Board Thread:Antaeus' Arena: Audience Chamber/@comment-1515612-20160820001629/@comment-5896827-20160820171227

Another thing people aren't mentioning is how smart Percy is. Although, in series, they call him stupid in a number of ways he is anything but. In the Lightning Thief at Crusty's bed place, he not only came up with a way to save Annabeth and Grover, he lied so easily and well that Crusty was tricked into lying down in his own bed.

Again, in the Lightning Thief, the reason Percy was able to injure Ares is because he outsmarted him in battle. Percy led Ares to a terrain he knew he'd be stronger in (the ocean) while pretending to be weak and playing to Ares arrogance. It wasn't pure battle skill that let Percy win the battle. It was his intelligence and wits. It's sad everyone forgets this as right before the battle, Annabeth even stated, "Even strength has to bow to wisdom sometimes" or something along those lines.

With Antaeus, Percy  quickly   figured out how the giant was staying alive and figured out that he simply needed to get him off the ground to kill him to prevent him from regenerating. So, once again, Percy manipulated his opponent by playing to their weakness (Antaeus pride in his own battle skills) and lured them into a trap. Percy then, inventively, tangled Antaeus with all of the chains to restrain him.

Percy knows of Nico's crush on him as of BoO. If Percy is in a full out battle and is willing to do anything to win, he'll simply use Nico's crush on him to his advantage. If you want to say Nico, "got over it" I'd say no. Nobody gets over a three year crush by simply telling the person they like, "Isn't [their] type."

So, not only is Percy a near equal to Luke, the most skilled swordsman in 300 years, Percy is also extremely intelligent and strategic.