Becoming a Ranker??

[XXGenesis]

This thread here is to address some of TOG’s Lore of climbing the Tower; Becoming a Ranker; Why I believe some regulars can defeat a Ranker

Lore is always fun and without it being fully addressed we are left to speculate or use head cannon from our different Perspective.

So entertain me a bit. I believe It’s propaganda or a misconception that Regulars CANNOT deafest a Ranker. Now when I talk about Rankers here I’m not talking about High Rankers, Advance Rankers….No simply weak ass Rankers like the Test Ranker.

Let’s address the WHY this statement is 99% or 98% True. Climbing the Tower to floor 134 after being selected by Headon takes on average hundred or hundreds of years, we seen what the climb is like on the lower floors. So the challenges only get more difficult until finally, you ascend to 134 pass the test and hurray you are now a Ranker. So of course completing that journey puts you on a certain lv way above a Regular who is still climbing and haven’t completed the test and competitions of the higher lvs.

*Irregulars need not be mentioned here, we are referring to Regulars. All known Irregulars have shown Ranker lv skills in the lower floors they are destined to be at the top.

*Adori Jahad. Is said to be the only exception to a regular defeating Ranker. Adori was a A Rank Regular & defeated a elite Ranker; Shortly after becoming a Ranker defeated Garam Jahad and other older Rankers than her.

*let’s note a difference here. Baam C-class Regular/irregular defeated a Test Ranker; & Adori a A class Regular defeated a elite Ranker…

Note the differences.
1) Baam is an irregular, Adori is not but she is a Princess of Jahad.
2) Baam defeated a weak ranker at C class, While Adori defeated a Strong ranker at A class.

Both are impressive and are said to be the 1st & 2nd time the event has occurred.

**Lets me note those; I don’t think any Regular under B class would defeat an Ranker. A class Regulars however, I believe stand a chance and here’s why.

Regulars chosen by Headon are chosen to climb the Tower. We don’t know how this system works per say, why and how he chooses them, some characters seemed almost whenever they were willingly to climb he appears…

Regulars can also be hundreds of years old before they climb and depending on their upbringing can be well aware of many mechanics, laws and workings of the tower. I.e Shinsu control, Shinsu properties, etc knowledge is power.

Also there exist Regulars with connections to Great Families,FUG, Princesses, Wolkihasong, Workshop…Whom affiliations give them an advantage among other regulars….

These advantages are from Being descendants of Irregulars/Family Heads, Family influence, Jahad’s Blood…..

AA from the Khun family stole items that Regulars on the 20th floor and lower just wouldn’t have. A Armour inventory! This is priced within a Rankers pay range, regulars shouldn’t be able to afford it…

Elaine also had an Armour inventory, that only Baam an irregular broke…Other regulars are not breaking her Armour inventory, & again it’s something you commonly see for a ranker, not some rich regular; they are very very expensive.

Wolkihasong Gifted Hatz a D-class regular at the time an ignition weapon, that Rankers can’t even use. He was told to keep it a secret, it also allowed him to fight evenly with a D class Lo po bia Princess. Later we see the weapon made Hatz a C-class regular immune to an High Rankers ability of hypnosis, & dispel his ability…

Elaine a 1000year old Regular former Princess candidate, as an anima her wolf is capable of piercing Rankers flesh….She’s capable of hurting a Ranker, a 1000 year old D Class Regular.

AA was trained by Evan a Top 100 High Ranker, who illegally jailbroke his lighthouse & uses a ignition weapon for Enma Core. A seemingly High Ranker Lighthouse ability, that is being used by a Regular who was thought the illegal way to use it.

AA also received the flames of the Yeon family Ranker. To which he used to revive himself from death against a Ranker…revive & power up a canine ranker…

Endorsi, uses Bong Bong to fly. Flying is a thing for Rankers, as it takes A LOT of Shinsu control. Regulars ARE not known to fly. Yet Endorsi can because of a Workshop item.

