Reflecting on BW and Looking Ahead to Gen VI - SEE POST #508

[Dark Fallen Angel]

Like many others have said, I'm hoping for more defense in Gen XI. The current meta is very very offensive, and if it gets any worse Stall as a playstyle may go from difficult currently to unsustainable. I have faith that Game Freak understands this, but what I'm afraid of is them going "Hurr durr defense" and slapping on three or four pokemon with huge defensive stats and bad typing/movepools. In this meta, typing is just as important as stats when it comes to defense (Which do you see more, Ferrothorn or Bastidon?) and utility. Looking at the current pokemon, the three top typings that would help defense in Gen VI are:

• Ghost / Steel (W/Levitate): It's been said before, but that's because it's so good: Ghost/Steel with Levitate has one weakness that's easily catchable, and by itself walls a lot. The two best sweepers in Black/White 2 (RP Sheer Force Landorus and Terrakion) are coldcocked by this if it has decent stats, along with many others.
• Water / Dragon: Kingdra exists, but I mean a true defensive stallwart with this typing would solve two problems: overpowered rain-boosted Water attacks, and overpowered sun-boosted Fire attacks. The pair of X4 resists gives it ample opportunities to switch in, and it only has one weakness (Dragon) which can be covered by Steels.
• Fire / Poison: This was a CAP, but it has a legitimate niche in the current OU as a full stop to Sun. Venesaur couldn't touch it, neither could Volcarana, a retested Genesect also couldn't make a dent. While cumbersome (getting it in with a Rocks weakness), it has the potenial to be very useful for defensive teams.

• Water / Fire: With Water Absorb, it has the potential to be one of the few Water-types that not only do not fear Ferrothorn, but also works well on sun, and also the only Fire-type that do not fear rain. With Air Lock, it can revenge kill many sun or rain sweepers, if it had a good movepool, either a good Atk or good SpA, and good speed.
• Grass / Ghost: Essentially a Celebi with an immunity to Fighting and neutrality to Bug, this Pokémon has the potential to stop top threats on their tracks, if it has a good Special Defense. Some examples are Sheer Force Landorus, as well as Keldeo.
• Fire / Grass: Chlorophyll sweeper with STAB on Fire-type attacks. Needless to say anymore. Also, another Fire-type that don't fear Water.
• Ice / Steel: Apart from having a neutrality to Rock, this pokémon could totally discourage the use of Dragon-type attacks, as it can switch on them and destroy the Pokémon with STAB Ice-type attacks.

 

[Onicon]

We disagree with Fire/Poison; it has a quadruple weakness to Ground and both Venusaur and Volcanora may carry ground moves. It looks a bit like Heatran who traded Dragon resistance for Fighting resistance.

 

[Eggbert]

Fire poison would need levitate to not suck horribly since it packs a nice 4x ground weak on top of being SR weak and water weak. Also, I know we have enough offense, but I think this would be cool:

Type: Ice / Fighting
Ability: No Guard
Has higher defensive stats and speed and calm mind / nasty plot, but generally lower offensive stats (think virizion). Is both more defensive and effective against defensive teams because of special fighting stab that can beat blissey. Has moves like blizzard and focus blast to take advantage of no guard, but has no coverage otherwise. Maybe rapid spin because that is lacking.

Steel / Ghost is necessary at this point. Would be cool with meteor mash / wow / recover / taunt. Other good or cool ghost typings: ghost / fighting, ghost / grass. Fighting ghost meta.

 

[AffirmativeAction]

Concerning Skarmory evolution:

Even if they don't make the evolution that much stronger like they did with Dusclops, we know one thing for sure. Eviolite Skarmory would be stupid as fuck. Ridiculously overpowered. You'll basically be making it into a pretty damn good special wall as well as a fucking impenetrable and incredibly game breaking physical wall. What the fuck is wrong with you people do you people actually enjoy 800 turn matches? That's what's going to happen if we get a Skarmory evolution. What the fuck.

 

[Goodra]

Concerning Skarmory evolution:

Even if they don't make the evolution that much stronger like they did with Dusclops, we know one thing for sure. Eviolite Skarmory would be stupid as fuck. Ridiculously overpowered. You'll basically be making it into a pretty damn good special wall as well as a fucking impenetrable and incredibly game breaking physical wall. What the fuck is wrong with you people do you people actually enjoy 800 turn matches? That's what's going to happen if we get a Skarmory evolution. What the fuck.

