I’ve just finished reading SOO and Dou over again to be as refreshed as I can and I do see the reasonings for a lot of the characters being upgraded.
Most characters so far have been agreed upon but we’ve got a couple left that are giving difficulty due to the massive inconsistencies in their feats. Notably we have Retsu, Musashi’s physical stats and Prime Orochi who are all candidates for a Low 7-C rating. I’ll get back to these three in a second.
Agreed upon we have Shobun and SOO Jack going up to Low 7-C due to their feats against Oliva and Pickle respectively. Baki Dou Jack can be At least Low 7-C since sadly he lacks any feats to get him into 7-C (damn you Motobe). Hana will obviously keep his rating of likely 7-C as of Baki Dou. Although I do propose Hana gets a SOO specific key and a Dou specific key since he gets stronger between the two. Everyone does. In SOO he matched casual Pickle’s strength better than Base Baki did (our Low 7-C benchmark character) so he should just have a Low 7-C rating without the likely 7-C for SOO imo. Motobe with his full kit will also be Low 7-C for all of his feats. I don’t think there were issues with him at all. We are also in agreement that Katsumi will not be upgraded due to the clear anti feats of the Mach Fist destroying his body simply from usage of it.
So, the big three. Retsu, Musashi and Prime Orochi. I think Prime Orochi has been overdue for a while and everyone knows it. He was introduced early on and immediately set up as far far far far beyond Baki and the other side cast at the time, being so far above Baki that Baki truly thought he was on Yujiro’s level. He essentially scales to Low 7-C for the same reasons Shobun does, although he isn’t able to damage Yujiro he still stuns him and manages to get up after a direct attack that he failed to block. Although it messed him up pretty good and he didn’t think he could take another. Still I think we should be good on this.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Retsu should not be tier 7 in SOO. He has a single feat that would put him on that level, where as multiple feats across multiple arcs plus statements saying he isn’t that strong. However, Dou Retsu has much different arguments. Dou Retsu had a massive power up over the 1 year timeskip. Massive enough to the point where he stomped Wilbur Bolt, the same guy who was vastly physically to Retsu at the end of SOO. He then fights Musashi and does a decent job against him. He still can’t take a direct 7-C attack without... well... you know. But he still hurt Musashi. He also hurt Motobe with his attacks despite Motobe’s armour being strong enough to defend him from Jack. So Low 7-C Dou Retsu is good imo. Just not SOO when he was much weaker.
Lastly Musashi’s durability. I think Low 7-C is fine if we scale up Retsu. The only feat that would really be against it at that point is Shibukawa hurting him with a punch but that could easily be an outlier for Shibukawa rather than an anti feat for Musashi. Obviously again I don’t think he should be 7-C since he’s still shown as vastly weaker than the 7-C’s and can do way more damage than he can take with his swords. I single jab from a casual Base Baki had him TKO’d for 10 seconds and Hanayama was going to KO him with only a couple attacks, one of which was met with a sword slash to half the damage.
So basically to sum it up
Upgraded: Shobun, SOO and Dou Jack, Motobe with full kit, Dou Retsu, Musashi, Prime Orochi
Same: Katsumi w/o Mach Fist, SOO Retsu, Hanayama (he was already good to begin with he just needs another key)
If this is agreeable I can start making the changes as soon as tonight.
