Earthbound AP upgrade/downgrade and Speed upgrade

[LoudCloud]

So I've been looking around the Earthbound/Mother 3 pages and there's a few upgrades/downgrades that might have to be made.

1. The cast of EBB is currently only building level. This is due to scaling to their enemies but there's no implication they are Building level with the exception of maybe the possesed trucks they fight (I'm not actually sure if a truck is even Buidling level). Even though I believe the EBB cast to be way above Building level (see bellow) this might have to be revised for the sake of accuracy.

2. The EBB cast fights groups of enemies called "Titanians" towards the end of the game. This enemy also appear in M3 towards the end of the game. So this means the EBB cast could scale to the M3 cast (currently Mountain level). But since the games take place in a different universe (I think) and in M3 there's still a chapter left for them to fight the Mountain level enemies, it might not be the case. This should be discussed. It should be noted that the Titanians have the same japanese name and a very similar sprite.

3. Ness in EB is currently City level pre-eight melodies while the rest of the chosen four are Mountain level. The reasonning being that they fight enemies like the Kraken and the Nuclear Reactor Robot. However, there's a few problems with this:

- The Kraken doesn't really showcase any evidence of this level of power. He's portrayed as very big but the scene he's in is very inconsistent with size (palm trees almost as big as volcanoes, the ship changes from person-size to volcano size across cutscenes etc.)

- The Nuclear Reactor Robots are described as nukes in the official Earthbound players guide which is probably where the City-level Ness comes from. But he doesn't fight them pre-melodies, only after. Altough the rest of the cast certainly does without the eight melodies upgrade (which is exclusive to Ness) so they'd definetly scale to the robots.

- The jump from City to Mountain level has no evidence. It could be because the cast at the end of the game > pre-melodies Ness. But as I've pointed out there's no evidence pre-melodies Ness is City level in the first place. The robots are fought towards the end of the game anyway so the rest of the cast is probably City level at best.

This could downgrade pre-melodies Ness and the rest of the cast (but not post-melodies Ness). Since the cast of M3 scale to Porky and therefore the cast of EB, they'd get a downgrade too.

4. On the brigther side of things the cast of EB (and therefore EBB and M3) could get a speed upgrade. The EB cast's MHS speed comes from them being able to react to natural lightning in a rough calc I did (scroll down). However, I used 10 m as a distance when fighting when this is highly unlikely and a serious lowball. The cast of EB attack their enemies physically most of the time (punches, baseball bats, pans) so it's very likely they'd be 1 m or even closer to their enemies when fighting. This would put the calc at MHS+ (as I've pointed out in the calc).

The lowball was used but this is a serious lowball considering no one is 10 m away from their enemies when fighting physically so I think the 1 m calc should be used instead.

Thanks for your time.

 

[Cropfist]

Shouldn't Pre-Melodies Ness be comparable to the rest of the party?

 

[LoudCloud]

Shouldn't Pre-Melodies Ness be comparable to the rest of the party?

Ness is pre-melodies before the city-level enemies arrive and the cast could have gotten substancially stronger since. How much stronger is debatable but the enemies they fight are stronger versions than the ones pre-melodies Ness fights.

 

[VileShadows]

I personally feel that pre-magicant Ness is about even with the rest of the cast. I don't think Paula, Jeff, and Poo could've gotten magically stronger while Ness was unconscious in Magicant (they didn't leave the dungeon at all), and story-wise up until that point, it's not as if any one of them had strength over the others, except maybe Ness by a bit considering his role both in the story and gameplay-wise (he's still the best party member even before the Magicant boost).

 

[LoudCloud]

I personally feel that pre-magicant Ness is about even with the rest of the cast. I don't think Paula, Jeff, and Poo could've gotten magically stronger while Ness was unconscious in Magicant (they didn't leave the dungeon at all), and story-wise up until that point, it's not as if any one of them had strength over the others, except maybe Ness by a bit considering his role both in the story and gameplay-wise (he's still the best party member even before the Magicant boost).

The cast levels up after Ness stops being pre-melodies. This includes in the invaded Onett and the Cave of the past. They even fight stronger versions of the enemies they fought when Ness was pre-melodies.

Eg. Bionic Krakens > Krakens

Ultimate Octobot > Mechanical Octobot

which only hits home the point that the cast is getting stronger in every zone they visit.

BTW when I say "the rest of the cast" I mean they at the end of the game and whenever I say pre-melodies Ness I mean him in the Fire Spring/Magicant, just so there's no confusion on this.

 

[VileShadows]

True, but I don't think the power jump is that big. Yes, the enemies after Ness' magicant are much stronger, but a very small amount of time had passed comparitevly. By the 8th dungeon everyone should be hitting near endgame levels anyways, usually players don't level up too much unless they intentionally grind or try to get the Goddess Ribbon from the Ghost of Starman

 

[LoudCloud]

Considering the Nuclear Reactor Robot's explosion should be in the range of a few dozen Megatons of TNT (50 Megatons max). Ness would have to be several times weaker than them to be bellow city level and it's unlikely he'd be THAT much weaker. So yeah I agree, but we should point it out in the profile that he's inferior to the cast at the end of the game.

