Just a curious question. Invincibility and recovery are one of the most coveted super powers in history. You can be invincible to any type of damage upto 1 second every 60 seconds or recover from every damage once every 60 minutes. Please make your choice and explain.
If you could have 1 second invincibility or 1 second absolute recovery, what sould you pick?
QuestionRecovery has an hour cooldown while invincibility has 60 sec
Oh. Well, I think the argument still stands. Though recover isn't as much of a winner anymore.
Like, I'd dare anyone to time that one sec invincibility just right to ever be useful. Could someone consistently guess the exact second they'd be splattered across the floor from fallling somewhere for example? Or the moment a rocket hits them in the leg?
I don't think so.
If it could be automatic rather than triggered, that might sway me; like say any attack that would kill or permanently cripple you is neutralized (for one second), once per minute.
Yeah the need to react to trigger invincibility is absolutely the killer for the power. If it was automatic it would be much better, but the fact that full recovery works on literally anything you live through makes it way better.
Invincibility, also, doesn't work on old age related diseases whereas recovery does.
Another issue is a lot of things take over a second to finish hurting you. Like if you fall down a hill you’ll be protected for the first second and after that you’re screwed.
I'm not sure "you live through" is a requirement. It doesn't say that it's limited even by death. It's called "absolute" recovery. I'd assume that means to your peak living state. There's no cap on invincibility, like it only works up to X impact force or whatever, so why should there be a limit on recovery?
There's a shitty korean webnovel with this exact plotline, I don't remember its name though.
It’s peobably some rule of the internet: if it exists, there is probably a shitty korean webnovel written about it.
Rule 35?
Recovery is still a massive win. 1 second invincibility isn't very useful because it's only 1 second long.
If a fall would kill you, that last second is going to cover quite a distance. I don't think that would be at all difficult to time. Most anything else, not so much.
Recovery lets you pull off the 'nobody could survive that' escape gambit, even if it's something that you actually can't survive, as long as it isn't instant death.
You just need to time it well so you can heal before passing out.
I’d also accept a built-in failsafe in the case of imminent but not immediate death
The optimal use of invincibility isn't in normal combat, but in suicidal strikes. E.g. you charge at an enemy holding a stick of dynamite and trigger it just before the stick goes boom.
Fair enough. I mean, I'm not saying invincibility is not useful, but recovery could be hell of a lot better for me. Like, no more diseases, no cancer, no nothing like that with 'perfect recovery'. Maybe not even aging. That's just too much to give up for a niche power like 1 sec invulnerability per 1 minute.
And depending on the world you could use crazy dangerous training techniques. Bathe in the essence of water, most people have to heal for the next month with expensive medication, but you can bathe every hour.
In our world where dying of age, cancer, or disease is common, definitely more useful. It's less useful in a world where the top cause of death is an angry dragon or a cultivator saying "Do you know who my father is?"
That dynamite scenario doesn't end well for the guy with invincibility. Sure, he isn't liquefied by the blast, but he's rocketed away from the blast site and by the time the invincibility wears off he might be just about to splat against a building or something.
The invincibility could work one of two ways.
It negates kinetic motion from hostile effects. Then you don't get yeeted away.
It lets kinetic effects impact you but you are not harmed. Then you can use explosives to grenade jump.
Either way you can work out a way to adapt. Also, since progression fantasy there may be other magical powers which you can get to compliment whatever magic, if less absolute and op ones, and so you may be able to adapt to the consequences of damage.
It COULD work those ways, but those both sound like extra/auxiliary powers rather than parts of the basic invincibility power. It COULD also automatically activate when you're in danger, but that's also not assumed and wildly changes the applicability of the power. With just the basic description provided, invincibility doesn't have any of these riders.
I noted those two options because those are the only two ways it can work- either it negates kinetic energy or it doesn't. Either could follow the phrasing and you could adapt to either. You suggested 2 was true above.
I suggested 2 was true AND that it would likely kill you to do what you suggested. You ignore that second part, but it's pretty crucial.
I suggested a counter to that- you use it to grenade jump, e.g. you direct the explosive to mostly throw you up so that you get at most the power of gravity slamming you down.
I... guess that could work? If the grenade were right at/under your feet, at least. But why would anyone do that? You want the grenade/explosive to hit the OTHER guy, not you. It will hit you, sure, but the goal is to have it hit the other guy so having it under you so that you only go upward seems counterproductive.
So you can reach places you couldn't reach, so you can survive a blast, so you can move quickly. There are lots of ways to exploit fast movement.
