ORAS General Discussion - Mark 2 - Spoilers Inside

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To be honest, Ice Shard is only seen as so strong because it's specifically used to target 4x weaknesses (As non-Uber, OU-viable Dragons not 4x weak to it are rare). One also has to consider the possibility of wrong EVs and Natures and such...
I know. The battle may be rigged so as to give M-Ray max defenses and gimp Abomasnow's Attack stat, so it is pretty much speculation on my part. Then again, the only reasons why we believe that M-Ray will be 2x weak to Ice instead of being neutral to it, despite the website's statement being interpretable as otherwise, are because the message said "It's super-effective" (which can be purely cosmetic a la Thick Fat M-Venusaur) and because the people on the show reacted to said message by saying "Oooh, 2x! 2x damage!"
 

Pikachu315111

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Tornadous+ Mega Rayqauza= No weaknesses.
Any normal/flying type will have no weaknesses, even - noctowl, dodrio, staraptor...
Edit: Ninja'd.
So something I'd like to bring up is how exactly Delta Stream works. For Mega Ray, will it still be 2X weak to Ice and resist Electric or will those be considered 1X multipliers now? In other words, does Delta Stream affect the moves or the Pokémon's flying-type?
Oh yeah, forgot to comment on that. Not only will pure Flying and Normal/Flying-types have no weaknesses, what this essentially means for Double/Triple battles is that all Pokemon that are part Flying-type pretty much are now a pure version of their other type plus Flying-type resistances, Ground-type immunity, and Flying STAB. Though I know this doesn't really much to Smogon as they focus on singles, we can't ignore that this could have a major effect on Doubles (which is the official battle style) and Triples. I would say that Mega Rayquaza and Delta Stream is possibly the thing that Flying-types needed to start excelling.

As for how it effects the battle, I would say that it effects the Pokemon. All it's doing is telling the game that this (Flying-type) Pokemon now receives 1x damage to Electric-, Rock-, and Ice-type attacks (and then the game compares this to its other type (if it has one) and makes the appropriate calculations to figure out this Pokemon's type chart).

This is the 4th place I've posted this, but its pretty exciting to me:

The murals of primal Groudon and primal Kyogre shown ages ago both show a strange triangle meteor that looks like a delta symbol followed by streamers. I think its meant to be a highly stylised representation of mega rayquaza, except that this picture has been up on the main site for months. Pretty neat foreshadowing.
Considering Mega Rayquaza's relation the greek letter Delta, which is represented as a triangle, it does seem the case the triangle in the picture does represent Mega Rayquaza.



Speaking of which, that's another thing I forgot to talk about: the meaning of Delta.
Like all Greek letters, Delta has several meanings though there are two which I think could be the reason why it was picked to be the one that Rayquaza represents:

1. Delta is used to denote changes in quantity. Mega Rayquaza appearance was due to the massive change in power that Groudon and Kyogre was causing. Mega Rayquaza's Ability also has it actually changing the weather, more permanently than Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre's Ability.
2. Delta also is used to denote differences between something. Differences like maybe between land and sea, or Groudon and Kyogre?

Rayquaza was always meant to be keep balance between Groudon and Kyogre, so in order to do so it might need to change things in order to differentiate the two once more.

Would make sense if those 3 are created as equals.
Ah, but Rayquaza is not suppose to be equal to Groudon and Kyogre. It has 10 more power (Groudon and Kyogre has 670 BST) and its Ability stops their Ability. And as I pointed out, they pretty much kept that as Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre probably have a BST of 770 with Mega Rayquaza having 780 (like the Mega Mewtwos) and it's Ability checks their Abilities.

Would completely outclass regular Rayquaza and I honestly don't see that happening.
I think Mega Rayquaza already outclasses normal Rayquaza just from its Ability and Signature Move alone. Life Orb Rayquaza probably hits harder, but normal Rayquaza still has its quad weakness to Ice, loses 1/4th of its HP to SR, and I don't think it'll be given access to Dragon Ascent unless its Mega Evolved (like Rotom or Cosplay Pikachu).

