Let's talk about durability

[Mea quidem sententia]

Let's say there is a character who can survive a nuclear explosion of 25 kilotons of TNT. Does this mean that as long as there is no energy equal or greater than what 25 kt of TNT generates, this character cannot be harmed? (25 kt of TNT is equal to 1.046 * 10^14 J) What if a character was hit by a combat knife thrown at him at 1 m/s? That's not too bad, is it? It's only 1 m/s with a mass of 0.32 kg. What harm could that do? It's not as bad as getting hit by a sedan traveling the same speed. Did you know the femur is stronger than concrete? Perhaps the idea of durability itself isn't so concrete after all, and yet plenty of message boards including FactPile assumes it is. We tend to get so wrapped up on how much energy this produces or how much energy that produces that we go so far to compare it to TNT, which is faulty, by the way. Let me provide an example. Lightning generates 1.5 billion joules (GJ). This is equal to 358.51 kg. of TNT. 50 kg. alone can do this, however. I doubt lightning would do the same in spite of its energy being 717.02% times what you see in the video. You'd sooner die by that alone than by lightning, which only 10% of those struck actually die. This may have to do with indirect strikes.

Why would someone who is caught in a nuclear explosion be unable to survive an explosive of lesser magnitudes as a stick of dynamite? I suspect it's because the two are entirely different and because a stick of dynamite is directly next to that person. Nuclear explosions don't use TNT from what I'm aware of, they're only compared to TNT equivalence because both are bombs. That's right, TNT equivalence should only be used to quantify the energy released in explosions, not anything else. Nuclear explosions generate a fireball, which is located at the epicenter. Along with it is a shock front, which does the majority of the damage. There's also thermal radiation and ionization radiation. As the explosion travels, the energy dissipates, so you're likely to survive if you're farther away from the explosion. The fireball alone makes up 40 to 50% of the energy. Another factor is if the explosion is in the air or on the ground. The latter is more dangerous.

What about a sedan hitting you at 1 m/s? Sure, it's only hitting you with 2.3 metric tons, whereas the knife is hitting you with 0.32 kg. The difference, however, is that the latter is sharper. If we assumed that the knife had a point of 1 mm^2, then that would be 320 pascals. A sedan would produce more pressure, but most of this pressure would be lost because the entire front isn't hitting the person, whereas the entire tip of the knife is. As for the femur, while it may be stronger than concrete, it only takes the correct angle to hit the bone in order to fracture it. Durability isn't all that it seems to be. It isn't all that easy to determine compared to a character's strength or speed. And yet, we all treat it as if it is. There are different types of durability, and the sooner we understand these different types, the better. Sure, one could boast about Kain's alleged durability against pressure, but that doesn't mean anything against those who can generate heat, or cold, or electricity.

Characters with elastic durability are better suited against blunt objects, depending how how elastic their body allows them to stretch, but not sharp objects. Those who can form their bodies into metal may do well against heat and cold for a time, but they are a perfect conductor for electricity and at times, corrosion. It should be so obvious, but it isn't. A character's body is hard? So what? Glass is harder than steel, but it's brittle. The more you have one thing, the less you have of another. I ask all FactPilers to no longer accept the notion that just because a character withstood this or that, that this should be enough to no longer consider any other moment in a character's history. There are more factors to durability, all we need to do now is consider them.

[Kitten Lord]

we have argued this on the pile for a long time, myself especially concerning Kain debates am tired of people not understanding how just because something does not look impressive does not mean it is not powerful or capable of piercing or defeating the body of a person.

For example, you compare a combat knife and a nuclear explosion. People think just because nukes are the peak of our destructive capabilities, anyone who tanks one must be immune to smaller blows like swords and what not. Or are automatically too durable to be harmed. People need to consider the feats closely. If someone tanks a nuke, or on a larger scale a super nova going off near them then their also potentially just tanking a small portion of energy that has been released on a vast scale or area, the blast is not focused on them.

Someone who, lets say for example tanks an extremely strong entity using a sharp, nigh indestructible edge they could have greater pressure resistance by far than someone who tanks a portion of energy resulting from an explosion. Concentration of the energy, pressure etc are all far more relevant.

[Mea quidem sententia]

we have argued this on the pile for a long time, myself especially concerning Kain debates am tired of people not understanding how just because something does not look impressive does not mean it is not powerful or capable of piercing or defeating the body of a person.

For example, you compare a combat knife and a nuclear explosion. People think just because nukes are the peak of our destructive capabilities, anyone who tanks one must be immune to smaller blows like swords and what not. Or are automatically too durable to be harmed. People need to consider the feats closely. If someone tanks a nuke, or on a larger scale a super nova going off near them then their also potentially just tanking a small portion of energy that has been released on a vast scale or area, the blast is not focused on them.

Someone who, lets say for example tanks an extremely strong entity using a sharp, nigh indestructible edge they could have greater pressure resistance by far than someone who tanks a portion of energy resulting from an explosion. Concentration of the energy, pressure etc are all far more relevant.

Actually, I didn't compare a combat knife to a nuclear explosion. I compared a nuclear explosion to dynamite and a combat knife to a sedan. I only wanted to demonstrate that durability isn't so cut and dry like physical strength and speed. Looking up mechanical properties for different types of materials, homogeneous or otherwise helps. We can look at the following.

