Ability Balance

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Yeah, a few others have mentioned something similar to me since my last post... I had no idea.


How exactly does their voting system work? I'm open to any and all suggestions.
basically ppl submit their votes like this(except they don't say what I put in the parentheses):

Vital Spirit
-User X(Favorite effect)(3 points)
-User Y(Second favorite effect)(2 points)
-User Z(Third favorite effect)(1 point)
 
I just realized Speed Boost is now like a Speed version of Moxie, but it boosts when it hits.
But I believe the only speed booster that will possibly not go down in usage as an effect of speed boost is Yanmega. It has decent speed already as well as Tinted Lens.
 
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Magma

Guest
Ok everyone, the results are in.

Unfortunately, the Damp submissions resulted in a tie, so lets do a re-vote for this ability following the M4A-system that Throbulator36 recommended:
(Follow this exact layout, except for what's in parentheses:)

Damp
User X (Favorite effect) (3 points)
User Y (Second favorite effect) (2 points)
User Z (Third favorite effect) (1 point)
(If there are no objections, we will use this system for future voting rounds as well... and I'll update the OP.)

While we wait for these results to come in, let's discuss the winning submissions:
  • Vital Spirit - User cannot be immobilized by Paralysis, Sleep, Freeze, and various variable status conditions. Recharge moves like Hyper Beam do not need to recharge. (PokemonMasterDebater)
  • Unnerve - Lowers the opponents special attack one stage upon switching in. (Mantodea)

I'll start us off with a few generic questions:
  • Which Pokemon, with this upgraded ability, are now viable thanks to the buff? (List movesets and damage-calcs if possible.)
  • If this pet mod allowed ability re-distributions, would any other Pokemon be highly competitive with the new version of this ability?
  • Do we need to make any slight adjustments/corrections to this ability before it gets added to the archives?
 
Ok everyone, the results are in.

Unfortunately, the Damp submissions resulted in a tie, so lets do a re-vote for this ability following the M4A-system that Throbulator36 recommended:
(If there are no objections, we will use this system for future voting rounds as well... and I'll update the OP.)

While we wait for these results to come in, let's discuss the winning submissions:
  • Vital Spirit - User cannot be immobilized by Paralysis, Sleep, Freeze, and various variable status conditions. Recharge moves like Hyper Beam do not need to recharge. (PokemonMasterDebater)
  • Unnerve - Lowers the opponents special attack one stage upon switching in. (Mantodea)

I'll start us off with a few generic questions:
  • Which Pokemon, with this upgraded ability, are now viable thanks to the buff? (List movesets and damage-calcs if possible.)
  • If this pet mod allowed ability re-distributions, would any other Pokemon be highly competitive with the new version of this ability?
  • Do we need to make any slight adjustments/corrections to this ability before it gets added to the archives?
Unnerve will probably be used a lot on Houndoom, Aerodactyl, Mewtwo, and possibly Tyranitar due to their Mega Evolutions. Also many Masquerain users in PU can either go with Intimidate or Unnerve, but I think most Galvantula users might stick with Compound Eyes. Otherwise, Unnerve doesn't help many Pokemon.

Vital Spirit Vigoroth may as well run Giga Impact now, but Electivire, due to paralysis immunity and fire-type moves, might as well have the old version of Vital Spirit, as the secondary effects aren't as useful for them.
 

canno

formerly The Reptile
Vital Spirit is kind of cool - Hyper Beam and Giga Impact are about as strong as a STAB 100 BP move, which is neat. I don't see it making anything more viable than they are already though, as they don't really care for their new normal STAB move outside of Vigoroth.

Unnerve is pretty damn cool though. Haxorus is a pretty neat user of it, giving it time to set-up vs offensive teams, while TTar can use it pre-mega to become unkillable after mega. You could be silly and use Arbok - Unnerve and then Coil to do stuff, but that's probably not very good. Overall it just kind of buffs already good mons, although the most interesting mon with it is Pyroar imo - it finally has a good ability!
 

Magma

Guest
We had a few misunderstandings last round, so before we move on to the next slate, allow me to further expand on the rules of submitting a revamped ability...

