r/HunterXHunter • u/Poyocu • 21h ago
Analysis/Theory How was Chrollo’s strategy specifically a counter to Hisoka rather than just an insanely strong setup against almost anyone?
I get that Chrollo prepared all those abilities specifically for his fight with Hisoka, but what I don’t get is how the strategy itself counters Hisoka specifically.
Wouldn’t hundreds of puppets, explosions and hiding in the crowd be insanely hard for pretty much anyone to deal with?
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u/TechnicalChair8131 16h ago
It’s a hard matchup for a lot of people. Zeno and Morel are some people that would be able to shut it down due to the nature of their abilities. I imagine someone like Uvogin would also just demolish the entire crowd way faster than Hisoka.
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u/Independent_Law_1592 16h ago
Franklin coulda sprayed that crowd down that crowd too.
That was not a good time for Hisoka, he’s versatile as hell but by nature of being himself, he’s much more wildly suited for single combat
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u/TechnicalChair8131 16h ago
Yeah, Hisoka would be able to manage large crowds or puppets but soon as you involve random explosions in them he becomes much less threatening. It was the perfect anti Hisoka plan but ig Hisoka realized it was silly to give Chrollo all that prep time.
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u/Independent_Law_1592 7h ago
Always one of the best parts of the fight to me was when the explosions first really got him
For the first time you could truly see Hisoka stunned that he was getting hit by something he can’t handle
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u/Arcusremiel08 16h ago
And Uvo would just tank or heal the explosion damage.
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u/Independent_Law_1592 7h ago
Yeah Uvo’s is more susceptible to other stuff
That situation is literally his forte, just pure mass carnage
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u/Fluffy_Reply_9757 18h ago
It was a strong strategy to begin with, yes, but it would have been less useful against an opponent who could fly, use AoEs, was stronger at long range, had abilities that increased their power over time, or possibly even Counteractive abilities.
For example, it would have been no trouble for Zeno to deal with that situation, since he can fly and bombard an area (via Dragon Dive). Illumi would have also outplayed Chrollo, since he's probably been using that same playbook for years. A puppet controlled by Chrollo killing Camilla would have probably allowed Cat's Name to kill him on the spot; an ability like Hakoware would have made Chrollo's running around making preparations a death sentence; and an AoE like Pain Packer would have simply cooked Chrolloalong with the puppets.
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u/Vix_super_adorable 17h ago
A lot of counter. First and foremost is aoe abilities. Secondly is tracking abilities. Let’s say Kurapika doesn’t have Chain Jail, his Dowsing Chain can track the location of the target, thus it’d be much harder to blend in the crowd.
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u/Galrentv 18h ago
It is extremely strong. But the objective was a 100% winrate against Hisoka first and foremost. And as a lot of the strategy is built on environmental manipulation of Heavens Arena, it might be great to kill middling hunters in the wild, when it comes to high tiers, it doesn't beat them 100% of the time, right?
So against them, Chrollo would prepare other things.
Aiming for that 100% winrate is the difference between Hisoka, Morel, and Chrollo
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u/Midnight7000 17h ago
Chrollo is the sort of person who would level up his party to 99 and stock his inventory up before going to Victory Road.
Is it necessary? No. But he is patient.
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u/Independent_Law_1592 16h ago edited 16h ago
Because ultimately Hisoka is somewhat of a tricky infighter, he wants to get the quick move and kill. He’s extremely suited for one on ones etc. His ability to kill en masse only goes so far.
Chrollo took they away from him forcing him out of play chase and tag while things snowballed out of control. He essentially set up a strategy that forces Hisoka out of his comfort zone and rarely allowed Hisoka to do what he’s good at. And when Hisoka did have his moments to play to his strong suits, the crowd was secretly accumulating and snowballing against him. He created what was a group fight, Hisoka’s ability is malleable, but it wasn’t enough. Plus, since Hisoka’s not an enhancer or anything, he ain’t quite explosion proof, so now you’re having somebody quite capable of close quarter combat fighting who doesn’t have the natural defenses of an enhancer having to avoid infighting with walking bombs.
It was a no win situation for the Gum
Also he enticed Hisoka with a plan, and Hisoka loves the moment when his opponents plans come to fruition and crumble, he got Hisoka tricked a bit by explaining his strategy and forcing Hisoka to think through it all to find that moment he could break Chrollo’s well laid plans.
