“Revenge is barren of itself: it is the dreadful food it feeds on; its delight is murder, and its end is despair.” - Friedrich Schiller
Kratos, the vengeful Ghost of Sparta.
Asura, the fallen Demigod of Wrath.
The brutality of life can sometimes be frightening, but it is at its scariest when gods act as its puppeteers. When those of undeserved standing hold all the power, the innocent will be tortured and the foolish manipulated. But it is the angry who will tear apart the strings that bind them for the sake of climbing their own threads to reach their gods, and choke them with their own binds. It is the angry who will be even scarier than the puppet masters. It is the angry who will act wild and uncontrollable. But it is those who are more than their wrath that can truly see what matters, and acknowledge what they can and should do for the sake of others.
We have examined Kratos and Asura before, but it’s time for a second round as they take to the big stage. Will Kratos come out on top of this final war, or will Asura’s wrath win him the rematch? There’s only one way to find out: a DEATH BATTLE!
Before We Start…
Asura is a lot easier to cover for multiple reasons, so we’ll start with him. For Asura, we’ll be including his main game, its extra DLCs (you can argue the canonicity of the Street Fighter crossover episode, but Asura doesn’t have much content anyways), and the Asura’s Wrath manga adaptation (which is now properly translated! It’s a good read so give it a shot) which will be used as supporting evidence for main game implications.
Kratos on the other hand is a very content heavy character. We will factor in the Greek games and the Norse games. We will also include the novelizations and guidebooks for both additional content and context.
To get the elephant out of the room, we will not be covering his Greek-only arsenal and powers. While they are a staple to his character, they cannot and have not coexisted with his Norse arsenal, which is what is standard for the character at the moment. While this is a debatable topic because of the importance and prevalence of Kratos’ Greek only equipment and powers, the majority of the members of our blog team decided to stick to the Norse side of things only. Though there will be a specific thing covered later in the form of the Blade of Olympus, with more elaboration about the weapon in Before The Verdicts. Of course, we acknowledge that many people might have clicked on this blog expecting to see Greek stuff, and the official Death Battle episode does seem to be going into some Greek-only gear. Thus we feel it is appropriate to link our 2023 blog of this match, which does contain Greek gear. So if you want to learn more about Greek gear specifically, look for the Greek gear on that blog.
On a closing note, we will be reusing some calculations from our 2023 blog on Kratos VS Asura. Key word, some, we will elaborate on this later. We will also be copy-pasting some of the more RPG focused coverage of Kratos like his different Skill Tree techniques and armors from the last blog for the sake of not making our team go through several hours of game arsenal research again when said research was already done properly. We are aware that there are flaws in the original 2023 project (though to note, the Greek only gear listed there is fine, so no issues if you want to learn about that), including some copy-pasting shenanigans for some VS oriented topics. We promise that the more VS oriented coverage in this new blog has all been written from scratch.
The big thing that we will NOT be doing is including ANY social media information. This is to say, statements made on Twitter or Facebook posts, or email communications with game developers and other things of the sort. This type of evidence is very prominent in God of War power-scaling debates, and there are a few reasons we won’t be using it. Not only are these types of correspondence much easier to fabricate and reviewed less stringent than in-game information, they’re also a major source of contention in terms of being usable in the first place. There’s a notion that’s become especially prominent recently that all of Kratos’ scaling is reliant on such statements, and that there’s a major distinction between “Twitter Kratos” and “actual Kratos”.
Devs themselves like Bruno Velasquez do contradict their own statements, confirming the cosmic scale of Greek divinities in one response then disagreeing with that in the next, even to the point of misremembering plot points like the Spartans surviving GoWII thanks to Kratos' time travel intervention. Because of these contentious aspects, we’ll simply be doing away with such things and focusing exclusively on in-game and officially published sources, to determine whether his feats and arguments stand on their own or not.
Sources
View here for GOW1 and 2 PS2 Manuals, GOW1&2 Artbook, GOW1 Prima Guide, GOW2018 Artbook and Lore & Legends, GOW2018 Prima. GoW3 Game Guide. Comic for Fallen God. Novelization of GOW 1, 2, and 2018. The art of God of War 2018. Artbooks for Ragnarok and GOW 2 can be found on Youtube. Imgur collecting all item descriptions from Ragnarok here. God of War: The Lost Pages of Norse Myth linked here.
View here for Asura’s Wrath Game Extras, the Official Artworks book, the Asura’s Wrath Kai manga (and the Japanese Raw), and the Limited Edition Artbook. Collection of Perfect Artworks book material here. Article that has the full Asura’s Wrath Penny Arcade comic. 3 Hour long play of the Asura’s Wrath Pachinko game.
Background
Preview images by Blue Igneous.
Kratos
“No more. No more. For the sake of our children. We must be better.”
Blood. Fire. Agony. A battlefield was coated in all of it, and at the center stood a barbarian over a Spartan warrior. As a last ditch act, he yelled to the God of War to save him in exchange for his life, gaining power and victory at the cost of his freedom. An exchange that would soon taint his soul, as his rampage in the name of the God of War cost him his wife and child. Coated with their ashes, this ghost would serve the Gods of Olympus in an attempt at penance, but his fury remained. He would save the world from the God of War who binded him and stole his throne, but his pain remained. He would go on to wage war against Olympus for wronging him, but the ashes on his skin remained. Kratos, the Ghost of Sparta, remained in turmoil.
Kratos simply could not find joy. Despite the pleasures he enjoyed, his godly activities in the name of War made his conflict with Olympus unavoidable. He would cross sea, sky, and hell to reclaim his godly powers, battling Zeus to claim vengeance for the thunder God’s misdeeds. But as he tried to strike down the God of Thunder, his own father (a reveal Kratos could not really care about), Athena took the blow for him. The one god who tried to help Kratos, even if it wasn’t in the best way. Kratos would join the titans, and begin an extensive war against Olympus, ending with the deaths of several members of the Greek Pantheon.
The seas roared, pestilence flew at every corner, not a light could be seen in the sky, and at the peak of the world near the corpse of the mother of the world herself, Kratos finally struck down Zeus. As the final God of Olympus perished, Kratos looked around at the new world he had built through anger. The God of Thunder and the world he ruled over was dead, and the only thing that grew was Kratos’ guilt. Even after releasing hope to the remains of the world, he was still surrounded by the consequences of his actions at every corner. He simply could not remain…
The man was chopping down trees in a forest with his son, Atreus. His deceased wife had wished for the marked trees to be cut down following her death. Following her burial, the man was visited by a strange half naked man. After a poor interrogation to say the least, the man and Atreus had to leave their home now, leaving it with the goal to spread the man’s ashes at the highest peak in the nine Norse realms. Their journey led to them meeting many characters, including a revived talking head named Mimir, all of them providing more pleasant experiences than the man expected. But he would also run into dangerous enemies, which were almost as much of a challenge as connecting to his son despite his tragic past.
As they approached the end of their journey, Atreus discovering his godhood and the man slowly accepting his past, they ran into conflict with the visitor one more time. As he fell to the ground dead by the man’s hands, he and Atreus finally spread his wife’s ashes at the peak of Jotunheim. Kratos had accepted his past, but the murder of a Norse God could not go down lightly. Especially with the growing mystery of his wife Faye’s past, and what it and the prophecies correlated to her meant for Atreus. Conflict with Thor and Odin would soon arrive during Ragnarok, where Kratos nearly leaned back into his violence, and disconnected from Atreus. But these signs of failure were not defining who Kratos was, or rather, could be. He saved the realms, defeated Odin, and as Atreus left to fulfill his purpose, he saw something he could not believe he would ever receive: worship.
One day, Kratos and Mimir would receive a mysterious invitation. For the chance to get away from the Goddess Freya due to her request of him being a new God of the Norse pantheon, he went where the invitation prompted. To his surprise, the invitation would be from the former Norse God of War Tyr, telling Kratos to venture into the depths of Valhalla. There he would quite literally face his past, leading to reflection on his several errors. Could he really be a just God? Were his good deeds in the Norse world enough to clear his sins? No. But they did not have to. By his side he had great friends in Mimir and Freya, support from the Valkyries, the praise of the entire Norse world. Tyr helped him see that even at his lowest, even at his angriest and most guilty during the destruction of Olympus, he still could do good. He still did, when he gave the remains of the Greek world hope. Kratos sat at the edge of Valhalla with Mimir. He had made his mistakes and experienced great shame, and yet he had helped make a better world. The new Norse God of War and Hope may be coated in his own sins, but Kratos is so much more than he ever believed he could be. Safe to say, he’s earned the right to sit for a while.
Asura
“Is this what gods do!? There is no need...for gods that only take...! For gods of death!”
Life for the humans of Gaea is a troubled one. While the planet might initially seem normal at first, it is in truth host to a host of vile, impure beings known as the Gohma, hideous monsters that will wipe out all life if unchecked. Cycle after cycle, the Gohma rise, with the might of their creator, Vlitra, threatening all. But they are always beaten back into submission by the power of the Demigods, incredible beings that guard over humanity and are capable of wielding the energy of Mantra. Armed with the prayers of humans, the Demigods are capable of tapping into this power, beating back the Gohma cycle after cycle. And amongst these Demigods, there exist the mightiest of them all, the Eight Guardian Generals. These generals come in all shapes and sizes, each one also holding a Mantra Affinity. These affinities are specifically known as Pride, Vanity, Greed, Lust, Melancholy, Sloth, Violence, and Wrath. The wielder of each one is different but in the case of Wrath, it is held in the hands of the Guardian General Asura.
As one of the Demigods who lives to take down the Gohma, Asura would eventually find himself directly on the front lines against the despicable beings to try and terminate them forever, even going up against Vlitra directly. To his credit, Asura was outright victorious over the monster, knocking Vlitra back into submission for a time, though this unfortunately meant that it was not dead and would ultimately return once again in the future. But nevertheless, this victory was worth commending, and Asura was able to return safely to his family, his wife Durga, the sister of fellow General Yasha, and of course his daughter, Mithra, the priestess. While Asura’s fury and rage were always notable, with his family, he could be calmer and at peace, genuinely experiencing true happiness with the love and care his family gave him and that he in turn gave back. But this was not to last, for in going to meet the Emperor Strada, Asura was wrongly framed for the crime of murdering him, and ultimately betrayed by his fellow generals. The Eight Guardian Generals slaughtered Durga, took Mithra captive for their purposes, and their leader, Deus, slaughtered Asura personally. Dropped down to the world below, it appeared that Asura’s wrath… was extinguished.
But Deus had made a critical mistake in this, for while Asura was killed, he clung on to the pillars of Naraka, and would ultimately return to the world of the living while goaded on by a mysterious Golden Spider in this bizarre world. But this was not without costs. His memories were hazed, and it took 12,000 years for him to return, and the time taken was not used idly by the other generals. Now collecting Mantra directly through surrendered human souls, the Demigods were causing devastation to humanity that rivaled even the work of the Gohma, and it did not take long for Asura’s fury and rage to be rekindled, spurred on with the determination to wipe out the wretched beings that had wronged him and his family so long ago for so twisted a purpose. One by one, Asura would battle the Seven Deities, killing several of them and even returning from the realm of Naraka a few more times. His wrath was so complete and insatiable that not even death itself was capable of holding him back anymore, and as the battles progressed, the tables would continue to turn against the Seven Deities as more and more of them fell in battle.
Ultimately, Asura would triumph in claiming vengeance over those who betrayed him, but more good than just that would come from his numerous battles. He would come to be capable of forging friendships and respect for others again, and not all of his enemies would remain exactly that. While the majority of the Seven Deities remained with their dark cause, Asura’s brother-in-law Yasha would similarly turn against the others in disgust for their misuse of the human souls, and their actions would truly begin to change the world forever. Deus and the Seven Deities would be crushed, and even Vlitra would die, permanently this time. The enemies of Asura were destroyed. Or rather, all but one.
The Golden Spider from Naraka would return and reveal its true nature as none other than Chakravartin, the creator of Mantra. As it turned out, all of Asura’s suffering, the immense conflicts and pain that had been gone through in so many ways, was actually all Chakravartin’s doing, as a way to find a new god to rule over the world. But again filled with rage at this cruel deed, Asura refused the offer, and would ultimately rise through more challenges to do battle with the creator directly. Chakravartin’s might was impossible to overcome normally, but even this deity was incapable of defeating the all-consuming rage that Asura held, and despite all of the odds being stacked against him, Asura triumphed. But without Chakravartin, Asura could no longer be, and he soon died shortly after his final victory. However, this did not come about before Asura could rescue his dear daughter for good, saving Mithra at long last and ensuring her safety for all time to come.
She would live on to share her father’s story and exploits, the tales of his battles, his wrath, and his love for his family. And Asura would depart peacefully, finally free to reunite with his wife for good in the afterlife. Even ages into the future when Asura, his friends, family, and enemies have reincarnated, Asura’s wrath lives on in his new form, ready and willing to fight on for his family and to crush all those who would dare endanger them. So while Asura’s wrath is certainly a force that overcame even the almighty, in his final moments, Asura had peace and calm at last. In saving the world from its miserable cycles of constant battle, undoing the corruption of the Seven Deities, saving his daughter, even making amends with his brother-in-law, the fury and wrath of Asura ultimately pushed for the better of humankind. Truly, one could say that Asura’s story is not just one of anger and vengeance, but of overcoming such trials, and of a life well lived.
Experience & Skill
Kratos
Ever since he was born, Kratos has seen nothing but combat, and it shows. Sparta was a warrior people after all, and Kratos was absolutely the best warrior they’ve ever made. He knows multiple Greek martial arts, mainly specializing in heavy kicks, grapples, and cross punches. This expertise led to him taking out multiple Spartan warriors as just a kid, and armies as an adult. He is also an expert in wilderness survival, navigation, and armed combat. He is also a master of every weapon he has ever wielded!
It is not like Kratos has faced a small variety of opponents either. In over a century of conflicts, he has faced soldiers, demons, undead, trolls, undead trolls, mystical eye demons, wizards, witches, sentient magic, just about every Greek God under the sun (and Helios), and just about every God of Asgard. If you can name some sort of element, he has endured it. Some sort of weapon, he has defended from it. Some sort of tactic, more likely than not he went against it.
It is not like Kratos relies on preconceived knowledge either. He is an expert at exploiting enemy weak points, being able to find cracks to break down against stronger foes. His analysis is so superb that he could even outpace Heimdall through his sheer skill, with the assistance of Draupnir, someone who can quite literally see the future. Granted, you can argue Kratos simply attacked faster than Heimdall could move, but Kratos’ adaptability cannot be understated regardless. He is a master warrior, and it would be hard to find someone more fitting of the role of God of War.
In addition to his established skill, Kratos also has a multitude of hand to hand and shield based techniques he can use to pressure foes.
Block Break: A shield bash to make blocking enemies drop their guard.
Countering Strike: A last-second block lets Kratos hit back with a shield strike.
Countering Crush: Same as above, but takes the form of a slam on the ground instead.
Countering Blast: A last-second block against projectiles that absorbs the hit and returns it to sender.
Guardian Sweep: An attack where Kratos attacks an opponent's legs, sweeping them off their feet.
Guardian’s Justice: A heavy shield slam that deals large amounts of stun damage.
Guardian’s Judgement: A follow-up attack to which adds a concussive blast to the end.
Agile Strike: Performs a quick attack while leaning forward while evading.
Haymaker Crush: Performs a running haymaker attack while sprinting.
Shoulder Barrage: A powerful running shoulder bash to knock enemies back.
Guardian’s Revenge: A stance switch type move that performs a strong uppercut before slamming the enemy back down.
Guardian’s Fury: Another stance switch move that performs a leaping shield attack that can be followed up by a slam attack.
Asura
Long before his betrayal, Asura was taught how to fight by Augus, learning skills such as how to analyze and predict incoming enemy attacks or mitigate enemy blows and make a quick recovery. Though he never quite measured up to Augus during these initial training sessions, Asura was deemed a quick learner nonetheless, and he would only grow to become more skilled with time. The skills he gained in these training sessions were put to good use against the Gohma, as shown by Asura repeatedly dismantling entire hordes of them with incredible skill and grace. As one of the Eight Guardian Generals, Asura had a platoon of soldiers at his beck and call, though he’s always been more of a solo fighter than a proper tactician.
Despite what you might think given his status as a rage-fueled berserker, Asura is perfectly capable of fighting defensively, making note of an enemy’s attacks and countering them when given the opportunity. He can weave through a foe’s legs before leaping up to dropkick them in the head, disarm weapon-wielding enemies and use their own armaments against them, and… well, we’ll let this one speak for itself. One of his favorite tricks is punching away or grabbing an enemy’s ranged attack, returning them to sender. Even when stuck in frozen time, Asura can still read his opponent’s moves and counterattack the instant time unfreezes.
One of Asura’s greatest assets in combat is his incredible agility. He’s capable of performing multiple backflips in a single leap, platforming from chunks of stone falling through the air, or literally punching himself into orbit. While he can’t really “fly” in a traditional sense, his midair mobility is practically unmatched, letting him weave between dozens of attacks at once or easily tear apart airborne Gohma. In one particular physics-defying example, he stopped Wyzen’s punch midair and, despite having nothing to push off of, somehow redirected his momentum so that he launched Wyzen into the air, before leaping up to meet him by pushing off of… nothing.
While he’s more of a straight up brawler than anything, Asura is no slouch when it comes to improvised weaponry. In his final duel with Augus, he was able to disarm his former master (while literally disarmed himself), grab hold of his blade with his teeth, and cut clean through him. After that, he proceeded to slice through an army of Gohma despite never having any formal training in swordfighting.
Across the series, Asura has showcased miscellaneous feats of incredible skill, such as fighting off an army of one hundred million soldiers on his own, dodging a Lunatic 1CC’s worth of spears raining down on him, battling while falling towards the ground at high speeds, reacting to foes teleporting behind him, or deflecting dozens of lasers coming at him from all angles. While he prefers to get up close and personal with his enemies, his skills are no less sharp when at a distance, letting him strike down Gohma from kilometers away with pinpoint accuracy, or even shoot down incoming missiles. Even when his arms are severed and he’s outmatched in every regard, he’s able to hold his own against more skilled opponents such as Yasha, and ultimately land a telling blow on him. Don’t think his rage gets in the way of his skill, either; In his berserk state, he was still able to go blow-for-blow with Yasha, putting the demigod on the back foot until he gained a considerable boost in power. Even being forced to rip apart dozens of soldiers designed to look exactly like Durga and Mithra isn’t enough to slow Asura down.
In the manga, he - alongside Yasha - battled against Sergei and his enormous mecha, Rakshasa. The pair were initially getting stomped, due to the mech’s unique ability to analyze all of a person’s movements and capabilities, on top of possessing Kalrow’s intellect, Augus’ power, and Sergei’s own speed, all massively enhanced from the originals. Of course, it didn’t take long for the duo to catch up anyways, eventually blitzing and easily overpowering Rakshasa despite its analysis determining that it must be faster.
Of course, it bears mentioning that Asura has also traded blows with skilled martial artists like Ryu from Streets and Akuma. During these fights, he showed the ability to copy some of their trademark techniques like the Shoryuken - One particularly notable example is Asura learning how to use the Raging Demon while in the midst of parrying it. By the time Akuma tried the same trick against him, Asura could read nearly all of his moves and counter them, rendering the technique moot.
Equipment
Kratos
Quick Explanation on Stats & Statuses
In both God of War 2018 and God of War Ragnarok, RPG-esque elements were implemented a lot more into God of War gameplay. Various potentially unfamiliar terms may be addressed in the coming sections, so we will provide a sort of glossary here explaining what all of these terms actually mean.
Strength: Increases damage for all standard attacks.
Runic: Increases damage for Runic and Elemental attacks.
Defense: Reduces all types of damage taken.
Vitality: Determines how much health Kratos has, and the higher the stat, the more the flinch reaction Kratos receives from enemy attacks is decreased.
Luck: The higher the stat, the more XP and currency Kratos receives from defeating enemies. A few abilities use this as a basis for activation.
Cooldown: The higher the stat, the less time it takes for Kratos to reuse Runic Attacks and Talisman abilities.
“Health Burst”: When this is activated, Kratos recovers a specific amount of health. These can also be activated from Healthstones Kratos finds on the ground.
“Rage Burst”: When this is activated, Kratos receives a notable increase to his rage meter (more details later). These can also be activated from Ragestones Kratos finds on the ground.
Frost: When applied, this effect slows down the movement of the enemies. Moreover, if an enemy is slowed down due to this effect, Kratos can use Frost damage to Freeze them in no time.
Burn: The Burn status effects apply fiery damage over time to enemies.
Weakness: A decrease to enemy attacking stats.
Hex: A status effect that increases the strength of other present statuses.
Daze: Afflicted targets become dizzy, unable to move for a time.
Poison: Afflicted enemies suffer from lower stats.
Bifrost: Builds up Bifrost charge with hits. While harmless on its own and will pass over time, subsequent hits can cause the built up Bifrost to explode and deal damage.
Stun Damage: In GoW 2018 and Ragnarok, all enemies have a stun gauge that increases with successful hits. When full, the enemy is stunned. Enemies are then prone to “stun grabs” where Kratos usually performs a finisher or instant kill, but stronger enemies and bosses usually get damaged or lose a chunk of health (latter likely being game mechanics).
There are two other terms in God of War Ragnarok known as Shock and Stun, but Kratos has no means by which to apply these conditions himself without the aid of allies.
