Most Skilled Battler V4

[Lord Godwin]

Why people put Gladion over Guzma?

 

[TheNewGuy]

I'm not sure what the deal is here. Iris is tremendously strong, Cynthia is noticeably stronger.

That's fine, it still makes Iris like top 10 or 11 in the world at worst. She probably loses to all the other champions. Close with Alain. Clearly worse than Ash. Maybe worse than Tobias, Paul - probably not though. I think if you argue beyond that you're trying too hard to do her down and if you argue above that you're trying too hard to talk her up.

 

[SerGoldenhandtheJust]

Why people put Gladion over Guzma?

Uncultured regarding SM smh
Seriously tho, Guzma's strats are so heavily underrated it's insane

 

[TheNewGuy]

Emolga and Gible aren't gonna cut it.

Her Dragonite and Excadrill aren't much to write home about either,yeah they're strong but so are Paul's pokemon.

Sure.

But you don't think Paul would be a champion someplace by now if he was at that level? Like surely he'd have gone to Unova and taken it from her. It's a huge stretch to say he's above Iris. Not impossible but unlikely.

 

[pickapika]

You make some good points about cynthia, going to have reassess how i view that fight. Still I take issue with some of your broader claims here:

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"

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that your reference point here is marvel/dc style comic debates. But those universes are not like Pokemon. In those stories, "scaling" is basically not a thing. Ex: Silver age superman is supposed to be the most powerful thing ever and then base wally is exponentially stronger in his fight vs the anti-monitor during chain-lightning.

Comic x will say supes is the strongest, comic y will say hal, comic z will say mmh, and then major flash comics(and the big all-universe encompassing reboot triggering cross-overs) will have the speed-force as a multi-versal entitity which barry allen has direct control over/generates as the flashes/reverse flashes are inadvernetly ruining reality while everyone else is frozen in time.

Additionally, "a, b, c logic" is alot weaker here because there's a massive range in fighting styles/abilities that can render other abilities/power sets completely meaningless.

There are also no secondary sources published and it's quite hard to take holistic interpretations for a universe where hundreds of comics are being published every month.

This doesn't fit the pokemon universe where scaling is vastly more clear-cut(and is a strongly emphasized narrative point) and all the "combatants" here(trainers) are basically using the same skillset.

Both DBZ and Star Wars versus make for much better analogs to pokemon battling than the comic-style feat-wars you reference. Star Wars debating, especially at the top levels, weighs holistic potrayla and scaling far more than it weighs feat-comparisons. For the most parts all combat relevant abilities and the ability to defend against those ablities correlates highly to "power"/"mastery"(this is probably the probably the best analog we can use for "power"/"skill" in the context of this discussion). Unlike DBZ, you can still get a variance in outcomes and scaling isn't always clear(scaling vs holistics is actually a big debate in the community), and like dbz and pokemon, stuff discussed in versus are baked into the narrative on a fundemental level.

With that in mind the minutea of feats should probably be given minimal importance when trying to make comparisons here.

Additionally framing events that have happened as if they're "interpretations" doesn't work. All the trainers in the PWC are champions meaning they've beaten the best trainers from at least one region. Iris and Ash also explicitly got here by beating a bunch of the best trainers itw conseuctively. That's not up to interpretation and should take prority in any evaluation.

"if i was to ask the writer" isn't the point. I have no interest in what a writer interprets/intends. It's about the text itself. You can nitpick certain things as interpretations(though you'll be hard-pressed to offer strong counters), but nothing the writer says is going to change that Iris destroys conway(or even sinnoh paul) in a fight.

You can decide if you want to make it a matter of her being all powerful, all-skilled, or a mix, but the holistic outcome isn't in question, and it seems kind of questionable to me that pwc trainers are all just less skilled trainers who overpower everyone, even if that is how one would interpret the fights in a vacuum. Are any of the fights here on par with dp ash vs paul in terms of literal skill-display? No. Do each and everyone of these trainers fodderize either? Obviously.

Iris vs cynthia is a seperate matter, but katie/conway/paul is multiple skill gaps higher is just stupid for reasons evident without asking authors anything. So either we use the holistic distribution method or we just declare complete uncertainity and forgo distinguishing between power and skill altogether

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?

Implied in this is that Cynthia thinks "hyper-offensive approach" gives her a better chance to win than a "conservative hyper- skilled approach". Either how "Iris is unskilled relative to her performance" doesn't really work here does it?

