What show has the widest power gap between grunt and elite units?

G-gundam.

Gundam SEED is pretty up there. The EF have literally no grunts of any value for the entire first season, and what they get in the end (Strike Daggers) aren't worth much either. And the ZAFT grunts are pretty bad too, they're never really a credible threat to the Gundams. Especially since the Phase Shift Armor makes the Gundams basically invincible against most ZAFT grunts.

>>15193243
I loved how 00 did this.
The fact that Graham had to go out of his way to perform makeshift upgrades on his flag just to beat a worn down Exia was so cool.

00 has some of the best technological progression, and this was honestly something SEED did extremely well.

>>15193535
That was because of Graham being all muh flag.

A custom GN-X like the glasses guy was planning for the cracker would've been able to face the Gundam on much more equal terms.

>>15193243
Widest would be end of Awaking of Trailblazer where QanT has been ELSed or Turn A with the Turn A.

>>15193542
We have no idea what grunts are like at the time of ELS Qan[T}.

What about the complete opposite where there isnt much of a diffirence between gundams and grunts. Im saying IBO, all they have is a second generator if we arent factoring in the AV system.

>>15193541
>Graham being all muh flag.
This is why I love Graham, I'm not a gruntfag but holy shit if Graham told me to follow him to death in a flag I would do it.

I wish he could've been a better char.

It seems like they were going for a character arc of someone who keeps endlessly grasping for more power.
I would've liked seeing Graham devolve into someone living purely to enjoy fighting like Ali al sachez, because with the way both showed such a strong lust for the power of a Gundam they could've totally gone that route.
Ali would've been an amazing foil to Graham and then maybe towards the end Graham would've woken up from his delusions and realized he was becoming no better than a murderer.

>>15193555
Well I don't think Humanity was still at war when the ELS Quanta came back.
They seem to have abandoned all need for hostile Mobile weapons as evident by the Saribuke.

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>>15193541
>>15193535
Not just graham too. Seeing how the ESF got gud with tech and started pushing in CB's shit at the end of season one with pic related was really cool
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3Vzgrs7KEU

We need more of this often

>>15193570
Graham wasn't much of the char for 00, he was more of the victim of Celestial Being and their armed interventions.
As for grunts during the ELS QanT time, the Gadelasa would've been the norm considering the high amounts of innovators towards that time.

>>15193584
Did the Earth forces build the frames for those? I was never quite sure if that bunker they all went into had full MS or just tau drives.

>>15193584
What always bothered me about the design for the GNX was that the cockpit couldn't just disattach and fly away haha

>>15193604
only for the GNXIV
The cockpit officially could detach, but I don't remember if they used it for more than a handful of times.

>>15193593
>Graham wasn't much of the char for 00, he was more of the victim of Celestial Being and their armed interventions.
This is what Char originally was though.

Char would've gone on with his plan to kill the Zabis, but overtime he becomes obsessed with defeating Amuro and the Gundam in battle the same way Graham does with Setsuna and the Exia.

00 has multiple "Chars" though so I can see why most wouldn't think this.
Graham is like the original Char and Ribbons is like a CCA char.

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>>15193600
Just the drives.

Also 00V (a sidestory) has a much more sleeker and powerful version of the GN-X called the Advanced GN-X

>>15193593
Per 00V, you had one faction of anti-ELS using some Gadelazas, while the rest found them repulsively killy and used GN-XIV. Then you have, what, sixty years where the latest information we have is people wanting to continue with disarmament and freezing weapons development. The chances of people using Gadelazas or the like in large numbers by the time Setsuna comes back are remote.

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>>15193604
It annoys me that Alvaaron was this unrelated design that doesn't even look like it belongs in the 00 universe. A customer gold GN-X based MS would've been way better

>>15193243
Wing.

>>15193625
Truly, Harry Ord is the only person that can make a golden MS look good.

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>>15193625
Yeah, it reminded me of something from the UC century.

The 0 gundam is the weirdest in my opinion. It's weird enough having the OG gundam from the UC century in a place like this, but seeing it in action alongside the 00 makes it look even more jarring

>>15193584
>Seeing how the ESF got gud with tech and started pushing in CB's shit at the end of season one with pic related was really cool
To me that was the worst part of it. Seeing the ESF abandon all the awesome technology they already had to start felating GN Drives just like Celestial Being was disheartening. Seriously, 00 already has some of the coolest mobile suit tech in Gundam, then spends the entire series shitting on it.