Blades of Chaos
Twin blades each chained to one of Kratos's arms, cursed to follow him by none other than Athena herself. Kratos states in one of his boat conversations in Ragnarok the blades would always return to him no matter how he tried to get rid of them, and Surtr himself noted the flames seem to be primordial in nature. Notably, the Blades can burn in Helheim, a realm where nothing in the Norse cosmos can create a fire. But that fire isn't just for the cool factor, the blades themselves give Kratos access to a myriad of ways to use the element for combat. These blades are pretty, fire, as the kids say.
Skill Tree Attacks (Technique Skills)
Flame Whiplash I-II: Kratos spins the Blades and charges them. The second level can be instantly charged, in game this takes the form of using the ability button after any attack.
Scorched Sweep I-III: Light Flame Whiplash attack that does a large sweep and applies burn damage. Creates a wave of fire if fully charged. Higher upgrades increase burn damage and the fire’s waves damage and size.
Vaporized Frost: Deals bonus damage to frozen enemies.
Furious Immolation: If the Immolation gauge is full, it can be consumed to enhance the Blades, granting explosions at the end of all melee attacks that build Kratos’ rage meter.
Scorched Earth I-III: Heavy Flame Whiplash attack that adds a slam that causes a burning explosion and fire hazard. Levels 2 and 3 deal more damage and increase the length of the hazard.
Skill Tree Attacks (Ranged Skills)
Hyperion Grapple I-II: Instead of pulling, Kratos launches himself towards enemies, causing large amounts of stun. Level 2 sends sparks out that can hit enemies behind the target.
Blazing Surge: Enemies impaled with Hyperion Pull can instead be hit with an exploding spark sent down the chain, dealing burn damage and launching some.
Blazing Explosion I-II: Can impale the other blade for a second blast. Level 2 of this ability increases blast radius.
Skill Tree Attacks (Melee Skills)
Rushing Chaos: While sprinting, Kratos can execute a powerful double-slash attack that staggers enemies.
Rising Fury/Rising Chaos: Kratos performs a powerful attack that launches enemies into the air.
Plume of Chaos: During the second-to-last attack of a traditional combo, Kratos can put in extra force for an extra heavy combo finisher.
Whirling Chaos: Kratos can perform a powerful attack that strikes all enemies around him.
Chaos Slam: While sprinting, Kratos can leap into the air and perform a powerful chain-slam attack.
Spinning Chaos/Spinning Chaos Strike: While evading, Kratos can lean forward and attack to perform a leaping spin attack.
Retreating Slash: While evading, Kratos can lean back and attack all enemies in a large radius in front of him.
Chaotic Rampage: Kratos can switch offensive and defensive stances by pausing momentarily after any Blades of Chaos attack. Once in a new stance, he can perform an extra quick flurry of close-range attacks. In Ragnarok, this skill can be enhanced through three stages.
Chaotic Frenzy: A technique that increases the number of strikes in the Chaotic Rampage attack.
Chaotic Flurry: Just like for the Chaos Rampage attack, Kratos switches stances. Once in a new stance, he can perform an explosive triple-stab dash attack.
Chaotic Concussion: Kratos can perform a powerful follow-up stab that plants a detonating bomb on any enemies hit, inflicting additional burning damage, after performing the Chaotic Flurry technique.
Evasive Embers: While evading backwards, Kratos can send a shower of sparks that burn enemies.
Plume of Chaos: Adds a heavy attack finisher at the end of his light combo that launches and deals burn damage.
Skill Tree Attacks (Elemental Combat)
Spear of Chaos: Kratos aims at an enemy before stabbing them from a distance via his blade and chain, before pulling them close up next to Kratos.
Elemental Slash: Kratos focuses on the area around him before performing a large sweeping attack around the battlefield that inflicts additional burn damage.
Furious Immolation: A skill that increases the speed at which the Immolation skill increases power.
Elemental Charge: By charging up the Blades of Chaos, Kratos can deal additional Burn damage when performing the Elemental Slash attack.
Elemental Explosion: A skill that increases the size, damage, and Burn damage inflicted by the Elemental Surge technique.
Engulfing Spear: A skill which causes the Spear of Chaos attack to cause a small explosion on impact, resulting in additional Burn damage.
Elemental Overcharge: By charging the Blades even further, Kratos can increase the strength of the Elemental Slash technique even further for a large increase in Burn damage across a greater range.
Light Runic Attacks
Cyclone of Chaos: A circling sweep attack that clears out all nearby enemies.
Nemean Crush: A massive shockwave attack that sends all enemies flying back.
Rampage of the Furies: A robust flurry attack that ends in a powerful slam.
Rage of the Titans: A rapid blade attack that ends in a devastating swipe that launches enemies into the air.
Icarus Storm: A spinning attack that hits all enemies along its path.
Wrath of Artemis: A slash attack that protects Kratos by pushing away all nearby enemies.
Blast of Hephaestus: A quick, fiery blast of energy that inflicts a small amount of Burn damage.
Spartan Charge: A dash attack that slams enemies with a fiery shield and inflicts a small amount of Burn damage.
Flames of Anguish: An uppercut that launches enemies and creates a fiery geyser. Upgrades increase the number of eruptions.
Hades Retribution: A stab with the blades that embeds a fiery bomb, which explodes after a brief delay. Upgrades add more stabs that embed more bombs.
Helios Flare: Creates a fire bolt that is thrown at enemies. Upgrades let it charge up, increase explosion radius, and set off secondary explosions.
Heavy Runic Attacks
Tartarus Rage: A destructive slam attack that hits enemies with two blade slams.
Prometheus Flame: A deadly slam attack that creates a small tear under up to 4 enemies before summoning a large pillar of flame beneath them.
Hyperion Slam: A massive slam attack that causes a destructive explosion
Hyperion Grapple: Tosses the Blades of Chaos towards an enemy and on contact, launches Kratos towards them to inflict a large amount of Stun damage.
Meteoric Slam: A powerful slam attack that rains down fire in a wide arc, inflicting heavy Burn damage.
Gift of Apollo: Temporarily enhance the Blades of Chaos so that every hit gives Kratos a small amount of Health.
Nemean Crush: Creates a fiery shockwave that sends enemies flying back. Upgrades add an explosive mortar volley.
Atlas Eruption: Repeatedly slams the blades into the ground, creating several explosions.
Tame the Beast: A series of blade whips that scorch targets.
Blade Pommels
Wooden Blade Grips: Crude wooden blade grips.
Deadly Grips of Fury: Low Perk activation chance to grant a Rage Burst upon any successful hit.
Deadly War Handles: Low Perk activation chance to grant a Gift of Strength upon any successful kill.
Precision Recovery Handles: Moderate Perk activation chance to grant a Blessing of Cooldown upon successfully landing Spear of Chaos on an airborne enemy.
Precision Grips of Fortification: Moderate Perk activation chance to grant a Gift of Defense upon successfully landing Spear of Chaos on an airborne enemy.
Precision War Handles: Moderate Perk activation chance to grant a Gift of Strength upon successfully landing Spear of Chaos on an airborne enemy.
Deadly Recovery Handles: Low Perk activation chance to grant a Blessing of Cooldown upon any successful kill.
Deadly Grips of Magic: Low Perk activation chance to grant a Blessing of Runic upon any successful kill.
Deadly Grips of Protection: Low Perk activation chance to grant a Gift of Defense upon any successful kill.
Weightless War Handles: Moderate Perk activation chance to grant a Gift of Strength upon successfully landing Rising Fury on an enemy.
Weightless Grips of Protection: Moderate Perk activation chance to grant Protective Barrier, preventing damage from enemy attacks, upon successfully landing Rising Fury on an enemy.
Deadly Grips of Vitality: Low Perk activation chance to grant a Health Burst upon any successful kill.
Grips of the Forgotten Flame: Moderate Perk activation chance upon any successful hit to grant Aura of Fire, increasing Strength and restoring a small amount of Health.
Explosive Grips of Fire: Low Perk activation chance to strike with a fiery explosion that inflicts Burn damage to all nearby enemies upon any successful Blades hit.
Grips of Cursed Flame: Low Perk Activation chance to plant a three-second delayed fire bomb on enemies upon any successful Blades hit.
Blightguard: Low Perk activation chance to strike with an explosive curse that inflicts Weakness to enemies upon any successful hit.
Grips of the Valkyrie: Low Perk activation chance upon any successful Blades hit to grant Power of the Valkyrie, increasing Strength and Runic (stacks up to three times max).
Steel Handles: Basic steel handles that grant a small strength increase.
Pommels of the Nine Realms: Activating Furious Immolation while the gauge is full triggers a Realm Shift, slowing down time.
Pommels of the True Flame: While the Immolation skill gauge is full, increases the damage of the Blades’ Runic Attacks.
Cursed Empress Handles: Low luck based chance on any successful hit to increase Kratos’ strength and runic attack power.
Pommels of Burning Unity: Increases the rate at which the Blades inflict the burn status. Also increases Immolation charge gained when striking a burned enemy.
Luminous Recovery Handles: Flame Whiplash hits have a moderate luck based chance to grant a blessing of cooldown.
Hardened War Handles: Hyperion Grapple and Hyperion Pull skills do extra damage and stun damage.
Pommels of Agile Deceit: The Spinning Chaos and Evasive Embers skills do more damage and apply more Burn.
Pommels of Brutal Might: Stun Grabbing an enemy grants a gift of strength.
Radiant Warden Handles: While charging Flame Whiplash, incoming projectiles are deflected.
Pommels of the Undying Spark: The Burn status inflicts more damage on enemies.
Deadly Obsidian Handles: Grant a small strength increase.
Darkdale Handles: Enemies killed with Flame Whiplash cause a Burn Shockwave and increase Burn status inflicted for a time.
Leviathan Axe
An Axe made by the Dwarf brothers Brok and Sindri for Faye, she passed it along to Kratos to carry before she died. The Axe is stated by Brok to be a match for Mjolnir. The Axe was later imbued with The World Serpent’s poison, Eitr, after being thrown into the Lake of Nine. With the poison, it's implied to be able to create wounds that can stop healing, as Thor during his first battle with Kratos gained a scar on his belly that did not heal all game. The axe can completely freeze whatever he throws it at, can return to him much like Mjolnir (sans finger snaps), and can channel numerous forms of ice magic. You can say it's quite the cool choice of weaponry. The clashing of Laufey's Leviathan Axe with Thor's Mjölnir tore apart many poor souls in the Vanaheim Crater Area (See Verdicts for this aspect).
Skill Tree Attacks (Ranged Combat)
Freezing Throw I-II: Kratos can aim at enemies and perform a heavy throw that freezes smaller enemies while causing a small icy explosion to hit others.
Freezing Burst: Kratos can aim at enemies and charge up the Leviathan Axe before performing a heavy throw that causes a Frost inflicting explosion upon contact.
Precision Throw Combo: By previously striking a weak point with an axe throw, Kratos can immediately call back the axe to power up the next throw, with said next throw resulting in an even larger icy explosion inflicting Frost damage, with the skill Precision Frost Burst increasing the size of this explosion even further.
Returning Whirlwind: Upon calling back the Leviathan Axe, Kratos can immediately perform a quick spinning attack.
Returning Storm: Upon calling back the Leviathan Axe, Kratos can immediately perform a quick slam attack.
Vengeful Sickle I-II: By charging up the Leviathan Axe, Kratos can cause it to continuously spin and slice enemies multiple times when thrown.
Skill Tree Attacks (Melee Combat)
Executioner’s Cleave: By focusing his strength, Kratos can attack with a brutal cleaving axe attack that deals massive damage.
Grinding Storm: Kratos can perform a spinning axe attack that hits enemies multiple times and locks them down.
Permafrost: By performing attacks in quick succession without sustaining damage, Kratos can power up the Leviathan Axe temporarily while also making it inflict Frost on each hit. The skill Glacial Permafrost also increases the rate at which Permafrost increases strength.
Whirling Storm: While evading, Kratos can lean forward and perform a quick axe attack.
Frost Rush: After sprinting, Kratos can jump at his enemy and perform a quick but strong axe attack.
Evasive Storm: While evading, Kratos can lean back and perform a quick boomerang-like throw with the Leviathan Axe.
Leviathan’s Fury: After sprinting, Kratos can jump at his enemy and perform a slow but incredibly strong axe attack.
Whirlwind Throw: After switching between offensive and defensive stances, Kratos can throw his axe at an incredible speed.
Whirlwind Fury: After switching between offensive and defensive stances after delaying an attack, Kratos can perform a heavy ranged combo.
Skill Tree Attacks (Technique Skills)
Frost Awaken I-IV: Kratos can instantly imbue the Leviathan Axe with ice, resulting in the next hit dealt causing greatly increased Frost damage.
Frozen Breach: Kratos can use the enhancement from Frost Awaken to turn a light attack into a wide and devastating swing.
Frozen Spike: By throwing the Leviathan Axe with the power of Frost Awaken, Kratos can guarantee a Frost inducing explosion on impact.
Extinguish Flames: A skill that increases Leviathan Axe melee damage on Burn inflicted enemies.
Frozen Lance: By performing a heavy throw enhanced by Frost Awaken, Kratos can perform an extremely strong knocking back throw that inflicts Frost.
Light Runic Attacks
Njörd’s Tempest: A rapidly spinning melee attack that clears out surrounding enemies and deals significant damage.
Fury of the Ice Troll: A quick radial shockwave attack that slows enemies and sends them flying back.
Tyr’s Revenge: A powerful spinning attack against a single target, with a follow-up attack that slams the enemy to the ground.
Leviathan’s Wake: A quick, yet powerful axe throw which carves a path through enemies.
Charge of the White Bear: A quick, propulsive dash attack with a follow-up strike. Kratos is protected during the dash.
Wrath of the Frost Ancient: A powerful ice beam that slows all enemies on contact.
Strike of the Utgard: A wide-arcing attack that inflicts a moderate amount of Frost damage.
Hel’s Touch: An extremely quick burst of energy that interrupts and knocks back all nearby enemies.
Winter’s Bite: Kratos forms a mass of ice around the Leviathan Axe before running up to strike a target with incredible force.
Skadi’s Edge: A tracking axe throw done by marking targets beforehand.
Heavy Runic Attacks
Thiazi’s Talon: A propulsive slice attack that launches a small, vertical wave that inflicts medium Frost damage.
Ivaldi’s Anvil: A devastating area-of-effect attack that freezes all enemies caught in the blast radius.
Mists of Helheim: A lingering area-of-effect attack that creates a small hazard that inflicts Frost damage to all enemies inside.
Leviathan’s Roar: A powerful axe throw that blows straight through any enemies on its path.
Frost Giant’s Frenzy: 3 powerful slam attacks that will launch enemies and then send them flying.
Blessings of the Frost: Activate to temporarily power up the Leviathan Axe with small explosions of frost damage on every hit and slight bonus to Runic (the higher Kratos’ Runic stat, the stronger has Runic attacks) and normal attacks.
Breath of Thamur: A massive area of effect attack that deals damage to all enemies within an extremely large area.
The River of Knives: A destructive attack that sends out a line of ice shards that inflict frost damage and launch enemies into the air upon contact.
Fog of Fimbulwinter: A massive ice wave that inflicts Frost damage and freezes enemies in its path.
Axe Pommels
Wooden Grip: A basic crude wooden axe grip.
Weighted War Handle: High Perk activation chance to grant a Gift of strength upon any successful Executioner’s Cleave.
Curved Runic Handle: Low Perk activation chance to grant a Blessing of Runic upon any successful precision throw.
Weighted Recovery Handle: High Perk activation chance to grant a Blessing of Cooldown upon any successful Executioner’s Cleave.
Curved Recovery Handle: High Perk activation chance to grant a Blessing of Cooldown upon any successful precise axe throw.
Versatile Warrior’s Handle: Increases strength, defense, and luck stats.
Weighted Runic Handle: High Perk activation chance to grant a Blessing of Runic upon any successful Executioner’s Cleave.
Curved War Handle: High Perk activation chance to grant a Gift of Strength upon any successful precision throw.
Curved Grip of Fury: Low Perk activation chance to grant a Rage Burst upon any successful precision throw.
Light War Handle: High Perk activation chance to grant a Gift of Strength after launching an enemy into the air.
Light Grip of Protection: High Perk activation chance to summon a Protective Barrier temporarily, preventing damage from enemy attacks, after launching an enemy into the air.
Deadly Grip of Fury: Successful axe kills grant a Rage Burst.
Deadly Grip of Vitality: Successful axe kills grant a Health Burst.
Weighted Grip of Restoration: High Perk activation chance to grant a Health Burst upon any successful Executioner’s Cleave.
Curved Grip of Restoration: High Perk activation chance to grant a Health Burst upon any successful precise throw.
Ymir’s Breath: Low Perk activation chance to create a freezing explosion upon any successful axe hit.
Grip of Völunder: Very low Perk activation chance to grant a Protective Barrier temporarily, preventing damage from enemy attacks, upon any successful axe hit.
Grip of Tanngiost: Low Perk activation chance to strike with an explosion of lightning that inflicts electric damage to all nearby enemies upon any successful axe hit.
Forbidden Grip of the Ages: An ancient relic that increases all of Kratos’s Stats. Adds a concussive wave of energy to the end of a quick combo.
Hraezla Farmadr’s Grip: Low Perk activation chance to grant a Health Burst upon any successful axe hit.
Surtr’s Grip of Flame: Low Perk activation chance to grant Wrath of Flame upon any successful hit. Wrath of Flame greatly increases Strength, restores a small amount of Health, and fires a wave of energy on normal attacks.
Wing of the Fallen: Moderate Perk activation chance upon any successful kill to grant Power of the Valkyrie, an effect that increases Runic and Strength (Stacks up to 3 times max).
Blightbringer: Low Perk activation chance to strike with an explosive curse that inflicts Weakness to enemies upon any successful hit.
Grip of Weighted Recovery: Stun Grabbing an enemy provides a blessing of Cooldown.
Fortified Frost Knob: Using Frost Awaken increases defense and stagger resistance.
Grip of The Nine Realms: Activating Glacial Permafrost triggers a Realm Shift.
Grip of Radiant Reflection: Successful axe ranged attacks now generate charge of Permafrost, with successful precision throws generating even more.
Runic Hailstone Knob: Moderate chance upon hitting a frosted enemy to gain a blessing of Runic.
Banahogg Knob: Successful precision throws increase Bare-Handed attack damage for a duration.
Grip of Darkdale: Killing enemies with a Frost Awaken attack causes a Frost shockwave and re-Frost Awakens the axe.
Grip of The Fallen Alchemist: High Chance to grant a Health burst upon any successful hit with the Serpent’s Snare skill.
Grip of Healing Harmony: When the Permafrost skill gauge is fully charged, axe hits restore Health, but incoming damage is increased.
Stonecutter’s Knob: Adds a concussive wave to the end of a light axe combo.
Haur’s Lucky Knob: Moderate chance for any successful precision throw to cause a bonus Stun Blast.
The Furious Maul: Slayer’s Strength perk gives a high Luck chance to grant a Gift of Strength upon any kill with the axe.
Draupnir Spear
Kratos, upon meeting with the Norns, learns that Heimdall intends on killing Atreus. Heimdall, unfortunately, possesses the incredible ability to read a person’s intentions and perfectly anticipate any move they plan on making against him. Kratos, working with the Dwarves, forges the Draupnir Spear from Draupnir to negate this advantage and ensure his victory against Heimdall. It normally takes the form of a ring on his finger which can be used to create a spear for Kratos to wield. Kratos can prime up to eight spears for detonation at a time (though there is no consequence for making spears over and over), and upon slamming the spear in his hand to the ground, can cause all other non-held spears in the area to detonate.
While in standard gameplay you can only have 8 spears at a time, with new ones just replacing old ones at a time, certain runic attacks (especially Artillery of the Ancients), sections of the game only accessible with this spear (with the spears embedded remaining permanently to ensure the player can always access those areas), and its origin of being the mythological ring Draupnir, which could replicate itself without limit, suggest this limit is only in gameplay. The weapon also wields wind-based powers, being able to push enemies back and slice them apart with the air around them before they even catch wind of what’s going on. The Draupnir Spear also has the ability to siphon elemental energy from foes, allowing Kratos to use their own elemental powers against them. Alongside its basic properties, Kratos can also use the spears made by Draupnir for various techniques, and he can customize the handle of the spears that appear for extra bonuses.
Skill Tree Attacks (Technique Skills)
Draupnir’s Call I-III: Kratos slams the spear on the ground, sequentially detonating all thrown spears. With Draupnir’s Call II, detonated spears briefly weaken enemies, which reduces their resistance to staggering. This increases the more spears are embedded into them. With III, every impaled enemy is hit with an additional explosion when detonated.
Draupnir’s Wail: Same as above, but holding off the detonation temporarily will result in stronger blasts.
Spear Arsenal I-III: All three skills increase the number of spears that can be active, up to a maximum of eight.
Violent Maelstrom: When fully charged, the charge can be consumed to significantly increase the amount of stun damage done per attack.
Spear Swiftness: Throwing many spears in succession increases the rate at which further spears are thrown.
Skill Tree Attacks (Ranged Skills)
Spear Throw: Basic skill that lets Kratos throw spears into any surface. These spears can then be detonated.
Gale Force I-III: Lets the spear fire a blast of wind to knock targets away. Any siphoned element is used to enhance this blast with that element. With II, nearby foes are sucked before firing. Launched opponents can be kept airborne by the turbulent force. With III, fully charging Gale Force greatly amplifies the force of the blast and lets enemies be launched into the air.