Also possible immortality or being very long lived.
If it's rejuvenating cells and delaying cell death or limiting cell death then you'll never die or live for a very long time.
Invincibility is better for instant damage, like falling from great heights. Great for various clutch saves from damage that you can see coming.
Recovery is better for more protracted sources of damage, like poisons, or something you might only notice after the fact.
In general I would expect invincibility to be better if you can decently predict and shape fights, while recovery is better if you got no idea what might be coming.
Edit: Also, Recovery is strictly personal, while with Invincibility you can potentially shield others, so in any kind of team Invincibility should be clear winner.
I think the point needs to be made that impeccable reaction timing is an absolute necessity to effectively use the 1 second invincibility. Not only do you need to see death coming, but you need to react to it at exactly the right time. I think a lot of people overestimate their ability to act with a cool head when their life is on the line. But there is really very little room for error with only 1 second of invulnerability per reaction. If that invincibility is dependent on my reaction to a life or death situation..? Give me recovery instead, any day.
Recovery. Regardless of if you’re taking about in a fantasy world or ours.
Manually timed invincibility only helps me under very specific circumstances. I’d have to see the attack coming, it would have to not be repeated more than once per minute, and it would have to actually last a second or less. An ambush would hurt me as much as anyone else, a guy with a sword or knife may not give up after the first swing, and many spells or traps would have persistent effects. Not much point in tanking a fireball if you then burn up from all the fire that splashed around you a second later.
Recovery avoids all of these. As long as I can survive the hits, I can come back. It takes a surprisingly long time to kill someone (not long to make them dying, but a bit for them to actually be dead). And I don’t have to time it or be aware of trouble for it to save me.
And of course in a more real world environment, I’m unlikely to be attacked but very likely to become ill or injured. Or even just sleep wrong and wake up with a stiff back. Instant recovery would be amazing.
What if you don’t need to be alive for recovery to function?
Recovery, full stop. I've seen Solo Leveling and The Wrong Way To Use Healing Magic- imagine the gains, dawg. You work yourself to the breaking point of exhaustion, then instantly restore yourself. You could do like 2 weeks of strength training in one day if you're doing a complete recovery every hour.
Well, that depends on the type of recovery. I've seen stories where people who were training specifically couldn't use magical healing, because the healing basically restored them to what they were before the training, making it so the physical changes don't stick.
Well that’s not really healing then. That would be “checkpointing” or reversion.
To be fair, the original post said "recover", now for me that can either mean healing the damage or recovering a previous state.
Yeah they didn't specify, though, so in the spirit of explaining my choice I went with the version that ends with me deadlifting a car.
Recovery
Very useful for quality of life, no colds, flues, stub toes , mental issues
1 second of invulnerability isn’t enough for me , all it would take would be a miss calculated timing.
Yeah imagine being on a plane that is falling out of the sky. Even if you time it exactly with the crash into the ground, the whole event will last more than 1 second.
That depends if recovery is affecting aging. If yes - that is a no - brainer. If not, depends on how strong danger is and how often I'd be in danger.
Strong enough recovery for a second is invincibility.
Not entirely, but close enough. There are things that can kill instantly and then there is no recovery (assuming recovery nessesitates beeing alive), but generally I agree that recovery is the better version of invincibility, if both are time limited.
What’s an instakill example, assuming the damage occurs within a second?
Recovery.
Invincibility is great, but if I only had a second of it every once and awhile a surprise attack or accident would be something I am still very much vulnerable to. Meanwhile, say I get shot in the head from behind, depending on how and what it goes through, I could still activate the ability and recover from otherwise certain death.
Also the very obvious downside that nobody else seems to notice is that you aren't going to be attacked only for one second.
Right? In the real world, where you can’t exchange XX number of moves with an opponent all within one second or have a reaction speed quick enough to react to bullets, one second of invulnerability is almost useless in comparison to an all-powerful instant healing skill. Regardless of if you get one use every minute instead of the absolute recovery’s once an hour.
Absolute recovery. There are far more situations where absolute recovery would be useful, both IRL and in fantasy worlds. The vast majority of injuries aren't instantly fatal. Even the most catastrophic of injuries should give you at least a few fleeting seconds of time to activate the recovery feature. The only injuries that are instantly fatal are the ones that destroy your brain. Even injuries that just damage the brain aren't instantly fatal. Just look at the famous case of Phineas Gage, who had a 1 1/4 inch diameter 3 1/2 foot long iron rod blasted through his brain yet still managed to survive for over 12 years. For absolute recovery to be defeated, the injury would have to destroy the brain almost completely (or at least the most important bits related to consciousness). Even if someone decapitated you, you would likely have a second or two before you actually die, giving you time to use your recovery to instantly regen your body.