Not to mention Mega Rayquaza would require it's own tier if that happened because otherwise it'll destroy EVERYTHING. Probably be called Mega Ubers.

the lore is incomplete though... Like what happened next? It mega evolved and then realized it actually needed to go Primal? lol XD
It's new ability is the main thing that makes a second form sound unlikely to me. Otherwise I'd still be totally banking on it. There's nothing in the lore saying anything about Primal Devolution being exclusive to the two. Just an incomplete story about how two of them can primal-devolve and one of them can mega-evolve. There's definitely still information they're waiting to fill us in on about Rayquaza. They are not telling us the full story on purpose. Even if it's not "Primal" I still kind of expect we'll find out that this is Mega Rayquaza A and there's also a Mega Rayquaza O or something. Everyone thought Charizard and Mewtwo Ys where THE megas for those two for a good while. And if anything is getting two forms in ORAs it's gonna be Rayquaza.
Indeed the story does sound incomplete, but it going Primal would defeat the purpose of it being the people's savior as it would then be using the power that's tearing the planet apart. My guess is that the rest of the story is probably how it dealt with Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre. Did it just swoop in and beat them or did it discover that even with its power that nothing was being done and needed to find a way to power all of them down? My guess the rest of the story would be about what happened to their ability to Primal Devolve/Mega Evolve, specifically how you can have them Primal Devolve/Mega Evolve again.

Also what would another Mega Rayquaza be like? This Mega Rayquaza seems like the definitive Mega Rayquaza. More faster? More defensive wouldn't make much sense, nor would changing type. Delta Stream also seems like THE upgrade to Air Lock.

Eh.
The issue with "Primal" Dialga is another translation issue. In the original PMD, it was Dark Dialga whowent mad because he lost control of time thanks to Darkrai's mucking around. They didn't want to call it "dark" in the english, so they tweaked the story to explain that dialga had his own primal reversion.

It makes sense where you're going with that thought, though.
Hmm, that does make me wonder what they plan on doing for the Gen IV Legendaries with them pulling all this off for the Weather Trio. Especially for Arceus (maybe give Arceus its Ability it had in Pokemon Congest? Omnipotent, always does Super Effective damage) and Giratina (who has different forms, so does that mean two different Mega Evolutions)? However if they require special "Mega Stones" I demand Arceus's to be called the Mega Plate. :P

Red shiny Rayquaza would look amazing @_@ But I don't think they're changing that. Black shiny Rayquaza was even featured in Conquest, so that seems to be pretty consolidated. And a shiny pokémon changing colors when it mega evolves is actually the exception and not the rule, which makes a non-black Rayquaza even less likely :/

(Now I'm in love with the red Rayquaza in my mind. GF never gets it right when it comes to shiny pokémon...)
Well they have changed a Mega Evo's shiny color before. And there could be some credence to it being red: Mega Rayquaza has no red on it, all the red on normal Rayquaza was replaced with yellow. So maybe that means a Shiny Mega Rayquaza could turn red now that the lining won't blend in being changed to yellow. However I wouldn't hold my breathe, Black Shiny Rayquaza does look cool and yellow and black go great together.

Delta Stream will override Primordial Sea / Desolate Land, but it will not prevent their activation. If Primal Groudon switches into Mega Rayquaza, Desolate Land will override Delta Stream instead.
Actually I think it was made clear Delta Stream cannot be overriden. It wouldn't be a good Air Lock upgrade if it could.

You also bring up an interesting point: maybe AD won't have perfect accuracy. This would greatly hinder its effectiveness, thus making Mega Rayquaza a little less broken.

On the other hand, it was able to use it three times in the NicoNico battle without missing once. That points to a pretty solid accuracy. Did they perform the battle on the spot or is there any way of setting it up so AD won't miss regardless of its accuracy?
I call hax. I'm always cautious with that they show in trailers.

"*FAKE GASP* Are you telling me in order to hype up the game they made the Pokemon look godly powerful so they could sell more copies?"

Yes.

The official site says Dragon Ascent is ONE OF the strongest Flying-type moves. Considering Sky Attack exists, its BP is 140 at most. We know it's a one-turn move that reduces both defenses, so it's almost certainly a 120 BP move.
Ah, you are right. So maybe my Overheat or Superpower idea (except Physical and a Flying-type)?