Your submissions do NOT have to be built on top of the ability's original functionality; however, now, for each submission, everyone is required to write up a short paragraph explaining your submission's flavor as well as your logic behind the revamp.

(I will update the OP with this rule and apply it to the example submissions.)

Also, Damp still doesn't have a clear cut winner, so I will re-slate it in the future following the new layout.

Ok, now that everyone is hopefully on the same page, lets revamp the armor abilities:

Prevents critical hits


Cannot be frozen. Halves the amount of steps required to hatch Eggs.


Prevents critical hits.


Boosts Speed by 1 stage and lowers Defense by 1 stage when hit by a Physical move.

 
Battle Armor:
Reduces all physical damage by 1/8.
Shell Armor:
Reduces all special damage by 1/8.

Shell/Battle Armor did basically the same thing, and now are more like counterparts. The majority of Shell Armor users are defensive and have low sp.def, so Shell Armor would help, while the majority of Battle Armor users have decent-ish sp.def, and get better def.

Magma Armor:
Prevents freezing, burning, sleeping, paralyzing or poisoning.

Magma itself cannot be frozen (easily), forced asleep, burned, paralyzed or poisoned, so no wonder Magma Armor will do just that.

Weak Armor:
After 2 turns it 'breaks' and raises speed by one.

Weak Armor is the name, and so it's likely weak armor would easily break. The majority of Weak Armor users are naturally slow, so thus +1 speed may be useful.
 
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Magma

Guest
MegaGallade, you forgot to include a short paragraph (2 - 3 sentences) explaining the flavor and logic behind each change.

Your submissions are great, but they won't be included in the voting ballot until you add the short paragraphs.
 

EV

Banned deucer.
Battle Armor
Lowers Speed and raises Defense. (intrinsic like Pure Power, not actual stat boosts/drops)
This Pokemon's armor is so heavy it slows them down but grants them a buff to their physical defense. The listed Pokemon would like to take hits better so they can support the team better (Armaldo/Drapion) or have more time to set up (Kabutops/Marowak w/ Swords Dance). Opposite of Weak Armor.

Magma Armor
Prevents Freezing. Fire-type moves raise this Pokemon's Defense and Special Defense. (intrinsic, similar to Unburden and is thus not Baton Passable)
This Pokemon's magma aura hardens when heated by Fire moves. These Pokemon can already sponge Fire attacks, but now they get harder to take down. They're geared for support generally, though Camerupt likes to attack too so it will appreciate the buffs regardless.

Shell Armor
Prevents critical hits. Raises Defense each time this Pokemon is hit by a contact move.
The shell of this Pokemon adapts from repeated hits and begins to harden. Shell Smashers will like this ability for patching up their Defense drop. Defensive Pokemon can invest heavily in Special Defense.

Weak Armor
Lowers Defense and raises Speed. (intrinsic like Pure Power, not actual stat boosts/drops)
This Pokemon dons shabby armor that exposes it to damage but lets it move faster than normal. It can setup before the opponent or land a hit before getting hit itself. Opposite of Battle Armor.
 
Battle Armor
The user is immune to critical hits and gains a stage of Defense when increasing stat stages via a Status move. (eg Swords Dance)

Shell Armor
The user is immune to critical hits and gains a stage of Special Defense when increasing stat stages via a Status move. (eg Shell Smash)

Why: Immunity to critical hits is important when it comes to auto-crit moves and especially stuff like Sniper Kingdra with Focus Energy and a Scope Lens spamming perfect Draco Meteors. Nonetheless, critical hit immunity is a bit narrow on its own -but the users trend towards Pokemon that like to set up at least a little. Battle Armor is Defense because the name (Even the Japanese name) calls to mind a man in armor, which Poke-logic dictates equals Defense, while Shell Armor is different for the sake of being different. An argument can be made that the watertight shell is better at keeping out bursts of flame and splashing water, I guess?

Magma Armor
The user cannot be Frozen and inflicts 25% recoil damage on its attacker when struck by Water or Ice moves, even if they do not make contact.

