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Environmental Destruction?

Antvasima

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Recently, there seems to be a disagreement amongst the staff regarding whether or not we should gauge weather manipulation as regular Attack Potency, or as "environmental destruction" (that it is not necessarily possible to use all of the required energy as focused attacks).

https://vsbattles.com/vsbattles/534898

It might be best if we reach some sort of conclusion regarding the issue.
 
I am also leaning towards that interpretation. It would likely also cause an uproar if we, for example, downgraded Storm (Marvel Comics) to Building level based on the energy of regular lightning bolts.
 
I think that Environmental Destruction is a term used for nothing but downplaying, and it fully and completely ignores all the implications of producing say, a storm, or an Earthquake, or a Tsunami out of nowhere.

Causing a tornado to suddenly appears does not imply "Environmental Destruction". Instead, it implies:

  • Manipulation over the Weather / Elements tied to said event
  • The power to produce the full energetic output of such an event
To produce a storm, or a tornado, or tsunami, or Earthquake, physical energy that is measured in Joules would be required, and if the character is capable of manipulating the Weather / Winds / Waters/ Earth / etc to such an extent, the character should be capable of manipulating said elemental forces in much simple manners, namely Raw Destruction.

To say that one can put his own energy to produce a Thunderstorm (Which are 7-C in full energetic output), but be unable to apply it in his physical strikes, or energy / lightning / elemental beams, is the same as saying that one is capable of applying enough force to push a door open, but incapable of applying similar levels of strength to punch someone, because the former is simply "Pushing Force".
 
If we do reach a conclusion, it might be useful if we write some sort of guideline regarding the issue. I am uncertain if it would work better as a separate instruction page, or a part of one of our rules pages though.
 
Okay.
 
I already explained the issues in the others threads, we can give them that rating, but since that energy is unrelated to Striking Strength and Durability, scaling it wouldn't work. Causing: earthquakes via earth manipulation, tsunamies via water manipulation, tornados via air manipulation, thurnderstorms via thurder/weather manipulation, etc. shouldn't scale to others since they are unable to use them against others; generally the ones who create a thunderstorm just attack with lightnings, and the ones who create tornados/hurracane just with air blast, attacks that are far less than the power of the phenomenon itself.
 
@antoniofier

AP is independent of Striking Strength, and depending on combat feats, it would scale to Durability.

You completely miss the idea that you need energy for such attacks, and if the character can manipulate energy in such ways, it can use it in others.

And you are also using the fallacy to assume that all users of such feats only use the side-effects to attack. Far from it.

A supernatural air blast from someone who on another occasion made a hurricane should scale to the hurricane. Supernatura Lightning Rays coming from the hands of a storm-maker should scale to the storm.

Please respond how this argument is any different than separating different applications of physical strength?
 
I, personally, don't see the issue with it. As Skodwarde pointed out, AP isn't always limited to explosion. If the character can generate the amount of energy to pull of the said feat, it can be use to scale his/her AP.
 
If we already got evaluating lightnings as 8-C+ or so, why now every lightning form this user will becomes as powerful as the storm itself? Characters doesn't throw the entire storms in the top of someone, so don't need to scale to nothing eslo; also, is pretty common in fiction that psyquics, weather manipulators, between others, has different physic condition than their powers, so scale them would miss the point.

I would like to wait for Kkappoios for more info, he was the one with the original idea (I think); again, I'm not against to scale the energy to AP, but it shouldn't be scalable to nothing else.
 
You miss the point once again.

Imagine the character can produce a full thunderstorm out of nowhere.

Then, on a later fight, he pushes his palms against his opponent and fires immense beams of supernatural lightning.

Why on Earth would we assume his Lightning-Beam Superpowers are weaker than other applications of his power?
 
Skod and Matt pretty much knocked the ball outta the park. If you can manipulate massive storms, that should apply to your attack potency. Energy is involved in some cases as well. I mean blizzards are known for being natural disasters, hurricanes are natural disasters, tornadoes are natural disasters. So if you can manipulate the weather to the point you can conjure tornadoes, you should have the same attack potency as a tornado (at least).

I really see environmental damage as nothing but downplaying, as Matt said. Logically, if we pause and be a bit simplistic about things, we could clearly see certain levels of weather manipulation totally should count for attack potency.
 
I agree with the majority now. Because if we decide that ____ via certain manipulations isn't scalable, only way you can get AP is through being a brute, being a creator, or a weird latent energy thing.
 
However we are currently treating reality warping, is how we should treat weather manipulation.

Also the main problem seems to be more so AOE attacks, its just that weather manipulation is the most common example.
 
Exactly, treating Weather Manipulation as different from AP is like treating Reality Warping as different.

It is also a very awful application of the AOE Fallacy, something that many people here, including Staff, are guilty of.
 
This would only be a problem if we strictly used the term Destructive Capacity, but we have retired such a term. Attack Potency is far more than being a brute, or simple creation/destruction that is outright shown. Doing that means we are ignoring context and are just going off what we "see" or "read" compared to what we can logically figure out just by understanding the source material.
 
No, this is nothing like that. Yes, they can generate the needed Joules, but weather manipulation is entirely scale dependent. You can get away with planet-busting punches only breaking a wall, but you can't get away with Weather manipulation on a small scale like that.

Say Toph, for example, lifts that castle. That got what, City-Block, MCB results? That's cool, but it doesn't really scale to anyone. The energy she delivers per attack is entirely dependent on how big of a rock she's throwing is. Someone who tanks a m^3 rock being thrown at them at 10 m/s is not tanking a City-Block level hit.

