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

[Lord of Bays]

I'm still waiting for some appropriate typing changes, now that you've brought up Staraptor.

Some Pokémon who sorely need a leg-up that a simple typing change would bring: Gyarados, Yanmega, and Staraptor. Change Gyarados' and Yanmega's Flying-type to Dragon- and Staraptor's Normal-type to Fighting. It would fit these Pokémon fairly well and would greatly mitigate some weaknesses/give some serious benefits.

Kingdra wouldn't be completely outclassed due to higher base speed, higher special attack, and Swift Swim. Yanmega could do some serious damage with Tinted Lens, the typing combination would be unique (and badass) and it wouldn't be so horribly crippled by Stealth Rock. The same to Staraptor, only now its Choice sets are infinitely better, only taking neutral damage from Stealth Rock and now having STAB Close Combat to combat Steels while still having that insanely powerful Reckless Brave Bird for wall-breaking. I'm sure there's other Pokémon that are held back by poorly-thought-out typing , but those are the only three that come to mind right now.

[Cobraroll]

Thing is, until we know what the OU environment will look like, it's impossible to tell whether or not something will be OU. We can speculate on movesets that would do well in the current metagame, but we have no way of telling whether or not it would work well when October has arrived (or more likely, January, when things have settled). Even if all stats and the entire movepool of a new 'mon was released, we have no way to know if it will really be that good when all new stuff is implemented.
Perhaps we get to know about, say, a Qwilfish evolution that would flatten any- and everything in the current OU, and which would get the boot to Ubers within days of being introduced to the BW2 metagame. Everybody playtests it and decides that "This is awesome!!!" and "Can't wait to use it in-game!" and such, but when October comes we find out that the Pokémon is completely screwed over and/or countered by new Pokémon, moves or mechanics.

I've used the analogy of Beedrill earlier, and I'll do it again: Imagine taking a Beedrill fresh from BW2, and send it back to the GSC era. It has moves like Drill Run, Toxic Spikes, Brick Break, X-Scissor and other stuff that was completely unheard of at the time. Even its ability would be unique (seeing as nobody else would have abilities at the time). Beedrill would be a staple on any GSC team.
Yet Beedrill has always been Beedrill: terribad. Without lucky matchups/dumb opponents, it will be squashed like a bug in most battles. From a GSC point of view, its moves are totally awesome, metagame-changing, ban-worthy powerful. But here we are, and Beedrill is in NU, and even there it seldom sees action. Because even though as amazing those moves are, everything around it has been treated just as well or (in most cases) even better.

A more recent example: Techician Breloom. Sure to change the metagame, huh? People were posting those awesome damage calculations, theorizing that Scizor would finally meet its match. Well, so much new stuff was released at the same time that Techiloom kinda vanished in the crowd. Yes, he's awesome, and he does exactly what he was supposed to do. But he doesn't stand out as the champ we expected, just because the conditions of the metagame changed.

Oh, rambling now. Anyway, what defines an OU 'mon isn't something you can predict before the paradigm shift happens. We can wish for "This or that to be OU-worthy", but we don't even know what "OU-worthy" even means at this point. Perhaps Chip Away will become the next Outrage or Close Combat, because everything gets Defense boosts from the inner circles of hell. Perhaps it will be a stallfest because GameFreak imposes a hard-coded limit of turns in a match. Perhaps we won't even be able to assemble a proper metagame, because everything gets so overpowered or random that it's impossible to play competitively. We don't know. But it will be interesting, that's for sure.

[Eleman]

Yeah the smogon tiers are all based off of comparison and constantly changes. We don't exactly know what gen VI will bring but I can guarantee you that the older pokemon will constantly be overshadowed by the newer.

[HackerKing]

Originally Posted by Fat Cobraroll

I've used the analogy of Beedrill earlier, and I'll do it again: Imagine taking a Beedrill fresh from BW2, and send it back to the GSC era. It has moves like Drill Run, Toxic Spikes, Brick Break, X-Scissor and other stuff that was completely unheard of at the time. Even its ability would be unique (seeing as nobody else would have abilities at the time). Beedrill would be a staple on any GSC team.
Yet Beedrill has always been Beedrill: terribad.