Overall to my main point. Exceptional Regulars, whether they are from Great Family, Branch Family, Princesses…

1) They will natural stand out amongst the Regulars, being the Top of their Regular class or their position; Others will naturally want to join them because of their strength, potential, Or affiliation

2) Some Great Family members are supported by their family, if not most. I.E AA asking his Ranker Brother to stop the Hell Train. I.E Elaine having an Armour Inventory
I.E Khun stealing an Armour inventory & bag.
I.E

3) Items & Abilities out of the means and capabilities can be given and thought to Regulars by others Rankers. I.E Enma Core cheat, I.E Doghane Wolkihasong gift to Hatz
I.E Yeon Wii’s flame of healing passed on to AA. I.E Workshop items

4) By the Time these exceptional Regulars climb the Tower and reach A-Class. All that’s left is too become a Ranker which those who are at the Too will be stronger than other Rankers already!! Adori fought an elite Ranker. Baam fought a weak test Ranker but he was at a lower level at the tower. Exceptional A Class Regulars can win against the weaker Rankers, as they will have already gathered enough abilities & skill to win because they already been ahead of the game.

 

[hblock]

Doom thinks that himself, Yamah, Yasratcha and folks far stronger than them were a joke to the weakest Ranker in existence when they were regulars on the 133rd floor. So, no, there's no way an top 1 A-class reg' beating a Ranker is something common.
Adori defeating one as a reg' is an exception because she stands on a whole another level compared to corps commander and can level a whole GF (excluding the FH) by hersefl.

 

[kkck]

To me the situation is that there is a difference between a specific regular having the capacity to beat a ranker at some point during his climb and whether said regular actually does it. Because in the end the lore presents us with at least several cases of people who would appear to have acquired said capacity during their climb rather than after. Of course it's still going to be only top tier folk who even have the possibility for this. However the lore is basically packed with such people, obviously.

1.- Hagipherione passed hon's test. Which is incredible even if we consider she is an exceptionally gifted arie princess.
2.- Urek passed hon's test and got hon to admit urek was better than him or something to that effect.
3.- Enne zahard had the same rank as adori, has a wonderful genetic lottery and is a zahard princess. Pretty solid candidate for someone that could have achieved something like that.
4.- Lore wise baek ryun learned shinsoo before he was even selected as a regular (meaning he had special permissions for some unfathomable reason) and he climbed quickly. And then he got acknowledged as one of the tower's greatest wave controllers.

I will also note that you don't specifically need adori levels of talent to pull this off. Adori defeated a high level with ease as a regular... But that means she reached actual ranker level even before that given that she basically skipped a few ranker tiers. However to actually clear the topic at hand, a regular defeating a ranker, the criteria could theoretically be met by someone vastly less talented than adori defeating a trash ranker at floor 133.

I will also add that it's extremely likely that the final rank before ranker has as wide a strength gap between it's members as any other rank. As in, the difference between, say, name hunt station elaine and the weakest d class regulars. So... How would this look like at the final regular rank? The strongest A rank at a given time vs the absolute weakest trash ranker. Or, how does your average newly anointed ranker (as in, at the very moment he becomes a ranker) compares to other A ranks? It sounds weird that newly anointed rankers would suddenly and immediately become overwhelmingly stronger than the A ranks he just left behind just because.

And finally... We have zero context on what the final test before becoming a ranker looks like. SIU could come up with any BS. Add to that ranker positions are apparently finite.

 

[hblock]

The admin contracts are probably what sets the Rankers appart from the regs. The system is practically made so that they stand on their own realm. Whether it's the 20th or 133rd floor, the tests are administrated by Rankers (not HRs, just Rankers), Rankers are prohibited from interfering with regulars affairs, Rankers power is massively nerfed in regulars areas, Rankers can't enter regular areas, etc, etc and so on and so forth. I think it's pretty clear, just based on these facts alone that all these restrictions wouldn't have been applied on Rankers if the usual strongest A-class regular was somehow remotely close to the weakest Rankers.

And I won't even talk about the incredible amount of times (since 200 chapters already or more) in which regulars were repeatidly noted to be some kind of a joke/recycled trash in comparison nor SIU explicitly implying that no regular (other than Baam) can actually face a Ranker directly (ie: blogposts). This much was already done many times and everyone know about it, so it'd be a waste of time.

The gap is most certainly due to contracts :
-"The strictness of these rules varies between class to class. In terms of the contract that Rankers and High Rankers make with Administrators, it can be said that they are nearly completely free of restrictions"

-"The most important difference between a Regular and a Ranker is the contracts with the Administrators"

The most rational assumption is that once you become a Ranker, restrictions are removed and you suddenly make a several to dozens of tiers jump.

In fact, even age doesn't matter nearly as much as contracts if I've to say. A notable example is Elaine. As we know, despite all her talent and potential, she was and is still nothing but a joke compared to a Ranker.
In contrast, considering the average Ranker climbs in 500 years (10x Urek's climibing record), it's pretty clear that if she climbed normally instead of settling on the name hunt station, she'd have become a remarkable Ranker (if not a HR) and would've easily wiped an army of her current C-class regular self with extreme ease. That's how strong the Ranker contracts are.