Holy F-bomb dropping! Anyways Eviolite Skarmory would be strong but could still be OHKO or 2HKO on switched. A LO Starmie could 2HKO a 252/252 Physical Defensive Evo Skarmory on switch with just Thunderbolt. It could also still 2HKO on switch a 252/252 Specially Defensive Evo Skarmory with Thunder. This is without SR and from a Starmie who's SpA is average.

 

[hotcoldyay]

Holy F-bomb dropping! Anyways Eviolite Skarmory would be strong but could still be OHKO or 2HKO on switched. A LO Starmie could 2HKO a 252/252 Physical Defensive Evo Skarmory on switch with just Thunderbolt. It could also still 2HKO on switch a 252/252 Specially Defensive Evo Skarmory with Thunder. This is without SR and from a Starmie who's SpA is average.

if you place it under sandstorm, im sure the outcome would be different. :P iirc, SDef gets boosted there. evo skarmory is imeasurably impenetrable for physical attackers and weak special attackers, and not offensively useless like chansey persay lol.

shuckle should def get an evo... imagine evoilite shuckle :P impenetrable, but useless nevertheless.

i wish there was a fight/fly type already. it would be cool if they made a legendary trio on that typing. or better yet grass/dragon, fire/dragon, and water/dragon trio. thatd be epic :D

there should also be pure power that affects the special side

they should definitely bring out this typing:

Bug/Water (preferably with volt absorb)
-resistance to fighting, water, ground, steel, and ice (and electric if that could happen)
- should be defensive with an offensive presence
- can surskit be the pre evo for this lol?
- anyway, it has good dual stab (and with the prevalence of rain and grass types in it...), possible availability to the bolt beam combo (hoping for that electric stuff on it)
- a pain to take down one to one without using flying or rock moves (or electric if they dont give it volt absorb)
-bar the weakness to stealth rock, this would be awesome to have around on any team, especially rain
-it should also have rapid spin and toxic spikes and access to recover and giga drain
- i imagine it has a stat spread like this:

74 HP/ 16 Atk/ 85 Def/ 100 SpA/ 200 SDef/ 87 Spe

and steel ghost with levitate would be amazing... and with this stat spread...

75/55/150/55/150/5

awesomest stat spread ever

and then a move like this exclusive to it:

Ghost Bomb- 10PP (max 16?) 100% accuracy
takes users highest attacking stat and hits opponent with most super effective typed move on its weakest defensive stat

this thing would wall so many things in ou... scizor.... terrakion... metagross... breloom... this would be a star in ou :P

 

[Goodra]

Skarmory isn't a Rock type. Sandstorm would have no effect on it's SpD.

 

[Onicon]

Have you ever imagined a metagame without Choice items and Life Orb? Since items never have been transmittable between two generations it IS possible they may strike a few of them. Without choice items and LO it may shift heavily towards defensive and bulky offense. Agility user will heavily profit by the lack of Choice Scarf as they would be allowed to run less speed in favour of bulk. Without CB and LO, a few threats cannot 2HKO their targets right of the bat anymore (Terrakion is probably the best OU example). Probably there would be a stronger focus on 3HKOing than 2HKOing, so that weaker mons are allowed to shine, like Crobat and Aerodactyl with their fortunate speed tier.

That would probably be RSE all over again. Not that it would be bad, it sound fun.

 

[hotcoldyay]

Skarmory isn't a Rock type. Sandstorm would have no effect on it's SpD.

Wait... Theres no boost? Man, all these years ive been thinking that... *facepalm*... would be nice if steel and ground also got the boost now.

 

[Chou Toshio]

I think Attack types that kind of suck should get better attacks. For instance, boost Gunk Shot's power to 140 and give it better accuracy (and give it to Nidoking, lol). Or, a Special Steel-type V-Create (How about "Beam Cannon" xD) that has decent distribution. erhm... I guess Poison and Steel are the only two considered crappy attack types. And Steel gets quite a bit of use just because so many Steel types-- some of which have no options better than STAB (zone), other's who'd have basically zero power without STAB (Bronzong, Metagross), and then there's Scizor and Bronzong.

