So. Forum ate my response.
No. I'm saying Cynthia, without mega-evoloution, is holistically outmatched. My assertion is Cynthia loses witouth mega-evolving garchomp and that mega-evolving garchomp is a matter of power, as opposed to skill. Either Iris has an advantage over base cynthia in skill, or she has an advantage over base cynthia in power.
I see.
I digress, but that's for later.
This doesn't work because of context. In a PWC battle it doesn't make any sense for Cynthia not to be fighting at full capacity. Cynthia holding back would be completely out of character here. It's reasonable to assume cynthia and iris are fighting at full capacity in what in a match to help decide who is the best trainer itw.
This is not mutually exclusive with Cynthia not making use of her skill but making the conscious choice of going for hyper-offensive approach. This is part of the reasons why Cynthia uses Garchomp as a Stealth Rock support and chooses to D-Max Togekiss over Mega-Evolving Garchomp again, or is she not fighting Ash at full capacity
as well despite being under the same context?
I'm first assessing "holistic performance"/scaling and then i'm distirbuting that performance/scaling into power/skill based on how heaviily the former or the latter play into their performance.
Your approach seems to be to just look at "feats". I'm saying we shouldn't do that because the series is inconsistent in how skill is potrayed. In sinnoh skill is represented as setting intricate plans/traps that tap into your opponent's psyhology and likely moveset, and exploit the very physical/emotional characteristics of your pokemon(buisel using his sac, elctravire using his whips, gible eating a punch, ect). In most fights(including iris vs cynthia) "skill" is more mundane stuff like how well you time you attacks, create/exploit openings, get yourself out of situations, ect(iris pre-planning a counter in case hax gets confusion for example). The point of "skill-scaling" is "skill" varies wildly between fights, so, assuming you're in a situation where both fighters are giving it their all, comparing Iris and Cynthia's "skill" directly in battle is more useful than musing on whether DP conway, who for obvious reasons would get fodderized by anyone in the masters tournamenr, used more impressive displays of skill in his fight vs ash(in a season and a fight where "skill" meant something more dramtic than what we see in most battles in the series).
Unless you think Iris reaching the PWC(which would require pulling off a series of victories that would far outstrip anything conway at that point had achieved) was just my interpretation...
What I'm "throwing away" is "character has more impressive skill display in this completely different fight and therefore is more skilled
Bold; this is wrong. Using body physiology and so for Pokémon battles have always been a thing (Pikachu using his tail a resort to jump right over Drake’s Dragonite Hyper Beam comes to my mind). And so are the more “mundane" aspects of Pokémon fighting present in DP, I would go to say that they are even more present than they
currently are, as they were directly encouraged in the Battle Section of Pokémon Contests and the development of what’s probably one of not the most known original move in the Anime in the Ice Aqua Jet and the Counter-Shield, the former which was created specifically to counter Fantina’s Hypnosis, with a basis on another original move created to dodge things more easily. DP only takes this to the next level, or at least built a reputation around it because of it.
The point is, however, that this instances are not "different ways" of representing
overall skill. They are different forms of
displaying skill. Similar on how Conway coming out with a Dusknoir specidically as slow as possible to make it the fastest in his Trick Room and Ash having an out of the fly idea of making Gible eat Dusknoir's Punch are pretty different things if you were to compare them with this set of mind but would still fall under the skill category. This goes all the way back to my first point in:
this is specially true in a series were even the Powerscaling is fundamentally broken to even being to compare something as hard to properly quantify in even real life standards as intelligence; which is what you yourself would recognize later.
Intelligence is not a single-path way, at all.
Underline; I'll repeat myself, but this is nothing short of an arbitrary approach, which is also contradictory when you read your first paragraph and your last paragraph; this is due the fact that you are initially taking into account how power and skill influence in one's performance individually but then going in another direction to say that a character showing more skill in a individual fight is the definitive factor.
This creates a major number of problems, because whereas I'm aware that in the second underline you’re trying to explain yourself that you’re basing yourself on the assumption that Cynthia is employing all of her skill against Iris, this remains inconsistent with first underline because this assumption
directly ignores it’s premise: which is how heavily one’s skill or power makes up in someone’s performance; specially when talking about a particular fight (Haxorus vs Garchomp) directly and repeatedly referred as a clash of powers in which Cynthia directly stated that she'll defeat Iris making use of all of her
might.