In addition, the results from weather manipulation to be far above the character's actual shown destructive potential in concentrated attacks. A good example of this would be Dovahkiin's Storm Call when his best feat without scaling is Mountain level, or Rattata being capable of Rain Dance, or even that guy from Tony Hawk we had recently.
 
Once again people missed the point, so I will repost my previous post.

Imagine the character can produce a full thunderstorm out of nowhere.

Then, on a later fight, he pushes his palms against his opponent and fires immense beams of supernatural lightning.

Why on Earth would we assume his Lightning-Beam Superpowers are weaker than other applications of his power?
 
It is, on some level, a case-by-case thing, but I generally agree with Skod and Matt.
 
That's perfectly fine in that case, but in most situations that isn't how it goes down. What you're using is lightning manipulation to justify weather manipulation. We aren't talking about someone shooting lightning out of their hands, we're using someone waving their hands and clouds come up.

Using Storm as an example, each time she summons up some clouds that'd take on the order of kilotons of energy. Yet her lightning bolts are treated as real lightning and only carry 5 billion Joules of energy.

In Rattata's case he's just summoning up some clouds, yet he obviously doesn't have that level of AP. He can generate the energy needed to do that, he just can't use it in combat.
 
Pretty much what Xcano said, also, sorry but that example of supernatural thunder doesn't convince me, let's to look for an example like Storm: She was stated to control the weather, she didn't create any supernatural storm or something, yeah, she create the storm and has Town level AP for doing that, but beyond that, the value doesn't work, she still attacking with air blast and lightning strikes, those lightnings are like the real one: 10 - 100 M V, 12 - 200 k A and 22k -30k degree Celsious, and those are far less than a Town level rating.
 
@Mat Isnt that example of yours sort of a fallacy? Your asking him to disprove something but you should be the one proving it the lighting does scale.
 
I never said it's applicable in all cased, but that we need evaluate it on a case by case analysis, given how the character works, the scale of his powers, the circumstances of their feats, etc.

Toph needs Prep-Time and a considerable amount of Earth for her feat. It doesn't scale to her attacks.

Meanwhile, Azazel from Supernatural produces Thunderstorms from his mere presence, and as demons are purely incorporeal souls who's powers come from manipulating energy and reality, it will undoubtedly scale to his serious, focused attacks.

Attempting to put an absolute rule for this is stupid.
 
> who's powers come from manipulating energy

Yes, it's legit in that case then. He's manipulating the energy, not the weather. Scientifically those are both the same thing, yeah, but authors don't tend to treat it like that.

Basically, the reason weather manipulation tends to not scale to AP is the same reason anyone who can move X material with their mind can't move EVERY material with their mind, despite there being no real difference.
 
Soldier Blue asked me to post the following message:

"Would it not be best to rate it as merely environmental destruction or legit attack potency on a case by case basis depending on how energies in a verse work or how a certain character can use the energy spent to unleash environmental destruction for attack purposes? For example, if a character can create a storm merely via hax or create a storm but not be able to use such energy output in normal attacks, it should not scale to their AP. But say a character creates storm-like conditions but can also use the energy put out to create said storm in normal AP, then it should scale.

Examples:

(1) A character alters weather via some magical spell but cannot use that kind of energy for normal AP purposes. Phantom Lord arc Juvia from Fairy Tail is a good example. When depressed, she can make it rain. But she can't use that kind of power for normal AP.

(2) A character puts out certain energy from their own "aura" to create blizzard-like conditions. Said energy can also be focused by the character for normal AP. Toshiro Hitsugaya from Bleach is a good example. His reiatsu itself can unleash blizzard-like conditions over a city sized area. Such reiatsu can also be focused into his sword and used for attack (as we have seen Kenpachi Zaraki and Ichigo Kurosaki do with their own reiatsu). It should thus scale to his normal AP.

Note: This is just my humble opinion. If even one staff member who has knowledge & experience with this stuff disagrees with anything I've said here, I will concede and won't bother you all again."
 
While with a first look the argument "if one can create storms he can put the same amount of energy into his other attacks" seems solid but by seeing the problem in more depth we can see that this isn't always the case.

Beginning from the basics on why a storm itself can't be treated as AP: Well that's simple because it has no real attacking value, you can't hurt someone with City Block level durability with a Storm so why would it be rated as High 7-C (a basic principle of our tiering system is that if you have a certain AP then you should be able to hurt characters with the same durability).

Now about applying the same energy on other attacks except: That should be judged case by case.Usually storms are produced by special abilities, superpowers and magical spells.If the storm is created by a superpower A (let's say weather manipulations) and the character uses superpower B (let's say fire manipulation) then no i don't see any good reason for them to be scalable to each other.Same goes for magical spells, most of the time each spell is different and its power depends on its complexity etc.

Another thing is that "energy to make the attack happen =/= energy of the attack" even in other simpler situations, for example on physical attacks.Yes physical attacks, muscles as pretty much everything isn't 100% efficient so while you may "burn" Wall level energy for a punch the KE of your hand may end up to be Human level.

All in all also considering the points made by Antoniofer and LordXcano i think that scaling ones AP from storms, earthquakes should be avoided unless they are the product of energy manipulation or simila powers that allow it or matter manipulation (telekinesis, reality warping etc)
 
Well, I am leaning towards the viewpoint that placing an absolute rule about this, rather than use case-by-case analysis, seems unwise.
 
I think Soldier Blue and Kka put what I was trying to say into clearer words.
 
Here is what VenomElite had to say on the matter:

"Everything should be evaluated on a case by case basis. Referring to the environmental thread @Sera

Having absolute standards for anything in fiction, when we know that authors use different interpretations for various concepts is ridiculous. Even our Tiering System is not absolute, as there are certain interpretations that can "bypass" it let's say."
 
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