 

[Aasgier]

Gunk Shot with BP 140 and higher accuracy would suck. Coil-users already get a 93% Gunk Shot after a single boost... On the other hand, the only user of this combination is Arbok, and this snake resides in NU. It would probably raise a tier if that happened, Arbok is dangerous enough in NU as it is.

I do agree with powerful attacks added, though, but they should only be given to weak Pokémon, those which reside in NU, and probably only if they suck in NU.
To give an example, a Psychic-type attack with 105 BP to things like Delcatty, Castform and Noctowl, and probably Gardevoir, the pixies and Mewtwo for the sake of convenience (the latter is Uber anyway). Alakazam would obviously like it, but does not need the extra power to be usable, whereas both Gardevoir and the pixies would probably not even be OU, even with the 16,67% power increase on their STAB.
A variety of other examples can be given here, but I'm not going to waste my time with that.

I don't agree with Magnezone or Scizor getting an insanely powerful STAB. They are OU, and with a reason. Steel is a great defensive typing even though weak to three common attacking types. I think the game creators should make defence more viable, and not offence, since even if we get a defensive creep this time, offence will still be more useful than defence.

 

[nmitchell890]

Something I would like to see is the sleep mechanics changed back to the way they were in GenIV. This would allow a much wider variety of defensive pokemon to be used as they could all take advantage of ability to restore their HP and continue to hold the fort against the offensive monsters that currently overwhelm OU. Things like Landorus-T would be much more viable on stall to repeatedly cockblock Terrakion and abuse Intimidate. Heck, even Garchomp would be viable on stall to cockblock VoltTurn (if anyone still uses it) and 'speed-shuffle' with 0 priority Dragon Tail and Roar. This is a small change with some huge effects that I would love to see.

Another thing I would like to see is an Air Lock/Cloud Nine pokemon that is good enough to compete in OU. Yes Altaria cockblocks Keldeo (Choice Specs Hydro Pump does ~33%) and takes on Breloom decently even with a specially defensive spread but there's little reason other than Cloud Nine to use it over Latias or even Dragonite in the dragon typed special wall slot. I would be open to a pokemon that 4x resists both water and fire, like the previously mentioned water/dragon combo, with either Air Lock or Cloud Nine and decent defences on both sides. I would even be open to Kingdra getting such an ability, it would have a definite niche in OU then even with Ferrothorn about. This is another definite I would like to see.

Finally, I would like to see a few unique type combinations that would have their uses defensively. Ferrothorn, Heatran and Jellicent are perfect examples of how a pokemons typing can make it viable in multiple defensive roles at once. Things like ghost/steel and ghost/fighting would be much appreciated

 

[Glen]

Something I would like to see is the sleep mechanics changed back to the way they were in GenIV. This would allow a much wider variety of defensive pokemon to be used as they could all take advantage of ability to restore their HP and continue to hold the fort against the offensive monsters that currently overwhelm OU. Things like Landorus-T would be much more viable on stall to repeatedly cockblock Terrakion and abuse Intimidate. Heck, even Garchomp would be viable on stall to cockblock VoltTurn (if anyone still uses it) and 'speed-shuffle' with 0 priority Dragon Tail and Roar. This is a small change with some huge effects that I would love to see.

Another thing I would like to see is an Air Lock/Cloud Nine pokemon that is good enough to compete in OU. Yes Altaria cockblocks Keldeo (Choice Specs Hydro Pump does ~33%) and takes on Breloom decently even with a specially defensive spread but there's little reason other than Cloud Nine to use it over Latias or even Dragonite in the dragon typed special wall slot. I would be open to a pokemon that 4x resists both water and fire, like the previously mentioned water/dragon combo, with either Air Lock or Cloud Nine and decent defences on both sides. I would even be open to Kingdra getting such an ability, it would have a definite niche in OU then even with Ferrothorn about. This is another definite I would like to see.

