It's only more effective when counting the fact that he's better at bonding with his pokemon than Paul,imagine if he trained his pokemon the same way he did throughout all the regions but minus the love and bonding,Paul trains his pokemon a lot more and is stricter.Ash was NOT responsible for Charizard,Snorlax and Squirtle's power.In just 1 region Paul managed to turn Elekid and Ursaring into absolute juggerntauts plus the addition of Drapion later on.He got these results without relying on bonding with his pokemon.
That's fine. If you want to argue that a hypothetical paul with ash's bonding would be stronger, go ahead. But the real Paul was not. Staraptor was specifically singled out by Paul as a weakling and half-way through DP is no-selling a half-dozen of honckrow's attacks. Give staraptor and honchkrow equally skilled battlers and staraptor ko's him. Gliscor is a mobility build who tanked multiple attacks from ninjask, multiple attacks from drapion, and an attack from electravire and was able to ko a drapion who'd taken four hits before hand with 2 moves.
Ursaring was already strong when he was first caught and he still ends up getting fodderized by Monfero.
Electravire is matched by a massively weakened pikachu before amplification and then is outright overpowered by a massively weakned infernape. Even a extremey weakened pre-blaze infernape was able to match an amplified electrovire in power. Again, give pikachu or infernape or even gliscor an equally skilled battler and electravire probably goes down much sooner.
You say Ash is better at training more effective than Paul by taking weaker pokemon and making them stronger but you gotta remember that Paul's starter is Torterra,so that means it wasn't caught in the wild with the idea of capturing the strongest he could find,he raised it all the way from a Turtwig from scratch and it developed into Torterra whose power is comparable to Ash's Charizard.
Based on what is torterra's power "comparable to ash's charizard" From what we actually see in battle, torterra is relative to both pre-special training gliscor and mid-dp staraptor, and it's one-shotted by a brickbreak(not a move that is supposed to be able to one-shot mons) from Cynthia's Garchomp.
The logical comparison for torterra, who was trained over the course of various regional campaigns, is pikachu. Given how pikachu, a mobility build, ends up being a better tank in their final fight than all the pokemon Paul chooses and matches Paul's electravire while heavily weakened, I don't think there's a strong case to be made for torterra vs pikachu. If Torterra was really pikachu's peer, you would expect it to no-sell attacks from the likes of gliscor and staraptor, and to not get insta-ko'd by a brickbreaker when it's supposed to be a tank build.
Why are Brandon and Cynthia always the go to when talking about Paul as a trainer?
Because they show us how Paul looks facing a team of top tier pokemon without prior knowledge or prep. Paul is always going to look uniquely strong against Ash because Paul has extensive history with ash and can predict his moves and strategies as a result.
Ash,Gary and all the other league rivals he faced all lose in the same fashion.By trying to treat Paul as "fodder" he's always compared to the top echelon of trainers in the world instead of comparing him to other trainers in his own class.Right now you're using the same examples that all the Paul haters use to downplay him as a trainer.
Who would you like us to compare him to then? Barry? Conway? Nando?
What trainers "in his class" do we stack him up with? His rivals?
Gary? Gary takes ash to his last pokemon facing his reserves having had equal time and oppurtunity to train his mons. Gary doesn't require any sort of pre-planned strategy, doesn't predict what ash's mons are or what they will do, and can still match them directly blow for blow
Alain? Outright beats ash without prep or familiarity in a similar setting except this time he's facing a stronger pikachu. This ash is
faaaar more competent. He doesn't try **** like volt-tackling Paul's electravire, he doesn't constantly put his pokemon in compromising positions, and he's actually capable of taking care of/preparing issues preemptively as opposed to solving them after they've caused problems for him(cough drapion cough).
Infernape was on the ground and the ref was about to declare it unable to battle,Electivire was still standing after clashing with Infernape's Flare Blitz before eventually fainting.
Okay, but how did we get there? Was it because Electravire overpowered infernape's flame thrower or dealt more damage with his brick breaker than infernape did with his mach punch? Electravire comes in far fresher while amplified by a poorly thought-out volt tackle, is outright matched by a infernape that's been poisoned and giga-drained, and then blasts him for several seconds with an attack that opponents are typically only exposed to with a second or two of charge Electravire isn't pushing infernape because its comparably strong, it's pushing infernape, in spite of being much weaker, because Paul baits Ash into a trap where infernape gets blasted by thunder for several seconds, and Ash has amplified electravire with a volt tackle.
Don't just look at the outcome. Look at the fights and what is
specifcally happening in them.
Drapion doesn't beat Torterra in a clash of power, it beats torterra by successfully launching several attacks on torterra while torterra only manages to land one. Drapion doesn't beat staraptor because staraptor isn't strong enough, but because Paul successfully manuevers Starpator, a pokemon who isn't supposed to be a tank, to take four power attacks while effectively nuetralizing it's mobility as a factor. None of Paul's knockouts in their final sinnoh battle are a result of Paul's pokemon being too strong except for when an amplified electravire is able to overpower a weakened pikachu. Given an equally skilled battler, all of Ash's sinnoh mons probably are at least competitive with any of Paul's mons despite only having a region worth of training, many of them specfically being singled out as weaklings, and Paul specfically restricting himself to catching mons who are already uniquely strong.
That doesn't really work if Paul is as effective at powering up mons as Ash is.
Also Paul did not use all of his strongest pokemon but for whatever hell reason
My whatever the hell reason is that Paul explicitly emphasizes before the fight that the only thing that matters to him is beating Ash, he's able to fully predict what mons ash will use as well as what moves/counters said mons would use and it would be comically ooc for him to not be using the team he thinks would give him the best chance of winning. If Torterra was far stronger than his other mons, then leaving him out in an all important battle is nonsensical.
Moreover we have seen torterra in mutiple fights, and at no point is he potrayed as being way stronger than Paul's other pokemons. At no point is he potrayed as being far stronger than ash's rookie sinnoh mons.
Your assumption that torterra is some sort of trump card/team buster isn't supported by anything. And if torterra really was that good, then Paul not using him is completely ooc.
