the Battle for Doldrey, they ended the Hundred-Year War. Ready to move on and fight his own battles, Guts dueled Griffith for his freedom, and won. That night he learned about the upcoming Eclipse from the Skull Knight. Guts spent a year honing his craft and grew in strength. He found his former group and helped them win a battle. Casca was angry with him for leaving, and attempted suicide in her emotional distress, but Guts stopped her, and they renewed their romantic feelings. They rescued Griffith from imprisonment, despite resistance from an Apostle. Griffith summoned the God Hand, which began the Eclipse. The Band of the Falcon were all to be sacrificed as a means for Griffith to ascend and join the God Hand.

The Eclipse was cruel and unforgiving, Guts witnessed his friends murdered left and right, his lover violated right in front of him, and he had to dismember himself just to stay alive. Fortunately, the Skull Knight stepped in and rescued Guts and Casca before they could perish. The Eclipse left Guts with a desire for vengeance against Griffith, now Femto, and demonkind everywhere. It wasn’t long before Guts took up his prosthetic arm and Dragonslayer, and began his one-man vendetta, where he would become known as the “Black Swordsman” all over Midland. After two years of seeking revenge, Guts found unexpected allies, starting with the elf Puck. However, his reputation also attracted new enemies who tried to defeat him. Nevertheless, Guts was resolute and refused to let anything, short of death, prevent him from pursuing his mission. As he continued to make allies, he learned to trust those around him and accept that he couldn't do everything alone.

During a battle with Nosferatu Zodd, Guts lost the safe haven he provided for Casca. To ensure her safety, Guts decided to take her to Elfhelm. He was accompanied by his allies, but during their journey, Guts struggled with his inner darkness. Nonetheless, his allies remained by his side. Guts gained more allies during this journey, notably Farense, Serpico and Schierke. The Skull Knight appeared again, claiming that it was possible to restore Casca’s mind within Elfhelm, which further encouraged Guts to make it to Elfhelm. Though the journey seemed to reveal some of Guts’ allies wanted to defect, their situation improved when they secured a boat that could take them to Elfhelm. But it wasn’t long before one of his allies, Serpico, expressed his lack of faith in Guts’ ability to control his instincts, especially after gaining the Berserker Armor. In a fierce duel, Guts won without having to use the powerful armor. Before they were able to leave, they encountered another Apostle, Ganishka, but they were victorious and set sail.

(And then he got stuck on that boat for ages, like damn, we didn’t think he’d get off the damn thing)

During their voyage, the Great Roar of the Astral World took place, merging the real world and the Astral World; as a result, Guts and his companions encountered the Sea God. Though Guts was forced to use the Berserker Armor against the fearsome creature, with the help of his friends, Guts slayed the Sea God, allowing them to finish their journey to Elfhelm. After their arrival, they learned that Casca’s mind could be restored, and the ceremony was a success, restoring Casca’s mind to how it was prior to the Eclipse. However, any time she saw Guts, it overwhelmed her as she was reminded of the Eclipse. Guts kept his distance to not put Casca through that pain. A being known only as the Moonlight Boy appeared to both Guts and Casca, but only during full moon nights. The Moonlight Boy revealed himself in daylight to be Griffith, who abducted Casca. Guts and his companions, as of the latest Berserk chapter, are embarking on a rescue mission to recover Casca, who is now being held in Falconia, Griffith’s domain.

Dimitri

“Stab your chest, break your neck, smash your head... I will allow you to choose your own death.”

Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd was born on December 20th in Imperial Year 1162 as the crown prince of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus. His life was typical for one of his royal lineage until he witnessed the Tragedy of Duscur at just 14, leaving him scarred and with survivor's guilt. He vowed to clear the name of the people of Duscur and rescued Dedue, who became his vassal. In 1178, he participated in his first battle and gained the nickname "Boar Prince" due to his unexpected bloodlust. Dimitri enrolled at Garreg Mach Monastery's Officer's Academy as leader of the Blue Lions house in 1180. He, along with Edelgard and Claude, were heirs of Fódlan's ruling powers, making it a very significant year. Byleth's decision to teach the Blue Lions led to the Azure Moon route, where Byleth became a significant influence on Dimitri's life as the future leader of Faerghus. During his year of study however, Dimitri's encounters with the Flame Emperor and Those Who Slither in the Dark revealed darkness in his heart. 

When he discovered that the Flame Emperor was his childhood friend Edelgard, he vowed to make her pay for her crimes. When Edelgard became the Adrestian Emperor and declared war on the Church of Seiros, Dimitri fought with Byleth and the Knights of Seiros to protect Garreg Mach Monastery, but they were unable to stop the Empire from annexing it. Byleth disappeared, leaving Dimitri and the Blue Lions without their professor. In the fallout of the battle, Dimitri was accused of murder, imprisoned, and lost his Kingdom to the Empire. Without Byleth's guidance, he became a vagabond and lost his right eye. The Blue Lions reunited with Byleth after five years, and together they campaigned to restore Dimitri's good name, birthright, and liberate Faerghus from the Empire's clutches. Dimitri's desire for vengeance against Edelgard consumed him until his surrogate father's sacrifice showed him the error of his ways, absolving him of his guilt. He focused on restoring his kingdom and successfully liberated the Kingdom capital. 

Having liberated his home from the Empire and reclaimed his birthright, Dimitri was crowned King of Faerghus, with the Blue Lions, Byleth, and the entirety of the Kingdom rallying behind him. Dimitri had overcome his inner demons and fully embraced his role as Faerghus’ king. Soon after, the Adrestian Empire battled the Leicester Alliance and Dimitri answered Claude's call for help. After repelling the invasion, Claude abdicated his position and the Leicester Alliance acceded into the Kingdom. With the unified power of the Kingdom and Alliance, Dimitri led an invasion of the Empire, culminating in his final confrontation with Edelgard. Having overcome his desire for vengeance, Dimitri wanted to resolve things peacefully, but to his dismay, he was forced to strike down Edelgard, ending the war. Having emerged victorious and now unifying all of Fódlan under the Kingdom, Dimitri, alongside Byleth and his allies, would become the architects for a new age.

Of course, Three Houses is a game with multiple branching options, and no single definitive storyline, so we will also briefly summarize his story in the other routes. Byleth allies with Edelgard in the Crimson Flower route. Dimitri becomes king and goes to war against the Empire. The Empire defeats the Kingdom and Church, resulting in Dimitri's death at Edelgard's hand. Byleth allies with Claude in the Verdant Wind route. Dimitri escapes his execution and raises an army in secret, which he unleashes at the battle at Gronder Field. Despite his defeat, Dimitri relentlessly pursues Edelgard, which ends in his death. Byleth allies with Rhea in the Silver Snow route. Dimitri's fate is ambiguous after it is claimed he perished in battle against the Empire. He appears to Byleth on the night of his supposed death, but vanishes when Byleth awakens.

Experience & Skill

Guts

From his early youth, Guts was thrust into battlefield combat by his adoptive father Gambino, and forced to learn the skills necessary to survive or perish. From him, he learned techniques such as the Murderstroke, and the means of restraining enemies wearing full plate armor with his sword. Before reaching adulthood, he was able to fight off entire groups of mounted mercenaries by himself. He was also comparable to Griffith during the Golden Age, who was stated to be the best fighter in the Band of the Falcon, which also has a reputation of being one of the strongest forces in Midland. As the Falcon’s rearguard, he was once more able to fight multiple opponents singlehandedly. He continued ascending in rank until he became captain of the raiding party, and during this time he had his first encounter with Nosferatu Zodd, who considered him the most worthy foe he had ever battled in three centuries. Notably, Zodd has killed thousands of people through his centuries of warfare, and does not depend on his strength as an apostle but his skill with a blade.

One of the most impressive displays of skill during this time was when Guts showed himself to be capable of slaying one hundred men in a single battle while suffering from debilitating injuries. He can battle members of the Bakiraka such as Silat, who are feared as the most lethal assassins in the eastern kingdoms. Even against Serpico, who was abusing a terrain advantage, he was still able to anticipate his movements and turn his environment against him.

During his time as the Black Swordsman, his skill was stated to exceed the level of an apostle.

Dimitri

In terms of combat skill, the boar prince even in his youth was nothing to scoff at. He was trained by the royal knight Gustave since he was a child. This training involved running through mountains in heavy armor, carrying barrels filled with rocks, and even lifting boulders. Following the tragedy of Duscur, Dimitri became a commander in the Faerghus military. By the age of seventeen, Dimitri enrolled in the Officer’s Academy at Garreg Mach monastery to further hone his abilities as a warrior as well as prepare for his eventual ascension to the throne. At Garreg Mach, Dimitri trained under the mysterious new professor and former mercenary, Byleth, alongside other up-and-coming rulers. 

If you’ve ever played Three Houses, you’ll know that Byleth (You, the player) has the option to run Garreg Mach’s students through a variety of different literal classes and in-game Classes. Dimitri is no exception; he has the capacity to not only master the lance, but swords as well. Not only that, Dimitri can re-class into other specialized fields, allowing him to master a large variety of combat forms, even reaching into the realm of magic. Given there is no strict limit on what he can learn and subsequently master, taking Dimitri at his absolute best would imply he’s gone through all of the above classes, affording him mastery over more than just lances.

After Edelgard’s invasion and conquering of Garreg Mach, Dimitri spent five years roaming across the Fódlan continent in search of revenge. He singlehandedly slaughtered numerous battalions of the Empire, with the gruesome fates of his victims becoming horror stories. He was later discovered by Byleth to have retaken some of Garreg Mach’s territory from bandits, before continuing to kill the remainder with help from allies. Following this reunion, Dimitri led the combined might of the Kingdom and Knights of Seiros in a war against the Empire and was successful in retaking the Kingdom, saving the Alliance, and defeating the Empire. Along the way he fought against all kinds of soldiers, mages, and horrifying monsters. He even battled Maurice, an exiled member of the legendary Ten Elite who had spent the last several hundred years hunting down prey of all kinds in exile. Oh, and once Byleth returned, Dimitri went right back to training diligently every single day at his former Professor’s behest. Talk about no days off!

In the alternate timeline of Three Hopes, Dimitri was even temporarily lost in the eternal darkness of Zahras where he fought alongside Shez, Edelgard, and Claude to defeat Arval, the reincarnated spirit of the Agarthan leader and genius Epimenides. In the battle, Dimitri faced off against a phantom copy of himself which he was all too happy to kill. Yeah, he has issues.

Equipment 

Guts

Dragonslayer

A massive, thick, heavy, and rough hunk of raw iron, the Dragonslayer has been Guts’ signature weapon ever since the Eclipse. At six and a half feet long and weighing in at 400 pounds, while far too large to be used as a traditional sword by anyone else, Guts makes it work for him. It’s so wide that Guts can use it defensively like a shield, and even wield it with his teeth.