Superpower has 120 Power and drops Attack and Defense by 1 stage.
Hence why I said "-like". The reason I said Superpower is because its a 100% accurate move with stat drops.
 
Actually I think it was made clear Delta Stream cannot be overriden. It wouldn't be a good Air Lock upgrade if it could.
Actually, I am kinda curious as to how Air Lock will interact with Delta Stream. It is possible that akin to how Desolate Land/Primordial Sea is a "downgrade" from Drought/Drizzle in that it doesn't linger after switching out, Delta Stream is a "downgrade" from Air Lock in that it does not completely lock the weather anymore, and that it can be nullified by no other than Air Lock itself.

I guess if this is true that Gamefreak wants to keep the original Groudon/Kyogre/Rayquaza relevant to the metagame.
 
I know. The battle may be rigged so as to give M-Ray max defenses and gimp Abomasnow's Attack stat, so it is pretty much speculation on my part. Then again, the only reasons why we believe that M-Ray will be 2x weak to Ice instead of being neutral to it, despite the website's statement being interpretable as otherwise, are because the message said "It's super-effective" (which can be purely cosmetic a la Thick Fat M-Venusaur) and because the people on the show reacted to said message by saying "Oooh, 2x! 2x damage!"
Yeah they probably did. Using a modest abomasnow with zero ivs and evs against a rayquaza with 105 defence and pure dragon typing to stimulate its ability
0- Atk Abomasnow Ice Shard vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Rayquaza: 62-74 (17.6 - 21%) -- possible 5HKO
Which falls nicely within a plausible range of damage according to the wifi battle.
 

Jibaku

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Actually I think it was made clear Delta Stream cannot be overriden. It wouldn't be a good Air Lock upgrade if it could.
The official site says
"・The Abilities Drizzle, Drought, Sand Stream, and Snow Warning will fail to activate."
on Delta Stream's section. This doesnt say anything about the primal abilities not being able to override Delta Stream. Additionally, I think these legendary weathers arent meant to be 100% upgrades (Primal Groudon/Kyogre's weathers fade upon switching out as opposed to staying, Mega Rayquaza's weather being likely override-able by the Primal abilities).

In the case of Air Lock, I think it will ironically override Delta Stream.
 

Pikachu315111

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Actually, I am kinda curious as to how Air Lock will interact with Delta Stream. It is possible that akin to how Desolate Land/Primordial Sea is a "downgrade" from Drought/Drizzle in that it doesn't linger after switching out, Delta Stream is a "downgrade" from Air Lock in that it does not completely lock the weather anymore, and that it can be nullified by no other than Air Lock itself.

I guess if this is true that Gamefreak wants to keep the original Groudon/Kyogre/Rayquaza relevant to the metagame.
Hmm, interesting point. If Air Lock (and Cloud Nine) does stop Delta Stream, Desolate Land, and Primordial Sea then that could be a small niche normal Rayquaza has over Mega Rayquaza. However DL ad PS are pretty much a better Drought and Drizzle, but being that now other Pokemon can have Drought and Drizzle they allowed DS ad PS to be better.

The official site says
"・The Abilities Drizzle, Drought, Sand Stream, and Snow Warning will fail to activate."
on Delta Stream's section. This doesnt say anything about the primal abilities not being able to override Delta Stream. Additionally, I think these legendary weathers arent meant to be 100% upgrades (Primal Groudon/Kyogre's weathers fade upon switching out as opposed to staying, Mega Rayquaza's weather being likely override-able by the Primal abilities).

In the case of Air Lock, I think it will ironically override Delta Stream.
Ah, but you forgot to check through the captions of the images. For the one featuring Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre it says this:

"When the Delta Stream Ability is activated, even extremely harsh sunlight and heavy rain weather conditions will be blown away by its strong winds!"

Of course, you could take that to mean right when it's activated and thus is switched out an back in Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre's Abilities will activate again. And going along with what TruthfulCake said, this could be on purpose to give Normal Rayquaza and its Air Lock Ability a leg up over Delta Stream.
 
I'm a bit confused. Do we know for sure anything about Air Lock nullifying Desolate Land/Primordial Sea or are you guys just speculating?
 
"When the Delta Stream Ability is activated, even extremely harsh sunlight and heavy rain weather conditions will be blown away by its strong winds!"