Also, depending on how you're defining "absolute recovery," the power could still effectively be invincibility. If the power can truly heal any injury, then so long as it's active and assuming you had the foresight to activate it at just the right time, you could still survive pretty much anything . Are you falling out of a plane without a parachute? At the moment before impact, activate absolute recovery so your body recovers itself immediately upon taking the fall damage.
In the cases where there isn't enough time to activate the recovery feature, there's probably also not enough time to react to activate the invincibility. For example, if a bomb was to go off, you won't have enough reaction time to become invincible to stop it.
That said, if both of these powers were capable of activating without your input, like the powers just "knew" when they were needed, then they would be far more balanced. The invincibility power becomes far more helpful if it automatically activates the moment something catastrophic is about to happen to you (like a bomb going off).
Despite that, I still think the absolute recovery has the edge, especially IRL, since there's just more use cases. Particularly if the absolute recovery includes things like diseases or toxins. Have you just been bitten by a black mamba? Use absolute recovery to purge the venom and repair the bite wounds. If you have invincibility, that probably wouldn't purge the venom. You'd just have 1 second of freedom from the venom's effect.
Recovery. If I receive an impact that would evaporate me in 59 seconds, I am unlikely to survive a second second of it anyway. Recovering to perfect health will ensure I will survive anything else. I am assuming the recovery works as long as there is something left of my biological matter.
Recovery.
Less need to time it, assuming it has a manual trigger in the first place, and recovery gives more "bang for your buck" by recovering from the aches and pains of daily life in addition to epic adventure injuries.
If the recovery includes revival from death, then that's the no-brainer answer. You don't have to time it. You can get fucked up to oblivion for a full minute, then be fully healed up. Invincibility for 1 second would mean having to time that to avoid a killing blow. Meanwhile, all of your other wounds will still add up . . .
Recovery, even if it was once a day. Heck, I'd pick it even if it was once a week.
Anyone who injured themselves and never quite healed right would agree.
Without ever healing, the invincibility guy would inevitably end up with a debilitating injury. Maybe a broken bone or torn ACL. Injuries happen, especially if you make a habit of fighting monsters.
Heading from ALL types of damage once an hour = halting age progression. Assuming you don’t starve or die from violence/choking/drowning etc. you can live a simple life foreva!!
If the recovery can bring you back from death then it’s a no-brainer.
I’ve needed to be invincible in my life but there are plenty of times I would’ve loved to have instant recovery.
Well that's just survivorship bias
Assuming I am in a universe where combat is important and health pools are not massive, invincibility. Being able to suicide bomb your way past higher level enemies is a massive boost to your firepower, while 1 second recovery assumes you survive fights. Invincibility is pretty useless in normal fights, but it's incredibly useful when you are strapped with a ton of explosives.
Explosions aren't instant tho. If you strap yourself to a significant payload of explosives and trigger them the exact same time as your invincibility, it'll run out just in time to be horribly burned. You'll miss the instant death bit, but still die slowly to 80% of your body being immolated. That's not including the fact if you breathe in that super heated air, your insides are torched too.
There may be pressure concerns as well from the rapid heating of the air, but I'm not an explosives expert, so I'm not fully confident in that assertion. I don't think there's a way to test blowback like that realistically, as if it would be hurt by that, it would've been blown away from the initial blast.
You would have to test the magical explosives or bombs or whatever, and there would be room to experiment with other powers- anything that lets you move fast would help with longer lasting explosives as well. One second is a while to move away from the center of the blast. You also have the advantage that any explosion or gases are gonna have to path their way around you, so there's a hole you can get into which lacks them.
as a soulsborn enjoyed I go with the second of invincibility
1s absolute recovery
1 second invincibility. Yes, I could survive a sneak attack, and I'd like to think I could escape most danger for another sixty seconds at a time.
Not in combat or anything remotely simmilar to a fight. Being able to remove the damage is far more powerful, than blocking one hit. (even in a scuffle you can't avoid beeing hit for 59 out of 60 sec.
1 second of invincibility seems more "meta" to me, if you progress enough you basicaly become the Flash and get a lot of mileage out of that second.
Recovery, I haven’t needed invincibility thus far in my life, but I do have some persistent injuries I’d like to see gone
Recovery - it is easier to build around. If you miss the invincibility, you have failed already
Recovery. Something that works like Death Defiance from Hades would be so useful.
