Unpopular opinions

Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
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So people would actually have to think rather than relying purely on RNG? Sounds good to me.
Oh, you can't get away from RNG that easily. Determining the exact amount of damage done, critical hits, whether moves with less than 100% accuracy hit, secondary effects activating, status effects, and all the other Moves, Abilities, and Items that have a bit of RNG to them. Battling is practically ruled by RNG, the best bet you have is by trying to gain as much control as possible. And that's the problem with Evasion, it's not something you're in control of, it's something your opponent has control over (mainly how to get rid of it).
 
Oh, you can't get away from RNG that easily. Determining the exact amount of damage done, critical hits, whether moves with less than 100% accuracy hit, secondary effects activating, status effects, and all the other Moves, Abilities, and Items that have a bit of RNG to them. Battling is practically ruled by RNG, the best bet you have is by trying to gain as much control as possible. And that's the problem with Evasion, it's not something you're in control of, it's something your opponent has control over (mainly how to get rid of it).
I'm well aware that RNG is involved in battling no matter what. But the other effects are a very far cry from literally halving your chances to hit something.
 
But why would anyone use Evasion then? If its difficult to set up you might as well just use that moveslot for another attack or strategy.
It would be like how now, critical hits aren't really something to rely on and just happen. HOWEVER, there are Pokemon (like Kingdra, Hydreigon, etc.) that are BUILT around dishing out critical hits. In this case, the Pokemon needs to have both moves set up right, an item slot wasted, AND (for Kingdra's case) an ability wasted too in order to benefit from it. So, if we can get a setup where, in order to produce reliable results you need to expend all of that, then evasion may become healthier and actually not just completely mindless.
 
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It would be like how now, critical hits aren't really something to rely on and just happen. HOWEVER, there are Pokemon (like Kingdra, Hydreigon, etc.) that are BUILT around dishing out critical hits. In this case, the Pokemon needs to have both moves set up right, an item slot wasted, AND (for Kingdra's case) an ability wasted too in order to benefit from it. So, if we can get a setup where, in order to produce reliable results you need to expend all of that, then evasion may become healthier and actually not just completely mindless.
Wait, since when was Hydreigon built around critical hits? I feel like I'm missing something obvious here, but I don't recall any situation where critical hits were key to Hydreigon's thing. It doesn't have Super Luck or Sniper, the moves that it usually uses aren't increased crit rate...
 
Wait, since when was Hydreigon built around critical hits? I feel like I'm missing something obvious here, but I don't recall any situation where critical hits were key to Hydreigon's thing. It doesn't have Super Luck or Sniper, the moves that it usually uses aren't increased crit rate...
Err... Sorry, I meant there are build for Hydreigon that use it. Things like a mixed set featuring Focus Energy, Draco Meteor, and Superpower with a Scope Lens has seen SOME use as a cleaner before. It isn't particularly good but it can surprise people since constant 1.5x Draco Meteors with literally no downside anymore (since Crits ignore attack drops) are just fine and dandy once you remove fairies.
 
From 10 March 2016:
Norne is right: Evasion isn't going anywhere and it likely won't ever change. But here's the thing: not many people use Evasion. Seriously, the number of real people I've encountered who use Evasion is very, very small. Some of you are saying, "Vader, most of the people you play against play by Smogon rules, which bans it or play VGC where it is completely impractical!" Even amongst the many, many, MANY casual trainers I've fought against, Evasion is still near unheard of. Outside of Anything Goes on Showdown and an astonishing small number of people in the Kanto Classic (again, I though everyone was going to use Minimize Clefable), I think I can count the number of times I've encountered people trying to use evasion against me on one hand across three generations (and I can only think of one case this gen)! In fact, I bet that most battles with Evasion tend to be those very Tower/Subway/Maison battles that drive many of us mad.
Also from 10 March 2016:
Really, the ideal solution (since face it, Evasion isn't going to go away) is for the higher level AI Maison (or its replacement) opponents should stop using Evasion and cheap strategies and play fairly.
And let's just hope that No Guard Fissure Machamp doesn't start showing up there in Sun and Moon.
Yeah, I still don't get why everyone whines about Evasion since it is so rarely used.
 
A lot of people don't like a lot of the "questionable" Gen 5 designs...but I do!