Of course, you could take that to mean right when it's activated and thus is switched out an back in Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre's Abilities will activate again.
I believe in this interpretation too. The website has this to say about Delta Stream: Delta Stream is an Ability that only Mega Rayquaza possesses: it fills the air with mysterious strong winds that affect the weather. These strong winds cannot be dispelled by changing the weather condition, except by a very limited number of Pokémon.

If I were to reword the sentence: "A very limited number of Pokemon can dispel these strong winds by changing the weather condition." Since they ruled out weather moves and the basic five-turn auto-weather abilities already, the only other things that can "change the weather condition" are Air Lock/Cloud Nine and the primal weathers. Ergo, DL/PS can override Delta Stream.

Or alternatively, I can reword the sentence as such: "A very limited number of Pokemon can dispel these strong winds". If we remove the "changing the weather condition" part, then it seems to more strongly imply Air Lock/Cloud Nine than it does DL/PS.

EDIT: The website gives a similar description to Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre's abilities. For Desolate Land, for example: It is not possible to change the weather condition during extremely harsh sunlight (leaving aside the efforts of an exceedingly small number of Pokémon).

If we took this to mean that DL and PS can replace each other a la Drought/Drizzle, then it would make sense to infer that Delta Stream would interact with the two abilities in a similar fashion.
 
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Mario With Lasers

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The point is that MegaRayquaza stopped both Primal pokémon. It was the last one to appear in battle, so its Delta Stream overrode everything and he Dragon Ascended the shit out of both Primals.

No need for it to be the supreme weather, lol.
 
I'm a bit confused. Do we know for sure anything about Air Lock nullifying Desolate Land/Primordial Sea or are you guys just speculating?
We don't know anything, and the website does not say anything specifically related to the Primal/Mega weathers. We can suppose Air Lock still acts as if they were not active, but we'll have to wait...
 
"When the Delta Stream Ability is activated, even extremely harsh sunlight and heavy rain weather conditions will be blown away by its strong winds!"

This makes no sense whatsoever.
 
I don't think it'll be given access to Dragon Ascent unless its Mega Evolved (like Rotom or Cosplay Pikachu).
Those are formes, which are not Mega Pokemon and no Mega Evolution has a "signature move" exclusive to it. It could happen, but I don't see how that's going to work.
 

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Say, I just though of something. Would Castform change forms in Desolate Land's HARSH sunlight and Primordial Sea's HEAVY rain? They're technically different from normal sunlight and rain, but would Castform still turn into its Sunny and Rainy Form (of course it'll have to be in a Double/Triple battle)?

Also I always assumed the reason Castform doesn't have a Sandstorm form is because Sandstorm isn't really a traditional weather condition even though its treated like one (that said I still think it should get one). However Strong Winds does sound like a weather condition that Castform would change forms for, so do you think we may have more Castform forms coming (and let's not forget about Weather Ball, I imagine in Strong Winds it'll become Flying-type?)?
 
Say, I just though of something. Would Castform change forms in Desolate Land's HARSH sunlight and Primordial Sea's HEAVY rain? They're technically different from normal sunlight and rain, but would Castform still turn into its Sunny and Rainy Form (of course it'll have to be in a Double/Triple battle)?

Also I always assumed the reason Castform doesn't have a Sandstorm form is because Sandstorm isn't really a traditional weather condition even though its treated like one (that said I still think it should get one). However Strong Winds does sound like a weather condition that Castform would change forms for, so do you think we may have more Castform forms coming (and let's not forget about Weather Ball, I imagine in Strong Winds it'll become Flying-type?)?
I'm sure it was said somewhere that in addition to their new effects, desolate land and primordial sea still have the same effects as their normal counterparts.
 
Say, I just though of something. Would Castform change forms in Desolate Land's HARSH sunlight and Primordial Sea's HEAVY rain? They're technically different from normal sunlight and rain, but would Castform still turn into its Sunny and Rainy Form (of course it'll have to be in a Double/Triple battle)?

