Water Stone

[Texas Cloverleaf]

Putting in a new proposal, one that might got shot down instantly due to being a blatant example of buff culture, but might as well try.

This is the current description for Water Stone:

While Poliwrath, Vaporeon, Ludi, and Simipour and their pre-evos can use the item to boost their abilities, it does absolutely NOTHING for Shellder, Cloyster, Staryu, and Starmie outside of raising their Def/SpA by one rank.

To counter this, I propose that Water Stone also buffs Shell Armor and Natural Cure (both abilities only one Water Stone mon has) so that Cloyster and Starmie aren't gyped with their signature item. I'm not 100% sure what the buffs would be, but I believe it certainly warrants discussion. Personally, I believe that a reasonable thing would be making Shell Armor act as a pseudo-Sturdy with Water Stone and making Natural Cure activate every round instead of every other round. I might be setting the bar too high with these suggestions, but they're mostly a starting point tbqh.

Discuss whether Shellder/Cloyster/Staryu/Starmie should be included in some way in Water Stone's description. Discuss possible avenues of doing so.

 

[waterwarrior]

Posting the current description of Water Stone due to quote tags not showing up in quotes

The affected Pokemon enters battle with Torrent activated. Hydration, and / or Swift Swim are also activated, regardless of weather. Continuously activates Rain Dish and Water Absorb regardless of weather, granting one (1) HP per action [In Rain, Rain Dish will increase to its normal 2 HP/action). Increases the Pokemon's highest true base stat (e.g. 130 Atk) of Attack, Defense, Special Attack, and Special Defense by one (1) Rank. If the highest true base stat is tied, each Rank is raised.

What I want changed is in the OP, so there's my 2 cents

 

[akela]

I believe that a simpler and less specific buffing change would be better. Rather than Buffing Shell Armor on Shellder/Cloyster and Natural Cure on Staryu/Starmie, why don't we increase the base attack power of Water-Type attacks by two (2)? This keeps it in line with the similar effects of Thunder Stone (+2 BAP of Electric-type Recoil attack), Leaf Stone (+2 BAP of "Leaf" attacks), Moon Stone (+2 BAP for Normal-type and Psychic-Type Attacks), Dusk Stone (+2 BAP to Dark-type and Ghost-Type Attacks), and Dawn Stone (+2 BAP Fighting-Type and Ghost-Type attacks). Not selecting a specific name of Water-type attacks, as Shellder/Cloyster only learn Water Gun and Water Pulse for "Water" attacks and Aqua Ring for "Aqua" attacks while Starmie/Staryu only learn Water Gun, Water Pulse, and Waterfall for "Water" attacks and no "Aqua" attacks.

 

[Stratos]

im really not a fan of giving water stone further buffs, especially ones that would carry over onto Ludicolo such as akela's suggestion. frankly there's no way in hell cloyster will end up using water stone, and though starmie could, i dare say it's fine with what it has

 

[zarator]

I oppose akela's suggestion for the same reason Pwnemon brought up. Frankly, waterwarrior's suggestion is good and fits with Water Stone's niche as a sort of defensive/balanced item, allowing it to compete with offensive ones such as Expert Belt without having to overlap.

 

[akela]

I oppose akela's suggestion for the same reason Pwnemon brought up. Frankly, waterwarrior's suggestion is good and fits with Water Stone's niche as a sort of defensive/balanced item, allowing it to compete with offensive ones such as Expert Belt without having to overlap.

So... No Critical Hits against Cloyster, -1 BAP for incoming attacks (Water Stone Shell Armor), -1 BAP for incoming attacks (Overcoat and being ice-type)...

 

[Gerard]

King's Rock is still better, but if the trainer wants to use Cloyster as a physical tank then more power to them (it's the equivalent of rank 10 Def since all Cloysters seem to be -Def). Starmie is even more unlikely though but I like the option to.

My suggestion would be +1 to the 2 higuer stats of a pokemon, thus Cloyster gets +1 Atk too & Starmie +1 Def/SpD (which would have been a problem had Knock off not been buffed) but that too boosts other water stone mons.

 

[Pallas Athena]

I, strangely, support akela's suggestion to an extent. I think that more or less the only thing these Pokemon have in common is that they are water type. And there are a lot of Pokemon who get it compared to some of the stone items, and they all share that distinction. I would be fine removing the auto-activate abilities and just make it give +1 to the highest rank and some boost to water STAB. Not sure what exactly it should be, but +2 BP, -1 EN or something like that would work in my opinion. I get uneasy when we use signature items to slightly change how a Pokemon works rather than provide some generic buff, especially when it affects multiple Pokemon. It has always seemed like an open door for people to strengthen their favorites to me, however much I think "buff culture" gets overused in discussion.

 

[Frosty]

I get uneasy when we use signature items to slightly change how a Pokemon works rather than provide some generic buff, especially when it affects multiple Pokemon.

I completely and utterly disagree with that statement.

If we make signature items just a generic boost, we might as well explode them and stick with Expert Belt for offensive and Focus Sash for defensive.

Signature items are great to precisely change the strategy involved when using a mon and you end up enhancing your possibilities. There is no such a thing as "how a pokemon works". A pokemon works how you make it work and that is reliant on nature, strategies and the item you use. Different items = different strategies that can be used, and that makes our metagame richer.

If you intend just to give a generic boost, stick with type-specific items as they already do that well enough. No need to make 2 items do the same thing.

That being said, I fail to see the need for this change. Are Starmie and Cloyster so underused/weak that we need to boost them? Don't they have other viable choices for items? Tweaking the item just to affect all mons equally, without a balance-related reason (or other actually awesome and super solid reason) will just give strength to an useless perfectionism that will get us nowhere.

 

[youngjake93]

I prefer having the sig items "signature" in nature. One of the cool things about ASB is it being flavor-driven and taking out all these interactions to make it more standard and to-the-point takes some appeal away imo.
Although, it is obvious that the more standardized everything is, the easier it is to balance and the simpler it is to learn and use.

 

[Dogfish44]

48 Hours, get your final opinions in please.

 

[ZhengTann]

Talked to akela, and he decided to withdraw his proposal. Which means we have our final slate here:

What should be implemented on Water Stone?
Retain original description
Adopt waterwarrior's proposal

Talked to ww too, and he was fine with me writing this up for him:

The affected Pokemon enters battle with Torrent activated. Hydration, and / or Swift Swim are also activated, regardless of weather. Continuously activates Rain Dish and Water Absorb regardless of weather, granting one (1) HP per action [In Rain, Rain Dish will increase to its normal 2 HP/action). Increases the Pokemon's highest true base stat (e.g. 130 Atk) of Attack, Defense, Special Attack, and Special Defense by one (1) Rank. If the highest true base stat is tied, each Rank is raised.

The affected Pokemon enters battle with Torrent activated. Hydration, and / or Swift Swim are also activated, regardless of weather. Continuously activates Rain Dish and Water Absorb regardless of weather, granting one (1) HP per action [In Rain, Rain Dish will increase to its normal 2 HP/action). Shell Armor will reduce the BAP of incoming attacks by one (1). Natural Cure will heal status afflictions three (3) actions after being inflicted. Increases the Pokemon's highest true base stat (e.g. 130 Atk) of Attack, Defense, Special Attack, and Special Defense by one (1) Rank. If the highest true base stat is tied, each Rank is raised.

Mods may close this as Voting is opened.