Getting almost perfect neutral coverage is good enough, seriously dark and normal stab is fucking great.
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Gen VII: Pokemon Sun and Moon Discussion MKII
- Thread starter DHR-107
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Getting almost perfect neutral coverage is good enough, seriously dark and normal stab is fucking great.
I probably should specified and said Key Item Z-Crystal... But you may be right. It would be a trivial thing for them to give both out at the same time when you recieve the munchlax, but still a question i had. (Plus you may have to hunt down the Normal Z-crystals)
Really? It sort of reminded me of Darkrai's special. Also NEXT TRAILER IN 5 DAYS!
Thoughts on exclusive Z-moves: I actually like this. The animations of these are perfect, and I can see the evolutions of the starters and rockruff have them as well.
Alolan Rattata: Its just Alolan Rattata.
Here's a bit of a theory that dawned on me: Based on the Solgaleo and Lunala Pokemon GX cards, I think that Solgaleo and Lunala might also have signature Z moves.
Only today did it dawn on me how similar the Pokemon GX 'Once per game' move mechanic is to our new Z-attacks. With the announcement today that signature Z-attacks exist and that Solgaleo and Lunala are our first featured Pokemon TCG cards with 'Once per game' special moves, I think it's reasonable to infer that they'll have signature Z-attacks in Sun and Moon. I'm aware they already have pretty cinematic signature moves as is, but hey, Zekrom and Reshiram got two signature moves too. Let's see if we see Sol Burst or Lunar Fall in the near future.
Edit: The news on Serebii that pre-orders are getting a Snorlax GX card is also nice supplementary evidence.
Outside of that, Z-Attacks are a neat ways to give a few Pokemon that still don't have a proper stab for one of their types at least one attack with it. Landorus, Thunudurs, and Gyarados spring to mind in particular, finally getting a decently powerful flying type move that isn't two turn awkwardness. They also provide pretty neat coverage. Random stuff that gets Water Pulse, Shock Wave, Bulldoze, or the elemental fangs are probably going to want to at least humor them if it lets them seriously dent their normal answer. Anything that needs to bust through a steel-type especially.
Only today did it dawn on me how similar the Pokemon GX 'Once per game' move mechanic is to our new Z-attacks. With the announcement today that signature Z-attacks exist and that Solgaleo and Lunala are our first featured Pokemon TCG cards with 'Once per game' special moves, I think it's reasonable to infer that they'll have signature Z-attacks in Sun and Moon. I'm aware they already have pretty cinematic signature moves as is, but hey, Zekrom and Reshiram got two signature moves too. Let's see if we see Sol Burst or Lunar Fall in the near future.
Edit: The news on Serebii that pre-orders are getting a Snorlax GX card is also nice supplementary evidence.
I'm honestly pretty scared of them. Z-moves remind me a lot of Dragon Gem Draco Meteors which defined the metagame for a lot of the VGC 2012 and 2013 formats. Sometimes it felt like everything was EV'd to take a Draco Meteor. I'm hoping these things aren't THAT powerful. It'll probably be shaky to balance it between being underpowered or too powerful, though I suppose I'm excited to see what effect they have even if they don't strike the best cord balance wise.
Outside of that, Z-Attacks are a neat ways to give a few Pokemon that still don't have a proper stab for one of their types at least one attack with it. Landorus, Thunudurs, and Gyarados spring to mind in particular, finally getting a decently powerful flying type move that isn't two turn awkwardness. They also provide pretty neat coverage. Random stuff that gets Water Pulse, Shock Wave, Bulldoze, or the elemental fangs are probably going to want to at least humor them if it lets them seriously dent their normal answer. Anything that needs to bust through a steel-type especially.
Welp, at least Dark/Normal is a unique typing but it's kind of sad defensively; a x4 weakness to Flighting, an immunity to Ghost, which Dark alone would have resisted, while there's no alleviation of its Fairy and Bug weaknesses.
Offensively it fares a little better since Normal will hit neutrally those types resisted by Dark except for Steel combined with Fighting/Fairy/Dark. Currently that's only Lucario, Cobalion, Mawile, Klefki, Magearna, Bisharp.
But, hey, it's Rattata so it's not like it will have any actual offenses to speak of...lol
EDIT: I forgot Kanto Rattata gets Sucker Punch. If the Alolan form keeps it and gets STAB + Hustle that'd be kind of cool...even without a boosting item.
I quite like the design though. The mustache is a bit of comic relief but I could imagine an explanation in terms of better navigation in the dark with elongated whiskers.
The Z-move animations are flashy but I'm not 100% sold on them as a feature that will be worth the opportunity cost (giving up the item slot).
There's still a lot to learn about them though. Are there powerful priority moves in the mix? Hyper Sprint Attack sounds almost like a Z version of Extremespeed.
Do the Z-crystals get consumed after use to trigger unburden or power up Acrobatics? There are still unknown factors that could affect Z-move viability.
Offensively it fares a little better since Normal will hit neutrally those types resisted by Dark except for Steel combined with Fighting/Fairy/Dark. Currently that's only Lucario, Cobalion, Mawile, Klefki, Magearna, Bisharp.
But, hey, it's Rattata so it's not like it will have any actual offenses to speak of...lol
EDIT: I forgot Kanto Rattata gets Sucker Punch. If the Alolan form keeps it and gets STAB + Hustle that'd be kind of cool...even without a boosting item.
I quite like the design though. The mustache is a bit of comic relief but I could imagine an explanation in terms of better navigation in the dark with elongated whiskers.
The Z-move animations are flashy but I'm not 100% sold on them as a feature that will be worth the opportunity cost (giving up the item slot).
There's still a lot to learn about them though. Are there powerful priority moves in the mix? Hyper Sprint Attack sounds almost like a Z version of Extremespeed.
