Board 8 > How would they do in a contest? Day 645 ft Jesse Faden, Meganium, Maria (FF2)

(+) 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 644:

Typhlosion (Pokemon) is Mid Fodder
Croconaw (Pokemon) is Low Fodder
Alena (Dragon Quest IV) is Low Fodder

Here is today's trio to rank:

Jesse Faden (Control)
Meganium (Pokemon)
Maria (Final Fantasy II)

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so Robin (Fire Emblem Awakening) should be up for re-ranking today. if they get enough ratings today I'll go ahead and do the re-rank.

Low Fodder for Jesse and she's lucky to get that. Control has gotten some praise but it is still a pretty niche B8 darling. Control didn't make GOTD2 either but I think it was just too new at that point.

Mid Fodder for Meganium. It is likely the least popular final form Johto starter, but I doubt it's by a large margin.

Maria is another main party member from one of the least popular mainline FF games. She won't be terrible but just doesn't have much going for her - Low Fodder

I will re-rank Robin at High Fodder. They are popular enough to at least match Chrom imo and are a far more interesting character in Smash. Robin's designs are fairly consistent save for the hair, so I don't think they suffer much from Player Avatar Syndrome.

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Agree with Low Fodder for Jesse and Maria and High Fodder for Robin. Control doesn't appear to be very well-liked on this site as a whole, but much like Alan Wake (and seemingly unlike A Plague Tale for example), it has a devoted albeit small fanbase that should turn up to support its main character.

However, I will also rank Meganium at Low Fodder. Typhlosion had about 7x as many votes for favorite Pokemon in the 50,000 respondent-strong r/Pokemon survey (reddit.com/r/pokemon/comments/c0w4s0/favourite_pokmon_survey_results/), which likely suggests a one-tier gap on its own if those dynamics translate here whatsoever. Plus, I've gotten the anecdotal sense that Chikorita was far and away the least-picked Johto starter. I personally think a big part of why is because the entire line is pretty overtly "girly" in design in a way unmatched by any other set of starters from the first five generations.

Nominate Cloud of Darkness, Junpei Iori, and Yukari Takeba.

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Jesse - low fodder
Meganium - low fodder

Was willing to go mid for Chikorita but I figure Meganium is weaker.

Maria - low fodder
Robin - high fodder

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Day 646 is up: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/79386339

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