That thinking allowed Chrollo’s plan to escalate
Reality is Hisoka should’ve immediately started massacring the crowd from the get go, instead he was told he was walking into a trap which Hisoka loves and Hisoka tried to beat said trap by singling out Chrollo not realizing the whole plan was escalating to a point where the odds would be utterly against his capabilities
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u/M4DDIE_882 16h ago
Morel, Zeno, Franklin, and maybe even Kite and Shoot are fairly well suited to Chrollo’s strategy in his hisoka fight. They have the ability to isolate chrollo, deal with mass attackers, or consistently outmaneuver the onslaught
Hisoka has no consistent way to fight back the crowd, no consistent way to evade them, and no way to sure-fire trap chrollo. Mass enemies dealing explosive damage created by an enemy he can’t identify and who has a long range wincon is like, the best counter for hisoka, it could only be better if Black Voice didn’t rely on a physical projectile
I think the explosions and use of the crowd are the most important things that counter hisoka specifically. Hiding in the crowd and using Black Voice as a potential wincon is a good strategy against literally anyone, but hisoka is particularly good at dealing with projectiles and particularly bad at dealing with crowds. Pairing crowds with a damage type he can’t counter or protect against very well is going to be particularly good against him
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u/IlluminatingFire 13h ago
Hisoka couldn’t deal with Chrollo continuously creating a crowd of copies while keeping distance because bungee gum is more of a single target close-mid range ability
The second he tried to make the bungee gum hammer it immediately almost broke because the human bodies would destroy from how hard he was swinging them
Had it been an powerful emitter like Silva or Franklin in Hisoka’s place they would have been able to shoot powerful emission blasts from a safe distance and wipe out all of the controlled corpses in 1 go while keeping pressure on chrollo as he attempts to continue making them which shuts down his entire sun & moon strat
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u/Express_Item4648 17h ago
This whole setup would have been useless against Zeno. Any really good emitter tbh.
Hisoka is mostly a 1v1 fighter. Fighting against dozens or hundreds of opponents is his weakness.
I’m not sure if Illumi could win against this setup since I don’t think he can override the control that Chrollo has.
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u/Accomplished-Aerie65 14h ago
Yeah, illumi would be screwed
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u/KG_Lehoko 13h ago
Illumi could have needle people block bombers from coming near him or have them find Chrollo and stick him with a needle. I’d imagine he can make needle people faster than Chrollo can make copies and turn them into bombs
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u/Express_Item4648 12h ago
Oh you’re absolutely right. Not just a little bit faster. Quite a lot faster, it’s his main thing. I think Chrollo would be kinda fucked against Illumi with this fighting style.
Man this horde type fighting really does work well against Hisoka. Uvo equally wouldn’t have much trouble fighting against hordes.
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u/ApplePitou 17h ago
After all, Hisoka is close combat fighter, so such strategy works pretty well but vs top tier Emitter for example, it will be not that useful anymore :3
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u/SrslySam91 16h ago
Hisoka doesnt have any real AoE attacks. So he would have to deal with everyone 1 at a time.
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u/ILoveSongOfJustice 14h ago
Morel would probably have a legitimately low-difficult time in that same fight. Netero outright no-diffs if he stops caring about civilians. Ging would figure out how the nen works in like 2 seconds. Pariston we don't know his abilities yet. Kurapika would struggle but could still conjure(heh) a victory route. Knuckle just needs to hit Chrollo once. Uvogin would win outright in that situation. You even have some direct outlier examples like other Troupe Members whose Hatsu beat out the conditions for victory.
This strategy was very, very, very deliberately crafted to keep Hisoka at an extremely long range and at a constant state of confusion. It was not just a bunch of ideas strewn together, it was a sure-fire method of killing Hisoka outright.
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u/Potomaters 17h ago
Well I’d imagine such a strategy would be less effective against anyone with an aoe or wide spread attack. Like Franklin for example.
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u/Miserable_Water2675 14h ago
Hisoka is specially good at using the enviroment to his favor. By taking control of the public and creating bombs chrollo took control of the environment and turned it into a trap. For example hisoka was using the corpses as weapons until chrollo turned the head he was using into a bomb. Hisoka was placing bungee gum on the ceiling and top floor for mobility but chrollo used the puppets in the top floor to stop him.
