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hey, even pirates need attorneys
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Join Date: Apr 2009
Posts: 2,611
especially internet pirates
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capefeather for the sweep?
Final Submission
Defining "precedent"
I've changed how I use precedent a bit from when I made the argument last project. This is my main basis behind any flavour arguments that I make.
In the following, an attribute x represents one of the Pokémon's types or abilities, X is the entire collection of the Pokémon's attributes x, m represents a move, and M is a collection of moves.
A move m has strong precedent with x if the following is true: If at least two Generation V Pokémon have x and m is not a Generation V move, then all G5 Pokémon with x have m. Otherwise, all Pokémon with x have m. For example, Iron Defense has strong precedent with Generation V carriers of No Guard in the level movepool.
A move m has (normal) precedent with x if the following is true: If at least one G5 Pokémon has x and m is not a G5 move, then at least one G5 Pokémon with x has m. Otherwise, at least one Pokémon with x has m. For example, Silver Wind has normal precedent with Bug-types. Unlike strong precedent, by "having a move" I mean having the move with the same STAB status. Usually, when I say "normal precedent", I am excluding strong precedent.
A move m has weak precedent with x if at least one G5 Pokémon has x and at least one Pokémon with x has m. Usually, though, when I say "weak precedent", I am excluding normal precedent. For example, Close Combat has weak precedent with Bug-types.
A move m has precedent with M if the following is true: If at least two G5 Pokémon with any attribute in X have all of M and m is not a Generation V move, then all G5 Pokémon with any attribute in X and all of M have m. Otherwise, all Pokémon possessing any attribute in X and all of M have m.
Chosen moves
This movepool has all moves that have strong attribute precedent with any of its types or abilities. It also has move collections stemming by move precedent from a specifically chosen collection of moves. As well, there are "exceptions" for which I didn't call precedent, most of which have normal precedent, though a few have weak precedent (which I tried my best to avoid unless necessary).
Chosen moves that generated other moves by precedent are:
Heal Pulse
Incinerate
Ice Beam
Megahorn
Silver Wind
Tackle
Tail Glow
Thunder
Will-O-Wisp
Wish
Chosen moves that generated no other moves save the 14 typical moves that keep cropping up are:
AncientPower
Bide*
Focus Blast
Giga Impact
Hyper Beam
Thunderbolt
Bide is possessed only by a single Generation V No Guard Pokémon line (Shelmet). I also made an exception for Close Combat because it's just so far "gone" as far as precedent goes (Pinsir and Heracross) that it would unleash a whole other animal of moves. I have also made an exception for Dragon Dance, as I'll explain a bit later.
Most of these moves are pretty standard. Bug Buzz comes with Silver Wind, Psychic comes with the typing, and Megahorn and Psyshock are obvious (Psyshock comes with Heal Pulse). BoltBeam and Thunder are pretty much necessary since they're the only real way for mixed CAP 4 to get past the Therians and some Dragon-types with anything resembling ease. As well, I have Focus Blast, which, as you may recall, I strongly implied I made my stat spread around using. Of course, there are also support options in Will-O-Wisp, Wish and Thunder Wave (packaged with Thunder), as well as Tail Glow for some "zomg kill it KILL IT" shenanigans.
As for notable exclusions:
The banning of Flamethrower and Fire Blast actually restricts the movepool quite severely in terms of Fire-type attacks, leaving me with basically no options other than Incinerate and Will-O-Wisp. For instance, the only Pokémon with Overheat alone are random Electric-types. So I disagree with the idea of including Overheat or some other Fire-type moves for the sake of flavour, especially when Aurumoth is actually weak against Fire.
Blizzard is missing as well. The thing about Blizzard for me is that it comes with some bizarre (and banned) VGMs shared by Vanilluxe and Genesect. Competitively speaking, it has very little benefit. It does very few things that aren't achieved by Ice Beam or Thunder, namely OHKOing Dragonite through Multiscale with fully invested Life Orb Timid, and OHKOing Therian Thundurus with uninvested Life Orb Jolly. I suppose a case can be made at least for Therian Thundurus, but either way, both of these are mitigated by Stealth Rock support, anyway, so it's not a big deal.
I don't really see the point in Water or Ground-type moves when Aurumoth already has coverage for Electric, Fighting and Ice. It can already cover pretty much everything. In terms of flavour, Aurumoth has no indication that it has any relation to water. Surf doesn't just go to everybody, and Hydro Pump certainly doesn't, either.
As for the physical moves, Aurumoth would probably have benefited far more from the elemental punches than from anything like Earthquake or Stone Edge, which I don't think add much to the coverage, especially considering Close Combat. I'd imagine that Aurumoth would use Megahorn and Close Combat, and fill in the other two slots with two special coverage moves (looking at BoltBeam in particular), or a setup move and one coverage move. I feel that this is more efficient for dealing with Intimidate users and some other Pokémon than any physical move on offer can accomplish.
I actually wrote a script to search through PS!'s learnset database for purposes like this one, which really, really helped me with move-move precedent. So with that in mind, I hope that people will see that I put a lot of thought and effort into making this movepool realistic considering the rather bizarre combination of types and abilities that Aurumoth has.
On Quiver Dance: I was very unsure as to what to do with this move for a while. I have come up with arguments tenuously for Quiver Dance, as well as arguments tenuously against it (with a middle ground proposal). With all this in mind, and with the middle ground unlikely to generate much support, I have decided against including Quiver Dance because of its potential to magnify luck factors to decide matchups and even decide games. If you look at all of the damage calculations, you'll see that many of them rely on a hit that is far from guaranteed. One even has a significant paralysis chance to pretty much halt Aurumoth's sweeping attempt. This means that many of Aurumoth's matchups between its checks goes all-or-nothing depending on a dice roll. It also compels Aurumoth to run Illusion or Weak Armour over No Guard, much more than with other sets, since most of the dice rolls are expected to favour it (and No Guard has no effect on the Thunder paralysis chance). I do not want a playtest that I intended to promote skill to promote luck instead.
