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A case for powerscaling between attacks: a special attack must not be weaker than a casual one

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Mand21

Mand21

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Maybe you have seen it, maybe you haven't, but Misaka Mikoto has a base key with multiple attack potencies.

But there is a problem with that.

Usually, on this wiki, when we scale a character's AP, we assume their greatest consistent values to be the appropriate ones for the AP in general unless otherwise stated (such as a special attack with specific and separate properties.

The problem is this isn't happening with her: Mikoto has three attacks with three different APs, and the worst of all is that her most basic and typically portrayed as casual attacks (Lightning) have the highest AP value (7-C), while her strongest, special attack which leaves her in shock when it fails against Accelerator, has her lowest AP value (8-C).

All of these attacks are used by Mikoto in fights with the same approximate functions. Her iron sand shield is her way of defending from attacks that would kill her otherwise, her Railgun is supposedly her strongest attack... so while the iron sand having a lower AP may be forgivable, how can the Railgun be classified as weaker than non-special attacks? And shouldn't her shield scale to her non-special attacks, like her full power lightning bolts?

So, I'd like to make a case for Misaka Mikoto's "inner powerscaling". She should be 7-C in base, no variations. At the very least, her iron sand should be 8-A and she should be 7-C overall. Why? Because it doesn't make sense for the special attack to be the weakest.
 
such as a special attack with specific and separate properties

There's the issue. The three types of techniques are completely different applications of her ability with different properties and there's not a single good reason to scale them to each other. Lightning is not the same as iron sand weapons, which is not the same as her railgun techniques. This is just simply Kamachi not realizing how powerful he made her lightning attacks, just like he doesn't realize how fast he made his own characters. Not to mention how Mikoto never goes all out with her lightning against human targets.

Using the same reasoning one could argue that because Gabriel can super casually move the planet and all stars in the sky at the same time as just preparations for her spell, all its actual attacks and special moves should scale. Or that we should scale Mikoto's Railgun and iron sand to her weather manipulation abilities for no reason.

You realize her Railgun is compared to a tank's cannon in WWIII, and is clearly weaker than the AAA's large caliber railgun, right?

Also, if we were definitely going to change something, it should be the AP for her lightning, since the railgun and iron sand are more consistent.
 
Still. In Boku no Hero Academia, we have Tier 8-C characters getting wounded by gunshot, tier 9-A durability being weaker than guns. When an author doesn't realize how strong they made their characters, we don't nerf their feats. "Misaka's railgun is weaker than a real life railgun" is obviously bullshit for all we know: it's bullshit even without taking the powerscaling factor into account, since 8-C is obviously way more than the average tank cannon: the M1 Abrams is merely 9-A! A real life railgun reaches 33 megajoules of kinetic energy which is obviously way lower than what her railgun does anyways.

This isn't an anti-feat. It is, like you said, the author not knowing how strong he made a character.

And if there is no anti-feat, nothing putting the railgun as weaker than any other Misaka Mikoto attack, then of course it should scale to her strongest attack.

And while her iron sand has been shown to be weaker than lightning, didn't she often bring it up as a trump card against opponents the lightning failed to harm? This should mean something, even if less than the clearer evidence in the fact that Railgun is a special attack.
 
This isn't about BnHA or about authors making bullets and other piercing attacks hurt characters that should be able to tank that kind of damage. I also didn't compare Mikoto's Railgun to a real life railgun.

There's plenty of evidence againts it, like the lack of railgun or iron sand feats on that level, or how the numbers of her Railgun don't add up to its actual feats. We're already ignoring the actual numbers given in the story to go for its actual feats.

There's no feat that puts the Railgun or iron sand at that level of power. There's only a single statement (OT1, I believe) that puts it at that level, which is inconsistent will all her railgun feats and the numbers given in the story, so there's no reason to take that statement seriously, just like we don't use the couple of "lightspeed lightning" statements the early novels give.

The novel outright says a tanks' cannon has better output than her railgun.

"Original, they are made of composite materials, corrects Misaka. The main guns of recent tanks can fire at about Mach 4.5, says Misaka as she idly adds on to her previous report. That is a greater output than your Railgun, onee-sama."

"It isn't all about the speed, you know?"

She only went by that name because it symbolized her electric powers. Her pride was not condensed into that one attack. In fact, she found her true worth in hitting her enemy with multiple attacks from multiple angles.

And as I mentioned, the arguments you're using (trying railgun or iron sand when her electricity fails) could be used to downgrade her lightning attacks, and it'd make much more sense and be more consistent than what you're arguing.

If you don't bring actual evidence, my vote will remain a no.
 
Eh, I guess I'm okay with downgrading her lightning attacks.

But still, even a Mach 4.5 cannon shooting a 20kg projectile at a speed of sound rounded up to 350m/s is... 24.8 MJ. It's still completely inconsistent with:

1. Her Railgun attack being used to measure her strength

2. It being mentioned as her strongest attack.

And... what do you even mea with "actual evidence"? There are barely any destructive capacity feats for the Railgun. You just can't use any anti-feats based on proposedly real-worldish weapons since a coin traveling at Mach 3 on real life merely dents concrete.
 
