Xenon Blue

Ash in general isn’t that good at using pure tanks to their full potential and is far more effective in handling speedy Pokémon (even his best “tank” Snorlax is supposedly unusually agile for its species). This brings into question the issue concerning how the trainer’s skill impacts the viability of the Pokémon.

For example all of those “tierimg” systems for Ash’s Pokémon don’t really account for adjustment in Ash’s trainer skill. As an example Kingler has only been used by Kanto and Johto Ash a.k.a it is “tiered” based on its performances when being commanded by those versions of Ash, but now imagine how much more viable Kingler would likely be if it were being commanded by far better trainers like DP or XY Ash.

Yeah I'm a firm believer that a trainer's skill greatly affect how good a Pokemon looks. I feel like some of the BW Pokemon Ash had would have done considerably better in the hands of DP or XY Ash, namely Leavanny and Paplitoad. Both has a lot of good things going for it, it's just BW Ash's tactics were so linear and predictable that it kept getting outsmarted.

I admit that me saying stuff like there’s never been a proper counter to the argument I gave can come off as condescending though (at least from my own assessment) that’s genuinely what I think. Constructive criticism is always appreciated (even if I end up disagreeing with it) and regardless of how much we disagree with each other, at the end of the day no hard feelings right.

It's cool man. I'm always open for discussion. Though I don't agree with how you view the "XY powerscaling" issue, I do respect your take on it.

Thanks man :). I can also respect your skepticism on my XY powerscaling views (at the end of the day it is true that Diantha wasn’t battling optimally and MC-X’s stumble didn’t visually look all that convincing) since there is unavoidably a significant subjective component in this.

True I guess when I used to play League, in normals, if I got randomly paired up against diamonds (I was plat), sometimes I'd smash them. But in ranked games, everyone is serious and more often than not the high diamonds would single-handedly carry those games.

Yeah and I know by experience that confidence and momentum is definitely a thing. In serious matches not only do I get outmatched in skill but my mentality gets rattled and I get tilted, similar to Paul vs Brandon. In practice matches though the opponent plays as if he's giving me confidence and I execute everything I want to.

Even when I play against players of lower skill than myself, I tend to take it easy on them at the start, but whenever I start trying again my opponent seems so confident that I get overwhelmed by the momentum and struggle a lot more than if I went all out from the beginning and just shatter all the confidence from the start. Again reminds me of a certain situation in Pokemon...