Why: What happens when you throw water on lava? Steam.

Weak Armor
The user has 33% less Defense but 50% more Speed.

Why: The primary benefit it applies, but built-in rather than requiring the user is hit first. Omastar in particular stands out as a Pokemon that would love to have the option of just being reasonably fast outright, though it's not the only one of those Pokemon that have the Ability. Also, no Pokemon is limited to Weak Armor alone -it would be dumb for a Pokemon to have Weak Armor as its only Ability with this effect, since it would be the same thing in most situations as not having an Ability but having less base Defense and more base Speed. Having it as an option, however, gives the player some ability to tailor the Pokemon -and renders the opponent uncertain whether their Pokemon will outspeed Skarmory and be stymied in the KO by Sturdy or be outspeed and Brave Birded to death before it moves. (Or it could have Keen Eye, but who does that?)

EDIT: Occurred to me that my Battle Armor/Shell Armor concept could be adapted to Speed Boost to un-break Blaziken without seriously screwing up Ninjask and Scolipede. As far as I'm aware, Blaziken/Mega Blaziken rarely uses actual set-up moves. Correct me if I'm wrong Ubers players.
 
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(Or it could have Keen Eye, but who does that?)
Someone in the future, after this mod is playable and Keen Eye is useful for something.

Since the most of the obvious ideas that I wanted to use are taken, I'm gonna go a different rout than the others.

Battle Armor: User takes half damage from Fighting and Dark type attacks.
This Pokemon's natural armor is perfect for battle, as it absorbs blows from the most brutal attackers.

Shell Armor: User takes half damage from Rock and Flying type attacks. Halves damage taken from Stealth Rock.
This Pokemon's shell is harder than stone, and protects it from aerial assault.

Magma Armor: User takes half damage from Ice and Water type attacks.
The intense heat radiating from this Pokemon's body causes Water and Ice to begin to evaporate near it.

All of these are variations of Thick Fat, removing weaknesses from Kabutops, Camerupt, Cloyster, Lapris, Crustle, Torkoal, and Torterra, while adding new resistances to all of the users save Magcargo. Camerupt is notable for now resisting BoltBeam, Escaviler now resists 10 types including Rock and Flying, Torkoal is no longer weak to SR and walls Talonflame, and all the others benefit in their own ways.
 
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Magma

Guest
Magma Armor
User doesn't take damage from Water attacks (secondary effects still occur?), instead its Speed falls two stages and Defense raises one stage.
Water causes the user's magma-like guard to cool and solidify, turning the user into a dense statue. Competitively, this revamped ability would've been much more useful last generation when Rotom-W + Scizor was everywhere... Camerupt would have been a solid counter to their Volt-Turn combo.

Weak Armor
User doesn't take damage from moves that make contact (secondary effects still occur?), instead its Defense falls two stages and Speed raises one stage.
This fragile armor absorbs physical blows but chips off piece by piece with each attack, leaving the user less protected but more flexible. Competitively, this ability would force physical attackers to run non-contact physical attacks (Earthquake, Stone Edge, etc) for coverage. Fuck Tough Claws...
 

canno

formerly The Reptile
Battle Armor
Contact moves do 0.7x damage against the user. Non-Contact moves do 0.9x damage against the user.

This ability makes anything that uses it have much better physical bulk - it's essentially the counter ability to Tough Claws. Meanwhile it also provides a small decrease in power against non-contact moves, which is primarily special moves although it does help vs Grass Knot. Pretty good ability on these mons, as most of them prefer to go a more bulky route and this makes them more bulky than there stat spreads would have them appear as. Overall a neat ability.

Magma Armor
Absorbs Water moves, raising Defense one stage.

So the idea flavor-wise is that the magma armor would solidify, thus increasing the users Defense. I was going to add something about making the user Rock-type, but that doesn't help at all for these mons. Camerupt is probably the better of the two with this ability, as it can now switch into Rotom-W and Scizor for days. However, do not underestimate Magcargo, as it can now Shell Smash in the face of it's Water-type friends. It's still slow as shit after a smash, but it has something now.

