@koays@pyrofn sorry it wasn't meant to be a shot fired or a challenge, just stating that it's just a bunch of lists that people may not understand. but I realize you guys that make the psi respect threads may have discussed these things before so you understand each others lists.
1) Jean Grey - very controversial. until a couple of weeks ago i had her below emma frost and exodus but after going through her thread and going through x-men red and phoenix Resurrection my view on her has changed a lot. I used to think that the projections in Phoenix Resurrection were caused by the Phoenix but @pyrofn and @del_torro clarified that it was really Jean which is pretty insane because she wasn't even doing it consciously. she apparently also did this even during her blue and yellow spandex days with what professor x called 'ambient dreaming'. This actually lines up pretty well with her character because she is always consciously holding her power back so it makes sense that when she is not trying to do this in phoenix resurrection because she is unaware or in her sleep in first class, her real power gets to come out unchecked and to devastating affects since she was taking on a bunch of x-men squads all around the globe with her psychic projections. She also fried cable's mind and put rachel in the clinic just from them trying to reach her mind. i don't know how exactly that worked but i think it's because of that psychic feedback we've seen many times in the comics so she must have been putting out a lot of psychic energy to cause damage like that from so far away. Then professor X calls what Jean did in new x-men with containing his consciousness and splitting it to every mutant as something that should not be possible. She also affects Emma Frost in her diamond form and was walking through her mind defenses. it was pointed out to be confirmed by cassandra nova in x-men red that she was more powerful than in new x-men. in x-men red she also showcases some of the best telepathy defense to date by being unaffected by cassandra nova's direct telepathic assault even when she was as cassandra put it "three interlinked minds connecting to millions of devices across the globe. you're well past your capacity." even this is happening, Jean was totally not affected while cassandra started to sweat from the strain of her attack on Jean. Jean also was able to shield her deep parts of her mind from onslaught even when she was already his prisoner and later on with the help of cable she was able to shield the x-men squad from onslaught with x-man power boosting him. she also provided the power to Psylocke to break legion's possession of multiple man which he put a personality in each of the clones making his hold on them very intimate and powerful. Jean also led the x-men telepaths in splitting up x-man and legion they were nto able to affect x-man when jean was gone, and very impressive was her attack on x-man inside his own mind where he is in control and she channeled the pain of the world and used it to attack his mind which overwhelmed him and he was on his knees in pain. She can do this at any time as pointed out by del_torro because in x-men red she casually was feeling the pain of the people around the world. He also said she could even use positive energy and psychic energy in general. plus statement from Rosenberg, that said she is more powerful than professor x, who wrote astonishing x-men annual and continued the next arc of astonishing x-men meaning he is aware of X and what he is capable of and knows jean also because he wrote resurrection and uncanny x-men. not gospel truth as each writer would probably have his own stand on this but since he is very familiar with both (i see on twitter he has been reading x-men since a child) and wrote both recently including their encounter, i think it's a credible statement to take into account when judging jean. jean also has a knack of breaking through mental defenses and psi-shields, be it natural, machine made or telepathic. she also shown great skill by being able to bypass cassandra nova's mind traps and also being able to split apocalypse psyche from cyclops, shutting off people's minds and powers, removing trauma of gentle so he no longer felt pain when using his powers. overall i think for now she should be number 1
2) Professor X - the man, the beast, the legend, professor charles xavier himself. He had it all, skill, power, experience, a shiny head (formerly) and the hottest set of wheels in town (also formerly). He has defeated exodus, shadow king, rachel grey, dark phoenix, turned magneto into a potato. Even as a ghost trapped by shadow king on the astral plane he was able to hold off shadow king who was more powerful than before.he was able to do multiple things on multiple levels such as creating fake realities for shadow king to see on the astral plane, fight old man logan's psyche, hide himself rogue mystique and fantomex in the astral plane and even another layer where he talks to fantomex 1on1, all thanks to, according to him, his "skill" which I believe is unmatched by any other telepath. he's been able to channel the emotions and positive energy of all the people int he world on more than 1 occasion i think. constantly referred to as the most powerful mind or telepath for most of if not all of his history. He was also able to perfectly subdue matthew malloy who is so powerful that exodus died just from making contact with him and rachel believed she would end up the same way if she didn't try something else. he also created circuit breakers which contained jean's power in her young years and also created circuit breakers for dark phoenix. he was also shielding from the pure raw energy psionic attacks by x-man who is said to be the most powerful psi ever. He also casually fixed Angel's mental problems with evil ArchAngel which is something psylocke could never do, and could barely help him keep under control even with her best efforts. he easily erases people's minds and plants false memories to entire groups of people. Also was able to remove the infection of the shadow king from the people in the city. skilled and sneaky enough to use his knowledge of jean grey's mind to mind wipe her. even if she was not defending at all against him and this doesn't put him above her, it is still a very impressive showing. He has a whole bunch of feats over his history. If not for Jean Grey's recent showings since her resurrection, I would definitely have Professor x as number 1. He will likely take back the top spot once he is back int he comics and the focus is on him