I also don't understand why she can't be fighting both at full capacity?

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:

Intelligence is not a single-path way, at all.

And that's all well and good, but we know that if one of these "next level" dp trainers shows up to the pwc, they're getting obliterated. So either we make that to be their pokemon being disproportinately weak, or we accept that how impressive "skill" may look in a fight varies wildly. Even your cynthia explanation only works if cynthia thinks she'll perform better "pushing power" than a drawn out battle of wits. Tying skill to comparative performance aligns with established scaling, and obvious holistics is much better than trying to reverse egineer skill level based on how impressive/intelligent something looks in a vacuum.

We know iris is much better than conway, we also have a clear example of power outweighing skill in what leads to overall profiency(Ash Ketchum). Iris isn't having her mons brute force through attack after attack until she can come up with a plausible counter, and Cynthia is more comfortable with a power-clash than a chess-match. Iris's "much-betterness" being all about power to the point she's less skilled than trainers she scales waaaay above doesn't really work.

Cynthia being more skilled? fair enough. You've made a reasonable enough case that Iris wasn't that close to winning(and iris does get lucky with her first pokemon per the secondary source you referenced). But that's the limit of where this can go without breaking the story.

previous "battle displays" have close to zero predictive power in the pokemon universe and shouldn't be weighed beyond what they look like in the immediate context they show up in. Paul looks far and away the best of sinnoh contestants in terms of skill, and scaling him relative to sinnoh league contestats in that area can work. Putting his skill on par with Cynthia's and above Iris because ash vs paul was one of the most impressive fights in the anime doesn't.

ris was herself basically helpless against those unlike Cynthia was against hers?

I've more or less conceded on iris vs cynthia so i'll skip.

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.

Cynthia takes out ash's ace through a suicide pact. I guess you could say it's a strong prep showing for cynthia, but it has limited applicablity and was especially useful here because ash's pikachu was a level above all the other mons involved in terms of power.

Ash's dragonite defeated iris's haxorus using skill related means after iris went out of her way to bolster it. I do not recall the details of that fight(and you generally seem more knowleadable about that stuff than me), but "ash pulls a suprise move after his mons buy him time" is a rather consistent thing for ash and doesn't neccesarily reflect higher or even comparable skill levels.

That aside Iris growing stronger also is a reasonsable explanation. Again she's had signifcantly less time as a dedicated battler than everyone else and has achieved at least a degree of relativity with everyone. In fact, she reaches the pwc before ash does despite being ranked below ash at the end of their first fight.

Journey's Ash in general is annoying to use as a reference because all his fights regardless of context or opponent turn into "close victory through unpredictablity/willpower after he's inititally in trouble" down to when he's fighting the 1000th besr trainer itw.

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

I was specifcally noting this as context for a comparison to cynthia, not ash. Ash doesn't utitlize prep nearly as extensively and I don't think anyone is disputing that Paul is far more skilled/effective at preperation than DP Ash. The point is that Cynthia wouldn't be able to predict who ash would use, what order he would use them in, and prepare accordingly regardless of how her skill compares with Paul's. If we use Paul's fights vs people like barry/brandon/cynthia ect, we see he isn't able to manipulate/anticipate what they are doing to the same degree he does vs Ash. Ash as a common opponent just isn't fair to Cynthia.

Ash kept the same, he explicitly went there to the fight not expecting for Ash to go with that team

...?
IIRC, Paul explicitly confirms what he anticipated ash would do. Moreover with the mons you say he "threw",
-> he hard counters ash's most poweful mon and lowers its defenses for the rest of thr fight
-> not only deals damage to two of ash's mons, but against staraptor is able to predict exactly what moves would unfold(including ash's unconventional attack) and weakens him to the point where drapion can take him out with one(really two combined) move.

That they were not the core of Paul's strategy doesn't mean they were "thrown away". I don't get where the "they were freebies" interpretation comes from

 

[pickapika]

I'm not sure what the deal is here. Iris is tremendously strong, Cynthia is noticeably stronger.

