Classic Characters Downgrade

[Truth_Bullets]

Sorry to make a downgrade fellow Sonic debaters, but I felt this needed to be done.

This affects all the Classic Sonic and everyone who ends up scaling to his Small Country feat in some way.

Why Small Country doesn't work
The Low 6-B rating comes from Classic Sonic destroying the chains to Little Planet. There's just one major flaw: this is an outlier. Essentially, Classic Sonic has shown zero feats that would make this consistent.

"Nothing contradicts Low 6-B"

Wrong. One of the biggest baddies from the Classic Era is Metal Sonic Kai, a foe amped by the power of the Chaos Rings. This is Metal Sonic, an already deadly foe from this era, but on crack with a chaos source. It takes two of the Classic characters to beat him at a time, and in the bad ending, Eggman uses Metal Sonic Kai's powers to burn several city blocks at a time. One of the strongest foes for a base character to beat at this time, with his own chaos/ring source, at most burned several city blocks.

"This is consistent by Classic Sonic being relative to Modern Sonic"

Wrong again. By a narrative standpoint Classic Sonic is definitely supposed to be weaker than his Modern incarnation. The inconsistencies in the writing and game mechanics that would make him scale to stronger foes (i.e. Chaos 0 in Sonic Forces, the Egg Dragoon and the Phantom Ruby Death Egg Robot) are fallacious and mean nothing compared to the actual lore standpoint. Even if the writers saw some issues (that they didn't take count of because they're unfamiliar with scaling) with their work, the main message can't be disregarded.

"We see Classic Sonic grow through Sonic Generations and show his growth in Sonic Forces"

All that happened through Sonic Generations was Classic Sonic had a good time with Modern Sonic and picked up a trick of his or two. Hanging out with someone and learning from them doesn't put you on their level; similarly, a karate student doesn't immediately become a master by spending time with his mentor.

"Super Classic and Super Modern are relative/equal, so without their amps they should be the same"

Nope. Super forms just bring characters up to a certian level, they don't give them a crazy multiplier.

Replacement tiering
I propose an old but gold idea: Multi-City Block level.

Reasons:

• Classic Sonic tearing through a rock (This is a supportive 8-B feat which was done super casually. While this needs a modern evaluation comment, we still debated over this and accepted it a long while back before the upgrade so this should be acceptable)
• Metal Sonic Kai burning city blocks (Classic Knuckles scales, Classic Sonic scales to Classic Knuckles, etc.)
• Fire Breath burning part of a forest (While unquantifiable this lines up with the other feats)

"Knuckles' Chaotix isn't canon"

The reasoning behind this is that the Chaotix team is reworked in Sonic Heroes. With all of the Knuckles Chaotix's reappearing themes showing up in Sonic Mania, it's doubtful this entire game can't be considered. Reworking small groupings does NOT mean retconning.

For instance, in Team Sonic Racing, Espio and Charmy are no where to be found. They're consistently apart of Vector's group, but he's with Silver and Blaze now. Doesn't mean that Charmy and Espio's adventures with Vector didn't happen.

"Fire Breath burnt an entire island's surface, outlier"

If you look at the scene, Fire Breath only set a portion of the forest on fire, while the whole thing was set ablaze by armadas of Fire Breaths in the background.

Conclusion
Classic Sonic's profile should read something like this in AP:

"Multi-City Block level (Scales to Classic Knuckles, who can fight Metal Sonic Kai, a titan upgraded version of Sonic's nemesis that can burn down several city blocks at a time. Scales to the Fire Breath robot, which can set part of a forest on fire)"

 

[Antvasima]

You should ask Dark649, Sera EX, and the active members listed in the Knowledgeable Members List to comment here.

 

[DarkGrath]

I mean, this probably isn't a topic I'm qualified to offer my thoughts on myself. But I'm a bit doubtful about this.

A feat being higher than other feats doesn't necessarily make it an outlier. And while I could be wrong about this, there isn't too much to me that seems like the Multi-City Block feat was a good indicator of their "limits".

Similar problems have popped up in other verses before. For a completely arbitrary example, just because a person is capable of exerting 500 joules of force, that doesn't mean that's their limit.

Basically, while they can perform a Multi-City Block level feat, there doesn't seem to be much to suggest that they could only do feats up to that level. In which case, it's a bit dubious to say that it is an outlier simply because the feat is far greater. Even so, that's just my two cents on the situation. It doesn't seem like much of an outlier to me.