3) Cassandra Nova - basically professor x evil twin sister. She has his telepathy including other powers he could have had like telekinesis. she came in with a bang, mind r***** Xavier while he was still connected to Cerebro. She was able to do this just from him doing a scan and when their minds touched she was able to take over his mind and Xavier was unable to fight it and was about to shoot himself in the head in order to stop her. Jean Grey from that time ended up foaming at the mouth just from entering cassandra's mind. She used cerebra to switch bodies with professor x trapped him in her sick body and also trapped his mind in a sort of psychic prison. She managed to unnoticed by other high class telepaths at the school like jean grey, emma frost and the stepford cuckoos. Her mental traps guarding Xavier were good enough that Emma Frost who is considerably skilled got stuck. Using Cerebra she would have been able to kill every mutant on the planet. Even in her dying moment, she was able to plant a suggestion in emma frost mind even if she was in diamond form and eventually take control of her. She was also able to go about the x-mansion undetected by Rachel Grey, a powerful omega level telepath and able to mind control her easily and make her an attack dog and was also able to take control of an army but im not sure if she only took control of the leaders and the army was just following or if she controlled everyone. she humiliated the top dogs in new x-men immediately placing her high up the pole. She is very power and skilled and gives us a look at what professor x could be like if he had no empathy.
4) Emma Frost - this girl right here brought sophistication into telepathy. Before her, it had a lot to do with blasting each other with your minds, then the spotlight went to Emma and she certainly used the time good use. she showed us that power isn't everything, and that skill can give you the edge, such was the case in her fight with rachel grey. with just a short amount of time, she was able to set a trap in cyclops mind that allowed her to defeat professor x even though he is a lot more powerful than her. she also has been able to force exodus into a stalemate, wrestle control of cyclops mind from sinister, shield her team from exodus and sinister even from a different location. she was able to break free of cassandra novas control eventually. she also altered kitty prydes mind so well that exodus could not undo it. emma also dismantled an entire skrull telepath blockade that was trained specifically to fight the x-men telepaths. she has bypassed mental shields and controlled lots of people in the past like when she had an entire hellfire club building complex kill each other or run away and she is a planetary telepath as well. she also shielded scott's mind from the phoenix force, and in a fit of rage, was hurting everyone in the x-mansion including omega level telepaths rachel and quentin quire as well as mentally resistant people like storm. she also made quentin quire poop himself casually and took control of magneto's mind. she can even turn off the powers of someone like teenage jean grey. one of her most famous showings is managing to take control of the thousand in one hivemind of cuckoos. she has also blocked professor x telepathy, and also been able to counteract the psychic illusions of lady mastermind. she even managed to fool everyone into thinking that scott died at the hands of blackbolt and was projecting an illusion of him to people for prolonged periods of time. Even when Jean grey had pierced through her diamond form and mental defenses, emma was still able to guard the deepest part of her mind and keep it protected from Jean in new x-men. her psychic power's backlash has also caused jean grey great pain, and she was able to control the phoenix force for a while with the help of quentin quire and the cuckoos.
5. Exodus. at his peak he was soloing the x-men and avengers together while shrugging off a full powered blast from professor x and keeping jean grey, scarlet witch and crystal subdued. he also was stalemating rachel grey while fighting a whole team of x-men including rogue who had tried to siphon his power but he had too much. telepathy takes a lot of focus and while rachel was giving her entire focus and effort to fighting him, he was able to fend her off without giving his full focus and judging from the fight its safe to say that was only half his attention and this went on for multiple pages. he was also able to make professor xavier struggle at the beginning of their fight after exodus had brought him back. the psychic backlash of their fight was so powerful that it caused emma frost to be staggered from far far away. he was able to stalemate emma frost, and she needed to bring in Dust to help her finish him off. he also casually blasted jean grey out of his mind on avalon and she was left in shock and fear of him.
