Talk:Edward Elric/@comment-31082993-20190517145243

Some of these feats are dubious.

For a start, FM03 and COS were at a real tangent to the manga. Cool as they were in their own right, if we're using anime clips for supporting feats, I'd keep it to Brotherhood, because there were some real outliers in that alternative canon. I wouldn't use anything from video games either. So we can rule out Ed being faster than missiles and bullets, as well as a few other feats on that count.

Secondly, I don't think that sword attack from Dolcetto is faster than the eye can see. It doesn't even look like it all that much in the scene, and that's before you factor in cinematic time. Ed's vision and other senses aren't any different to a regular person, and he can't sense chi. If he was able to dodge it, he must have been able to see it. Compare it to the state alchemy exam, when Fuhrer Bradley casually did a faster than the eye sword slash, and Ed didn't even realise until his spear split in half.

Next of all, when he was fighting the other Fuhrer candidates, they weren't trying to hurt him. He was an important sacrifice, which they couldn't afford to waste. They were happy to wound the likes of Hawkeye, but they were just keeping Ed busy until Father was ready to go ahead with the nation-wide transmutation circle. So we can't say he's on par with bullet dodgers there either since they weren't using their full power.

When Ed's fighting those Chimeras with his northern automail, it is asked if he is faster than Scar, but it doesn't state it outright. Keep in mind these Chimeras hadn't spent very much time with either Scar or Ed at that stage, and Ed can give the impression of greater base speed and power than he actually has because of his automail. That's maybe the most important thing that's being overlooked here. Two of Ed's limbs are a lot more powerful than the other two. He can swing a lot faster and more forcefully with his automail arm than his normal, flesh and bone arm. Calculating Ed's fighting speed has to factor in that it will not be symmetrical, and particularly in terms of travel speed, he can't use the full speed of his automail leg to run, because his other leg wouldn't be able to keep up.

I'm willing to believe Ed could manage some very superhuman feats from his automail, but I don't think his natural body is supposed to be much beyond peak human, and in general one of the best things about FMA is its creativity and tactics in fights, rather than having OP characters.