Pokemon Black & White, aka Gen 5. Coming to Japan in Fall 2010.

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KevlarX290 said:
It won't work with Salamence though because of Intimidate.
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Well, for previously stated reasons, yes Salamence is a bad example. But it is a good point that zoroark doesn't have to be used before the pokemon it is pretending to be. Its just another mindgame he might be able to pull with this interesting ability. I do think this method will be less useful. If entry hazards are as common as they are now, particularly Stealth Rock, then such a move will be hard to fake, as it relies on the original pokemon not being hurt.

It will be interesting to see if his ability looks at the pokemon currently in the second slot, or the one in the second slot at the beginning of the battle. From what we've heard so far, I think it's the first, and that also makes the most sense to me.

And I hope they don't have any transformation animation when he switches in. That just ruins the whole point of the ability and just makes it useless.

I also hope that there is a certain amount of damage needed to break the Illusion, or that entry hazards don't break it. The damage from Stealth Rock could still give it away, but If you aren't using him as a lead, you'll probably want a spinner if neither of those are the case.
 
Zoroark could actually be a very effective lure, especially for Ghost types should it get access to a Fighting move which is strong enough to take out common Pursuit users such as Tyranitar (assuming people will still use it in 5th gen.) If it removes counters in a similar manner as this for enough different pokemon it could possibly be Uber under the support, or some other new charactersitic.
 
The ability is poised to be much better in a doubles format than a singles format.

Being able to lure yourself as Groudon when in reality you are Zoroark and outspeed and 2HKO or better Kyogre while taking non-lethal damage from Blizzard or Water Spout is awesome. With that high special attack, Grass Knot would be quite excellent, but who knows what all it will get.

In doubles, there is no Stealth Rock or entry hazards, by the way. It is very hard to reveal yourself unless Hail or Sandstorm does.
 
A Blissey that comes in, takes SR damage and doesn't show leftovers recovery would also be fishy. So if feigning a Blissey, you might have to stick leftovers on Zoroark though she might have preferred a different item.

My opinion on illusion is still undecided. It can progressively reveal your team while possibly confusing your opponent. I'm not sure if it's worth it.
It would be a bit more useful if it copied abilities.

On another note, it seems my prediction of Zoroark's stat weighting was about right. It seems to be a capable mixed attacker like 90% of dark type Pokemon. Lucario with more speed seems about right.
 
blasphemy1 said:
useful stats
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That may be all true, but again, what makes him broken? Is he too powerful to take down? Too powerful to defend? I'm sure he could set up on a switch once a player finds out, but it doesn't seem like he'd be able to take STAB priority (one scenario).an

Don't forget, health is another thing. If players are astute enough, they'll keep track of a pokemon's health when it switches out. Zoroark's ability is best used in the early game and then when he's exposed, he'll just be a good sweeper. Probably won't be a bad OU, but not uber.
 
Lol, reading all of the zoroark specualtion is kind of funny. People are all wondering how they'll ever know what is what again, but all of my battles start with hypnosis, taunt, or U-turn. Worst case senario, hypnosis misses, which would have happened regardless of whether zoroark was around or not.
 
Colonel Darren said:
I sincerely doubt that, especially the latter unless that Kyogre's severely weakened before attacking.
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Zoroark is going to outspeed based on even the most conservative estimates from the ITT thread. So, assuming you attack Kyogre before it attacks you, I don't see how it could possibly do much damage with Water Spout, or Thunder. Fake a Kyogre with a Ludicolo as your partner, or vice versa, for example.

Also, we don't really know Zoroark's movepool, but it is possible it will receive some devastating moves for doubles (Fake Out, Sucker Punch, Trick, Trick Room, maybe even stuff like Thunder or Blizzard). But, it's safe to say that outspeeding threats is going to be what Zoroark is good at, and 90-100 base speed is perfect for the VGC level.
 
Mjolnir said:
Ability wise if it doesn't show the transforming animation then I am all for it.
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It's been said before, but I just have to say it again: the animation for Illusion just... WON'T be shown. I don't know for a fact, but it's an educated guess that Gamefreak wouldn't--couldn't-- be dumb enough to make the animation for Illusion go off when it's sent out. What would be the point then? They'll know it's a Zoroark once the ability activates, and it would serve no purpose beyond giving Zoroark an illusory makeover.
 
General Tso said:
That may be all true, but again, what makes him broken? Is he too powerful to take down? Too powerful to defend? I'm sure he could set up on a switch once a player finds out, but it doesn't seem like he'd be able to take STAB priority (one scenario).an

Don't forget, health is another thing. If players are astute enough, they'll keep track of a pokemon's health when it switches out. Zoroark's ability is best used in the early game and then when he's exposed, he'll just be a good sweeper. Probably won't be a bad OU, but not uber.
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That's true. He'll probably have the same problems as Weavile as a sweeper, though. Those defenses are terrible (from the estimates), which means any priority attack is doing a lot of damage. I'm thinking a Choice Band user would be effective (or SubPunch). We'll have to see the rest of its details, like movepool and stats, to get a better idea. Even then, it's hard to theorymon about his ability.
 