Recovery, training works by stressing your body so I would be able to train much harder than anyone else.
Then this can only get better depending on what kind of world I am in. For example: can I find a body tempering method that also exploits this recovery? Does the recovery de age me too?
I would choose 1 second to look over the numerous tier ranking posts on the prog fantasy page.
For me the second sounds like a much more useful perk.(irl) If I ever get sick or am injured, I can automatically cure myself completely, and I can use the power again every hour. Being invincible is cool. But Im to slow and stupid to be able to use that perfectly when needed.
Living a fairly normal life, Im sure I would get way more use out of the recovery perk.
edit: I just thought about weight training or exercise. You would be a monster in a few days. You kill yourself working out, then insta recovery. You get all the benefits, but dont have to wait for your body to recover.
You could make a fortune as an athlete, and you would be performing well decades after everyone else, since any injury or disease you get is gone in at most an hour.
No arthritis, no dementia, no parkinsons. No STDs. You can stay in perfect health as long as you have the opportunity to use your recovery perk. You wont even have to deal with normal aging.
While stuck in the real world, recovery would be the perk to have.
I'm going to go with recovery as well.
There are many things that can injure you that go on for over a second. The chances that you are killed by something that does so in less than a second and that you can time that second, are very low.
The chances of you taking cumulative damage over the course of an hour that you would want to heal? much higher. IRL, not terribly high for most people, but still more likely than an instant death scenario.
Even if you encounter something that can instantly kill you, how likely is it that this something lasts less than a second. Something like that would be a deathsentence anyway, so I completely agree, that recovery is way more applicable in nearly any concieveable scenario.
absolute recovery, more useful in the real world especially if it cures disease
Recovery. Any type of damage includes exhaustion and mental afflictions, not to mention the ability to instntly restore kost limbs if you are surprised.
Recovery. Instant death is very rare, and invincibility isn't gonna help you if you're already injured.
If in a fight, I'm leaning toward invincibility---a one second strategic move could be the end of the opponent. Whereas if I choose recovery, would I only do so in order to get smashed by the opponent because I failed to make meaningful impact before getting my health dropped down to near nothing.
It's complex and depends on the situation. If I'm dying and on my last breath, then I'd choose recovery, but if I can make it, then I'd go for invincibility.
Even in a fight, you can trade blows. It takes longer than 1 sec to kill you, basically no matter what your opponent does and you can heal yourself of the injury. Also a fight does not only consist of one hit, but many, and several are going to land.
Recovery. Ez. Absolute? As in absolute degrading bodily cells recover to peak?
Recovery. Seems to me that using 1 sec of invincibility well would have a high skill ceiling - got to time it just right.
For recovery, I just need to mash the ability every 60 secs, and not die in between.
And, hey - the not-dying part, I’ve been fine with for the past 40 years or so thus far…
All depends on the premise. If we assume a litrpg/prog fantasy setting where it's not my only trick, then... Probably recovery. Just because if I have some decent durability, being able to full heal every hour is amazing.
If im a glass Cannon base human vs stuff that would 1-shot me if they land a hit, then I'll take that invincibility and pray I don't need to tank a hit more than 1ce per minute.
Define "damage".
Will it fix my occasionally wonky lower back? Will it fix the damage i likely did to my liver over a number of years? Will it fix cavities in my teeth? Any artery clogging? And on and on and on...
If it can fix current problems, chronic problems, I'd 100% take recovery.
I'd still take recovery anyway though. Being invincible for 1 second seems.. useless? How can I time that to be invincible at the right time? For example, I can't be immune to a gunshot, as if I miss by 1/2 second, I'm dead. I cna't think of how to use that second.
Oh my mind went to a very different use for a 1 second recovery... I'll go to that corner over there now and rethink my life for a bit,
What are the costs? How will this power work? The answer and the good stuff about a nove are found with the answer.
One word- from software
Recovery. I have seldom been in situations where invulnerability would be useful, and never known in advance. Without advanced knowledge I wouldn't know when to use my second of invincibility.
Super Healing once an hour would solve some real problems I have in my life. Fix my knee, avoid having to go to the doctor...
Recovery. I have a genetic degenerative disorder. I would 100% use absolute recovery for a second to keep myself well.
Absolute Recovery. It basically grants immunity to poison, sickness, most curses, bleeds, critical exhaustion and a near death recovery. It allows for incredible impossible workout regimes. If in a litrpg world, it would speed up grind easily 10 fold. Overall zero risk of debilitating injuries.