Interesting. This is one of the reasons that I find speculating fun though. 50% of the speculations turn out to be crap (pre-HGSS, people thought that Gravity Starmie would be broken). And no one even looked at Volcarona...

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't consider new options and how good they'd be.

Personally, we NEED some overdue evolutions. I think a Zangoose evolution would actually be viable.
Toxic Boost, Swords Dance, Toxic Orb, and STAB Facade, Close Combat and Night Slash would blow holes in opponents once the fighting types were gone. The main problem with Zangoose now is its mediocre speed. Add en evolution with base 100 Speed and you have a monster at your hands.

[Ghostbone]

Originally Posted by Fat HackerKing

Personally, we NEED some overdue evolutions. I think a Zangoose evolution would actually be viable.
Toxic Boost, Swords Dance, Toxic Orb, and STAB Facade, Close Combat and Night Slash would blow holes in opponents once the fighting types were gone. The main problem with Zangoose now is its mediocre speed. Add en evolution with base 100 Speed and you have a monster at your hands.

Zangoose is already the most powerful physical sweeper (well, 2nd to ursaring) in terms of pure power. He already has decent base speed, with priority, 100 base speed wouldn't actually benefit him too much. He'd still outspeed all the walls and resort to priority to bypass revenge killers...except normal isn't the greatest typing for your priority.

His problem has always been frailty, with a lack of good resistances/defenses to set up, as well as coverage issues (do you want to OHKO steel or rock types and be hard walled by ghost types, or OHKO the ghost types but only 2HKO steel types with +2 facade)

Make him normal/ghost or something and his typing would probably end up decent enough to set up.

[Tabuu]

Alrighty, now I found this floating around Facebook recently and I'm kinda leaning towards it legitimacy.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BEZvpY8CYAAnCFi.jpg:large
Honestly some of these new Pokemon are very interesting. Having a Fighting Flying Type(calling dibs, as that Pokemon being my favorite ;]) will honestly just be so awesome, while a Grass Dragon will kinda be a downer. Also a Dragon Fighting(calling dibs again ;]) was brought up in the list which really perked my interest.

From a more competitive aspect, looking at all the typings, I still kind of feel Drizzle just might hold its dominance into Gen VI Ladies and Gentlemen, if this keeps up, I welcome you to the age of Rain.....
Now we don't know what new twists GameFreak might introduce but let's hope that this new Generation really balances out our metagame. 'Cause we need it.

But honestly, even if this list ends up being a phony, hopefully these new and interesting typings can really become a reality. I mean. Who doesn't want a Flying Fighting Type? Pretty much perfect coverage. Imagine good stats, with a Boosting move and Drain Punch/Close Combat, Brave Bird/Aerial Ace(I kid haha)and like maybe Fire Punch or Roost. And also Dragon Fighting is really going to bring some interesting competition into the Dragon World. Guys, I think Dragonite just might see itself lose its Top Position once again.... poor guy

[G-Von]

Originally Posted by Fat Tabuu

Alrighty, now I found this floating around Facebook recently and I'm kinda leaning towards it legitimacy.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BEZvpY8CYAAnCFi.jpg:large
Honestly some of these new Pokemon are very interesting. Having a Fighting Flying Type(calling dibs, as that Pokemon being my favorite ;]) will honestly just be so awesome, while a Grass Dragon will kinda be a downer. Also a Dragon Fighting(calling dibs again ;]) was brought up in the list which really perked my interest.

From a more competitive aspect, looking at all the typings, I still kind of feel Drizzle just might hold its dominance into Gen VI Ladies and Gentlemen, if this keeps up, I welcome you to the age of Rain.....
Now we don't know what new twists GameFreak might introduce but let's hope that this new Generation really balances out our metagame. 'Cause we need it.

