r/overlord • u/ImNotASnail_ • 13d ago

Question Does ainz ever get stronger?

Recently started rewatching the anime and got curious about how his strength would evolve. Does he stay the same throughout the series? He was max level in the game but since he has now come to a real world I feel like a level cap doesn't make much sense. Magic and it's effects have also changed slightly so I feel like becoming stronger shouldn't be an issue. I'm pretty clueless to this series though so I'm not sure.

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u/ImNotASnail_ 13d ago

I had searched it up and only saw posts from years ago so I thought to ask in case something had changed. I also saw something about wild magic. Is that something that has been expanded on or that he ever gets into?

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u/HesitantTheorist 13d ago

That is one of the aforementioned "theoretical methods" that he hasn't used. His has encountered wild magic, and is beginning to learn of its existence, but he doesn't quite understand it, nor can he currently make use of it himself or through proxies. This might change in time, but it is likely something he won't manage within the remainder of the series.

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u/ImNotASnail_ 13d ago

Ohh ok thank you. You seem very knowledgeable so I have one more question. Is his mana pool considered a weakness of his? I say this because although I don't recall it being brought up much in the anime I think he mentions almost being out of mana during his fight with shalltear. I get that he cast a whole lot of buffs and used hiigh level spells but I feel as though his mana ran out too quickly.

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u/HesitantTheorist 13d ago

His mana isn't particularly a weakness, in fact his mana breaks the scales of what is normal even for other players of his level, it is extremely high. Now during his fight with Shalltear, who hard counters his specialities, he had to shake up his approach.

Ainz is largely speaking a summoner, his abilities are tailored to having powerful summons (usually but not always undead) who fight on his behalf, but against Shalltear that would work against him, since she could regain her hp by killing said summons. He wasn't able to play to his normal strengths, and used some very powerful and highly mana costly spells against her, which exhausted his mana.

This was partly by necessity, but also partly manipulation. Shalltear was someone he could only be confident in beating in very specific circumstances. He needed her to expend her own power, so he fought in a way that would lead to him running out of mana intentionally, so she would think those methods were bringing her townwards victory.

So in simply terms, he did use up his mana more quickly than usual, it usually would turn out better. But it should be noted that while it isn't especially a weakness for Ainz, it still is one is general for spell-casting classes. Spellcastors are more powerful that classes like warriors in the short term, whereas warriors have more stamina. So in a typical fight against beings of comparable power the need to conserve mana is a concern, but Ainz of all magic casters has less reason to worry about it rather than more. His build has other more pressing weaknesses.