>>15193665
Well it's more of an arms race. They HAD to upgrade somehow or keep getting BTFO hard by CB. The fact that the thrones were also around only hammered that in some more.

>>15193243
Wing grunts vs Gundams, they literally explode in droves or even just looking at a beam.

Fafner. Kazuki and Soshi are basically gods compared to all others.

>>15193665
To be fair, it probably would have been a harder task to upgrade and tune all their existed tech to use GN particles than just to create new GN-Xs.
There wasn't really another choice when non-GN tech was being massacred.

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>>15193772
They really did both though. The GN-X was a ground up design for the GN drive taus. The Ahead was the next gen Tieren with GN-tech adapted, the smultron's relation to the Tieren is especially apparent with its blocky chest and shield.

>>15193564

For the most part you're right, although we've seen that a Gundam, when in the hands of someone using an opened-up AV connection, completely wrecking house (albeit with almost guaranteed permanent nerve damage). I think in that case it's less the actual power of the unit and more how willing the pilot is to discard humanity to make the unit an extension of their own body. Even units with basic AV connections (e.g. Norba's Flauros and Akihiro's Gusion) are generally shown to be superior to those without in a skirmish.

>>15193789
>>15193772
Also the Masurao, Susanowo, and Brave are clearly based on Flag and Enact style design basis.

>>15193665
If it makes you feel better, they still made the Tieren All Region type

>>15193789

I always found the Ahead to be a pretty sweet design, Sakigake especially.

Then again, Graham's three samurai-styled mobile suits always had a special place in the weeb part of my heart.

>>15193564
In 08th MS Team the Gundams ARE the grunts.

I like that in 00 season 1 the Gundams were god mode but they actually were beat by sheer numbers at least once. I'm talking about episode 8 (I think?) where the three power blocs create a joint mission and corner all the gundams, who are only saved by introduction of the Thrones. (which was very disappointing. It would have been more interesting to see celestial being actually take a big defeat and see how they recover from it)

>>15193987
I mean they do take a big defeat at the end of season one. They lose their best meister, Setsuna goes MIA, Kyrios is captured just barely avoiding the capture of the GN drive, and it takes them a whole four years to recover upgrade and bring the team back. if the lost in the joint action then its likely at least three of the gundams would be captured fought over and reverse engineered and the meisters would be captured and imprisoned for interrogation god knows Tieria would suicide to prevent the chance of them getting a scrap of info on him

>>15193243
Do Nodoses count as an elite unit? Because if so, Heroic Age.

>>15193564
That'd be Dougram easily. Dougram's barely even an "elite unit" - it's a generalist who's main attributes are being slightly above average specs on everything, mostly due to the computers they were using for the Soltics being fucked over. It's only slightly better at mobility, slightly better armored, it's actually armed worse than the average Soltic because it only gets a missile shoulder pack at the very end of the show, and it's shit in bad terrain while it's usually facing things better suited to said terrain - except, hilariously, water, where it is by far the best mech in the business (to the point where the custom underwater mechs don't bother attacking Dougram more than once - though it has a bit of a weakness to much faster missile boats anyway).

Yeah, Turbozak gave it pretty much the most powerful armor-attached weapon in the war, but it also increased the profile of Dougram and made it slower and heavier, so it wasn't something the mech could just use.

>>15193625
I think that's the point.

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>>15193564

Quo Vadis 2 has a fun little twist on the old Gundam formula: The bad guys are the ones who end up developing a beam firing powerhouse first, while you're still stuck using wimpy ballistic weaponry.
https://sakugabooru.com/post/show/9753
https://sakugabooru.com/post/show/9775
The final boss is just a single one of those purple guys against a small team of yours.

>>15193245
fpbpmup

>>15193243
Gundam Wing

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>>15193245
Poor thing. I rather like it.

The show has some of the better Zaku and GM clones too

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>>15193987

The thing about the S1 Gundams were that they were good, but were cripplingly overspecialized. Exia was nearly unbeatable in close range engagements, but had almost zero crowd control or ranged options. Dynames was an unparalleled sniper unit, but was fucked if enemies managed to get in close. Virtue had a lot of firepower and was big and tanky, but that also meant it had almost no real maneuverability. Kyrios was actually the only reasonably well-rounded unit, but it also suffered from not having much else going for it but the high-speed jet mode.