 

[kkck]

The admin contracts are probably what sets the Rankers appart from the regs. The system is practically made so that they stand on their own realm. Whether it's the 20th or 133rd floor, the tests are administrated by Rankers (not HRs, just Rankers), Rankers are prohibited from interfering with regulars affairs, Rankers power is massively nerfed in regulars areas, Rankers can't enter regular areas, etc, etc and so on and so forth. I think it's pretty clear, just based on these facts alone that all these restrictions wouldn't have been applied on Rankers if the usual strongest A-class regular was somehow remotely close to the weakest Rankers.

And I won't even talk about the incredible amount of times (since 200 chapters already or more) in which regulars were repeatidly noted to be some kind of a joke/recycled trash in comparison nor SIU explicitly implying that no regular (other than Baam) can actually face a Ranker directly (ie: blogposts). This much was already done many times and everyone know about it, so it'd be a waste of time.

The gap is most certainly due to contracts :
-"The strictness of these rules varies between class to class. In terms of the contract that Rankers and High Rankers make with Administrators, it can be said that they are nearly completely free of restrictions"

-"The most important difference between a Regular and a Ranker is the contracts with the Administrators"

The most rational assumption is that once you become a Ranker, restrictions are removed and you suddenly make a several to dozens of tiers jump.

In fact, even age doesn't matter nearly as much as contracts if I've to say. A notable example is Elaine. As we know, despite all her talent and potential, she was and is still nothing but a joke compared to a Ranker.
In contrast, considering the average Ranker climbs in 500 years (10x Urek's climibing record), it's pretty clear that if she climbed normally instead of settling on the name hunt station, she'd have become a remarkable Ranker (if not a HR) and would've easily wiped an army of her current C-class regular self with extreme ease. That's how strong the Ranker contracts are.

Contracts definitely play a huge role here. But I would argue how much is actually debatable. We haven't seen that many instances of contracts limiting someone's power. The specific instances I can think of are levi or elaine who specifically aren't rankers even though they should have had plenty of time for it. But if they are at the limits their contracts allow.. it doesn't look like most regulars normally reach the limits of their contracts at a given time. And we also know that talent is a big issue here. The vast majority of regulars try to climb the tower and just end up falling short. That's not contracts, that's just them reaching the limit of what they can do regardless of how much shinsoo a contract grants them.

I will also add... welp, adori. she is still a native tower resident and fully subjected to the tower's rules. And yet she became capable of using defeating a ranker with at the most the contracts A ranks can get. I don't think contracts are necessarily equal among regulars (their own limits play a part into what they are granted) but the fact that adori pulled this off proves that contracts at her level provide enough shinsoo for this to be plausible for people with substantial talent.

 

[hblock]

I will also add... welp, adori. she is still a native tower resident and fully subjected to the tower's rules.

The more I think about it the more it seems like the regular contract applies a "proportional" nerf instead of a determined cap. Something like "you'd be allowed to use just 1/2% of the maximum shinsu you can manipulate without restrictions" instead of "you can't bypass X amount of Myun and Suu)".
That'd explain why Adori (and probably few others) were comparable to Rankers before becoming ones. Still, it doesn't mean that the top 1 A-class reg' is usually close to the weakest Rankers.
The system doesn't allow regs to be comparable to Rankers but still leaves an extremely tiny range for really exceptional individuals (one in a millena or so) to exceed the rules.

That's not contracts, that's just them reaching the limit of what they can do regardless of how much shinsoo a contract grants them.

That's "both" the contract and their lack of talent.

 

[kkck]

The more I think about it the more it seems like the regular contract applies a "proportional" nerf instead of a standard cap. For example, you'd be allowed to use just 1/2% of the maximum shinsu you can manipulate without restrictions.
That'd explain why Adori (and probably few others) were comparable to Rankers before becoming ones. Still, it doesn't mean that the top 1 A-class reg' is usually close to the weakest Rankers.


That's "both" the contract and their lack of talent.