Shell Armor

User is immune to attacks with 65 PB or less.

Ok, so this one is kind of weird, I'll admit, but its pretty nifty imo. A neat thing is that they can technically spin block due to being immune to Rapid Spin. Not as notable due to Defog being the coolest thing in town, but its something. It's also immune to the "always crit moves" and the Dragon Tail moves. The most important thing is that they're immune to Knock Off since it's technically a 65 BP move. This is really cool, as it pretty much functions as Sticky Hold but better in this regard. Other nifty things include being immune to multi-hit moves and Hidden Power, and it stops Technician users that rely mostly on their low BP moves like Breloom (Scizor not so much since it can just U-Turn away since it's just barely over the immunity barrier). So yea, overall a cool ability.


Weak Armor
Halves damage taken when switching in.

Most of the submissions I noticed make the user faster, but I don't completely understand this. Yes, you do have weaker armor, but it wouldn't make you faster than the variant of yourself that isn't faster. Why would Weak Armor Mandibuzz be faster than Overcoar Mandibuzz? This concept takes a different approach - the user switches in with weaker armor, which effectively blocks an attack when the user switches in, but falls apart really quickly. This is practically a quick Multiscale on switch, except it doesn't matter if you're HP is full or not. This is pretty cool on some mons like Garbodor and Kabutops, while Pokemon like Mandibuzz and Skarmory already have other fantastic abilities so them not getting boosted that hard isn't that big of a deal. They can still use it though to avoid 2HKO's, which is really neat.
 
The most important thing is that they're immune to Knock Off since it's technically a 65 BP move. This is really cool, as it pretty much functions as Sticky Hold but better in this regard.
That's not how Knock Off works. Its BP goes up by 50% when it removes an item, not its damage, so this version of Shell Armor would provide immunity to Knock Off only if you either were not holding an item or were holding an item it can't remove.

Not as notable due to Defog being the coolest thing in town, but its something.
Defog is king for any team with no interest in setting hazards itself, but if you want to set hazards, Rapid Spin is the only way to get hazards off your side of the field without undoing your own work. So this would be fantastic for any team that wants to set hazards and is concerned by other hazard-setting teams.

Most of the submissions I noticed make the user faster, but I don't completely understand this. Yes, you do have weaker armor, but it wouldn't make you faster than the variant of yourself that isn't faster. Why would Weak Armor Mandibuzz be faster than Overcoar Mandibuzz?
Weak Armor in the first place loses Defense to raise Speed, and the concept is clearly that the armor falls apart and away, lightening the user. Just having a thinner, lighter shell that protects less well justifies an increase in Speed without any "flaking" concept at all.

However, do not underestimate Magcargo, as it can now Shell Smash in the face of it's Water-type friends. It's still slow as shit after a smash, but it has something now.
Still doubly weak to Ground, which has always been a bigger limiter on Magcargo, because its impressive Defense is rendered irrelevant by random Earthquakes and always has been. sadface

Magma's post
Normally taking no damage means the attack effectively misses. I imagine Showdown could be coded to have these Abilities behave differently, but in Pokemon immunity always equals the move completely failing (Except in Generation I, where partial trapping moves are weird), not simply doing 0 damage. You can't Fake Out a Ghost, for instance.

Someone in the future, after this mod is playable and Keen Eye is useful for something.
Keen Eye is a fantastic Ability now that it ignores Evasion increases in the foe, it's just Evasion boosts are banned in Smogon play. I would find it strange if this Pet Mod were to alter Keen Eye on the logic that Smogon rules ban the things it interacts with.
 
Keen Eye is a fantastic Ability now that it ignores Evasion increases in the foe, it's just Evasion boosts are banned in Smogon play. I would find it strange if this Pet Mod were to alter Keen Eye on the logic that Smogon rules ban the things it interacts with.
I was unaware of that buff, but that is still a niche ability. For it to have any influence on the battle, the opponent needs to use accuracy lowering or evasion boosting moves, which, if I understand correctly, are still rarely seen in other formats that don't ban evasion like VGC. It seems too situational with too little benefit to be considered "Fantastic". Defiant is fantastic, despite being situational, because Defog is common, and something with a Defiant boost threatens the entire opposing team, not just the thing that abuses evasion hax.