Edit: I might even take it if it had a 24 hour CD.
I would take recovery even if it were limited to 1/Month. It is simply so inconciveably powerful.
Recovery. I would trade any amount of "invincibility" for one usage of recovery. I have organs I want back.
Does the absolute recovery cover all pre-existing injuries/illnesses/deficiencies? If so then it's an easy pick because on top of being restored to your body's actual peak possible condition, you can also use it speed your training by exerting yourself for an hour and then using full recovery to let your muscles get the multiple days it would otherwise take them to heal back stronger in an instant. That's on top of being able to recover from injuries for a second wind mid fight and then shrug off any further damage you take later (provided you win of course).
A single second of invincibility on the other hand is too short unless it comes with precognitive sense to protect against unexpected attacks and the other abilities needed to keep you alive for the follow up attack that will follow in the next second.
Recovery, easy
While the invincibility could save your life in the event of catastrophic harm, almost any situation like that, would put you in a position to die easily after that second
With the recovery, anything that won't kill you in the next hour while you're at your peak will leave you totally fine, recovering to a state you never experienced, one where you're in the most perfect state theoretically possible, no damage from age, sickness, radiation, etc.
Just getting to live in that state would make it soooo worth it
I’m with most people that the Recovery is more useful, but given the subreddit I think the invincibility would make for a way more interesting story. Obviously there is working out what a fighting style looks like when you have 1 second of no consequences power move, but then theres all the crazy feats you could do to make money or escape or shock someone. All the bluffing you could do to make people think the invincibility is permanent. Wayy more interesting idea than the recovery in my opinion
As I'm sure I'd be living a dull life I'd choose recovery, keep my young in my old age and such.
Absolute recovery!!!! Absolute invincibility is less usefull. Your are invunerable and that limits what you can do in very specific ways. I cant make an attack through myself to hit a stronger foe,
Benifits I could use body as a resource. Blood, organs and what not.
Recover from lack of energy, stamina, magic, or whatever.
I could use poisons or other thungs to forcibly encrease potential of the body and spirit
I could tear apart most musscles to grow back stronger in a fraction of the time of working out.
I could damage my bones so bad and have the density increased.
I could experiment on myself with no bad side effects.
Recovery, and it's not even close. The invincibility only helps if you can block an immediately fatal blow, or you have 2 quickly fatal blows that you can block in under an hour. Not to mention the fact that the invincibility requires far more timing/skill to be useful, 1 second just isn't enough. 1-5 minutes per hour would be required for me to even consider it useful compared to absolute recovery, and even then, it would be a stretch. I mean, how often do you see that you will be injured before it happens?
And frankly, recovery has so much more utility. Invincibility can not replace a doctor's visit. It can not help you when you get a cold. If you get your timing wrong and break your arm, your arm gets to heal the old-fashioned way. You are still at risk of getting cancer. But recovery can deal with all those things. Arguably, absolute recovery could even help deal with old age depending on how absolute absolute actually is.
Are they automatic, or conciously activated?
If I have to activate the invincibility myself, I’ll inevitably fk it up
Recovery, will be priceless in long battles
Let's see... Very weak stealth due to how I'd barely get anything done in so little time (no one would need to see me before or after, otherwise there's little use) defense due to how short its duration is and can only be used if you react fast enough to a momentary attack, OR, biological immortality as I'd recover from aging, as well as undoing any injuries. I could probably get rich by selling organs and blood too. Also, I could stay underwater forever by recovering my oxygen, survive without food, water and sleep indefinitely as well.
Damn. What a hard choice- these powers seem far too balanced in usefulness for me to decide which is better.
invincibility not invisibility
Ah, my bad. Though recovery still seems superior. Funnily enough I almost sprinkled in even more sarcasm by saying recovery would be preferred for me even if invisibility lasted for however long one wants, made one invulnerable to external damage for the duration and gave flight
Recovery.
One word: Ambushes. Sure, if they get me in one hit, I'm dead, but that remains the case either way if I can't activate my invincibility in time. Recover can be used retroactively, while invincibility has to be used proactively. You have to predict with extreme precision when that one second of absolute invincibility must be used.
Also, death by a thousand cuts can still kill you with invincibility, since all they have to do is to accumulate damage overtime. Even if you become invincible for a sec every minute, that doesn't help with a dozen cuts already on you. On the other hand, recovery can return you to top condition every one minute if you can survive said minute.
Sure, nether power is perfect, but I think recover is the overall better option.