One of its most notable traits is that after being used to end the lives of countless demonic entities, the sword has gained an affinity for slaying monsters and evil beings, becoming capable of wounding astral beings such the Sea God and avatars of the God Hand. The God Hand in particular are omnipresent entities devoid of corporeal forms, and are composed of the collective thoughts of humanity. It’s also capable of killing other non-physical entities such as ghosts.

Injuries inflicted on the astral plane in this manner can destabilize the physical body, and cause wounds to reopen.

Great Broadsword

(Yeah, it’s pretty long)

Guts' sword in the first part of the manga, built stronger than any normal sword and could endure hits against the Apostle Nosferatu Zodd.

Helmet

Not much to say here, it’s just a regular helmet. It protects his head from damage, as you’d expect.

Cloak

First used very early in the manga when Guts was sent to kill a man by Griffith. Helpful to hide his identity from afar… not so much up close. It’s also been used to block attacks or reduce damage.

Black Swordsman Armor

Pretty much what you’d expect, it’s armor that’s black… shocker! The armor is resistant to blunt and slash damage, and has allowed Guts to survive being crushed over the years. The armor also provides relative protection to the legs and the shoulders, and acts as solid protection to strikes from arrows.

Hand Cannon

Guts has two prosthetics which replace his left hand, this massive cannon being the first. Swapping out his regular hand for the cannon prosthetic can take time, and it requires powder and a cannonball to use, but is sure to pack a massive punch. His supplies of this are limited, but he’s got enough to last during a fight.

Repeater Crossbow

The latter of Guts’ prosthetics, the crossbow replaces his left hand, though it can take time to set up and use. To fire it, Guts also must manually operate the repeater with his right hand (unlike what Guts VS Nightmare shows), and though he has limited ammunition, it’s more than enough to last him during a fight.

Throwing Knives

Pretty straightforward here, just throwing knives which Guts uses in combat. A common tactic of his is to throw them specifically into the target's eyes to blind them.

Bombs

Guts normally carries around miniature explosives. While they may seem weak and underwhelming due to their size, they are not to be underestimated. The force from their explosions is enough to leave holes in ogres, and heavily damage Apostles. It should be noted that exposure to water can weaken the bombs.

Salamander Dagger

A magical dagger given to Guts by Flora and Schierke, this dagger was forged in molten lava. Due to being possessed by fire spirits, the dagger can unleash powerful flames that can melt even steel. These flames can also be released in a large AoE explosion surrounding the wielder as well. Usually this dagger is wielded by Guts’ companion Isidro, but as a gift to Guts, he should be capable of using it.

Elf Dust

In the PS2 game, Berserk: Millennium Falcon Hen Seima Senki no Shō, when Puck is not in Guts’ party to offer him healing, Guts can utilize a bag of Elf Dust (though it's called fairy dust in this game) left behind by Puck in order to heal his wounds should he need to. 

Elf Dust is capable of healing wounds and damage dealt in fights, even restoring one’s body from numbness, but cannot heal more grievous injuries like limb loss. Guts has used Puck’s dust to heal from wounds gained in battle in the manga as well.

Berserker Armor

Forged by the dwarven blacksmith Hanarr, the Berserker Armor’s primary function is to suppress the systems of a user’s body that would ordinarily prevent them from overtaxing themselves. This grants a tremendous boost in physicality. It also induces an insatiable bloodlust within the user, amplifying negative emotions that allow the wearer to fight on.

One other feature of the armor is its repair systems. While the armor is capable of repairing itself, it is also capable of holding the wearer together, though not through some form of regeneration, but by literally piercing them with small spines that can force broken bones back together. Users still feel pain, but it is merely registered as a sensation, no longer debilitating like it ordinarily would be.

Another seemingly unique ability of the armor, which most likely comes from the physicality boost granted by the body system suppression, is its surprising hypermobility. While equipped with the armor, Guts has shown to be capable of performing a devastating series of flips while attacking with Dragon Slayer, utilize wind pressure with the help of Dragon Slayer to direct his fall, quickly leap between sea monster demons and more.

Within the armor, Guts also becomes impervious to any form of mental interference, and is immune to fear inducing effects.

Dimitri

Areadbhar

Dimitri’s signature weapon, retrieved at the end of Chapter 15 in the Azure Moon route. It is a legendary “Hero’s Relic” that has been passed down through the Blaiddyd family line. Made out of the bones of dragons, it is a powerful lance originally wielded by the legendary Elite Blaiddyd in centuries past. It is said that just one Hero’s Relic can turn the tides of entire battles. In Dimitri’s hands, since he has the Crest of Blaiddyd, it gives him access to the ability Atrocity, which will be covered in Dimitri’s section. For those without a crest, it does overtime damage every time they use it and can even turn them into monsters.

It's also very broken in Smash Ultimate, like c'mon dude, THE KNOCKBACK AND RANGE ARE INSANE 

I MEAN LOOK AT THIS HITBOX

Misc. Weaponry

Contrary to what Smash Bros. might lead you to believe, Fire Emblem’s cast of characters tend to carry diverse pools of weaponry, ranging from swords, lances, and axes all the way to bows and gauntlets. Dimitri may be portrayed favoring one over the others, but there’s no reason he can’t have access to the plethora of weaponry found in Three Houses and Three Hopes. It’s also important to note that most of these weapons can be upgraded to be even stronger.

Lances

Spear - Yes, the name is just a spear. An increase from the Javelin, it's a long ranged throwing lance with above average power that somehow winds up back in the hands of the user after being tossed. Its only downside is the power increase comes with an increase in weight, making followup attacks hard unless the wielder has good lifting power.

Venin Lance - Also known as the Poison or Toxin Lance in earlier games, it’s lance where the bladed tip is drenched in poison. It poisons those who are merely hit by it, it doesn’t even need to pierce the skin.

Killer Lance - The Killer Lance is a powerful spear that Dimitri can wield. It is a rather fragile weapon in comparison to some of his other weapons, but it makes up for it in raw power and it has the unique skill of having a stupidly high chance of getting a critical hit.

Brave Lance - The Brave Lance is made out of a lighter yet sturdier material to most other spears. Due to its lighter weight, it allows the wielder to hit up to 4 times with it and not lose an ounce of power out of it compared to a normal spear.

Silver Lance - The Silver Lance is a spear made out of silver (duh). Due to the fact that it’s made of pure silver, it is a very powerful lance to wield.

Arrow of Indra - A powerful magical lance that is retrieved during a paralogue if half of the protected Dark Bishops survive. Crafted using ancient Agarthian technology and repaired with Arcane Crystals, instead of attacking with physical damage, hitting with it deals magical damage as well. It can even attack from afar with lightning and is nearly as strong as the Divine Weapons according to Hubert. If forged, its range is increased even further.

Heavy Spear - A very powerful, very heavy spear that does extra damage to armored units.

Crescent Sickle - A scythe similar to but weaker than the Death Knight’s signature weapon, the Scythe of Sariel. Despite its inferiority, it was made to be incredibly durable with no cost to its power, being made with forgotten (likely Agarthan) technology. Despite requiring lance knowledge to wield, it is swung like an axe.

Swords

Silver Sword - Essentially just a really powerful sword made of silver. While it takes a lot of proficiency to wield, it’s much stronger than your average Steel Sword.

Armorslayer - A sword that, like the Heavy Spear, is designed to do extra damage to units in armor.

Levin Sword - No, this sword isn’t locked to Robin, despite what Smash Bros. implies. A sword that’s shaped like lightning that can cast lightning upon whoever’s unlucky enough to piss off its wielder. After being forged, it’s capable of dropping lightning from an even further range, granting it the same firing distance as longbows.

Venin Edge - An Iron Sword forged with a Venomstone. Like the Venin Lance above, it poisons a target hit with it, even if it doesn’t do damage.

Wo Dao - Translated from Chinese to literally mean “Japanese Sword”, it’s a powerful sword that resembles a Katana. An objective upgrade to the famous Killing Edge, the sword is designed to have a high chance of landing critical hits, while remaining strong even if said crits don’t land.

Mercurius - A very powerful legendary sword used in the original Battle of Eagle and Lion. It has a high damage output and hit rate, making it probably the strongest sword he has in his arsenal.

Sword of Zoltan - Forged by a master swordsmith, it’s slightly less durable, but slightly more powerful than the Silver Sword. Notably found by fellow Blue Lion Felix when talking to Dimitri. Though he refuses to let him swing it out of concern of breaking it, it is available for him to use later.

Axes

Silver Axe - What else? A powerful axe made out of silver.

Hammer - A war hammer meant to crack through heavy armor, it’s most effective on armored units.

Devil Axe - A sinister looking weapon that will deal 10 damage to the wielder after combat.

Killer Axe - The Killer Axe gives a much greater chance to unleash a critical blow and send a foe falling down like future lumber.

Venin Axe - Like the above, it’s an iron weapon made with Venomstone that poisons upon contact.

Tomahawk - A powerful throwing axe, able to chop up someone up close, or you can hurl it to hit someone from afar.

Bows

Silver Bow - By this point you should probably guess this is basically a really powerful bow.

Mini Bow - What this bow lacks in power, it makes up for in close-combat versatility. It allows shots at close range, though can still be used from afar. However, its design makes it impossible to counterattack.

Longbow - The longbow can shoot targets from even further distances than the average bow. Though because the extra distance is hampered by lower accuracy, it’s meant for expert archers.

Killer Bow - Like the other killer weapons before it, this increases the chances of a critical hit.

Blessed Bow - A bow imbued with a sacred power that deals extra damage on monsters. Though the damage is low, the holy energy heals the user as they wield it.

Venin Bow - A bow with poisoned tipped arrows. The bow is merely an iron bow, so it doesn’t have the raw damage of one of the stronger bows, but if the arrows hit, it inflicts poison.

Gauntlets

Silver Gauntlets - What a shock, these are really powerful gauntlets, some of the best money can buy.

Killer Knuckles - Not to be confused with a bloodlusted echidna, these gauntlets have one large blade at the end, allowing Dimitri to strike critical hits more often.

Aura Knuckles - These mystical gauntlets exchange might for magic, dealing magical damage to an enemy instead of physical.

Dragon Claws - Scaled gauntlets that deal extra damage against dragons. Especially handy in a medieval setting with dragons running rampant.

Shields

Silver Shield - Shining steel that boosts Dimitri’s defense by 4.

Hexlock Shield - A magic shield that boosts Dimitri’s defense against physical attacks by 2 and his defense against magic attacks by 4.