But honestly, even if this list ends up being a phony, hopefully these new and interesting typings can really become a reality. I mean. Who doesn't want a Flying Fighting Type? Pretty much perfect coverage. Imagine good stats, with a Boosting move and Drain Punch/Close Combat, Brave Bird/Aerial Ace(I kid haha)and like maybe Fire Punch or Roost. And also Dragon Fighting is really going to bring some interesting competition into the Dragon World. Guys, I think Dragonite just might see itself lose its Top Position once again.... poor guy

Yea, I was gonna bring this up too since I saw PokeaimMD (Joey) posted a youtube video with the same looking list. I'm really trying to not look too into the 6th Gen since I want to be as surprised as possible. Is there anyway to verify if this list is a phony or not right now?

[Aasgier]

That list is interesting, though I actually doubt its legitimacy considering some of the names are utterly stupid. Houndoomed was the first to come to mind but there are more of those. Also, only one Eeveelution? I expect two, actually.
The myriad of Dragons doesn't work in its favour either.

If it is true, it is certainly interesting. Many unique typings spread throughout evolutionary lines means all tiers get good Pokémon to use, if necessary enhanced with Eviolite. It also would raise the question if someone from GameFreak is lurking and playing around on Smogon and Pokémon Showdown, or a Japanese equalivent. And not only that, he also did his homework because the list is pretty damn convenient at times.

[Cobraroll]

Originally Posted by Fat Tabuu

Having a Fighting Flying Type will honestly just be so awesome(...)

Thing is, the list specifically says "Flying/Fighting". No Dual-typed Flying Pokémon has ever had Flying as its primary type (apart from one of the Studio props). So far, whenever something has been Flying, it has always been something else first and flying second. I could buy Fighting/Flying, but not the other way 'round.

Also, the list is mainly composed of Dual-types, far too many to sound credible in my eyes. Not to mention that most of them again are currently unused combinations. This looks too much like a "competitive player's wishlist" to be plausible to me.

[Sound]

Originally Posted by Fat G-Von

Yea, I was gonna bring this up too since I saw PokeaimMD (Joey) posted a youtube video with the same looking list. I'm really trying to not look too into the 6th Gen since I want to be as surprised as possible. Is there anyway to verify if this list is a phony or not right now?

The end of the list says that "Buggler" and "Chryscross" will be revealed March 15. So, they aren't revealed, that means its a fake. I'm leaning towards fake right now, as they'd Gamefreak couldn't be this stupid to let something as major as this leak. It actually reminds of a 'leak' for Smash 4 where the person said there would be a Nintendo Direct revealing news about it, only for Sakurai, a little later, asking fans to be patient and saying that news wouldn't be soon.

Though, right now, I'm leaning towards fake. Houndoomed, Garbage, and Locast all seem too simple for pokemon names. Though, this may be before they're officially translated. Looking through the list, I spotted a definate Houndoom evolution (who should be named Houndemise), a probable Claydol evolution (Eyedol), an iffy Jynx evolution (Fantalis, who shares her type), an iffy Sableye evolution (Sabullion), obvious Throh and Sawk evoltions, and Lapras pre-evo.

So that this qualifies as competetive, Sabullion means Sableye can use Eviolite. Score one for stall.

[Tabuu]

@Aasgier:
I agree. Houndoomed did sound a little fake but I mean...who knows right?
The person has said that this March 15th, a new trailer would come out and feature the pre-evolutions of Heracross and Pinsir.
If it is true, we may be able to say that some of his claims may be legitimate.
I also do see that there are quite a bit of Dragons but look at Gen V. We had Haxorus, Hydreigon, Druddigon, Kyurem, Reshiram and Zekrom fly out. GameFreak just might want some more Dragons...?

@Cobraroll:
I see what you're saying and it's right. But TBH, I don't think a Flying-Fighting is out of the question. Flying types have been paired up with every single other type except Fighting. Why not break the trend?
Also, while many of this may sound like a wishlist, at the same time, it is a new game on a new console. GameFreak just may attempt to really shake up our world and throw in some new Pokemon that we haven't had their typings before.
I'm just hoping that whatever may be, Gen VI has to amazing. Just like the jump from Gen IV to V, was huge, I think it's time the jump from Gen V to VI, blow our minds away one more time.

