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Dragon Battle! Ash VS Iris!! (1154)

Panky..

Discord: Panky..#9281
Tobias' Darkrai? He did say in his battle with Ash that "Draco Meteor would've eliminated any pokemon other than Darkrai of course."
No, he said something along the lines off "had Draco Meteor landed directly, Darkrai would have been in trouble". It's only a testament that Draco Meteor is supposed to be extraordinarily powerful. Now add a Dragon Dance to that.

And Draco Meteor isn't even super-effective against Darkrai, who also has that mythical status to it (seen by it one-shotting everything). Haxorus didn't have that comfort.
 
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British Soul

Top Hat Regulator
Yeah, but Darkrai is a DEMIGOD. Also, Darkrai isn’t weak to Draco Meteor, whereas Haxorus is.
That is true, though by saying that, he would also imply that it'd defeat those who resist or are neutral to the move no problem.

No, he said something along the lines off "had Draco Meteor landed directly, Darkrai would have been in trouble".
Um actually, the quote I labelled was what he said about it in the dub. From what I remember in the Japanese version he said something along the lines of "Had it been anything but Darkrai, there's no doubt it would've been defeated by Draco Meteor.
 

RafaSceptile

Well-Known Member
You are saying this about an episode where Iris became a Champion and Axew evolved to his final form off screen ?
Yes, off-screen because this is not a 24/7 Iris' documentary

I interpret that as more "I wanna battle my old friend" rather than "I wanna test my skills against this strong trainer"
I feel like it was a bit of both, because at the end it was a PWC battle

Iris didn't feel like a champion though

A fancy-cosmetic'd trainer at most, like those people in online games who have all the fancy rare cosmetics they bought with their mom's credit card but don't actually know how to play the game
This was a battle between champions or the stronger trainers of two different regions

Why is Unova a "Weak region"?
Even if Iris is a "lower-end Champion", we see Caitlin, an elite four member from Unova, hold her own against Cynthia in battle. Technically Iris should be stronger than Caitlin which means Ash's newly caught Pokemon should be relative to Unova/Sinnoh Cynthia's Garchomp in strength which is just absurd lol.

This was horrible writing. They should've kept Iris as the gym leader and simply brought back Alder in the master class. They probably gave Iris the Champion title only because of the games.
I don't see how is this horrible writing, the era where main characters can't became or fight against E4 or champions is gone
 

dman_dustin

Well-Known Member
[*]Ash pulling out Draco Meteor through Hurricane/absorbed Dragon Pulse looked cool, though that seems kinda weird from a move learning perspective - maybe would've been better to just make that a custom/situational move like Counter Shield/Ice Aqua Jet instead of just calling it Draco Meteor since this just opens up a bag of worms i.e. I don't get how Dragonite could use Draco Meteor in the future without this specific scenario

Its simple, recall in 4th generation where Infernape learned flare blitz as an upgrade to flame wheel

Dragonite clearly had full control over draco meteor that I assume Dragonite understands the recipe to use draco meteor.

Its probably fair to say it wasn't dragon pulse specifically that helped it learn draco meteor but rather the dragon type energy from dragon pulse. So Dragonite would use its own dragon energy to use draco meteor in the future.

I think this one instance is Ash saying "Let me use your power against you to throw you off" but will use its (Dragonite's) own power in the future to use the move.
 

LucasMV

Well-Known Member
Overall, I really enjoyed this episode. Iris' return as a Champion, her Axew evolved into Haxorus, Dragonite being in sync with her, Claire and Cilan's flashbacks.

I think the episode did a good job at starting the battle as soon as possible. I would have loved to know with a bit more detail exactly what Iris did to become Champion, who did she defeat, etc. But it's fine, they didn't have that much time to work with.

Dracovish surprising Iris and Dragonite makes sense. And Ash's Dragonite is clearly a powerhouse, he takes hits like a beast. Reminds me of Ash's Snorlax.

Dragonite using Hurricane as a counter shield was great, and learning Draco Meteor to defeat Haxorus was a nice touch. I specially like Iris and Ash's Dragonite's interactions. Dragonite grew up a lot during this fight, Ash has to thank Iris for upgrading his Hug n' Kill Machine.