Aurora Shield - A shield that grants divine protection from projectiles and protects flying units from extra effective hits.

Kadmos Shield - A shield that can stop armor-piercing attacks and protects armored units from extra effective hits.

Misc. Items

Vulneraries - Medical solutions contained in flasks that restore the HP of who uses it by 10. There are three hits in each pouch. Dimitri also carries concoctions that heal twice as much and elixirs that heal to essentially full.

Blue Tonics - Blue potions that when taken partially fill Dimitri’s Awakening Gauge (more on that later).

Magical Staff - A staff that increases the power of Dimitri’s magical attacks by 3.

Evasion Ring - A ring that helps Dimitri dodge better. It increases his Avoidance by 10.

Speed Ring - A ring that speeds Dimitri up, allowing him to do follow-up attacks more often.

Accuracy Ring - A ring that increases the chance Dimitri lands an attack by 10.

Critical Ring - A ring that helps Dimitri’s chances of dealing critical hits.

Prayer Ring - A ring that restores 10% of Dimitri’s health each turn. It also has the ability to save him from otherwise fatal attacks.

Armor

Dimitri’s armor covers him all of his body except for his head. It is strong enough to endure both magical and physical attacks without breaking. It also comes with a cool cloak.

Abilities

Guts

Acausality/"The Struggler"

Causality itself is preordained by the Idea of Evil, a transcendental entity that commands the destiny of every human being, and is represented by Griffith as its Chosen One. Due to Guts’ existence within the interstice that resides between the worlds of the living and the dead, Guts resides outside the reason of the world, and he is capable of denying his own predetermined fate like a fish breaching the surface of Causality’s well. It is likely that from his very birth, Guts was always in some form of Interstice, as he was born closer to death than anyone else and thus knew how to struggle against destiny from his first breath. This status as a struggler allowed him to escape certain death on multiple occasions, including the Eclipse, an event fixed in time by God where Zodd and the Skull Knight both stated it was a death he could never defy.

Endurance

Guts is built like a brick shithouse. The dude has survived a lot of injuries that would normally be fatal 100 times over to a normal human. But Guts shrugs off injuries like that on the daily and then some. During the Golden Age, he was able to fight and slay an army of 100 men in a single night, while wounded and lacking use of one of his hands. As he battled against Wyald, he was crushed, tossed around, and completely pummeled to the point his ribs were fractured, and yet he was still persisting for the sake of killing him. During the Eclipse Guts was fighting against Apostles the entire time, and as Griffith was violating Casca, he severed his own arm and charged at him with the intent to kill.

Even after being burnt alive multiple times, stabbed in many areas of his body, falling from a massive height, and suffering deafness from sonic booms, he was still able to slay Rosine. During his battle with Mozgus he was immolated (again), pummeled thousands of times by his wings on two instances, burnt by his God Breath, crushed, and in the end he was still able to stand and fight.  He is capable of walking while his astral body is wounded, a feat which is acknowledged for its absurdity by Schierke. He flew into Ganishka’s thundercloud form atop Zodd’s back and endured the full power of his lightning. 

Earlier in his time as the Black Swordsman, the presence of the God Hand was enough to nearly render him unconscious due to the Brand of Sacrifice’s reaction to potent spiritual entities. However, he was later capable of interacting with Slan’s avatar without suffering such effects, implying his pain endurance has increased far beyond its previous state.

Brand of Sacrifice

After Guts was branded during the Eclipse, he was cursed to forever walk within the interstice where demons would come and attempt to feed on him. Despite it eternally marking him for death, it has useful applications such as alerting him to the presence of spiritual entities.

Air Redirection

Using the flat of his blade, Guts can swing upwards with enough force to redirect the air around him.

Pressure Point Attacks

As seen above, Guts knocked out Farnese with a light chop to the neck without dealing any severe damage.

Berserk Mode

In the PS2 game, Berserk: Millennium Falcon Hen Seima Senki no Shō, Guts can activate a Berserk Mode by utilizing a “Berserk Meter”. While in said Berserk Mode, Guts’ attack power is heavily amplified, his speed is increased, all damage he takes is reduced, and he becomes more resistant to being staggered. The meter can be refilled by fighting and killing enemies. After fully upgrading, Berserk Mode can last for a little over 2 minutes (128 seconds specifically)! He really berserked all over those guys.

Similar “Berserk Mode” mechanics appear in both other Berserk games, the Dreamcast game, Sword of the Berserk, and the Musou game, Berserk: Band of the Hawks (the musou also makes Guts invulnerable to most harm in Berserk Mode). It’s a rather consistent mechanic across all of Guts’ appearances in external media.

The Beast of Darkness

Within the lowest depths of Guts’ ego, resides the aggregate of all his malice and woe. The wolf that has awakened within his heart is the Beast of Darkness, and it was fashioned by the negative emotions that accumulated through anguish and hardship. Its presence within his mind emanates with a potent OD that makes it difficult to control. When he succumbs to the beast it is capable of physically manifesting, most infamously causing the Berserker Armour to assume its shape. As the beast gains control, Guts descends into an intense fury in which he becomes like a feral animal moving with amplified ferocity. Any pain he experiences can also be transferred to the Beast of Darkness in his place. Consequently, this state causes Guts to relinquish all morality and reason beyond his intense desire for vengeance, which at one point nearly culminated in him tearing Casca apart.

The Glare

Bro can fold someone with just a look. He’s so cool. The realest one ever, even.

Resistances

Possession: After multiple spirits entered his body, he was capable of expelling them entirely. In the PS2 game, he performs this same feat.

Causality Manipulation (Limited): See Acausality

High Temperatures: See Endurance

Lightning: See Endurance

Mind Manipulation and Madness Manipulation: Griffith’s preternatural Aura is capable of subduing Apostles, nearly rendering beings such as Ganishka insane, and dominating the will of others by inducing intense degrees of fascination, devotion, and infatuation. Guts is capable of standing within Griffith’s aura without succumbing to it, remaining with complete intent to kill him.

Fear Manipulation, Telepathy, and Pain Manipulation: See The Berserker Armor (Applicable only when the Berserker Armor is Activated)

Dimitri

Minor Crest of Blaiddyd

As the heir to the Blaiddyd royal family, Dimitri inherited his ancestor's crest. Crests are magical gifts passed down through generations which grant their bearers special powers and the ability to wield the Heroes’ Relics. In Dimitri’s case, his minor crest of Blaiddyd grants him superhuman strength at all times. It can also activate on occasion, doubling the power of his next attack at the cost of doubling the damage toll to whatever weapon he’s wielding.

Class Skills

Characters in the Three Houses series have the ability to take various class exams and master pretty much any class that exists within the world of Three Houses. With mastery comes a bunch of useful skills that can aid Dimitri in battle.

• Royal Lineage+: A passive ability that increases Dimitri’s evasiveness.

• Charm: An ability that increases the amount of damage of all allies near Dimitri.

• Commander: Reduces the damage done by enemy gambits by 75%. It also nullifies Instant Death effects, status effects and movement effects.

• Unarmed Combat: An ability gained after learning the Brawler class and mastering it. This allows Dimitri to continue fighting even if he lacks a weapon.

• Heartseeker: All enemies near Dimitri have their evasiveness lowered.

• Steal: Allows Dimitri to steal non-weapon items from the opponent as long as he is faster.

• White Magic Heal: Increases the potency of healing spells.

• Axefaire: Increases Dimitri’s attack power when using an axe.

• Bowfaire: Increases Dimitri’s attack power when using a bow.

• Fistfaire: Increases Dimitri’s attack power when brawling

• Black Tomefaire: Increases Dimitri’s attack power when using black magic.

• White Tomefaire: Increases Dimitri’s attack power when using white magic.

• Vantage: When an opponent attacks him, Dimitri will immediately attack first if his HP is ≤ 50%.

• Defensive Tactics: Battalions take half damage from attacks. In Three Hopes it only reduces the damage by 30%

• Terrain Resistance: Nullifies damage from the terrain.

• Stealth: Makes it more difficult for an enemy to target Dimitri for an attack.

• Counterattack: Allows Dimitri to perform a counterattack regardless of the attacker's distance. In Three Hopes, the skill causes enemies to take damage proportional to the damage inflicted upon Dimitri.

• Fiendish Blow: If Dimitri initiates combat, his magical attack power is increased.

• Death Blow: If Dimitri initiates combat, his physical attack power is increased.

• Lucky Seven: Passively increases one of Dimitri’s stats (Attack power, Magic power, physical defense, magical defense, accuracy or evasion) each turn.

• Quick Riposte: If Dimitri’s HP is greater than or equal to 50%, he will instantly make a counterattack when attacked.

• Renewal: Passively restores Dimitri’s HP each turn.

• Defiant Strength: If Dimitri’s health is less than or equal to 25%, his strength is increased.

• Lethality: Grants Dimitri a chance to instantly kill his opponent.

• Seal Movement: If Dimitri damages a foe during combat, said foe suffers -1 movement for one turn.

• Smite: In Three Houses, this skill allows Dimitri to push an adjacent ally 2 spaces away. In Three Hopes, when using Calvary or Armored class, allows Dimitri to inflict damage on opponents by dashing through them.

• Alert Stance+: If Dimitri takes no action except wait, this skill would grant avoid +30 for 1 turn.

• Sword Buster: Increases damage to enemies wielding swords.

Personal Abilities

In Three Hopes, each character has personal abilities that only they can use.

King’s Might: Dimitri’s support ability greatly increases damage on opponents when they are sent flying and also makes it easier to stun them.

Reign: Dimitri’s tactical ability increases his damage to enemies by 50% when he is commanded to attack.

Magic

That’s right, Mr. Weedeater here packs more than just big hunks of steel. By his own admission, Dimitri was absolutely not born with an aptitude for magic. However, as seen in his Three Hopes support with Annette, as well as what gameplay allows him to achieve, even the Boar is capable of learning how to master magic, given enough time and tutelage. Unlike other FE titles, Dimitri doesn’t exactly have access to the full library of magic spells in the game, but he can still opt-in to the corresponding classes to learn the following: 

• Aura, which summons a crashing pillar of holy light to crush enemies

• Heal, which, well, heals people

• Nosferatu, which uses holy magic to drain an enemy’s life and heal the caster in return

• Recover, which is a more powerful version of Heal

• Thoron, which is a basic offensive spell that shoots a bolt of lighting

• Thunder, which is a more powerful version of Thoron

Combat Arts

Characters in Three Houses and Three Hopes are capable of obtaining arts by sharpening their skills during training. Units primarily learn arts by increasing their skill levels and mastering certain classes, however there are rarer instances in which a unit can obtain new combat arts, such as a specific weapon, special unit classes, mastering a class they have unlocked in their Certification exams, and among others. 