That's fine, it still makes Iris like top 10 or 11 in the world at worst. She probably loses to all the other champions. Close with Alain. Clearly worse than Ash. Maybe worse than Tobias, Paul - probably not though. I think if you argue beyond that you're trying too hard to do her down and if you argue above that you're trying too hard to talk her up.

what do the other champions who lost in the first round(and really whoever lost to leon in the semis) have on iris? Would think Alain courtesy of getting swept with mega-evolution should be at the bottom here unless we take there to be a big gap between leon and cynthia?(i guess it's possible if you think pikachu not getting drag alonged turns ash vs cynthia into a signifcnatly more decisive win)

Probably best to pretend tobias doesn't exist but i guess it wouldn't really make sense for tobias to win the sinnoh league and then not try and take on cynthia/the elite four. So presumably he lost at some point

 

[TheNewGuy]

what do the other champions who lost in the first round(and really whoever lost to leon in the semis) have on iris? Would think Alain courtesy of getting swept with mega-evolution should be at the bottom here unless we take there to be a big gap between leon and cynthia?(i guess it's possible if you think pikachu not getting drag alonged turns ash vs cynthia into a signifcnatly more decisive win)

Probably best to pretend tobias doesn't exist but i guess it wouldn't really make sense for tobias to win the sinnoh league and then not try and take on cynthia/the elite four. So presumably he lost at some point

They're objectively ranked above her and she has lost to Ash (who was also ranked below her). I don't see her beating Diantha when Lance couldn't. I suppose Lance/Iris is the biggest question mark, while the others I'm fairly confident would all beat her.

 

[pickapika]

They're objectively ranked above her and she has lost to Ash (who was also ranked below her). I don't see her beating Diantha when Lance couldn't. I suppose Lance/Iris is the biggest question mark, while the others I'm fairly confident would all beat her.

Ah, I forgot about that. Fair, though the rankings may be a product of time/incumbency as well as "strength". Ash for example is ranked 8th but is likely going to end up winning everything. Iris like Ash was fighting all the way from 1000+ to get there.

 

[TheNewGuy]

The rankings aren't cast-iron, no. That's how Diantha beat Lance and Ash beat Cynthia and Steven. But they're a solid indicator.

 

[PokemonBattleFanatic-]

Status Moves
-Paul
-Conway
-Katie
-Diantha


Abilities
-Paul
-Cynthia


Switching
-Paul
-Katie
-Cynthia


Rotate Team
-Paul
-Virgil
-Gary (OS)
-Ash (BF)
-Alain
-Cynthia


Planning Ahead
-Paul
-Sawyer


Type Advantage
-Paul
-Katie
-Cynthia

 

[Sham]

Trip was also a prodigy

How sway when he got but handed to him by Bianca, Cilan, Alder and Ash?

 

[PokemonBattleFanatic-]

How sway when he got but handed to him by Bianca, Cilan, Alder and Ash?

Bianca was backed into a corner after Conkeldurr used Rock Tomb,her Emboar stole it's pillars and managed to pull out a win.Cilan outsmarted Trip here,Alder was the champion here so huge mismatch,Ash's win was forced if you look back at it,Serperior was dominant most of the match.At the end of the day Trip was Sawyer before Sawyer ever appeared in the series minus Mega Evolution.He breezed through everybody at the Junior Cup then after his lost to Alder his story ended which was why we got that BS 1 on 1 match between him and Ash at the Unova League instead of a full battle.

And he's a poor man's Paul,his backstory w/ Alder is similar to Paul's w/ Brandon,both have starter grass types,both know the basics of a trainer and both beat Ash multiple times,the difference is Trip lost to other trainers in the series,put most of his focus on his starter and beat a nerfed Ash.While Paul didn't lose to average trainers during DP prior to the league,put focus on all of his pokemon not just his starter and beat a prime Ash multiple times.

 

[Sham]

Bianca was backed into a corner after Conkeldurr used Rock Tomb,her Emboar stole it's pillars and managed to pull out a win.Cilan outsmarted Trip here,Alder was the champion here so huge mismatch,Ash's win was forced if you look back at it,Serperior was dominant most of the match.At the end of the day Trip was Sawyer before Sawyer ever appeared in the series minus Mega Evolution.He breezed through everybody at the Junior Cup then after his lost to Alder his story ended which was why we got that BS 1 on 1 match between him and Ash at the Unova League instead of a full battle.

And he's a poor man's Paul,his backstory w/ Alder is similar to Paul's w/ Brandon,both have starter grass types,both know the basics of a trainer and both beat Ash multiple times,the difference is Trip lost to other trainers in the series,put most of his focus on his starter and beat a nerfed Ash.While Paul didn't lose to average trainers during DP prior to the league,put focus on all of his pokemon not just his starter and beat a prime Ash multiple times.