I imagine Dragonite's moveset right now is: Dragon Dance, Dragon Claw, Hurricane and Draco Meteor. Hyper Beam is probably gone. Funny thing is, we never really got to see Hyper Beam being shot. Both times Ash commanded it, Mega Lucario and then Iris' Dragonite stopped the attack before it was fully charged.
Its simple, recall in 4th generation where Infernape learned flare blitz as an upgrade to flame wheel
Also Pikachu learned Electro Ball in BW in a situational way, but then was able to use it at will.
 

AJ97

Well-Known Member
More like a change in writing style in humanizing Elite 4 and Champs as elite trainers rather than nearly impenetrable walls. Things like Pikachu cleanly zapping Oba’s Goukazaru, Kanna’s Water-types or Shirona’s Gablias getting smacked with attack after attack and feeling nothing was 100% always unrealistic to me even as a kid. It made E4 battles annoying because you always knew no matter what strategy came the opposition would lose. The show is simply beyond this writing style but we as obsessive fans cling to it because...?

The staff clearly just don’t want to portray E4 members in that manner anymore is all. Which is why you had Alan destroy Pachira after being trashed by that Kalos E4 Water-type specialist (I don’t recall if Pachira was stated as an E4 members in the anime though?)
To be fair, strength of the Pokemon battling the Elite four member matters. Like for example, Paul was a regular trainer who was much inferior to Cynthia in strength. So his pokemon could hardly damage her Garchomp. Flint on the other hand, who is a much strong elite four member, could actually damage Garchomp and force her try.

As for Alain, when he battled Siebold, he was much weaker compared to when he fought Malva. So the growth in strength definitely makes sense. Before Alain battled Malva, he managed to hold his own against Steven's Mega Metagross ( A regional Champion) and then he defeated 9 trainers with Mega Evolutions before fighting Malva. Naturally, Mega Charizard was far stronger so I don't think it's fair to call Malva weak just because Alain defeated her. The fact that he actually was able to hold his own against Steven in a serious battle was far impressive.

I think the writers simply wanted to give Iris the champion title because of the games. It was poor writing on their part. It would've made more sense to make her the new Gym leader.
 

RafaSceptile

Well-Known Member
To be fair, strength of the Pokemon battling the Elite four member matters. Like for example, Paul was a regular trainer who was much inferior to Cynthia in strength. So his pokemon could hardly damage her Garchomp. Flint on the other hand, who is a much strong elite four member, could actually damage Garchomp and force her try.

As for Alain, when he battled Siebold, he was much weaker compared to when he fought Malva. So the growth in strength definitely makes sense. Before Alain battled Malva, he managed to hold his own against Steven's Mega Metagross ( A regional Champion) and then he defeated 9 trainers with Mega Evolutions before fighting Malva. Naturally, Mega Charizard was far stronger so I don't think it's fair to call Malva weak just because Alain defeated her. The fact that he actually was able to hold his own against Steven in a serious battle was far impressive.

I think the writers simply wanted to give Iris the champion title because of the games. It was poor writing on their part. It would've made more sense to make her the new Gym leader.
Or you know, maybe Ash is enough strong to have a good battle with her, which is one of the reasons why she invited him to have a battle in the first place.
 

AJ97

Well-Known Member
Or you know, maybe Ash is enough strong to have a good battle with her, which is one of the reasons why she invited him to have a battle in the first place.
Here's the thing, whatever you say, one cannot justify a newly captured Pokemon being able to fight a Regional Champions pokemon. This simply doesn't make sense. However good a trainer Ash is, even Ash's aces like Infernape and Ash Greninja have struggled against Elite four tier pokemon.

If Iris is the strongest trainer in Unova, she has to be stronger than the Unova Elite four, and like I said earlier, Caitlin was strong enough to hold her own against Cynthia's Garchomp and technically, Iris should be even stronger than Caitlin. Ash's Dragonite and Dracovish shouldn't be strong enough to achieve such a feat. This was poor writing.
 

SerGoldenhandtheJust

Deluded Dreamer
Here's the thing, whatever you say, one cannot justify a newly captured Pokemon being able to fight a Regional Champions pokemon. This simply doesn't make sense. However good a trainer Ash is, even Ash's aces like Infernape and Ash Greninja have struggled against Elite four tier pokemon.