Vanillite is a perfect example. I see a lot of people who don't like it because it's "unoriginal" but personally I find it really cute! It has a really happy face that I just can't resist! The same goes for other first stage "hated" Gen 5 designs such as Trubbish and Litwick. I'm also a pretty big fan of Chandelure because I think it looks pretty cool.
The biggest change I want to the main games' mechanics is for Evasion to be removed.
Evasion can burn in a hole! :o I agree with everything so far that said Evasion is just dumb RNG
 
I don't like Hidden Abilities. I like the abilities themselves, but the games have done a very handwavy explanation of what they are, so it made never sense to me why a Pokemon can't simply use the Ability Capsule to get them. Could have been as simple as saying, oh yeah the weapon that made Mega Evolution possible also caused genetic mutation that made HA possible, and because it's a genetic mutation it needs to be passed down via breeding.

From a programming perspective, I can understand why HA were treated in Gen V as different, and because of Dream World, I can understand why they were special. But now you can DexNav or Friend Safari to catch HA Pokemon, which made the exclusivity a bit weird - Pokemon in the wild can have HA, so why is the distribution still limited?
 
I don't like Hidden Abilities. I like the abilities themselves, but the games have done a very handwavy explanation of what they are, so it made never sense to me why a Pokemon can't simply use the Ability Capsule to get them. Could have been as simple as saying, oh yeah the weapon that made Mega Evolution possible also caused genetic mutation that made HA possible, and because it's a genetic mutation it needs to be passed down via breeding.

From a programming perspective, I can understand why HA were treated in Gen V as different, and because of Dream World, I can understand why they were special. But now you can DexNav or Friend Safari to catch HA Pokemon, which made the exclusivity a bit weird - Pokemon in the wild can have HA, so why is the distribution still limited?
That's something I agree with. It could be handwaved by the Dream World in BW (As in implying those abilities are naturally imposible otherwise), but since the BW2 Hidden Grottos, there's been no explanation about why they cannot be found on wild Pokemon through any other method.
 
I don't like Hidden Abilities. I like the abilities themselves, but the games have done a very handwavy explanation of what they are, so it made never sense to me why a Pokemon can't simply use the Ability Capsule to get them. Could have been as simple as saying, oh yeah the weapon that made Mega Evolution possible also caused genetic mutation that made HA possible, and because it's a genetic mutation it needs to be passed down via breeding.

From a programming perspective, I can understand why HA were treated in Gen V as different, and because of Dream World, I can understand why they were special. But now you can DexNav or Friend Safari to catch HA Pokemon, which made the exclusivity a bit weird - Pokemon in the wild can have HA, so why is the distribution still limited?
I personally like HAs, probably just because they are usually better than normal abilities. Although I do agree that we should be able to use the Ability Capsule to get them.
 
My big problem is that Hidden abilities are such a chore to get if you can't find a parent with the ability already to start with. As noted, Hidden Abilities are essentially a genetic mutation/rarity, which means even if a mon doesn't exhibit the ability outright they could be capable in a large enough sample size of offspring of producing one who does exhibit it.

Hidden Abilities as they were programmed began as a way to make the Dream World valuable to gameplay. Hidden Grottoes started to push that aside but they were still rare and it was still Gen 5. As of Gen 6, things like DexNav and Horde Battles make Hidden Ability Pokemon "huntable" in a sense, and they occur in what are purely natural contexts (the HG could be handwaved as giving the Pokemon the ability through some magic power or something). At this point giving them such a huge disconnect seems a bit pointless. Ways I would probably address that:

- In a "normal" breeding pair, a line with a HA has a 90% chance to pass a regular ability, and a 10% chance to pass the HA (as sort of a mutation or recessive gene sequence)

- In a pair with a HA (either parent in a same species pairing, the Mother in a different-species non-Ditto pairing), have the offspring with the typical 60% chance at a HA.

- Ability Capsules always give the Pokemon one of its "normal" abilities (in case of something like Bisharp that doesn't want its HA over a regular), and introduce a new item that can turn a Pokemon from having its Normal ability to its HA.

I don't mind the HA being rare, but making it mechanically inaccessible in manners where it should be obtainable and having such a weird disconnect from other abilities raises more questions, especially when it's a Signature ability for a mon (Gale Wings or Gooey come to mind). And if the items seem a bit weird with the mutation idea, we're already dealing with what is essentially inbreeding and Eugenics with IV's and the current HA system.
 
Alright, here's one: Shauna for best X/Y rival.

Reasoning: She actually helps out at the Flare Base, even if she doesn't have an end goal in mind she still enjoys the journey, she's freaking adorable, and let's not forget the clincher: in her second rival battle, she has eleven of twelve possible moveslots filled. Oh, and she has a Goodra. Seriously, why is she put by the wayside so much?
 

Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
is a Community Contributoris a Top Smogon Media Contributor
Alright, here's one: Shauna for best X/Y rival.

