Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26912075-20170305214816/@comment-4148373-20180914182936

...Okay, you know what? Let's set some rules, shall we? Because I find that "could x Stand beat y Stand" is a much, much more annoying discussion than "is it likely that x Stand could beat y Stand". In ideal conditions, sure, Josuke MIGHT, possibly, beat GER. Of course, in ideal conditions, there are a lot of Stands that could do that.

Instead, let's look at how battles actually play out in the manga. Generally, at best, both parties in a fight in Jojo know a small amount about the opposing Stand. More often, either both sides are operating blind, or one side knows a bit, just from rumor and reputation. Neither side, however, tends to know the nitty-gritty of how the opposing Stand actually works, as such details are often kept secret by the user and his allies.

Now, in that sort of scenario, who wins? Let's say they both know a little about the opposing Stands, what's obvious from previous fights (ignoring, of course, that very few people survived fighting Gio even before he got GER, and thus few understood what he could do). Is it at all obvious from combat that Gold Experience Reqiuem is an evolved Stand? No, no it's not. The only people who know that are Trish, Turtle-Polnareff Mista, and maybe Fugo, I doubt any of them advertise it.

It's been made quite clear that Crazy Diamond reverts what Josuke wants reverted, how he wants it reverted, and nothing more or less. In other words, if he doesn't know that GER is a Reqiuem Stand, he can't revert it. So, in this scenario, he loses. Because giving GER any time to act, down to a nanosecond, is fatal. In any scenario where he knows nothing about how Gold Experience Reqiuem, a Stand even it's user doesn't understand fully, he loses. The only scenario in which Josuke even Stands a chance is when he knows Gold Experience Reqiuem's secrets, which even Giorno himself is not fully aware of, and gets the drop on GER while it's summoned. Without knowing he needs to revert GER before it can act, he's doomed. Without being able to do so before it can act, he's doomed. Overall, he's just kinda doomed in general.

Funnily enough, barring The World Over Heaven, and maybe Made in Heaven (though I find it unlikely even it would be spared), this works out about the same with every other Stand. Which is probably why Araki regretted making GER: it's power is anthetical to how his fights work, because it using it's powers are so hard to fully understand, even if observed. And observing it's powers is next-to-impossible, because they're so lethal and difficult to understand, and the fact that they're disjointed (immunity to time-stops, able to seemingly heal the user from any wound, which could easily be linked to it's ability to create life, and then it punches you, and you look like you disappear, when you're actually in a death-loop) doesn't help.

As for just plain GE vs CD, that's a closer fight. That said, GE has a major advantage over CD: it can heal it's User. And Giorno does have significantly more experience with life-or-death battles, and is much more ruthless and brutal to boot. His planning ability also seems more refined than Josuke's. I'd say it's tilted in Giorno's favor, but not so extremely that Josuke doesn't stand a chance. Josuke has the edge in raw strength, but GE's power is much more versatile, and that inability of CD's to heal Josuke is a huge handicap. I could easily see the fight being a draw, where Josuke might kill Gio...but then Josuke dies from something like the venom of creature Gio made, or just being eaten from the inside by something GE punched and transformed that got lodged in him. Could go either way, though.