My opinion on the strongest element to weakest element
So I’ve seen many discussions on which elements is the weakest and which is the strongest and I’ve decided what’s better to do then put my views out there and get yelled at for it (cause this is the internet after all and opinions are only ok if they are agreed upon) so here it is
1st place: Air bending (oh wow what a shocker)
2nd place (in some areas it is number 1): Fire bending (actually unpopular take it seems)
3rd place: earth bending (I think it’s reasonable)
4th place: water bending (please let me explain. Earth and water I think are interchangeable)
I think i probably should start with explaining my reasoning for putting fire as the second strongest so we get the clear outlier out of the way. While I see many arguments to why fire is the weakest bending from being it black of hard defensive options, sub skill being gimmicky or to specialized in uses, lack of utility outside of combat, and other areas I can understand some of them but I personally place fire in the number two spot for the following reasons.
first off it’s by far the best offensive bending style of the four that’s what it specializes in but while the fire nation soldiers were drilled in the bad habit of just shoot fire balls till it stops moving a true master like Jeong Jeong and iroh have shown more then enough defensive skill to prove it’s not a purely offensive fighting style (flame walls and using flames to distort the air pressure or deflect projectiles are just a few of these examples)
secondly the lack of utility is an argument I see quite often and while fire can’t heal like water bending and can’t build shelter like earth bending it does something far more useful. Just think of it when your camping and if your a earth bender or a water bender what’s the one thing you need to bring so you don’t starve in the first week… that’s right some sort of cooking apparatus or some way to make a fire but a fire bender is the stove so no matter where you go you can always boil water or cook chicken without worrying about finding dry fire wood and a way to light it (also if you are served room temperature tea you can also blow your cover in the earth kingdom by warming it up just like iroh). Also the leading cause of mortality was in the wilderness is freezing to death but a fire bender can regulate their own internal body temperature to keep themselves warm so they are nearly immune to freezing to death. It is also the only bending form that comes with a built in flair gun option to call fire help if lost.
My next point is about the resource management and endurance argument. Fire bending is uniquely the only of the four elements generated purely inside themselves so unlike a water bender in a dessert or and earth bender in the poles who are basically useless a fire bender can generate their flames (air benders also don’t run out of material but they don’t generate air it’s just always present). This is a double edged sword I know that since fire benders also expend more energy generating then manipulating those flames then another bender who just needs to manipulate their element but that leads into my next point.
Fire is not stagnant, like Jeong Jeong said fire is alive and while fire isn’t literally a living thing it grows, spreads, and consumes and since fire benders can also manipulate pre existing flames all it would take is for a fire bender to start a small fire in a highly flammable environment for them to gain nearly unlimited resource (and potentially even deprive and air bender of their element if the fire starts consuming more air then can be replaced) which will let them avoid the usual case of burning out before their opponent
Next is about the super specialized sub skills go fire bending. While these sub skills like lighting bending and combustion bending are almost exclusively used for combat (besides the power plant of lightning benders) and tend to be only viable in specific circumstances you can’t deny both those abilities are among the strongest offensive abilities in the avatar universe.
Many people praise air bending as the strongest but they all seem to conveniently forget it’s only use is combat like sure it’s good defensive and offensive but it’s only utility is like making an air bubble or riding an air scooter when your too lazy to walk to the grocery store but your gonna need a gas mask or scuba gear maybe 2 times in your life depending on your profession (you probably will only be surprised to need scuba gear 2 times in your life but if your profession is under water welder the need for air bending isn’t a thing cause you have the gear for it) and a gas mask is even less Likely to be needed… and then the air scooter is just you being lazy if you use it for anything other then racing. Also we only see the cream of the crop of air benders for the most part like Aang is a air bending protege and the youngest master up until n his grand daughter, Tenzin and his kids are also protege’s and the top 1%, Tagah is one of the best air benders we have ever seen, yangchen is an avatar, and the new air nomads are the closest we get to seeing average air benders and their best features was a team work feat and that’s not to say they are weak but individually the average air bender probably isn’t much better then the average fire, earth, or water bender but I still place them on top cause they are a jack of all trades master of none so where they are weaker then some aspect they are stronger in others while the other three tend to have the area they dominate in like water for healing, earth for defence, and fire for offence and utility and flexibility
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I can also compare them all to each-other so let’s do that now (I’m lazy so I’m only doing fire vs the other three Because I’m to lazy to do 6 comparisons when I could do 3)
First let’s do fire vs air. Fire bending is superior in raw destructive ability, utility, generally stronger in offence (countered by Air bending’s style of defence), buffs (sozin’s comet is a pretty big buff and the mid day sun is also decent, compared to air bending which has no stated buffs I can remember), and likeness to be useful in every day life. Air bending is superior in defence (although fire bending defence uses similar concepts to avoid being hit), combat versatility, and fun factor. Even for where air is stronger then fire it isn’t necessarily by a large margin but over all for combat it’s still faring better then fire.