IMO the boost a contract provides probably is not THAT automatic. Controlling shinsoo is presented in the series as something that requires serious skill and practice. So even if you get more permissions you'd still need time and training to actually make use of those permissions. The only instances where it makes sense to me that the boost is substantial and automatic is in the hypothetical scenario that someone reached the limit of shinsoo a contract allows and also pretty much the limit of the skill they can acquire with that. Which is probably a pretty rare scenario in general. I don't think it's correct to look at this as a nerf when it comes to regulars. They are simply granted permissions progressively as they climb.

If the issue is a lack of talent then no amount of contracts is going to change that. You simply reached your limit which is at some point beneath what your contract allows.

 

[hblock]

IMO the boost a contract provides probably is not THAT automatic

Considering the top 1 A-class regular is a joke compared to the weakest Ranker in existence, the massive boost is actually automatic. There's a bottomless void that's rarely filled between low level Rankers and usual top regs.

The only instances where it makes sense to me that the boost is substantial and automatic is in the hypothetical scenario that someone reached the limit of shinsoo a contract

As I said earlier, it's more likely for the regular contracts to be a proportional nerf :

The more I think about it the more it seems like the regular contract applies a "proportional" nerf instead of a determined cap. Something like "you'd be allowed to use just 1/2% of the maximum shinsu you can manipulate without restrictions" instead of "you can't bypass X amount of Myun and Suu)".

If the issue is a lack of talent then no amount of contracts is going to change that. You simply reached your limit which is at some point beneath what your contract allows.

It doesn't change the fact that the regular contract equally nerfs both the talented and talentless individuals.

 

[kkck]

Considering the top 1 A-class regular is a joke compared to the weakest Ranker in existence, the massive boost is actually automatic. There's a bottomless void that's rarely filled between low level Rankers and usual top regs.


As I said earlier, it's more likely for the regular contracts to be a proportional nerf :




It doesn't change the fact that the regular contract equally nerfs both the talented and talentless individuals.

We don't actually know that. Odds are this varies over time.

That's a pretty big assumption regarding how contracts work. On top of that you are assuming that admins are consistently fair with all regulars. Which to me sounds like a stretch. Add to that, even if it worked like that... it being proportionally nerfed as you describe wouldn't really make it more or less impossible for a regular to beat a ranker. I mean... if yama was granted 1% of the maximum shinsoo his talent allows at floor 80... isn't that kinda ridiculous by those standards? I will also add that we've never seen anyone in the series get an immediate nerf from merely climbing a floor.

 

[hblock]

if yama was granted 1% of the maximum shinsoo his talent allows at floor 80... isn't that kinda ridiculous by those standards?

Well, regular Yamah was nowhere near as strong as currently, even if you don't apply the nerfs. The current Yamah would casually fodderize an army of his regular version, regular contract or not. Remember than even a genius like Yuri needed 100 years to become a HR once becoming a Ranker and the numbers I mentionned are just for the sake of example.
While I don't know how the nerfs are applied and can on make assumptions, considering Adori (and probably very few) was already stronger than a Ranker as a regular, it proves that the nerf isn't about a maximum treshold that no one can bypass, nothing like that.
Also, I don't know if the nerfs are applied equally among regulars but what I'm sure of is that all regulars are drastically nerfed due to their regular status. That's the reason why even very talented regulars like Kaiser are cannon fodder material compared to far younger, far less talented Rankers.

 

[kkck]

Well, regular Yamah was nowhere near as strong as currently, even if you don't apply the nerfs. The current Yamah would casually fodderize an army of his regular version, regular contract or not. Remember than even a genius like Yuri needed 100 years to become a HR once becoming a Ranker and the numbers I mentionned are just for the sake of example.
While I don't know how the nerfs are applied and can on make assumptions, considering Adori (and probably very few) was already stronger than a Ranker as a regular, it proves that the nerf isn't about a maximum treshold that no one can bypass, nothing like that.
Also, I don't know if the nerfs are applied equally among regulars but what I'm sure of is that all regulars are drastically nerfed due to their regular status. That's the reason why even very talented regulars like Kaiser are cannon fodder material compared to far younger, far less talented Rankers.

Nerf is a weird framing here. How this has been explained to us is that before getting to the second floor people have either no access to shinsoo or in some cases very limited access to it (say, 10 family members, special species and people with special privileges). As they climb they get more contracts and access to more shinsoo and potentially contract related skills. And... that's it, the series provides no further context than that. So you have kaiser who is allowed (making to make up a number) 15 bang of a size while rankers are have no restrictions on this. That said, getting the contracts is step one, increasing your bangs, their size and improving your control is a extremely time consuming endeavor.

Not sure of what you mean about the adori bit.