Do the Z-crystals get consumed after use to trigger unburden or power up Acrobatics? There are still unknown factors that could affect Z-move viability.
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I think a combination of explusive Z moves and Alolan forms is Game freak bringing back older under used pokemon. I can see there being a decent amount of exclusive Z cyrstals for the new alolan forms and some other older pokemon. Here's hoping for a Unique Wigglytuff one.
I forgot about the coverage. Yeah Dark/normal is pretty good, and with the hustle bonus it will hit very hard neutrally.
I can see these moves being as strong or stronger then that. Its a scary thought, but then again gamefreak did give use Mega Rayquaza and Mega Salamance
I forgot about the coverage. Yeah Dark/normal is pretty good, and with the hustle bonus it will hit very hard neutrally.
I can see these moves being as strong or stronger then that. Its a scary thought, but then again gamefreak did give use Mega Rayquaza and Mega Salamance
Steel doesn't resist Dark as of 6th gen. BUt that being said, the new Ratatta is adorable! I love it.
They would probably have an impact on Battle Spot Singles too. Any fast format is going to probably see heavy usage of these attacks. Also: In a way, Z-Moves are possibly even scarier than Gem'd Draco Meteor: You can probably EV to survive a Neutral Z-Move... but a Super Effective one will always get the KO. Plus they don't appear to all be the same side of the physical/special split.
I would expect to see a lot of Feint support in the upcoming VGC seasons, since that can guarentee a Z-Move hit on most Pokemon. (And I now know my next Breeding Project. Edit: or would but quite a few good things get Feint.)
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Yeah, I know. What I was saying is that only the three types listed combined with Steel resist Dark + Normal.
In other words, the dual types Fighting/Steel, Fairy/Steel and Dark/Steel.
The Alolan Rattata is all I needed to be honest. Since we have non Alolan cubone how likely is it that we won't have an Alolan Raticate?
What about Rock and Fighting/Fairy/Dark? Same resists in terms of Dark and Normal.
You think you know someone for 20 years and all of a sudden they want to make you pancakes? #StayWoke
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Just a reminder: that specific Alola form "leak" has been 0% correct so far. It claimed Rattata would be pure Dark-type, and that Ninetales would be Fire/Fairy-type. And the fact that we've seen normal Arcanine in game footage, while not completely ruling out Alolan Arcanine, makes it seem pretty unlikely.
Do you guys remember back when 3rd-gen came out, and all the 1st and 2nd-gen Pokémon got Abilities for the first time? GameFreak was incredibly lazy with some of those. Over half of the Fire-types got Flash Fire, over half the Electric-types got Static, and almost all of the Grass-types got Chlorophyll. A bunch of the Normal/Flying-types got Keen Eye. At the same time, a lot of Pokémon just have horrible abilities like Run Away. But for lots of these Pokémon, they already have two Abilities and a Hidden Ability, meaning no available slots for new Abilities.
Also, Ice, Ghost, Dragon, Dark, Steel, and Fairy-types are pretty rare among the original 151 Pokémon.
So what do we have so far?
• Exeggutor loses Chlorophyll and gains the Dragon type.
• Sandslash gains both the Ice and Steel types.
• Ninetales loses Flash Fire and gains the Ice and Fairy types.
• Meowth gains the Dark type.
• Marowak gains the Ghost type.
• Raichu loses Static.
• Rattata loses Run Away and gains the Dark type.
I expect most of the other Alola forms to fall into this same mold. Probably either Victreebel or Vileplume will get a new form, if not both. Rapidash and Dodrio have poor, common Abilities too.
But take all this with a block of salt. I would really have expected Fearow to get an Alola form, but we've already seen normal Fearow in footage, so I'm not optimistic there.
I think the leak deserves far more credibility than being 0% correct. It's scoring at least a B+ with its information so far. Being even in the ballpark for this stuff is outstanding. Yes, Ninetails was Ice / Fairy instead of pure Fairy and Rattata was Dark / Normal instead of Dark, but getting those even partially right before Alolan forms were even announced is a clear sign of having some legitimate information to stand on. Even the Pokebeach leak from X&Y didn't bat 1000 and got Fairy's resistances wrong. I think that you can say with certainty that the other Alolan forms it claimed exist do in fact exist given Ninetails and Rattata were real.
Think vgc. Only 4 pokemon, and if you KO them fast that pokemon lost its turn. Super worth it in that setting.
Guessing Dark-type Rattata is incredibly easy. It's entire level-up move pool is Normal and Dark. So that impresses me not at all.
Ninetales being Fairy-type is less obvious but still not tough to guess. I'd have been more impressed if they'd just said pure Ice type, since that's the part that stands out.
If they'd predicted that Raichu would gain the Psychic type, then I wouldn't be doubting this supposed leak.
The thing is that the leaker predicted older pokemon would get typing revamps before Alolan forms were officially revealed. That alone gives it a lot of credibility, or at the very least more than 0% for sure. Or are you seriously telling me that anyone could've guessed Game Freak would do something like this? I for sure wouldn't.
BTW, remember those American peeps of mine complaining that Europe gets Solageo and Lunaala figurines while America gets nothing? And you know how I predicted there will be a Solageo and Lunaala figure box for the TCG featuring those figures?
Well, we got something remarkably close there: http://www.pokebeach.com/2016/09/pokemon-tcg-alola-collection-in-november
And they come out on the day Sun/Moon comes out so if you want your figurines that bad, well there's your shot.
Well, we got something remarkably close there: http://www.pokebeach.com/2016/09/pokemon-tcg-alola-collection-in-november
And they come out on the day Sun/Moon comes out so if you want your figurines that bad, well there's your shot.
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