Using a weapon-type combat art usually weakens the wielded weapon's durability, but combat arts are stronger than basic attacks, and serve unique purposes, such as some combat arts being able to heal oneself or moving ally units.

Naturally, Dimitri is capable of learning such arts as well as any other character. He has the capability to learn following combat arts in both Three Houses and Three Hopes:

Lance

Tempest Lance, a Combat Art that has no special attributes and is capable of being learned by anyone. A powerful attack with the lance.

Knightkneeler, a Combat Art that is effective against Cavalry-type units. Executed by performing a powerful lance thrust.

Monster Piercer, a Combat Art that is effective against monsters.

Glowing Ember, a Combat Art that increases Dimitri's damage dealt by 50% of his Defense. Dimitri executes this by hurling a fiery lance straight ahead, this art also inflicts fire element to the foes that were hit.

Wheelsweep, a Combat Art that is executed by striking a wide area with a sweeping attack, also producing a shockwave.

Earthsplitter, a Combat Art that is executed by performing an air-to-ground plunging thrust with the lance.

Frozen Lance, a Combat Art executed by launching columns of ice at all foes. The damage dealt is also increased by the Magic stat, and it inflicts an ice element to the foe that is hit.

Thunder Rush, a Combat Art that is executed by performing a series of lance strikes imbued with lightning. This inflicts the Lightning element and is effective against armored foes.

Stormblade, a Combat Art that is executed by whipping up a storm that ravages the surrounding area with blades of wind. This inflicts Wind element and is effective against Flying units.

Tempest Lance, a Combat Art that is executed by conjuring up a whirlwind with an overhead spin of the lance. Just like Stormblade, this inflicts the Wind element, but also has the trait of breaking the opponent's guard.

Dark Lance, a Combat Art that is executed by sending dark hexes flying at foes. The damage dealt is also increased by the Magic stat, and inflicts the Dark element. 

Lightstrike, a Combat Art that is executed through absorbing a portion of inflicted damage as HP and healing Dimitri in the process. The damage dealt, like with Dark Lance, is also increased with the Magic stat, and inflicts the Light element.

Shatter Slash, a Combat Art that is executed by performing a series of lance strikes that temporarily reduce the opponent's defense. Also breaks their guard.

Lance Jab, a Combat Art that is executed by performing a thrusting attack with the lance. This also has a stupid crit rate, and crits often.

Vengeance, a Combat Art that executes a lance attack. The damage of this attack is increased in relation to the user's missing HP.

Atrocity, Dimitri’s signature Combat Art, and can only be used with his lance Areadbhar. It grants Dimitri extra strength and accuracy, and allows his strike to deal effective damage against any foe type.

Paraselene, Dimitri's second signature Combat art that is only learned by him. In Three Houses, it allows Dimitri to move one space backwards after successfully hitting, but its Three Hopes counterpart not only has the ability to instantly kill whoever it hits, but also renders the opponents unable to guard from the attack.

Sword

Wrath Strike, a Combat Art that is executed by performing a powerful sword attack that breaks the opponent's guard. Can be learned by anyone.

Grounder, a Combat Art that is executed by performing three swift strikes with the sword that are effective against flying units. Can be learned by anyone.

Flash Strike, a Combat Art that is executed by unleashing a single, powerful flash that is effective against cavalry units

Windsweep, a Combat Art that is executed by generating a cyclone. Inflicts wind element to the foes hit, it also prevents enemies from counterattack.

Shadowblade, a Combat Art that is executed by lashing at opponents with a dark magic-based sword attack. Deals damage based on the user's magic and inflicts a dark element.

Assassinate, a Combat Art that is executed by slashing while charging at the enemies forward. Has a chance to instantly kill the target and break their guard.

Sword Dance, Dimitri can learn this if he becomes the dancer class. In Three Hopes Dimitri charges forward while striking.

Haze Slice, a Combat Art that is executed by doing several rapid slashes. Dimitri can learn this skill in Three Hopes.

Electric Grounder, a Combat Art executed by three lightning charged slashes.

Mortal Struggle, a Combat Art that reduces the user's defense but displays the stun gauge at all times till the art ends.

Astra, a Combat Art executed with five fast slashes, high damage but hurts the weapons durability.

Axes

Swinging Fury, a Combat Art executed with several powerful swings.

Spike, a Combat Art executed by launching enemies into the air then swatting them away.

Lightning Axe, a Combat Art executed by infusing the axe with lighting and doing magic damage, in Hopes it hurls the lighting axe at enemies.

Focused Strike, a Combat Art executed with a strong downward slice.

Diamond Axe, a Combat Art executed by hitting the ground so hard it displaces the very rock beneath the enemies feet.

War Strike, a Combat Art executed by hitting the ground and launching enemies into the air.

Helm Splitter, a Combat Art that is executed with an overhead strike.

Armor Smasher, a Combat Art that delivers a powerful strike that reduces the enemies defense.

Bows

Spiral Shot, a Combat Art executed by unleashing a flurry of arrows in the surrounding area.

Drill Arrow, a Combat Art executed by firing a blindingly fast arrow that reduces the enemies defense temporarily.

Point Blank Volley, a Combat Art executed by firing multiple arrows into the enemy at point blank range (duh) In Hopes it fires three arrows in a spread.

Thunder Bolt, a Combat Art executed by firing a barrage of electric arrows.

Hide Presence, a Combat Art does not hide the user's presence but increases the unit’s strength and luck.

Hunter's Volley, a Combat Art that launches enemies into the air and then fires three shots.

Waning Shot, a Combat Art that fires three consecutive shots that temporarily reduce the enemy's strength.

Deadeye, a Combat Art that fires a long distance shot that yields critical damage.

Gauntlets 

Duel Devastators, a Combat Art executed by pummeling the enemy with both hands.

Draining Blow, a Combat Art that absorbs health from the enemy after a strong blow.

Steady Mind, a Combat Art that temporarily increases strength.

Lightning Fist, a Combat Art strikes enemies into the air with a lightning punch and strikes again when the enemies land.

Fierce Iron Fist, a Combat Art that strikes at enemies three times from mid air.

Whirlwind Kick, a Combat Art that generates a hurricane and launches enemies onto the air.

Mighty Blow, a Combat Art that unleashes a devastating punch that breaks the enemies guard.

Healing Focus, a Combat Art that allows Dimitri to restore a decent portion of HP.

Weapon Skills

In Fire Emblem Three Houses, as one increases in rank for weapons, one unlocks more set passive skills. As a lance wielder as well as swordsman, Dimitri gets up to S-Rank for both.

Lance

Swordbreaker - Dimitri gets +20 hit rate and evasion if his opponent has a sword

Lance Prowess Lv 5 - Dimitri gets +15 in hit rate and evasion when having a lance in-hand, as well as getting a +10 in crit evasion

Lance Crit +10 - Exactly what it says on the tin.

Lancefaire - Dimitri gets an increase of +5 in might (or raw strength) when wielding a lance.

Sword

Axebreaker - Dimitri gets +20 hit rate and evasion if his opponent has an axe.

Sword Prowess Lv 5 - Dimitri gets +15 in hit rate and evasion when having a sword in hand, as well as getting a +10 in crit evasion. Have we done this before?

Sword Crit +10 - You get the gist.

Swordfaire - Like Lancefaire, Dimitri gets a +5 in his might stat when wielding a sword.

Axe

Lancebreaker - Dimitri gets +20 hit rate and evasion if his opponent has a lance

Axe Prowess Lv 5 - Dimitri gets +15 in hit rate and evasion when having an axe in hand, as well as getting a +10 in crit evasion. Getting sick of it yet? Too bad.

Axe Crit +10 - You guessed it.

Axefaire - Like Swordfaire, Dimitri gets a +5 in his might stat when wielding an axe.

Bow

Close Counter - Bow wielders gain the ability of fighting back against close ranged opponents with this skill.

Gaunletbreaker - Dimitri gets +20 hit rate and evasion if his opponent has gauntlets.

Bow Prowess Lv 5 - Dimitri gets +15 in hit rate and evasion when having a bow, as well as getting a +10 in crit evasion.

Bow Crit +10 - Higher crit with a bow.

Bowfaire - Like the other “faire”, Dimitri gets a +5 in his might stat when wielding a bow.

Gauntlets

Tomebreaker - Dimitri gets +20 hit rate and evasion if his opponent uses magic.

Brawling Prowess Lv 5 - Dimitri gets +15 in hit rate and evasion when brawling, as well as getting a +10 in crit evasion.

Brawl Crit +10 - When he punches things, Dimitri gains a higher crit chance.

Fistfaire - Like the other “faire”, Dimitri gets a +5 in his might stat when brawling.

Reason

Bowbreaker - Dimitri gets +20 hit rate and evasion if his opponent uses a bow.

Reason Prowess Lv 5 - Dimitri gets +15 in hit rate and evasion when using black magic, as well as getting a +10 in crit evasion.

Black Magic Crit +10 - Higher crit with black magic.

Black Magic Range +1 - Increases the range of Dimitri’s black magic.

Black Magic Uses x2 - Doubles the amount of uses of Dimitri’s black magic.

Black Tomefaire - Like the other “faire”, Dimitri gets a +5 in his might stat when using black magic.

Faith

Faith Prowess Lv 5 - Dimitri gets +15 in hit rate and evasion when using white magic, as well as getting a +10 in crit evasion.

White Magic Heal+ - Healing from white magic is increased.

White Magic Range +1 - Increases the range of Dimitri’s white magic.

White Magic Uses x2 - Doubles the amount of uses of Dimitri’s white magic.

White Tomefaire - Like the other “faire”, Dimitri gets a +5 in his might stat when using black magic.

Azure Lightning

Zappy! Contrary to Edelgard’s pyrokinesis and Claude’s tricky twisters, Dimitri specializes in amping up his attacks with devastating electricity. In combat, he can call down bolts of lightning around him, imbue his lance with electricity to drastically increase the power and range of his swings, fire off concentrated bolts in multiple directions, or just create a massive AoE blast of electricity in conjunction with his superhuman strength.

Resistances

Status Effects: The 'Commander' skill neutralizes status effects on Dimitri. These include poisons and other debuffs.

Death Manipulation: The 'Commander' skill also neutralizes Instant Death effects on Dimitri.

