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Ash's Pikachu Power Scaling

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CloverDragon03

CloverDragon03

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This isn't a vs. debate, but it's something I've been meaning to ask due to my own confusion. How is Pikachu's tiering at High 6-A when he's defeated the likes Tapu Koko, who is at a 4-B rating? I'm sure there's a reason for this, but it's gotten me pretty confused.
 
To be blunt, the Pokemon pages are generally in a pretty poorly defined state currently. Ash's Pikachu isn't considered 4-B due to his scaling being considered outliers, but other common pokemon (such as Lucario) have been scaled to 2-C, possibly 2-B based on a singular, highly questionable, feat against a Darkrai that is pretty featless AP-wise.

Zeraora was upgraded to 5-B, and then 4-B, based on it battling a Guzzlord in the anime whereas Pikachu is still only considered 7-A, merely higher with electricity and Z-Moves, even though Pikachu contributed over 50% of the power to overpower a Guzzlord and has matched that same Zeraora in battle. This becomes especially egregious when you notice that Pikachu defeated Guardian of Alola, which is a construct using all of the power of Alola (and requires the powers of all Tapus to trigger) when the Tapus are shown to be capable of easily blocking off a Guzzlord with their combined energy.

It's even stranger when you note that Ash has a Melmetal, which is considered 4-B, and Kukui's Incineroar stomped it...which would scale all of Ash's pokemon to 4-B for scaling to Kukui's Incineroar.

Overall, if you ignored the claims that every single one of SM Pikachu's feats are outliers, you'd come to the conclusion that SM Pikachu is 4-B for scaling above Tapu Koko and is further into 4-B for overpowering and defeating Guardian of Alola.
 
I see. To my knowledge, outliers are singular feats that are far above the character's normal capabilities, and are thus not counted when considering their overall tier. However, if Pikachu was pulling off feats like this consistently throughout Sun and Moon (assisting in the defeat of Guzzlord, defeating Silvally, and overpowering Tapu Koko's Guardian of Alola), would all of those be outliers? Even though Pikachu has defeated legendaries before, without any influence from the Blue Orb, prior to SM?
 
That seems to be the implication on the wiki, yes.

I believe SM Pikachu scales to legendaries VERY consistently, and this has (thus far) continued into PM2019, with Pikachu's Thunderbolt overpowering the combined Hyper Beam of Gyarados and Tyranitar (which should be a mid-tier High 7-A feat) and its Thunderbolt stunning and even hurting Lugia (a 6-B) for a few seconds.

The only reason this scaling doesn't make sense is due to:

A) UBs and Island Guardians were 5-B before due to UBs 'threatening the world' (even though we see a world where UBs won, and it's very clear their AP is nowhere close to 5-B)

B) In the PokeSpe manga, the Tapus, UBs, Zygarde and Sivally all scaled to 4-B for taking on Necrozma, and they scaled Zeraora and Melmetal to 4-B for scaling in the anime (Melmetal to Sivally and Zeraora to Guzzlord), even though Ash's Pikachu defeated a weakened Sivally (after Sivally defeated Melmetal) and even though Zeraora's scaling is the exact same as what Pikachu did to Guzzlord.

Overall, it's not that Pikachu doesn't scale to legendaries consistently in SM and PM2019 (thus far), rather it's the fact that the legendaries he scale to were given ridiculous tiering upgrades based on scaling in a single manga, that has no relation to the Anime or Games outside of Multiverse theory.
 
I see. In that case, it would seem more consistent to rank UBs, Island Guardians, and anyone that scales to them as 5-B and bump Ash's Pikachu to 5-B, at least that's what my guess is on what would be a more consistent way to rank these Pokemon.
 
From my perspective, the Anime has a VERY different view on scaling legendaries than the Manga. Their legendaries are usually around Island-level and higher, with others like Groudon, Kyogre and Rayquaza being continental. Mewtwo and Mew are depicted as being somewhere in 6-B, considering Mewtwo wasn't going to destroy the Earth but was, rather, going to raze it and wipe out the human race IIRC.

I don't think any legendaries in the anime, thus far, have displayed actual planetary statements or feats other than Darkrai, Creation Trio and Arceus.
 
Maybe, but it seems like the wiki uses their highest-scaled feats, which is why the Tapus, UBs, etc. are all 4-B. However, if they were all 5-B instead, bumping Ash's Pikachu to 5-B wouldn't be much of a stretch (that's one buff Pikachu)
 
Yeah, it does. The wiki treats all legendaries across all universes as sharing the same AP. I've expressed many, many, times my discontent with that stance on scaling and don't think any of the writers across different mediums (Manga, Anime, Games, Cards, Lore, etc) are collaborating or quality checking to maintain consistency across canons.

Regardless, I would say I agree with your assessment. Pikachu should be scaling to the Tapus and UBs based on everything it has done in SM. Even if they wouldn't scale Pikachu, they should scale the rest of Ash's SM team as well as Anime Kukui.
 
the 100,000 volt move was the only move that touch them actually and the solar beam from the ivysaurs must have weaken them
 
The Solar Beam weakened them, I believe, but Pikachu's Thunderbolt clashed with their combined Hyper Beam and completely overpowered it, and then finished them off.

Pikachu struggles a bit visibly before Ash tells it to go further, and then completely overpowers the Hyper Beam with ease. It didn't even win a BEAM STRUGGLE it VAPORISED the combined Hyper Beam.

There is this great Reddit user named DoctorGecko that compiles sources and such for feats and statements in the anime. This is a Gif he made on his Reddit post for PM Pikachu here. It shows the feat I detailed above.

