Okay, so was it just me, or did the show start out all about mastering specific body movements and fighting techniques in order to bend, and by the end the characters could pretty much just twitch a finger and cause a rockslide/tidal wave/tornado/explosion???

Seriously, I loved how the effectiveness of the bending was directly connected to the effectiveness of the fighting moves. Like if you took away the elements and put th two fighters closer together, doing the same movements, the fight would turn out the same.

But by the end of it, that all changed! What happened??!

Thoughts? Comments? Do you agree/disagree?

Not really. It was, for the most part the same up until Sozin's Comet, and that was because of the comet.

Combustion Man is an exception, but I didn't see anything completely godmodded up until Sozin's Comet.

Eh, complain if you want. The fight scenes were still awesome to me, whether they swirled they're arms in the air like mad baboons or shot fire from their brain.

Besides, Bumi kind of implied less movements are required the more advanced you get at a certain element when he moved rocks by just looking and thinking.

None of those are overpowered.

Ozai is the FIRELORD. He's the most powerful firebender, and possibly the most powerful nonavatar bender in the whole series.

Combustion Man was ridiculously powerful, holding off attacks from Katara, Zuko, Toph, and Aang sometimes in groups all at once, but he was easier to take down because of his apparent inability to control his bending(The explosions that happened after being hit in the forehead, and the lack of his arm and leg).

Also, Sokka, quite possibly the weakest character in the whole series, killed Combustion Man with a bent piece of metal. I don't find that overpowered at all.

Katara did use martial arts, and the signature form of waterbending, flowing movement. She only performed it that quickly because they were standing directly OVER WATER, something that most fights don't occur in.

Azula flying?

You mean the rocket trick? It only boosted her into the air, big deal. And she only flew during the comet, and even with her power, it required all four arms 90% of the time(Save erratic lightning blasts), and took a huge amount of force to keep her floating. Outside of the comet she would hardly be that good at "flying".

Granted, Ozai and Jeong Jeong flew, but even then, it was during the comet. Without it, they could probably fly only like Azula did, using all four limbs while jetting out huge bursts of flame, therefore greatly reducing their ability at ranged combat, since they have no arms.