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Pokémon: The High 6-C Re-Redowngrading

Kepekley23

Kepekley23

VS Battles
Retired
15,332
7,563
Okay, so I spent a little while to write all this up, but here we go.

Introductio
The fully-evolved Pokémon were reupgraded to High 6-C while I was gone due to this thread, which argues that Pokémon's Magnitude move triggers real earthquakes and not just the radiated energy.

Allow me to indulge it as I counter all the points that were made in favor of that.

Revision
> They do more damage if the opponent is underground, signifying that they're closer to the initial impact of the attack

That's not how real life earthquakes work. The energy released by the shifting gets mostly displaced underground and only does major damage once it reaches the surface.

> Argument 1: Dugtrio triggers huge earthquakes via digging 60 miles underground, which is relatively close to where the tectonic plates are.

  • Reply: Except Dugtrio does this by burrowing, not by using the move Earthquake. Nobody who can use the move would scale to this. Also, stronger (deep-focused) earthquakes occur at depths of >200-300km, while quakes that occur from Dugtrio's burrowing range, 60 miles, are considered shallow earthquakes, which do more localized damage but release less energy overall, so there's really no proof Dugtrio is triggering a major quake. Any earthquake can be labelled "huge" close to the epicenter, even a Magnitude 6.
> The move Earthquake is said to trigger an Earthquake and the animation for the move nowadays is more than just shaking the surface, as it creates fault lines and whatnot and you can see what appears to be lava underneath (though that orange light from underground can be a number of things)

> What's more, Earthquake and Fissure (the move where the ground opens up deep) seem to have a correlation, as Pokémon Contests have them linked.

  • Reply: The only link they have in the contest is your character gaining more Appeal points if they use Fissure after Earthquake. In other words, it means normal, impressionable human audiences think it's a flashy combination to show in a talent contest. Now, allow me to so gently ask what is this supposed to prove at all in regards to how they function?
As for being similar, they definitely aren't. As the description of Fissure states, the user just rips the ground in half to throw the foe in. It's not related to an earthquake in any way.

> Whiscash gained the ability to predict earthquakes that are explicitly stated to be real earthquakes, and it gained that ability through its own earthquake causing, showing their relation.

  • Reply: 1. All this means is that Whiscash can predict seismic waves, which are the result of an earthquake's radiated energy. Vibration sensing is a very common ability in fiction.
  • 2. Pokémon: Sapphire strongly implies Whiscash's earthquakes are pseudoquakes and not real at all:
"If Whiscash goes on a wild rampage, it sets off a quake-like tremor with a radius of over three miles."

All Whiscash can do is cause tremors that are similar to those of an earthquake. This strongly implies it generates radiated seismic energy, and not a real tectonic plate displacement.

This also elaborates on what is said in Ruby's Pokédex regarding Whiscash triggering "massive" earthquakes, and shows us that the "huge" in Dugtrio's Pokédex doesn't have to mean a Magnitude 8 quake (an earthquake so intense that it would be felt with clarity as far as 600 kilometers away from the epicenter), but more like a localized quake that still deals plenty of damage.

Conclusion

  • "What now?"
Pokémon would return once again to 6-C via the several still valid feats that we had discussed before. The discussion for its scaling will also have more attention once this is done. Pokémon is a huge mess, both in speed and AP right now, and we should bring attention to this so we can fix it.
 
Cal's entire argument revolved around Magnitude triggering real earthquakes because Earthquake had shown signs of being real. With his points having been debunked, there's no evidence suggesting that Magnitude's quakes are real and not radiated waves. But hey, thanks for pointing out a word I got wrong. I changed it to "Magnitude" now.
 
The point of the OP is that those earthquakes aren't natural. It applies to Magnitude and Earthquake alike
 
Also just want to point out that the description of both Earthquake and Magnitude have in fact changed to better reflect what happens when the move is used
 
Pokemon's tiering flips back and forth more often than a Magikarp in a vibrator. uwu

I'm gonna follow this and wait for everyone's opinion before I give my own.
 
