Sousou no Frieren

[Ryllharu]

Another inconsistency I've seen so far is that in some fights, a barrier blocking an attack can deplete your mana completely (like if you blocked an attack that was too strong in Dark Souls, it'd break your stamina). However, when one of the rock pillars struck water girl from the ground, it broke her shield then damaged her - but that strike didn't automatically drain all of her MP compared to say Denken's fight and Richter's final shield. That would suggest that you can break through a barrier without exhausting someone's MP. One explanation for this is that you are both limited by both mana capacity and mana output - and water girl maxed her mana output into the shield, but not her capacity. Frieren states in episode 2 that long range spells are affected by mana, strength of firing and control. I'm guessing shields may also apply similarly - and Denken/Richter's output is high/instant enough that their shields are limited by their mana capacity instead of rate-of-discharge.

I thought Richter detailed this one out completely. It's why "modern" magic is shifting away from Zoltraak.

The barrier spell is perfect for defending against Zoltraak. That's what it was for, that's why it was invented. It flawlessly defends against Zoltraak so it hasn't been changed, improved or updated since.

"Modern" magic shifted to attacks that are just as fast as activating Zoltraak, but the Barrier spell can't defend against it unless it is improved (which he showed by fractalizing the facets of the Barrier), but that takes longer to cast and requires even more mana, so it effectively does nothing against the elemental magic. The mages saturate each other with strong attacks that blast through the standard barrier with physical force behind them.

Why that school of thought doesn't work on Fern or Frieren is because the former has flawless pinpoint control, minimizes the size of her barriers and therefore never uses too much mana on her barriers; the latter has an overwhelming mana pool and can just buff up the barrier when she really needs it.

Fern was getting affected by the rocks. But she uses what she needs, which is just enough, and then switches to pure saturation while maintaining peak efficiency. Frieren taught Fern that Offense is above all. Other mages simply can't keep up with Fern's casting speed.

Frieren just can't be overwhelmed because she has an inexhaustible supply of mana compared to essentially anyone attacking her.

Both of them hide it (the anti-demon strat), so anyone who can sense mana will always be caught off guard and lose.

"Modern" mages are unknowingly following in the footsteps of demonkind, so of course Fern and Frieren's ego-less style is going to defeat them every time.

edit:
The one closest to their fighting style is probably Ubel. She appears to just cut stuff with absolutely no startup, telegraphed movement, or any indication of any kind besides presumably mana that needs to be actively detected.