Ignoring that, this remains as arbitrary measure; as the next question is why should Iris' display of skill be considered more
impressive than Cynthia’s? Gastrodon’s Acid Armor + Rain Dance + Muddy Water combination is also an skill based approach that completely broke Excadrill's momentum, and so does (?) Milotic constricting Jobnite in order to
murder KO him with an Iron Head; why should I take Haxorus bashing his head against the ground (
Despite not being a move exclusive for that match) to shrug off confusion and caught Garchomp in mid air with a Dragon Pulse as more impressive, even though Iris
was herself basically helpless against those unlike Cynthia was against
hers?
Ignoring that, how does skill scale works here? Cynthia defeated the same Pokémon that defeated Iris' own ace by using strategic means, which also allowed her to take down two more of his Pokémon including Ash's
very own ace; despite that Ash's Dragonite also defeated Iris' Haxorus using skill related means.
Sure. But what about Ash vs Cynthia contradicts Iris being able to beat Cynthia without mega-evolution?
D-Max Togekiss. One thing, This comment is a direct answer at this:
Relying on "displayed tactics" without holistic consideration is a pretty terrible method for guaging trainers in a series where second round league losers can exhibit better strategy/competence than champions. Holistic potrayal can be applied to everyone, "skill feats" are wildly inconsistent. Iris vs Cynthia is the culmination of iris's journey as a battler, and this the potrayal we should take the most seriously. If iris isn't contending on the basis of her pokemon taking more hits and dishing out more damage, then either she's really skilled, or we have to throw out the narrative.
This answer does not goes over the subject of Cynthia being able to beat Iris with or without the Mega-evolution, this comment goes about taking meta elements out of an interpretation as factual aspect of the match in order to prioritize Iris' performance, without taking into account that this would also mean that Cynthia's is not; as such when evaluating Cynthia's own competency, it's easier to not take into account her displays against Iris when speaking about her.
So do you think reaching the PWC is "not an actual display"?
No.
You'll later tell me not to go by semantics. You know what I mean with displays.
nitpicking, but shouldn't alain be at the bottom of the master contestants. He's the only person to get swept and is one of two people to lose to a base mon with a amplified one.
I'm not going through this. This is just qualification order and my biggest surprise is that Alain being above Iris is your nitpick.
Let's not get caught up in semantics here. Do you agree it was "close"?
This might be a matter of miscommunication, so I'll be as clear about this as I can possibly be.
This entire Haxorus vs Garchomp debate sparked out of, particularly, the comment about Haxorus pulling "a close defeat". So your definition of a close defeat might differ of mines. "Close" as if "put a good fight", well yes.
"Close" as victory chance of 5/10, 6/10 or 7/10? At all. Pretty far from it, actually.
I think the stand-off alone gets you there.
I honestly think it's the most nitpicked aspect bar the "finally" comment, but w/e.
As has been constant throughout the series, there are four basic degress of _victory margin_(descends with smaller gaps) when there's a climatic attack exchange:
1. Smoke clears you're already knocked out
2. You immediately fall
3. The other pokemon is shown, you are shown, you fall
4. stand-off, one pokemon eventually falls
Option 3 denotes close battles. Option 4 is used with nail-biters, ex: Ash vs Paul
???
Infernape vs Electrivire is a terrible comparison, despite the fact that the very use of Blaze being triggered implies that Infernape is at his last in health and using a recoil move, the show still made clear that Infernape was heavily damaged by making him stagger right after the exchange; the same happened with Alain's Mega-Charizard X in what's probably the most infamous battle in the series with it staggering before Greninja falls down after the smoke is cleared.
This isn’t present in Mega-Garchomp vs Haxorus although
it is present in the later Garchomp vs Sirfetch’d, even when Garchomp vs Mega-Lucario showcased that Garchomp was still several blows far from defeated. Following this line of logic would imply that Garchomp was one Magikarp's tackle away from falling.
It is not. Haxorus walks right through Base Garchomp's draco meteor, overpowers Garchomp when they clash heads, and then tanks two claw attacks before parrying Garchomp's tail. They are not equals at that point
I mean, you’re missing mentioning something
s, aren't you?
Haxorus uses Outrage
all the way through what you're describing, and even thought it's a super-effective move, Garchomp also tanks two hits from Haxorus before recoiling back as well. "Parrying Garchomp’s tail" has to also to be a very convenient way of wording what happened there, as it’s not outright untrue as it would be saying that it was Garchomp who parried Haxorus’ tail; being a
clash. one in which Garchomp is jot sing
none of her moves. And since we're getting into commentary now, "
a fierce trade of blows in which neither seems to go down" doesn’t seems to match what you’re describing nor saying right now.
Like, look a this:
It is not. Haxorus walks right through Base Garchomp's draco meteor, overpowers Garchomp when they clash heads, and then tanks two claw attacks before parrying Garchomp's tail. They are not equals at that point
And tell me that there's not a dissonance.