Fully-evolved Pokemon scale to Charizard's feat of melting mountains which was calculated to be 790.31 Megatons. Tyranitar and Gyarados' Hyper Beam should be equal to this feat at least, so their combined Hyper Beam must be around 1.6 Gigatons (Close to mid-High 7-A AP) and Pikachu completely overpowered it with a single Thunderbolt. This scales Pikachu to around or even above mid-High 7-A I believe.

It should also be noted, the anime goes out of its way to show Giovanni greatly respects and trusts the Team Rocket trio and his machine seems to have hundreds of Team Rocket-owned pokemon. These aren't average pokemon, they are pokemon intended for elite Team Rocket members to use in battle. So it's extremely doubtful that this Tyranitar or Gyarados are weak members of their species, considering Team Rocket seeks powerful pokemon to steal and use.
 
Also, it's worth pointing out that Melmetal is only 4-B because of the fact that it fought evenly with Gladion's Silvally, which is only 4-B because of the world-destroying thing from the manga. If we're taking my idea into account, Melmetal would get nerfed to 5-B and the rest of Ash's Pokemon would hit 5-B as well, same with Kukui's Pokemon.
 
Episode 4 aired with the Pikachu vs Starter battle, and Pikachu one-shot. Still no outliers from SM Pikachu's feats outside of not defeating Lugia easily, and definitely no outliers from it being High 7-A for overpowering a combined Hyper Beam by Gyarados and Tyranitar.

We'll see how the anime handles Gigantamax Snorlax in the next episode, considering Gigantamax is currently scaled above Lugia IIRC.
 
I think Pikachu being upgraded to High 7-A is reasonable currently, but somebody needs to contact the Knowledgeable Members regarding Pokemon, particularly staff that can approve the upgrade.
 
Considering Cal has already posted here, I think we'd only need Dark649, GyroNutz and maybe Saikou to take a look at the thread and consider whether Pikachu being High 7-A is a reasonable upgrade.

I don't really remember the requirements to upgrade a character though, so Cal might be able to approve it himself.
 
If he were to be upgraded though, would it just be High 7-A or at least High 7-A? I think the latter is better because Pikachu has been shown to compete with even legendaries (even at the beginning of the SwSh anime, he damaged Lugia, a 6-B character). I might be stretching it, but MAYBE "At least High 7-A, possibly higher," though I think "At least High 7-A" works too. There's no reason for Pikachu to stay 7-A, that's for sure.
 
I believe at least High 7-A makes more sense. I'm relatively certain he's at least 7-A due to all of his higher tier scaling that isn't consistent with how he fairs against weaker pokemon.
 
Honestly, this was only prevalent when Pikachu fought Snivy in Unova, and since that was one instance, I'm pretty sure it could be considered an outlier. Take the new anime for instance. Pikachu damaged Lugia, overpowered a combined Hyper Beam from a likely well-trained Gyarados and Tyranitar, and one-shot Scorbunny. At least High 7-A sounds good, and I still think MAYBE, just MAYBE due to its higher feats, we could have it as "At least High 7-A, possibly higher" (or likely higher if the odds are favorable enough)
 
I'm talking worse case scenarios here. Tbh, a possibly 4-B rating is possible because of his accomplishments against Guzzlord, Silvally, and Tapu Koko (the latter on multiple occasions), on top of being comparable to, if not stronger than, Melmetal. Imagine that tho, "At least High 7-A, possibly 4-B." Talk about a jump
 
Yeah, I acknowledge that that's a stretch. The thing is, though, that Pikachu has scaled to Pokemon like Tapu Koko, Silvally, and Guzzlord, all of which he has defeated, and via power scaling by comparing the opponents he and Melmetal fought, Pikachu should be at least as strong as Melmetal. The thing is, the three Pokemon I mentioned were all 5-B, but got boosted to 4-B because of the whole world-threating thing with Necrozma and Zygarde, but 5-B arguably makes more sense for them, and at that point, a 5-B Pikachu sounds reasonable.
 
I'm just demonstrating that power scaling for Pokemon is pretty poor here. One feat suddenly scaled a number of mons much higher than they frankly should be. The UBs and Island Guardians were 5-Bs before this, as was Zeraora. Funnily enough, despite equally contributing to the defeat of Guzzlord, Zeraora got boosted to 4-B yet Pikachu stayed as "At least 7-A"
 
Regardless of the case, Pikachu is definitely at least High 7-A as of PM2019. Gigavolt Havoc's AP scales far above its normal AP and 10,000,000 Volt Thunderbolt is the most powerful attack in the entire franchise (considering it enables Pikachu to one-shot UBs and Guardian of Alola), and clearly scales far above Gigavolt Havoc.

10,000,000 Volt Thunderbolt >> Guardian of Alola >> Gigavolt Havoc >> Pikachu >> Tyranitar

10,000,000 Volt Thunderbolt should be 4-B, considering it only has 4-B scaling. Gigavolt Havoc seems to also be 4-B, but to a far lesser degree, and Pikachu itself is at least High 7-A.

The issue is that Pikachu has fought numerous 4-Bs and tanked them, without using any Z-Moves to amp its AP briefly.
 
And the fact that Pikachu has done so consistently means that they can't really be considered outliers, as this strength has not only been consistent in the SM anime, but has also carried over into the 2019 anime.

I think it's safe to assume that Ash's Pikachu needs an upgrade, one way or another.
 
CryoTheMayo said:
Yeah, it does. The wiki treats all legendaries across all universes as sharing the same AP. I've expressed many, many, times my discontent with that stance on scaling and don't think any of the writers across different mediums (Manga, Anime, Games, Cards, Lore, etc) are collaborating or quality checking to maintain consistency across canons.
Click to expand...
Of course they aren't keeping quality control of all of them, that doesn't make sense. But Word of God says both the anime and PokéSpe are as valid as the games at the end of the day, so at least those 3 should be used interchangably.
 
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