6. Rachel Grey - usually portrayed as very powerful but not so skilled. she is definitely a powerhouse. even in some of her earliest appearances she was firing psi bolts as powerful as professor x, who was uncontested at the time as the most powerful telepath. she is stated to be more powerful than emma frost, and she stated while talking to professor x in avengers vs x-men that the 2 of them are the most powerful telepaths. In their fight in avx even though professor x beat her quickly he she does seem to have forced him to unleash his full power or something close to it based on their clash. When Quentin Quire was prying in her mind, she kicked faced him with such force that he started to get a nose bleed. She also stomped Xavier Junior in battle of the atom. she also went through every person's mind on the planet without cerebro. she also stomped mesmero when they had a fair fight and most recently took out an entire city's worth of sentinels when the stepford cuckoos could only do 1 street. She has also shown she is skilled enough to hide her team including phoenix namor from professor X, and eventually see past his illusion. She also gave teen jean a trick to help her hide from cerebro pill amped xorna jean and xavier junior. she also took down psylocke with one psi attack although it was a surprise, but has also been able to take control of storm despite her resistance. she had a number of low showings such as being taken out by mesmero but @koays has clarified the context well and I agree she was definitely vulnerable at the time and was the only reason mesmero got to defeat and control her. she's also been taken down by no-girl and madelyn prior but both times she was attacked while off guard. It speaks more on her battle readiness than her actual prowes as a telepath
7. Mr Sinister - seems to be portrayed to be somewhere along the emma and exodus level of telepathy but with less feats. He can block Emma the same way she can block him. His showings against x-man are not that impressive because he states he has studied his mind and knows his brain inside and out, it's like he has the blueprints and backdoor into his mind which is why he deals so easily with him.
8. Xavier Junior - managed to take control of the stepford cuckoos hive mind then also took control of 2 entire teams of x-men. he was unaffected by teen jean's psychic attacks, even towards the end of her stay and even while majorly injured and faced by the cuckoos and teen jean, he managed to escape from them
9. psylocke. stated in uncanny x-force to be the 3rd most powerful telepath and stated in astonishing x-men to be as powerful as any telepath. able to 1-shot deathseed archangel with a psi blast. in her younger days was able to resist mister sinister and harm juggernaut through his helmet. In later years, her psychic knife proved to be an extremely powerful tool allowing her to defeat people above her paygrade. She has defeated shadow king with it, she has fended off the attack of an amped shadow king with it and she was also able to break storm and archangel from lifeseed x-man's control. She was also skilled enough to shut down the legion personality infused multiple men with a power surge from jean grey. also able to rewrite mystiques personality.
my ranking stops here because i have quentin quire, teen jean and the cuckoos all at a tie. could change this if i give them more thought and a better look at their respect threads.
honorable mentions:
Shadow King. If i were forced to rank him I would give him rank 6, below Emma and above Exodus. As powerful as he is often portrayed, people neglect that he is always under some sort of amp or long planning and preparation, or manipulating the astral plane to get things done. He loves to set up networks and exploits them to gain power and control. He already lost to a young and inexperienced Xavier. He lost to KARMA in an astral battle. He also lost to Rogue, and lost to psylocke. Psylocke even managed to trap him in her mind and this was even before she became an omega class telepath. even amped by a network of psis psylocke was able to shield from his telepathic assaults and he had to resort to physical combat. he also could only gain a slight upper hand on ghost xavier. He was able to take down Emma Frost with a psi attack but was not able to affect her once she had gone into her diamond form. He has possessed people like rachel and psylocke, but in that same arc was resisted and lost to nightcrawler's will power. He has some high showings, but mixed with his really bad showings when not with prep or some advantage he doesn't stack up against the top gun telepaths. He may beat Emma Frost in a fight but she has shown to be more consistently good than him and is just overall a better telepath
Nate Grey - statements about his power put his power level higher than everyone else but he lacks the TP showings. He would have been an unrivaled beast if he was given the proper time and training.
Others I did not mention because of unfamiliarity or because they are irrelevant
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