Which is why when Garchomp mega evolves, Lance says "I can't tell how this battle will play out". Thus far Hax is winning, but maybe mega-evolution will be enough to turn the tide.
It was Alain, not Lance (And the other was Hop), so consider yourself debunked.
Now, seriously speaking, the curious thing about that comment is that Alain is addressing at Steven‘s comment about Cynthia using her Mega-Evolution as her way of showing that she’s going seriously against Iris, at which he answers that Haxorus possesses a lot of
potential as well and as such he doesn't knows how the fight would play out. Which points more to Alain expecting something else from Haxorus other than saying that Garchomp was on a tight spot when so far that was far from the reality of the match that has been going on.
Then when they actually match each other's output, goh comments that haxorus is "putting up a real fight".
Keep in mind that character commentary during pokemon battles functions as straight exposition. Goh and Lance are more or less telling the audience, this fight can go either way, indicating Cynthia loses if she doesn't use her keystone. So unless you're atrributing keystone use as "skill"...
I'll address this later, but I'll make a highlight to point out I genuinely do not understand what’s the actually though process of this all with underline.
These kinds of things are frequently used in versus debates.
They are not.
Circumstantial.
surrounding statments, context, as well as what physically happens
Yes.
The problem is that this is not:
-> Gunslinger standoff(this is exclusively reserved for close battles throughout the series)
-> Garchomp is hunched over and again requires time to straighten themselves with a deep breath
-> Audience watches for an extended period of time, visually potrayed as uncertain whose going to win
-> Annoucer: "the battle finally comes to an end
Regular versus debates are actually more simplistic yet simultaneously more complex compared to Pokémon in the sense that there's more shades of gray. People will go for more individual showings in strength, speed and durability than following the A > B > C Dragon Ball mentality and be more conservative about the overall implications of someone defeating somebody else. Differences are bound to occur, sure, but this is not "normal"
Regardless and that aside (as it's not the point of discussion), if you, for example, show somebody the final exchange between Iris and Cynthia and tell them that said ending implies it being close to even because of this reasons… what can I tell you? Seems like something I would heard from TikTok power scaling.
And she visibly strains and takes time to get backup
… She looks startled at best. I recall watching this fight and looking someone in the comments asking if Garchomp literally ate the attack, because it did nothing to her (Anecdotical, but funny enough)
I'm not joking to you when I tell you that Axew Giga Impact
seemingly did more damage to Garchomp than anything Haxorus ever did in his battle against her.
Which triggers the "we're almost there" comment.
Presumably she anticipated the move knocking garchomp out.
Is this the reaction of someone who
just pushed her foe into KO range?
She really would have cried regardless out the outcome.
What exactly do you think it's referring to if not garchomp's condition? "we're almost there" mirrors cynthia's "we'll finish this with our next attack". Both think they can beat the other mon with their next move, and both preface their move calls with commands to ensure the mons put everything in their attack.
Underline; Maybe, just maybe, their
own.
And let's follow this whole narrative straight: Haxorus showcases to be virtually equal in power to Mega-Garchomp and it's so far the only one to land a clear shot (Unless you count the strikes he apparently tanked from Garchomp, which also has Garchomp taking two super-effective blows as well from an apparently
much superior opponent at the time), and it's at
that very moment where Cynthia just expects Garchomp to basically one-shot a Pokémon nothing short of equal to her own after receiving this groundbreaking damage, which just happened to actually work even through Iris' own final attack?
How does this apply to a situation where both mons attack each other?
Nothing, because it’s actually not about that. It's about camera angles or tropes have really few to do with the overall portrayal in a Match.
Is the implication here that garchomp didn't get hit? I suppose Garchomp did get their attack off first...
Either it did nothing to her or her Draco Meteor outright overpowered through it and secured the KO. As stated before, it actually didn’t harm her, so it just doesn’t makes a difference.
but Paul's "skill displays" vs Ash are largely realiant on knowledge Paul has acquired from past encounters/fights.
I digress for the most. Whereas I cannot speak from the LA battle because it's already been a while seen I last watched it, the rest of his fights fall right on equal amounts of knowledge of each other (I actually recall Ash watching more of Paul's battles that the opposite) and whereas is true that his Sinnoh league team is different whereas Ash kept the same, he explicitly went there to the fight not expecting for Ash to go with that team; so he didn’t built his team expecting it as a counter of everything that Ash had showed him and I don’t particularly see his strategies (other than maybe Electrivire's Motor Drive against Pikachu) working differently against other Pokémon. It actually played bad against him because he threw away to Pokémon for essentially nothing.