Forms

Guts

Controlled Berserker Armor

By allowing Schierke's astral body into his mind, Guts is able to remain in perfect control while having the Berserker Armor active. He retains his increased strength, mobility, and all the other benefits of the armor. Furthermore, if he ends up in a situation that pushes him beyond his limits even with the armor, he can goad the Beast of Darkness (as seen in chapter 326) into "assisting". Specifically when pushed beyond his limits by the heart of the Sea God, calling out to the Beast of Darkness in his mindscape seemingly allowed Guts to move and continue fighting despite internal bleeding and severe body damage. The change in the armor causes the helm to lose its wolf-like appearance and for the lower jaw plate to lower itself.

Dimitri

Awakening Gauge

In Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, every single character has access to an “Awakening Form” as they deal damage to enemies in battle. In this state they glow blue with energy and all of the characters' stats like Strength, Speed, and Durability skyrocket exponentially. While it may only last a single minute at minimum, the sheer might of the state is not to be underestimated. Dimitri also has access to a potion that when used, can fully max out the gauge and let him use it instantly.

Classes

To be clear, Dimitri’s various Classes are not typical ‘forms’ in the sense that he can transform in-and-out of them at will. The way Classes work in Three Houses is related to the specific training a given student undergoes; someone trained in swordplay will be able to pursue advanced sword-based Classes like Swordmaster, for example.

Dimitri has the capacity to pursue a variety of Classes beyond his default Noble (and subsequent Lord -> Great Lord) class; it’s really just up to the player where he lands. Any character who masters one class can always go back and learn another, while retaining their level of aptitude should they return to their original mastered class. In other words, even if Dimitri is portrayed as a Great Lord, it’s entirely possible he has experience in others, such as the horse-mounted Paladin or wyvern-mounted Wyvern Knight. To be clear, this isn’t to insinuate that he’s coming into battle on a horse, nor are we saying he can magically spawn one out of thin air; this is simply to demonstrate the large variety of Classes Dimitri has access to at his peak, which would speak to his experience and training, if nothing else.

Savage Boar

Exclusive to Heroes, this is more so a mental change Dimitri underwent when he committed to devoting himself to hunting down Edelgard. While no scaling from Heroes will be applied, he does gain two specific skills from this change.

Night Sky: Increases damage dealt by 50%.

Glimmer: Increases damage dealt by 50%...again.

Feats

Guts

Overall

• Killed nearly 100 men by himself in one night

• Has defeated hundreds of monsters at once

• Surpassed Griffith in swordsmanship and defeated him in a duel

• Was recruited and allowed into Griffith’s Band of the Falcon

• Alongside them, ended the Hundred-Year War

• Slayed the Sea God

• Took down several Apostles such as Charles, Rosine, Mozgus, and Ganishka

• Swam to shore while wearing his heavy armor, carrying Dragonslayer and holding an unconscious person

• One of the only survivors of the Eclipse

• Stated to be more powerful by himself than an entire warship

• The only man capable of lifting and actually wielding the Dragonslayer

• Killed Nightmare and Cinder Killer Instinct (what was he doing there, bro thought he was on the team)

Power

• Kicked off some metal bars

• Defeated Griffith and cut through his sword near the end of the Golden Age

• Blocked attacks that would have destroyed any other person’s sword with a single strike

• Killed a man in one punch 

• Smashed a giant boulder to pieces

• Sliced the Snake Count in half with one swing of Dragonslayer

• Cut through four men fully decked out in armor

• Shattered a helmet with a single blow

• Sliced a horse in half along with the stone floor

• Fought Ganishka in single combat

• Physically contended with Zodd in his Apostle form and stalemated him

• In a combined effort with Schierke, vaporized the head of a giant water snake (22.7 tons of TNT each)

Speed

• Swung his weapon faster than eyesight

• Avoided Rosine’s head skewer technique (Mach 4.8)

• Can evade and block arrow fire

• Dodged Ganishka’s Lightning (Mach 21.6)

• Dodged five spear strikes at once

• Dodged a pointblank Crossbow bolt

• Blitzed Grunbeld in his Berserker Armor

• Sliced an ax mid swing

Durability

• Got smashed through a pillar by Zodd

• Survived lightning which incinerated reincarnated Apostles

• Endured the full power of Mozgus’ God Breath

• Withstood his arm being cut off…by himself 

• Took a stinger through the jaw and didn’t even scream

• Has survived falling hundreds of feet

• Survived being run over by Rosine flying at supersonic speeds

• Took hits from a Sea Monster that’s bigger than buildings

• Endured Ganishka’s lightning

• Survived a scream that could kill normal people twice

Dimitri

Overall

• Defeated Hegemon Edelgard, Claude, Thales, Hubert, Cornelia, several Demonic Beasts

• Single-handedly wiped out Imperial units for 5 years

• Fought off entire armies for three days before collapsing from exhaustion 

• Became a fantastic king to Faerghus

• Successfully fought off both Edelgard and Claude’s armies at the same time

• Considered the strongest man in all of Faerghus

• Won the Battle of Eagle and Lion and Skirmish at Gronder Field in the Azure Moon route

• Master Tactician Claude didn’t think he could beat Dimitri in a fair fight

• Defended Garreg Mach from the Imperial Army until Byleth fell down a cliff

• Is a fucking Beyblade in Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes (and Beyblade is based)

Power

• Can upheave massive chunks of earth with his lance swings

• Easily overpowered four Imperial soldiers at once

• As per the benefit of being in a Warriors game, can easily ragdoll dozens of fully-armed soldiers with his strikes

• When he was 9, he broke a sword in half by swinging it too hard

• Lifted boulders as a workout

• Before the 5-year timeskip, crushed a soldier’s head with one hand

• Physically superior to Raphael, who can shatter a large rock effortlessly

• Using Areadbhar, broke through the magical shield of Thales

• Can kill massive wolves, birds, worms, dragons and even mechs

• Battled and killed an evil shadow version of himself while trapped in Zahras

• As a child, was able to swim in full armor

Speed

• As seen above, can easily deflect arrows fired from a relatively close distance

• Can move relatively quick compared to the Meteor spell (Mach 7.8)

• Can keep up with Felix, who can create after-images

• Can dodge Rhea’s Hoarfrost spell (more on this before the verdict)

• Dodged Hegemon Edelgard’s fireballs that were fired across the room they were in

• Can swing his spear so fast he spins like a wheel while being able to move

Durability

• As seen above, can effortlessly shrug off powerful dark magic used by Thales, a bad guy who is on-par with Rhea (more on her below)

• Tanked magic a direct hit from Agnea’s Arrow by Lorenz

• Is 2-0 on tanking attempted murder via tiny daggers. If you think that’s a joke, bear in mind multiple grown ass men in armor have been killed by exactly that in this very universe.

• Survived the fiery destruction of Hegemon Edelgard

• Can take blows from giant monsters and robots

• More than capable of withstanding magic meteors to the face, as well as all sorts of lightning, fire, and assorted elemental stuff

Scaling

Guts

Nosferatu Zodd

Even during the Golden Age arc, Griffith, who was surpassed by Guts when he left the Band of The Falcon, was capable of severing his arm. Guts and Zodd would later have a pitched battle following Griffith’s return to the corporeal world.

• Could smash through a building after his first battle with Guts

• Breaks down part of the Tower of Conviction’s wall

• Destroys Godot’s mine

• Endured being in close proximity to the Great Roar of The Astral World, which dispersed a large storm (19.9 megatons - 10.8 gigatons of TNT)

• Fought the Skull Knight and is considered his arch rival; Skull Knight is capable of dodging Femto’s attacks

Mozgus

Guts has fought with Mozgus, and was capable of enduring his strongest attacks.

• Mozgus’ breath vaporizes a large blood creature (119 tons of TNT)

Ganishka

Guts is capable of surviving Ganishka’s lightning attacks, and in the Musou game he is shown engaging with him in single combat.

• Generated a storm in his apostle form (288.7 kilotons of TNT)

Griffith (Pre-Femto)

Guts’ main rival and driving force in the series, Griffith, an S-Class swordsman who leads the Band of the Falcon mercenary group. While he may look like the world’s shiniest femboy, he’s no laughing matter. Now we should reiterate that this is Griffith before he summoned a bunch of demons and kickstarted the literal apocalypse. Everytime Guts and Griffith have encountered each other afterwards, Griffith doesn’t even need to try and Guts is KO’d.

• Griffith calls Guts his equal

• Severed Zodd’s arm during their first encounter

Schierke

Guts’ friend, the witch fresh out the Forest of Magic, Schierke is part of Guts’ wandering troupe he begins to assemble after the Eclipse, and was the only person capable of keeping Guts from falling to the influence of the Berserker Armor. While she fights through spells and magic rather than physical confrontations like Guts, Schierke has gone on record saying that Guts while within the Berserker Armor is beyond anything she’s capable of.

• Schierke summoned a flood which rushed through an entire village, tipping over buildings and destroying some of them

Serpico

Guts has been able to defeat Serpico in combat, and is seen as his physical superior.

• Serpico was able to intercept Ganishka’s lightning (Mach 7.5)

• Once again dodged his lightning alongside Guts (Mach 14.5)

Sea God

A large sea monster that Guts and his party fought that was originally sealed within a small island. Guts was capable of slicing through it and destroying its heart.

• Was capable of breaking a large portion of a cliff (3.5 kilotons of TNT)

Dimitri

Rhea & Edelgard

Dimitri’s raw strength has proven comparable to the likes of Edelgard (the white hair one), who in-turn has a bit of a feud going with Rhea (the green hair one). Generally, all three are roughly on-par with each other as the undisputed top dogs in the verse, just below Byleth themselves.

• Edelgard, with Byleth’s aid, ultimately killed Rhea with a good thwack to the head; Rhea in her dragon form withstood multiple Javelins of Light, though sustained serious injuries

• A single Javelin of Light decimated the Fortress City of Arianrhod

• A single Javelin of Light created a burning canyon out of Ailell (11.3 gigatons of TNT)

• Javelins of Light have been stated to be able to destroy countries

• Rhea in her dragon form throws a monster so hard it breaks a huge wall (1.6 kilotons of TNT)

Lysithea

(Credit to mogiberii on Twitter for the art)

Dimitri and Lysithea can fight the same enemies and even each other in battle. Dimitri can take hits from Lysithea’s strongest magic and from physical weapons amplified by her magic such as Levin swords.  

• Lysithea’s minor Crest of Charon can cause downpours over Garreg Mach (296.1 tons - 175.6 kilotons of TNT)

Lysithea is also consistently considered one of the best magical units in the game. Annette, a top student at the Royal School of Sorcery, considers Lysithea her superior. She also is tied for the greatest magic growth of any character. Therefore, she should be at least comparable to the magical feats of other characters, such as:

• Summoning meteors for attacks

• Making large pillars of ice

• Creating tornadoes

Byleth (and Sothis)

(Bane of all fish)

Oh hey, it’s the guy (or girl, pick your poison) from Smash! While Dimitri is not completely on par with his professor, they have fought side by side in battle and defeated similar enemies; notably, after a very major event occurs wherein Byleth fuses with what is the most powerful entity in Fódlan, Sothis. Post-Fusion Byleth would naturally possess much of Sothis’ own power, indicating that the House Leaders are truly built different in order to compare with Byleth at all. 