In summary, Keen Eye sux, plz buff.
 

Magma

Guest
Normally taking no damage means the attack effectively misses. I imagine Showdown could be coded to have these Abilities behave differently, but in Pokemon immunity always equals the move completely failing (Except in Generation I, where partial trapping moves are weird), not simply doing 0 damage. You can't Fake Out a Ghost, for instance.
I had a feeling this was the case... thanks for the clarification, Ghoul King.

Keen Eye is a fantastic Ability now that it ignores Evasion increases in the foe, it's just Evasion boosts are banned in Smogon play. I would find it strange if this Pet Mod were to alter Keen Eye on the logic that Smogon rules ban the things it interacts with.
I was unaware of that buff, but that is still a niche ability. For it to have any influence on the battle, the opponent needs to use accuracy lowering or evasion boosting moves, which, if I understand correctly, are still rarely seen in other formats that don't ban evasion like VGC. It seems too situational with too little benefit to be considered "Fantastic". Defiant is fantastic, despite being situational, because Defog is common, and something with a Defiant boost threatens the entire opposing team, not just the thing that abuses evasion hax.

In summary, Keen Eye sux, plz buff.
You both make great points here; however, I'm going to have to agree with PMD. Keen Eye will most likely be slated in the future.

---

Thanks to all who participated in the submission phase. Now lets move on to voting.

MegaGallade
Reduces all physical damage by 1/8.

The Eevee General
Lowers Speed and raises Defense. (intrinsic like Pure Power, not actual stat boosts/drops)

Ghoul King
The user is immune to critical hits and gains a stage of Defense when increasing stat stages via a Status move. (eg Swords Dance)

PokemonMasterDebater
User takes half damage from Fighting and Dark type attacks.

The Reptile
Contact moves do 0.7x damage against the user. Non-Contact moves do 0.9x damage against the user.


MegaGallade
Reduces all special damage by 1/8.

The Eevee General
Prevents critical hits. Raises Defense each time this Pokemon is hit by a contact move.

Ghoul King
The user is immune to critical hits and gains a stage of Special Defense when increasing stat stages via a Status move. (eg Shell Smash)

PokemonMasterDebater
User takes half damage from Rock and Flying type attacks. Halves damage taken from Stealth Rock.

Magma
Prevents critical hits. If the user is attacked while using Protect, its Defense and Special Defense increase by one stage. (*New Submission*. Justification: When a Pokemon with this ability hides in its shell, it uses it as a shield, causing the shell to toughen up after an attack.)

The Reptile
User is immune to attacks with 65 PB or less.


MegaGallade
Prevents freezing, burning, sleeping, paralyzing or poisoning.

The Eevee General
Prevents Freezing. Fire-type moves raise this Pokemon's Defense and Special Defense. (intrinsic, similar to Unburden and is thus not Baton Passable)

Ghoul King
The user cannot be Frozen and inflicts 25% recoil damage on its attacker when struck by Water or Ice moves, even if they do not make contact.

PokemonMasterDebater
User takes half damage from Ice and Water type attacks.

Magma
User is immune to Water attacks, instead its Speed falls two stages and Defense raises one stage.

The Reptile
Absorbs Water moves, raising Defense one stage.


MegaGallade
After 2 turns it 'breaks' and raises speed by one.

The Eevee General
Lowers Defense and raises Speed. (intrinsic like Pure Power, not actual stat boosts/drops)

Ghoul King
The user has 33% less Defense but 50% more Speed.

Magma
User is immune to moves that make contact, instead its Defense falls two stages and Speed raises one stage.

The Reptile
Halves damage taken when switching in.


Send your votes to me in a new PM titled "AB Vote 2", following this format for each ability:
Ability-Name
User X (Favorite effect) (3 points)
User Y (Second favorite effect) (2 points)
User Z (Third favorite effect) (1 point)

(Do not include the things in parentheses)

While we wait for the results to come in, let's continue to break down each submission. Are some changes still not good enough... are some too OP?
 