Spear Drill: Thrown spears can be charged that hits multiple times and drives opponents backwards.
Skill Tree Attacks (Melee Skills)
Impaling Thrust I-III: Kratos can impale enemies with spears in melee combat. The second and third levels increase the number of spears he can do this with during a combo.
General’s Deception: While evading, Kratos can launch a blast of wind to knock enemies off their feet.
General’s Advance: While evading Kratos can hit opponents with the blunt end of a spear before striking downward with the sharp end.
Elemental Siphon I-II: Kratos can stab enemies and take their element for enhancing his own attacks, though it’s lost if a runic attack is used. Level 2 grants a temporary resistance to that element.
Hoplite Lunge I-II: A light, sprinting stab attack. Level 2 of this ability embeds the spear for detonation.
Phalanx Breaker: A heaving sprinting attack for guard breaking, followed by a launching attack on weaker targets.
Rising Wind I-II: A combo with a heavy attack finisher that launches targets. Level 2 creates a whirlwind that disrupts nearby targets.
Light Runic Attacks
Huldra Charge: A long-range spear charge that can siphon elements. Level two adds multi-hitting properties, and level three creates a wind shell that fully protects Kratos while charging.
Thrust of a Thousand Soldiers: Performs a flurry of stabs which embed spears into a target. Higher levels let a player mash the attack button for more spears.
Mountain Splitter: Launches a number of wind slices that stagger targets. Higher levels increase both projectile count and stagger damage.
Whisper of the World: Pulls in enemies around Kratos before launching them away. Higher levels increase both area of effect and knockback power.
Heavy Runic Attacks
Artillery of the Ancients: Kratos hurls Draupnir to the sky, raining down multiplying Spears. Higher levels increase spear quantity, affected area and the attack's duration.
Honour the Fallen: A long range dive into enemies. Level 2 initiates a strong wind gust to stagger foes, Level 3 lets Kratos charge the attack for extra power.
Vindsvalr's Windstorm: Creates an array of cyclones that damage anything they come across. Higher levels increase the number and duration of the cyclones.
The Finger of Ruin: Summons a larger tornado to scoop up enemies and keep them suspended in the air. Higher levels increase damage, duration, and tornado radius.
Spear Handles
Soldier's Sauroter: Increases Defense. The spear came pre-forged with this.
Hind of Attuned Elements: Increases Defense and Runic attack power. Deals bonus damage to frozen or burning targets.
Mighty Olympic Sauroter: Increases Defense and Luck, while shortening cooldowns. Thrown spears have a Luck based chance to increase strength and stagger resistance.
Charging Assault Sauroter: Increases Defense, Health, and Luck. The Hoplite Lunge and Phalanx Breaker skills apply more Stun damage and have a moderate Luck based chance to provide an Unstoppable Aura, which temporarily stops incoming attacks.
Hind of the Nine Realms: Increases Health and Runic power, while shortening cooldowns. If the Maelstrom Gauge is full, it can activate a Realm Shift, which slows time.
Hind of the Four Winds: Increases Strength and Defense. Adds a concussive wave at the end of the weapon’s heavy attack combo.
Lion's Roar Sauroter: Increases Defense. Greatly increases the stun damage of Gale Force.
Hind of Weightless Victory: Increases Defense and Luck. When Maelstorm’s gauge is full, successful hits have a chance to shorten cooldowns.
Battle-Scarred Sauroter: Increases Defense and Vitality. Enemies who are grabbed after being hit with enough stun damage grant Kratos an increase to his Rage meter.
Hind of Deadly Vitality: Increases Defense, Luck, shortens cooldowns. Luck based chance to gain a health boost upon successful spear kills.
Warrior's Echo Sauroter: Increases Strength, Defense, and Runic Power. Spear attacks against Sonic-inflicted enemies deal bonus damage and build bonus Maelstorm skill charge.
Hind of Volatile Might: Increases Health and Defense. Elemental Siphons do more damage, but fade after a time.
Guardian Shield
An incredibly sturdy and retractable shield Kratos uses throughout most of his Norse adventures. It was a gift he received from his late wife Faye, during his first fight with Thor it unfortunately broke in combat, rendering it unusable until it was later repaired by the Huldra brothers. During this Kratos was given access to four other shields, and Ronds, new equipment at the center of the shields that grant access to new boosts, bonuses, or other abilities depending on the situation. And their impacts can be made even greater when using the right shield.
Aside from the basic Guardian Shield, he can equip four others:
Shatter Star Shield: Focused on blocking, it builds up charge by holding the shield up. Charge can be released with a shield bash that deals damage and stun.This shield bash can block otherwise unblockable attacks.
Onslaught Shield: A more aggressive shield, whose bash travels a long distance, doing damage based on distance traveled.
Shield Rönds
Rönd of Volition: The basic, default shield rond.
Rönd of Aggravation: Upon successful counters, gives a high chance to grant a rage burst.
Rönd of Expedition: Grants shortened cooldowns when interrupting certain attacks or parrying.
Rönd of Affliction: Shield Strikes against status-afflicted enemies consume the ailment, causing a damaging elemental explosion in the process.
Rönd of Restoration: Upon being hit, Kratos has a luck based chance to gain better defense, as well as restore health on a successful shield bash. The chance increases with lower health.
Rönd of Deflection: Increases the timing window for parries.
Rönd of Purification: If Kratos is inflicted with status effects, a shield bash can cleanse that effect and deal that damage to enemies.
Rönd of the Nine Realms: Small chance upon parries to trigger a realm shift and slow time.
Rönd of Disruption: Low chance when parrying or interrupting some attacks to create an elemental storm.
Rönd of Absorption: The Permafrost, Immolation, and Maelstrom skill gauges increase when Blocking or Parrying.
Rönd of Fortification: Holding the shield for several seconds will cause a large stun damage explosion on the next block or shield bash.
Rönd of Obliteration: Holding the shield for several seconds lets Kratos fire a volley of Valkyrie shards.
Blade of Olympus
The Olympians were not always the rulers of the Greek World. Their ascension to dominance came as a result of bloodshed, of warfare, and finally, of Zeus forging a weapon from the Earth and the Heavens themselves. The Titanomachy, the war between the Olympians and the Titans, the former rulers of the Greek World, would end with a single strike of this weapon. This weapon was none other than the Blade of Olympus, a weapon to surpass all others.
While the Blade of Olympus is not the most versatile weapon in Kratos’ arsenal, it is almost inarguably his strongest one. Numerous gods and godlike beings have fallen to its incredible power, including Athena, Gaia, Zeus (technically), and even Kratos himself. (He got better.) It was originally given to Kratos as a means of tricking him into surrendering his godly powers, and became a permanent part of his arsenal after he time traveled to stop Zeus from killing his past self.
The Blade of Olympus, as utilized in Valhalla as a memory of Kratos’ past made manifest, doesn’t have a skill tree like other weapons. It’s also accessed in a different way, as a rage option Kratos can select. That aside, Kratos’ uses of the Blade of Olympus otherwise match its capabilities from the original trilogy, so we are assuming its general capabilities are unchanged. The Blade of Olympus, aside from being a formidable offensive option in its own right, is capable of…
Enhanced Parries: The Blade of Olympus can parry attacks which would be otherwise unblockable, which is indicated in-game by a red circle appearing before the attack is unleashed.
Divine Retribution: The Blade of Olympus can unleash powerful energy blasts.
Absorption: The Blade of Olympus can absorb energy and empower the wielder. In God of War: Ragnarok’s Valhalla DLC, this takes the form of Kratos regaining a small amount of rage upon successful parries and killing enemies.
The following aren’t moves that Kratos uses with the Blade of Olympus in God of War: Ragnarok, but are things that the Blade of Olympus was, and should remain, capable of:
Divine Reckoning: When Zeus unleashed this technique, he ended the Titan War and banished the Titans to Tartarus, or didn’t see Kratos transporting them through time, whichever you prefer, dear reader! Kratos can replicate the technique, albeit with far less impressive results, creating a powerful, damaging vortex around himself.
Godly Energy Nullification and Absorption: Kratos was tricked into doing this by Zeus, draining his godly powers into the Blade of Olympus and rendering him mortal. This also works to nullify the godly powers of other gods, most notably Athena.
Barrier: The Blade can briefly create a barrier to protect its user.
Armors
Throughout his journeys in the Norse lands, Kratos has experimented heavily compared to his standard outfit choice back in Greece. He has worn a variety of armors, all with different bonuses and effects when it comes to his stats, with some even having extra perks.
Reaver Set: A set of armor typically worn within Reaver clans that favors basic defensive protection.
Boar Hide Set: Reinforced armor made from a boar’s hide. It is not very comfortable, but provides a slight increase in strength.
Arcane Set: A basic armor that is inscribed with Runic symbols that increase Kratos’ Cooldown stat.
Viken Set: A basic defensive armor that increases Kratos’ Vitality.
Wolfskin Set: Hardened leather armor allowing a large range of movement, while also favoring Runic and Strength.
Runic Set: A basic offensive armor that favors Runic attacks.
Focus Set: A sturdy armor favoring Kratos’ Cooldown stat.
Defender’s Set: A sturdy defensive armor that favors Defense.
Metal-Plated Set: A sturdy offensive armor that favors Strength.
Plated Volunder Set: A sturdy defensive armor that favors Vitality.
Runeweaver Set: Girded defensive armor that favors Runic.
Dwarven Runic Set; A sturdy offensive armor that favors Runic and Strength.
Tyr’s Lost Unity Set: A set of armor forged from offerings made to Tyr and blessed with his luck.
True Warrior Set: A set made of dwarven-forged metal embedded with Ogre teeth (ew) that favors Strength.
Protection Set: An extremely reinforced armor that favors Defense.
Arcane Might Set: An armor made from Fortified Steel from a dwarven forge, resulting in this armor granting a noticeable increase to Runic and Strength.
Vigor Set: A heavily fortified armor that favors Defense.
World Serpent Set: A masterfully crafted set of offensive armor that favors Runic.
Clarity Set: A set of armor reinforced with steel of unknown origin, favoring Cooldown.
Sindri’s Royal Dwarven Set: A set of the Dvergraeoikr, crafted by Sindri. It favors Runic and Cooldown, while also having a Moderate Perk activation chance to grant a Protective Barrier that prevents damage from enemy attacks whenever Kratos performs a Runic Attack.
Fallen Ash + Set: A stronger variant of the Fallen Ash Set.
Blazing Magma + Set: A stronger variant of the Blazing Magma Set.
Smoldering Brimstone + Set: A stronger variant of the Smoldering Brimstone Set.
Survival Set: A basic set that increases strength and defense.
Nidavellir’s Finest Set: Traditional Dwarven Armor made from Nidavellir’s ore. Plackart gives a health burst when stun grabbing an enemy. Arm guards reduce the speed their stun gauge decreases, Waist Guard boosts this effect though it does not have it itself.
Vidar’s Armor Set: Pauldrons have a luck chance to increase Kratos’ strength and stagger resistance when hitting a combo finisher. Belt and Bracers increase strength and defense.
Enchantments
Kratos is able to utilize multiple enchantments at once by equipping them to his current armor set, increasing his offensive and defensive capabilities alongside miscellaneous bonuses like health restoration and extra attacks. His options are as follows:
Leviathan’s Eye: Increases damage of all axe throws by 6% (stacks up to 18% max).
Tyr’s Shard: Solely a stat increase.
Eye of the Outer Realm: Solely a stat increase.
Andvari’s Soul: Very high Perk activation chance to grant a Health Burst on any successful Runic Attack kill.
Muspelheim’s Eye of Power: Increase resistance to BURN damage by 50% (stacks up to 85% max).
Ivaldi’s Corrupted Mind: Nearby enemies, within 15 meters, are Weakened.
Eye of Nifelheim: Greatly increases resistance to the Cursed Mist of Niflheim (stacks with any other resistances to the Cursed Mist).
Njord’s Temporal Storm: Very low Perk activation chance to temporarily slow nearby enemies when damage is taken via a Realm Shift.
Asgard’s Shard of Existence: Holding L1 for several seconds grants Fortification, causing an explosive knockback after the next successful block.
Hrodr’s Frozen Shard +: Increases the damage inflicted by the Breath of Thamur Runic Attack.
Buri’s Frozen Shard +: Increases the duration of the Wrath of the Frost Runic Attack.
Hymir’s Frozen Shard +: Increases the duration of the Blessings of the Frost Runic Attack.
Bestla’s Frozen Shard +: Grants a high chance to grant a short boost to Strength when using the Mists of Helheim Runic Attack.
Perfect Mark of Kvasir +: Activates Realm Shift, temporarily slowing down surrounding enemies, on a last-second dodge.
Jarnsaxa’s Fiery Shard +: Adds an explosive bomb to the Wrath of Artemis Runic Attack.
Dagr’s Fiery Shard +: Increases the damage of the Tartarus Rage Runic Attack.
Hyrrokkin’s Fiery Shard +: Increases the damage of the Blast of Hephaestus Runic Attack.
Borr’s Frozen Shard +: Provides a short boost to Runic when using the Hel's Touch Runic Attack.
Aurvandil’s Fiery Shard +: Increases the duration of the Gift of Apollo Runic Attack.
Perfect Mark of Protection +: Increases the timing window on parries, and greatly increases Defense when blocking.
Perfect Mark of the Ancients +: Grants 85% resistance against FROST, BURN, and POISON attacks.
Perfect Mark of the Traveler +: An Enchantment that slowly regenerates a protective barrier that absorbs a single attack.
Perfect Mark of Tyr +: Grants a moderate Perk Activation chance to grant a short boost to Strength, Defense or Runic when damage is taken.
Brilliant Mark of the Dragon +: Sprinting for 3 seconds grants Unstoppable Aura, preventing interruptions by enemy attacks. Basically fighting game super armor.
Relics/Sword Hilts
Kratos can equip various Relics or Sword Hilts to activate special bonuses during battle, ranging from new forms of attack to stat increases.
Talisman of Meign - Grants a Melee damage increase for a short duration.
Hilt of Hofud - Distorts space and time that triggers a Realm Shift, temporarily slowing time.
Glaive of Dodher - Throws Bifrost Chakrams at enemies, up to 3 when max upgraded.
Huldra Project #9 - As mentioned, Kratos uses Mimir to fire a concentrated beam of Bifrost at targets.
Hilt of Dainsleif - An attack that slams into the ground, creating poisonous puddles. Flavour text describes it as creating “wounds that never heal”.
Hilt of Gram - Grants a Burst of Rage, increasing Kratos’ rage meter. Also deals stun damage to enemies nearby.
Hilt of Angrvadall - Fires 3 waves of light. It deals increased damage against targets inflicted with sonic.
Hilt of Ridill - Sends out a large, electric shockwave in front of Kratos.
Hilt of Tyrfing - Sacrifices Health, but sends out a wave that deals greater damage depending on the health lost.
Mystical Heirloom - Used for awakening sleeping trolls. Has no combat application.
Hilt of Hrotti - Marks enemies nearby. Hitting them reduces the equipped weapons runic attack cooldown. Killing them will increase runic attack power temporarily.
Hilt of Forsbandr - Pushes enemies back when activated, and grants an aura of protection, protecting Kratos from damage.
Hilt of Skofnung - Uses collected berserker souls to summon several swords that fight at Kratos’ side.
Motsognir’s Call - Creates a shockwave that deals a large amount of stun damage to nearby enemies.
Talismans
Similar to Relics and Sword Hilts, Kratos can use Talismans to activate miscellaneous boosts during battle like stat increases or health restorations.
Talisman of Resolute Might: Grants a short boost to Strength when Kratos’s Health drops to a critical level.
Talisman of Concentrated Vitality: Gain a Health Burst.
Talisman of Resolute Protection: Grants an invincible barrier for several seconds when Kratos’ health drops to a critical level.
Talisman of Rejuvenating Fury: Release a shockwave that inflicts a moderate amount of Stun damage to nearby enemies. Also has a Passive Effect that restores a small amount of health every time an enemy is grabbed whilst Stunned.
Talisman of Eternal Fury: Gain a Rage Burst. Also has a Passive Effect that increases the amount of Rage gained from combat as well as the duration of Spartan Rage.
Talisman of Betrayal: Activate while aiming for long-distance attacks to slow down time. Ranged attacks in this mode are also more powerful.
Amulet of Kvasir: A last-second doge activates a Realm Shift, temporarily slowing down surrounding enemies. Upgrading this item increases the duration of the Realm Shift.
Golden Talisman of Protection: Activate immediately after being hit to recover from being stunned faster. Also has a passive effect that increases the timing window on parries, and greatly increases Defense when blocking.
Talisman of Unbound Potential: Refresh all Runic Attack cooldowns. Also has a Passive Effect that increases Runic when a Runic Attack is on cooldown.
Hvergelmir Stone: Summon a cleansing fog that restores a small amount of Health, and increases the amount of time Kratos can stay in poisonous mists like the Cursed Mist of Niflheim.
Yggdrasil Amulet
A special amulet that Kratos can use to activate various boons to boost his stats even further. There are various combos, and he can have up to nine enchantments equipped at once.
Midgard's Endurance: Increases Cooldown.
Midgard's Honor: Increases Cooldown and Luck.
Midgard's Virtue: Increases Vitality and Cooldown.
Midgard's Justice: Increases Runic and Cooldown.
Midgard's Bravery: Increases Defense and Cooldown.
Asgard's Fortitude: Increases Strength and Cooldown.
Asgard's Might: Increases Defense and Cooldown.
Asgard's Security: Increases Runic and Cooldown.
Asgard's Justice: Increases Cooldown and Luck.
Asgard's Virtue: Increases Strength, Defense, Vitality, and Cooldown.
Vanaheim's Fortune: Increases Luck.
Vanaheim's Honor: Increases Runic and Luck.
Vanaheim's Virtue: Increases Strength and Luck.
Vanaheim's Power: Increases Defense and Luck.
Vanaheim's Fortitude: Increases Cooldown and Luck.
Svartalfheim's Honor: Increases Defense.
Svartalfheim's Safety: Increases Strength and Defense.
Svartalfheim's Fortune: Increases Defense and Cooldown.
Svartalfheim's Lifeblood: Increases Defense and Vitality.
Svartalfheim's Fortitude: Increases Defense and Luck.
Muspelheim's Force: Increases Strength and Runic.
Muspelheim's Endurance: Increases Defense and Runic.
Muspelheim's Essence: Increases Runic and Luck.
Muspelheim's Blessing: Increases Runic and Vitality.
Muspelheim's Protection: Increases Runic, Cooldown, and Luck.
Alfheim's Vigor: Increases Strength.
Alfheim's Honor: Increases Strength and Cooldown.
Alfheim's Fortune: Increases Strength and Runic.
Alfheim's Virtue: Increases Strength and Luck.
Alfheim's Justice: Increases Strength and Vitality.
Niflheim's Security: Increases Defense.
Niflheim's Fortune: Increases Defense and Vitality.
Niflheim's Force: Increases Defense and Luck.
Niflheim's Virtue: Increases Defense and Cooldown.
Niflheim's Justice: Increases Strength and Defense.
Jotunheim's Essence: Increases Strength, Vitality, and Luck.
Jotunheim's Honor: Increases Defense, Vitality, and Luck.
Jotunheim's Endurance: Increases Runic and Vitality.
Jotunheim's Virtue: Increases Vitality and Cooldown.
Jotunheim's Force: Increases Strength, Defense, Runic, Vitality, Cooldown, and Luck.
Helheim’s Essence: Increases Vitality.
Helheim’s Honor: Increases Vitality and Cooldown.
Helheim’s Might: Increases Defense and Vitality.
Helheim’s Force: Increases Strength and Vitality.
Helheim’s Virtue: Increases Runic and Vitality.
Kinetic Resilience: Combo finishers extra Permafrost, Immolation and Maelstrom, and the lost charge when hit is reduced.
Emblem of the Nine Realms: Increase Melee damage during Realm Shifts.
Seal of the Falling Star: Increases damage from all Death from Above attacks (attacks done while falling).
Emblem of Elusion: Gain a burst of speed and distance when evading.
Fossilized Keepsake: Slowly regenerate a protective barrier that absorbs a single attack. Destroying the barrier causes a shockwave that stuns enemies.
Boon of Wrath: Spartan Wrath’s activation shockwave consumes Status Effects on enemies to deal damage.
Boon of Valor: Spartan Valor heals less, but provides strength and gives lifesteal on hit for a duration.
Boon of Fury: Spartan Fury’s attack and exit rage costs are reduced, but healing is reduced.
Celestial Panacea: 25% resistance to all status effects.
Poison Protector: Added 50% poison resistance.
Bright Eyed-Emblem: Increases blind and daze resistance by 50%.
Token of Elemental Evasion: Dodge rolling will hasten the expiration of Burn, Poison, and Frost status effects.
Remedy of the Bifrost: Successful attacks against enemies will cleanse Bifrost faster.
Sigil of Doom: Axe and Blades Melee attacks against Hexed enemies have a high Luck chance to trigger bonus Sigil Explosions.
Seal of Runic Storm: Using Runic Attacks of three different weapons in quick succession grants a buff of increased Stagger Resistances and creates a storm of Bifrost.
Stunning Fang: Hitting stunned enemies unleashes shockwaves and has a chance to stack Strength and Stun Damage.
Eir's Armament: Very high Luck chance to grant a Health Burst on any Runic Attack kill.
Stone Idol of Souls: Using Healthstones or Ragestones grants Soulsteal, during which health and rage can be restored when striking enemies.