 

[VileShadows]

Yes, I agree that Ness' power pre-magicant has been surpassed by the cast by the time they're in the cave of the past, it only makes sense by then. We should ask to make a note on Ness' profile to clarify the level difference.

Also I disagree with his page's current placing at possibly country level for creating Magicant. We have no idea how big Magicant is, and only he can travel to it since it's inside his mind, unlike Maria's Magicant in EBB which other people can actually visit.

 

[LoudCloud]

And considering the cast fights Ghosts of Starmen right after magicant (where they'd still be around pre-melodies Ness' level) and during the cave of the past (the last section of the game), it's also likely Ness wouldn't be much weaker.

And yeah, Magicant is just a mental place, not a physical one.

 

[VileShadows]

Also, I think the cast having "possibly universe level" durability is just dumb. The whole point of the game is that Ness needs the power to fight Giygas in order to save reality. If the cast had somehow mysteriously gotten universal durability, the journey would be pretty pointless as they could just directly go there, and there's no way they would get universal durability somehow after Magicant. Sure they take hits, but my personal theory for that is because Ness' power allows his friends to survive, since logically they wouldn't even be there without it.

 

[LoudCloud]

I'd say it's because (according to the game itself) Giygas is dumb as hell and is therefore not fighting properly. He could have even traveled in time to defeat the chosen four as babies but didn't because he was too scared of them and wanted to hide away in some cave instead. The "all-mighty idiot" as Porky calls him.

 

[VileShadows]

Yes, he's not very bright because his mind was destroyed, but he's still an unrelenting force of reality destroying chaos. Even if he's not very mindful, he's an uncontrollable mass of evil that still hits with universal force. We know for a fact that he wan't holding back either since he didn't have the mind to.

 

[LoudCloud]

Yes, he's not very bright because his mind was destroyed, but he's still an unrelenting force of reality destroying chaos. Even if he's not very mindful, he's an uncontrollable mass of evil that still hits with universal force. We know for a fact that he wan't holding back either since he didn't have the mind to.

Since he was powerful enough to destroy the universe at any point (and he wanted to), I'd say that he was not attacking at his best.

 

[VileShadows]

I like my theory about Ness' power guarding the others, but there are multiple interpretations that could make sense due to the vagueness of the fight and Giygas' existence as a whole, and I think yours makes sense too.

Though I still think the cast shouldn't have universe level as a possibility on their pages, it really doesn't line up with the rest of their stats.

Going back to your main point however, I agree that the rest of the cast are not Mountain level, and a change should be issued to their pages.

 

[LoudCloud]

Agreed.

What about the EBB cast and the speed of the verse?

 

[VileShadows]

The EBB cast is a little trickier. Like you said, we don't know how well Giygas can restrict his power in EBB, and the cast is relatively lacking in feats. I totally agree that it's logical for them to be higher than building level, but we need to find some sort of proof for it. One piece of evidence I can think of is that they fight Starmen. While the Titanians you stated earlier can be two different varieties, we know that the Starmen in EBB and EB are the same since Giygas still retains his army (not to mention both games have a Starman Jr.) If we assume that the Last Starman and the Final Starman are the same foe, or at least similar in rank/power, we could scale the cast to city level, which would match up with EB's cast (except post-magicant Ness).

 

[VileShadows]

Also, how would you feel about Ness being possibly Low 2-C post-magicant? The in-game events depict Ness becoming one with the universe, which also by extension makes him semi-omnipresent in speed as he can exist althroughout it. When he travels back to the past however, he's still semi-omnipresent as he can keep up with Giygas in combat, which could suggest that he became one with the time-space continuum rather than just the universe of the present time since he still has the speed that he would likely only have in his universe/time period.

That would also indirectly buff Giygas since he still dwarfs him by a tremendous amount, though there are an unspecified number of universes in the Mother continuity so it's not completely out of the question for Giygas to be Multi-Universal. The in-game text only mentions the main EB universe since it's the only relevant one; Giygas could've destroyed many other universes but we don't know.

 

[LoudCloud]

I meant the pre-melodies and rest of cast speed (upgrade from MHS to MHS+).

Giygas in EBB (Giegue) might also be downgraded because I can't find any evidence that he was altering the entire Earth and the Earthbound wiki only says his influence was felt "across the land". At least he was altering the world of Mother 1 which according to this official map isn't that big (a few dozen miles^2 according to it). So it would be more accurate if it was "At least *map of Mother 1*, possibly at least Planet level if he was altering the entire Earth".

 

[VileShadows]

Oh speed? While your calc makes sense, I don't think the cast can dodge enemy thunder attacks, usually thunder attacks don't hit targets because they miss. The closest thing I've seen to a supersonic feat in the Mother series is Lucas dodging sound based attacks in Mother 3.

