Board Thread:Versus Debates/@comment-26636534-20180830184727/@comment-34194151-20180910023721

Itachi's fighting style is either to continuously barrage ninjutsu and shuriken ninjutsu or to use genjutsu followed up by a finishing blow. To see how he uses ninjutsu, reference his first fight with kakashi, which should give you insight into how he can actually fight, and is the most reliable marker because this is how kishimoto established him. The way i see he it, he casted hand seals inside his robe and then sheathed his shurikens. the water technique was cast first, and his shadow clone jutsu was rigged to form behind kakashi in the event he survived the water attack. He is then clever enough to use substitution with his exploding shadow clone to put kakashi and kurenai in harm's way. That said, itachi is a 1v1 combat specialist, where genjutsu is one of his most powerful assets here, given that going against the sharingan 1v1 can be suicide.

As for itachi's previous "fight" with oro, I think he casted the genjutsu immediately after oro captured him with the snakes. We know he didn't use susano'o in that fight, as oro didn't know itachi had mirror and totsuka blade until the fight with hebi sasuke. I'm pretty sure that 3 tomoe itachi was portrayed to be able to capture orochimaru in genjutsu and then one shot him with ease if he wanted to, defeating him in two moves. oro may have tried to break it, but it's clear that itachi always capitalizes on the moment his opponent is bound by genjutsu, he did the same thing to kurenai.

Itachi has already seen through kidomaru's bone attack, so it's gonna take some creativity for him to be tagged by that, when SM kabuto failed to do so.

Honestly, 1v1 I don't see how orochimaru deals with itachi. even if you restrict genjutsu, orochimaru, while decent at misdirection, doesn't seem to have the tools necessary to deal with itachi's tactics if itachi fights remotely similiar to how he fought p1 kakashi. Itachi has shown the ability to teleport clones behind his opponent. So grand fireball jutsu as a feint then exploding shadow clone following suit from behind, as secondary feint, then totsuka blade as per canon to finish oro off.

With edo teammates however, itachi's regular genjutsu will be hard to pin down anyone, so only useful as feints. but itachi is smart enough honestly to use susano'o to ignore most of kona's and kidomaru's attacks, and I think he will focus most of his attention on oro. Konan's best strategy it seems was weaponizing papers and then throwing paper bombs at her opponent, but i don't see those attacks breaching susano'o. Actually, her explosions will backfire, as those create smokescreens, and we saw what happened to nagato when he created a smokescreen. I think the totsuka blade's speed is underestimated, because people cite nagato's lack of mobility, while seeming to forget he has a nifty technique called shinra tensei. The fact he couldn't use it in time, or even activate preta, shows that the blade is fast. orochimaru also didn't seem to mentally react to the blade until after it struck him, so yeah... I feel itachi is the suoerior tactician and more skilled at diversions too.

Also, itachi doesn't need to spam susano'o, he can use shunshin to manuever, and keep susano'o on when he gets into a pinch and use it for offense and defense, then deactivate it when it's necessary. he can intelligently conserve stamina this way.