Ooh, the episode pretty much sets soundwave's type of fighting skill; he's more onto movement and precision when it comes to combat. Note that he's not an agile fighter (that'd be arcee and BB) he's a... finesse fighter of sorts. When Jack buttheads him, you can see that greatly taxed him on recovery as opposed to Megatron or Breakdown getting a direct hit (then again, those dudes are tons of cybertronian metalcake!)
I like these kind of archtype characters (soundwave) really; they exude the same imposing aura like other powerful characters, not because they're strong or one-punch instagib ability, but because they have the skills to match even without their physical strength! Now for shockwave debut...
On the flipside; this is a nice scale comparison for Wheeljack, Soundwave and Ratchet for their figures. I thought I should wait for Soundwave to be of voyager class, but who'd knew that the deluxe toy is more or less scaled correctly as in the cartoon... Anyone noticed how big Wheeljack's Lancia Stratos altmode lookalike is compared to Ratchet? Interestingly funny AND accurate to the toy too! Hmmmm