• Byleth was able to fight against The Immovable and the Wind Caller, massive draconic enemies that have lived for over a thousand years. This is consistent with being able to fight Rhea and Seteth, who have similar years of experience.

• Nader stated that Byleth’s sword could slice a mountain in half (2.1 megatons of TNT)

• Claude further backs this up

• Has the power of Sothis, who could sink the world down to the watery depths (26.2 - 217.8 petatons of TNT)

• Shez was able to match Byleth equally in Three Hopes while they had the full power of Sothis inside of them and even was able to kill Byleth while they had Sothis’ power. Dimitri and Shez have fought side by side together, thus cementing Dimitri scaling to Sothis powered Byleth.

Weaknesses

Guts

For Guts’ entire life, the odds have always been stacked against him. While he’s still kicking and everything else is dead, he’s been through a lot. The death of his surrogate mother, abuse at the hands of Gambino, his subsequent death at Guts’ hands in self-defence, and everything Griffith put him through during the Eclipse all contributed to Guts’ deteriorating mental state. 

He lived his life in a constant state of rage and fury, all with the sole desire to kill Griffith as painfully as possible, and the Berserker Armour forces him to give in to his inner demons and embrace the monster within. Not to mention that while the armour itself holds him together ‘till he literally can’t fight any longer, it doesn’t heal him, and makes him indifferent to pain. 

While he would be able to move past his burning hatred against Griffith, and sought to live his life for the sake of his girlfriend, Casca, the battle against losing himself to his extreme rage is one Guts fights constantly. He can be pushed over that edge with enough pressure, and at his worst, he needs his allies to bring him back to sanity.

Also blonde haired video game anime boys...wait

Dimitri

Even after regaining most of his sanity, Dimitri is still a broken man with great self-hatred and a desire to die. This can cause him to be overly reckless in fights, not worrying about his own safety which has resulted in his death in at least two routes of Three Houses (maybe three but Silver Snow is weird). He can also be completely irrational during times of rage, often scaring his own allies in the process. Though he’s been able to mostly move past this thanks to the help of his friends and Byleth, he’s still walking the road to redemption. As well as this, all of Dimitri’s weapons, even Areadbhar, will break in battle if used for too long, and will break even quicker through the use of Weapon Skills. Though Areadbhar doesn’t traditionally “break”, it just requires a period of rest before it can be used again.

Before the Verdict

Is Three Houses FTL?

One of the biggest talking points with this match pertains to how fast exactly Dimitri is, and with this question come many additional ones. For instance, is Bolting natural lightning speed? Do characters in Three Houses show in-tandem movement with it anyway? Is Hoarfrost natural light, and again, is there proof of in-tandem movement?

First, let’s talk about magic in Fire Emblem. It’s important to first distinguish that Fire Emblem, barring entries that explicitly involve crossing characters over continuities, tend to take place in separate timelines and different worlds entirely. Some Fire Emblem continuities, such as the one pertaining to Marth and Lucina, provide thorough documentation on how magic in-universe works. With the aforementioned example, magic is confirmed to harness the natural elements, whether it be literal magma from the earth or lightning from the clouds.

That being said, this doesn’t necessarily apply to Three Houses. Different Fire Emblem games tend to have slightly different rules regarding how their magic works; it's why in some games, magic requires the use of incantations, typically carried in tomes, while in others, it’s more of a traditional power system that can be physically balanced and tempered with experience. This is also why some magic in Fire Emblem can be used without harm an unlimited amount of times (such as in Three Houses), and why others actively drain the spellcaster of their own HP in actualizing the desired magic. Inconsistencies such as these can even be found in the same continuities, as seen with Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia and Marth’s games (Shadow Dragon & New Mystery of the Emblem). Both take place in the same time period in the same exact world, sharing characters in their respective rosters, yet both use varying magic systems that either necessitate tomes and don’t harm the user, or can be cast without tomes yet do harm the user.

All of this is to say, it’s questionable whether or not Three House’s magic system operates by harnessing natural elements, since we can’t directly apply statements from other continuities to Three Houses. Even so, this is not the only issue present in calculating feats that Dimitri scales to for speed. Bolting, regardless of whether you believe it to be natural lightning-speed or not, is verifiably inapplicable for speed calculations for two simple reasons. First, the bolt itself clearly traverses its full distance & lands on the ground before characters initiate their dodge animations and move, which means there is no in-tandem movement at play. Secondly, even if you wanted to measure the distance lightning moved in a given timeframe & compared it to the distance a character dodged, there is the bigger issue of the Bolting spell only appearing in one frame. This means it’s impossible to accurately measure how far the lightning traveled between frames, and thus, we cannot calculate any kind of speed feat from it.

That all being said, we can work with a different spell in the form of Meteor. Similar to Bolting, characters don’t actually dodge the attack until it has already made contact with the ground. However, it is not a one-frame animation, meaning we can still measure Dimitri’s movement to the meteor’s in one frame. Given at minimum the average speed of a meteor in reentry, Dimitri would be moving around Mach 7 relative to the meteors shown in gameplay. Quite a bit lower than you likely expected, and that’s because these animations simply aren’t as clear cut as they appear on the surface.

Now for the biggest elephant in the room, Hoarfrost. To begin with, there is no actual proof that the light shown is comparable to literal, natural light. Evidence to the contrary exists, given that it actively collides with the ground and results in debris being flung up. No, it being ‘magic’ isn’t an excuse either; we can’t just pick and choose which requirements for lightspeed velocities apply and which don’t. Additionally, this is yet another instance where no in-tandem movement can be observed. Even if it was natural light, and even if we ignored the physical impact it leaves behind, it’d be tricky to calc reliably & be much slower than FTL. All in all, Three Houses is definitely not FTL, let alone anywhere near that… at least not without scaling from other Fire Emblem titles, which, as we established in the beginning, won’t be coming to Dimitri’s aid here. Surprise!

What’s the deal with Sothis & the Javelins of Light?

At first glance, it might seem absurd to claim that Dimitri is even comparable to the Javelins of Light and especially Sothis. However, when you dig deeper, it actually makes more sense than you might think.

Starting with the Javelins of Light, the best direct comparison feat we have is Rhea surviving the combined explosions of two Javelins. While it is true she was severely injured, she still survived for multiple days after the fact and can even fully recover in some timelines. It is also extremely impressive that she was completely consumed by the explosion and still remained in one piece, especially when you consider she was weakened from being in confinement for five years. 

So, how does everyone else scale to this? After all, the Death Knight tells Byleth that the Javelins will kill them, which Hilda later reiterates. Well, it is shown consistently that characters with the Heroes’ Relics are more than capable of contending with Rhea. At the end of the Crimson Flower route, Byleth and Edelgard’s combined power was able to kill Rhea once and for all. In Golden Wildfire, Shez and Claude do the same. It is also shown that, even when at her full power, multiple crest beasts are able to pose a threat to Rhea. These are the same monsters that other characters consistently defeat, with some characters being able to fight multiple at once. The main cast can also fight and defeat the Immovable and the Wind Caller, other members of Rhea’s race. The cast can also defeat Rhea in her humanoid form as well as Seteth, another Nabatean who fought alongside Rhea in the war of heroes. In Verdant Wind, Byleth and Claude fight and defeat Nemesis, the arch-rival of Rhea.

So clearly some of the main cast are capable of not only hurting Rhea but outright killing her, something that even the Javelins can fail at. As for how Dimitri scales to all of this, he is consistently depicted as being a rival to Edelgard and even helps to defeat her in her more powerful Hegemon form. Dimitri is also capable of overpowering Thales’ magic, which could contend with Rhea, and deflecting arrows from Failnaught, which can kill Rhea. Dimitri is also consistently cited as one of the physically strongest people alive thanks to his minor crest of Blaiddyd, so this scaling should not be surprising.  So to summarize, Rhea takes hits from the Javelins of Light without immediately dying, it is shown that people using Heroes’ relics or similar powers are capable of contending with and killing Rhea, and Dimitri is clearly comparable to these people. Thus Dimitri, at least with Areadbhar, must be capable of a power output similar to the Javelins of Light.

But what about Sothis? How can Dimitri, or really anyone for that matter, possibly compare to “The Beginning” and progenitor? One word: Byleth!

Byleth is very consistently stated to possess the full power of Sothis. There are too many confirmations of this to cover in this section so here is another document that lays it all out. Byleth also was able to fight evenly with Nemesis, who was stated to possess some of Sothis’ power. So Byleth should realistically be capable of any of Sothis’ feats. How do other characters scale to that? 

Well Shez, a rival mercenary to Byleth and possessor of Sothis’ archenemy, Epimenides/Arval, was able to contend with and even kill a Post-Fusion Byleth. In another timeline, Arval can come to fully possess Shez and force him to attack Byleth, at which point others will intervene to stop the fight. Here it is shown that Dimitri and others are fully capable of fighting Shez at their full power. Shez even asked Dimitri to kill them if they ever lost control. Following this logic, Dimitri must be at least somewhat comparable to Byleth. This is consistent with Three Houses’ various routes where Byleth and Dimitri can fight and defeat the same enemies. Thales’ magic was also able to severely hurt a Post-Fusion Byleth, but Dimitri is still capable of taking it. 

There is also Nemesis to consider. He could clearly match Byleth blow for blow and is the one responsible for killing Sothis in the first place. During the war of heroes, Rhea, in her human form, fought and defeated Nemesis at the height of his power. While Rhea does claim that on her own she could not compare to the power of Sothis that Nemesis possesses, when wielding her Sword of Seiros, a sacred weapon forged by Saint Macuil and infused with the power of Saint Indech she is clearly able to hold her own. This means that Rhea at her absolute peak must also be at least somewhat comparable to Byleth’s full power and since numerous other characters, especially those possessing magical weapons of their own, can fight Rhea, they must also be at least somewhat comparable. To summarize again, Sothis gave all of her power to Byleth who can be matched by people like Shez and Nemesis, who in turn can be fought and defeated by other powerful characters such as Dimitri.

On a final note, it is stated in Three Hopes that Byleth would receive all that Sothis has known from the edge of time when they accept all of Sothis' power.

To make a long story even shorter, scaling Dimitri to the Javelins of Light and Sothis at first seems like total insanity, but the more you look into it, the more scaling to both of those makes sense via Byleth, Rhea, and Agarthian shenanigans.

