Philosophía
"The devil made me do it"
Originally posted by leonidas
maybe figure out a core of characters we feel are good representatives of the low, mid and high levels of this tier and compare? just thinking out loud...
This is literally what I wanted to suggest in my first post, but I deleted that part.
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We need to find some 'gatekeepers' to borrow a MMA term. The benchmarks of the tier.
My suggestions would be something like...
low street - not that it matters that much, but somebody like The Question [Renee] or Two-Face. People who can handle themselves in a fight, but aren't anything particularly formidable, and generally don't have anything else going for them
mid-street - Black Widow, or the Punisher. Good h2h, good weapons, but not really at the top in either of them.
high-street - either the cream of the crop in h2h [Richard Dragon, Daredevil, Bane], or impressive weapons [Green Arrow [seriously, some of those arrows...], Hawkeye], or in some cases, both [Nightwing, and to a more limited extent[i.e. throw/block] also Cap].
low-meta - these are the ones that can compete with the high-street getting out of the bed, but once they high-tech up [Batman, Black Panther] they're leaving them in the dust. I suggest, along those two, Spiderman [physical abilities and webbing] to be the other bench-mark. I don't want to include Wolverine here, because he operates on a sliding scale, depending on who he faces. He's kind of built like that - you can argue he could beat half of any meta tier.
mid-meta - this is the tricky one, as you pointed out. the criteria I'm using are the benchmarks in high meta [more on that in a bit] and the ones in low-meta. Basically, if they're not quite high, but not quite low, they fit right in. But maybe we need a few chars to really drive it home. Venom/Carnage caught my eye.
high-meta - Iron Man is the definitive one for this tier, imo. He is the underdog every time against the tier above him, he has good fights with the ones in his [Namor, Thing], and he's a heavy favorite against the ones below him.
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@shang
He's had some weapons [made by Tony iirc], that I don't know if they are permanent, but they help him do some low-level stuff [shoot fireballs and whatnot].
Here's the fight with Gorgon you're referring to:
https://imgur.com/gallery/1PGysuJ
I wouldn't put him at low-meta, but I can see why some people would think differently. I don't think his chi-control makes that big of a difference or, better said, not as big of a different as some of the weapons found in street [Bat-family's stuff, the archers, etc.]. I'd rather have their stuff, or hell, even Punisher's stuff, than his chi showings, if I were to go in a tourney.
But, as I said...it may vary.
@gamora
I'm also split, but I thought I'd throw her out there.
@qs he doesn't have an amp, but he's still hypersonic/relativistic, which is right in the ballpark of Northstar, imo.
I'm not that familiar with Ghost Rider, so I'll defer.
@Hawkman is...weird. He's all over the place. Given the hyping up of N-th metal, and his current series, I'd wait a bit.
@Aquaman.
I'd still have him at high-meta. His strength has certainly gotten a boost [WW level], but unless his 'life-communcation' [I'm going by Snyder] gets some concrete showings, I wouldn't move him just now. His trident certainly makes a case for it, though...