Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-118.211.8.204-20150302141811/@comment-6697950-20150930115217

73.19.129.12 wrote:

3. Kirito hasn't shown the need to use feints against monsters.

Tell that to the Lizardman Lord.

5. That situation against Heathcliff is an outlier, he never faced a battle that uphill one on one (which is why I called it an outlier). In the fight with Asterius he didn't know it had a paralysis effect, which may of affected his decision making. I don't believe I made the assumption that he would win if he was under pressure just that he does better. I'm using Microsoft Word, and I was typing quickly, tis is the cause for the formatting.

Seriously. You think that he didn't know that a breath attack was bad news? Even if he didn't know that it would cause paralysis specifically, he most certainly had to consider that it would have some sort of negative effect and/or high damage. The point is that he stopped thinking logically (and he commented that he threw logic out the window at that moment) and endangered his own life even though he knew that he wouldn't be able to rescue Asuna from the attack in time.

Where did we start talking about winning? As far as I remember, I was trying to dispute the claim that "Kirito does better under pressure", since that's not always the case.

73.19.129.12 wrote: 6. Let me ask you this why do you think Kirito was only serious for half of his duel against Yuuki the first time?

If you're reading the fan translation, I would like to point out that the Japanese was 少なくとも、途中からは, which, as I understand, means "at least starting midway" when he said that he was being super-serious. So, to answer your question, he wasn't serious at first because he was still in his casual mode when he accepted the challenge. A better question is "why did he have to get serious midway?"