Dio Brando/Abilities and Powers

Personal
Intelligence: Dio is naturally intelligent, displaying cunning and perceptiveness as well as imagination repeatedly.

As a child and teenager, Dio Brando managed to achieve academic excellence with ease, having planned to graduate from university as a top law student.

Otherwise Dio is a cunning villain and proficient tactician in combat. Dio almost managed to get away with two murders, bidding his time in order to have a perfect alibi and was only discovered by accident. Upon his return from the bottom of the ocean, DIO built in six years a powerful criminal empire spanning over several continents and which brought him many riches. In a fight, Dio is particularly cunning and perceptive, his ruthlessness making him able to exploit dishonorable and downright inhuman tactics to get ahead, such as leading his enemies into a trap, using hapless civilians as projectiles and sources of energy, or plain sneak attacks. Dio has the habit of analyzing his opponents and determine quickly a counter to their strengths, such as freezing blood in order to stop the flow of the Ripple, or forcing Jotaro's bluff by throwing multiple knives from all direction so that he's forced to act during the stopped time.

Naturally ambitious, Dio constantly seeks to improve himself and meticulously studies his abilities to make the most of them. As such, he developed a freezing power akin to the Pillar Men's Modes in just a month, and in six years, discovered enough about Stands to be able to fuse several together with souls in order to create the ultimate Stand. Arguably his most successful move, Dio experimented on how his vampiric powers allowed him to fuse two organisms together, and used that knowledge to steal Jonathan's body.

Though he doesn't show it often, Dio has become a natural philosopher, arguing about the human condition with multiple people.

Toughness: All prior to becoming a Vampire, Dio was already an able bare-handed fighter; A skill he says he developed in the slums of London. A good amateur sportsman, during a rugby game as a young adult, he is shown to have developed high athletic ability (as well as fantastic muscle mass).

Charisma: Dio is a cunning and charming individual. In addition to Stand Users, whom Avdol and Joseph suggest he recruits through sheer charm or charisma, he has seduced many women through his life.

Knowledge: Throughout both his humble youth and tempestuous maturity, Dio is often seen reading. During his pre-teens, he is seen playing chess with adults. In Part 6, in conversation with Enrico Pucci, he is shown to have accumulated some wisdom within the world of Stands. Importantly, Dio is able to concoct a plan, contained in his diary, incorporating vast, unknown information as to the deliberate creation of Stands of perfectly specific abilities.

Vampiric
Becoming a Vampire as a young adult, Dio displays a broad range of fantastic, supernatural abilities; explained as expressions of the full, unbound potential of the human body.

Inhuman Strength: Dio attains massive strength as a Vampire, allowing him feats such as forcibly walking on walls and single-handedly deflecting attacks such as Hierophant Green's Emerald Splash (volleys of substantially-sized emeralds flying at almost bullet speed). After absorbing Joseph's blood he is powerful enough to pick up and drop a steamroller on Jotaro.

Inhuman Speed: Dio also possesses enhanced speed and agility. At one point he was described by Speedwagon as being as fast as a cheetah.

Enhanced Senses: Demonstrated when placing his head on the ground to hear Jotaro's heartbeat, despite being a few meters away, Dio appears to have senses beyond human level.

Regeneration: Dio can regenerate his body faster than fire can consume it. His incredible vitality is maintained by consuming human beings (or their blood), which he commonly does by piercing them with his fingers. Like all JoJo vampires, Dio sucks blood through tentacles in his fingers and has been seen at least once drinking blood from an unnamed girl. His body is able to live even after having vital body parts amputated and he can also control his detached body parts. The extent of Dio's own survivability is demonstrated when he could continue as just a head.

Space Ripper Stingy Eyes: Dio is able to pressurize bodily liquid in his eyeballs and then create small openings in his pupils, eventually unleashing two fluid jets (referred to by Straizo as "Space Ripper Stingy Eyes" ) powerful enough to slice stone.

Vaporization Freezing Technique (気化冷凍法): An ability Dio utilized after learning of the Ripple energy and the danger it presents to him. By freezing his blood to subzero temperatures, he can absorb heat from any living being he is in physical contact with and freeze them. This ability can be circumvented by Ripple being channeled through items and fire. Dio loses this ability after his original body was destroyed.

Fusion: Dio possesses the ability to graft the body parts of different beings together, using this to create half-man half-beast pets. Dio later used this ability to graft his head onto Jonathan's body.

Flesh Buds (肉の芽): Introduced in Stardust Crusaders, Dio is able manipulate his hair to create parasites that he can insert into a human's head. The Flesh Bud will pierce through the skull into the part of the brain, making the afflicted compliant to Dio's charisma. As explained by Joseph, the parasite will gradually eat the inflicted's brain. If someone tries to take out the spore, which can prove fatal if it's not carefully removed, the Flesh Bud will sprout tentacles in an attempt to invade the intruder's brain. If the vampire wants, he can give permission to someone to activate the spore's tentacles anytime he wants if close to it. The spores possess another effect in case DIO himself ever dies. According to Keicho Nijimura, his father who was implanted by the spore underwent a mutation into a greenish animalistic form by having DIO's cells inside his body. Presumably, this is a side effect that the rest of the surviving Stand Users that DIO had implanted his spores inside of would suffer from.

Hypnosis: This ability was used twice on Jack the Ripper (anime only) and Poco respectively. In the case of the former, Dio hypnotized Jack to convince him to join as a servant, allowing Dio to drain his blood and turn him into a zombie. Poco was manipulated to lure Jonathan into a trap, though his consciousness returned after being subjected to Jonathan's Ripple.

Teleportation: Dio also shows the ability to disappear by fading into darkness. Whether or not this may be an actual vampire ability or a result of the use of his Stand (see below).

Healing: Dio also seems to possess the ability to heal other people's wounds as he was able to completely cure Pucci's wounded foot by simply touching it. However, the origins of this power remain unknown.

Weaknesses
All of this, however, is at the expense of having a body sustained by sheer willpower alone, rather than vital energy. A sufficiently powerful force of vitality - specifically, sunlight or the Ripple - will negate the sustaining force's presence and disintegrate the long-unliving body.

Stand
DIO's Stand is the humanoid The World; facilitating melee attack roughly equal, if not even superior, in its immense force and speed to Jotaro Kujo's Star Platinum.

About a year after gaining his Stand, DIO discovered that it is capable of stopping time. At first, he could only do this for a very short amount of time, but by the end of Part 3, he is able to stop time for a maximum of 9 seconds. This duration would have continued to develop had DIO not been defeated. When stopping time, DIO gives the impression that he is teleporting or otherwise moving at impossible speeds.

The ability is best known for DIO's activation and cancellation phrases THE WORLD, Time, stop! (! 時よ止まれ!) and Time resumes. (時は動き出す).

Joestar Stand
Due to an awakening power within Jonathan Joestar's body, DIO is capable of using a Hermit Purple-like Stand which allows him to create psychic images, be it on photographs or crystal balls. Due to the connection between Jonathan's body and descendants, DIO is also able to sense the presence of other Joestars and can use it to track their position. He is even able to tell when Joseph uses Hermit Purple to take a psychic photograph of him, and instinctively knew that his acquisition of a Stand also awoke Stand abilities in Jonathan's descendants.

In Video Games

 * Blazing Fists (MudaMuda)
 * Blazing Strike
 * The World, Road Roller
 * Eye-Crushing Kick
 * The World, Circle of Knives
 * The World, Time Stop
 * The Touch of Evil (Charisma)
 * Referring to his "Evil Implants"