Board 8 > How would they do in a contest? Day 422 ft Wile E. Coyote, Moltres, Riki

(+) 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 421:

Mr. Saturn (Earthbound/Mother series) is Mid Fodder
Jessie (Toy Story) is Low Fodder
Uncle Fester (The Addams Family) is Low Fodder

Re-Ranking result:

Captain Marvel (Marvel) is still Mid Fodder

Here is today's trio to rank:

Wile E. Coyote (Looney Tunes)
Moltres (Pokemon)
Riki (Xenoblade Chronicles)

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I have to say Low Fodder for Wile E. While his bit with the Roadrunner is very well-known, it is usually Roadrunner who receives top billing in the cartoons and not Wile E. This is also true for most of the video games that exclusively feature the pair (all of them were in the Nes/Snes/Genesis era). Wile E. does get the majority of the character focus and is a lovable loser like Elmer, but he may have a hard time standing out to voters considering he is a mute character in most of his appearances

High Fodder for Moltres. While probably less popular than Articuno and Zapdos, I don't think it's enough of a difference to put him a tier under those 2.

Mid Fodder for Riki. While I'm not sure if he's a fan favorite character, he absolutely stands out from a design and character standpoint, and has a very meme-able speech pattern. Plus he's a Heropon.


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Agreed with halfsilver.

not sure Im a big believer in Riki in particular but Xenoblade seems to have gotten big enough Id give benefit of doubt to any non-hated party members from 1 being not horrible.

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I could see Wile E. being Mid Fodder along the same lines as Tom (and indeed, the former was the Looney Tunes character I was talking about way back when), but I'll agree with Low on the basis that Tom didn't have to share the spotlight with multiple more popular and more frequently appearing characters.

I doubt Moltres is on par with the other Legendary Birds just because it shares that status. I'm not a big believer in legendary status alone making a difference for a Pokmon's popularity here; Articuno and Zapdos are popular largely in their own rights, whereas Moltres isn't very popular despite its status. And while I agree the popularity gap on its own wouldn't necessarily comprise a whole tier, there's also the dual facts that Moltres is clearly the least effective in battle (mainly in RBY versus Articuno), and more importantly that Moltres was tucked away in Victory Road at the very end of RBY. With all that in mind, Mid Fodder is my vote.

Likewise, I can't say I agree with the consensus on Riki's strength. Riki does not strike me as being in a substantively different place from Reyn among Xenoblade fan favorites, who simply started too weak to reach Mid Fodder. I don't think Xenoblade is quite big enough to automatically justify Mid Fodder for a non-hated party member, either. Its strength is about on par with DQXI here, and (for good reason), we've widely agreed that only a minority of that game's roster exceeds Low Fodder, even though they lack a beloved main protagonist to compete with. Likewise, Xenoblade is both weaker and less character-focused than Persona 5, whose own main protagonist completely embarrassed himself last time (and after GotD 2, we can safely call it that, match pic quibbles or no). Thus, Low Fodder is my vote.

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Day 423 is up: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78902749

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