Paul also didn’t battle any trainer on screen besides Barry, Brandon (which he lost) and maybe another so him losing to an “average trainer” is just because we never saw him battle that much outside of Ash.

And no, Trip is no prodigy and it was never stated. Say whatever you want about “nerf” but the point of this is he’s been beaten by four different people in the series.

 

[PokemonBattleFanatic-]

Paul also didn’t battle any trainer on screen besides Barry, Brandon (which he lost) and maybe another so him losing to an “average trainer” is just because we never saw him battle that much outside of Ash.

And no, Trip is no prodigy and it was never stated. Say whatever you want about “nerf” but the point of this is he’s been beaten by four different people in the series.

Very small chance of Paul losing to any of the sinnoh gym leaders the first time he challenged them,he won at the Hearthome City gym and told Ash that in order to beat Fantina all you have to do is keep hammering away and all of her pokemon will fall over.Outside of the champions/E4/High Frontier Brains who is actually beating Paul during the DP series?I can only think of experienced trainers like Harrison/Tyson but he isn't losing to weaker trainers like Barry,Stephan,Bianca and Cameron.In a random encounter Ash lost to some Raichu trainer named Sho,I could definitely see Paul stomping him in a first attempt.Unlike Ash,Paul didn't handicap himself and only use new pokemon during his journey,he used older pokemon as well.

Trip was a rookie just like Sawyer,he was a better trainer than Ash was when he first started,Sawyer just has the advantage of using a gimmick.If you don't think he was a prodigy then whatever I'm not gonna bother aruging about that just stating what he did as a rookie.

 

[Sham]

Very small chance of Paul losing to any of the sinnoh gym leaders the first time he challenged them,he won at the Hearthome City gym and told Ash that in order to beat Fantina all you have to do is keep hammering away and all of her pokemon will fall over.Outside of the champions/E4/High Frontier Brains who is actually beating Paul during the DP series?I can only think of experienced trainers like Harrison/Tyson but he isn't losing to weaker trainers like Barry,Stephan,Bianca and Cameron.In a random encounter Ash lost to some Raichu trainer named Sho,I could definitely see Paul stomping him in a first attempt.Unlike Ash,Paul didn't handicap himself and only use new pokemon during his journey,he used older pokemon as well.

That’s my point, none of this happened on screen. It’s all theoretical because the only person he’s flexed on is Ash. As far as defeating the Gym Leaders first/not losing the time almost every rival has done that to make them seem above Ash.

Trip was a rookie just like Sawyer,he was a better trainer than Ash was when he first started,Sawyer just has the advantage of using a gimmick.If you don't think he was a prodigy then whatever I'm not gonna bother aruging about that just stating what he did as a rookie.

Pretty much. Losing to four people and only flexing on Ash doesn’t seem prodigious. Additionally Paul lost three leagues before battling Ash so past backstories shouldn’t matter. Theatrically he should be on Ash’s level but he’s not. In a world that makes sense Trip wouldn’t be as “good” as a rookie. They’re gonna make them seem better regardless. Alder wasn’t even taking the match serious and his Pokémon immediately landed on its feet and one shot it with one command.

 

[PokemonBattleFanatic-]

That’s my point, none of this happened on screen. It’s all theoretical because the only person he’s flexed on is Ash.

Was he or was he not a Tyson/Harrison level trainer during DP?

As far as defeating the Gym Leaders first/not losing the time almost every rival has done that to make them seem above Ash.

<_< yeah okay

 

[Sham]

Was he or was he not a Tyson/Harrison level trainer during DP?

I’m not sure. It’s just speculation at this point. All I know is that the only person he’s battled is Ash and he didn’t lose until the league which is something that applies to Gary and Trip as well. Disclosure, I don’t even think he’s Champion level now and that’s pure headcanon.

<_< yeah okay

Well one of them lost the same amount leagues as him and the other one was somehow considered a “prodigy” when he came fresh from town.

 

[PokemonBattleFanatic-]

Well one of them lost the same amount leagues as him and the other one was somehow considered a “prodigy” when he came fresh from town.

And what are the chances that those two rivals or any of the other rivals at future leagues swept their opponents 3-0 at the league like Paul did?

 

[Sham]

And what are the chances that those two rivals or any of the other rivals at future leagues swept their opponents 3-0 at the league like Paul did?

Alain did though and I don’t even consider him Champion level.

 

[PokemonBattleFanatic-]

Alain did though and I don’t even consider him Champion level.

Alain doesn't count,neither does Tobias for obvious reasons.