Reasoning: She actually helps out at the Flare Base, even if she doesn't have an end goal in mind she still enjoys the journey, she's freaking adorable, and let's not forget the clincher: in her second rival battle, she has eleven of twelve possible moveslots filled. Oh, and she has a Goodra. Seriously, why is she put by the wayside so much?
I think it's due to people thinking of her being the ditz as shown in the first battle (where she was too distracted watching her Pokemon being cute than battling) and being amazed when a Pokemon goes inside a Pokeball in Calem/Serena's catching tutorial before being pointed out she seen that done with starter. However I think out of all the rivals she develops the most. She started out as the ditz but as time went on she showed to be taking in the experiences of her journey more than anyone else (or at least talked to the player most about it). And as I said, she infiltrated Flare HQ by herself, opened the core room's door, drew away some of the grunts (which was presented as being cowardly but even the grunts knew what she was doing. Also she came back so she probably defeated the grunt that followed her), and after you battle Lysandre she's the only one to put up a sort of argument to him by pointing out that while many people take they also share like he did with his Gyarados to Mega Evolve it. And in the end she is one of the heroes of Kalos. Also she does something no other rival has done, she bred her Pokemon and gave you one of the offspring!
 
Alright, here's one: Shauna for best X/Y rival.

Reasoning: She actually helps out at the Flare Base, even if she doesn't have an end goal in mind she still enjoys the journey, she's freaking adorable, and let's not forget the clincher: in her second rival battle, she has eleven of twelve possible moveslots filled. Oh, and she has a Goodra. Seriously, why is she put by the wayside so much?
A lot of what Pikachu315111 said, but she's probably out "by the wayside" is that there were simply to many rivals in Gen 6. This meant that the game had to give attention to all of them, so none of them really got enough screentime, although Shauna probably did the best with said screentime.

Another unpopular opinion of mine. From what I can gather, the Grass Type Starters tend to be the most overlooked. I've seen quite a few people dismiss Grass Type Starters as just for "new players". I also don't really like Fire Type Starters, Charizard, Blaziken and Emboar stand out as the worse. Charizard, apart from being overrated has surprisingly "meh" stats. Blaziken is just downright ugly (no I don't find it cool looking) and emboar just...no.


Tell me this isn't adorable
 
A lot of what Pikachu315111 said, but she's probably out "by the wayside" is that there were simply to many rivals in Gen 6. This meant that the game had to give attention to all of them, so none of them really got enough screentime, although Shauna probably did the best with said screentime.

Another unpopular opinion of mine. From what I can gather, the Grass Type Starters tend to be the most overlooked. I've seen quite a few people dismiss Grass Type Starters as just for "new players". I also don't really like Fire Type Starters, Charizard, Blaziken and Emboar stand out as the worse. Charizard, apart from being overrated has surprisingly "meh" stats. Blaziken is just downright ugly (no I don't find it cool looking) and emboar just...no.


Tell me this isn't adorable
Yeah, I don't know what all the hate for grass starters is all about. People say they aren't as good ingame, but let's be real, nearly every Pokemon can be good ingame, so I don't really get that argument. All in all I think that no one type of starter is cooler than the rest, all three types have good and bad. Grass definitely does seem to be overlooked far too often, and I don't really see why. (Personally sceptile is my favorite starter).
 
I personally wouldn't mind hidden abilities to be hard to find. However, there are sadly way too many Pokemon, and if I am considering to get each one with the right nature, ivs and with a hidden ability...maybe some eggmoves...or maybe I need to softreset for a few month to get the right event exclusive...well, then I might stop playing said game and use simulators with I want to play competitively.
 
A lot of what Pikachu315111 said, but she's probably out "by the wayside" is that there were simply to many rivals in Gen 6. This meant that the game had to give attention to all of them, so none of them really got enough screentime, although Shauna probably did the best with said screentime.

Another unpopular opinion of mine. From what I can gather, the Grass Type Starters tend to be the most overlooked. I've seen quite a few people dismiss Grass Type Starters as just for "new players". I also don't really like Fire Type Starters, Charizard, Blaziken and Emboar stand out as the worse. Charizard, apart from being overrated has surprisingly "meh" stats. Blaziken is just downright ugly (no I don't find it cool looking) and emboar just...no.


Tell me this isn't adorable
Bulbasaur is Kanto easy mode and Treecko loves to soak up all the Water types. Grass starters rule man.

I can see why they're not the most popular with kids though, to a 10 year old when you turn on Red for the first time and have to choose your life companion, a monster who breathes fire or shoots water out of cannons is much cooler than... plants.
 
In my case, in every generation bar the second, I prefer the Grass-type starter.

