>>18598791This guy explains my feelings perfectly.
I'd say honestly Cynthia is the best, every time she appears she comes off as so insanely powerful. In game her teams are intense to fight, her types are all really diverse, she's travels all over and has a wide breadth of knowledge, and in all her anime battles she fucking destroys and never really seems to be trying on top of it.
I'd rank it:
Cynthia
Red
Iris ≥ Blue
Lance ≥ Steven
Diantha
Alder
Wallace
For some reason I head cannon that Iris would be just better than blue and it would fucking annoy the shit out of him.
Lance would be just barely better than Steven simply because he dedicates so much time to training, also dragons are OP in cannon and he's been shown in multiple cannons to be a globe trotting police officer of sorts, taking out evil organizations and what not, so he has more battle experience, which helps him beat out Steven, even with type disadvantage.
Diantha has mega evolution which definitely counts for something in cannon, but even with that her team seemed weak and un-thematic sadly, and she's never even shown to do shit of use for the world, so it seems to me like she leans on Mega Gardevoir as a crutch.
Alder is past his prime, I can imagine a young, mid 20's Alder being without a doubt the top of the list, but at this point he comes off as a once great, retired sensei type.
Wallace to me seems like the least powerful of the champions, not that he isn't great in his own right, but he clearly cares more about contests and it seems like hes only champion as a favor to Steven.
Palmer to me gets an honorable mention as Champion tier strong for running on pure retard strength, I'd say Palmer is probably better than Red, and equal to Cynthia.
Emmet and Ingo to me also come off as Champion tier in strength.
N also get's honorable mention, but he's not actually a battler, he just has hax.
Finally Barry and Cheren are close, if not Elite 4 tier.