It's not used to measure her strength, though? Electromasters like her have their levels measured by a variety of factors, mainly their voltage. Shooting Railguns into a pool is likely only one of the tests she does.

It's more like a signature technique. And the railgun being claimed to be her strongest attack is more of a point against her electricity being 7-C given the lack of feats for railgun and iron sand being on that level.

Actual evidence as in feats or good statements. As I mentioned, the only evidence I'm aware of that would even support an argument for 7-C Railgun would be an statement in OT1 about "her railgun is capable of wiping out a nuclear shelter" or something like that, which doesn't fit the numbers given, the actual feats and comparisons made later, and it coming out from the first volume, which was written before Kamachi knew he was going to make a whole series and part of the early volumes that also make weird claims like the "lightspeed lightning", so it could be dismissed as something Kamachi retconned.

Meanwhile we have several feats of her using the Railgun, both her coin and the stronger versions she sometimes uses as replacemetns, like the iron ball she made on the Jailbreak arc. As far as I'm aware none of those is 7-C.
 
Why not 8-A, then? If, like you said and I'm saying, all points towards her lightning not being 7-C but the railgun attack is still considered one of her important battle techniques (otherwise she shouldn't be so surprised when Accelerator tanks it, shouldn't she? It would be rather obvious that a low-tier attack could be stopped by any other Level 5 Esper with combat-applicable abilities). Doesn't this make a case for scaling all her attacks together to 8-A and give Misaka a solid 8-A classification, disregarding the statements of the novel where they mention numbers since they're so ridiculously inconsistent?
 
It may be correct to remake the calculation that puts your discharges of 1 billion volts into 7-C, mainly because I believe that this number (1,000,000,000) has already been mentioned several times, and there is nothing saying it is wrong.

for Railgun, on the same page as the 8-C calculation, there is also a statement that he can pierce things with 8-A durability, but whether this is accepted or not I do not know.

and I think any upgrade or downgrade in iron sand is equally possible, since depending on the quantity could not result in something weaker than High 8-C and stronger than 8-A?
 
I think it has to do with the resistivity of the air. Basically, 1 ohm = for 1 V you get 1 A of current. With, say, 1000 ohm, then 1 billion volts would get 1 million A.

"Resistance depends on the resistivity of the material. The resistivity of the air is 1.3 ├ù 10^16 to 3.3 ├ù 10^16╬®-m at 200 C. With no ions in the gas its resistance is infinity, so same hold true for air also." said the internet. I'm gonna use the low end and..................... it seems that it gives me downplayed values.

I mean, check it for yourself. Am I doing something wrong or does Misaka emit only 10kJ per second? eeeehh i dun get it

Want a calc group member? *offers a cigarette* wait I don't smoke calc group members

  • ahem*
I'm confused on how to redo this calc.

And presently the penetrative power of the Railgun should not be accepted by this wiki's standards for penetrative power, I think. It also has to be recalced, but my calcs tend to go wrong. >.>
 
Is it? It kinda just gotta mathematical when I tried and failed horribly to calculate the power of Mikoto's lightning. It seems I'm just bad at "mathematical thinking for myself".
 
Technically she could achieve a more powerful railgun if she used a more massive object but if it's not enough dense the range is greatly reduced or for example she could use an iron sand bullet like the one used in the latest arc
 
Malox1696 said:
Technically she could achieve a more powerful railgun if she used a more massive object but if it's not enough dense the range is greatly reduced or for example she could use an iron sand bullet like the one used in the latest arc
Click to expand...
That's... literally the range. It's more like "8-A, higher with Railgun used in objects greater than coins".
 
IMO the stats are fine as they are.

Except from feats there are a few more reasons:

1. We know the railgun is massively limited in power due to friction. Just compare her normal railgun to the liquid proof railgun where friction is eliminated.

2. Magnetism is pretty damn inefficient. That in terms of raw energy in it lightning being above magnetism based attacks makes sense.

3. Consider that lightning is less practicle as a weapon than Kinetic projectiles. Lightning basically only does damage through vaporization/melting and the explosions resulting from doing that rapidly, meaning it destroys to a great extent but not very much.

A real life lightning has 5 billion joules and a human may even survive that. A projectile with that kind of energy would on the other hand completly rip a human apart.

So that her railgun is technically a better weapon probably even makes sense, despite it standing at less energy.
 
@Mand

If the To Aru series was a typical Shounen manga, you would be right.

But To Aru abides more closely to the laws of physics and certain techniques are stronger than others. Misaka's attacks explicitly have different outputs.
 
I think that DontTalk seems to make sense, but I am the wrong person to ask about this.
 
I agree with DontTalk. While her Lightning Spear has higher Joul output her Railgun is more destructive as an attack.
 
I see. Yeah, DontTalk's talk makes sense.

Damn, lightning attacks are useless. I guess this makes most of her fights against 7-Cs AP stomps?

Btw, I guess thread is over.
 
Okay. I will close it then.
 
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