CAP 2 Pre-evo - Part 1 - Typing discussion

[Tortferngatr]

Sigh.

Mono-Grass and Grass/Ghost are really the only ways to go IMO.

We already did a part-normal type CAP prevo anyway. And it still needs to learn Scratch, dammit!

 

[milo v3]

Monograss. But we probably should think of a good reason why it suddenly dies.

 

[SgtWoodsy]

Mono-Grass

She died and evolved or something.

 

[FlareBlitz]

I am thinking Grass.

Why? Because there's a lot of stuff we as a community can do to detail its transformation from a cute little grass type into Necturna. I am imagining a small, cheerful vine based pokemon which grows in dark forests, and its evolution method is that it takes damage from a ghost-type attack at night, which allows it to create and maintain connections to the spirit world. But that's just one of the many things we can do. Making it grass / ghost doesn't allow much room to play around with it imo.

 

[Hailblue]

I Like Grass. I see Necturna as a parasitic plant vine that ended up growing on a grave taking over the body in the grave as a host. So the Baby should be a plant that has yet to take over the host (but it tries to aquire a host just that the ghost type egg moves can make since). The one thing that does not fit too well in this backstory is that why is then necturna always female. If someone else likes this senario and can justify it, I would really like to see it worked into the pre-evo.

 

[The Truth]

I like it as mono-grass myself. It feels bland if we just go from grass-ghost to grass-ghost, it's just a little necturna evolving into a bigger necturna. Mono-grass gives us room to maneuver and make it interesting.

Grass-ghost would be a pretty cool typing, but too boring :\

 

[Deck Knight]

This is not a bold poll guys, if you don't have anything to add to actual discussion, don't just post your preference. mmmkay?

 

[Asylum_Rhapsody]

My initial thoughts were definitely either Grass / Ghost or maybe just pure Grass if we feel like getting a little crazy, but those have already been covered, so I'll try adding something new and see how it goes:

What about pure Ghost?

Okay, I know what you're thinking. Necturna's visual design is entirely plant-based such that it's pretty difficult to think up a version of it with the grass influence removed. It's not impossible, though. You still have the head, a bunch creepy red eyes, some teeth, and a "dress" that could easily pass for bat-wing-like appendages

Additionally, if we want to keep grass-like features in the pre-evo, I would like to point out that there are some other pokemon with plant-like feature that are not actually Grass-type Pokemon (example: Sudowoodo), so I think that having a pure Ghost with Grass-like visual features could be neat.

 

[milo v3]

In my opinion it should probably be a pure grass type. One reason behind this is the prior mentioned, similiarity to Froslass which was previously a pure ice type.

Secondly I believe that if it has a pre-evo we can use its Dex entry to our advantage:

Black: It's said that this Pokemon is able to communicate with spirits. When in the location of a past tragedy, it weeps.
White: This Pokemon has the ability to speak to spirits. Necturna are said to have a harder time trusting the living than the dead.

From this we could say that Necturna was once an alive creature but in a great tragedy it was betrayed or it died, or something similar. This would explain why it trusts the dead more than the living, as it has been betrayed before by a living trainer.
This could also say why it weeps in places of tragedy, its link to spirits allow them to convey the event of the tragedy to Necturna and this causes the Necturna to in turn remember the pain of its own tragedy, making her weep.

 

[Charon]

I just want to point out that type order is not random.

No one figured in the past (looking at previous cap types) but its not like this is the pkmn site that cares about details that have 0 effect on battles eh? XD

So yes, the type order is not random. The first type is the main type (which also changes upon evolution only in special cases and basically never if it starts out with 2 types)

Some pokemon with reverse combinations:
Sableye (Dark/Ghost) - Spiritomb (Ghost/Dark)
Geodude (Rock/Ground) - Rhyhorn (Ground/Rock)
Theyre not the easiest examples to show the reasoning behind the chosen order, but theyre proof that the order is not random.
There is more but one could argue theyre predefined from evolution; Spheal/Dewgong, Flygon/Garchomp, Kabuto/Relicanth, Aggron/Probopass, Gallade/Medicham..

The second type is usually much more subtle. So obviously Jellicents main type is Water, Houndoom is Dark before Fire, Heracross is a Bug that is also Fighting, Crustle and Shuckle are Bugs that just live in Rock,

So Necturna screams Ghost/Grass.

