Board 8 > How would they do in a contest? Day 424 ft Maria Renard, Harry Du Bois, Mercy

(+) Yeah! (+)

This is a topic to rate the contest strength of potential newcomers in the current contest environment.

I will pick the characters to rate and discuss for each day from user nominations - whoever the 3 most nominated characters are at that time. If there are more than 3 I will pick randomly. You can nominate any number of characters at any time, but you cannot nominate the same character twice.

All characters who were present in the 2018 Character Battle will NOT be eligible. Otherwise you can nominate any character that has appeared in video games; even comic book characters. This will exclude real-life athletes who have only appeared in long running sports series, however I will accept those who have their own games such as Shaq. I will accept nominations for iconic gaming duos too, if there is a compelling reason for both characters to be linked (either co-starring in a game ala Banjo & Kazooie, or always appearing together like Callie & Marie from Splatoon).

Each day will have a separate topic, and nominations will carry over. As far as actually rating the character's contest strength; I ask that users rank a characters potential strength with one of the following qualifiers - LAW Fodder, Low Fodder, Mid Fodder, High Fodder, Fodder Line, Low Midcarder, Midcarder, High Midcarder, Near Elite, Elite, LAW Tier (capable of beating Link). I will average all the ratings given to a character to come up with their final ranking. I have included a highlighted entrant from Character Battle X on each tier of the strength rankings below, to provide a baseline for each.

Note that LAW Fodder is meant to be a tier reserved for the weakest possible characters to put into a contest. A character will only be placed there if at least 3/4ths of the voters for that day agree on the LAW Fodder rating, and no ratings above Low Fodder are given. If either of those conditions are not met, the character will not be eligible for the LAW Fodder tier.

Current Character Strength Rankings: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1P1AIhHywBiLd6VAMZMNEGX-HW2td8u1D0Iw_tzHsORw/edit?usp=sharing

Nomination List: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-KnSBDzppzPK5Ug1zmx8_x0bG4tqFDMPPH2k8J3s8sk/edit?usp=sharing

If you feel that a character has been over or under-ranked, or if a new development has come up that would affect their contest strength, you may nominate them for a re-ranking. You may nominate one character per day for this, and 3 votes are needed to get them on the slate. One character with 3 votes will come up for re-ranking today.

Re-ranking Nomination List: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V6dx-tu-FD1rCxbX69eQwEzE7x1F6nNRNFochYHu1dc/edit?usp=sharing

Results from Day 423:

Ruby Rose (RWBY/Blazblue: Cross Tag Battle) is Low Fodder
Finn (Star Wars) is Low Fodder
Carlos Oliveira (Resident Evil 3) is Low Fodder

Here is today's trio to rank:

Maria Renard (Castlevania)
Harry Du Bois (Disco Elysium)
Mercy (Overwatch)

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Nominate:
Billy Lee (Double Dragon)
Bulma (Dragon Ball)
Cthulhu (Call of Cthulhu)
Cyan Garamonde (Final Fantasy VI)
Cactuar (Final Fantasy)
Jolteon (Pokemon)
Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender)
Leviathan (Final Fantasy)
Maggie Simpson (The Simpsons)
Marin (Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening)
Princess Ruto (Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time)
Quina Quen (Final Fantasy IX)
Qui-Gon Jinn (Star Wars)
Relm Arrowny (Final Fantasy VI)
Sandy Cheeks (Spongebob games)
Stan Lee (Marvel games)
Starmie (Pokemon)
Thief (Final Fantasy)
Toejam & Earl
Wartortle (Pokemon)

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Maria Renard (Castlevania) - Mid fodder

If you've played Symphony of the Night, you at least know who this is. Caring should be extremely limited though, in the PS1 version she's only an NPC. Don't feel like writing her off entirely when Castlevania in general is riding so high, though. And while they're certainly not strong here, she does at least have other games where's playable and stuff.

Harry Du Bois (Disco Elysium) - LAW fodder

It remains the case that very few on gamefaqs have played his game, I don't think the critical praise and hype that probably propped the game last contest a bit (people knew the game was supposed to be good even if they hadn't gotten to it or weren't personally interested) is going to rub off on the main. Also he just doesn't look very attractive.

Mercy (Overwatch) - Low fodder

D.Va was non-abysmal in 2018 but Mercy is probably weaker and I'd figure the franchise trend weaker over time.

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Agree with Mid Fodder for Maria and Low Fodder for Mercy. Maria missed being playable in the Playstation version of SotN but is playable in the PSP version and also Rondo of Blood. Plus she has a lot of other series appearances and is very involved in Alucard and Richter's plotlines. For Mercy she doesn't really stand out enough from the Overwatch cast to do well. She'd definitely be less popular than D.Va.

I will say Low Fodder for Harry. Disco Elysium didn't completely embarrass itself in GotD2 and has some fans on the boards that really love the game, enough so that I expect they would try to rally Harry.

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nominate Brad Whitaker (The Living Daylights)

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Agree with Axem. Sure, Disco Elysium looked not-terrible in GotD 2, but almost anything short of INSIDE could have saved face against Kingdom Hearts III. It's very possible that DE is actually the bottom-10 GotD 2 game its site stats suggest it should be. Also, I'll believe rallies could make a difference when I see hard evidence to suggest it.

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I'll change my vote for Harry to LAW Fodder. DE did probably over-perform considering it was against KH3, and the play rate for the game on the site might be bad enough that a rally for a specific character could be tough to start.

Day 425 is up: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78906703

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