Magma

Guest
There weren't many votes this round, but we were still able to produce winners:

Battle Armor - Lowers Speed and raises Defense. (intrinsic like Pure Power, not actual stat boosts/drops) (The Eevee General)

Shell Armor - Prevents critical hits. If the user is attacked while using Protect, its Defense and Special Defense increase by one stage. (Magma)

Magma Armor - User takes half damage from Ice and Water type attacks. (PokemonMasterDebater)

Weak Armor - Lowers Defense and raises Speed. The user has 33% less Defense but 50% more Speed. (The Eevee General & Ghoul King)

---

Let's discuss/edit the revamped abilities before they officially go into the archives. I'll start us off with a few questions:
  • What should be the increase/decrease rate for Battle Armor? (33% more Defense and 50% less Speed? - Similar to the revamped Weak Armor)
  • Should we give all 4 of the armor abilities a critical hit immunity?
  • Are any Pokemon more viable now thanks to the revamped version of these abilities?

Also, PokemonMasterDebater, can you elaborate on your Vital Spirit ability? Are you saying that the users can still be status'd (paralyzed, put to sleep, etc.), they just can't be immobilized by it? (Example: a paralyzed Pokemon can never be "fully paralyzed.") If so, when a Vital Spirit 'mon uses Rest, can it attack while asleep?
 
(33% more Defense and 50% less Speed? - Similar to the revamped Weak Armor)
50% more Speed to 33% less Defense is because those are the inverse of each other -two thirds vs three halves. It's exactly identical to what happens when Weak Armor activates in normal play: one stage of Defense down is 33% less Defense while one stage of Speed up is 50% more Speed, which is in turn because that's how you maintain the proportions when flipping around. 50% of a stat is the reverse of double the stat -not 50% more of the stat.

So if Battle Armor is to be made the reverse of Weak Armor, it would be 50% more Defense and 33% less Speed.

Should we give all 4 of the armor abilities a critical hit immunity?
Battle Armor at least, should.

Are any Pokemon more viable now thanks to the revamped version of these abilities?
Battle Armor: Drapion might actually bother with it now, since it has trouble outspeeding things anyway, and its Ground weakness is primarily a physical vulnerability anyway. Armaldo might also bother with it outside of rain teams, and same for Kabutops. Marowak technically appreciates it, but it's not going to launch it to OU viability.

Magma Armor: Doesn't save Magcargo, but Camerupt will finally be able to survive one Water hit, at least in Sun conditions. Doesn't address its real problems of being slow and neither particularly tough nor particularly hard hitting.

Shell Armor: For all the Shell Smashers, can be a bit of a nasty trick. Who needs a White Herb? Protect being able to effectively double as a Cosmic Power is nifty. On the other hand that's half your moveset. Shell Armor would certainly help some of these Pokemon in Doubles play, where Protect shows up on almost every Pokemon regularly. Not sure it would really bring anybody up in viability per se though, being a bit of a narrow gimmick, particularly from a Singles perspective.

Weak Armor: Choice Scarf, the Ability will definitely help a lot of the Pokemon that get it -Omastar is actually a good sweeper, normally held back by the need to set up with Shell Smash or have Rain support, and indeed most of these Pokemon are fast enough that, at least with Speed investment, they could outrun 100+ Speed Pokemon reliably, with just a sacrifice of taking 50% more damage from Physical attacks. Mandibuzz probably won't care for it and Magcargo is so slow that it would basically have to Shell Smash and run Weak Armor to have any chance of outrunning anything at all fast, but most of the other Pokemon are just slow enough they can't pull a straight fast sweeper but fast enough they don't need much assistance to pull off the task. Variant Skarmory running as straight sweepers might actually happen, as opposed to always running Sturdy and defaulting to being all about hazards. Even Garbodor might see some use, since it would be a lightning-fast Poison type -Crobat being the main Poison type that isn't on the slow side, and it has its own issues, such as vulnerability to Stealth Rock.
 