Crest of Desperate Heroics: When health is critical, gain a short invulnerable barrier and Strength increase, and a health burst when complete.
Regenerating Essence: Adds a small amount of Health Regeneration.
Greater Regenerating Essence: Same as above, but to a greater extent.
Attuned Runic Gem: Increases the damage of Runic Attacks when Permafrost, Immolation, or Maelstrom are fully charged.
Momentous Stride: Last-second dodges now charge the Permafrost, Immolation, and Maelstrom skill gauges.
Memento of the Ailing: Permafrost, Immolation, and Maelstrom charge faster when hitting status-afflicted enemies.
The set bonuses are:
Midgard Enchantment Set: Increases the damage of all of Kratos' Ranged Attacks and Abilities based on his Cooldown stat.
Asgard Enchantment Set: Increases the damage of all Kratos' Triangle Weapon Attacks (Frost Awaken, Flame Whiplash, and Draupnir’s Wail in non-gameplay terms) and Abilities based on his Cooldown stat.
Vanaheim Enchantment Set: Increases Kratos' Melee damage against Status-Afflicted enemies based on his Luck stat.
Svartalfheim Enchantment Set: Increases Stun damage inflicted based on Kratos' Defense stat.
Muspelheim Enchantment Set: Increases Kratos' Melee Damage when Permafrost, Immolation, or Maelstrom skills are fully charged based on his Runic stat.
Niflheim Enchantment Set: Increases Kratos' Melee damage when he is above 75% Health based on his Defense stat.
Alfheim Enchantment Set: Last-second dodges empower Kratos' next attack based on his Strength stat.
Helheim Enchantment Set: Increases Kratos' Melee damage when he is below 50% Health based on his Vitality stat.
Jotunheim Enchantment Set: Increases Kratos' Maximum Rage based on his Vitality.
Gjallarhorn
A magic horn stolen from Heimdall that when used, will “harmonize” the space between realms, connecting all of them and officially starting Ragnarok. It does not have much use in a fight like this. Even so, it is incredibly cool.
Resurrection Stones
When the 2023 blog was made these items were omitted, due to them only being used with outside help. However during the events of the DLC Valhalla, Kratos was on his own and could then use the stones alone, implying they can be done by himself. Additionally he can have 2 max from the shores and an additional one inside Valhalla, granting a cap of 3. For this reason they will now be factored into his Arsenal. Resurrection Stones are stones that can be broken on use to revitalize Kratos in dire situations, there are 3 types. One simply revives Kratos with a small amount of health, one is a superior revive with a bigger amount of health, and one is a special berserker revive with a small amount of health AND full rage.
Asura
Cloak
God he’s so cool.
Wailing Dark
A sword formerly wielded by Asura’s mentor, Augus, Asura briefly wielded it in his teeth to slay an entire army of Gohma, in a broken state no less. While it’s capable of extending long enough to stab through the Gaea, Asura’s never shown the capacity to wield it in this fashion. While Asura really shouldn't get access to this weapon in his fight against Kratos, it's dope as hell.
Mantra Reactor
As all demigods run on Mantra to some extent, they need some way to channel and control such immense power. They do this through their core, a powerful piece of technology embedded within their chest and effectively acting as a demigod’s heart. Mantra becomes divine power, which is then channeled through the core, which then acts as the source for all of a demigod’s power and life energy thereafter. While cores are typically vital for a demigod’s continued survival (crippling and killing them should it be removed), it is possible for them to keep fighting for a time after their cores are removed, with Asura himself retaining his ability to move despite Yasha remarking how it should’ve been impossible.
However, these cores have their limits. If a demigod uses up too much Mantra at once, their body will begin to break down, literally destroying themselves from the inside. With Asura’s anger constantly surpassing what the Seven Deities even thought was possible, he continually ran the risk of killing himself through unadulterated rage, until Yasha came up with a solution. He would replace Asura’s core with the pride and joy of the Seven Deities, the source of unfathomable human suffering, the reactor that had once contained the souls of seven trillion humans - The Mantra Reactor.
With the Mantra Reactor safely able to contain his wrath, Asura can now power up as much as he wishes without fear of destroying himself. Its amplification was what allowed Asura to reach full power as his enormous Destructor form.
As shown in the manga, it’s possible to overload one’s own core, turning their surroundings to ash in a massive explosion, killing everyone caught in the blast, including the user. When Kalrow used this to self-destruct, the resulting explosion was powerful enough to launch Asura into space. Given the Mantra Reactor’s immense capacity, it should be capable of recreating that kind of blast, if not one of an even greater magnitude.
Abilities
Kratos
God Physiology
Kratos was born a Demigod due to him being a son of Zeus, but he would only go on to develop further into godhood as he completed his Greek adventures. He slew Ares to acquire the power and title of God of War, and while those powers took a hit due to the drain of the Blade of Olympus, it is clear he has still kept much of his godly power. This is considering his ability to match the strength of Gods like Zeus and Thor, live for over a thousand years by the time of God of War 2018 (he also seems to be self sustaining, as he could not seem to die through starvation after God of War 3), and his innate healing abilities. Gods also do not need to sleep.
Kratos’ healing factor is able to heal his wounds quickly, letting him recover to full strength in just a few seconds. This healing ability is also what seemed to let him survive impaling himself at the end of God of War 3, though it is clear more severe injuries like that require more time and concentration to heal. He has healed from being impaled through the abdomen by Baldur and through the chest by Freya. He also survived being stabbed through the abdomen by Odin with Gungnir, which moments before had killed Thor.
Along with standard godly abilities however, Kratos' senses are also superior to the mortal man’s. He can fight without issue without using his sight at all, and also can sense more esoteric things like the danger of weapons as well as different forms of magic.
Realm Shift
Through literally shifting a realm’s space and time via various pieces of equipment or perks, Kratos is able to activate a Realm Shift and temporarily slow down time around him.
Phasing
While not seen from him often, Kratos does know some special magical techniques. This includes the ability to phase through solid matter.
Spatial Manipulation
Kratos can physically close tears in space time (also called voids) with his bare hands.
Resistances
Extreme Temperatures: Endured the burns of his own Blades of Chaos and the fires of Muspelheim. The former is especially notable considering the Blades of Chaos can make fire in Helheim, a realm so cold to the point that nothing in the Norse Realms can make fire there. Kratos, additionally, can survive both being there and taking frosty attacks from beings within it.
Poison: Can survive poison attacks from Chimeras and Manticore.
Power Nullification: Can resist the effects of Zeus’ lightning, which normally can limit and disable someone’s magical abilities.
Electricity: Can endure electricity from the likes of Zeus, Modi, and Thor.
Illusion and Perception Manipulation: Can resist the powers of the Furies, which alter one’s vision.
Decaying and Dissolving: Resisted the effects of both the Mists of Delphi and the Arms of Hades, which decay and dissolve objects, respectively.
Aging: Was unaffected by the Ouroboros Amulet which can age or de-age people or objects with its time manipulation.
Soul Based Attacks (Limited): Kratos could resist and counter against Hades ripping out his soul, and can endure being in the clashes of Mjolnir and Leviathan Axe. Said clashes previously split apart spirits.
Death Inducement: Kratos can survive swimming in the River Styx with or without having absorbed Hades’ soul, which is notable since the river kills any who drink its waters.
Disease: Is stated to be immune to the frailties of the human condition.
Spatial Manipulation: Kratos can interact with and seal Realm Tears, which are literal tears in the space of the realms. He can additionally survive attacks from Nidhogg and Garm, who are both beasts capable of tearing open space with their attacks.
Possibly Radiation: In the GoW1 novel, Kratos witnesses what's implied to be the atomic bombings in WW2, saying “the [bombs] could not harm him”. This may be due to this being a vision however.
Asura
Demi-God Physiology
Demigods are descendants of genetically-altered humans who can manipulate Manta. This comes from the reactors built into their chests. The bodies of Demigods are mostly mechanical, and as such they can endure grievous wounds. Demigods do not seem to age. In the manga, demigods are made up of “divine cells” which can grow as large as the user wishes, although it appears that they do not retain their density as they grow.
Mantra
Mantra is the primary energy source used by demigods, fueling their physical abilities and advanced technology alike. In its natural state, Mantra is akin to weak vibrational energy, similar to sound waves. However, it can also be produced artificially from human prayers and emotions, or through the process of converting human souls into Mantra. That’s how the Seven Deities accumulated so much Mantra over 12,000 years; By killing millions, no, trillions of humans, their souls were harvested en masse and turned into Mantra, powering their superhuman abilities and, most notably, the Brahmastra. The amount of human souls needed to sustain a demigod’s Mantra is inhumane; Wyzen, in activating his Mantra, wasted hundreds of millions of them in a matter of moments.
Beyond its use in technology and sudden boosts in power, Mantra also acts as the lifeforce and source of immortality for demigods. When Chakravartin died and all Mantra was lost, demigods were reverted back to mortals and Asura - whose lifeforce was reliant on the Mantra of wrath - ceased to exist. It has been described as life-giving, and it’s been shown many times that bestowing Mantra upon someone on death’s door can bring them back from the edge of death, or even heal wounds such as having half of one’s body blasted away with the remaining half being turned to a charred husk.
Curiously, Mantra also appears to possess some physical presence, letting it be shaped into the many armaments used by the Seven Deities and their armies. The activation of a demigod’s Mantra is also what’s responsible for metalizing their bodies, hardening their fists until they’re strong enough to bust through steel. In the manga, once Deus is defeated and all the accumulated Mantra is released into space, it’s implied that they would have eventually coalesced into a new moon over millions of years had Mithra not guided the souls back down to Gaea so that they may reincarnate.
Mantra, being so deeply tied to emotional affinities such as wrath and melancholy, can also be generated by its users in response to intense emotional stimuli. The most obvious example of this is Asura’s wrath, every injustice witnessed and every wound suffered increasing his rage - and Mantra usage - to such an extent that it can allow him to surpass the collective 12,000 years of Mantra gathered by the Seven Deities in mere moments. That’s not just unique to Asura, though - Mithra’s suffering enhances her Mantra amplification abilities, and it’s implied that Yasha, in finally coming to terms with his sins and realizing he must save Asura for the greater good, also gained a massive increase in power through those emotions. What is unique to Asura, however, is how he’s able to release so much Mantra at once, something Yasha considered impossible without Mithra’s ability to amplify Mantra.
All demigods have some innate control over Mantra, but the Eight Guardian Generals can manipulate it better than anyone else. They can easily steal the souls of humans, harvesting them so that they can be transformed into Mantra, and do so on such a large scale that entire villages and cities can have their souls absorbed in this manner. While Asura can likely also absorb Mantra like his former compatriots, it’s unlikely he’d ever do so given he spends most of the game outraged at the very notion of killing humans and stealing their souls.
While this doesn’t appear to be a universal property of Mantra, Asura’s own reserves of Mantra are red-hot, literally boiling him from the inside if he uses too much of it. He’s shown the ability to form new arms from nothing but his Mantra, and these arms give off considerable heat - Enough to make it rain fire from the sky, or incinerate any Gohma stupid enough to try biting him. Impressive, seeing as Gohma literally have magma running throughout their bodies.
Rage Times Infinity
When you thought Asura couldn’t get angrier, he goes times, well, infinity when it comes to his rage in this mode. With this mode Asura can recover much faster from overheating and he’s able to stay a lot longer in his Unlimited mode. Though don’t overthink things, it isn’t like he suddenly gains infinite power. Name is still cool though.
Energy Projection
One of Asura’s most basic abilities is to project Mantra from his body, which comes in several different forms. Asura can fire out basic energy blasts through punching them from his hands, as well as releasing energy shockwaves, or firing giant beams. They also possess the ability to lock on and home in on targets. Asura can also create arms made of Mantra, which can grow to enormous sizes, and even streak out like branches from one another for even more range.
A specific technique Asura possesses is the Wrath Cannon, where Asura pours a ton of mantra into a target with a punch and explodes it outwards, causing a great deal of damage to even some of his stronger foes.
Flying Fist
While Asura’s hands are good for combat, sadly not everyone will be in range for Asura to punch them. So his solution? Use his fist as a projectile so he can punch them! They are also powerful enough that he can wipe out an entire Gohma army.
Regeneration
All deities possess incredible healing factors, and Asura is no exception. He’s shrugged off having chunks bitten out of him, being impaled multiple times, and he should be comparable to Yasha in this regard, who can recover from repeated stab wounds or being skewered through his leg and hip. When transforming into Berserker Asura, he could instantly regrow his severed arms, though it seems his berserker form isn’t necessary for this level of regeneration. While fighting off a horde of Gohma, his inability to contain his rage started ripping his body apart, such that he lost an eye and had most of his body reduced to a charred skeleton, yet he could still recover within a few seconds.
Of course, this regeneration has its limits. When Asura was split in twain by Yasha in the manga, his body did not reform for 100 years… although it’s implied his separated halves were gradually moving closer towards each other, and when someone slammed those halves together, Asura recovered, good as new. While he didn’t recover from this wound at all in the original game, it’s safe to assume that the caveat of him healing from such injuries as long as his halves are in contact with each other still applies. That said, surpassing these kinds of limits is exactly what Asura does best - While he previously could not survive without his core, he later got angry enough to not only keep fighting without it, but in fact regenerate it in a matter of moments.
With his regeneration varying depending on his anger, it’s difficult to know its exact upper limits; However, at most, it could allow him to recover from grievous wounds that annihilated over half of his body and left the remainder as a charred husk, which he recovered from after receiving part of Yasha’s Mantra.
Immortality & Resurrection
They say you can’t keep a good man down, but it’s even harder to keep an angry man down. When he was laid low at the hands of Deus, Asura was sent to Naraka, a sort of “in-between” space where one’s soul becomes one with Gaea before reincarnating. Not one to accept such a fate, Asura climbed one of Naraka’s pillars for 12,000 years, eventually re-emerging on Gaea and coming back to life. After Yasha slew him a second time, he was again sent to Naraka, only this time his resurrection took a mere 500 years; And when Yasha once again killed him later in the story, it took only a few hours for him to revive, just in time for him to aid Yasha in his battle against Deus. The manga takes this one step further, having him come back a mere 100 years after his initial death at Yasha’s hands, and later showing him willing himself to back mere moments after Deus slaughtered him by ripping out his core.
There doesn’t appear to be any limit on how frequently Asura can come back from Naraka - So long as he has the will to move forward, he can always just climb one of Naraka’s infinite pillars back to the land of the living. However, should he falter and fall into the abyss below, he will truly die for good. Additionally, when Chakravartin died and all Mantra was lost, Asura was completely erased from existence… though countless years later, he’d end up reincarnating anyways, so it’s not as bad of a fate as it sounds.
Aura of Anger
No, not that kind. Asura’s rage is so intense that it gives off a passive aura causing a wide variety of effects, such as scaring away Gohma, even while he was turned to stone. This explosive aura is so strong that it is able to blow away several enemies and by becoming extremely angry, this aura becomes a giant blast and creates a massive shockwave that exits the planet's atmosphere and straight up annihilates most of Olga’s fleet. In the manga, his cries of anguish could cause localized earthquakes, and he later got pissed enough to cause Gaea to shake just by being really, really mad. In his fight with Augus, it’s implied this aura started to boil the ocean water around him, turning vast swathes of the sea into vapor in a matter of moments.
Adaptation
Asura’s Wrath isn’t just the title of the game; It’s the source of Asura’s greatest asset in combat, allowing him to push past his limits and achieve some truly absurd feats he wasn’t capable of before. Throughout the story, Asura is continually growing stronger through his anger, an ability so potent it allowed him to match the thousands of years worth of energy collected by the other Demigods, and go far past it. Despite Wyzen and the other deities growing far stronger during Asura’s 12,000 year vacation to Naraka, Asura could quickly overcome that enhanced strength just by recalling Mithra’s suffering and his betrayal.
In his ensuing battle with Yasha, Asura was stated to be outmatched in “every regard”, with Yasha effortlessly weaving through his attacks and barely even flinching in response to a direct hit. Of course, Asura’s rage allowed him to keep up anyways, ultimately catching Yasha off guard with his sudden burst of speed and power. In the manga, after Asura’s second death at Yasha’s hands, Yasha noticed that he had somehow grown stronger during the hundred years it took to come back, implying Asura doesn’t even need to be alive for his strength to rise exponentially.
When Asura battled Augus, he was at first unable to even harm him and was sent flying with a single blow. However, a few moments later, Asura could match him evenly before coming out on top and surpassing his former master’s power. After his transformation into his berserker form, the sudden explosion of rage that accompanied it gave Asura enough power to rival the Brahmastra “in an instant.” It was later stated that his Mantra could rival the Brahmastra outright, and Yasha was baffled by how Asura could attain such tremendous power without Mithra’s aid.
By far the most notable example of this is when he battled Chakravartin’s Creator form, who effortlessly blocked a punch from Mantra Asura with a single finger, called him weak to his face, and reduced him to his base form. However, in the ensuing fight, base Asura could continue to hold his own against Chakravartin, eventually developing to such a degree that Chakravartin was, to put it lightly, getting completely and utterly stomped to the point where him even attempting to punch Asura was about as effective - and painful - as a child punching a brick wall. All of this took place in the span of only a few minutes.
Flight
Although Asura cannot “fly” in the same sense as, say, a bird, he’s still more than capable of taking to the skies and fighting airborne opponents on even ground. He has total control over his own momentum while airborne, with this being most apparent during his battles in outer space.
Raging Demon
During his epic fight with Evil Ryu, Asura was capable of performing the famous move, The Raging Demon! Though while he can do the move, it’s likely this version does not have the soul destroying properties, as those are exclusive to the UDON version. That said, the Raging Demon targets the opponent's life force, killing them through the weight of their sins.
Resistances
Soul Manipulation: According to Chakravartin, neither the Gohma nor the Seven Deities, both of whom can manipulate souls, could lay claim to Asura’s soul. Asura has also been shown to be able to continue fighting even after his soul was back in Naraka.
Petrification: In the manga, Asura was trapped in stone after his initial “death”, immobilized but apparently still capable of causing localized earthquakes by screaming. After hearing a child crying, his immense rage allowed him to free himself and return to normal. In the Street Fighter DLC, the culmination of his fight with Akuma led to the both of them being trapped in stone for 500 years, only for them to both wake up and continue battling as though nothing ever happened.
Poison: Gohma Gliders are covered in poisonous spiked fins so potent they’re lethal just by being in close range. Asura can burst straight through them without any signs of damage or harm, and his fellow demigod Yasha can even catch and redirect those spines with his bare hands.
Extreme Temperatures: Thanks to his status as a demigod, Asura is unharmed by atmospheric re-entry. He’s regularly fought against the Gohma, many of whom utilize magma-based attacks, battled Gohma Vlitra within Gaea’s core, and he can even survive having entire galaxies suns chucked at him by Chakravartin.
Cosmic Radiation: Can survive space without issue.
Battlefield Removal: While Chakravartin was able to send Asura to Naraka, he punched out of the dimension and returned to Event Horizon within the Idol.
Time Manipulation (Limited): Whenever Chakravartin stops time, Asura will appear to shift his position slightly while time is frozen, letting him better counteract Chakravartin’s attacks once the flow of time is restored. However, he still can’t move freely in stopped time.
Possibly Existence Erasure: Asura is able to take attacks from Chakravartin’s creator form, whose mere touch turned Event Horizon into a literal void. In the process of transforming, Chakravartin mentioned he would “erase Asura’s very existence”.
Forms
Kratos
Spartan Rage
Due to his godly heritage, Kratos’ rage can do far more than just give him an adrenaline boost. Kratos can manifest Spartan Rage (either by building up the energy needed to do so or just naturally when he is provoked enough), resulting in a massive increase in his physical stats to the point he can push around previously equal foes and overpower attacks he would be normally helpless against, with the more rage he gets, the stronger he becomes. In this state, he tends to not use any of his weaponry, but that is fine considering the strength of his fists in the form. Additionally, Kratos seems to generate a sort of fire in the form, and whenever Kratos damages enemies in this state, he recovers health far faster than normal. Specific to the form are also a variety of specialized techniques that take full advantage of his tempered fury.
Fury Strike: Performs a dashing punch that can be followed up with a rapid series of punches.
Raging Smash: Jumps into the air and slams back down, creating a large blast.
Fury Drive: A heavy punch that sends enemies flying away at great speed.
Spartan Stomp: A heavy stomp that damages and disrupts all foes nearby.
Raging Ultimatum: Allows Raging Drive to charge for a stronger hit and wider area of effect.
Fury Beatdown: Extends the duration of Fury Strike’s series of punches.
Spartan Surge: A stronger Spartan Stomp that launches enemies.
Seething Earth: Rips a large boulder out of the ground and throws it.
Alongside the basic variant, Kratos has utilized his rage for three other purposes, with the two non-forms taking less rage to activate than Spartan Rage. Valor grants Kratos a health restore, and increases his health recovery rate when utilized as a counter attack. Wrath empowers Kratos significantly beyond the extent of even Spartan Rage temporarily, allowing for one massive damage attack on enemies that can be done with or without his weapons. Legacy is a special variation that we have only seen Kratos utilize in Valhalla (more in Before The Verdicts) that re-summons the Blade of Olympus for as long as Kratos is enraged. He can increase his Legacy Rage duration by performing parries, and can recover health through dealing damage akin to Spartan Rage.
Kratos Messi
The goat.