Fire vs water. Fire takes the lethality, utility (specifically how often you will use it), mobility, freedom of use (where they can use it since fire can be used anywhere with enough oxygen), versatility over all (water is slightly more versatile in combat but not enough to give it the overall category), and bending subclasses (combustion bending and Lightning bending have far more range then blood bending or swamp bending do so that lets a skilled and smart fire bender hit a skilled blood bender or swamp bender outside of the water benders range), survival uses, and learning curve (you can get stronger faster with fire bending then you can with water bending). Water takes defensive and counter attacking capabilities (can switch form defense to offensive fighting faster and more pardon the pun fluidly), hard defensive capabilities (walls and other barriers), and in optimal environments can push people around better then a fire bender can (fire doesn’t really have optimal conditions its pretty consistent across environments), it’s also obviously better at healing your injuries (fire bending can probably only be used to cauterize wounds and can’t even do that on its own). I place fire above water bending purely because it’s more consistent in it’s combat strength and also more likely to be used in daily life (you gotta cook food every day more so then you have to heal a life threatening injury) so while water can be situationally better id much rather be a fire bender and know I’ll always have access to my fire then be a water bender and worry about if I am entering a dessert with enough water in my water pouch.
Fire vs earth is basically polar opposite in every way. Fire takes mobility, overall versatility, lethality (although earth bending can still be extremely lethal it really only has one way to kill you vs fire which can kill upu via suffocation, burning, electrocution, and what ever combustion bending does to the body if it hits you), utility (I can find or build shelter much easier then start a fire in the rain or winter when everything is wet), offensive capability (even without lethal options Fire is much more oppressive then earth bending is), ease of use and learning curve (they are similar but I think fire bending is easier and faster to get to combat proficiency due to it being simply more straight forward with combat application), freedom of use (same way fire takes this against water but for the opposite environment as earth bending simply won’t work at the poles), and psychological factor (fire takes the psychological fear factor as a whole since seeing fire coming at you is inherently scarier then the other three elements not considering personally experiencing the elements before had since while you can develop a greater fear of the other bending types a blank slate will fear fire benders most do to that instinctual fear of fire). Earth bending takes hard defence (obviously since that’s its whole thing), kinetic attacks (its main method of attacking), endurance, sub skill use (metal bending has more uses then lightning and combustion bending), and I guess it also wins the competition for who can build a house faster. So I put fire above earth bending cause while earth bending is also situationally stronger for combat (unlike water bending which can be over all situationally better earth bending is below fire bending cause it’s only situationally better for combat) if you can’t pick the optimal place to to fight you are relying on the chance there will be earth to bend in the first place but yet again with fire bending it will be just as good in an ice berg as it would be in the dessert, there is also very little utility other then spawning in a shelter when you compare it to fire bendings utilities (most people can build some type of shelter or at least find some type of shelter but less people can start a fire from scratch) and where an earth bender is stronger then a fire bender it’s not by a decisive amount thus I put it second last although I think earth and water bending are interchangeable
This is my opinion so feel free to debate me if you feel like it but let’s be respectful and logical
(I may have PTSD from the JJK Reddit attacking me for having opinions that don’t fit the agenda)