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Something I just realized is that, according to the rules of this thread, wonder guard is a bad ability, but if we were to improve/change it we would either take away shedinja's only niche or completely break shedinja.
 
Wonder guard is pretty easy, it has its previous effect and magic guard. I mean, not like fire, flying, rock, ghost and dark type moves aren't damn well everywhere. Gives it a chance to not die to the stupidest things imo.
 
Also, PokemonMasterDebater, can you elaborate on your Vital Spirit ability? Are you saying that the users can still be status'd (paralyzed, put to sleep, etc.), they just can't be immobilized by it? (Example: a paralyzed Pokemon can never be "fully paralyzed.") If so, when a Vital Spirit 'mon uses Rest, can it attack while asleep?
Yeah, I didn't write that very well did I. I meant that it can be paralyzed, but will never be fully paralyzed, and cannot be put to sleep or frozen.

I agree with Ghoul King about basically everything he said in his last post about how the abilities help the Pokemon.
 
Wonder guard is pretty easy, it has its previous effect and magic guard. I mean, not like fire, flying, rock, ghost and dark type moves aren't damn well everywhere. Gives it a chance to not die to the stupidest things imo.
The main things I'd be willing to make Shedinja immune to are weather damage and entry hazards. Entry hazards in particular just completely screw it over with nothing to be done about it unless you have Rapid Spin or Defog on another member. Just flat out giving it Wondrous Magic Guard is ludicrous, among other points causing Focus Sash Shedinja to absolutely require a minimum of two moves to kill. Shedinja is bad, but it's important that it be kind of bad -otherwise any team with only one or two of the five members carrying any of the types of relevance is instantly invalid in real play, and that's kind of ridiculous.
 
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Magma

Guest
So if Battle Armor is to be made the reverse of Weak Armor, it would be 50% more Defense and 33% less Speed.
Added.

Battle Armor at least, should.
Ok, but then shouldn't the revamped Weak Armor also have a critical hit immunity since it's now the reverse of Battle Armor?

I'm also going to add a few more things to your points on Shell Armor, Ghoul King. I think a Shell Armor + Substitute + Protect combo can be a much weaker version of Aegislash's Substitute + King's Shield combo that just might be good enough to shoot a couple of Shell Armor sets to B rank.

Would an Escavalier set with Substitute | Protect | Iron Head | Knock Off/Megahorn be viable now?

Something I just realized is that, according to the rules of this thread, wonder guard is a bad ability, but if we were to improve/change it we would either take away shedinja's only niche or completely break shedinja.
I'm using the "ability not on any viable movesets = bad ability" logic as more of a guideline than a actual set-in-stone rule. A great deal of judgement (from myself and a few others) still goes into determining which abilities are "bad" and which aren't... especially when it comes to the signature ones like Wonder Guard.
 
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Ok, but then shouldn't the revamped Weak Armor also have a critical hit immunity since it's now the reverse of Battle Armor?
Flavor-wise, that makes no sense ("My armor is so crappy it HAS NO WEAK POINTS HAHAHA") and just because two Abilities are parallels to each other doesn't mean they have to be as close to identical as possible. Heatproof is clearly intended to be Bronzong's Fire equivalent to Levitate, which back in Gen IV let it select which of two weaknesses to have only one of, but it's not immunity to Fire -and throws in halving Burn damage.

I think a Shell Armor + Substitute + Protect combo can be a much weaker version of Aegislash's Substitute + King's Shield combo that just might be good enough to shoot a couple of Shell Armor sets to B rank.
Substitute is great on Aegislash because it means it doesn't need to play mindgames and/or constantly alternate King's Shield/attacking move/King's Shield to avoid dying horribly. That, and it blocks stuff like Will O Wisp King's Shield doesn't block.

But sure, punishing attempts to break your Substitute with Cosmic Power+taking no damage is actually a nifty use.

Would an Escavalier set with Substitute | Protect | Iron Head | Knock Off/Megahorn be viable now?
If I were to try, I'd run Knock Off just to have a tiny shot of not being 100% doomed against Fire types.
 
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