Asura
Six-Armed Vajra Asura
His most basic transformation, first gained due to Mithra granting Asura and Yasha mantra while they were near death, which healed them and gave Asura his Six-Armed Vajra form. In this form Asura sprouts four extra golden metallic arms, helpful for some extra punching. In this form, Asura’s strength and combat prowess rises significantly, going from being unable to do anything to the Gohma Vlitra to being able to subdue it single handedly, and this power continues rising. At first he normally couldn’t achieve this form without Mithra’s help, however due the sheer hatred he felt towards the seven deities, he gained the ability to sprout these arms at will.
Berserker Asura
At the peak of his rage, Asura transforms into a pitch black demon of wrath that glows red hot, built with honed claws and fierce fangs, and capable of sprouting 4 enormous arms of Mantra from his back, the same ones that are hot enough to instantly incinerate a Gohma. Upon transformation, Asura unleashed a massive shockwave that immediately destroyed nearly an entire fleet that was far away in space. In this state, Asura can fire explosive orbs that he chooses when to detonate, giant versions of the same orbs, homing blasts, enormous beams of energy that carve through armadas of space battleships like butter, a frankly absurd amount of endless energy beams accompanied with planet wide shockwaves, and even lightning.
Berserker Asura was so powerful and dangerous that it forced Olga to use the Brahmastra. A weapon that uses a tremendous amount of mantra, so much that it could’ve made the weapon itself vanish if Yasha tried to stop it. And Asura was able to match it for a while before getting overpowered, but even then he survived the blast. Even Yasha stated that Asura’s Mantra was able to match the Brahmastra and that he gained the power that the Seven Deities had taken 12,000 years to accumulate “in an instant”. In the Pachinko version of the game, Asura straight up overpowers the Brahmastra.
However, due his anger, Asura cannot control himself in this form, acting on pure savage instinct, though it is noted he still refuses to attack innocents in this state. Somehow, likely due the side effect of his immense anger, when he goes into Berserker Asura, his very own soul leaves his body and appears to be back in Naraka.
Wrath Asura
A subdued form of his Berserker state, achieved when he was shot by the Brahmastra cannon, and later awakened again when he was trying to retrieve Mithra from Chakravartin during their first fight. In this form Asura's body becomes unstable and cannot contain the sheer volumes of Mantra his wrath generates, causing his body to become scorching hot and soot black to the point he may self-destruct. Yasha himself states that Asura can release a massive amount of Mantra without Mithra’s ability even in this weakened form, and says he’s growing even stronger. At first, when Asura got turned into this form, Asura became essentially a mindless beast, though even then, he was able to match Yasha in CQC, even landing a nasty blow on him. He was able to partially retain his sanity when he used this form again, as Mithra’s words were able to reach him in this state.
Mantra Asura
Also known as Prajñā Asura, Asura achieved this form after receiving Mithra’s blessing during the final fight against Gohma Vlitra, causing his arms to grow in size and gain new armor. He also received an enormous strength boost, as well as the power to fire giant blasts of Mantra, and use Mantra to propel himself through space. This form has also shown the ability to compress and redirect energy attacks.
True Heavenly Arrival: Asura the God
In the manga, Asura achieved a form similar to Mantra Asura. By merging his six arms, Asura gained enough power to destroy the Karma Fortress after Deus had merged with it. He gained a higher level of power by focusing his anger to fight Vlitra and grew six massive arms. As True Heavenly Arrival: Asura the God, Asura can damage Vlitra’s core (which would have required trillions of souls worth of Mantra). Asura can also shake off impalement through his entire body to keep fighting Vlitra and eventually kill it.
Asura, The Destructor
With the power of the Mantra Reactor, Asura was able to gather enough Mantra from one of Chakravartin’s blasts to become the unstoppable Destructor.
In this state, Asura dwarfs Gaea itself, becoming utterly enormous and gaining the four arms from his Vajra form in a bulkier variant, as well as a huge halo behind his back, which can act as a jet thruster. Asura’s power in this state is so vast that he can fire off shockwaves and Mantra blasts strong enough to blast through planets and stars. His Mantra in this form takes on a rainbow hue, due to possessing the mantra of all seven Deities.
Six-Armed Mantra Asura
Essentially Destructor but smaller, Asura wielded this form in the final battle against Chakravartin. It serves as a fusion of his Vajra and Mantra forms. In this form, Asura gains a MASSIVE boost in power, being able to rival and damage Chakravartin. He’s also capable of manifesting a big golden halo that allows him to shoot out rainbow colored blasts of mantra that explodes after a while.
Trikāya
Also usually called and known as “Unlimited Mode”. His first and last used form throughout the story. In this mode Asura’s markings on his body start to glow as he makes his Mantra flow through his entire body. He can enter this mode if he either inflicts or receives enough damage. In this state Asura becomes much stronger and much more durable, to the point he becomes invulnerable to nearly every attack and damage. He also cannot overheat in this state, allowing him to be able to spam heavy attacks without problem. While in gameplay it lasts for a short time, in his final fight against Yasha and Chakravartin’s final form, he was able to stay in this form indefinitely.
Support
Kratos
Mimir
Formerly imprisoned by Odin until Kratos took his heads off his shoulders (Mimir’s shoulders, to specify), the head was resurrected and became one of Kratos’ allies. Mimir is known as the wisest man alive, and that title is not undeserving. While he is not much of a tactician in battle, he is good at helping with intellectual dilemmas and clearing up confusing cases with his vast sea of knowledge. Plus, it doesn’t hurt to have someone watching the area behind you for the sake of warnings, it really helps Kratos stay ahead of the dangers from behind. Oh, and Mimir can also be used to shoot beams of concentrated Bifrost energy that come out of his eyes. But don’t think too hard about that.
Helios
When going through Valhalla, Mimir would occasionally be swapped out by the now reanimated (maybe hallucinatory, Valhalla is weird) Greek Sun God Helios. While he’ll warn Kratos about incoming threats like how Mimir does, he lacks Mimir’s useful knowledge. He’s also a dick and can’t really show up outside of Valhalla, but we wanted to put him here anyway.
Asura
None notable.
Feats
Kratos
Overall
Defeated a majority of the Greek Pantheon, Hræzlyr, Magni, Modi, Baldur, the Council of the Valkyries, Heimdall, Thor, and Odin
Escaped the Underworld twice, and Helheim once
Destroyed all of Greece…
…and saved all of the Norse lands
Raised Atreus to be capable of going toe to toe with Norse Gods like Odin
After several adventures and life changing events, finally believed in his ability to be a good God worthy of praise
Became (the goat) Mimir’s brother
Won the 2022 World Cup for Argentina
Power
Stopped the force of one of Alecto’s tentacles, which can throw ships and pull down large structures
Could use the spell Posiedon’s Rage to form a large crater (73.7 Kilotons of TNT)
Can cut down trees (More in Before The Verdict) (Yes we’re serious)
Hit Baldur with a tree really, really hard
His struggle with Baldur created a small valley
Freed the Titan Thera and destroyed the foundations of Atlantis in his battle against Scylla
With his bare hands he can stop a strike from the massive Hippocampi.
Stopped the massive Cronos (large enough to hold Pandora’s Temple on his back) from crushing him.
One shot Perses, a massive Titan
Was empowered by Atlas to be able to use and withstand the spell “Atlas Quake”, which can shake the world.
Speed
As a God, descended to Athens from Mount Olympus like a meteor
Can dodge both Greek and Norse arrows
The Colossus of Rhodes can catch a point blank ballista shot when imbued with Kratos’ power
Swinged fast enough on falling stone pillars fast enough to make them look stationary
Was able to block a beam attack from a Wraith described as a sizzling light with the Blade of Artemis
Ran in tandem with one of Atreus’ arrows (clip above)
Reacted to a strike from the Hippocampi, which quickly ascended Mount Olympus (Mach 5553.2 - 8329.8)
Dodged an attack from Perseus, while the latter was invisible
Durability
Has survived being stabbed, like, so many times
Survived Hephaestus trying to electrocute him
Barely survived the Colossus crushing him without needing his godly powers
Could block an explosion that partially destroyed the Pillar of the World, a structure which held up the world and prevents both worlds from destroying each other
Tanked a lightning bolt from Zeus that was strong enough to knock back Gaia and nearly blow her arm clean off with just one shock
Casually got up and ran after Baldur after falling off of the tallest peak in Midgard
Shielded Atreus from a revived Thamur’s frost breath, which is a breath strong enough to freeze miles of land (4 - 555 gigatons of TNT)
Survived being flung into the sky by Thor’s hammer
Was launched by an erupting volcano without harm
Survived Ares’ nuclear detonation, though could have been a distance away
Kratos survived bites from Garm, who can consume entire mountain ranges.
Asura
Overall
Served as a Guardian General for years, taking on armies of Gohma for the sake of Gaea
Spent nearly a combined 12,500 years climbing out of Naraka
Defeated most of the Seven Deities, including Deus, Yasha, and Augus
Destroyed Gohma Vlitra, the will of the planet itself and freeing it from its wrath.
Killed his own creator god, Chakravartin, ending the cycle of violence on Gaea
Fought Ryu, Akuma, and Oni…
…The latter of which he fought for 500 years
Has insane levels of aura
Power
Base form
Overpowered a group of soldiers getting on top of him
Is capable of throwing Gohma and destroying them in a few hits
Wrecked Augus’ fleet (manga)
His Mantra Arms burned holes through mountains
In Six Armed Vajra
Subdued Vlitra for a time, who sent country sized debris flying just from emerging out of the planet (237.8 Zettatons of TNT)
Destroyed North America with a single punch because he got cut off in traffic (Penny Arcade)
Was able to hold back and destroy Wyzen while in Gongen form. (390.8 Ronnatons of TNT)
In the game he is the size of a planet, and in the manga Wyzen himself states his power is equal to the stars. Wyzen’s detonation is nearly as large as Gaea
Caught Augus’ blade, which raised large amounts of terrain on the moon
Destroyed the falling Moon with Yasha in the manga (Majora would like to sue)
In Berserker Form
Was able to destroy a hoard of the deities’ fleets with a single blast which moved clouds
With a even bigger blast destroyed almost all of the deities ships in space
Was able to compete with the blast shot from the Bramathra before getting overpowered shortly after
In Mantra Form
Alongside Yasha (again), the two split the Karma Fortress clean in half, with the Karma Fortress being far, far larger than Gaea. (16.4 Quettatons of TNT to 0.103 Foe - 0.906 Foe)
Defeated Ghoma Vlitra and its core. The explosion destroyed a part of Gaea.
In Destructor
Punched through a celestial body far larger than him (keep in mind he’s planet-sized in this form)
Caused a stellar sized explosion and shattered part of Chakravartin’s statue form
Speed
Base form:
Is capable of fighting in space at high speeds
Dodged a rocket shot from Wyzen
In Vajra form:
Can catch missiles
Reacts to Deus’ lightning and electrically-amped attacks
Blocked and intercepted lasers from a reawakened Gohma Vlitra (5.8c)
Jumped up to the Karma Fortress from Gaea in a short period of time
In his Berserk state, he could fire out Mantra beams that could reach the atmosphere almost instantaneously (24.4% SoL)
In Mantra form:
(DLC) Fought Oni from the moon to earth
As The Destructor:
Flew from Gaea to Chakravartin’s statue form, who was outside the galaxy, in a few minutes. (108 billion c)
Dodged Mantra beams from Chakravartin that crossed stellar distances in a fraction of a second
Durability
Base Form:
Survived getting stomped on by a giant Wyzen (shown above)
Took an explosion from Kalrow core that created a massive crater and sent Asura flying into space
Survived being stabbed into Gaea by Augus from the moon, with the “force of a comet”
In Vajra Form:
Survived a large beam from Vlitra; smaller blasts were destroying starships
Tanked Kalrow’s suicidal blast (manga)
Blocked and pushed through Gohma Vlitra’s beams
Survived Evil Ryu’s Raging Demon
Survived Evil Ryu punching him so hard into the moon that it fixed the displacement caused by Augus
In Berserker Form:
Briefly clashed with and survived the Brahmastra beam, albeit barely
In Mantra Form:
Survived the Gohma core’s destruction
Blocked a strike from Oni that split the moon in half and shot debris out the other end (990.9 Zettatons of TNT at its highest)
As The Destructor:
Was unphased being inside of a beam that previously vaporized a planet (303.17 Ronnatons of TNT)
Survived planets being thrown at him
Scaling
Kratos
Greek Gods
The logic is pretty clear here. In fact, Kratos wiping out the Greek pantheon is what he is iconic for. The only thing needing explanation is that no, Kratos did not get weaker by the time God of War 2018 and God of War Ragnarok happened. It was directly confirmed he is not weaker than his Greek self and regained that level of strength in the Norse entries. So, moving on.
The Fury Alecto, whose illusions can become real, created an illusory realm with an ocean and raging storm (139.1 megatons of TNT)
Furthermore, their death causes the collapse of their massive temple
Hephaestus is capable of wiping out all fires across a city with a wave of a hand
Persephone’s death released enough energy to destroy a part of the World Pillar
The Pillar of the World holds up the surface of the Greek world and its destruction will cause it to collapse and bring creation down into primordial chaos, destroying all of it
Ares could throw a giant pillar from Athens to the Desert of Lost Souls in several seconds
Upon his death, Ares released a massive explosion of energy (2.79 - 11.15 Gigatons of TNT)
Created mountains and destroyed them (403.5 kilotons - 1.7 megatons of TNT)
Helios’ power is stated to be able to destroy the world and has the energy to destroy the World Pillar.
His Fire Steeds crash into the world in Chains, creating a massive explosion. The Steeds survive the impact. (105 megatons of TNT)
Helios and his sister Selene are the sources of light for the entire universe, light having not existed until their creation (2.7 KiloFOE)
Hercules is stated to have taken Atlas’ place and lifted the Heavens (5.29e30 Kilograms, Stellar LS)
Clotho spins the Loom of Fate, which has threads in every point and all living beings in the world, even inanimate objects like the Nile River (1,757-5,270c, see here)
Poseidon's death triggered a giant flood that covered whole mountains and is later shown to have reached near the top of Olympus (his death is stated to have flooded the lands) (Bare minimum is 7.1 Zettatons of TNT, likely much higher accounting for GoW Greece being much larger)
Poseidon controls multiple rivers and lakes across the world
Poseidon controls all the Oceans and his rage can create sea storms. Ascension establishes he controls all the Oceans in the World. He was also stated by Athena to be the ruler of "two thirds of all that is", which is a reference to the fact that 70% of the planet is covered in water
Zeus is consistently stated to be the strongest Greek god and is feared by all the rest of Olympus, and easily defeated a host of Titans with one attack from the Blade of Olympus in his youth, which in his first fight with Kratos he could survive being stabbed with it
Zeus' thunderbolts can set the entire universe on fire and nearly did so in his battle with Typhon
He turned the goat Amaltheia into the constellation Capricorn
Zeus threw a lightning bolt from Mount Olympus to Egypt in an instant (Mach 8447.9 - 4.8% SoL)
Zeus dragged himself and Kratos from Rhodes to Mount Olympus (Mach 4202.3)
Can utilize the Hyperion Dash in combat, which is stated to move at light-speed
Greek Primordials and Titans
The Primordials and Titans preceded the Gods, but that did not make them wise enough to avoid being added to Kratos’ kill list. He has defeated beings like Helios who have matched Primordials, and even killed the Primordial Thanatos himself. He has additionally defeated titans like Cronos and Atlas, and defeating iconic titan slayers like Zeus make this scaling even more clear than it already would be with just Kratos’ own kills.
Thera, while breaking free from her imprisonment, caused a volcanic eruption that sank Atlantis after its foundations were shaken by Kratos and Scylla.
Atlas can lift his hammer, which possesses the weight of the world, as well as the entire Greek disc (5.29e30 Kilograms, Stellar LS)
Atlas is referenced multiple times throughout the series as not only holding up the Greek disk, but the “heavens” as well, preventing its collision with the Underworld that would annihilate all of creation.
Typhon is stated to be so large that his head touches the stars and his wings can block out the sun
Gaia is the bedrock of all creation and the universe exists at her whim
Uranus inadvertently created the universe when punched by Ceto (2.45 Quadrillion c-1.5 quintillion c, see Verdicts)
Uranus at bare minimum downscales from the Primordial God of Oceans, Ceto, who is strong enough to hold her own mass (1e32x greater than the mass of the observable universe. At least 100 nonillion times universal) (Debatable) [Can result in much higher, or much lower, more in Before The Verdicts]
Norse Gods
Similar to the Greek Pantheon, Kratos has surpassed multiple Norse Gods. He has both gone even and claimed victory against Baldur and Thor, defeated Magni and Modi in a 2V2 with Atreus, survived multiple assassination attempts from Freya over a multi-year time span, and successfully defeated Odin after jumping him alongside Atreus and Freya. Scaling here is clear.
Thor created a gigantic valley in Vanaheim in a battle with Faye
Thor’s clash with Jormungandr splintered Yggdrasil and sent the latter backwards in time as well as shaking all the realms
Odin created Midgard and the other non-primordial realms with Ymir’s corpse
Norse Primordials and Giants
Similarly to the Norse Gods, Kratos has shown he has the strength to contend with the rest of the Norse mythology. He is far superior to his own Giant son in Atreus, could quickly get up from attacks from Surtr before he became Ragnarok, endure the frost breath of a Freya controlled Thamur, and comparable characters like Freyr could hold back the force of Ragnarok’s realm ending strike for a short period of time (more on this particular feat later). The most notable case would be Odin spilling out Ymir’s guts to create all of the Norse realms, which is the entire reason the Norse games could happen in the first place.
Atreus can fire an arrow at speeds that can reach the sun in seconds (273 c)
Thamur’s final breath was strong enough to freeze miles of land (4 - 555 gigatons of TNT)
Skoll & Hati can chase the sun and moon across the sky within seconds
Surtr created the sun and the stars and brought heat to the cosmos
Ragnarok, Surtr’s transformed form, shook Yggdrasil down to its very roots after destroying Asgard (5.4 Trillion - 17 Quintillion FOE to 1.28 Decillion - 4.55 Duodecillion FOE, See Before the Verdicts)
Ragnarok is associated with stars and black holes
Asura
The Seven Deities
The Seven Deities are the demigods that came down to save mankind from the Gohma and worked with Asura before ultimately betraying him, killing his wife and kidnapping his daughter to exploit her abilities. At the starting events in the game, Asura was shown to be on par with every member, if not superior. When Asura came back to life, he defeated almost all of them on his own which is impressive given it’s stated by Yasha that the deities became way more powerful over 12 thousand years because of holding Mithra captive.
Their fleet can destroy a kingdom in a single shot
Augus sent an Elephant Gohma flying with a thumb flick.
Yasha with a single slash can cut a weakened Asura in two and start a volcano eruption
Yasha kicked the planet sized Karma Fortress off target. (19.8 yottatons of TNT)
Deus fused with the Karma Fortress and clapped its massive hands (3,800 yottatons of TNT)
Chakravartin
Press O to shut up Chakravartin! Asura defeated Chakravartin at the latter’s peak while in his base state, so he directly scales to any of the creator deity’s feats.
Created Gaea and was going to destroy it
Chakravartin’s big-ass statue exploded (115.2 septillion FOE AKA Multi-Galaxy to 1.403951303e76 joules AKA 44,191x Universal) (More in Before The Verdict)
Chakravartin releases a big shockwave that crosses the entire screen in seconds (350 Trillion c - 699 Trillion c)
Chakravartin’s statue can shoot out massive lasers that can cross huge distances (437.82 Trillion c to 6.161 Quadrillion c)
Weaknesses
Kratos
As powerful as Kratos is, he is by no means a perfect warrior. He can only take so much damage before death as good as his endurance and healing is, and he can only dish out so much damage against foes more powerful than himself. That is about it though, he’s a well balanced fighter in terms of what he can do. One might point at his anger misleading him in battle, but he has tempered his fury in the most recent God of War entries, and instead has optimized it for the sake of empowering himself rather than misleading himself.
Asura
Asura is an extremely powerful fighter, but even he possesses weaknesses. His most notable also being his greatest asset, his unending rage. Asura operates on pure instinct and very rarely thinks things through, as he simply chooses to punch anything in his way. This can cause him to be swept up by a more rational foe, though it is worth noting Asura has defeated several schemers in the past, so it takes more than intellect to get one over him. Additionally, his adaptation takes time to overtake a stronger opponent, he’s rather lacking in versatility outside of hitting or burning things, and… he folded to boobs.
Before The Verdicts…
Images by Blue Igneous.
Kratos
Lore Kratos
“Lore Kratos” is a fairly prevalent term that tends to come up in debates surrounding God of War. While it’s usually tongue-in-cheek, often used to poke fun at Kratos’ stats being far above how he’s typically portrayed visually, it has unfortunately been wielded like a hammer in some cases to put an end to genuine discussion on GoW arguments, particularly the cosmic feats. Kratos and God of War as a whole have developed a reputation for being a scrutinized verse. It has faced double standards over the years whereas other fictional universes have somewhat escaped despite being in a similar position, e.g. Shin Megami Tensei and Star Wars (these two series are quite popular in the realm of power scaling, relying a fair bit on statements for their arguments in comparison to simply relying on visuals). The community in some cases has taken issue with the idea that God of War relies solely on statements and has no visuals to back up their arguments, or that the series isn’t cosmic in nature. While somewhat understandable from a casual view, it’s rather simple to disprove both of these sentiments.