[Cobraroll]

Originally Posted by Fat Tabuu

@Cobraroll:
I see what you're saying and it's right. But TBH, I don't think a Flying-Fighting is out of the question. Flying types have been paired up with every single other type except Fighting. Why not break the trend?

Because it wouldn't make sense to make it primary Flying and secondary Fighting. Fighting/Flying, big YES. Extremely plausible.
But Flying/Fighting? Heck, no. There are currently 83 Dual-typed Flying Pokémon. Not a single one of them has Flying as a primary type. It would make no sense whatsoever to break that norm now.

[Tabuu]

@CobraRoll:
I think you understand what I'm trying to get at here. Stop getting technical with what I say.
A Flying and Fighting Dual Type Pokemon is very possible for Gen VI

[Hugin]

Remember this? A gamer sent an e-mail to all the major gaming websites claiming to be a M$ employee with details on the new XBox. A bunch of major sites were reporting it as news almost immediately. Don't trust leaks, no matter who the info was leaked to.

[Tabuu]

@Hugin:
You're missing the point here.
Whether or not, this list is legitimate is not a huge issue. We'd like it to be but beggars can't be choosers right?
The whole point of introducing the list was to spark some ideas possibilities of such Pokemon and their typings appearing in the game.
This whole list may be just a phony but that is of little importance. The fact that ideas of a Flying-Fighting or Fighting-Dragon existing is important here. The fact that possibly Drizzle just might hold its dominance and a Drizzle suspect might happen next Gen if the Drizzle does not receive a balancing is what is important.

[Sound]

Okay, so... I was a little bored and started doing calcs for Eviolite Sableye, assuming it had an evolution based on the leak (which I don't currently believe in. However, I'm fond of the idea Sableye getting an evo which prompted these). I actually found several interesting things. For starters, it beats the majority of spinners. Defensive Donphan/defensive Tentacruel/Forretress can either be burned and taunted (Their only chance is to hit Sableye with Toxic on the switch in, which could be allieviated by carrying a cleric such as Vaporeon or Blissey), offensive Donphan can be beaten by Recover/WoW, offensive Tentacruel needs either Rain or SR to 2HKO but still relies on Hydro Pump's shaky accuracy to do so (which recover makes so much harder), and Starmie needs Specs or LO to 2HKO, however, you can fish for a miss/pp stall both using repeated Recovers (assuming you don't have a better answer).

In addition, Sableye checks any Terrakion not carrying either sub or CB (though, a little under half carry one or the other, so it's not that impressive, but you're still checking about half of them). Among other stuff, Sableye beats support Ttar (the most common set), all variants of Jirachi (I think), Alakazam, Reuniclus, and Gengar. Not to mention any physical attackers that can't do 70%+ is going to be forced out under threat of a burn. I'm really hoping we actually get a Sableye evolution and, by extension, Eviolite Sableye. Could go a long way helping Stall out.

[Cobraroll]

Originally Posted by Fat Tabuu

@CobraRoll:
I think you understand what I'm trying to get at here. Stop getting technical with what I say.
A Flying and Fighting Dual Type Pokemon is very possible for Gen VI

My point was, the list messed up the order of the types. That\ should be a red flag, as it kinda ruins its credibility. I agree it would be possible, plausible even, with a Fighting/Flying type, but I doubt this is what we'll be getting.

Also concerning Eviolite Sableye... it beats the spinners of today, sure. But who's to say we won't get another way to Spin that knocks that little shadow imp flat? Gen. VI will probably be an entirely different metagame, so there's no guarantee that what works well today will work at all in October.

[Sound]

Originally Posted by Fat Cobraroll

Also concerning Eviolite Sableye... it beats the spinners of today, sure. But who's to say we won't get another way to Spin that knocks that little shadow imp flat? Gen. VI will probably be an entirely different metagame, so there's no guarantee that what works well today will work at all in October.