The Great Roar of The Astral World

The Great Roar of the Astral World is definitely a major point to consider when trying to get an idea of how powerful Guts can truly be. The Roar is what occurs when Griffith redirects Skull Knight's special blade onto Shiva-Ganishka's body. This causes light and wind from the spirit world to flood upon into the Earth and cause a sort of pseudo merge between both worlds. Given it managed to bring about winds across the planet and dispersed gigantic storm clouds, it is obviously a noteworthy factor when looking into power levels for the Berserk series. But a major question also comes into play. Should Guts scale to the Roar?

Ultimately, there is enough evidence to suggest that Guts should be comparable to some degree. While Guts himself was not directly at the source of the blast, Zodd was. Of course, Zodd was not directly at the epicenter of the blast that correlates to the Roar, but he was very close to it, to the point that we can go ahead and use it as an important feat. Specifically he was very near the initial cloudburst caused by the Roar which dispersed the entirety of the storm that had been produced by Shiva-Ganishka prior to the Roar commencing. Considering the cloudburst had force behind it, his body would be exposed to that and he is shown to be completely unharmed by said impact.

This scaling is also completely valid to give to Guts. Golden Age Griffith, whom Guts is comparable and superior to, was capable of severing Zodd’s arm at one point, and Guts and Zodd would later battle several times themselves (and Guts can even sever the arm of Zodd’s Apostle state). There’s really no reason for Guts to not have this feat taken into consideration. As such, we merely need to look into how much force was being tanked by Zodd when he was near the Roar of the Astral World.

For this to be done, we can estimate Zodd’s distance from the Roar’s epicenter and also utilize surface area to get a good grasp of how much force he would have been withstanding. This can be done thanks to calculating the dispersal of the cloud over Shiva-Ganishka, which came about from the Roar itself. Calculating this can give us an idea of the Roar’s power, making it where from there we only need to see how much of that power Zodd would have been dealing with. Given we do not have an exact measurement for Zodd’s distance, we can use a safe estimate of 15 meters, which fits with the feat’s display as well. Also taking into account the fact that only Zodd’s front half would be tanking the pressure, we can reach a final value ranging from nearly 20 megatons to a bit over 10 gigatons of TNT for Zodd. And by extension Guts, giving us an excellent idea of what Guts can do at his full power. Overall, Guts scaling to a portion Roar of the Astral World is valid thanks to scaling to Zodd who tanked the blast near its epicenter.

The two different ends of 19 megatons and 10 Gigatons are from different shots of the storm produced by Shiva-Ganishka. The first shot directly compares its size to his height while the second shot shows the storm going out far further than the initial shot, seemingly to the horizon.

However, there's also a higher end of this feat that could get much higher; the wind caused by the Astral Roar spread across the entire world and moved the atmosphere. However, there are a few contradictions with that reasoning and why we can't consider giving it to Guts. For starters the wind never caused any environmental damage, and while you can argue that was due it mostly being localized in the sky, even then for an explosion this massive it would still be affecting the ground. Pushing away what's basically the entire atmosphere would cause a massive vacuum and would make the air rush at extreme speeds, causing massive damage to the environment.

Obviously the series itself wouldn't go this scientific, but it does show it can't be calced this way due to that contradiction. But even ignoring the environment, not a single person touched by the winds were physically affected whatsoever, despite it literally touching every person on the planet. There's also the problem that there were still clouds hanging around after the roar, making the claim that it moved the entire atmosphere kind of sketchy. Lastly, the winds and lights have been referred to as "otherworldly", unlike anything ever seen, and have only ever been depicted as having an astral effect, not a physical one. This makes sense considering that the wind and light come from the Astral World, a realm separate from the physical world.

Ultimately, while Guts should scale to the cloud dispersion from the Roar through Zodd surviving it, the high end of moving the entire atmosphere with its winds is far too vague and inconsistent to be considered.

Gameplay Usage

One possible controversial aspect is the usage of gameplay feats for either of these characters. Typically gameplay is used to establish what the character is capable of dishing out in combat. Sometimes there's a discrepancy between the level shown from a gameplay animation and how the character is shown in a cutscene.

In regards to Fire Emblem, there is no confirmation whatsoever that the animations in game are meant to be exaggerated or "done to be cool". Elements such as meteors animation line up quite well with explosions caused by the Javelins of Light, both in cutscene and in lore.

In regards to Berserk, none of the three games really break the setting or established level of power the character shows within its gameplay. Gameplay usage should be fine to use then given it does not cause any conflictions.

Verdict

Stats

At a casual glance, it's easy to assume that Guts would take the edge in strength given all of the feats he's performed, but if you dig a little bit deeper, it's clear that Dimitri holds the advantage when it comes to raw might. To elaborate, let's compare the most impressive feats in their series which they can scale to, and see how they end up.

For Guts, he's able to rival Nosferatu Zodd, who survived the Great Roar of the Astral World. Accounting for the distance between Zodd and the epicenter, he would be taking 10.8 gigatons of TNT at most. As for Dimitri, he's a physical match for Edelgard and Rhea, who both are able to match and surpass the power of Javelins of Light. A single one of the magic nukes was able to create a burning canyon out of Ailell, which would require 11.3 gigatons of TNT.

But Dimitri is also a match for Byleth, even after they take in all of Sothis' power, and she was able to flood the entire world in the past. Even at the lowest possible end, this feat would require up to 26.2 petatons of TNT, and at a higher end, it'd take 217.8 petatons of TNT to pull off. Comparing the highest end for the Great Roar and the lowest end for Sothis' flood, Dimitri is, at worst, millions of times stronger than Guts, and taking higher ends for Sothis' flood just increases that gap further. Dimitri has strength locked down.

However, when it comes to speed feats we can calculate, Guts actually ends up with the advantage. In order to dodge Ganishka's lightning, he'd need to be moving at around Mach 21.6, whereas Dimitri dodging the Meteor spell only needs speeds of up to Mach 7.8. Dimitri is able to dodge lightning magic just fine, but due to it coming out at frame one, this does make it harder to calculate a quantifiable result for. With these two feats, Guts has a 2.7 times advantage in speed, but this is a far, far lower gap than that of power.

While Dimitri has ways of mitigating this with his various skills and abilities, Guts' Berserker Armor and Berserk Mode actually amplify his stats, including his speed, meaning that Dimitri’s buffs and debuffs wouldn’t bring much to the table here. However, Dimitri increasing his own evasion or locking Guts’ movement in place may be of more use. So while Guts would be more easily able to avoid Dimitri's moves than vice versa, it's not exactly easy for Guts to land hits himself, and even if he does, it's unlikely that they'll be doing much to the Boar Prince given his staggering lead in power and durability.

So while the Black Swordsman is a tad faster, Dimitri's monstrous edge in power and durability, no matter which end you use, means that he can survive anything Guts throws at him and hit back way harder than his foe can take.

Arsenal & Abilities

In terms of arsenal, Guts also falls a little flat in comparison to Dimitri. First, let's cover their ranged arsenals. While it is true that Guts has quite a lot of ways to attack Dimitri at long distances, with his miniature bombs, arm cannon, crossbow and throwing knives, and, as we covered, he is extremely accurate and precise with his aim, it still doesn't quite cover what the Boar King brings to the table. Dimitri's long range arsenal not only can match Guts', it surpasses it.

With a collection of bows he can wield, which he is more versatile in using compared to Guts' uses of his ranged options, his offensive magic such as Thoron or Thunder can cover more distance than any of his opponent's arsenal. He has the capability to absorb Guts' HP to recover his own through Nosferatu, and his spells are certainly much more powerful when we consider showings of other Fire Emblem characters' magic. 

It's clear to see that Guts' ranged weaponry possesses weak points and limitations Dimitri's doesn't. For example, Guts' crossbow and cannon prosthetics needs actual time to properly setup and efficiently use, this sweet time that Guts would be simply throwing away as Dimitri has MUCH quicker and more effective options, he could arguably even destroy the prosthetic arms with Magic as Guts is setting them up, rendering most of his effective ranged arsenal completely useless.

While the Salamander Blade’s AoE flame bursts are a solid option, Dimitri simply has a wider number of long ranged and AoE options as a whole. But even not taking that into consideration, Dimitri has skills to cover himself at long distance attacks with possibly one of the best counter options he could have here, the Class Skill 'Counterattack', which counters an opponent attack no matter the distance between Dimitri and his attacker. 

What about melee range? Well, once again, it's shown that Dimitri's overall melee arsenal and powerkit annihilate Guts' in sheer size and versatility. Comparing their weapons of choice, Dimitri has a much more diverse pool of weapons and items to use in close combat. Don't get us wrong, Dragonslayer is an incredibly impressive weapon. Its ability to affect souls and entities on the Astral Plane is useful, and it’s ability to function as a shield and its absurd range via its sheer size makes it an awesome weapon, one could even argue it's better than most of Dimitri’s individual weapons… but the Dragonslayer’s utility is ultimately beaten out by Dimitri’s wider and more varied arsenal.

In comparison, Dimitri's Areadbhar is not the only weapon he can bring to the table, but it still has the unique combat art of Atrocity, making it a rather useful tool in this fight, as Guts is normally an armored foe, which Atrocity specifically can target and deal extra damage. But if we really want to look further, there are weapons such as the Arrow of Indra. Using it, Dimitri can both inflict magic-based damage rather than physical damage, something Guts' endurance has dealt with far less. It’s also equipped with the ability to attack from a distance through lightning magic, or Killer Spear, Wo Dao and Killer Bow; all three are simple weapons Dimitri has access to that can further boost the damage he is outputting by its natural critical hit rate increase. 

Dimitri also has various combat arts, class skills, weapon skills, and personal abilities that can help account for Guts speed and mobility advantage. Skills like Vantage and Quick Riposte will allow Dimitri to consistently land attacks against Guts at close range. Royal Lineage+ and Alert Stance+ also greatly improve Dimitri’s ability to dodge Guts’ attacks. When Dimitri lands a blow with Areadbhar, Seal Movement, Frozen Lance, and King’s Might can be used to lower Guts’ mobility advantage, making additional hits more likely.

Regarding miscellaneous items, the rings Dimitri has access to, which all are capable of amplifying his statistics which would make it even more of an uphill struggle for Guts to climb. He would have to deal with a foe who not only severely outmatches him in both long range and close range combat, but is also extremely tricky to hit thanks to Evasion and Speed Rings; meanwhile, Health Ring, in conjunction with his other methods of healing and self-support, will solidify that Dimitri is not going down easily at all. None of this is also bringing up the skill Swordbreaker, which would make Guts hitting Dimitri with Dragonslayer harder than it should be given how it buffs Dimitri’s evasion against Swords.

