I'm very much in favor of adding a nerf to my king's rock, I just couldn't think of one I liked enough. The double stat drop was intended for flavor, and I even wanted to add an auto taunt, but well... that would have been even more powerful. I thought of dropping speed, but that really doesn't do much as you'd probably want this item on tanks/walls anyway. An attack drop may do a better job, but only for tanks. I also considered the "attacking moves only" rule, and I suppose that's all right but it doesn't fit the item too terribly well. If anything, that would just make it the "in between vest."
So if anyone thinks of a good nerf, I'd be happy to hear it.
Well, it could Choice lock the holder (Very limiting to walls, and makes for a sort of Reverse Choice Band/Specs for attackers wanting to switch in on attacks), damage the holder ("Heavy is the crown sitting on the king's head") either on switch-in or passively at the end of every turn, burn PP faster... there's tons of possibilities. The problem isn't so much how powerful the effect is as much as it is that the "disadvantage" is that it takes up your item slot. Just adding a disadvantage would go a long way.
I'm very afraid of Taranto's King's rock. In gen 5 I would u-turn in a sub charge beam mangezone to set up on ferrothorns and guarantee at least two KOs, if not more. It would have been even more destructive with slightly higher speed. Imagine if you could do something like that with ANY pokemon. Pick something that can wall a decentish portion of the meta and give the means to stay in on those pokemon indefinitely. Then you boost your stats at your leisure. Gothitelle can almost do this right now. Imagine if it actually had decent stats. Maybe it's not as scary as it sounds, but I'm very wary of trapping mechanics, especially an automatic one that you can slap on any pokemon.
It blocks a switch attempt one time and then is destroyed. No, you can't setup indefinitely without a trapping move/Ability to follow up with. (Which in turn means burning an item
and moveslot on a one-time trick that is difficult to pull off) What it
does let you do is switch in on something with a 4x weakness and then kill it while it destroys the item with an attempted switch, or arrange to come in on something that can't touch you and is already Toxic-ed and just keep Recycling the item. That sort of thing. It's
not free reign to setup on anything to whatever extent you feel like.
Intimidate: The Item might cause Clear Body to become a thing, which could in turn bring back the Assault Vest. Or the Assault Vest might get buffed because all the normal competitive items are likely going to end up on a slate eventually. Additionally, there's the possibility that Intimidate: The Item will be answered by the emergence of a Clear Body: The Item (or worse, a "Clear Body except I can't even lower my own stats": The Item).
There's a limited pool of Pokemon to choose from for ignoring Intimidate: The Item (Regular Diancie, regular Metagross, Klinklang, Tentacruel, Regis, Heatmor, Torkoal, Carbink [Why not Sturdy?], Crawdaunt [Why not Adaptability?], Kingler, Gliscor [but why would you run Hyper Cutter over Poison Heal?], Mawile [Why aren't you running Intimidate?] and Pinsir [You're Mega Evolving out of it), and I think Tentacruel and Metagross are it for "viable in their base form with that Ability". (And nowadays most Metagross are Mega)
More likely the counter to it would be that Bisharp would become The Best Pokemon, especially since the way Showdown, at least, runs things is that having two different
types of drops leads to a double-trigger, so Bisharp would end up 3 stages up.
Clear Body: The Item is never going to be appealing unless, yeah, it's the kind that ignores self-inflicted stat drops too. The effect is too niche, and most of the things it's useful against there are other, better ways of dealing with the problem.
My entries are meant to buff the Dragon-type in general. Don't get me wrong: they're FAR from how they used to be pre-Gen 4, but they've since lost their glory days of Gen 4 & 5. I want to at least nurse their wounds. :/
There are so many Dragons
still considered OU, and, actually...
8 Dragon-type OU Pokemon by DexSearch
7 Dragon-type UU Pokemon by DexSearch
4 Dragon-type RU Pokemon by DexSearch
0 Dragon-type Pokemon in NU (and PU) by Dexsearch
and 9 Dragon type Pokemon in Ubers by Dexsearch
So basically even
bad Dragons are no lower than RU, more than a sixth of OU is Dragon-type (8 out of 47 Pokemon considered to be OU), all while the Fairy type exists.
Dragons
really don't need a buff. They most certainly do
not need the kinds of nutty boosts you are suggesting.
And I compared the Dragon Scale entry to Soul Dew for a reason. Soul Dew is banned from OU, and is the same degree of boost, distributed differently. Worse yet, that Dragon Scale can be given not only to the Latis but also to the
multiple other 600 BST Dragons -and all the Uber Dragons too. But even just in OU, what exactly is the answer to Multiscale Dragon Scale Roost Dragonite, other than to remove the item ASAP? (I guess Scarf Cloyster Icicle Spearing it? You can't Shell Smash Focus Sash, because it'll just finish you with Extreme Speed)
... I thought I would have more to say than this, actually, but I think that's all there is.