And from some of the comments I saw I want to also say that Normal is an exclusively primary type.
Normal is the "not any actual elemental specialisation" type. Its the default type.
While there can be something that doesnt specialize in a type enough to make it its primary typing, it can be like Bibarel/Girafarig/Sawsbuck with Normal as primary and the other as its secondary type.
The reverse would not make any real sense. A Water/Normal pokemon would mean its a full Water type pokemon, which also doesnt really specialize in a proper type...

Id also say a thing about the first cap being primary Flying but I dont think that will do any good here.

 

[Zarel]

Secondly I believe that if it has a pre-evo we can use its Dex entry to our advantage:

From this we could say that Necturna was once an alive creature but in a great tragedy it was betrayed or it died, or something similar. This would explain why it trusts the dead more than the living, as it has been betrayed before by a living trainer.
This could also say why it weeps in places of tragedy, its link to spirits allow them to convey the event of the tragedy to Necturna and this causes the Necturna to in turn remember the pain of its own tragedy, making her weep.

I wish to point out that other pokemon with similar Dex entries, such as Yamask, don't get living pre-evos.

Personally, I'd prefer Grass / Ghost to pure-Grass simply because Ghosts having non-Ghost pre-evos is very rare, happening only with Froslass and Shedinja, both of which have rather unusual evolution families. I don't really see Necturna as being the "non-primary" evolution in an evolution family.

 

[King Serperior]

I'll vote on a mono-grass typing.

Why? I can see it needing to hold a Dusk Stone to evolve as it levels up at night.

My reasoning is that it's roots grow around a Dusk Stone and slowly aborbs it's energies until it gets attacked and absorbs too much. This causes evolution.

 

[gamerdna223]

Pure Grass-type. I think that is should be like be a vine-like Pokemon, and, when evolving by trading with a Reaper's Cloth, the vine will rot and turn brown.

 

[MLaRF]

Why don't we go for a Grass/Psychic typing? She can communicate telepathically with spirits, her abilities are based on psychic abilities, and it's basically a weaker version of Ghost, so there wouldn't be too much of a difference, but still a change that tells a story. Sounds good to me.

 

[Kyuzeth]

Grass/Ghost-type is what I'm going for. We can actually make Ghost-types look cute, can't we? Look at Pokémon like Shuppet and Misdreavus. I actually have something cute and sneaky in mind.

 

[jas61292]

I just want to put it out there that death is not a way to evolve. Even ghost type Pokemon are actually living creatures as shown by the fact that they come from eggs, not deaths. Choosing pure grass solely to have it die is not a good choice, as when it dies, it actually dies, and would not become a new Pokemon. Being taken over by a spirit or something is a perfectly good explanation, but if we do go mono grass we would really need to think of something deeper than "it died".

Personally I prefer just sticking with Grass/Ghost. Necturna already has very complicated flavor and just making what amounts to a baby Necturna seems like the best way to go.

 

[Imanalt]

i would like to suggest mono ghost.

Flavor wise, we could look at it from the aspect of babyturna being a ghost, which then occupies a dead/dying plant, thus evolving.

 

[Keiran]

I was going post my reasoning after I got back from school, but whatever. Anyway, I think Baby Necturna should be Mono-Grass typing. I see Necturna as basically a Grass-type Froslass, both mono-female Ghost-type Pokes. With Froslass having a somewhat cute pre-evo, why not Necturna? and Ghost-type Pokes are generally not cute (sans Cofagrigus ofc)

 

[capefeather]

Mono-Ghost seems a bit interesting, but I'm not sure it makes sense since Ghost is Necturna's second type. Is there precedent for this? If there is and more people like the idea, maybe it could be slated and it won't be a two-option battle off the bat like what I'm seeing currently :P

And since it has slightly more support than mono-Ghost: The Normal secondary typing isn't actually explained at all. Every explanation applies directly to mono-Grass. Additionally, these are the only possible STABs from it:

Natural Gift
Hyper Beam
Frustration
Return
Facade
Giga Impact

This does not strike me as the kind of movepool that a Normal-type would ever take on.

So Necturna screams Ghost/Grass.

Blame the art polls for that :P I have to check the typing order every time.