The S2 Gundams ironed out most of those flaws and made everyone a little more balanced, meaning everyone could focus on their own stuff without needing to go out of their way to directly support each other. The movie Gundams were basically the S2 Gundams with more firepower.

>>15195063
It's like the CB designers just slapped on one thing onto the Gundam that would mitigate the problem and was like "yeah that's fine." So Exia has its one dinky little beam rifle, Dynames has its pistols, Virtue has its beam sabers (and Nadleeh in emergencies), and Kyrios was basically the most capable of single missions, seeing its various modular mission packs that it could attach onto it.

>>15195063
The movie gundams weren't S2 gundams with more power, they were each designed to be one man armies with their army of fangs since they had three innovators/super soldiers liying around and they could just cover for Lockon with an extra Haro targeting unit

>>15195231
But fundamentally, the movie Gundams weren't that much different in design from the S2 ones.
>Qan[T] is the Raiser with bits and a perfected Twin Drive/Burst mechanism
>Zabanya is Cherudim but with the bits and missiles taken to the max
>Harute is Arios with the missiles replaced with Scissor Bits and the Marute system
>Raphael is just Seravee but the lighter Gundam is made as the base and the cannons are detachable

>>15193243

Wing.

Gunbuster

>>15194314
>slightly better armored
I disagree. Unless people were prepared to make close range shots, Skeetergoat was a fucking tank. I can't think of any time Dougram took any significant damage unless it was a close shot.

But if there was one thing I did like is that the Turbozak wasn't just "here's your upgrade!", they actually had to decide if they were going to equip it or not, because it sent the mobility to shit levels.

>>15194322
I saw the gameplay vids on Nico. The GX shows up much earlier in a jungle mission, about a squad's worth, or a pair, piloted by the former love interest.

>>15193243

G-Gundam hands down. You're either a martial artist god or a piece of junk worse than your usual GM/Zaku.

Least would have to be SEED. Gundam and custom units are crazy easy to mass produce. Pretty sure the reason we don't have Daggers with Gunbarrel packs up the wazoo is because the budget wouldn't be able to handle so much beam spam.

>>15195350
>Unless people were prepared to make close range shots, Skeetergoat was a fucking tank. I can't think of any time Dougram took any significant damage unless it was a close shot.

The show said it was only slightly better armored, that it had the plot armor befitting a protagonist suit is in defiance of the statistics.

>>15195341
This.
Everyone else is wrong.

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>>15193245
you're on to something.

image related, used a literal steering wheel

>>15197433
Oh, I know that.
It's just there are several times where Dougram gets hit and you'll hear Crinn shout, but no significant damage has been done.

>>15197566
Butler Bensouman also isn't even close to the grunts of the show, it's implied to be an old clunker.

We see the MP units in the show in the early arc where Tokyo is overrun. They acquit themselves decently against the Death Army, but get fucked over by overwhelming numbers and the fact that they can't deal enough damage to put things down for good fast enough in a fair fight.

>>15193243
Isn't the main point of 00 to be how much better they are?

>>15201436
Yes

>>15193626
>>15193693
>>15194648
>>15195267
Not really though. It's just that any MS from the show becomes super efficient when a named character pilots it and completely useless otherwise.

Also the unupgraded gundams got absolutely destroyed by the mobile dolls.

>>15193564
Maybe the specifications of each gundam's Origin (astaroth's built in system for its weapon, Flauros' railgun power).
Plus second generator helps with mobility on heavier MS (Kimaris' speed or Gusion Brewer's set up).
Still, the MS gap isn't too large, a giant Graze was able to go toe on toe with a Gundam. Or Valkyrie frames v Kimaris.

>>15207270
>Also the unupgraded gundams got absolutely destroyed by the mobile dolls.
That had more to do with the fact that none of the five Gundams were space-worthy since they lacked maneuvering thrusters.

The Wing did decently well against the Virgos at Luxembourg, but took an unlucky shot to the knee that disabled the joint and Heero decided to abandon it. As I recall, Sandrock didn't do much, but was still able to occasionally catch a few Tauruses with its weapons. Deathscythe was shot up by Tauruses that were circling it just outside of its range then crippled by a beam cannon. As far as I know, none of the other Gundams lost to mobile dolls.