Board Thread:Antaeus' Arena: Audience Chamber/@comment-1515612-20150804024815/@comment-5471249-20150807211020

Erick.baez.773 wrote:

If Nico went to Camp Half Blood to train ( He mostly trained by himself), he could've also been one of top sword fighters. But he isn't ( Percy, Jason, Annabeth, Reyna and Probably Frank surpasses him) I beg to differ - even though Nico didn't train at Camp Half-Blood, he DID frequently train with the dead, training cessions that had to have been at least as good as their camp equivalent, since the son of Hades has managed to become at least as skilled as Percy or Jason and more so than Annabeth, Reyna, and Frank.

My evidence? Well, Nico kept up with the much more experienced Percy and Thalia while fighting the Keres (who were under Iapetus' influence at the time, so Nico wouldn't have had any son of Hades advantages against them) and, unlike Percy, didn't get wounded in the process. Also, Nico survived the most intense portion of the Battle of Manhattan unscathed (while simultaneously helping keep mortals safe, and later, successfully protecting Percy's parents), showcasing amazing combat skills in the process, since they were enough to impress even the Ares demigods (which indicates that Nico is definitely more skilled than the less experienced Frank). And Nico later single-handedly overpowers an entire group of mighty Earthborn during the Necromanteion battle, while being limited by fighting with only 1 hand (since he had the scepter in his other one), and even when's he weakened by shadow-travel, Nico is still able to single-handedly quickly overcome 6 Roman legionnaires (while protecting Will Solace), and it should be noted that Nico was not even going all out against them, only knocking them out. Hence, I think it would be logical consider Nico at least equivalent in skill to Percy and Jason, and superior to Annabeth and Reyna (who are both, objectively, less skilled than Percy).