 

[Imanalt]

Looking purely at the other pokemon with ghost as a secondary typing and a prevo, we have: Shedinja (evolved from nonghost type), Froslass (evolved from nonghost type), Golurk (prevo is same type), and Jellicent (prevo is same type).

This means there's no precedent for a secondary typing of ghost having a monoghost prevo (Dammit, there goes my idea :P ). Expanding to look for any pokemon that have a prevo that share only the secondary typing of the evolved form, there seems to only be steelix (clearly a different case).

And now i should just stop talking before i make my suggestion of monoghost look even worse :(

 

[m1k3y]

I'd just like to throw Grass/Dark out there. As in a tiny plant that lurks in the shadows, but grows more powerful by being possessed by spirits.

 

[Charon]

Expanding to look for any pokemon that have a prevo that share only the secondary typing of the evolved form, there seems to only be steelix (clearly a different case).

and Altaria
but Flying type is meh.

 

[bugmaniacbob]

Just like to remind everybody that very few Pokemon change type upon evolution (as in actually lose then gain a typing rather than just getting a second typing tacked on), and of those, most are evolutions of Eevee.

Honestly, I think that mono-Grass and Grass/Ghost are the only legitimate typings out there. It doesn't really make sense to have mono-Ghost since turning into a plant is a lot more difficult to invent reasons for than turning into a phantasm.

Also, I hardly think that Necturna screams Ghost/Grass - it's really about as overtly ghostly as Jellicent, Froslass, and Golurk. It lacks any really obvious "this is a ghost ok" design features aside from the red eyeballs everywhere and looking a bit creepy - certainly nothing along the lines of Chandelure or Gengar. It's far more easily identifiable as a Grass-type than a Ghost-type. In fact, if I had to guess, I'd say it was Dark-type, but that's irrelevant. Regardless, Necturna's design shouldn't really have to factor into the pre-evo typing - they're completely different things.

Right now I'm opposed to Grass/Ghost simply because Necturna's flavour is ridiculously individualised - as most CAP flavour is - in that it seems to be operating as a single entity, rather than having any relationship with or among its devolved forms. With Scratchet, initially we had Tomohawk as an ancient desert spirit or some such, which we then added to by making it the leader of a tribe of fluffy little ball things with claws. I wouldn't be opposed to Grass/Ghost if we could make the two distinct, in the same vein as Jellicent and Frillish (as in, Frillish grabs random stuff whereas Jellicent destroys ships and things, without any interplay between the two) but Ghost is a notoriously hard typing to do that with.

More to the point, mono-Grass is probably more likely to turn out a cutemon rather than some diseased shrub or something similar

come on we're all thinking it

Also Imanalt, you forgot Altaria.
EDIT: goddammit

 

[CuteandScary]

I like the idea of Grass/Ghost.
It could be the benevolent forest guide. Keeping little children from getting lost or helping injured pokemon with the knowledge it gains from the spirits it talks to. It could be at war with the spirits who try to corrupt that baby.
I don't understand why people think there can't be a cute ghost. Misdreveous anyone?

 

[phoopes]

I would like to throw out there again that a Monograss pre-evo would work if the justification for it to evolve was right. For example, before I suggested that it would evolve with the Dusk Stone. However, someone else posted something better. Reaper's Cloth. Reaper's Cloth just screams Ghost-type, not only with its name and design, but what it's used for. (trading Dusclops to evolve into Dusknoir) A monograss prevo evolving into Necturna while being traded while holding Reaper's Cloth would definitely work. Many other Pokemon that evolve while being traded either gain a new type or have a typechange.

Onix--->Steelix. Goes from Rock/Ground to Ground/Steel.
Seadra--->Kingdra. Goes from Pure Water to Water/Dragon.
Scyther--->Scizor. Goes from Bug/Flying to Bug/Steel.
Karrablast--->Escavalier. Goes from Pure Bug to Bug/Steel.

So there have been cases before where a pre-evo where a pre-vo evolving via trade has gained a type or lost a type and then gained a new type. In fact, there has even been a case similar to the one I'm proposing. Seadra going from Pure Water to Water/Dragon when being traded with a Dragon Scale is very similar to proposed Necturna pre-evo going from Pure Grass to Grass/Ghost when being traded with a Reaper's Cloth. That's why I think a Necturna pre-evo could work as a Pure Grass type. If it's given the right justification through evolution, it'll work out.