Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1820614-20141107023406/@comment-5471249-20141124181301

@Kronos300

Yes, I have always disliked Annabeth for many reasons... And Percy too, for that matter :((((

But seriously, how could you possibly place Nico's powers and fighting skills below Jason's? After all, Hazel claimed that Nico was the more powerful of the two. As for Nico's fighting abilities... well, surviving the Battle of Manhattan, the Battle of the House of Hades, and the final battle of the Second Demigod Civil War, all unscathed is a pretty impressive feat in and of itself... While Nico might not be as experienced as Jason, he seems to be a prodigiously skilled swordsman and combatant, constantly training with undead warriors and improving his skills, to the point that he managed to impress even the Ares demigods with his fighting skills in the Battle of Manhattan, where he managed to fend off numerous monsters, while simultaneously managing to protect mortal civilians from them. While facing Gaea's forces in the House of Hades, Nico managed to single-handedly take down an entire group of superhumanly strong Earthborn, even though he was limited by being able to fight with only one hand (since he was forced to hold the scepter in the other). Later in the series, even though Nico was somewhat weakened from recently shadow-travelling, he still managed to single-handedly quickly take down 6 highly skilled Roman legionnaires at once, while saving Will Solace from them. It should also be noted that Nico wasn't even going all-out, since he did not wish to kill those legionnaires.

Nico also has a greater variety to his powers than either Percy (only hydrokinesis, along with limited aerokinesis, limited geokinesis, and limited cryokinesis) or Jason (only aerokinesis and electrokinesis)--Nico can manipulate earth and rocks (geokinesis), can control and manipulate bones (osteokinesis),  has control over darkness and shadows  ( umbrakinesis ),  can enter a death trance, can generate intense cold (cryokinesis), has control over and can induce dreams (hypnokinesis), and can radiate intense fear and death. Unfortunately, Uncle Rick has remained loyal to his original main character (Percy Jackson), and gives him the unfair advantage of having a significant power boost whenever he comes in contact with water. In order to ensure that Percy would stay more powerful than Nico, Rick also just had to make the latter's infernal powers drain him :((( Had that not been the case though, Nico would have potentially been more powerful than Percy.