Why not Chikorita's line? Well... that's something I sometimes wonder too.
 
Grass starters tend to be overlooked simply because they generally have a poorer overall performance ingame as opposed to other starters.
Not to say they're BAD per say, just underwhelming compared to the other starters.


Gen 1: Venusaur is great, this is fine compared to Gen 1 Blastoise and Charizard.

Gen 2: Compared to Typhlosion(easy mode) or Feraligatr(easy mode lategame), Meganium tends to struggle with most major trainers. Its performance is only somewhat better than the other Grass types in Gen 2.

Gen 3: Sceptile had a garbage level up movepool, with its strongest relaible STAB sitting at base 70, and had a poor early game performance. Venusaur ends up worse off due to its most powerful option being Giga Drain/Razor leaf, and of course, Razor leaf doesn't crit like crazy anymore.

Gen 4: Torterra has a strong early game performance, but isn't all that great against Team Galactic and its good STABs don't come until very late. It also has a poor Elite Four performance outside of Bertha due to being weak to two members and struggles to take special attacks.

Gen 5: Serperior is okay at best. Choose another starter.

Gen 6: Chesnaught has a good early game performance, but struggles later on in the game.
 
Bulbasaur is Kanto easy mode and Treecko loves to soak up all the Water types. Grass starters rule man.

I can see why they're not the most popular with kids though, to a 10 year old when you turn on Red for the first time and have to choose your life companion, a monster who breathes fire or shoots water out of cannons is much cooler than... plants.
It's also a shame in the west in was Red (Charizard) and Blue (Blastoise) and as a kid, you could probably tell which starter evolved into the respective mascot and probably be swayed by that.
Grass starters tend to be overlooked simply because they generally have a poorer overall performance ingame as opposed to other starters.
Not to say they're BAD per say, just underwhelming compared to the other starters.


Gen 1: Venusaur is great, this is fine compared to Gen 1 Blastoise and Charizard.

Gen 2: Compared to Typhlosion(easy mode) or Feraligatr(easy mode lategame), Meganium tends to struggle with most major trainers. Its performance is only somewhat better than the other Grass types in Gen 2.

Gen 3: Sceptile had a garbage level up movepool, with its strongest relaible STAB sitting at base 70, and had a poor early game performance. Venusaur ends up worse off due to its most powerful option being Giga Drain/Razor leaf, and of course, Razor leaf doesn't crit like crazy anymore.

Gen 4: Torterra has a strong early game performance, but isn't all that great against Team Galactic and its good STABs don't come until very late. It also has a poor Elite Four performance outside of Bertha due to being weak to two members and struggles to take special attacks.

Gen 5: Serperior is okay at best. Choose another starter.

Gen 6: Chesnaught has a good early game performance, but struggles later on in the game.
I never really noticed "underwhelming" performances outside of Gen 2 and 5, but I still like those starters because of how they look. Although I can understand how a lot of people may prefer in game performance or perhaps just think that Grass Starters look "lame".

#SaveAGrassStarter
 
Grass starters tend to be overlooked simply because they generally have a poorer overall performance ingame as opposed to other starters.
Not to say they're BAD per say, just underwhelming compared to the other starters.


Gen 1: Venusaur is great, this is fine compared to Gen 1 Blastoise and Charizard.

Gen 2: Compared to Typhlosion(easy mode) or Feraligatr(easy mode lategame), Meganium tends to struggle with most major trainers. Its performance is only somewhat better than the other Grass types in Gen 2.

Gen 3: Sceptile had a garbage level up movepool, with its strongest relaible STAB sitting at base 70, and had a poor early game performance. Venusaur ends up worse off due to its most powerful option being Giga Drain/Razor leaf, and of course, Razor leaf doesn't crit like crazy anymore.

Gen 4: Torterra has a strong early game performance, but isn't all that great against Team Galactic and its good STABs don't come until very late. It also has a poor Elite Four performance outside of Bertha due to being weak to two members and struggles to take special attacks.

Gen 5: Serperior is okay at best. Choose another starter.

Gen 6: Chesnaught has a good early game performance, but struggles later on in the game.
Well, Grass generally sucks for in-game runs because you want to OHKO everything in sight while avoiding having your own mons OHKOed, but with so many resists on its STAB + so many weaknesses + usually-awful movepool, you simply can't most of the time.

I personally loved using Serperior in Gen V (Even on hard ROM Hacks such as Volt White 2) with Substitute/Leech Seed/Coil/Leaf Blade stall. Hopelessly walled by Sap Sippers, that's for sure, but fortunately there aren't that many in-game. And I found it oddly fun.
 

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