Has anyone considered that Illusion might copy the illusioned mon's ability? Or at least, pretend to. So, you have Gyarados in slot two, switch in Zoroak, and "Gyarados" Intimidates the opposing pokemon, lowering its attack. Except, it doesn't actually lower it. This would fit perfectly with the illusion theme. Obviously some abilites would be obvious fakes soon enough, like Sandstream not hurting you each turn and Pressure not cutting your PP, but otherwise this would allow Zoroark to copy many more pokemon.

Also, to people saying that he'll fail to priority, has anyone considered that he's basically guarunteed Sucker Punch, and he's likely to get some other priority move too.
 
Sucker Punch won't be doing anything to Scizor and CB BP will always OHKO after SR according to the current stat estimates for Zoroark( that's for a Zoroark with 0 EVs in HP and 0 EVs in Defense with 31 Ivs in both.)
 
Baldafor said:
The ability is poised to be much better in a doubles format than a singles format.

Being able to lure yourself as Groudon when in reality you are Zoroark and outspeed and 2HKO or better Kyogre while taking non-lethal damage from Blizzard or Water Spout is awesome. With that high special attack, Grass Knot would be quite excellent, but who knows what all it will get.

In doubles, there is no Stealth Rock or entry hazards, by the way. It is very hard to reveal yourself unless Hail or Sandstorm does.
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It would be pointless to mimic auto-weather Pokemon because you probably wouldn't get the weather ability, thus giving away the disguise.


domeface said:
Has anyone considered that Illusion might copy the illusioned mon's ability? Or at least, pretend to. So, you have Gyarados in slot two, switch in Zoroak, and "Gyarados" Intimidates the opposing pokemon, lowering its attack. Except, it doesn't actually lower it.
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Oh man.

My mind reels at this possibility. Way too many things to keep track of.
 
Has someone estimated Zoroark's base stats? If so, could someone link me to the thread please?
Also, if Zoroark is going to be used as a lead, wouldn't the entry hazards point be moot, as he would already be transformed and out before they were set up? That would only come into play later on, assuming that you have managed to keep the opponent thinking he isn't a Zoroark for long enough to actually switch him out. And I assume that wouldn't happen often as you will be getting a free hit on the opponent's 'counter', more often than not with a SE move.
 
TheMaskedNitpicker said:
Well, if those Zoroark stats are accurate, then even if it has 0 IVs and 0 EVs, its base stat total ends up being around 540. Looks like it's not a legendary Pokémon.

For those that don't want to do the calcs, I believe its maximum base stats are:

HP: 65
Attack: 109
Defense: 63
SpAtk: 129
SpDef: 71
Speed: 109

Again, these are the very highest the stats could be. They could each be significantly lower.

EDIT: So, let's assume it's analogous to Lucario. If that's the case, an educated guess at its stats might be:

HP: 65
Attack: 105
Defense: 60
SpAtk: 125
SpDef: 65
Speed: 105

That brings it to 525, the same as Lucario.

DDRMaster said:
Well you beat me to the 0 IV/EV calcs so I'll just post the max IV/min EV calcs to get a good range.

HP: 49
Atk: 93
Def: 47
SpAtk: 113
SpDef: 55
Spe: 93
BST: 450

So the stats are probably between these numbers and the ones TheMaskedNitpicker posted.
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There yah go ferret
 
Cheers Emperor. Looks like it should be half decent at the very least. And even its minimum spatt puts it in the top 40 for that stat.
I just hope that it has a decent movepool to back it up.
 
For the person who stated that Zoroark would be terrible, even NU worthy if his ability sucked: That's not going to happen.

Zoroark's ability is just the icing on the cake for him. Lets say he got Pressure. Assuming he gets a movepool that's at least as good as Lucario's, he would still be in OU, do to good movepool and decent stats
 
I did actual calcs for ranges using the current stat formula and 0 EVs and the range of IVs (31 IVs - 0 IVs), and the nature that was stated a few pages back.

Zorua
HP: 34.5 - 50
Atk: 49.5 - 65
Def: 26.2 - 41.7
SpA: 68.6 - 84.1
SpD: 34.5 - 50
Spd: 49.5 - 65
BST: 262.8 - 355.8

Zoroark
HP: 48.5 - 64
Atk: 92.5 - 108
Def: 46.5 - 62
SpA: 112.5 - 128
SpD: 54.5 - 70
Spd: 92.5 - 108
BST: 447 - 540
 
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