No, they have not.

  • Fire Red and Leaf Green description of Earthquake: "An earthquake that strikes all Pokémon in battle excluding the user"
  • Ultra Soon and Ultra Moon description of Earthquake: "The user sets off an earthquake that strikes every Pokémon around it."
Same description with the words rearranged.

  • Fire Red and Leaf Green desc. of Magnitude: "A ground-shaking attack against all standing Pokémon. Its power varies."
  • Ultra Soon and Ultra Moon desc. of Magnitude: "The user attacks everything around it with a ground-shaking quake. Its power varies."
Essentially nothing has changed that'd make it a real earthquake as opposed to a radiated quake.
 
Seems legit.

I did always think those High 6-C were a bit iffy.
 
This also elaborates on what is said in Ruby's Pokédex regarding Whiscash triggering "massive" earthquakes, and shows us that the "huge" in Dugtrio's Pokédex doesn't have to mean a Magnitude 8 quake (an earthquake so intense that it would be felt with clarity as far as 600 kilometers away from the epicenter), but more like a localized quake that still deals plenty of damage.

Curiously enough, I was wondering if you meant something more by stating this? Like does the fact that the move doesn't actually cause damage or change as far as the end of the very region make it dubious of it being an earthquake in the first place? Because, and I'm just saying, if that's the case then that would also invalidate Z-Moves since a lot of Z-Moves revolve aroud big nuke-like attacks that would realistically leave quite a crater behind or something.
 
@Jakob

I meant that the Pokédex's statements regarding "massive earthquakes" shouldn't be automatically assumed to be large magnitudes (>7) just because they're said to be huge quakes, and Whiscash exemplifies that. The Ruby dex states its rampages trigger massive quakes, but the Sapphire dex reveals that said "massive" quakes only affect a radius of 3 miles.

A lot of quakes above Magnitude 4ish can be considered "huge" near the epicenter, where they start cracking the roads and damaging household items.
 
Earthquakes also don't need to be a high magnitude to do significant damage, it depends how close they occur to the surface. Though the pokemon "Earthquakes" aren't tectonic plates moving or anything like that.
 
I agree with this. The Earthquake and Magnitude moves only deal localized damage in all incarnations. Even Wishcash's 3km quake is tiny compared to what a real Earthquake should be. Unlike most attacks that you could argue AoE on, the functionality of an earthquake in the way that yields such results cannot be shrunk. If the earthquake truly was the level that it is currently treated like being a city would be leveled every time Garchomp attacks. And no, this isn't the Tyranitar issue, since Tyranitar's rating doesn't come from an attack that literally cannot have high energy density or controlled AoE.
 
@Phoenix

What is the original feat for that calc? Treating a single pixel as 262 meters is... interesting.

And the Kyogre they're calcing is 68 quadrillion kilos, so there's that. So a Mount Everest-mass Pokemon on a shot that makes 4 pixels equal a kilometer.

Nah it's probably fine what am I saying
 
@Assalt

It's a manga feat where 12 fully evolved Pokémon destroy a gigantic metal Kyogre built by Team Aqua together.
 
Pretty sure it was, but I think there might be a problem with scaling this to the normal Pokémons, since this Kyogre was actually created via a wish to Jirachi asking for a stronger-than-normal Kyogre, IIRC. That would make it a fat outlier.
 
I mean if it was blown up by 12 normal Pokemon you can simply say that it wasn't stronger than the actual Kyogre at all
 
@Assalt

It's made of water.

I don't remember the feat all that well, just that it was a Jirachi'd Kyogre. I am getting it mixed up with the other gigantic Kyogre feat.
 
I didn't read that manga from a long time, but iirc Ivan wishes to Jirachi for an artificial Kyogre made of sea water in order to drow the world.
 
@Prof

Well it's big, but it is certainly not Mount Everest-sized. It looks like it's a couple hundred meters.
 
They got that size by mapscaling Hoenn to the Battle Frontier island, then scaling Kyogre to said island due to him being gobsmackingly huge compared to it.
 
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