 

[Theuser789]

I am agreeing with DarkGrath here, having lower feats don't necessaraly mean that the higher one is a outlier, especialy when they are casual

 

[GiverOfThePeace]

I agree with this.

 

[Truth_Bullets]

DarkGrath, I already addressed that. Not only is Multi-City Block consistent, but the characters openly struggled to perform a feat of that magnitude. I'm already aware that casual feats on a lower level don't contradict higher level feats.

 

[Truth_Bullets]

I am agreeing with DarkGrath here, having lower feats don't necessaraly mean that the higher one is a outlier, especialy when they are casual

They Metal Sonic Kai feat wasn't casual as I presented in post.

 

[Theuser789]

All we see is Metal Kai flying over a burning city, we don't see his struggiling to do that, nor do we see him peform that feat and if he was only doing it city block per city block, plus that's more destructive potency than Ap

Plus he was probaly just showing off his new power after beating Knuckles and Co by destroying the city, since this is a bad end and all

 

[Inverted_Tempest]

Except the deviation would be statistically significant. His more acceptable and consistent feats are in the Tier 8 range, 7-C at absolute best with the Firebrand thing. He doesn't even have any other feats on that level of mid Tier 6 strength to justify him being there or any supporting feats for it. Nothing even in the Tier 7 range to even technically help him besides one highballed af feat which is at the lowest end of that tier. Characters have had outliers deemed on this site for lesser offenses before, this would be double standards to not downgrade him.

 

[DarkGrath]

Except the deviation would be statistically significant. His more acceptable and consistent feats are in the Tier 8 range, 7-C at absolute best with the Firebrand thing. He doesn't even have any other feats on that level of mid Tier 6 strength to justify him being there or any supporting feats for it. Nothing even in the Tier 7 range to even technically help him besides one highballed af feat which is at the lowest end of that tier. Characters have had outliers deemed on this site for lesser offenses before, this would be double standards to not downgrade him.

Well, personally, I've actually widely seen the exact opposite.

For a more applicable example than the one I used above, let's compare this to Devil May Cry. Dante, who is 3-A, very often fights with fodder characters who are around 7-A. The reason why 3-A isn't considered an outlier is because of how these are barely fights; they are extraordinarily casual stomps. Even so, a character who is 6-C or 3-A could both casually stomp a 7-A.

So, by all means, he has a few 3-A feats and a ton of extremely casual 7-A feats. The fact that he has a ton of extremely casual 7-A feats does not invalidate his 3-A rating, because his 3-A feats better define his strength. If we apply that logic to this situation, why should an extremely casual MCB feat invalidate a Low 6-B feat? While I've never particularly liked the argument of "it was done for this verse, therefore it should be done for this verse". But it's perfectly applicable and valid in this situation, so it should be used for the sake of consistent logic. And if it is used, then Low 6-B would stay.

 

[Inverted_Tempest]

Yeah, that's fine reasoning for Dante being 3-A, but you literally gave reasons as to why he should be considered as such. Actually, let's quote some of the things you said for the comparison.

"The reason why 3-A isn't considered an outlier is because of how these are barely fights; they are extraordinarily casual stomps."

"So, by all means, he has a few 3-A feats and a ton of extremely casual 7-A feats. The fact that he has a ton of extremely casual 7-A feats does not invalidate his 3-A rating, because his 3-A feats better define his strength."

Okay, so you're already giving context as to why Dante should be here. If Dante was struggling with these 7-As, he most definitely would not be 3-A. I'm assuming there are cutscenes and such for this being the case as well? Or the people who are 7-A were just fodder enemies he encounters throughout his journey? That's infinitely better justification for a 3-A Dante than a Low 6-B Sonic has. Not only that, you mention Dante actually has mutliple versions of these feats. You said he has "a few" which implies 3 or 4 occurrences.

Addressing why this is now a false equivalence to Sonic, Sonic has this 1 feat to put him this high. Not even a feat that's even kinda close again like Dante does, just 1 feat to put him where he is right now. That already is one big part of the comment done. Now you mention how Dante does these feats casually? The only case so far that has been made was for Metal Sonic's feat which I can kinda agree with. He would literally have two feats that would go against the notion that he beats these 8-A/7-C characters easily.

