Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-25908228-20141222101442/@comment-173.68.86.11-20171014055759

Kirito seems much stronger than Asuna in terms of over all power and also level. If we think about it as a game which it is, Kirito goes a "stength" build in SAO. In SAOII Sterben also mentions Kirito's strength preference. His choice of weapon is a 2H sword but he uses one hand and can even dual-wield two 2H swords. Even with this weight he moves just as fast and faster than anyone in game. When dueling Akihiko, Kirito's power was overwhelming. This is coming from the perspective of someone who is already cheating, but had to increase the level of cheat settings to win against Kirito.The DW skill was given to the person with fastest reaction time. In terms of role, if both Kirito and Asuna were considered DPS or damage players, Kirito would be more of a bruiser or tanky-warrior. Although she was pretty strong, Asuna was a squishier damage-warrior type. In SAO ep.12 Kirito and Asuna go up against the "Unknown" reaper which we know neither one of them could solo. Kirito, having more experience says the reaper is probably from level 90. What is interesting about this scene is when the reaper attacks them. Kirito's health stayed in the green, but Asuna's dropped to yellow although she was standing behind him.

In SAOII ep.19, before Asuna meets Zekken/Yuuki she is discussing relative speed of the players and refers to Kirito's speed: "Speaking of fast moves, someone almost illegally speedy is napping over there." Both Yuuki and Kirito weren't going at full, Kirito more so because to him a simple duel isnt life and death. Kirito takes on a different persona when he is fighting for real SAO ep.14: "This isn't a duel...it's simply a fight to the death. Thats right. I'm going to kill this man." The reason Yuuki is more skilled is because the game is her life. Kirito has no reason to be strong anymore and he "will only go all-out when the game is no longer a game." Kirito also says that Yuuki would have been the one with the dual-wield ability and not him. Yuuki doesnt seem to be a lot better than Kirito because we have to remember the criteria for accessing the "dual-wield" setting was simply fastest reaction or put differently, fluidity of movements. This is to be expected from someone who lives in the game. We see this just for a moment when Yuuki deflects Asuna's sword in their duel.

Going back to Asuna and Kirito comparsion, simply acquiring an "original sword skill" isnt enough to make someone stronger (Kirito vs General Eugene). Like a game there are many stats to consider. Both are fast characters. Kirito is most likely faster due to his SAO training/grinding and over all knowledge in game. Also his GGO training of deflecting bullets with a swordand dodging incoming bullets. We already know Kirito is tankier so he can take more hits. Since Asuna hasn't used the sword skill against Kirito we have to use the Kirito/ Yuuki duel as reference. In the duel Yuuki uses her special skill but Kirito only use his default (didn't duel wield). Kirito is shown to be a fast learner in SAO and SAOII in many instances, meaning he already knows Asuna's skills/ speed. The only thing we've seen him to not counter or parry was this special skill while he played with a handicap(not using his duel-wield) against Yuuki. Since this is the only advatage Asuna would have over Kirito, it is not enough to beat him if he went in full power.