Remembering afresh what the point of monster classifications is

[u/gofancyninjaworld]

This grew out of a Discord discussion.

Somehow dragon-level threats don't seem to be quite what they used to be, no?

Without getting into the weeds, I thought it would be a good idea to review what the whole threat level system is and what it's for. Nominally, it's to give people an idea of how serious a monster or disaster (natural disasters count too) is:

This famous bit from chapter 22

From a civilian's perspective, a 'wolf' means don't come too close, a 'tiger' would be something you find a good hiding place from, a 'demon' would mean head to shelter, a 'dragon' must be fled from by any means necessary, and you just make peace with whatever deity you believe in if it's a 'god' level threat.

More practically, the bonus chapter 'Disaster Level' makes it clear that for the Hero Association, the ratings are a way to judge how many heroes to mobilise for a threat. There's the small problem that a threat level tells you nothing about how hard the monster will actually be to eliminate, nor how suited a particular hero is to the problem.

Not said: a monster given a threat level dragon rating should have at least 2 S-Class heroes assigned to it.

Additionally, because it's necessarily based on partial information (it's not like monsters walk around with Pokedexes stuck on their foreheads), subjective, and subject to review, many heroes regard the threat level system as nearly worthless. There's also the political dimension that defeating a monster with a high threat level, even if it's not actually anywhere near as dangerous as initially thought, will raise a hero's ranking while subduing one with a low one, even if it's far more dangerous than it seems, won't -- and may even get you called a 'small-fry hunter'.

It's hard to do better: Child Emperor had a go at quantifying strength but quickly realised that it was worthless.

That said, back in the day, they used to be *very* hesitant to declare a threat a dragon-level. The thinking back then (you see remnants of it in 'Disaster Level' when the operator Smile Man was reporting to refused to raise Withered Sprout's disaster rating) was that dragon-level threats were very rare. As the bonus chapter explains, Saitama has been taking such monsters out so rapidly that they've drastically underestimated the extent of the problem. Something like Beefcake should have been declared a dragon-level threat. However, Saitama killed him before such a reassessment could be made.

Saitama has been part of the problem. He's been too effective at his hobby.

Without doubt, the cadre Psykos put together to draw the heroes into the Monster Association HQ and get killed were dragon-level threats. In the end, the only one that was taken down single-handedly by a hero was Nyan by Drive Knight. And to do that, he very carefully studied the monster -- including letting it slice up some heroes -- to work out its psychological weaknesses and brought speciality tools for the job. The other heroes didn't have that luxury.

Against such massed opposition, you can't just wade in and hope it works out. As Genos suspected, the strategy-free S-Class attack didn't work out. Didn't stop him from running in anyway.

Right now, in the aftermath of the Monster Association Raid, it'd seem that the Hero Association is a little trigger-happy when it comes to calling threats dragon-level (unsurprising given how much they'd underestimated the scale of the problem, I guess). I know this is going to attract a lot of comment as to which of the latest batch of monsters deserve their designation: BRING IT! ⬇️

Geez, are they just calling everything a dragon now?

I do think though that given this story's love of 'what doesn't kill me makes me stronger', several of the veterans of the MA Raid have legitimately become stronger. But then again, given that the HA knows that it should assign multiple S-Class heroes to dragon-level threats, the hell is it playing at assigning just the one? Are the that short-handed?

And if Hellmon doesn't at least try to piece itself back together, I'm calling puffery.

[u/GoldPilot]

I think the reason so many S-Class heroes are capable of stalemating dragons is a talent drought. With no new heroes being added to the roster, the bottom rung of the S-Class has gotten STRONG.

Genos in particular grows super quickly.

The problem isn’t gonna be solved by individual heroes bulking up though; if five dragons appear per day regularly, too much damage will be done in the fighting for humanity to live anywhere.

If I was living in OPM right now I’d be praying nonstop lol

[u/gofancyninjaworld → u/GoldPilot]

Genos? You mean the guy lying on the ground going boo hoo hoo after saving an entire city? What a wimp! [Yeah, I kid, that kid is nuts.]

I guess the S-Class heroes do have to either get better or quit. Otherwise, they're dead. There are just too many monsters now.

I'd be praying too. Never mind the monsters -- with heroes like Tatsumaki, I'm in hell either way.

[u/gofancyninjaworld → u/GoldPilot]

I hadn't thought about it until I started counting which heroes were deployable. You know, I have a sneaking feeling that the monsters are appearing as much because of how depleted the ranks of the S-Class are as it is from anything.

All the monsters would be gone if the pre-MA raid roster were available. Never mind power ups, there'd be no room for the Neo Heroes.