We can see the Primordials creating the universe and we see Atlas carrying the world. This is further strengthened in the novelization where the gods through just mere roars are capable of shaking the world. Even Ares, who isn't even a particularly strong god, is capable of shaking the heavens aka the universe. Even the Norse pantheon further strengthens the idea that God of War is cosmic in nature, from Atreus' arrow reaching to the sun in a matter of seconds and wolves chasing it, to Surtr destroying Asgard.
Where did “Lore” Kratos come from?
The phrase “Lore Kratos” isn’t an official one. Searches for God of War developers using this term unprompted have not indicated that it has ever appeared in a more “formal” form. However, the phrase persists as more of a rhetorical cudgel. The question is, where did the term evolve from? Time for a fun history lesson. The earliest potential origin discovered was Friendly Neighborhood Imp's "Death Analysis: Kratos" blog, published on August 13th, 2017, which contains an in-depth analysis concluding that Kratos’ power was far greater than suggested. While the blog does not even contain the word “lore”, it inspired a discussion thread on the “Versus Battle Wiki’s” forum less than a month after its publication, wherein some users referred to the supplementary sources utilized within the blog as “lore”.
The earliest use of the phrase “Lore Kratos” discovered appears in a Reddit thread discussing if Kratos could defeat Gorr the God Butcher, wherein a user invokes “Lore Kratos,” and, helpfully, expands upon it. By “lore,” they were referring to alleged feats within the novelizations of the first two God of War games. (It is important to know that we are not judging their arguments, or them. It is most important to us that the phrase “Lore Kratos” was invoked in the process of making them.) Unfortunately, there is no way to determine when precisely this argument was made, as Reddit does not save more specific dating information. As of January 2025, it appears to have been made 7 years ago, which would date it within a few months of another notable blog titled “Death Analysis: Kratos”.
It is good to know that, while it is sometimes unfortunately invoked as a means of shutting down a discussion, the earliest use of the term reveals that it was not used in such a manner. Rather, it appears to be an expression of certainty, almost excitement, for a means of bringing evidence into a respectful debate. The idea of these seemingly more grounded characters being cosmically powerful because of deeper info is fun to see, and shows how versus is a hobby that is meant to be enjoyed above all else. If there’s anything we can celebrate, it’s finding a little more proof of positivity in the world.
God of War “Anti-Feats”
God of War is of course notorious for being very divisive when it comes to scaling what a “lore” Kratos is. Everything from bad faith arguments, outright fake scans, and pestering the game’s devs have all been done for the sake of creating an image of Kratos as this unbeatable god in fiction. However there also exists a rather vocal group in the complete opposite direction: people who think Kratos is absolutely pathetic fodder that loses to anyone stronger than your average gymbro. “Wall level Kratos” is absolutely alive and well in 2025 just as much as “Outerversal Kratos”.
So as a prelude to the next couple sections looking at and breaking down a few of Kratos’ higher arguments, this bit is towards a good number of supposed “anti-feats” and grouping them together into different categories based on their shortcomings as arguments. We of course can’t tackle them all individually otherwise we’d be here all day, so if you want more comprehensive breakdowns on each of these feats, go check out these posts over here (Note: Yes, Cardinal is indeed shilling his own Reddit posts. What a hack.)
Excluding Context
Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of GoW “anti-feats” are really just scenes taken out of context. Ranging from Kratos intentionally holding back to downplaying a creature or construct than what it should be narratively.
For example, Kratos seemingly struggles to break ice by Thamur’s corpse, however this ice is magically generated by the Jotun Thamur himself so there’s no reason why it should adhere to the limits of normal ice. This same logic applies to hazards, traps, and barriers that are clearly of magical origin or are likely enchanted such as say the traps and defenses meant to deter other gods like on the Isle of Creation, Olympus, Tyr’s Temple, or Asgard. The same goes for constructs and weapons that don’t seem all that tough as they’re made of mundane materials like steel or stone, but were made by obviously magical and mystical beings such as the stone sickle Gaia crafted for Cronos or the giant stone walls of Asgard, given Greek divinities can just imbue objects and others with their powers or how dwarves like Brok and Sindri can smack something once and it becomes enchanted.
Another one is Kratos being harmed by random mooks and relatively mundane objects thrown at him. In such cases they are referring to minions of Olympus or the Einherjar and some of the stronger mortal enemies turned undead like the Berserker bosses in Ragnarok. The issue here seems to be the belief that since these enemies aren’t divine like the gods but are still treated as threats to Kratos, then surely he can’t be all that strong, right? Well again it’s all lacking context, or rather ignoring in this case as the gods should perfectly be able to arm and empower their soldiers to harm the divine. We see in Ascension that the champions of the Olympians can wield divine weaponry like Atlas’ Hammer and Hyperion’s Spear as well as battle and defeat a younger Hercules, so it stands to reason even random fodder among Olympus’ armies should downscale Ascension’s Redeemed Warrior and other champions of the gods (keeping in mind as well they’re fodder for a reason, being weak individually but attack in groups aiming to wear down Kratos instead of winning a straight 1v1). Hell Kratos himself was subject to this in God of War II where Atlas imbued him with his strength. Einherjar meanwhile are simply armed with weapons that deal Bifrost damage, a unique element in the Norse world associated with realm travel which even the main cast also use to enhance their attacks.
And of course, there are scenes where it is pretty blatant Kratos isn’t actually serious. There are a lot of “gotcha!” arguments that fall along the lines of “He has to hit a tree a bunch of times to cut it down!” or “He can't even break a wall!” It goes without saying it’s painfully obvious Kratos isn’t even trying in these types of scenes and has no problem actually doing them when he's actually trying. The Norse games specifically also have Kratos holding back to teach Atreus how to survive and control his anger. Effectively Kratos’ power is variable depending on how much he wishes to unleash at any given point, most clearly seen in how he can go from being briefly killed by a semi-serious Thor in their first fight to decisively defeating a bloodlusted Thor in their rematch while holding back, but other examples exist where ogres can stagger him in one instance then stomp and brutalize a troll in another. These smaller “anti-feats” are also easily debunked with scaling to feats done by weaker gods like Ares yeeting giant objects across a country like it's nothing or even mortal, nerfed Kratos being able to break Atlas' chains and push back against the Titan's attempts to crush him, y’know the guy who can lift the entire Greek disc, possibly with just one hand?
Again, these three categories very broadly cover the main categories of anti-feats and we recommend looking at the aforementioned posts for more specific debunks.
Gameplay Limitations & Double Standards
One of the oldest arguments for “Wall level Kratos” is him struggling to lift open chests. How is it that the God of War himself, who can overwhelm gods, titans, and all manners of creatures in between, struggles to lift a gate? Cory Barlog commented on this very issue in an interview with Game Informer:
“...no matter what game we worked on... people are like, always pointing out, "Kratos is a god, he can take down these giant creatures, yet he struggles with a chest." and I was like, guys, this a concession you just sort of have to accept... in order to get the dynamics within the game, yes, sometimes you have to struggle and press the button to lift up a gate, but he can lift up, you know, the world with Atlas, and it is... you'd never, I think, be able to have any dynamics in the game if it was always adhering to that one reality."
The challenges weren’t always in terms of making the gameplay experiences enjoyable. Even bringing things like the Colossus of Rhodes to life in God of War II posed a significant challenge: “Making things really, really large in a world that is continuous is a dramatic challenge for the programming team. We're very fortunate to have such smart people."
There are concessions within every game series when it comes to delivering playable experiences. Dante (from the Devil May Cry series) might be able to effortlessly carve his way through a demonic horde, but a player might struggle to replicate the feat when playing on Dante Must Die difficulty. Superman might be able to fly fast enough to burst the very bonds of infinity itself, but it sure doesn’t seem to help him fly through Lex Luthor’s maze in Superman 64. There is even a chapter in Asura’s Wrath where Asura - who has been depicted as being fast enough to dodge the planet-sized Vlitra’s attacks in this form - struggles to catch up to what appears to be a Gohma with the same general physical attributes as a gorilla. Even Asura’s higher level forms don’t escape similar “anti-feats.” He, in his Six-Armed Vajra form, was knocked out by Karlow’s escape pod exploding.
In summation, the limitations Kratos encounters during gameplay are noted, but will not play a significant role in our determinations of what Kratos (and, for that matter, Asura) are capable of.
Outliers
People in the power-scaling community seem to fixate on outliers being only feats or statements that are grossly beyond what a character or object is normally shown or stated to be capable of, however outliers exist in the opposite direction. For instance, even mortal Kratos shouldn’t have anything to fear from falling really tall heights, yet it becomes a concern even at one point in the novels. Baldur and Kratos also get stunned by debris when smashing stones is easy for them to accomplish. There is also of course the “Hermes can't fly” thing, but it is still weird that a speedster god who even on the lowest of low-ends is well beyond the speed of sound, gets tagged by debris falling. Goes without saying of course that these are all really bad low-ends that ignore more common counter examples (i.e. literally any giant monster fight) or much higher feats throughout the franchise that have grander narrative significance ranging from
The Primordials… Just the Primordials
Note: There will be two views discussed here in regards to this feat and a discussion on the Ceto calc.
View 1
In the opening to God of War: Ascension, Gaia recounts the tale of how the Greek universe was given shape - The Primordials waged war against one another, their mere blows creating the world the gods, titans, and mortals would later inhabit. One particular punch sends stars careening across the empty void, and this punch is proclaimed to have birthed the entire universe in a matter of seconds. This is one of the main arguments for Kratos blitzing, on top of being a good supporting universal feat to boot.
The simple fact of the matter is that we have no reason to believe this single punch created the entire universe. It visibly creates dozens if not hundreds of stars and a handful of nebulae, but that is a far cry from an entire universe; NASA estimates that there are approximately 1 septillion stars in our universe. While it is difficult to properly estimate how many stars flew out of Uranus in that one punch, I am confident in saying that it was not 1 septillion. There simply isn’t a more eloquent argument one can make here - We are not told or shown that a single punch created everything, and that single punch only creates a large number of stars. Assuming a higher result based on, ultimately, nothing at all is absurd and a massive overinflation of the calc.
Uranus being the sole creator of the universe is also questionable. Gaia’s retrospective does not claim that Uranus alone forged the world, but rather that it was “the Primordials” as some vague collective. While Gyges claims Uranus was the father of the universe and that he created everything, one such statement also claims that Gaia was the “mother of all creation,” a claim which does not make sense when one considers that Uranus is supposed to be the lone creator of all that is. If Uranus had already created the entire universe in that single moment, then how could Gaia have played a role - and an ostensibly very significant role at that - in its creation at all?
Another argument stems from this artbook scan, wherein each Primordial has their name placed next to their associated concept - Ceto is associated with the oceans, and Uranus with the heavens. This has been used to conclude that each Primordial is the physical embodiment of those words. This is a ridiculous assumption - The scan gives no further context on the nature of the Primordials save for putting their name next to a word. Furthermore, some Primordials, such as Chaos and Thanatos, represent ideas such as life and death, yet they are not literally the concepts of life and death given form, much like how Cronos is not time itself shoved inside a roughly humanoid shape; From this, we can reasonably conclude that there is no basis for Uranus being the entirety of the cosmos given form.
Ceto
Ceto, one of the Primordials who created the universe alongside her brethren, is made completely out of water. We see this to be the case when her lifeless body crashes into the nascent earth, forming the oceans. As she is depicted as comparable in size to Uranus, who is the size of the universe, the calc for Ceto’s mass is several orders of magnitude greater than that of the universe when accounting for the density of water.
The most direct issue with this is we see Ceto break down into the seas of the world, it is very clearly not a universe worth of water. Even if it is argued Ceto in this scene changed sizes after the fight with Uranus, her amount of water formed does not support the notion mass greater than the universe. This is also contingent on Uranus actually being the size of the mortal universe. Much like the idea that one punch spawned the entire universe, there is no real basis for this. His body is visibly made up of many stars, but a handful of constellations does not a universe make.
No statement, either in-universe or out, has referred to Uranus as being universe-sized. The only context we have regarding his size is how he appears in the opening of Ascension, and that alone does not give us enough context to conclude he is the size of the universe. While he is stated to be the creator of the universe, simply creating something does not mean your body is physically made out of that thing. As such, the Ceto calc is not viable.
View 2
The universe was created in the war between the Primordials, specifically when Ceto punched Uranus. This punch sent all sorts of cosmic matter (stars for example) flying out of Uranus, creating the setting of the Greek era. This would be affirmed years later by Gyges, who confirms Uranus is the father of the universe (link to comic). Uranus is noted to be the Heavens itself in the artbook for Ascension. The Artbook is referring to what the Primordials become in the Ascension opening, such as Ourea becoming the Mountains of the world and Ceto becoming the oceans. Uranus being the “heavens” is literal, made more apparent by the Hyperion Spear description (which is canon). You can see Uranus' name referred to in the special move list on the right of the statement. The move called "Scars of Uranus" gives some validity to the 'weight of the cosmos' description since it has a special move that refers to the father of the cosmos.
Since the Spear is supposed to hold the weight of the cosmos, referring to the literal embodiment of the universe in the move list only strengthens that claim. The Spear of Hyperion also confirms there is both a Sun and a cosmos. The Sun has a core, so that establishes the stars are naturally sized. A teaser trailer for Chains also shows the World and Olympus from space. Gaia being stated to be “the mother of creation” does not bring any issue with the creation of the universe. It is likely referring to her bringing life to the existing world and embodying the planet, as stated in the 2nd novel. There is enough evidence to establish that Ceto's punch on Uranus created a full universe.
Ceto
Ceto’s water mass calc should be viable. Primordials and Gods are shown to be able to change size, as shown with Zeus growing larger, the Primordial Thanatos changing shape, and however Cronos and Rhea… uhh… “made the Olympians”. As an example, Typhon’s head could reach the stars (the changes to the sealed Typhon in game is that it's more “menacing”) or how Gaia was the universal bedrock of creation. We see Ceto being the same size as Uranus, we then see her become much smaller than the celestial objects that were inside Uranus moments later. Ceto can obviously change size or at least personify herself in smaller forms. Uranus is the universe, it was born from him, a full cosmos.
Essentially the feat is calculating Ceto’s mass. Ceto’s mass gets to 100 Nonillion times Universal. Through the scaling chains in the blog, Kratos would scale to this.
Norse Cosmology
There are disagreements on how large exactly the Nordic cosmology is amongst the blog, so therefore this section will have two different parts to it.
View 1
Realms are likely not universal in size. There are multiple pieces of evidence that go against them being fully cosmic in size.
- In an interview, WoG states that Midgard is "all of earth”. Since the realms are all reflections of each other, this would make them all earth-sized. Tyr also visits the Hanging Gardens of Babylon in Midgard.
- Jormungandr spans "all the waters of Midgard,” but is only big enough to encircle a single world/planet, implying Midgard is limited to just a planetary scope.
- Skoll and Hati chase the sun and moon to maintain the day/night cycle across all realms, since Odin believed he could control the timing of Ragnarok, something that would span all 9 realms, by capturing them. This would not be possible if each realm was MSS/galaxy/universe sized, since a single star cannot generate nearly that much light. The fact that the sun and moon are physically closer to an individual realm than any of the stars we see in the sky, yet are things that are not a part of any individual realm, also supports realms being limited to the planets they're on.
Supporting the above, Mimir says Surtr created "all the sun and stars", confirming there's only one sun for all the realms. He also refers to it as "the" sun despite being knowledgeable on other realms. The starry sky you see from each of the realms is likely the Realm Between Realms, since that's how you travel to other realms and is depicted as a starry sky when viewed from Yggdrasil's branches. Additionally, Odin uses the sky to send Einherjar from realm to realm. If each realm had its own sky (as in unique outer space, as compared to something like Tokyo’s night sky looking different from New York’s), this wouldn’t be possible.
The main thing is that, barring Twitter statements, there's a general lack of evidence for them being larger. There's the statement about Ragnarok leading to the death and rebirth of "the universe," but that would only be the universe as people saw it from an in-universe perspective, and WoG has clarified that each pantheon is what those people believe the universe to be. Thus, you can't really compare it to the observable universe in real life. The statement itself could also be wrong about Ragnarok, given the game is pretty clear about Groa's prophecies about Ragnarok being deliberately misleading.
TL;DR: From what we have, they're probably planets, but each realm being Multi Solar in size isn't unreasonable either.
View 2
The Realms are intended to be larger than planets, potentially being full universes themselves or a large portion of the universe.
- Mimir notes there are multiple worlds - God of War 2018:
- The realms are on different planes:
“All nine realms occupy the same physical space, only on different planes of existence.”
- Matt Sophos clarifies the nature of the realms in his interview with Game Informer, where he repeats that all of the realms are separate dimensions existing within the same physical space and that they are dimensions on top of each other. This space is Yggdrasil, explained in the next section.
- Each of the nine realms have different flows of time relative to each other. Atreus travels to Jotunheim via his sleep, has a full journey with Angrboda, and then returns back to Midgard, only to get caught by Kratos who tells him that two days passed since Atreus left, whereas we saw only hours pass in Jotunheim. Realms have their own cosmos, such as Asgard with stars shown in its sky.
- At the bare minimum, the nine realms together are a singular universe, as the destruction of them is labeled as the destruction of the universe on Surtr’s Mural. Groa lying is irrelevant, as the mural treats the Realms together as the Universe. If this part was a lie, Odin would never have believed it in the first place. Furthermore in the link above, the God of War website referred to the Nordic Worlds as the “Nordic Universe”.
- There are also direct statements stating they exist on different dimensions of understanding and are like different dimensions.
As such, it is very likely the Realms are cosmic in size.
Yggdrasil
The abstract tree that supports all nine realms. The World Tree completely encompasses and is ever-present throughout all of the realms. Yggdrasil exists on another plane, called the Realm Between Realms, which is a cosmic void where the boundaries of all the Nine Realms are located. Ginnugagap is within the Yggdrasil, existing as the Spark of the World, from which Ymir himself emerged. The Spark of the World, is a cosmic void with noticeable nebulae. It is a primordial place and is the very place where the realms of Muspelheim and Niflheim meet each other. In the beginning there were no realms, only primordial forms - fire and ice, all inhabiting a cosmic void named Ginnungagap:
The God of War Ragnorok Cookbook reiterates this, confirming the existence of the cosmos encompassed by Yggdrasil:
As such Yggdrasil encompasses a whole cosmos, which used to be “young.” It's meant to be a cosmic scale structure. According to Freya, the world tree and its strands transcend time and space.
Discussing the “Grander World”
To add on to the prior an element from Ragnarok, the Mask of Creation, needs to be discussed. The purpose of the mask is to be able to access the rift, which is defined as being “all truth.” The mask itself is a catalyst and appears in different forms, its role to view “the truth of creation,” which itself is most likely the Higher Plane Athena accessed after her death that drove her insane. The sisters of Fate also briefly question if there's a higher fate that dictates what they do but they dismiss it out of arrogance in novel 2.
Why bring this all up? It ties back to Cory’s statements on the world of GOW. As mentioned before, Tyr traveled to other Realms (including the Greek Realm). These realms are separate, but bound all by this higher truth/fate linked to the mask. Note that both the mask and rift are associated with “Creation.” This leads us back to Cory:
Cory defines that all realms have their own creation stories that were meant to line up with the actual religions/mythologies. Greece has Uranus and Chaos, Nords have Ymir and Ginnungagap (in Norse and Germanic mythology, the void in which the world was created). All the realms have these cosmic events that occurred and led to their existence. The rift is the ultimate truth, having all the answers, including those related to creation.
The Surtr Calculation
Of the feats discussed in the original G1 blog, none came close to the sheer shattering power of Ragnarok itself, the Twilight of the Gods brought fully to bear upon the once mighty realm of Asgard. The blow that left the realm in ash and ruins went far beyond that alone, its detonation “starting in the center of Asgard and expanding outwards until it completely obliterated the entire realm, with explicitly nothing remaining.” This strike netted a phenomenal “5.2 times 10 to the 91st power joules,” far surpassing any other finite calculation in the document.
While Asgard was destroyed, the means by which it was destroyed differ greatly from the calculation’s chain of events, and the team on this blog personally disagrees with evidence presented to support the prior conclusion. The argument is predicated upon three premises: That the detonation of Asgard destroyed everything in Asgard in a massive explosion which radiated out from the center, that Ragnarok scales to the detonation of Asgard, and that other characters can be scaled to the detonation of Asgard.
“Said explosion consumes the realm entirely…” Mimir’s quoted here as saying the blow will leave their realm in “ash and ruin,” not that it’ll be completely destroyed by an explosion. It’s a subtle difference, but a reasonably large point of distinction.
Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, the events described here actually do not really come to pass. Mimir, during this conversation, also says that he will “fall at the hands of Thor and Odin,” and considering that statement, which makes it explicit that Mimir is talking about Groa’s false prophecy and not recounting events as they literally happened, citing this as evidence is questionable. (Especially because including the sentence uttered before this one radically changes the context of the conversation.)
The exact statement given in the game by Mimir is as follows: "Groa lied... of course she did! Haha! Odin's working off a false prophecy!" With the exception of Jormungandr being sent back in time by one means or another, it is safer to assume, given that no parts of the prophecy are distinguished, that it’s a false prophecy.