If Iris is the strongest trainer in Unova, she has to be stronger than the Unova Elite four, and like I said earlier, Caitlin was strong enough to hold her own against Cynthia's Garchomp and technically, Iris should be even stronger than Caitlin. Ash's Dragonite and Dracovish shouldn't be strong enough to achieve such a feat. This was poor writing.
Dracovish didn't get this feat coz it's strong lol, it's still probably weak. It won coz of its quirks and characteristics that the opponent didn't know of. It was a tactical victory, not one based on its strength. Evident by the fact it got one shorted soon enough when iris knew what that Mon was about. Dragonite was the only one shown to be competent in a champion level way and yes its training was much offscreen and it's main feat was soloing korrina alone (which isn't anything minor) so I can see the problems with it, but dracovish's writing was fine
 

RafaSceptile

Well-Known Member
Here's the thing, whatever you say, one cannot justify a newly captured Pokemon being able to fight a Regional Champions pokemon. This simply doesn't make sense. However good a trainer Ash is, even Ash's aces like Infernape and Ash Greninja have struggled against Elite four tier pokemon.

If Iris is the strongest trainer in Unova, she has to be stronger than the Unova Elite four, and like I said earlier, Caitlin was strong enough to hold her own against Cynthia's Garchomp and technically, Iris should be even stronger than Caitlin. Ash's Dragonite and Dracovish shouldn't be strong enough to achieve such a feat. This was poor writing.
Except the anime already explained it, Iris doesn't know anything about Dracovish, and when she tried to counterattack, it was too late because Dragonite can't ear her, and Dragonite was attacked twice, with one of those being a x4 move that freezed his entire body.

If Iris had the knowledge about Dracovish, she would have win with Dragonite, as showed inmediately with Haxorus and saying to Ash which is his Dracovish's weakness.
 

Blood Red

【推しの子】
Why is Unova a "Weak region"?
Even if Iris is a "lower-end Champion", we see Caitlin, an elite four member from Unova, hold her own against Cynthia in battle. Technically Iris should be stronger than Caitlin which means Ash's newly caught Pokemon should be relative to Unova/Sinnoh Cynthia's Garchomp in strength which is just absurd lol.

This was horrible writing. They should've kept Iris as the gym leader and simply brought back Alder in the master class. They probably gave Iris the Champion title only because of the games.
Honestly, I probably just forgot about some of the high-level stuff. It's been years since Unova, and I wasn't even a huge fan of it when it was airing. Either way, I won't deny that it was poor writing; Ash should've brought over his reserves for this fight.
 

Blue Saturday

Unfurl your Blessed Wings!
To be fair, strength of the Pokemon battling the Elite four member matters. Like for example, Paul was a regular trainer who was much inferior to Cynthia in strength. So his pokemon could hardly damage her Garchomp. Flint on the other hand, who is a much strong elite four member, could actually damage Garchomp and force her try.

As for Alain, when he battled Siebold, he was much weaker compared to when he fought Malva. So the growth in strength definitely makes sense. Before Alain battled Malva, he managed to hold his own against Steven's Mega Metagross ( A regional Champion) and then he defeated 9 trainers with Mega Evolutions before fighting Malva. Naturally, Mega Charizard was far stronger so I don't think it's fair to call Malva weak just because Alain defeated her. The fact that he actually was able to hold his own against Steven in a serious battle was far impressive.

I think the writers simply wanted to give Iris the champion title because of the games. It was poor writing on their part. It would've made more sense to make her the new Gym leader.
You kind of missed the point of what I was saying. I’m saying Elite 4 members are actually allowed to be taken out by regular series protagonist/characters versus them being completely impervious to attacks pre-XY. Even Daigo and Zumi shook off Alan’s attacks completely without flinching versus Pachira’s shocking loss (first E4 ‘mon fainted in history) with no real to on from her or sign of anger.

We’ve just reached a point where these characters are going to be portrayed as defeatable and not there simply to teach lessons like their roles from OS - BW. This isn’t about power levels/scaling. There is no “in universe” reason for it other than have having 22-minutes to show that. You could make an argument for how long Kairyu survived so many super effective hits but I don’t care to do that because I know the character was written to succeed.

Just like how Gengar destroyed Raichu but failed miserably against a Fighting-type because one episode had it use Psychic directly on the Pokémon and one on an obstacle like a rock as a weapon. Satoshi failed against Saito and that would have been the case with any Pokémon he used. Why not use the Kairyu with SE Hurricane or his Ghost-type completely immune with SE Psychic in that case (not even in the rematch; he goes from completely useless Kamonegi with only Dark-type moves to Pikachu but not logical Gengar). That’s what I mean when I say the show is writing for a story and narrative enjoyment without being hung up on the surrounding things like tight in-universe rules or consistency.
 

