Embirch and Flarelm - Part 3 - Ability Discussion

[Bull of Heaven]

Yeah, I'll jump on the Reckless bandwagon now. I'd still be happy to keep Rock Head, but Reckless makes sense for the same reasons as Inner Focus or Leaf Guard, and I'm really liking all the flavour potential of Embirch's evolution to something with armour. That makes Reckless/Inner Focus my favourite option right now, though I'd be almost as happy to see Rock Head or Leaf Guard in there.

 

[Reynbowz]

There's plenty of in-game precedence for keeping one ability while the other changes. However, there is also plenty of precedence for changing all abilities:

Lillipup: Vital Spirit/Pickup (Run Away) > Herdier/Stoutland: Intimidate/Sand Rush (Scrappy)
Elekid/Electabuzz: Static > Electivire: Motor Drive
Bagon/Shelgon: Rock Head > Salamence: Intimidate
Numel: Oblivious/Simple > Camerupt: Magma Armor/Solid Rock

I could go on...

Anyways, because all of the above have precedent, I feel it is safe to base this completely on flavour.

Reasoning for Embirch to have two different abilities from its evos outweighs reasoning for it to keep one or both. Embirch, unlike its evolutions, does not make sense to me having either Battle Armor or Rock Head. Obviously, it doesn't have very much armor, so that goes out the window. There's also the debate regarding Rock Head --- the only Pokémon to have Rock Head without having some sort of head casing is Basculin --- a 4th gen Pokémon.

So far the following have been suggested: Leaf Guard, Inner Focus, Weak Armor, Chlorophyll, Limber, Reckless.

Chlorophyll, as our TL pointed out, is for whole evolution lines, with the sole exception of Cherubi/Cherrim, a rather special case considering Cherrim actually changes formes. Weak Armor is a 5th gen ability, so I don't think we're supposed to use that either.

This leaves Leaf Guard, Inner Focus, Limber and Reckless.

I'm more interested in the latter three, but I think any of those will work great on our little forest fire 'mon.

 

[DHR-107]

Right I've decided how I am going to do this.

As Pyroak (And now Flarelm's) Primary Ability is Rock Head I will run that in a poll against the ability Reckless. I like how the two interact as it shows a way of Embirch overcoming difficulties to master it's recoil moves.

For it's Secondary Ability, I will be running Limber, Leaf Guard, Inner Focus and Battle Armour in the same poll. All show various styles of defensive abilities that could turn into the large armoured carapace both of it's evolutions display.

Those polls will be up shortly.