“...destroying all the celestial objects in it as well…” This is where some of our disagreements begin to appear. This is an artistic representation of a realm-destroying explosion, which is not proof that it would destroy all the celestial objects in it as well. The problem here is that, while the first sentence is good (it shows that Asgard was detonated, and that the detonation included a big explosion), the second piece of evidence, “burning it away entirely,” might be the sole piece of evidence for it creating an explosion that consumed a universe (or 1/9th of a universe). Remnants of Asgard are strewn throughout the nine realms following Asgard’s detonation. Given these surviving elements do exist, it is difficult to prove that everything at the edges of the universe was actually destroyed, when matter at a much closer range was able to survive.
“(a representation shows the whole realm being destroyed)”. The artistic depiction in question does not show the whole realm being destroyed by means of an explosion which consumes the entire realm from its center to the edges. We instead see Surtr drive his blade through the artistic representation of Asgard, splitting it in half. Notably, a frame-by-frame analysis of the linked video indicates that Asgard is not damaged until the blade reaches the center of its artistic depiction, a circle encapsulating the “gebo” rune, wherein the realm splits in half. X marks the spot!
“which lines up with the statement [that] Ragnarok would destroy everything in the realm.” This statement does not exist in the section quoted. The closest information in the section quoted reads that Ragnarok would “"...ultimately be the end of everything in the nine realms...", which, crucially, is not actually what happened in God of War: Ragnarok.
The evidence presented does not reasonably support the calculation presented. However, there is a second part of the argument, of scaling other characters to Ragnarok, and scaling Ragnarok to the detonation of Asgard. Scaling other characters to Ragnarok is logical. The larger problem is scaling Ragnarok to the detonation of Asgard, which he explicitly does not survive. Sinmara can be visited after the battle of Ragnarok, and Kratos, Freya, and Mimir discuss her mourning Surtr. Even in cut content, which is fascinating to look at even if it is unusable, the detonation split Ragnarok’s heart in two and hurled it out of Asgard entirely. Ragnarok simply does not survive the detonation of Asgard, so scaling it to the detonation of Asgard is admittedly a very shaky claim.
Scaling other characters to the detonation of Asgard likewise presents certain difficulties. While Freyr does block Ragnarok’s initial strike, that strike alone is not sufficient to detonate Asgard. Direct scaling suggests that Ragnarok is capable of spiritually (if that’s the best word to use) replicating Jagganath (spoilers for Kill Six Billion Demons) by unleashing the blow which detonates Asgard anywhere, but the story of God of War: Ragnarok indicates that it’s not a blow that can be unleashed just anywhere. Mimir, in God of War 2018, recounts the unheard, brief conversation Freya had with, and she later recounts in God of War: Ragnarok, her meeting with Hrimthur the Giant, the mason who built the walls of Asgard. Mimir deduced the truth correctly, that he had built a flaw he’d built into it that Surtr would know how to exploit.
While Sindri and Atreus end up being the ones to break open the flaw, the fact still remains that Ragnarok needed to enter and, apparently, strike the spot where Odin slew Ymir to detonate Asgard. Being interrupted by Freyr does not cause Ragnarok to, say, turn around to strike where Freyr isn’t standing, but instead to try striking roughly the same spot again. The artistic depiction of Ragnarok destroying Asgard in the true prophecy further supports this interpretation. Asgard is not shown damaged as Ragnarok’s blade enters, only detonating once its “heart” is pierced. Ragnarok alone is not enough to detonate Asgard, and does not scale to that level of destruction, nor is it capable of unleashing that scale of destruction innately. Think of it as Sora with the Keyblade: Sora is the only one who can seal worlds, but he needs to reach their keyhole first.
While Ragnarok does not scale to the detonation of Asgard at all, there is one more possible contender: Atreus, who “may have taken partial exposure to the blast.” Unfortunately, we don’t get a great view of the explosion or what occurs. There is not enough information to determine what the detonation of Asgard specifically looked like (we specifically see flames and light engulfing Atreus as the sound fades away), but we can reasonably conclude that there was an explosion. Was it the detonation of Asgard itself?
“Freyr while wielding Ingrid could hold off Surtr’s [Ragnarok’s] sword temporarily.” Importantly, Ragnarok’s blade needs to penetrate to a certain degree in order for the detonation to occur, which is further supported by the artistic depiction of the true prophecy. Or, at the very least, the blade needed to be unaffected by Freyr/Ingrid for long enough for it to detonate Asgard. (In the moment wherein Atreus knocks Kratos back, we do not see the blade submerge any further into the ground.) Flames are visible spewing from the sides of the blade, which has penetrated slightly into Asgard’s surface. Given that the detonation would be occurring underground, not on the surface, and that Freyr has to be (presumably) overwhelmed in order for Ragnarok’s blade to penetrate low enough (or do another unspecified thing without interference) for the detonation to occur, the flames on the surface engulfing Atreus do not appear to be caused by the detonation. Rather, that moment appears to be the moment in which Freyr is overcome and the detonation of Asgard becomes inevitable. Atreus was most likely saved at the last dramatically possible second, rather than tanking the full detonation of Asgard, even if only for a moment.
However, the above does not mention two more aspects of the feat. The detonation shook Yggdrasil to its roots, which yields various results depending on the size of Yggdrasil. The values are 5.4 Trillion - 17 Quintillion FOE (using the size of a galaxy for Yggdrasil) to 1.28 Decillion - 4.55 Duodecillion FOE (using the size of a full universe. This works to validate a similar feat, where Thor and Jormungandr’s clash shook the realms and affected Yggdrasil. Each side of the blog will be discussing this in further detail in their verdicts.
Should Kratos Get The Blade of Olympus?
Short answer, yes, we would not have gone over it if we were not including it after all. The long answer is that he should but it is definitely more complicated than you would think. For starters, yes, the Blade of Olympus would be classified as part of Kratos’ “Greek Arsenal”, which we said we would not include. Technically speaking though, it is not like the weapon ever depowered. Kratos just never took it with him, like with the rest of his miscellaneous non-magic items from Greece minus the Blades of Chaos.
The big standout detail however would be the weapon’s appearance in God of War Ragnarok’s Valhalla DLC, with Kratos being able to manifest the weapon for an alternate variation of his Spartan Rage. Granted, this seems to be Valhalla exclusive as the weapon is manifested from Kratos’ memories. This is notable however considering that this is the only case of something like this in Valhalla. Kratos does not manifest the Trident of Poseidon, or the Wings of Icarus, or the various Greek magic powers he has used, he manifests the Blade of Olympus specifically. This makes the weapon more notable and technically part of his Norse arsenal even if location specific. It is not like rage is something he cannot instantly manifest either when the story demands it, so it would not be severely time limited. As a bonus note, it can be used outside of Valhalla in the normal Ragnarok game after completing Valhalla through New Game +. Though that is obviously non-canon.
So, what is the conclusion here? While the Blade of Olympus was originally locked to Kratos’ Greek arsenal, Valhalla expanded its usage to his Norse one, and the weapon already stood out in comparison to the rest of his Greek arsenal. Thus, despite its restrictions, we will be allowing it for Kratos. On the note of top tier level Greek powers though, we should clarify that, if it was not already clear, the Power of Hope will not be analyzed in this blog. Kratos sacrificed his access to the power at the end of God of War 3, and if he still has it, he has not shown it in the Norse era of his story.
Asura
Why isn’t the Chakravartin calculation universal?
You may remember from the previous Kratos VS Asura blog that the Chakravartin calc was labeled as above universal on technicality, due to the value of joules involved in the destruction of Chakravartin’s statue being higher than the mass energy of the universe. Thus, you may be confused as to why the previous value would not be in that range now, considering the calculation itself hasn’t been updated. So, what happened?
Well, between the previous blog and this one, the mass energy of the universe has been updated to be 3.177e71 joules of energy; as a result, the calculation, which gets between 1.152186e70 joules and 3.0417712e70 joules of energy, would get below the current mass energy of the universe. Due to this, it would land in the Multi-Galaxy range as opposed to being slightly above universal. However, that is with the assumption that the cosmological structures near Chakravartin are merely dwarf galaxies.
Looking more closely at the galaxies close to Chakravartin, they appear much more similar to spiral galaxies than dwarf galaxies; Most dwarf galaxies only appear as a loose cluster of stars compared to the galaxies we see surrounding Chakravartin. Dwarf galaxies also tend to orbit around larger galaxies (our own galaxy, the Milky Way, has about 20), which we can see is not the case here. Additionally, the original blog’s primary justification for the galaxies being dwarf galaxies was that we don’t have any evidence that they’re real galaxies, which is a bit odd, as we don’t have any evidence that they’re dwarf galaxies, either (it’s a bit like arbitrarily assuming that a star is a dwarf star).
To quickly address this old artbook statement saying that Chakravartin is in the center of the Milky Way, this statement has been widely misinterpreted. Rather, it states that Chakravartin is in the center of “the galaxy”, and the Milky Way is merely being “sucked in”. This concept obviously did not make it into the final game - the artbook is loaded with similar scrapped ideas - and would imply that the “galaxy” Chakravartin rests upon is far larger than the Milky Way anyways. Thus, this doesn’t impact the new calcs at all. However, it is still something to keep in mind as a potential flaw in higher end arguments.
With all that in mind, all of Chakravartin’s calcs have had updates added to reflect the new, higher size he could now scale to, as we’re assuming each galaxy is approximately the size of our own (100,000 light years across). So while the old calculations may not be universal anymore, this ultimately doesn’t change much when it comes to higher ends since the new values push him back up to universal anyways.
Verdicts
Kratos
Stats
Kratos and Asura are characters with a wide range of stats and arguments you can give to both of them. Let's go over them and see why we believe Kratos should have a notable edge in the categories. First of all, strength. Asura does generally have more consistent showings of higher tier strength with the likes of the Wyzen feat, any of his showings as Destructor, and so much more. However, these pale in comparison to the Chakravartin Statue feat, which can get at the highest, 44312x universal, well into the Multi range. This is far higher than most of what you can argue for Kratos’ feats, though it could be argued that lower ends could be beaten out by certain interpretations of Kratos’ own strength. However with the high end, most of Kratos’ best feats are beaten.
The key word being most. Let’s talk about Yggdrasil. As discussed in the Before the Verdicts section, Yggdrasil is pretty clearly intended to be at least a universe in size. The realms have different space-times and have different star systems, and they are labeled as “The Norse Universe” in supplementary material, and their destruction is labeled as the destruction of the universe. Even if all of them being destroyed turned out to be untrue, the fact the thought of all being destroyed was stated to be the destruction of the universe is still true, and counters against it are poor at best. While yes, you could argue against it, the simpler solution is that it’s narratively intended to be a full universe, and any other answer is overcomplicating the issue. The young cosmos statement is about a time much, much earlier than the time period in which the Norse games take place, and as a result is not actually proof it would be smaller than a normal universe. Cosmic imagery practically surrounds Yggdrasil, from the Spark of The World to its own association with time and how literal time travel is possible through the tree’s power once it’s been splintered open, aligning with the statement from Freya that the tree transcends time and space.
Next, let’s talk about shaking the roots of Yggdrasil. First of all, yes, Kratos should scale to this feat in its entirety. While it is Ragnarok who performs this feat, we know both Thor and Freyr held their own against him for an extended amount of time and the latter even managed to hold off Ragnarok’s devastating, realm-blasting blow for a short time before the fire giant broke through. Not to mention Thor himself shares an identical feat in his clash with Jormungandr, as Mimir explains the latter’s travel back in time being due to their battle splintering Yggdrasil which itself was felt by all the Nine Realms. So basically, while the stronger Ragnarok performs this feat, Freyr absolutely downscales for being able to temporarily stop his blade while Thor performs an identical feat, meaning Kratos should scale, as he’s been able to match both before. Do keep in mind we are referring to the feats of Thor and Ragnarok affecting the roots of Yggdrasil, not the feat from the previous blog where Ragnarok destroys Asgard.
At its lowest, this feat gets almost 11 times higher than Asura’s best feat. But, remember, this is the low end of Kratos’ feat versus the high end of Asura’s. If we compare high end to high end, Kratos would be approximately 32 million times stronger, and if we compare low end to low end, Kratos would be 11 million times stronger. In order to make Asura stronger in this comparison, you have to use the high end of his best feat while also assuming Yggdrasil is not a universe, which is an unfair assumption the game does not back up and if anything, goes against multiple times.
Of course, if you want, you can use the Ceto calc - we’ll be avoiding it for this comparison, as it is an extreme high end for Kratos, but if you do that, the strength gap frankly becomes way more absurd (225 octillion times stronger, if you wish to know). Not to mention, both Zeus’ thunderbolts and Gaia’s whole being are ascribed to be universal in scope akin to their myths going by guidebooks, supporting the universal scale of the mythologies within God of War, giving further backing to Yggdrasil being universal in size. But, regardless, no matter what, Kratos takes strength in spades.
Speed, on the other hand, is much closer. Using the Primordials feat, Kratos should get around 2 quadrillion times the speed of light, while Asura can get upwards of 6. However, higher ends for the Primordials feat in the previous blog can get upwards of quintillions of times the speed of light, much faster than Asura’s best; and, of course, let’s talk about upscaling for Kratos’ feat! The Kratos speed feat was performed by the Primordials, who were then beaten by Cronos, who was then defeated by Zeus, who Kratos was able to match in speed on top of having fought two of them directly; thus Kratos would upscale this feat by a significant portion at his peak by the time of Valhalla, to a degree that Asura’s feat, which while his adaptation is good, would not match.
As a result, in terms of stats, Kratos should be significantly stronger and should be either relative with or faster than his opponent. Therefore, Kratos should take the stat trinity.
Arsenal & Abilities
Even excluding the Greece sized package that is every tool Kratos can bring from Greece, the Ghost of Sparta still has a good amount of options that Asura would die for. His main weapon trinity of the Leviathan Axe, Blades of Chaos, and Draupnir Spear provide him with both elemental and ranged variety, and complement his existing hand to hand fighting style. Asura is more versatile than one would imagine, but even then he is not comparing to what Kratos can bring to the theoretical table. He has many different options with his different Mantra based attacks and constructs, but this does not compare to the versatility Kratos gets by… actually having an arsenal. Freezing attacks, fires hotter than anything Asura has ever encountered, and explosive spears are bound to catch Asura off guard or leave him in bad spots.
But versatility is only one part of the puzzle. What Asura lacks in quantity he absolutely makes up for in quality. His survivability is frankly absurd, superior to Kratos’ own, with him being able to revive in short time frames from injuries like being cut in half or crushed. His adaptability is another problem, as he can overcome far stronger foes in just a few minutes due to how far his rage can go. Asura also poses other problems, like his absurd mantra gain being able to counter said mantra being drained, or him being able to seemingly withstand attacks to the soul and even fight without one. A lot of these are potent problems, but Kratos is nothing if not responsive. Just ask Olympus.
First problem, does Kratos even have the means to kill Asura? The answer is yes, and he has a good couple ways to do so. While Asura can climb out of Naraka to return to his body and revive, logically if his body were to be destroyed to the point of being uninhabitable, Asura would be done for. The obvious answer here is destroying Asura’s entire body, which Kratos has a couple ways to do. The Blade of Olympus is the obvious answer due to its large energy attacks being able to encompass Asura’s entire body and obliterate it, but Kratos’ signature Blades of Chaos can actually get the job done by quickly burning Asura’s entire body to ashes.
While Asura can withstand the heat of a star’s surface, as previously mentioned the Blades of Chaos can burn hotter than any source of heat in the nine realms. To put this into perspective, while Asura could grab the ten thousand degree surface of a star, Kratos’ Blades could surpass the well over million degree center of one. It is not just fire that could kill Asura, but also ice. Kratos’ Leviathan Axe is just as cold as his Blades of Chaos are hot, and could freeze Asura before breaking him into bits. Asura has regenerated from a lot, but putting himself back together after being frozen and broken into a thousand pieces would definitely be a harder task than he is used to. At the very least it would leave his corpse vulnerable to destruction through a different weapon. Considering his power advantage going hand in hand with these methods, there is no doubt that Kratos can put down the warrior of wrath.
On the topic of that power advantage is Asura’s adaptation. Theoretically speaking, if given enough time, Asura’s wrath would allow him to surpass any power gap that is not an infinite one. If Kratos does not put him down quickly, Asura will eventually surpass him. Luckily for the God of War, he can because well… he is way stronger from the get go, as elaborated on before. But additionally, Kratos also has ways to delay Asura’s catch up. He himself can increase in strength over time through his own rage and godly physique, and even if it is not to as much of a degree, it still would make Kratos’ huge headstart get slightly bigger as time would go on.
Notably, there is also the Blade of Olympus and its ability to drain the energy of others. The way Asura powers up is through his rage gradually producing absurd amounts of mantra, so you would think that Kratos being able to siphon all of that mantra away would put Asura down. Unfortunately, Asura has previously been depleted to 0 energy in the manga only to get right back up, so that makes the Blade of Olympus unviable as a win condition. That does not change the weapon’s usefulness however, as even if it cannot put Asura down, it would still be able to weaken or at the very least slow down the increase of Asura’s mantra.
Do not get the wrong idea about the Deus scene for the record, while Asura can indeed restore his mantra supply, he is not capable of resisting energy absorption outright, just compensating for its debilitation of him. With all this in mind, Kratos has the strength, development, and power draining needed to slow down Asura’s development for more than enough time to finish him off. Apart from these methods however, Kratos’ ability to damage Asura’s soul with a strong enough Leviathan Axe strike is something notable to mention. While Asura could survive the Raging Demon, whether the move targets the soul varies by canon in the Street Fighter series, and there is zero confirmation or canon correlation between the Asura’s Wrath and Street Fighter universes. Even if there was, it is not like Asura’s fight with Akuma would fit into his game’s canon story anyways, so basing an entire argument for Asura surviving soul based attacks off of living the Raging Demon is really pushing what he gains from that crossover.
Though you may have noticed earlier that the Leviathan Axe wrecking Asura’s soul was not mentioned as a win condition. This is because Asura’s body seems to be able to keep fighting despite losing Asura’s soul, as seen with Berserker Asura staying active while Asura himself was stuck in Naraka. While this does mean soul destruction would not end the fight, forcing Asura into his mindless berserker state would prove problematic for him, considering he would lose access to any semblance of skill or strategy Asura would normally have. Thus making him a far more predictable opponent for Kratos, making the fight easier.
Considering Kratos has more than enough methods to keep up with Asura’s unique and notable abilities, it is notable to mention the usefulness of Kratos’ unique perks. While it is not to the extent of Asura’s capabilities, Kratos can heal himself both through his godly powers and various items to the point he can shrug off impalements as seen against Freya. His defensive options via his shield and various armors would also make him harder to damage in the first place, alongside disruptive tools like his various shockwave options, Realm Shift, phasing, and his very own power enhancing rage boost in the form of Spartan Rage. To conclude, Kratos has the edge in versatility when it comes to both major and minor options, and has multiple ways to both deal with and hamper Asura’s best powers.
Tertiary Factors
Let's get the obvious out of the way, Asura absolutely has the advantage in range and AOE. This should not be a shocker at all, considering the guy has fought guys the size of the planet and what not. Fighting on such a ridiculously high scale is what Asura is famous for. This is obviously a major advantage against someone like Kratos, who while he has some good range and AOE of his own, has not shown capabilities on Asura’s level. There is not really any sugar coating you can do here. Heck, even Atreus shooting an arrow to the sun pales in comparison to Chakravartian shooting beams from lightyears away.
But range is only one part of this. How do the two compare in skill and experience? Obviously, Asura is no slouch when it comes to close quarters combat. He has fought a large variety of opponents, and has been confirmed to have trained for years prior to the events of his game. Each deity he fought had a very different fighting style and tactics as well, and he has faced opponents like Chakravartian who outdid him in versatility only to be bested despite matching Asura’s power. But while he is definitely more impressive than he is given credit for, Kratos is simply on another level.
The God of War was trained from the moment he could walk on two legs, fighting for and leading Sparta for decades. Once Ares came into the mix and Kratos began his godly adventures, he only gained more and more experience when it came to fighting different foes. He has notably shown just as impressive feats as Asura in combat, going against entire armies of soldiers and dealing with attacks both familiar and foreign. Turning enemy weapons against them, making quick half second decisions, or adapting to fighting styles is nothing new to Kratos. In fact it is common, and something he has honed more than Asura.
In fact his adaptation in combat is so good that he can adapt to and outpace Heimdall mid fight similar to how Asura adapts with someone like Chakravartian, except landing blows on Heimdall is far more impressive when you realize Kratos outpaced him despite Heimdall having precognition. While you could argue Kratos simply blitzed him, if he could do that instead of needing to adapt to Heimdall, then he would not have needed the Draupnir Spear to hard counter Heimdall’s precognition. He had to adapt first to land physical blows on him, given his previous hand to hand interactions during their fight.
That being said, adapting to someone who knows exactly what you are going to do to the point you can hit them anyways is frankly absurd, and goes past what Asura has been able to pull off skill wise. You could argue his fight against Sergei’s analytical mech in the manga compares, but that has a couple problems. One, it is manga only, so using it as a major point is pushing the limits of the manga's presence as supporting evidence. Two, the mech was out performed stat wise in the end, which aligns with Asura’s accelerated development. Three, Asura had help from Yasha in the manga, whereas Kratos hit Heimdall in a 1V1. And finally, four, Sergei’s mech performs analysis of a fighter to counter them, which is not equivalent to Heimdall quite literally seeing the future and knowing exactly what someone is going to do instead of what they are most likely to do.