Finally, I would like to see a few unique type combinations that would have their uses defensively. Ferrothorn, Heatran and Jellicent are perfect examples of how a pokemons typing can make it viable in multiple defensive roles at once. Things like ghost/steel and ghost/fighting would be much appreciated

yeah, stuff like this is what i want to see in gen 6; actual changes that would make the metagame better, instead of shit that would rescue someone's favourite mon from NU. i don't care whether something like slaking is usable, i just want a solid OU meta to play.

i think it would be interesting if more hazards were introduced, but only one type of hazard could be laid at a given time. unfortunately this isn't exactly realistic since stealth rock is so much better than both spikes and toxic spikes on almost every team, and the only way to make the choice more difficult (other than reducing the power of SR which, while possible, isn't that likely) would be to introduce another hazard on par with SR, which would not be conducive to a healthy meta.

the game could definitely use a mon with guts that resists water. scald is an unreasonably potent move, and it deserves to be more punishable.

i think a mon with middling stats and an ability that nullifies any moves over a certain base power (idk what a reasonable threshold would be; 90+? 100+?) would be healthy, as long as it didn't have a whole lot of utility beyond that. the game really needs more answers to cc/dm/outrage spam.

i think pursuit is a fantastic game mechanic and i'd like to see more moves with a similar effect. maybe a fire move with low base power that, if the opponent switches out, burns the switching mon in addition to damaging the incoming mon.

i'd also like to see something like support abilities. mons that, while on your team, provide boosts to your active mon (maybe on par with some of the lesser items, like muscle band, or granting some manner of resistance to a certain type). this could possibly be balanced by having the user of the ability be pretty bad or average, or by only allowing one per team. you would be sacrificing a team slot for team utility, not unlike present day ninetales. all in all i like the concept of the 'core' and i think it would be cool if teammates supported each other in more ways than just offensive/defensive coverage. they could actually make the offensive boosts as powerful as giving your entire team stab on a certain type, so long as the defense boosts were of a similar (if not greater) strength as well. or they could make the boosts solely defensive, which would easily solve the problem of the offensive power creep.

an encore-on-contact ability could be really interesting too, assuming the mon had some ok resistances (steel would be a bit much, i think) while not having too much setup potential itself.

 

[flea]

i think pursuit is a fantastic game mechanic and i'd like to see more moves with a similar effect. maybe a fire move with low base power that, if the opponent switches out, burns the switching mon in addition to damaging the incoming mon.

Yeah, you're not alone in wanting more moves like this- moves that require prediction to achieve the greatest potential that the move has. Because as great as pursuit is, the majority of the time you're just bringing in your CB Tar/Scizor/Weavile and spamming it vs the ghost/psychic, not really predicting much.

I think this could be an important step in attempting to lesson my biggest complaint about BW- the over-emphasis of teambuilding and under-emphasis of skill. I am not gonna win the Smogon Tour any time soon, but I can promise you that I have lost many a battle that I have outplayed my opponent in. This is because this meta has so many offensive powerhouses that even the best teams (none of which are mine) will have some weaknesses, and will be at a major disadvantage vs. any team that happens to carry one of the pokemon that said team is weak to. I've found myself focusing far more on teambuilding than playing well this gen, which I think is a little unfortunate. It's just soooo vital to be prepared for all the threats out there, you will get nowhere if you don't prepare for Dragonite/Terrakion/Breloom/Venusaur, which is a major challenge in and of itself. Moves like that that can re-level the field a bit vs. these disadvantages you inherently will have would be awesome.

I am of the opinion that with a well-played match with a solidly constructed team, you should be able to overcome somebody who you are outplaying who has a team advantage. This is still mostly true in BW, but if there are more additions that buff offense more and more, it won't be true for long imo. Every addition is another poke to prepare for, another poke to get swept by, another poke that when you post an RMT an observant soul will point out "you are mad ______ weak". To an extent, this is the nature of the metagame, and it can be really fun, but it's been really hurting the fun of the teambuilding process imo.

 

[SJCrew]

Dunno about any mechanics changes, so I'll just keep my expectations realistic. Going by the trailer, we should have Pokemon from earlier Gens available during the adventure. Precedence also tells us that new Pokemon from even Gens tend to include new evolutions to old Pokemon. My current point of interest is what they are choosing to evolve now.

Me, I'm REALLY not looking forward to any more Eevees. Let's face the facts, most of them are all-around bad and not that useful. I am also not hopeful that they will choose a type that we need more of (Ghosts) instead of further saturating types that are not in demand to begin with (Rocks, Bugs). In fact, they could take the Eevee concept and apply it to other Pokemon like Blissey. I know they've branched into more alternate evos in Gen 4, and I am confident that we will see them in Gen 6 as well.