For one matter, like I said earlier, it doesn't beat just spinners. It can check the majority of Terrakions currently (I highly doubt it'll change much with the gen transition, and if anything it'll be a la Metagross where the metagame is less kind to him. Unless there's a new DW and Terrakion gets a new ability that's awesome, but considering that he didn't get a new ability under the current DW, that seems unlikely), and the mons mentioned previously. Also, we'll be lucky to see one new spinner. Rapid Spin is somewhat of a niche move flavor wise, very hard to justify giving to a pokemon. Very few designs could concievably do it, and since GF doesn't care about the competetive enviroment, we'll be lucky to see one sub par pokemon with Rapid Spin, much less an OU viable one.

And, I notice a lot of times that when someone brings up something that'd be good in the current metagame, you say that there's no gurantee it'll be good in the next one. But, there are several pokemon (Starmie, Salamence, Magnezone) who have successfully transfered between gens without sucking. And, in some cases, they didn't even change that much, if at all. Yeah, if we're talking about Gen 5 -> 2, it'll be vastly different. However, the last huge shift in metagame was 1 -> 2. Each of the metagames, other than 1 -> 2, is somewhat similar to the one before it. Plenty of GS threats survived into RSE, RSE 'mons survived into DP, and DP into BW. While a lot of GS threats aren't around anymore, it took most of them three metagames to fall out of style. Nobodies expecting the metagame to be indentical, but it will have similarities. GF hasn't shaken up Pokemon that much since Gen 2, it's always gradual change, so we can expect a lot of the same stuff to apply, even if it isn't everything. So, since Evo Sableye checks several current threats, it will remain good assuming these threats stay around. Considering that Eviolite Sableye checks any physical attacker that isn't doing 70%+ in one attack, it's a fair assumption that it will stay good.

[Hugin]

You can justify a lot of things getting Rapid Spin, honestly. If it were available some method other than breeding, and GF wanted, it'd be common enough. Make it like Explosion, where anything vaguely round gets it.

[HackerKing]

Eviolite Sableye would be awesome. However, I look forward to another pokemon that lacks a weakness. (Spiritomb, Sableye, Elektross, then what?)

Imagine a Water-Ground with Sap Sipper. This pokemon would be bulky, slow, but hit fairly hard. No weaknesses, some good resistances, and a gauranteed spot on a rain team. This pokemon would be unstoppable under the rain.

[Tabuu]

Originally Posted by Fat HackerKing

Imagine a Water-Ground with Sap Sipper. This pokemon would be bulky, slow, but hit fairly hard. No weaknesses, some good resistances, and a gauranteed spot on a rain team. This pokemon would be unstoppable under the rain.

Couldn't help but laugh as I read this post. It really sounds like you want Swampert to receive that Sap Sipper don't you?
If he did I feel he'd definitely receive a ton of more usage as he could take Ferrothorn with his new ability. However, Pokemon such as Latios and Keldeo would still give it tons of Problems.

[Hugin]

Screw Swampert, I want Sap Sipper Whiscash. Swampert has enough going for it, let's boost some NU stuff.

[Mew2]

i would like
1) Explosion halving your opponents defenses
2) A new viable weather
3)New (and good) rapid spinners

[HackerKing]

Originally Posted by Fat Tabuu

Couldn't help but laugh as I read this post. It really sounds like you want Swampert to receive that Sap Sipper don't you?
If he did I feel he'd definitely receive a ton of more usage as he could take Ferrothorn with his new ability. However, Pokemon such as Latios and Keldeo would still give it tons of Problems.

I was thinking about the whole trend.
Swampert, Whiscash, Gastrodon, Quasire. All have turned out as bulky attackers. Sap sipper would help and rid them of Breloom and Ferrothorn, as well as random Jolteons carrying HP Grass.

I can't really think of any other type combinations, but my brother ahs a whole list. I'll post them if I can access them.

[Rayquaza_]

None of them will ever get Sap Sipper because they're based on animals (sea slug, axolotl, mudfish and catfish) that are not herbivore.