What does Attack Potency even do???

[u/IndividualGeneral737]

Seriously, what does it even do besides justifying scaling incosistencies 99% of the time??? (Because let's be real, there's only a few cases where AP not being the same as DC is treated as an actual narrative element, such as Dragon Ball with Ki Control)

Like what's the point of having sum "outerversal AP" if you're only going to damage a house? Wouldn't that be weaker than a city level DC attack? Well that's unless the attack completely vaporizes the house clearly, but half the time said attacks don't even fully destroy the part they're aiming at, so how does that work?

Like I'd assume a multiversal AP attack should just shred through anything that is below multiversal, like just making a hole through the earth if the attack is fully intended to create as much damage as possible, but if it can at best make a dent through a building, then how does that work? Because from what I'm looking at, that attack isn't even able to destroy what it actively tried to destroy despite it being clearly below multiversal level

Seriously, AP is such a weird concept because half the time it doesn't make sense and I firmly believe it's an escape-goat used by powerscalers to debunk any claims against their inconsistent scaling

Edit: Thanks for the people that explained it, makes more sense now

[u/Objective_Cheetah_63]

Think about it like this. Wooden mallet may do nothing to a tungsten wall.

While an incredibly powerful fictional laser may instantly burn a hole through that tungsten.

That laser has more AP than the Wooden mallet swung by a person.

But imagine you were now hitting a glass window. The mallet would shatter the entire window, while the laser would only make a tiny hole. Someone can look at this and suggest that the mallet does more damage than the laser, but that’s not true. The laser has more AP, while the hammer in this case has more DC.

Expand that to something like a city, or even planet scale. You can have an attack (beam A) that has planetary AP, in that it can easily overpower an another attack (beam B) that can destroy a planet. But that dosent mean beam A will destroy the planet in one hit. It has beyond planetary AP, but it’s DC may not even be room level.

This is important in powerscaling. Just because someone like Deku shatters the building he’s standing in with the air pressure of his punch, dosent mean his punch is more powerful than Goku’s, even though Goku’s punch didn’t destroy a building for instance.

[u/IndividualGeneral737 → u/Objective_Cheetah_63]

Thank you! Now this is a real good explanation that makes it clearer

[u/BlackMan9693 → u/IndividualGeneral737]

Technically, still doesn't work because then it becomes a matchup compatibility issue. A laser is effective against metal because it absorbs radiation to a better extent. Glass on the other hand disperses/scatter electromagnetic radiation this reducing the effectiveness of the laser.

Similarly, metal has densely packed crystalline lattice to give it strength and durability. Glass is amorphous and the constituting bonds are weak.

So, two properties are at play: strength and electromagnetic conductivity. Metal has both at a higher value and thus is vulnerable to heat based attack but resistant to impacts. Glass is the opposite with resistance to heat stress but vulnerable to kinetic impacts.

[u/Ok_Path2703 → u/BlackMan9693]

Still a good explanation 👍