 

[LoudCloud]

Oh speed? While your calc makes sense, I don't think the cast can dodge enemy thunder attacks, usually thunder attacks don't hit targets because they miss. The closest thing I've seen to a supersonic feat in the Mother series is Lucas dodging sound based attacks in Mother 3.

They can technically still dodge the lightning attacks the same way they can dodge most other attacks in the game.

 

[VileShadows]

I suppose so. In that case, I can agree with the cast being upgraded to MHS+

One thing I can think of that might contradict that though, is if the cast are already MHS, they can rush in and rush out for physical attacks and the like. Technically we can't know for sure the distance between Ness and his enemies, but you could assume it to be close since enemies on the overworld map have to touch you to initiate a battle.

 

[LoudCloud]

Character in Mother 3 also dodge Mr Generator's electricity (which was shown to work like real lighting by destroying the houses in Tazmily). And the fight is very up-close judging by the area they fight him i .

There's also the debate about whether dodging PK Flash and Paula's prayers would be lightspeed reactions.

 

[VileShadows]

Alright, that confirms MHS+ for the Mother 3 cast as well then.

I would say that PK Flash is lightspeed since it's described as "a brilliant flash of green light", though lightspeed reactions for the regular cast members is kind of pushing it.

 

[LoudCloud]

The diamond dog also attacks by emmiting a light. If the characters in the game can dodge it, I don't see it being a stretch.

 

[VileShadows]

I would personally call it an outlier, but then again, you could say the same for the lightning dodging feats, so I suppose you could be right about it.

We should see what an admin thinks of the changes and then make them, or we could wait until we've debated all of your points and submit a summary of all of them.

 

[LoudCloud]

Be great if we could get more people on this. The Earthbound pages need a good clean-up.

Also, this might be a stretch but the text when Paula uses one of her prayers is that a dazzling light "chased" the enemy, maybe meaning the enemy could have avoided it. Maybe just a stretch.

 

[VileShadows]

Yeah, I agree, more opinions would be nice. Have we covered everything you wanted to cover though?

 

[LoudCloud]

Just that. The EBB cast's tier would be the most difficult to find out. If whoever it was that put EB's cast at Mountain could explain it, they could be put back to how they were but those APs were put there a long time ago with little reasoning behind them.

 

[VileShadows]

I feel as if the answer lies within the Last Starmen and Final Starmen. Final Starmen know Starstorm Omega, which is the same ultimate technique Poo knows, which should put the Final Starmen at city level (if you've seen their stats they have a tremendous amount of PP too). If we could confirm that the Last Starmen and the Final Starmen share the same rank, we could scale EBB to city level.

 

[LoudCloud]

Those Starmen don't share many similarities. The colour, design and japanese names are completely different. Maybe some other enemy though.

 

[VileShadows]

The Starmen are the only enemies I can think of that would be the exact same across both EBB and EB, anything else would probably be seen as speculation, kind of like the Titanians. Given that EB and EBB are only set about 10 years apart though, there shouldn't be TOO much of a difference if we did find a similar enemy, though it would have to be endgame to be accurate.

Another thing I find weird is Ninten's range being put at country level on his page. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't remember anything even close to that happening in EBB.

 

[LoudCloud]

Super bombs are items you can get towards the end of both games and since the games are only set 10 years apart they are likely to be as powerful as each other.

 

[VileShadows]

Possibly, but I'm not sure how reliable scaling an item would be. Technically someone could say some enemies in EB have universal durability for surviving Ness' attacks, but of course we know that to be completely false and only part of game mechanics. Similarly, I don't feel as if the super bomb connection can be used because of the unreliability of game mechanics. Damage numbers are less direct of feats than dodging attacks outright.

 

[LoudCloud]

True.

Paula and Ana's best frying pans have the same japanese names but this contradicts the fact that Lloyd's best gun is one of Jeff's worse and Ninten's best bat is one of Ness' average ones.

 

[VileShadows]

Yeah. We need something a bit more concrete. I'll go through every enemy in EB and EBB and see if I can find anything even remotely similar.

 

[LoudCloud]

Thanks.

 

[VileShadows]

What about the SuperEnergy? It's an upgraded version of the Atomic Power Robot and it's a parallel to the Nuclear Reactor Robot.

 

[LoudCloud]

I think I mentioned that in a sepperate thread. Because they don't technically have the same name/design I'm not sure it would count.

 

[LoudCloud]

Where's the evidence M3 takes place in a different Universe anyway. Otherwise the Tetanians would definetly scale.

 

[VileShadows]

Hm. I couldn't really find any other endgame similarities other than that and the Starmen. I guess at the very least we can put a cap on their possible tier through EVE and R-7038XX. They're both vastly out of the main cast's league, but we don't know exactly how powerful they are either.

As for Mother 3 taking place in a different universe? There's no real evidence to my knowldedge. Everything points to the world being reset from EarthBound and started anew in Mother 3 because of the deal with the White Ship. Because of the 1000 year difference between EBB and Mother 3 though, the Titanians in M3 are likely more advanced if I had to guess.