1.) He would logically, canonically struggle with Firebrand, a boss who's best feat was setting a forest ablaze and get harmed by its attacks.

2.) There is another feat within this range done by a boss later in the game even where death only was able to level Sky Sanctuary Zone his death only was able to level Sky Sanctuary Zone. Classic Sonic obviously fought him and even Classic Knuckles, who also scales to Sonic, had the same struggle.

The rest of the bosses should be similar in virtue of strength for the fact both of Eggman's robots here are the ones doing these feats to begin with. I would agree Classic Sonic would scale to Low 6-B if random fodder robots did these feats, but the ones doing them and the best showcasings be in the same range consistently for bosses is a different thing. The whole point of a Boss is they are clearly not fodder within the context of the narrative and you are meant to struggle with them. For Low 6-B Sonic to be a thing, you'd have to be implying these feats are extremely casual for Sonic which they obviously aren't, especially when that death feat is supposed to come from a robot specifically meant to exactly be like Sonic and match all of his physical attributes. Or you'd need to imply these feats are done very casually by the bosses themselves which would be incredibly unsubstantiated. Not only would they lack the higher feats to make such a thing a possibility, again, one of those came from a character's death which should arguably be one of the most impressive outputs they'd have for AP.

I hate to keep throwing a bunch of arguments but this becomes worse when you realize this feat isn't even done later chronologically. At least then you could try to say "Well it's canon Sonic gets stronger so this makes sense". The three feats being used to counteract this scaling come later in the chronology of the Classic Timeline, being Sonic CD comes before Sonic 3 & Knuckles and Knuckles Chaotix. This literally shows under no narrative, gameplay, or chronological justification could this feat possibly make sense for it to be consistent to Sonic.

 

[Maverick_Zero_X]

I disagree FRA. Having lower feats doesn't contradict higher ends.

Metal Sonic Kai isn't seen struggling when burning those city blocks, either (he does it off screen iirc).

 

[Theuser789]

Sonic did definitvely not struggle with the first mid boss of the game at all

Plus a feat done by dying is not a indicative of it being his limit at all as well

Plus having lower feats doesn't contradict higher feats

That's a really big wall of text but there's nothing that interesting in It, nothing proves that Sonic struggled with the literal first boss, nor that Sonic struggles to them, plus Mecha Sonic didn't destroy Sky Santuary, it was the Death Egg, and Knuckles's story shows that he didn't die at all as well, so there goes that part of the argument

Also stood at the center of the Firebrand feat and wasn't even hurt by it:https://youtu.be/EXcAyU3A95M?t=246

 

[Mephistus]

its name is Fire Breath....

 

[Inverted_Tempest]

"Sonic did definitvely not struggle with the first mid boss of the game at all"

K so you clearly don't what a boss is. A boss battle is treated as a climatic confrontation in the context of the narrative. Why would something that's supposed to be climatic involve Sonic stomping someone? That's very much anti-climatic to see a protag sweep the floor with someone.

"Plus a feat done by dying is not a indicative of it being his limit at all as well"

Uh, it very much would. If I gave a comparison, Magolor's death was able to bring down an entire dimension which very much was more impressive than anything else he did. It would be outputting an extreme amount of energy before you perish and the state Mecha Sonic was in would literally support that. Oh and before you mentioned you "debunked" the death point so it doesn't matter, it was in reference to the Knuckles part as explained down below so don't try to act like you have one up or something as a point.

"Plus having lower feats doesn't contradict higher feats"

That was never the argument, you are strawmanning in an attempt to make it seem like that's the premise of my argument. I said he consistently struggles with people who have lower end feats, even citing examples of it. Don't try to act like this is something I said.

"That's a really big wall of text but there's nothing that interesting in It, nothing proves that Sonic struggled with the literal first boss, nor that Sonic struggles to them, plus Mecha Sonic didn't destroy Sky Santuary, it was the Death Egg, and Knuckles's story shows that he didn't die at all as well, so there goes that part of the argument"

Yeah, it's a big wall because it addresses numerous points typically used, you got a problem with it? That was me assuming you understood my point on what a boss fight even is, fraid not I suppose. That was my bad, I listed it in the wrong order. Knuckles leveled a very large portion of Sky Sanctuary Zone taking down Mecha Sonic was the thing that leveled a very large portion of Sky Sanctuary Zone. That doesn't demean what I said at all. The Death Egg very obviously didn't destroy it either with the link I provided so your argument is completely false on all levels of merit.

