For Eric and whoever happening to be following this...
Ever since Komaki appeared I think it's pretty clear that she has to be hurt or even die, otherwise the Hunter's attack will end up in utter failure. In a fighting manga that values tactics above all else, she's basically the Zhuge Liang of HXH. It's pretty obvious her speciality is strategy, and even the best tactics of Hunters is child play compared to what she can think of. Right now the popular theory is that the King will go through some kind of powerup but I think the opposite will happen, namely that Komaki being incapaciated/dead will leave the King vulnerable since he is unimaginably more powerful than all the Hunters combined.
The royal guards (name omitted since they're nearly unpronounceable anyway):
Cat - Right now I don't see how Killua and Gon can possibly beat her (him?). It's revealed that she only needs 0.1s to charge up aura attacks which is stupidly fast in the world of HXH. Even if you just allow Gon the usual main character advantage, especially the ability to charge aura without any defensive penalties over long perod of times (the DBZ charge fireball strat is supposed to be suicide because literally someone just has to touch you during the chargeup phase to kill you according to the rules of HXH). I don't see this pair being able to defeat her because she'll probably just shrug off multiple fully aura charged attacks without any appreciable damage.
I'm guessing this will end up as some sort of strategic retreat. Personally I'd like to see Gon dead, because he's like the most ungrateful main character ever, like a worse version of Yuna in FFX2 He is blessed with mega aura powers and gifts but insists to commiting to suicidal strategy because he feels like it. Obviously he is bailed out of his stupidity thanks to being the main character. He constantly criticizes his friends for coming up with sound plans that will actually work and replace them with dumber ones that work due to him being indestructible.
Butterfly - I think this guy is probably the strongest out of the royal guards. Expect whoever he goes against to die horribly. HXH has no mercy on the weak, even if they're the good guys.
Big guy - I always thought the point of HXH is that you've a lot of ability that sounds really awesome but really sucks in practice. The best examples would be Chrollo and Knuckles, i.e. nearly invinicible ability that only works on people a lot weaker than you (which you won't need the said abilities in the first place) and is useless against anyone stronger than you. Right now it's looking like Knuckles + Chamelon + Shoota against the big guy. Since he has an AP of 700000+ compared to 70K for the strongest Hunter, he is obviously way stronger than Knuckles and I think this pair will die horribly too. But that's okay because, like Netero said, it doesn't matter how many Hunters die as long as they defeated the King at the end. I predict 2 losses and 1 withdraw on the 3 royal guard matchups, but the King will be defeated.
On the King matchup, I think at least one of the Zeno/Netero pair will die because the King is simply too strong. Even if he is distracted over Komaki it is inconceiveable for him to be defeated without taking some grievous losses. One of the problems is that Komaki also can't actually die because otherwise the King will just use his consume aura ability. Perhaps he can be weakened enough such that a combo of Chamleon + Gon be enough to take him out, assuming the Chamelon even lives past the current royal guard.
For the most part I'd say the villians of the Chimera Ant arc are a lot more interesting than the good guys. Although unlike the Spiders, the King and his royal guards probably have to die at some point, I don't expect this to happen without a lot of deaths on the good guy side. I wouldn't rule out Killua dying too, even though it seems almost insane to suggest the most popular character in the series could die.
Ever since Komaki appeared I think it's pretty clear that she has to be hurt or even die, otherwise the Hunter's attack will end up in utter failure. In a fighting manga that values tactics above all else, she's basically the Zhuge Liang of HXH. It's pretty obvious her speciality is strategy, and even the best tactics of Hunters is child play compared to what she can think of. Right now the popular theory is that the King will go through some kind of powerup but I think the opposite will happen, namely that Komaki being incapaciated/dead will leave the King vulnerable since he is unimaginably more powerful than all the Hunters combined.
The royal guards (name omitted since they're nearly unpronounceable anyway):
Cat - Right now I don't see how Killua and Gon can possibly beat her (him?). It's revealed that she only needs 0.1s to charge up aura attacks which is stupidly fast in the world of HXH. Even if you just allow Gon the usual main character advantage, especially the ability to charge aura without any defensive penalties over long perod of times (the DBZ charge fireball strat is supposed to be suicide because literally someone just has to touch you during the chargeup phase to kill you according to the rules of HXH). I don't see this pair being able to defeat her because she'll probably just shrug off multiple fully aura charged attacks without any appreciable damage.
I'm guessing this will end up as some sort of strategic retreat. Personally I'd like to see Gon dead, because he's like the most ungrateful main character ever, like a worse version of Yuna in FFX2 He is blessed with mega aura powers and gifts but insists to commiting to suicidal strategy because he feels like it. Obviously he is bailed out of his stupidity thanks to being the main character. He constantly criticizes his friends for coming up with sound plans that will actually work and replace them with dumber ones that work due to him being indestructible.
Butterfly - I think this guy is probably the strongest out of the royal guards. Expect whoever he goes against to die horribly. HXH has no mercy on the weak, even if they're the good guys.
Big guy - I always thought the point of HXH is that you've a lot of ability that sounds really awesome but really sucks in practice. The best examples would be Chrollo and Knuckles, i.e. nearly invinicible ability that only works on people a lot weaker than you (which you won't need the said abilities in the first place) and is useless against anyone stronger than you. Right now it's looking like Knuckles + Chamelon + Shoota against the big guy. Since he has an AP of 700000+ compared to 70K for the strongest Hunter, he is obviously way stronger than Knuckles and I think this pair will die horribly too. But that's okay because, like Netero said, it doesn't matter how many Hunters die as long as they defeated the King at the end. I predict 2 losses and 1 withdraw on the 3 royal guard matchups, but the King will be defeated.
On the King matchup, I think at least one of the Zeno/Netero pair will die because the King is simply too strong. Even if he is distracted over Komaki it is inconceiveable for him to be defeated without taking some grievous losses. One of the problems is that Komaki also can't actually die because otherwise the King will just use his consume aura ability. Perhaps he can be weakened enough such that a combo of Chamleon + Gon be enough to take him out, assuming the Chamelon even lives past the current royal guard.
For the most part I'd say the villians of the Chimera Ant arc are a lot more interesting than the good guys. Although unlike the Spiders, the King and his royal guards probably have to die at some point, I don't expect this to happen without a lot of deaths on the good guy side. I wouldn't rule out Killua dying too, even though it seems almost insane to suggest the most popular character in the series could die.