As for the Berserker Armor, what many people claim to be Guts’s ultimate trump card, it ends up failing him more than it helps in this battle. While it would let Guts stay in the fight for longer given how it literally puts his body back together and also amps his abilities by a large margin, several of Dimitri’s tools completely counter the Berserker Armor. Weapons such as ArmorSlayer, Heavy Spear and Hammer were made to target, break and defeat heavily armored units, and even if we would to assume that Dimitri's weapons have the capability of eventual breaking, he still can target the Berserker Armor with Combat Arts such as Atrocity or Thunder Rush, which are attacks specifically designed to break through heavy armor and to destroy it.

So while on paper the Berserker Armor does seem like a wincon… ultimately against Dimitri it won’t help much in the long run.

Tertiary Factors

Both of these men have been training and fighting for pretty much their entire lives, and gone through hell and back. However, Guts has been trained in the art of battle since he was a toddler, longer than Dimitri who started by the age of 9, and by that point, Guts was already out in battlefields slaughtering soldiers. While Dimitri has fought bizarre creatures like dragons before, Guts has fought more out there and unique enemies throughout most of his life compared to Dimitri’s relatively small experience against such beasts. 

That’s not to scoff at Dimitri’s own skill however, given he’s fought in a war for 5 years straight and manhandled entire armies before. Dimitri’s training is also more varied than Guts’; while Dimitri has preferred weapons, he can be proficient with a vast amount of different weapons and has a massive variety of skills. Both have fought opponents that have been in combat for centuries. Guts has fought with Zodd and the apostles consistently, and Dimitri has fought and killed the Wandering Beast Maurice, who has hunted monsters and humans for a thousand years, and members of Those Who Slither in the Dark, who have studied dark magic for a similar period of time. He is also comparable to Byleth, Edelgard, and Claude in skill, who have fought similarly experienced foes in the saints Rhea, Seteth, and Macuil.

Mental stability isn't either of these two's strong suits, since they can go off the deep end if their inner turmoil and hatred gets the best of them. We, however, are taking them at their best, and while both still have issues, they have settled down and are less self destructive both in battle and their personal lives (in Azure Moon and Azure Gleam for Dimitri). Guts has learned to tame his beast of darkness and Dimitri has moved on from being the boar prince and into the savior king. Both have a lot of demons to fight, but neither has a significant mental edge on the other that could affect the fight.

Conclusion

"You’re going to be alright. You just stumbled over a stone in the road. It means nothing. Your goal lies far beyond this. Doesn’t it? I’m sure you’ll overcome this. You’ll walk again… soon."

Advantages:

• Slightly faster

• Greater combat experience

• Has fought more varied and unique foes than Dimitri has

• Much more mobile and acrobatic, especially with Berserker Armor

• Likely has better raw tolerance for pain

• Has his own stat amps to counter Dimitri’s 

• Can attack Dimitri’s soul and could potentially weaken his healing options….

• Miura’s incredible art and the anime’s incredible music 

• Beats opponents stronger than him EVERY SINGLE DAY

Disadvantages:

• Far weaker and less durable

• Gets outranged and outmatched by Dimitri’s arsenal 

• Berserker Armor can weaken mental stability, though not an issue in the controlled state

• Healing methods are much more limited

• Swordbreaker makes landing an attack on Dimitri more difficult

• Berserker Armor gets directly countered by several of Dimitri’s abilities and weapons 

• ….but only if he could cut through Dimitri 

• 2016

• That fucking boat

"I once lost myself in a storm of vengeance. That storm claimed many lives. But the voices of my friends, and the people, whom my father left in my care, brought me back from the brink. The man who stands before you, thanks to them, is a man who has finally found his path. For the sake of Faerghus, and for all of Fódlan, I swear that I will never lose my way again."

Advantages:

• Far stronger and more durable

• Far more diverse and varied arsenal of weapons

• More reliable healing options

• Superior AoE with combat arts and magic

• Better and more long-distance options

• Greater stamina

• Has more ways to increase his stats

• Heavy Spear, Armorslayer, Hammer and Atrocity do super effective damage to the Berserker Armor

• Possibly the more tactical fighter

• Has three different ways of instakilling Guts

• Apex of the World

• Three Houses Memes

• Beats opponents weaker than him EVERY SINGLE DAY

Disadvantages:

• Slightly slower

• Dimitri’s weapons are generally less notable on their own and are far less durable compared to Dragonslayer

• Likely has less pain tolerance

• Combat arts eat through weapon durability

• Doesn't have protection against soul damaging and could weaken his healing arsenal

• Has less experience both in combat and against more out there opponents

• Is not allowed to eat the weeds

• Auto Battle

This is a hard fought victory due to Guts’s tenacity, but ultimately, Dimitri should pull the win. They have near equal experience, with Guts having been in active fighting since he was a kid and Dimitri having formal training since that age. Both can take a lot of damage and are incredibly ruthless in a scrap. Obviously, the biggest factor is the raw power difference. Dimitri scaling to Byleth/Sothis has him outdo every physical feat Guts could scale to. Dimitri really just needs one good hit, while the same can’t be said for Guts. Sure, Guts is faster, but not by enough to matter, and Dimitri’s abilities such as Swordbreaker means that Guts is going to have a very difficult time landing hits, whether or not they’d do good damage. 

But just limiting it to raw power isn’t interesting enough. Let’s talk about secondary advantages. While Fire Emblem’s weapon triangle isn’t present in Three Houses, there’s still an underlying detail that swords lose to lances even here due to the skills lance wielders get, like the aforementioned Swordbreaker. The thing about Dimitri is that he’s not limited to just lances, let alone merely Areadbhar. He also has access to swords, axes, bows, shields, and spiked gauntlets as well, and is proficient in all of them. To say less about the lightning magic and slight healing magic he has. He even imbues his lightning into his everyday attacks thanks to Three Hopes.

Versatility is in his corner by a long shot. Even if you just limit the two to their base weapons, the Dragonslayer and Areadbhar, Dimitri has a ton of special moves with special effects he can do with the Hero’s Relic as well as those that come with his innate lance proficiency that Guts doesn’t have. However, the Dragonslayer doesn’t break when swung. Dimitri’s weapons do get more and more brittle with attacks, and even more when they’re used for special attacks. Guts can swing his weapon forever, none the worse for wear. Thing is, Dimitri has to hit Guts enough to break his weapons, and the fight won’t last long enough for even one weapon to go kaput, let alone all of them.

And while Guts has probably seen more varied opponents in the long run, in a single battle, Dimitri has seen everything Guts has to offer. Sword? Check. Cannons? Check. Bombs? Check. Healing pouches? Check. Even very powerful armor? There’s Jeritza the Death Knight for that (not to oversell Death Knight’s armor. It’s a far cry from the Berserker Armor in terms of efficiency; what this is getting at is that despite Berserker Armor being more of a boost than what Dimitri has seen, Dimitri still has seen it before). All of this, Dimitri can see and kill in a single map. Meanwhile Guts has never been in a fight where everything Dimitri has was thrown at him at once. But speaking of armor, let’s bring that up.

The Berserker Armor. It’s a massive boon to Guts. It makes him even more agile, keeps his body together as it’s pierced over and amps his stats on top of that. But the thing is, Dimitri has counters for that. Guy in armor is a very dated class in Fire Emblem. And there are set counters to them, even with just limiting Dimitri to lances. The Heavy Spear does extra damage to armored units, as well as the Armorslayer for swords and the Hammer (and the weaker Mace) for axes. Even if Dimitri is just stuck with Areadbhar, that gives him access to Atrocity, his signature skill, which also does extra damage to armored units. Wearing the Berserker Armor for Guts is a double edged sword in this scenario.

Finally, let’s touch on the general abilities in Dimitri’s favor. Because he’s a JRPG character (even if it’s a Strategy JRPG), he’s got stat buffs and debuffs galore. Several of his combat skills have elemental properties that can be a real disadvantage to Guts. Not just the aforementioned lightning but also ice attacks. And with attacks, Dimitri can afford to be a ranged fighter. Due to Counterattack, all of Guts’ ranged options can and will backfire on him. While it’s not super in character for Dimitri to play at range, the issue is he still can, and he’s still smart enough to use that to his advantage.

Even without Counterattack, Dimitri has better and more varied ranged options. While in terms of launch speed, a repeater crossbow is better than a traditional bow, it doesn’t outdo Dimitri raising the Levin Sword or using Thunder. And with Dimitri’s Venin weapons would poison Guts from merely touching him. Even if they don’t pierce Guts. Even if they merely touch the Berserker Armor, he’d be poisoned. While poison isn’t as debilitating in Fire Emblem as it is in other JRPGs, such as Pokémon or Final Fantasy, the gradual overtime damage is still a very annoying, prevalent thing. Guts’s pain tolerance could help him as it’s not fatal in Three Houses, but being weakened against someone stronger and just as savage as him would be a horrible situation for anyone. It’d be cured over time but Dimitri can just… do it again.

All in all, this fight was a decisive one. Dimitri had all he needed to…eclipse Guts in the fight. The Black Swordsman may have been faster, but the King of Faergus didn’t give a Puck about that. Guts found himself at the business end of a Blaiddyd weapon. It was an Azure-fire victory. Guts may have been tenacious and an excellent fighter, but once he ran into Dimitri, he was left with his guts hanging out.

The winner is Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd.

Final Tally

Team Guts (3) - Hippo, JunoSucksAtStuff, Tsubori

Team Dimitri (20) - Cyber, Dragon, greymerlion, ishi_yuki, KetherOfQadmon, Kirbonic Pikmin, Kobuddy, MKF4, Noah, Pasbros, Resident Joe, Retro, Rina, Shadow7615, Soma, TheoryCrafter, Therealcalhoward, TrexGamer, 2ShyShy, Uni

(Credit for the art used in this winners image goes to Danhu Moon)

Just Before We Go…

So we ended up finishing this blog up pretty quickly. What can we say? Our volunteers were especially enthusiastic and these characters aren’t too complicated. Additionally, incidentally, we happen to be coming up on the halfway point of the season, the time when there would normally be a mid-season break filled with bonus blogs. Of course, there won’t be a break this year… but we’re feeling especially ambitious, so we’ve decided to kick off a new mid-season project right now anyway.

That is to say, one project, singular. While you can rest assured that we’ll be working on blogs for the next couple of episodes, as usual, we’ll also be working on a bonus blog alongside them, which we vaguely plan to release around the time of episode 9 or 10, or whenever it gets finished. If you’re wondering why we’re planning to spend several waiting periods on one bonus blog… well, let’s just say this one is rather “big”. We’ll let the trailer speak for itself.