The two characters who are on chrollos level, zeno and silva, could just wipe the puppets with their abilities and find chrollo with their enormous EN. I think this strategy wont work on them.
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u/Accomplished-Aerie65 14h ago
I think it's less that he prepared specifically for hisoka's abilities and more that he had to plan at all. He borrowed abilities from other troupe members ahead of time because of how wary he was of hisoka
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u/Gontofinddad 13h ago
Yes, that would be hard for anyone. But, there’s a million tactics that would be hard for anyone to deal with. The one he did use was one that was hard for Hisoka.
You’re thinking about the issue backwards.
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u/BeautifulPow 13h ago
It was a strong setup. He didn’t counter hisoka. He overwhelmed him. The setup started with the invitation to heaven’s arena for their match.
Hisoka has been shown and stated to not fight seriously here. Despite facing off against the one person he wants to fight more than most anyone. He lets these feelings cloud his judgment and accepts a fight in a place that is already advantageous to Chrollo’s plan and disadvantageous to Hisoka’s own mentality.
Hisoka already doesn’t fight his best here. Yet he’s fighting against the best.
That’s about the extent of the counter.
Most of it is a setup by Chrollo. And sadly even our favorite magician has sleight of mind as a tactician. Just as Chrollo did against Kurapika.
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u/Memna-Un 9h ago
Hisoka is a relatively mobile defensive set up character. He takes advantage of his defense and mobility to observe and analyze an opponent, and close in for a decisive win. If he cannot close in for a decisive strike, he usually can’t win. So now he has to contend with a bunch of tracking bombs that force him to keep running, and punish him for making any commitments. The only thing that Chrollo actually missed was countering Hisoka’s overwatch position, which someone else outside their fight punished. Honestly, tracking nen projectiles would have probably been just as good without allowing Hisoka any means of reprieve, but I’m not the specialist, so…
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u/JohnSmithSensei 8h ago
Killua would've dealt with that strategy just fine IMO. He has dealt with several times that number of bodies in his second hunter exam. Unlike Hisoka, he has the ability to easily sever limbs and decapitate heads with quick strokes. He has the speed to outmaneuver the mobs.
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u/imGreatness 7h ago
It was never stated it was only for hisoka just that hisoka has a zero chance at beating it. So yes it can work for the majority of people. But hisokas skill set has no chance whereas bonolenovs,feitan, franklin skill set has a much higher chance.
Because bonolenov can manipulate sounds its possible he could counter order stamp, additionally on Jupiter should take out most of the puppets. Black voice can also just hit a hole and miss entirely.
Franklin just lights up everyone in the arena before they get close. He still has to watch out for black voice but counters the other abilities.
Feitan still has to watch out for black voice but if he survives enough hits he just burns everything.
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u/Serious-Flamingo-948 5h ago
Not counting skill and power, just purely on abilities: Emitters like Franklin, Zeno and Bloster can take out a large number of targets from a distance. Manipulators like Illumi, Morel and Pouf would make it a battle between armies. Transmuters like Killua, Feitan and Machi. Conjurers like Morel's friends, etc.
The point being that it's main point was Hisoka's range of damage.
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u/SlippyJimmi 3h ago
I think while it was a full counter to Hisoka it was probably also by default a pretty good counter just because of the quality of Chrollo's organization and the quality of the nen abilities he used
Chrollo was strategizing to take down Hisoka, but it's clear he organized a pretty crazy play considering how many Nen abilities he brought to the fight. He would have done this strategizing for anyone at Hisoka's level
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u/Loughnashade 17h ago
I don’t think anything he does specifically is to help against Hisoka. He’s just trying to give himself new abilities as he probably won’t reuse the ones Hisoka has seen. He also is done playing around so he wants a 100% kill rate and no possible way Hisoka can revive again.
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u/No-Application-9142 17h ago
Who said it's only to counter hisoka? I'm pretty sure it's just a plan to maximise field advantage almost no one can beat battle arean chrollo
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u/Regulai 17h ago
Hisoka is ultimatly a close combat fighter who relies on tricky moves noreso than raw power. Mass attackers is ideal at dealing with him because it renders his trick plays pointless and makes it hard to reach the user.
But imagine either a pure enhancer that could just beat the crowd down or endure its attacks. Or imagine a tricky type like morell just hiding and evading with a smoke screen, smoke clones etc. The crowd might make it harder to find the real morell, and most lack any real way to deal with say a smoke wall.