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Gonna get straight to the point, I believe NMH’s ratings are wrong. Let’s start from the top.
“Wall level, possibly Small Building level (Able to match Peace. Could be able to block explosion of a grenade and survive landmines as seen in fight against Holly Summers)”
Explosives of this sort basically never reach Small Building level (RPGs and Land-Mines can, but it's specifically ones meant to penetrate bunkers or tanks, so not the sort Holly would be carrying), but even if they did, this rating does not account for inverse square law, which would lower the result even further (yes, I asked some knowledgeable people, it applies even when point-blank). So, this key should just be lowered to Wall level (if no better feats are found).
(This was accepted, more or less)
Now, as for the second key (and later ones), right now they scale from Letz Shake, who can cause Earthquakes. First off, we scale him off 5.5 earthquake magnitude, as that’s what it takes to cause shaking. Well, I partially disagree, as we never see him do that in the first game, and he's upgraded in the second game, where the (supposedly) 5.5 magnitude feat happens. Even there, it's very stylized and Travis doesn't seem to even notice them before stepping in the arena, so that's a bit questionable.
Even if that wasn't the case, it shouldn't upscale to the rest of the killers in NMH1, as the justification for this is that, being higher-ranked, they would logically be stronger. Which makes sense at a glance, but I don't think it's quite right. Not only is the UAA ranking a constantly-shifting climb, made even less reliable by the fact that if two assassins haven't fought yet, there's no actual way to know who's the better fighter, but nowhere is it stated that the people higher-ranked in the UAA are stronger, just that they're better assassins. Which sounds like an arbitrary distinction I'm making, but it isn't. the Earthquake Maker is a powerful weapon but it takes half a minute to start up, and Letz Shake is a perfectly normal and very easily killable dude. This is further shown by Travis being able to fight #2 (Bad Girl) on somewhat equal grounds, but he has to sneak up to #3, Speed Buster, and can barely hold his ground and loses a ton of health when hit by her beam. Of course, you could say Travis just grew stronger between those fights, but that's a huge leap in power in a short timeframe, so I believe my thesis to be more likely.
Of course, even considering that, it would scale to Henry, who one-shot the mech, right? And if we don't count NMH1 Letz as being able to output Earthquakes similar to his NMH2 version, the NMH2 version would still have that rating, right? Well... yeah, but I think it's a bit outliery. Travis is threatened by guns and similar weaponry, long falls (not just a gameplay thing, he was hella scared of falling when finishing off NMH2's final boss, and believed he'd die before he was saved), smaller explosions, and most egregiously, getting hurt by the shockwaves of Dr. Letz Shake's machines knocks off half his HP. Of course, if the shockwaves of something almost kill him, him scaling above the full power of the attack is a bit silly, isn't it? Not only that, but 5.5 Earthquakes don't cause that sorta damage at all, shooting stones in the air, nevermind that it would take a lot less effort to cause 5.5-magnitude level damage when the energy's applied at ground level instead of below the crust. Overall this is kind of a cringe feat.
TL;DR
The (Hopefully) Uncontroversial part
“Wall level, possibly Small Building level (Able to match Peace. Could be able to block explosion of a grenade and survive landmines as seen in fight against Holly Summers)”
Explosives of this sort basically never reach Small Building level (RPGs and Land-Mines can, but it's specifically ones meant to penetrate bunkers or tanks, so not the sort Holly would be carrying), but even if they did, this rating does not account for inverse square law, which would lower the result even further (yes, I asked some knowledgeable people, it applies even when point-blank). So, this key should just be lowered to Wall level (if no better feats are found).
(This was accepted, more or less)
The Part That Might Give Me A Headache
Now, as for the second key (and later ones), right now they scale from Letz Shake, who can cause Earthquakes. First off, we scale him off 5.5 earthquake magnitude, as that’s what it takes to cause shaking. Well, I partially disagree, as we never see him do that in the first game, and he's upgraded in the second game, where the (supposedly) 5.5 magnitude feat happens. Even there, it's very stylized and Travis doesn't seem to even notice them before stepping in the arena, so that's a bit questionable.
Even if that wasn't the case, it shouldn't upscale to the rest of the killers in NMH1, as the justification for this is that, being higher-ranked, they would logically be stronger. Which makes sense at a glance, but I don't think it's quite right. Not only is the UAA ranking a constantly-shifting climb, made even less reliable by the fact that if two assassins haven't fought yet, there's no actual way to know who's the better fighter, but nowhere is it stated that the people higher-ranked in the UAA are stronger, just that they're better assassins. Which sounds like an arbitrary distinction I'm making, but it isn't. the Earthquake Maker is a powerful weapon but it takes half a minute to start up, and Letz Shake is a perfectly normal and very easily killable dude. This is further shown by Travis being able to fight #2 (Bad Girl) on somewhat equal grounds, but he has to sneak up to #3, Speed Buster, and can barely hold his ground and loses a ton of health when hit by her beam. Of course, you could say Travis just grew stronger between those fights, but that's a huge leap in power in a short timeframe, so I believe my thesis to be more likely.
Of course, even considering that, it would scale to Henry, who one-shot the mech, right? And if we don't count NMH1 Letz as being able to output Earthquakes similar to his NMH2 version, the NMH2 version would still have that rating, right? Well... yeah, but I think it's a bit outliery. Travis is threatened by guns and similar weaponry, long falls (not just a gameplay thing, he was hella scared of falling when finishing off NMH2's final boss, and believed he'd die before he was saved), smaller explosions, and most egregiously, getting hurt by the shockwaves of Dr. Letz Shake's machines knocks off half his HP. Of course, if the shockwaves of something almost kill him, him scaling above the full power of the attack is a bit silly, isn't it? Not only that, but 5.5 Earthquakes don't cause that sorta damage at all, shooting stones in the air, nevermind that it would take a lot less effort to cause 5.5-magnitude level damage when the energy's applied at ground level instead of below the crust. Overall this is kind of a cringe feat.
TL;DR
- It's questionable that Letz Shake's earthquakes are 5.5, as they only affect a small area, Travis did not feel any of them before entering the arena, and cause highly stylized shaking of the ground (and some sections even stay perfectly still). If we assume the ground wasn't previously fragmented (perhaps by the multiple earthquakes Letz caused in his fight against the other assassins), the feat's way above 5.5. The rocks shoot dozens of meters in the air, and stay like that for ten seconds. If we assume it was previously fragmented (which is a bit arbitrary, I'll be the first to admit), then it's way below 5.5, and unusable.
- If the feat is legit, it wouldn't scale to any UAA assassin in NMH1, as they're more skilled, not stronger, especially since the UAA's ranking is very variable and ever-shifting, and Letz Shake's weapon is slow and he's very fragile.
- It must also be worth considering that NMH1 Letz is weaker than NMH2 Letz, and as such backscaling is iffy. He defeated Henry, who previously one-shot him, after all.
- Even in NMH2, Travis and other characters can be hurt by weaponry and long falls that would be way below tier 7, not to mention merely the effects of Letz' weapon deal huge damage to Travis, therefore scaling him to the full power of the explosion is questionable. I am therefore also raising the possibility of this feat being an outlier.
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