Just think: physical Blissey. Do we have any good physical wall clerics/Wish passers? No. In fact, our best physical walls are getting the the absolute shit beaten out of them by Terrakion (Skarmory, Hippowdon), greatly hindering their usefulness. Physical defense is overdue some buffs, because it is complete shit right now. Toss out Intimidate like candy and see if I care.

I know I am going on a tangent, but I don't care. I hate Black/White OU. I love offense as much as the next guy, but BUFF DEFENSE AT LEAST A LITTLE BIT. I CAN'T FUCKING COUNTER ANYTHING NOW.

 

[KingNeedlesThe1st]

Fire poison would need levitate to not suck horribly since it packs a nice 4x ground weak on top of being SR weak and water weak.

They gave Mollux Water Absorb instead of Levitate, and it doesn't suck, to my knowledge. It's a fantastic counter to rain teams, with Earthquake/Earth Power mons being very predictable.

 

[Hugin]

Me, I'm REALLY not looking forward to any more Eevees. Let's face the facts, most of them are all-around bad and not that useful. I am also not hopeful that they will choose a type that we need more of (Ghosts) instead of further saturating types that are not in demand to begin with (Rocks, Bugs). In fact, they could take the Eevee concept and apply it to other Pokemon like Blissey. I know they've branched into more alternate evos in Gen 4, and I am confident that we will see them in Gen 6 as well.

Espeon, Jolteon, and Vaporeon are OU. Umbreon is UU and very useful there. Glaceon, Leafeon, and Flareon all suck, but Flareon at least is easily fixable. That's a pretty good line, all told.

I'm expecting a dragon-type Eeveelution, which will probably be good but outclassed by all of the OU dragons. Might be a great UU or RU sweeper, though. Ghost would be interesting, but I doubt they'll do it. Bug honestly seems more likely, and will probably fall to the depths of NU with other unremarkable bugs.

 

[Eggbert]

They gave Mollux Water Absorb instead of Levitate, and it doesn't suck, to my knowledge. It's a fantastic counter to rain teams, with Earthquake/Earth Power mons being very predictable.

I haven't played CAP but dry skin/water absorb are two of the best abilities, easily on par or above levitate for a fire type, so that would definitely make it viable. What I'm saying is that that without an ability to alleviate the agony of being a fire type, it wouldn't work. Dry skin on a fire mon is a radical change to what a pokemon can counter. If it had justified or something less useful it would not have the anything near the same niche. A rain counter that beats ferrothorn unlike rotom and gastro, that is quite nice. CAP should be more popular, if gamefreak can't add balanced defensive mons maybe smogon should.

The problem with eeveelutions is that they are stuck with half of their stats being 65/65/60, so even with the 130/110/95 they will have a gaping weakness and only be good depending on their type. Vaporeon is decent in rain now due to hydration, but the rest of the OU eevees are underwhelming.

 

[Lunar Fist]

I haven't played CAP but dry skin/water absorb are two of the best abilities, easily on par or above levitate for a fire type, so that would definitely make it viable. What I'm saying is that that without an ability to alleviate the agony of being a fire type, it wouldn't work. Dry skin on a fire mon is a radical change to what a pokemon can counter. If it had justified or something less useful it would not have the anything near the same niche. A rain counter that beats ferrothorn unlike rotom and gastro, that is quite nice. CAP should be more popular, if gamefreak can't add balanced defensive mons maybe smogon should.

Things like Dry Skin on a fire type is something that I doubt GF would introduce next gen because it is so counter-intuitive. But I do think that some better distribution of some defensive abilities such as Regenerator (on something not pursuit weak) or Intimidate would go a long way to increase the viability of stall. This is something a lot of others have posted about in this thread. You still only have 6 pokemon to defend against the entire metagame, but a greater variety of defensive pokemon will allow stall to at least tweak the weaknesses that it will (inevitably) have.

Something that I would like would be more defensive Grass-types. They can resist water to sponge hydro pumps and could possibly see use on sun teams.

 

[Meru]

Me, I'm REALLY not looking forward to any more Eevees.

