This will be a stats equalized battle, meaning no extra BS just swordsmanship.

In the case of characters having multiple classes, we'll assume they use a sword class (Dovahkiin only gets swords, no magic, or shouts. Arisen is restricted to Fighter, Warrior, etc. Tarnished gets no staves or etc.)

All weapons are equalized meaning no lightsabers cutting through swords or shields, armor is fair game though.

In the case of characters needing their "powers" to be physically -abled like Count Dooku, that's fine. No offensive or defensive applications of said powers though.

Any knowledge or questlines or otherwise that have to be done to put a character at their best is done here, they are all at their absolute peak skill level.

Precognition is allowed.

All characters are in character.

Yes I know there are characters from the same universe but it is every man for themselves.

Characters:

Count Dooku (Star Wars, Legends)

Mace Windu (Star Wars, Legends)

Gimli (LOTR)

Legolas (LOTR)

Aragorn (LOTR)

Geralt of Rivia (Witcher, Composite)

Raiden (Metal Gear)

Jetstream Sam (Metal Gear)

Dovahkiin/TLD (Elder Scrolls)

Hero of Kvatch/Champion of Cyrodiil (Elder Scrolls)

The Nerevarine (Elder Scrolls)

Ra's Al Ghul (DC Comics)

Deathstroke (DC Comics)

Samurai Jack (Samurai Jack)

Piandao (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

Sephiroth (Original FFVII timeline)

Warrior of Light (FFXIV)

Frog (Chrono Trigger)

Adol Christin (Ys)

Guts (Berserk)

Griffith/Femto (Berserk)

Skull Knight (Berserk)

Kenshin Himura (Rurouni Kenshin)

Hiko Seijuro (Rurouni Kenshin)

Seta Sojiro (Rurouni Kenshin)

Henry of Skalitz (Kingdom Come: Deliverance)

The Arisen (Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen)

The Arisen (Dragon's Dogma 2)

Achilles (Troy)

Spartacus (STARZ Spartacus)

Maximus (Gladiator)

Spartacus (300)

The Warden (Dragon Age: Origins)

Marth (Fire Emblem)

Chrom (Fire Emblem)

Ike (Fire Emblem)

The Tarnished (Elden Ring)

Chosen Undead (Dark Souls)

The Hunter (Bloodborne)

Knight Artorias (Dark Souls, Pre-Corrupted)

Sekiro (Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice)

Ashen One (Dark Souls)

Kliff (Crimson Desert)

Atomic Samurai (One Punch Man)

Roronoa Zoro (One Piece)

Dracula Mihawk (One Piece)

Sasuke Uchiha (Naruto)

Killer Bee (Naruto)

Zabuza (Naruto)

Orochimaru (Naruto)

Madara Uchiha (Naruto)

Inigo Montoya (Princess Bride)

Saber/Artorias Pendragon (Fate)

Wesley/Dread Pirate Roberts (Princess Bride)

Ichigo Kurosaki (Bleach)

Byakuya Kuchiki (Bleach)

Kenpachi Zaraki (Bleach)

Suzaku Kururugi (Code Geass)

Lan Mandragoran (Wheel of Time)

Afro (Afro Samurai)

Sir Lancelot (Excalibur)

Arthur Dayne (ASOIAF)

Barristan Selmy (ASOIAF)

Jaime Lannister (ASOIAF)

Jon Snow (ASOIAF)

Nanashi (Sword of the Stranger)

Yoriichi Tsugikuni (Demon Slayer)

Yami Sukehiro (Black Clover)

Gintoki (Gintama)

Black Knight (Marvel)

Deadpool (Marvel)

Silver Samurai (Marvel)

Zorro (Zorro)

Duncan Idaho (Dune)

Paul Atreides (Dune)

Jack Sparrow (Pirates of the Caribbean)

Hector Barbossa (Pirates of the Caribbean)

Will Turner (Pirates of the Caribbean)

Davy Jones (Pirates of the Caribbean)

Altair ibn la-ihad (Assassin's Creed)

Ezio Auditore da Firenze (Assassin's Creed)

Connor Kenway (Assassin's Creed)

Edward Kenway (Assassin's Creed)

Desmond Miles (Assassin's Creed)

Alucard (Castlevania)

Goblin Slayer (Goblin Slayer)

I already know that this is incredibly overwhelming so I chose not to make the list any longer, and I purposefully tried to leave out people that would make this a boring and objectively unfair debate. Including Miyamoto Musashi from Vagabond for example leaves absolutely no room for debate.

If we remove their supernatural abilities and they were merely a peak human or average person, would they be extremely skilled?

If they had stats equalized against expert swordsman like Jaime Lannister, Count Dooku, Paul Atreides, Samurai Jack, or Guts, could they hold their own in a duel or even win?

