When is scaling more important than a character's own feats?

[Damage3245]

Hey everyone. This is an open-ended question available for anyone from regular users to staff to answer if they so desire.

There are no wrong answers and everyone is entitled to their own opinions. Answering this question can be from how you believe the philosophy of the site should be, or from your own personal perspective regardless of what you argue on the site.

The question is just when do you think scaling / powerscaling is more important than the character's own feats?

Always? Never? Situationally? Dependent on context, and how? Answer however you like.

EDIT: It should go without saying, but no character-bashing, verse-bashing or user-bashing, please.

 

[AnonymousBlank]

Depends for me. Like if a verse has clear cut scaling and they got a few consistent high tier feats performed by low/mid tiers that nothing else from even high/god tiers comes close to and isn’t even narratively implied to be the case through lore or statements, I’d be inclined to toss out the feats. Anything more than that such as a bunch of similar tier feats by even low tiers only and I would be fine with accepting whatever tier those feats put the verse at.

 

[Thelastmlg]

Situationally i believe, MANY characters rely on scaling for multiple reasons, like goku who is not a psychopath and won't destroy the universe...willingly, nor has any reason to cross galaxies, or meowth can actually match tier 7s but is portrayed as like, tier 9 for being a comic relief.

But if a character has a ton of feats, many which are made to give context of his strength and limits, i think scaling gets less important because it feels more like the writers are forced to make him scale to someone

I can't pinpoint a character as a example rn, but if a character is many times portrayed as nuke-level, destroying mountains and stuff, them scaling to a planet buster because "well his other feats were casual/not his limit/we never saw him struggle/they fought evenly/etc/etc etc" just feels weird

Obviously i'm not against scaling as a whole, the issue is that it is basically a pure VS concept, most authors don't give a damn

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Case by case, but often depends on the nature of the verse, and character archetype within the series. Of course, there are examples of direct feats vs indirect feats. But examples to consider are

• Verses with linear power level charts as opposed to ones with nonlinear power level charts
• The distinguishment on in verse underdogs vs in verse top dogs
• The size of gaps and some notable consistencies to consider
• In verse lore about characters having fluctuating powers based on adaptation and/or evolutionary powers in which one always tends to grow stronger than before via progression.

 

[The_Impress]

Scaling is more important than the character's feat when the character reasonably can't or won't replicate the feats of those they're meant to scale to.

Many people forget a big factor in performing super-impressive feats is having a super impressive range or a certain level of disregard to the environment, which not everyone may be able to do.

 

[The_Axiom_of_Virgo]

For me it depends on where the source of the scaling comes from e.g: If character A stomps character B (who has a mountain busting feat as well as several tier 7 statements in verse) then character A should clearly upscale from character B plus any character that's shown/stated be comparable or superior to character A (in verse).

Ofc if it comes from WoG or vauge statements, E.g Character A maybe too much for Character B or "I think Character A is stronger than Character B" then I believe more scrutiny needs to be applied.

That said I'm personally against characters whose stats and P&A are all from scaling to one character since it's a sure fire way of leading to circular scaling (especially if theres several profiles scaling to just one character).

Tl;dr It depends on the context and case by case but from my PoV scaling supersedes an individual character's feats when theres no other canon alternatives (especially if the character in question is either part of a massive cast and/or is pretty vague in terms of overall combat feats).

 

[Tllmbrg]

I support whatever gets me the highest tier at any given moment.

 

[Thelastmlg]

Scaling is more important than the character's feat when the character reasonably can't or won't replicate the feats of those they're meant to scale to.

Many people forget a big factor in performing super-impressive feats is having a super impressive range or a certain level of disregard to the environment, which not everyone may be able to do.

This is another great point, AP vs DC, or in this case range, authors don't usually make attacks cover great ranges besides travelling, they only given them the ap throughs scaling and statements at best.

This gets even worse with melee, i'm sure 99% of fiction has physical tier 8 and above that can't destroy more than a wall because their fists don't have shockwaves or whatever.

They just dislike having characters punches deal enviromental damage outside of small areas to fit on screen, which is understandable, but still, you'll rarely see a physical tier 7 actually punch a city into a crater.

Whoever this does become less of a issue with tier 5 and above, bevause if they are contextually shown that power, the authors might feel more free in showing them, because at that point they think "hey, the character can destroy this planet and if he does right now, it won't impact the story, so who cares, the readers know is true"

But usually, the destruction of a city in a history with tier 7's at best is pretty influentional, since they still live on planet with society and stuff, but tier 5's usually can move through space which gives them endless empty planets to show off

 

[Antoniofer]

Both feats and scaling are relevant to determinate the range of capabilities a character can make, but the issue I persoanlly find with this is that people takes a single feats to back the capabilities of everyone; I personally prefer to take feats as a range of capabilites than one single immutable value, like, if a character has been damaged by a car crashing and a building falling over them, I would take the building falling feat and disregard the car crash, rather, I see it as range of durability, where attacks within the range of 9-B and 9-A (arbitraries values, not necessary related to the two feats stated above) can damage this particular character. Thus, someone that can damage the character, can can have an AP that could fall within a range of 9-B to 9-A, rathe rthan being 9-A.

Naturally, this apply if is consistent, if the car crash caused few bruises and minor wounds, and the falling building caused broken bones or internal bleeding; if the car caused broken bones and internal bleeding, but the building caused the minor bruises, I have reason to believe that neither of these feats are consistent, and I would need to look for other feats to determinate a range.

Other thing, when looking for feats, I do not only look for stuff that the character can "survive", but also for those that could be too much for the character to handle (either not surviving something, or being unable to cause damage to something). If looking for what can you character kill or destroy, is also fair to look for what can kill/destroy the character.