Notably, Asura does not really have anything Kratos has not run into before. Energy blasts? Zeus adores spamming those against his son. Crazy regeneration? He knows how to get Baldur off his tail despite his infinite pain tolerance and immortality. Size gap? Something he took advantage of and turned against the titan Cronos (obviously Cronos is not as big as Destructor Asura, but regardless this shows Kratos knows the weaknesses in being bigger than your foe). Asura does not really have anything to surprise Kratos with, where in contrast, Kratos’ basic bare hands, shield, and time slowing Realm Shift are the only things Asura will recognize.
A frost axe, chained fire swords, exploding spears, and a plethora of miscellaneous RPG equipment are completely unfamiliar options. Additionally since Kratos is a master of every weapon he has ever wielded (especially his Norse ones), this makes it even harder for Asura to keep off. Plus as a final bonus, none of his Norse weapons are things you can properly disarm from Kratos anyways. He can telekinetically call back the Leviathan Axe, his Blades of Chaos are chained to him, and copies of the Draupnir Spear can easily be made while previous ones explode. More esoteric options like phasing additionally would completely catch Asura off guard.
As for stamina, both can fight for extended periods of time and shrug off lethal wounds. Granted, Asura’s showings like staying alive and keeping consciousness after being stabbed from every direction by spears does stand out, but he lacks the methods to do such a quick degree of damage to Kratos to where Kratos would be too overwhelmed by pain in an instant. In contrast, Kratos’ various weapons would be able to do a lot of damage quickly to Asura, balancing out the gap in endurance and stamina.
To summarize, while Asura is definitely the more durable, explosive, and ranged fighter, Kratos absolutely takes the edge in skill (he does not skill stomp, but the skill gap is a good margin), experience, and versatility. These advantages would additionally mean far more than Asura’s in a fight like this, considering that while Asura can definitely fight at range, he far prefers close quarters combat. Thus while his range and AOE advantages are meaningful, he is unlikely to take full advantage of them in contrast to Kratos’ advantages being very well suited to take on someone who fights like Asura does.
Conclusion
"Now? I believe I would like to sit here for a while."
Advantages:
Far stronger and more durable, to a point Asura could not catch up via adaptation quickly
Relative or superior in speed
More skilled in unarmed combat, gap is emphasized by weapon usage
More versatile with different weapons and equipment
Blade of Olympus’ energy blasts could destroy Asura’s body fairly easily
Temperature based weaponry is far beyond what Asura has had to deal with, and could destroy him to a point his regeneration has not shown the ability to come back from
Power absorption would slow down Asura’s development…
Soul destruction can significantly hamper Asura…
Ok but genuinely Mimir is awesome and you should respect him for being so awesome
DLC that finishes his character arc is free
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Disadvantages:
Worse healing powers, even with extra equipment boosts
Less range and AOE
Less total stamina and less pain tolerance
…but would not fully stop it outright
…but would not end the fight due to Berserker Asura
Still lost to Shovel Knight
Full name is John Kratos
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With a couple cosmic trees, golden statues, afterlives, and precog defying skills elaborated on, it is clear Kratos has everything he needs to win this battle. Comparing both at their worst, Kratos would be over ten times as powerful, and at their bests, several millions. With speed never being something out of Kratos’ paygrade, he is perfectly suited to take advantage of the strength gap and overwhelm Asura with the power of a God of Hope. His versatility edge is useful for getting the window to take full advantage of his superior power, with both his temperature based weapons and Olympus related energy attacks being able to finish off the warrior of wrath.
Of course with Asura’s limitless rise of wrath, it is not completely impossible for him to try some sort of stalling approach and eventually overwhelm Kratos with built up power. But not only is it out of character for Asura to not just charge headfirst into battle, Kratos has multiple means of slowing down Asura’s way to victory with power draining or his own rage increasing. Plus with Kratos’ notable advantage in skill and experience, it would be hard for Asura to get an opening to really give Kratos a hard time. Especially with the Leviathan Axe flying back and forth, the Blades of Chaos burning everything to a crisp, seven Draupnir Spears going through Asura’s gut, and the nastiest rage fueled combo you have ever seen putting Asura on the backfoot.
Ironically, Asura’s biggest issue here is that he just lacked the options and capabilities needed to gain ground, in contrast to how his development and fights tend to go. When comparing the two, Kratos simply had the stats, versatility, and talent for bloody war needed to gain the upper hand and slay another immortal foe. Asura may have had the Wrath needed to wage a War, but Kratos had the capabilities needed to end one.
Asura
Stats
Now, as we all know, the big part of the debate is about how strong these 2 big angry muscle men are, and well, this part of the debate was the hardest to talk about to say the least. As both characters have a weird variety of stats that goes everywhere. However, we, Team Asura ,will say what we think of this section.
Let’s start a bit smaller, shall we? Kratos has many feats on his own. Such as creating a crater which gets to 73.7 Kilotons of TNT and shielding from Thamur’s frost breath (4 - 555 gigatons of TNT). However, both of these pale in comparison of Asura’s own strength feats, such as him subduing Vlitra, who was able to sent out country sized debris from just coming out of the planet (237.8 Zettatons of TNT) or his most famous, holding back and destroying Gongen Wyzen (390.8 Ronnatons of TNT). So on their own feats it is obvious who takes it. However, these two mad men have fought many many gods with their own crazy strength that they obviously scale to.
Thanks to the many gods in his series, Kratos scales to some very powerful feats such as; Ares creating a giant explosion (2.79 - 11.15 Gigatons of TNT), Poseidon’s death creating a giant flood ( 7.1 Zettatons of TNT) and Zeus creating a constellation. But the best feat for Kratos is the Primordials creating the entire universe. This does have some problems in of itself, such as it obviously not being created in the first punch, but as a high end it should be fine, definitely since Zeus had a statement of being able to burn the universe. So this puts Kratos at Universal but what about Asura? Well his traitorous… friends? I dunno it’s kinda complicated, but they have some strong feats as well! Starting with Wyzen- again, who poked the planet Gaea (4.89 yottatons of TNT), Yasha kicking a planet sized fortress off target (19.8 yottatons of TNT) and Deus, after fusing with said fortress, clapping his hands to try and smash Asura and Yasha (3,800 yottatons of TNT). But that’s just the Seven Deities. They are mere insects when compared to the true god of the world; Chakravartin.
Not only could he erase the Event Horizon with a mere touch, but he also created a gigantic statue which exploded shortly after his death. This explosion covering literally everything ranges from multi-galaxy (Which is the lowest option possible) to 1.403951303e76 joules AKA 44,191x Universal. As a reminder, the multi-galaxy end is only if you argue the galaxies that get dwarfed by Chakravartin are dwarf galaxies, even though they don’t look like them. 44,000x Universal, or well into Multiversal, is much, much stronger than Kratos’ universal level scaling. To add onto this is that Base Asura would scale to this, adding up his adaptations and his many forms means that Asura will only get much much stronger than Kratos. But that’s not all, is it? What about Ceto and Yggdrasil’s calcs? Well let’s get to them now.
Ceto is interesting. So the argument here is that Ceto is made out of water and she’s comparable to the size of Uranus, who was said to be universe sized. Seeing she was comparable the mass of water she must have would be extremely big, up to (1e32x greater than the mass of the observable universe. At least 100 nonillion times universal). Which is insane, but it has some problems. For starters, it’s kind of obvious, but Ceto isn’t really the size of the universe. Her death created the oceans which is a lot less water then if she was universe size, further emphasized by the fact that the Greek universe isn’t one-eighth water by volume. Even the argument that Uranus IS uni size doesn’t actually have a basis aside from a statement that he is the creator of the universe (and he needn’t be universe-sized to accomplish such a feat).
Without any compelling evidence for Uranus being the size of the universe, this calc’s fundamental basis falls apart. While the Primordials can likely change sizes, there’s no particular reason for them to shrink down to such a significant degree in this scene, so it’s more likely that some creative liberties were taken in the recreation of their universe-creating war. Besides that, there’s also the obvious fact that the feat is so absurdly higher than anything in God of War, that it becomes kind of ridiculous to argue and it all comes from the mass of a primordial whose size is obviously not universal.
Yggdrasil, however, is even weirder than Ceto’s calc. The argument for Yggdrasil’s high calced feat comes from the idea that the entire thing is uni sized, however there are a few problems here. For starters, The Realms aren’t actually uni size themselves. Midgard has been stated to be “all of earth” . More stuff like Jormungandr spanning all the waters of Midgard only enough to be able to encircle a single planet also adds onto that notion, and the realms are reflections to each other. So it’s likely they’re just planet sized. Another big evidence for it is Skoll and Hati, they chase the sun and the moon to maintain the day and night cycle across all the realms. It would obviously not be possible for a single star to light up an entire solar system or galaxy or even a universe. To support this notion even further, Surtr was stated to have created the Sun and stars. Mimir also refers to it as The Sun too, even though he knows about all the realms.
We should, however, quickly address some of the arguments used to push for uni-sized Yggdrasil. The two statements referring to “the Norse universe” aren’t really indicative of the cosmology’s size; Rather, they’re being used in a similar fashion to something like “the Marvel Cinematic Universe”, referring to the shared world these stories take place within (the term “verse”, common to versus terminology, is also used similarly). Groa’s prophecy about the death and the rebirth of the universe is interesting, but shouldn’t be taken at face value. Only Asgard was destroyed during Ragnarok, which Groa herself accounted for in one of her hidden prophecies - The “death and rebirth of the universe” is a deliberate attempt to obfuscate the true outcome of Ragnarok. Crucially, Odin objectively did believe this lie, and did believe it in the first place. Claiming that Ragnarok would destroy everything was a great way to obfuscate his true aim, and the word “universe” is an acceptable synonym for “everything.”
With that out of the way, there’s not a whole lot suggesting a universal scope for Yggdrasil or the Nine Realms, with a significant amount of evidence suggesting a lower size. The most we see inside realms are stars and black holes, with no proof they're above MSS, let alone universal. Even if Yggdrasil is an entire galaxy, the feat lowers a significant amount (5.4 Trillion - 17 Quintillion FOE AKA Multi Solar System), far lower than Asura’s low ends.
So obviously strength goes to Asura, but what about Speed? Well that’s a lot closer. Kratos has some great feats, such as him reacting to Hippocampi strike (Mach 5553.2 - 8329.8), being able to move in tandem with Atreus arrows (272 - 333.6c) and of course, The Primordial punch… Again. Assuming it took to create everything in 600 seconds we’d get (2.45 Quadrillion c). However an older blog had it faster right? Well there’s some issue with this, it’s assuming that the clash instantly created everything in 2 seconds. Both being false, we see only stars being formed from their first collision and upon creation it took much longer than just 2 seconds to travel. While for Asura; He could fire mantra beams that reach the atmosphere (24.4% SoL), block and intercept Vlitra’s laser (5.8c), and fly from Gaea to Chakravartin, who was outside the galaxy (108 billion c).
However the more important feats come from everyone’s favourite god Chakravartin and his golden statue. Chakravartin’s statue created a massive shockwave in a few seconds upon his death, getting to (350 Trillion c - 699 Trillion c). To add onto this, This feat is actually more of a lowball, as the explosion he created popped up in half a second, making this feat potentially much faster. Chakravartin’s lasers are just as fast as well, being able to cross stellar distances going from (437.82 Trillion c to 6.161 Quadrillion c).
So Asura takes speed, and while Kratos does upscale from his speed feat, so does Asura due his forms and adaptation. Even if we go and use Asura’s lower end to the feat, thanks to how quick he adapts throughout his fights, it wouldn’t take long before he eventually matches or even surpasses Kratos’ speed. As a result, Asura takes strength and speed pretty handedly.
Arsenal & Abilities
While at first this seems fairly clear cut in Kratos’ favour, Asura has notable counters/answers to anything Kratos has here.
To start, there’s no question Asura’s regen can match and surpass Kratos. Kratos can fully heal himself from wounds across his body in seconds, which is impressive, but Asura regenerating his entire body from a charred skeleton in seconds surpasses that quite easily. Kratos’ regen would also not prove an issue for Asura to bypass, a large energy blast would disintegrate Kratos, a state he has not shown the ability to return from.
There’s also an ability Kratos can invoke from several pieces of equipment, the Realm Shift, which slows down time in the area. While this would initially grant Kratos an advantage, Asura has shown the skill to adapt to time being stopped by Chakravartin, able to react nearly instantly the moment time starts again. It’s reasonable to conclude he’d be able to do something similar against Realm Shift, possibly more easily given it only slows down time and doesn’t stop it completely.
Now, let’s discuss Kratos’ main wincons, beginning with the Blade of Olympus, which poses one of the biggest threats to Asura in this fight, a divine weapon capable of draining godly power. Given the nature of Mantra, it’s not hard to conclude Kratos would be capable of absorbing Asura’s power. Is this enough to defeat Asura? We don’t believe so.
In his fight with Deus in the manga, Asura was able to produce so much rage, which is how he generates Mantra, that Deus could not absorb it all. This means at minimum that as long as Asura can output strength superior to the Blade of Olympus’ known absorption limit, which we know from Kratos himself is about someone of his strength, it should prove incapable of fully draining his power.
There is however the matter of the Blade of Olympus’ other absorption power, soul draining. This is even more in favour of Asura though, there are two main avenues to prove this, soul absorption potency in Asura’s Wrath outdoing known showings within God of War and Asura resisting them, such as Sergei absorbing an entire city of souls in the manga, or just how many souls Asura is even worth. The Mantra Reactor, which was capable of holding seven trillion souls, is the only thing that could contain Asura’s wrath at its peak, meaning Asura’s mantra, which is heavily tied to the soul, could potentially be worth more than 7 trillion souls. Either or both of these being true means the Blade of Olympus simply doesn’t have the potency to absorb Asura’s soul, rendering this avenue of victory futile for Kratos. It is also worth noting that the Blade of Olympus would require Kratos to stab his target, so if Asura is much stronger to begin with, Kratos would be unable to even begin the absorption process.
Kratos isn’t out of options though, the second big threat in his arsenal is the Leviathan Axe, imbued with the deadly poison of the World Serpent, Eitr, which is potent enough to stop the healing of even Thor. Sounds lethal enough to kill Asura right? Well not quite.
Let’s talk about the Gohma Glider. A giant flying Gohma beast with a rather important biological aspect to them, their poisonous fins, lethal at just close range alone. Asura can take apart beasts like this without a scratch or any harm done to himself, and if that isn’t enough, his brother in arms (and in law) Yasha can catch and throw these fins back at the offending Gohma. Considering their near identical biology and power source, it shouldn’t be unreasonable to scale this sort of resistance from Yasha to Asura.
Tertiary Factors
Asura has a lot more advantages in this category than you might think. To get the obvious out of the way, his range and sheer quantity of energy blasts is far greater than anything Kratos has at his disposal, making any engagement at long range an inherently disadvantageous one for Kratos. While Kratos could potentially close that gap, that’s where Asura’s superior mobility comes into play. Kratos may be agile, but Asura’s pseudo-flight, aerial mobility, and sheer acrobatic skill outclasses him in this regard. Sure, Kratos isn’t exactly lacking in mobility or ranged options himself, but none of those options can launch him into space, dodge dozens of attacks at once, fire hundreds of lasers capable of decimating entire fleets, or release shockwaves large enough to cover an entire planet. Not to mention, Asura frequently reflects energy attacks with his bare hands, making a prolonged ranged battle a terrible idea for Kratos.
If Asura is given the opportunity to transform into Asura the Destructor, all of the above advantages are greatly magnified. Kratos has battled many giants, but none even close to the Destructor’s planetary size. Combine that with intergalactic flight and energy blasts with enough range to destroy stars, and Kratos will quickly be put on the back foot. The same cannot be said for Asura, though, as he’s easily overcome equally large - and in the case of Chakravartin, far larger - threats.
Of course, range and mobility are but two facets of their skill. Asura’s fighting style means he won’t stay at a distance for very long, as he typically prefers to close the gap between him and his opponent as quickly as possible. However, that doesn’t mean he’ll be outclassed in skill once he does close the distance - While his training likely wasn’t as intensive as Kratos’, he’s still a fast learner with a fair number of tricks up his sleeve, like his ability to analyze and predict enemy attacks, even in stopped time. Even when outmatched in every regard, Asura is still able to keep up with more skilled opponents, meaning any advantages Kratos holds likely won’t be enough to turn the tide in his favor.
Kratos might have genuine martial arts skill on his side, but this is nothing new for Asura; Ryu and Akuma are just as, if not more skilled than Kratos in that regard (even if their fighting styles differ significantly), and not only can Asura keep up with them, but he can easily copy and parry their techniques within seconds of seeing them for the first time. This would mean any of Kratos’ hand-to-hand skills are liable to be copied and turned against him, while Kratos has not shown the same capability. Furthermore, Asura’s battle against Sergei’s mech is a cut above anything Kratos can do. Kratos has never battled against something that can copy the best attributes of his most dangerous adversaries and then improve upon them - The closest feat he has is fighting against Ares’ clones of him… which are explicitly less skilled than the real Kratos.
Kratos does have a few advantages as far as general skill is concerned, though. He’s a far better tactician, having been a successful general during his Grecian days and once again leading an army into battle during Ragnarok, while Asura’s leadership is more of an implication than anything. He’s also much better with weaponry in general, having mastered plenty of weapons over the years, while Asura has only really improvised in this category. Finally, he’s fought a much wider variety of foes with more esoteric powers than Asura, so there’s not a whole lot Asura can do that wouldn’t be something Kratos hasn’t seen before. So, while Asura can match and surpass Kratos in ranged combat, mobility, and general hand-to-hand skill, Kratos takes the edge in experience, weaponry, and tactics.
As a brief aside, Kratos overcoming Heimdall’s precognition is blatantly not a matter of skill. Even before their battle, it’s made clear that Kratos must rely on Draupnir - a weapon forged specifically to overload Heimdall’s senses - to stand a chance at all. In the ensuing fight, Kratos cannot hit Heimdall at all, but by repeatedly detonating Draupnir next to him, he can slowly but surely wear away at his precognitive abilities. Once his stun bar is full, it remains full for the remainder of the fight, indicating that Heimdall is unable to use his powers to read Kratos’ moves anymore. It’s a matter of Kratos relying on a specific weapon to overcome Heimdall’s abilities; He did not simply adapt or outskill the ability to see the future, nor is this implied or stated anywhere.
Finally, there’s stamina and endurance to consider. Asura is generally better at shrugging off deadly wounds, having recovered from repeated impalement, being mauled, having his arms ripped off, and having his core ripped out. Meanwhile, Kratos was left crippled by impaling himself once, was left bruised and limping after a single fight with Baldur, and was killed by getting knocked upside the head by Thor. He’s hard to take down, certainly, but Asura simply outclasses him in this category. It also bears mentioning that Kratos’ arsenal is limited in supply. His weapons have been broken and rendered unusable before, something Asura has taken advantage of in the past. Meanwhile, Asura is his own weapon, so the only thing limiting his options in combat would be his own death. It’s strange considering how vast Kratos’ arsenal is, but Asura’s superior endurance and lack of reliance on external tools means he’d almost certainly win a war of attrition.
Conclusion
"No more crying. Smile. My wrath… is finally... gone…"
Advantages:
Much stronger and more durable in base, with his transformations and adaptation only increasing this gap
Roughly equal in speed, or possibly even faster
Significantly better regeneration and immortality
Massive advantage when it comes to range and AoE
Resists many of Kratos’ win conditions
Better mobility and CQC skill
Has absurd levels of aura for a dead 2012 game protagonist
Disadvantages:
Significantly less versatile
Less experience, not as skilled with weapons, and is an inferior tactician
None of his own hax would affect Kratos
Actual ending to his game is behind a damn pay wall
Lost/untranslated media
Overall, this is a rough match for both, but the Demigod of Wrath has everything he needs to take the win here more times than not. No matter which end you go with, Kratos will always be significantly weaker than Asura and either equal in speed or slower. Add on Asura's many, many forms, his constant ability to adapt in battle and make his stats skyrocket, and Kratos would never be able to reach his stats, let alone surpass them.
Obviously, Kratos is much more experienced in combat and versatile while also actually having weapons on him, but truly who needs those when you have fists that can sink a continent? Asura’s massive AoE and range - even from just powering up - is extremely detrimental for The Ghost of Sparta, as he wouldn't be able to find an opening before immediately evaporating on the spot from Asura simply releasing some of his Mantra. It helps that he's also much more mobile compared to Kratos; High speed fights are kinda his thing.
Most of Kratos’ abilities would only be able to help him buy some time. Any temperature, energy blast or absorption attempt Kratos does is something Asura could easily overpower. Realm Shift is something Asura already has adapted to and soul destruction or absorption is something he counters in several ways. Most notable, The Mantra reactor being fueled by seven trillion souls, something far beyond The Blade's capabilities. Which means Kratos doesn't really have a way to kill him, with how ridiculous Asura's regenerative abilities are, combined with his immortality, and already higher durability, he'd simply brute force his way through anything Kratos does.
Kratos may have been a strong opponent, but he had no hope to be able to defeat nor contain the true power of Asura's Wrath.
Final Tally
Kratos (5) - Blue Igneous, Discount Ginger, door-kun, Markx, TheCardinalKing
Asura (5) - Mad Dog of Fujiwara, Pas, Grey, Hi Hi, Dammerung
Before We Go…
We would like to welcome three new core members of our G1 team! For those of you who might be unaware, most blogs are completed by a team of volunteers unique to each individual blog, but we have a core group of consistent members who work to curate every blog and oversee the process. With this in mind, we’d like to extend a warm welcome to MKF4, door-kun, and TWILTY! We look forward to working with y’all going forward.
