12:09 funniest battle situation 😂 Jojo realized he finna lose so he finna beat the card dealer with pure intimidation 🤣🤣

One cool “power scaling” technique that you mostly see in games is when a boss-level enemy or move gets reintroduced as part of a standard encounter. When used in anime, though, it runs the risk of becoming an example of Conservation of Ninjutsu

Stand stats aren't really power rankings, they are more akin to description. You can get some information from them, but noone would ever even consider "ranking" stands, especially based on the stats that are, by the way, purely meta information. Characters never access it, and even if they could, this would mean little to nothing to them.

Power scale in JoJo feels like a bit of a meme or half-baked attempt to imitate other shows that use such metrics because not only it is pretty inconsistent but also meaningless 99% of the time since everything relies on strategies and mind games anyway.

My issue with powerscaling is always the "white box" setup that everyone uses, two characters are set up in a white box facing each other and fight one another to the death, i see it literally everytime and it bugs the hell out of me because so goddamn much goes into a fight INCLUDING the environment. If the fight is set in a city then someone nimble may be able to use the environment or someone virtuous may be careful about the citizens, intentions also matter batman never kills so he would try to take down his opponent nonlethaly basically no matter what and also they seem to always know what abilities the other has (which is kinda explained because 99.9% of anime mcs have a "danger sense" but whatever.)

I think rankings still have the powerlevel problem but atleast they usually immediately have a cap.

Imma glaise jojo now, so in the final fight of part 3 none of the characters know what dio's stand does and they figure it out through some well made plans, they have been attacked by his stand but have not seen it so they assume it is invisible so kakyoin uses his stand to make incredibly thin lines and taunts dio to come after him, if he feels any pressure on the lines he will know for sure what his ability is, dio then stops time to attack kakyoin who then deduces that his power is time related and tells the others by shooting a clocktower nearby, Jotaro after a lengthy battle with dio, acknowledges that their stands are the same in strength and speed so he believes they are the same stand and if dio's stand can stop time so can his and it does, this sounds kinda like bullshit but it is forshadowed in the manga (i think it was cut from the anime) and even after this revelation jotaro can only stop time for about 5 seconds while dio can stop time for 10 still leaving him at a disadvantage so he waits for the moment dio gets cocky with the road roller to pull off a counter attack, dio lost not because he was weaker far from it (in terms of shear power he has him beat in time stop and his own personal strength because he is a vampire), but because dio was cocky, greedy and underestimated his opponent, jotaro won because he was calculated, saw these weaknesses and took advantage of them.

A lot of fights fall flat for me because either it's a stomp one way or the protagonist is getting stomped but then gets a bs power up that isn't even really a counter for that enemy but is just "i can do an explosion equal to 25 killatons of tnt so you die"

As he said, the only actual problem with scaling is Writing using it. The very point of martial arts and combat prowess is to overcome a superior opponent. That’s why a frail old man skilled in martial arts can throw a young powerlifter that only brawls head on.

Yup. The point of power levels in dragon ball z. Was to show how useless they were. Thats why we have so many "inconsistencies" in dragon ball z as a whole. Nobody is stronger than the other because they have a higher powerlevel. Infact, jiren is a great example of this. According to canon. Hes only about a fraction stronger than goku and vegeta. And was excelling and fighting the both of them together. Not because of his powerlevel. But because of his skill  

Source: Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero

Vegeta: "Jiren was so overwhelmingly strong, yet his power really wasnt so diffrent from ours. Even in the midst of battle, his body and spirit were both relaxed until the moment he struck."

As a powerscaler, I 100% agree with this.

The best powerscaling debates is when it's more about how each character personality, unique style and lore clashes rather then pure stats.

I just dont like a number based fight much, as i have heard somewhere "precision beats power, timing beats speed" and fights that  follow this quote are really good. A good example i can think is miyata from hajime no ippo. He lack the strength of monsters like ippo and sendo but still is compareable to them.

Dragon Ball was a perfect "Unbuilt Trope" of this at first, with Vegeta and Nappa relying on being "elite Saiyans" and Freeza being a "Deconstruction" of the "World's Strongest Man" by relying purely on raw strength to the point of transforming to RESTRAIN his power.

0:07 "just a little... Numbers game"
-jevil

I think that power ranking as described by the end also speaks to the Japanese viewer as it's more or less based within a social hierarchy.
It doesn't just serve the fights but also the drama that comes with any sort of stratification.
Compare that to Western examples. I can't imagine most versions of superman proudly declaring himself S rank superhero.

See the worst thing is fans turned power levels into basically the most important aspect of action story. You go to Shounen servers and forums and even fans criticism of " writing" is largely based on them thinking about power scaling. You can barely provide analyses without being attacked. Subtle, covert powerscaling is much more interesting, but when fans speak on this they always get attacked on " feats." Look at ATLA, covert examples are used throughout such as the " tigerdillo" aspect. Overall great points, but one gripe. Objectively, a big disparity in power is a HUGE way to stoke tension. This is why David vs Goliath battles, or in shounen villains like Sukuna, Aizen, Madara work. The Big Bad who is so powerful he can decimate your forces leaves audiences unsure of how we can win, and fear the villain as a result. This is a simple tension building technique.

You know what else helps a fight feel better? Letting your protag LOSE. Make the fight feel like it has true stakes and not just, "If you lose, the series will be over," raising he stakes so high they HAVE to win, but a conflict where your protag still loses and either has to train to get stronger or find a new tactic around it. STAKES can make or break a fight depending how wild you get, so the risk isn't gone on making things stale, but if you always win, then why are you worried?

Power levels started with Kinnikuman. It is also the origin of "the power of friendship" which is very literal in that series. Warsman gets a power up form where he literally downloads the power of Friendship to get stronger.

I think many anime/manga/manhua use rankings purely to hype characters up and never making something meaningful out of it. Simply classifying someone as A tier or S class is not all that different from saying their power level is 1K or 2K. Jojo's system, which measures certain aspects of stands, actually tells you what their strengths and weaknesses are, which is far more informative. This information can also be learned by and used by characters within the story, unlike "oh this guy is S class, so he must be strong" which says nothing about how said guy fights or what he is good at.

I think the only time the "Power level"  trope is done well is in Yugioh where everything is static. You know exactly how much damage every attack does, the power of every piece in play, and every single tool in a fighter's arsenal
Thus, fanmade fights can be meticulously scripted out down to the very last detail and there's no ambiguity or discrepancy whatsoever
However, this only applies to fanmade fights, cause in the official anime, they just make up plot armour effects on the spot and throw balance out the window LMAO

i've always advocated for execution of an idea more than the idea itself. Even something as bad as "i have a bigger stick, therefore i win" typa fightcan still be redeemed. Frieren vs Aura fight is THE perfect example, the entire fight boils down to "you may have trained for 500 years but i'ev trained for 1000 years" *instantly wins*, yet the anime manage to make it feel good watching, and her saying she trained for 1000 years was not only built up to, but also has consequences later down the line and not just some throwaway line to be cool in the moment.

Here's a fighting trope that bugs me, when special forces are just as easy to defeat as a street punk.
Batman should not be able to take down a highly trained League Of Shadows master assassin as easily as a two bit gangsta holding both his waist band up and his gun sideways.
It's not just about power scaling. If the villain is supposed to be dangerous because of their army but their army is nothing but chaff for the hero then where are the stakes?
And it gets worse when the army can aim well and is actually threatening when they're fighting other no name characters but the moment the hero's in the line of fire they shoot like they're blind.

Dragon Ball never criticized power levels, they even provided canon power level multipliers for characters and techniques