Also I always assumed the reason Castform doesn't have a Sandstorm form is because Sandstorm isn't really a traditional weather condition even though its treated like one (that said I still think it should get one). However Strong Winds does sound like a weather condition that Castform would change forms for, so do you think we may have more Castform forms coming (and let's not forget about Weather Ball, I imagine in Strong Winds it'll become Flying-type?)?
I would be more optimistic about this if Gamefreak stopped being so +Att/-SpAtt and gave Castform a Rock-type transformation, but after three generations... Still, since this is a new weather we are talking about, a Flying-type Weather Ball sounds plausible. I hope that Flying Castform is a thing too, but something tells me that it will join Rock Castform in fanficland.

EDIT: Then again, there has been a precedent where a new weather (Thick Fog) does not change the type of Weather Ball. It is possible that Strong Winds will double the power of Weather Ball but does not change its typing. It is also sadly possible that Gamefreak will mess this up and forget about Weather Ball altogether. Fingers crossed.
 
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Yeah they probably did. Using a modest abomasnow with zero ivs and evs against a rayquaza with 105 defence and pure dragon typing to stimulate its ability
0- Atk Abomasnow Ice Shard vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Rayquaza: 62-74 (17.6 - 21%) -- possible 5HKO
Which falls nicely within a plausible range of damage according to the wifi battle.
This calculation did not take into account that Rayquaza was already at -1 by the time Abomasnow used Ice Shard.

EDIT: Rayquaza will definitely have access to Dragon Ascent in its base form, and I'd say the same is true for Precipice Blades and Origin Pulse.
 

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I would be more optimistic about this if Gamefreak stopped being so +Att/-SpAtt and gave Castform a Rock-type transformation, but after three generations... Still, since this is a new weather we are talking about, a Flying-type Weather Ball sounds plausible. I hope that Flying Castform is a thing too, but something tells me that it will join Rock Castform in fanficland.

EDIT: Then again, there has been a precedent where a new weather (Thick Fog) does not change the type of Weather Ball. It is possible that Strong Winds will double the power of Weather Ball but does not change its typing. It is also sadly possible that Gamefreak will mess this up and forget about Weather Ball altogether. Fingers crossed.
I see what you did there.

And I always though Thick Fog should make Weather Ball and Castform into a Ghost-type. Of course they would first need to make a move and maybe Ability they summoned Fog.

So pretty much:

Sandstorm = Sandy Castorm (Rock-type) & Rock-type Weather Ball
Strong Winds = Windy Castform (Flying-type) & Flying-type Weather Ball.
Thick Fog = Foggy Castform (Ghost-type) & Ghost-type Weather Ball.

(Also I think Forecast should double its Special Attack and Speed when its in Weather, but that's getting fanfic-y)

The form would disappear, there's no 'wind' Castform as there's no 'sand' Castform.
Oh come on, don't you want to see Castform improve (even though you're probably right. Weather Ball would probably also just double in Power but not change type like it does in fog)?
 
I think Mega Rayquaza already outclasses normal Rayquaza just from its Ability and Signature Move alone. Life Orb Rayquaza probably hits harder, but normal Rayquaza still has its quad weakness to Ice, loses 1/4th of its HP to SR, and I don't think it'll be given access to Dragon Ascent unless its Mega Evolved (like Rotom or Cosplay Pikachu).
No. Rayquaza will have access to it. The same way Kyogre and Groudon will have access to their signature moves even if they don't Megavolve, because Megavolution doesn't change moves as ,unlike those two, aren't forme changes that can happen outside of battle.
 
EDIT: Rayquaza will definitely have access to Dragon Ascent in its base form, and I'd say the same is true for Precipice Blades and Origin Pulse.
And come to think of it, this will make Rayquaza extremely powerful in its base form too. Delta Stream is a defensive ability. The huge power boost that makes Mega Rayquaza look so threatening actually comes from the addition of DS to its movepool - which Rayquaza also has. So in the end, Rayquaza will be as scary as Mega Rayquaza (its lower offensive stats are compensated by the ability to hold a LO/CB), just overall frailer, but it doesn't take up a mega slot.

And I hope Air Lock will be able nullify Desolate Land, Primordial Sea and Delta Stream but Cloud Nine won't. I'd be really happy if nullifying Primal Groudon's/Primal Kyogre's ability becomes a role only Rayquaza can fill and not the kind of thing any Psyduck from the pond in your backyard can do.
 
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