Energy bending is actually the strongest.
Race-bending is better. Well, in todayâs society.
Pfft. We all know Gender-Bending is the strongest.
I wasnât forgetting it. I was ignoring it because a)you had already mentioned it above my post and b)even if itâs a massive boost, itâs on such a large timescale (1 day out of every 100 years) that it would have only been good for initial strike and Iâm pretty sure not all of the air temples got taken out at the same time.
Combustion was pretty broken as well. Too bad Combustion Man was the only one to have it.
I donât really think itâs too large a timescale. Once they establish control once, they can keep that shit, more firmly pressing until total dominance (should be able to achieve within 40-60 years), and every 100 after that going on a rampage to remind people who runs that shitâŚand they wouldâve gotten away with it too, if werenât for those meddling kids. Now that I sit and think about it, I suppose the avatar is supposed to act as a naturally occurring combo-breaker.
Iâm gonna say he either had stunted firebending abilities, or specially trained himself. Explosions ARE just rapid burning.
On nicktoons they had little captions and I remember one of them saying that metal body parts came from military experimentation. I canât remember what they exactly said about his third eye and his combustion ability.
Oh yeah, Combustion Man⌠another interesting character I wish we learned a little more about.
I also agree that the Air Benders all didnât get taken out during the comet, but perhaps the Fire Nation concentrated on the most powerful air benders, otherwise they probably would not have a chance of beating them without the power up. Even with the power-up it took a lot to beat them as shown by Aangâs teacherâs remains being surrounded by dozens of Fire Nation corpses (a true âGâ as the kids would say).
Maybe with their spiritual leadership gone, the remaining air nomads were easier to hunt down, but STILL⌠even during the worst genocides, there are still survivors, not counting Aang.
Oh and one more thing, the Air Temples seemed to be in pretty good shape after all those years; makes you wonder why the Fire Nation didnât follow their usual M.O. of converting them into something useful to them or destroying them completely.
Ugh⌠Iâm too old to be thinking about things like this. 
Too much trouble to use them as outposts without the comet for flight power. Dirigibles would probably have been more trouble than it was worth, so they just said âfuck it, weâre done here.â
100 years in the future.
So does that mean we will have firebending F-16 fighter jets and waterbendng hydroelectric dams?
Iâm hoping they do the flashbacks in the new series to catch us up on things we havenât seen, fill in the holes. I doubt theyâd flashback scenes weâve already witnessed, unless important(Final Battle, etc.).
Iâve been ignoring avatar reruns since it ended with that Sozinâs CometâŚwhat new series??
Whatever one theyâre talking about now, the Legend of Korra.
So Iâm glad that we have the rankings down
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Near Impossible Energy Bending
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Water Bending: Weâve already discussed why but the ability to use even sweat makes it pretty tough to beat. Itâs the best all around bending technique to know.
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Earth Bending: for the sheer fact that Toph will teach people about about metal bending) which can lead to armored earth benders. Not to mention that Toph has a good chance at discovering what metals are magnetized. While not directly controlling electromagnetism she could find the right metals to pull off the right tricks.
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Air Bending: Everyone demonstrated the peaks of their respective bending power and to get air at such a pressure that slices something is immense. Aang, even when fighting whatâs his face at the end, still never sliced anything with air. In real life the air isnât what hurts you in a tornado or a hurricane, itâs the flying debris and water. Air is just defensive by nature. It just happens to manipulate the fuck out of everything else though.
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Fire Bending: Even though itâs last, for the average bender fire is the worst. Itâs violent, oh so very violent in nature. Even though the comet gave the Fire Nation a one-up on everyone else it was only for one day. Destruction is far easier with fire. Even though Kitara is the best water bender she could probably never control an entire wave to wash out a town. It would probably take Toph a long time to cause an earthquake to level a town. And Aang? While I can picture him forming a tornado it would zap him of his energy. Heâd have to go into the Avatar state to do that. But fire? Light a few fires in the right place and you can have a whole village up in smoke in minutes. But fire is still last for itâs general usefulness. Oh and then thereâs lightning bendingâŚ
Just a few more days guys! I hope these movies are made at a quick pace so no one looks old as eff like in Harry Potter?
dead
hitler was the the grandmaster of racebending.
I suppose you raise good points with regards to Souzinâs Comet, Rhio2K.
HmmâŚit makes me wonder if thereâs decent fanfiction about the Fire nation winning.
Must resist urge to check TVTropesâŚ
Lol.
If weâre talking about people that are going to be featured in the second (non-existent) movie, has been decided on whoâs going to be Azula.
Man, I feel quite bad for the kids that got suckered into this, but .
Canât believe youâre putting realism into this when Kitara can slice wood and rocks with her sweat. Water is serious business though because at the highest levels it can be used for puppeteering and water benders can change the temperature to create ice or steam. They can also use the water in the air. Were you ranking Energy at the top BTW?
water is broken. Its pretty much iceman.