Hardness: Glass is harder than steel. You'll sooner scratch or indent steel than glass.
Brittleness: Tungsten is twice as hard as steel, but it's brittle. This is because it's very hard.
Toughness: This has to do with being able to absorb a certain amount of energy and plastically deform before fracturing.
Strength: The ability to withstand an applied load without failure or plastic deformation.
Plasticity: Should an object like this take an impact force, it'll dent and remain deformed.
Elasticity (related to resilience): Should an object like this take an impact force, it'll stretch and then return to its original form. Sharp objects are very effective.
Ductility: If you take copper wire, you can bend it easily because of its ductility. A thin sheet of aluminum can also be manipulated.
Malleability: Iron is malleable because it can be reduced to a thin sheet by hammering it.

Then you have . . .
Tensile strength: Its ability to be stretched or pulled before failure.
Compressive strength: This is the opposite and involves compressing an object before it breaks.
Shear strength: Think of this similarly to a book lying flat on a table, placing your hand on it, and moving your hand in one direction.
Flexural strength (the same as tensile strength if the material is homogeneous): Imagine a beam and applying a load on it, such as a bowling ball. If the beam isn't bending, the flexural strength just may very well be good.

[Kitten Lord]

Thing is, it is likely nigh impossible to discover all of those variables for some of the characters in a vs. A lot of them are likely made of flesh or bone in appearance yet can take forces real flesh and bone could not without stretching. Like Kains skin tanking Raziels claws, it does not dent, deform or w/e, nor does it tear. Meanwhile, said blows used on iron blocks ,brass or what have you get impaled.

[Soulerous]

Lightning generates 1.5 billion joules (GJ). This is equal to 358.51 kg. of TNT. 50 kg. alone can do this, however. I doubt lightning would do the same in spite of its energy being 717.02% times what you see in the video. You'd sooner die by that alone than by lightning, which only 10% of those struck actually die. This may have to do with indirect strikes.

I think it's due to them expending their energy in radically different ways, as you've talked about. In this case it's a current of charged particles vs a high-velocity kinetic impact. Different attacks/physical phenomena affect matter in different ways, and different materials withstand these different effects with varying degrees of success. So I absolutely agree with you that this has to be accounted for in debates. I also think when durability is reduced to flat TNT figures (at least some of the time, though unfortunately not all of the time) it is used for the purpose of simplifying the situation. I am confident that Aelfinn, as an example, is aware of this principle and uses such figures when they refer to comparable attacks.

we have argued this on the pile for a long time, myself especially concerning Kain debates am tired of people not understanding how just because something does not look impressive does not mean it is not powerful or capable of piercing or defeating the body of a person.

Unless you're talking about debates I have not seen, this was never the problem you encountered. This principle (things can carry much more power than they may appear to) is a very common and well-understood one on Factpile at large. The issues concerning Kain/Raziel are other and myriad, and can be summarized by saying your conclusions relied on assuming things you did not know. This isn't the place to argue about that in particular, I'm simply pointing out that our debates revolved around the proof for your claims, which the rest of Factpile (and those from other sites) found to be inadequate.

[Kitten Lord]

Unless you're talking about debates I have not seen,

Probably this then.

This isn't the place to argue about that in particular

Then why did you bring it up my fallacious little friend? I am not talking about "our debates" about Kain and Raziels specific durability nor did I mention them, I simply mentioned how people did not always understand how just because someone can blow a ton of stuff up in a large radius does not mean they can do any damage to someone like Kain who can tank a huge amount of power in a small, precise area. As in, good job you can blow up a town, which at best is made up of materials that may have hardness such as brick or at best, small amounts of steel. This does not consititue the power to scratch something of hardness equal to science lab esque materials like nano-composites or carbon alloys.

Obviously I do not care whether you "believe" or "claim" whether you or the rest of factpile think my evidence for their durability (the games?) is inadequate or not. I do not believe even the developers coming on here and stating it themselves would end in some members of fact-pile admitting their ignorance on LoK or indeed debating in general. But as you said;

This isn't the place to argue about that in particular,

[Mea quidem sententia]

To be fair, cool air can crack skin, and thermal shock can cause things to break, but the latter only occurs if there is a sudden change from cold to heat. For example, if Samus froze an object and then used her plasma beam, she could cause thermal shock because the object frozen at sub-zero temperature suddenly heated up to temperatures exceeding 1,000 centigrade. But neither istance will occur from a nuclear explosion. But, if you're not atomized by the fire ball, you better hope you can heal frm the thermal and ionizing radiation, or you're screwed.

[Kitten Lord]

How cold does something have to be before it cracks due to heat?

[Mea quidem sententia]

How cold does something have to be before it cracks due to heat?

You can think of a window out in the cold and defrosting it with hot water. It should shatter. Things freeze at 0 centigrade, so not very cold. (All right, that is pretty cold.) The best result would be to use cold water on the cold window. I believe the same s true with heat transitioning to cold.

[Soulerous]

Then why did you bring it up my fallacious little friend?

To say that wasn't what the arguments were about most of the time. But since you are talking about debates I haven't seen, it's moot. (Which is what "the unless you're talking about..." comment was for.)

You should take the following as rhetorical.

Spoiler

Obviously I do not care

Not an issue since you stopped arguing about it.

I do not believe even the developers coming on here

Oh, but obviously I do not care whether you believe it, my fallacious little friend.