"Also stood at the center of the Firebrand feat and wasn't even hurt by it: https://youtu.be/EXcAyU3A95M?t=246"

K then he goes on to struggle with this boss that did this feat, your point being? No one ever denied he can't be above the bosses, he just very much isn't stomping them like you're portraying it and the guy who made the comparison to Dante.

 

[Inverted_Tempest]

People seem to keep misinterpreting the arguments. The argument never was lower end feats = not being able to be higher. You can have feats obviously not at your tier and be higher. If that was what we were arguing, then we'd be against far more than just Low 6-B Classic Sonic.

The argument was there are consistently peaked lower end showings for characters that are supposed to be significant to the narrative that Sonic struggles with. Unless you want to call every single feat done by a boss casual which I've already explained is blatantly false mind you, then you can't say Sonic is Low 6-B but have those bosses at 8-A/7-C with their best showings. That would be granting the Sonicverse massive double standards when we've downgraded characters like Magolor in the past for this exact same reason.

People who are FRAing the arguments based on "lower end feats doesn't make it an outlier" should not have their input counted since they clearly aren't reading up on the thread otherwise.

 

[DarkGrath]

The fact that it is a boss battle doesn't really prove anything. To go back to the DMC example, despite Dante being 3-A, many of the boss fights in his games are against 7-A characters. Being a boss fight in-game doesn't mean that they weren't stomped in the story. And again, he doesn't really seem to struggle all that much in the context of the story, which is a far more reliable indicator of their comparison in strength than the fact that it's a boss fight in gameplay.

 

[Inverted_Tempest]

I already linked something that proves the exact opposite of what you're saying. I don't know why you keep using DMC as an example. Dante "struggling" there comes from the fact he just messes around with bosses and doesn't take them seriously. The same can't be said for Sonic, again, when those bots are directly designed to be formidable to his strength. You'd need to substantiate from a narrative perspective as to why Sonic would stomp them, you wouldn't just randomly assume something like that with no evidence. You've not given evidence to even support your claim he wouldn't struggle other than "it seems that way". Not only would your logic defy the narrative because you'd be implying Sonic can casually manhandle Mecha Sonic, a robot which is canonically supposed to be on par, if not stronger by technicality to Sonic in design. You'd literally be saying any other boss Sonic faces in later installments like Chaos, any of the Deadly Six, Iblis, etc. are just all characters that don't scale to Sonic and that he casually knocks out with little to no difficulty or doesn't even try against. Because Sonic murking Iblis but later getting one shotted by Mephiles but Iblis > Mephiles in the narrative totally makes sense now via this logic, right? I hate to mock this logic like this but this is very atrocious. You're taking the context of one verse and trying to apply it to another. It would be fine if there was nothing special about it but you already gave reasons as to why DMC was an exception the moment it was brought up Dante takes none of them seriously.

 

[DarkGrath]

My apologies, I mis worded my previous point. Let me explain.

The problem isn't whether Sonic stamped him or not. It's the fact that the MCB feat was extremely casual. If the MCB feat was extremely casual, then it's not a good way of indicating his level of strength. What is a good indicator, however, would be scaling him to Sonic if we say that they are comparable (which you've argued is the case). In which case, there is no problem with Metal Sonic Kai being Low 6-B as well, as if his two feats are:

1: An extremely casual MCB feat

2: Scaling through being comparable to a Low 6-B

Then that would indicate he is Low 6-B, not Multi-City Block level. That's the logic I was comparing to with my DMC examples. A character with pretty solid 3-A feats and a ton of super casual 7-A feats is scaled based on his 3-A feats, not his 7-A feats. Through scaling, Metal Kai Sonic fighting against Sonic would mean that Metal Kai Sonic is Low 6-B, not that Sonic is Multi-City Block level.

 

[Inverted_Tempest]

The MCB feat you're talking about came from something we already move on from. I already brought up how Sonic 3 & Knuckles bosses are consistently in this range of their best showings being up there. Maybe Metal Sonic Kai would have this as a casual feat (I'm waiting to see what the OP says about this considering this wasn't the point I brought up myself). The point was he struggled with a lot of other bosses that were consistently having best feats within that range. I am not denying that's how the logic would work if the feats were casual.

 

[Truth_Bullets]

Bump.

 

[Antvasima]

You should still ask Dark649 to comment here.