I think we can look at stuff like the dodge, perfect block, the way they climb monsters, their stamina and how it goes up to deal with threats. Their sword skills, the things they fight (countless creatures, human sorcerers and swordsman, bandits) their shield bashes, bring able to wrestle up close with enemies (button tapping or grappling.) I think it's safe to say they display a high level of skill.

Then we have to measure how they compare to other Arisen... Which is: They are better than all of them. We beat Daimon's first and second form, of which he'd been killing tons of Arisen for "a hundred lifetimes", we beat Grigori who went unkilled for at least a thousand years. We beat Savan in a direct duel (which if you're going Fighter or Warrior is a sword fight with Seneschal fuckery) who was in the position of Seneschal for "countless lifetimes". We beat the Ur-Dragon who is just a much more powerful Grigori, basically Grigori x20.

In contrast: Dragonforged and Sofiah lose/die to Grigori, hundreds, probably thousands of Arisen die to Daimon. Grigori himself lost to Savan and who knows who else lost to him. Hell, pawns even died in the Everfall and BBI. The Ur-Dragon if we wanna get head-canony... Probably killed and devoured at least 20 Arisen.

Plus the fact they can't even block as a Warrior yet somehow in lore can survive the encounters must mean they're able to dodge or parry before they're hit.

Yes I know "Dragon's Dogma is about Will, they would lose all their fights", and they wouldn't.... It's about Will but it's also about martial might. I'm sure the Dragonforged and Sofiah had "Will" against Grigori but they still lost to him. There's no way Dragonforged just gave up.

Sometimes Will isn't enough, if it was we'd have been able to crush Grigori from the beginning. We have had to train to fight all these beasts, we have the WILL to train enough to defeat them, not the immediate Will to beat them.

I'll grant you this, the Arisen always has help, and it's usually a requirement for him, and... Yes the Arisen can use all the classes, but he's usually depicted with a sword and shield, when you start the game before you get to choose your class, you start with a sword. On the cover of the games across basically every platform they use a sword.

As far as the Arisen having pawns, I think it's still meant to be a party adventuring and saving the world, not the pawns cleaning up while he sits on his ass.

Plus they are used to duels with humans, like they effortlessly defeat Julien, they deal with Bandits, Skeleton Knights and Skeleton Lords, Golden and Silver Knights, Living Armor, Corrupted Pawns. Basically an army at the Duke's demesne (where the pawns can't even go so he did it alone.) Even the Cyclops and etc who use weapons which the Arisen has to block, dodge against. They beat Ser Berne effortlessly, they duel against Saurians, especially early on with Deep Trouble which practically proves the Arisen's skill, as the Saurians are way above their paygrade at that point.

Not to mention they literally go out of their way to fight and kill almost every threat you can think of, and their intelligence allows them to figure things like the secret augments that no other Arisen has thought of.

I would like to close this out by addressing arguments that may be made, such as the perfect block being a gameplay mechanic.

There is no lore contradictions to these moves working the way they do, and there's no reason to believe they couldn't be done in lore. It's merely the Arisen using a skilled technique that reflects an opponent's own force against them. The Dodge roll is just ... Well, a Dodge roll, people in real life can and have used them, I'm not sure about in combat but still.

As far as objectively analyzing the Arisen's skill, I would like to point out that Savan is basically a nigh-omnipotent God that has been around for probably thousands upon thousands of years. They likely possess superhuman senses or even a type of precognition, they also have their pawn who they likely have trained with while bored, I recognize this is headcanon, but... Being trapped-ish in the way that they are, alone in their realm, they don't have a lot to do.

Then there's Daimon: The guy has been slaughtering Arisen from countless different worlds for a hundred lifetimes, they have likely seen every single skill, weapon, armor, and tactic you can possibly think of, then we not only beat him, we beat his second form which no one has ever seen before, not even Olra or Barroch.

Then the wildcard: Pawn knowledge... The pawns have to learn from the Arisen, they have to slaughter each individual enemy in the beastiary sometimes hundreds of times, and see countless different tactics done by the Arisen. They have also likely seen tons of different scrolls and studied them which allowed their pawn to achieve higher knowledge as well. It should also be mentioned there is almost no scrolls in the game that offer level 3 knowledge, which means you have to get them on your own.

The Arisen is undeniably an absolute genius when it comes to strategies and tactics against both creatures and humans, it's not fair to discredit the Arisen's skill or say "we don't know" when we know that the pawn knowledge exists.

I think if forced to use a normal sword and shield they would be a perfectionist that only a few in fiction could actually beat if stats are totally equalized. Maybe a slight exaggeration but even if you measure him against other Arisen he defeats threats that have been killing Arisen for hundreds or thousands of years and has deep, extensive knowledge of every type of human enemy or creature possible.