AJ97

Well-Known Member
Dracovish didn't get this feat coz it's strong lol, it's still probably weak. It won coz of its quirks and characteristics that the opponent didn't know of. It was a tactical victory, not one based on its strength. Evident by the fact it got one shorted soon enough when iris knew what that Mon was about. Dragonite was the only one shown to be competent in a champion level way and yes its training was much offscreen and it's main feat was soloing korrina alone (which isn't anything minor) so I can see the problems with it, but dracovish's writing was fine

It still shouldn't have made a difference. Paul pulled off a comprehensive strategy against Cynthia and actually used a very Experienced Pokemon when Garchomp was immobile, to attack it and it did nothing. The Regional Champions/ Elite four members have always been far above Ash and the regular trainers. The anime has always respected this. And even Dragonite was no way shown to be to the level of a regional champion lol. Korrina is a regular gym leader. Defeating her means nothing. In fact, the only one of Ash's Pokemon that even achieved a close to regional champion feat is Ash Greninja based on its battle against Alain in the Pokemon League and it forcing Diantha to take the battle seriously. Dragonite and Dracovish being at this level, doesn't make sense and cannot be justified. If Ash brought back Infernape with training and it achieved this feat, it would be a lot more believable than him using his newly caught pokemon against a regional champion.

Except the anime already explained it, Iris doesn't know anything about Dracovish, and when she tried to counterattack, it was too late because Dragonite can't ear her, and Dragonite was attacked twice, with one of those being a x4 move that freezed his entire body.

If Iris had the knowledge about Dracovish, she would have win with Dragonite, as showed inmediately with Haxorus and saying to Ash which is his Dracovish's weakness.
A silly strategy like this shouldn't work against a regional champion.
 

SerGoldenhandtheJust

Deluded Dreamer
It still shouldn't have made a difference. Paul pulled off a comprehensive strategy against Cynthia and actually used a very Experienced Pokemon when Garchomp was immobile, to attack it and it did nothing. The Regional Champions/ Elite four members have always been far above Ash and the regular trainers. The anime has always respected this. And even Dragonite was no way shown to be to the level of a regional champion lol. Korrina is a regular gym leader. Defeating her means nothing. In fact, the only one of Ash's Pokemon that even achieved a close to regional champion feat is Ash Greninja based on its battle against Alain in the Pokemon League and it forcing Diantha to take the battle seriously. Dragonite and Dracovish being at this level, doesn't make sense and cannot be justified. If Ash brought back Infernape with training and it achieved this feat, it would be a lot more believable than him using his newly caught pokemon against a regional champion.


A silly strategy like this shouldn't work against a regional champion.
This is just you making up arbitrary rules for what should and should not happen. The anime is more flexible than that. Cynthia saw those strategies coming and knew those mons. How can a Pokémon you never knew about before be predictable? Ash is also a regional champion if you have forgotten who has always showed tremendous skill in unorthodox strategies, makes sense his strategy can take down Iris's. It makes total sense
 

SerGoldenhandtheJust

Deluded Dreamer
Looking clearly this isn’t that surprising. SM was sowing the seeds of “off screen” training how it was some miracle that allowed you to keep up with Pokémon they in any other case wouldn’t be able to. I know the Lana fans are going to come out but she was the biggest whistle blower for this. It never made any sense how Primarina was that strong when she battled basically no more than the other girls.
SM's problems with offscreen training only existed with Lana though. And even then we got some glimpses she was practising and improving on her own. Ash always constantly trained in SM, so did Kiawe, Sophocles trained a lot too later on with Vikavolt, Lillie had her moments which made her strategies against Gladion feel warranted. Mallow barely battled except TR but also got destroyed. The biggest offender was probably Nagandel and that's it. Journeys tho always has ALL moves being learned offscreen, and training has been shown like 2-3 times in 5 seconds for openings of some episodes
 
No, he said something along the lines off "had Draco Meteor landed directly, Darkrai would have been in trouble". It's only a testament that Draco Meteor is supposed to be extraordinarily powerful. Now add a Dragon Dance to that.

And Draco Meteor isn't even super-effective against Darkrai, who also has that mythical status to it (seen by it one-shotting everything). Haxorus didn't have that comfort.
"Dragon Dance"
 
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