All that said, Dragon Dance is different. If I've taken anything out of my investigation of Quiver Dance, it's that Dragon Dance is certainly not risk-reducing, and moreover, it wouldn't even be the primary set. Swords Dance and Tail Glow achieve things that Dragon Dance doesn't. 4-attack sets achieve things that none of the setup moves do. Additionally, Dragon Dance Aurumoth actually benefits significantly from No Guard for removing the miss chance of its main STAB. I believe that Dragon Dance is healthy for Aurumoth, even if it's a gigantic affront to flavour.
Legend:
*VGMs
!Repeated moves
Level
01 Tackle
*01 Iron Defense
*01 Wish
01 Bide
01 Swift
!05 Bide
!12 Swift
*16 Hidden Power
*23 Pursuit
*27 Agility
32 Silver Wind
*39 Close Combat
*44 Psychic
51 Heal Pulse
*54 Bug Buzz
*61 Dragon Dance
*69 Megahorn
*76 Tail Glow
82 Hyper Beam
My movepool is loosely based on Dragonite's; though the patterns are different, the move progression is fairly similar. There are hints of a classic bug style progression in the beginning (other than Wish), but after that, Aurumoth really comes into its own and progresses in a way that's not solely representative of an angel or a moth, but has some elements of both while giving Aurumoth its own individuality based on the previously mentioned precedent rules. I'm kind of using a heavy warrior angel bent here, though moves like Silver Wind and Bug Buzz bring the theme "back to earth", as it were. I feel that not going too far into angelic symbolism or classic bug progression is important in a flavour sense because Aurumoth is neither a classic early-game bug (or even a typical moth) nor some kind of holy messenger sent by Arceus for vague purposes. I also feel that it's unnecessary to mooch signature moves off of other Pokémon like Vespiquen.
The move progression starts off with a move that's literally called "Perseverance" in Japanese, an extremely fitting move for a bug that might be running into troubles early on in its "walk". This is followed by its first offensive powers. Notably, I have a bit of a dark twist in Pursuit, taking the idea that God will follow people who stray from him to the ends of the earth (e.g. Jonah) and converting it into something that may be morally ambiguous. After Agility, things start getting more serious, as Aurumoth improves its abilities both physically and spiritually, while learning Heal Pulse along the way. Then there's its endgame. Aurumoth learns Dragon Dance, and then gains a "weapon" or "ultimate fighting technique" of sorts in Megahorn. To top it off, it learns to use its holy aura to augment its mighty power (Tail Glow), followed by the ultimate mega laser death attack. The whole "burning one" connotation is really not that complicated to pull off without Fire-type moves, since Hyper Beam fits every interpretation of an almighty Ultimate Break Supernova Foresaken Megidolaon Meteor Wing punishment by holy fire. It really does. Or how about, "Holy shit, good thing we were hiding behind this mountain!" Unrepeated moves: 17
Unrepeated VGMs: 11
Machines
*03 Psyshock
*04 Calm Mind
*06 Toxic
!10 Hidden Power
11 Sunny Day
*13 Ice Beam
!15 Hyper Beam
*16 Light Screen
*17 Protect
*18 Rain Dance
20 Safeguard
*21 Frustration
22 SolarBeam
*24 Thunderbolt
*25 Thunder
27 Return
!29 Psychic
*30 Shadow Ball
32 Double Team
*42 Facade
*44 Rest
45 Attract
48 Round
*52 Focus Blast
56 Fling
59 Incinerate
*61 Will-O-Wisp
*66 Payback
68 Giga Impact
70 Flash
*73 Thunder Wave
*75 Swords Dance
76 Struggle Bug
77 Psych Up
*81 X-Scissor
87 Swagger
*90 Substitute
H1 Cut
It seems that some people don't like Substitute. Indeed, it is generically a safe move. Like No Guard before it, though, this is exactly what makes Substitute counter-intuitive as a move for the Risky Business concept. Substitute costs a moveslot and 25% of Aurumoth's HP. That's nothing to sneeze at when Aurumoth wants to use a Life Orb, it is vulnerable to all sorts of passive damage, and it wants precious moveslots for coverage/setup/support moves (this is especially true for the physical/mixed attacker). Additionally, while it is true that real offensive Pokémon often have effective Substitute sets, it is often the case that the Substitute sets are not the best sets, and maybe they even have significant problems. This makes Substitute a good "control group" type of move, to see whether Aurumoth would go for the "safety move" or refuse it for different benefits.
Now, you may be asking whether we can't just argue our way into any "safe" move, or most "safe" moves. Maybe we can. Either way, I think it reveals something rather profound about the concept of safety when applied to a move in a vacuum.
The rest of the stuff is pretty much explained in the "chosen moves" section, so I won't bother repeating those arguments here.
I don't see Fly as necessary, and it might even be against the grain that Game Freak has set, since there's only one Bug-type that actually has Fly.
Unrepeated moves: 35
Unrepeated VGMs: 20 Unrepeated moves: 9
Unrepeated VGMs: 5 Unrepeated moves: 6
Unrepeated VGMs: 0
Total unrepeated moves: 67
Total unrepeated VGMs: 36
Last edited by capefeather; Nov 5th, 2012 at 4:33:54 PM.
Reason: added DD for Final Submission
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