If you were around for Gen III, you'd realize the pattern that revolved around Eeveelutions. The only type left possible would be a Dragon-type Eevee.

 

[HabibsHotDogs]

If you were around for Gen III, you'd realize the pattern that revolved around Eeveelutions. The only type left possible would be a Dragon-type Eevee.

Excuse my ignorance but please explain?

 

[ClubbingSealCub]

Excuse my ignorance but please explain?

all of Eevee's evolutions were special attacking types in the first 3 gens.

That means there is only Dragon left

 

[pom]

The LAST thing I would like to see is more kinds of weather. Sure, it would make rain less dominant, but there would be even more weathers for weatherless teams to counter, and in my experience, handling just Chlorophyll and Sand Rush sweepers with no weather of your own is tricky. Hail should get a boost however, and although it would do nothing for the offensive-as-fuck meta we have now, I would hope that it's an offensive boost. A defense boost to Ice types is really not going to make the weather any more popular unless they give Ice a few more resists. Shit, maybe Regice with a 50% Physical Defense boost in Hail would see some usage if it resisted a few more things.

Assuming the weather stays though, you won't see me complaining. As long as rain gets knocked down a little, I'll be happy. While there is no doubt that Rain is just unbelievably good at this point, I don't think at this point Auto Weather is broken.

Onto the new Pokemon and moves though, Dark types need some love in the form of higher BP moves. Dark-Type Close Combat anyone? On that topic, I think Physical coverage moves as a whole need some love. There's the narrowly distributed 75 BP Elemental Punches, while Special attackers get 95 BP moves with no drawbacks, and better distribution. Just look at what happened to Kyurem-B! He has the second highest BST in the game, and is middle-OU because he has no physical coverage moves. All Physical attackers really have is EdgeQuake, along with MAYBE a STAB move like Icicle Crash or Waterfall (which both have less BP than Ice Beam and Surf, like what the fuck), and occasionally Superpower (Close Combat if they're a fighting type or REALLY lucky).

As for new Pokemon, give us a defensive Water/Dragon! That would be so good against Rain and Sun. Also, something the make Spinning a little easier, or at least make your opponent make an effort to stop your Spin. Since Spinblocking isn't really a big thing in OU at the moment, the thing that makes it tough to Spin is that if you switch in your Spinner, and use Rapid Spin, you've just given your opponent two absolutely free turns, as well as all the momentum in the world, and unless your name is Starmie, in most cases a setup opportunity as well.

Or, as somebody pointed out to me, types that resist themselves. In that case, Bug and Poison would be contenders instead.

Bug doesn't resist itself.

 

[WashedLaundry]

I don't think current weathers need to see nerfs, not if you're gonna throw buffs to everything else everywhere. If you're buffing something like hail or sun to be better than it currently is, while nerfing rain and possibly sand in the process, you're making sun and hail the better weathers instead. Suddenly they'll be the things everyone's complaining about dealing with instead. Just buff sun and hail and weatherless and things should be fine.

I don't want one Cloud 9/Air Lock Pokemon in OU. I want multiple. Having just one will make it absolutely core on nearly every weatherless team. It becomes overcentralizing in that regard and everyone will use it. To me, that screams like an unhealthy mon. Give me multiple so there are options.

I want more walls. I'll chime in on that. OU next gen needs a hell of a lot of better stalling Pokemon or Pokemon to make stall better. While they're at it, they should add new stalling options. Something, anything to give stall new life. This thread should be a testament to game freak that that's what players want and I think they are sensitive enough to add Pokemon that deal with issues. Walls aren't fun for casuals to play against but they're what the game needs at a high level of play to keep it interesting, engaging, and intelligent. I dunno what exactly that'll entail but it's gogdamn boring running the same few walls on every team.

I'm chiming in for that Steel/Ghost and I want to see something with Rotom-A's typing that isn't Rotom-A. I can't tell you how many times I've looked at a team and thought "man I wish the Rotom Formes still had their electric/ghost typing."

 

[Drako]

Tbh, I love overpowered stuff and weather as well. So I'm gonna buck the trend and say, more weather, more sand rush, chlorophyl, sun, rain, sand abusers, if it was up to me I'd say implement some new weather. I like that shit. Weatherless is so damn boring. Deoxys-D offense is way too generic imo.