Well, folks, it’s time for another giga brian geniouse post. Today, the Eye of Sauron has turned its gaze toward:
CORROSION.
I: Selling Points
1) Tinted Lens and Corrosion compliment and reflect each other in a lot of unique ways.
- Both are quite straightforward and "honest", in that the primary game plan of both is immediately clear (Tinted Lens wants to spam STABs, Corrosion wants to spread poison).
- Both only need one or two moveslots to actually execute on their gameplan (TL only needs 1-2 STABs, C only needs Toxic), freeing up room for utility, support, etc.
- Both are relatively agnostic toward type matchups, and have little need for coverage.
- Both target broad archetypes (Corrosion primarily targets fat, Tinted Lens primarily targets everything that isn't fat).
This'd give us as strong sense of direction moving into later stages.
It'd also, more than any other ability, result in a final product where 30i and 30b feel like two sides of the same coin, rather than two different mons stapled together.
2) Corrosion guarantees 30b doesn’t compete with 30i for a teamslot.
This an impressive feat. With a typing as awkward as Poison/Flying, trying to compete with Tinted Lens offensively is a lost cause. Defensive abilities, like Thick Fat or Stamina, have a bit more wiggle room, but 1) poison/flying is already quite good defensively, so they don't add
that much, and 2) there remains the open question of: what would 30b actually
do once it gets on the field, that 30i couldn't do too?
Corrosion doesn't have this issue. The ability to poison Steels and Poisons is so
unrelated to anything Tinted Lens might want to do, that 30i could be as blisteringly busted or hopelessly horrible as it wants, and 30b would be unaffected. Same goes for the inverse.
3) Corrosion is incredibly open-ended, and give us a lot a room to figure out 30i + 30b's exact implementations.
It places next to no demands on stats or movepool, and could function on a variety of builds.
- Do we want a high BST, or a low BST?
- What coverage, if any, should 30 get?
- Is 30i physically offensive, or specially offensive?
- Will 30b use the same offensive stat as 30i?
- Should 30b be a defensive wall? A defensive pivot? An offensive pivot? A cleric?
- If we go defensive, do we want to be physically or specially defensive?
- Is 30 fast, or slow?
- What utility moves will 30 focus on?
- Will 30b even use attacks? (thinking of
)
Corrosion will be happy with any answer to any of these questions.
On Discord, we even briefly discussed the idea of Corrosion with no Toxic, only Poison Gas. For the rest of this post, I’ll be operating under the assumption that 30b uses Toxic, but I want to point out that Corrosion likely could function with only regular poison (though elaborating why would be a whole poll-jumpy post onto itself).
This is yet another testament to the sheer flexibility Corrosion brings to the table.
II: Criticisim and Counterplay
A few people have argued that any half-decent user of Corrosion would be completely overwhelming. Not just that it has the
potential to be overpowered, but that by its very nature, any user of Corrosion would inevitably result in an unhealthy product, no matter how we design around it.
I think this concern is overblown, and is rooted in a slight misunderstanding of how Toxic works, and what makes a threatening user of it.
There was talk about how Toxic is not that detrimental if it lands on Pokemon like Zeraora or Dragapult, but that is simply not the case. Zeraora is maimed by Toxic and cannot perform its role nearly as well if it is taking chip every turn. The same goes for Dragapult, which more than anything wants to stay in and use Shadow Ball.
While it’s true being poisoned makes their lives more difficult, virtually anything else you could do to them would cripple them far worse. A paralyzed
or a burned
might as well be KOed, and simply attacking can permanently remove their ability to switch into or tank another attack.
Toxic, by contrast, takes a long time to deal meaningful damage (especially if they pivot out a lot), during which the poisoned mon can continue to attack, unimpeded.
Because of this, while it is technically positive to poison these mons, there’s a significant opportunity cost to poisoning them over doing literally anything else.
I would analogize Toxic on
,
,
, or any other fast, offensive mon, to hitting them with a resisted hit. While it does force some progress against them, it’s absolutely a trade they’d be willing to make if it means they get in otherwise safely, or get to fire off an attack - especially since they can all hit 30 super-effectively.
Overall, I feel like, at worst, Corrosion Toxic has an impact comparable to a decent attack with few resists/immunities, like Greninja’s Dark Pulse, Pult’s Shadow Ball, or, uh, Tinted Lens + Flying, in that it forces somewhat consistent progress at the cost of lower single-turn impact. The big difference is that the standard answers are inverted; splashable neutral hits destroy frailer mons & are generally (but imperfectly) answered by fat blobs, while Toxic is most harmful to fat blobs, and less immediately impactful to fast-paced offense.
III: Libra Lotl, or How To Break Toxic
I suspect a lot of the worry about Corrosion Toxic comes from earlier CAP processes.
and
were each horrendously overpowered for a time, in large part because of how well they abused Toxic. The concern then, is that 30b with Corrosion would too easily be just as overbearing.
This, while understandable (those metas were not fun lol), fails to appreciate just how perfectly the stars aligned to make those mons as powerful as they were. Lotl and Libra both had a massive slew of other traits that made them great Toxic abusers, that Corrosion 30b couldn't or wouldn't-necessarily have access to.
One major thing, which I kind of alluded to earlier, is: Toxic, in comparison to attacking, is a very passive play. You are explicitly trading short-term impact for a long-term payoff. This is something an aggressive opponent can exploit.
IMO, a large part of what made Libra/Lotl so powerful is that they didn’t have to make that trade.
applied constant pressure with the threat of monstrously powerful Doom Desires, excellent offensive coverage, and bulk that let it potentially 1v1 almost anything. Also, some of its best checks (eg
,
) are seriously crippled by Toxic.
's Regenerator makes any move it uses inherently non-committal, allowing it to eat hits and/or Toxic stall without even the momentum sink of Recover. That, combined with Knock Off, Spikes, Wish, etc made it incredibly good at winning long games, and ensured it always had some way to capitalize on any momentum it generated. Also, like Libra, many of Lotl's checks (eg
,
,
) were seriously hurt by Toxic.
ie, they 1) could easily create the space to use Toxic safely, 2) could throw out Toxic without sacrificing momentum, 3) could easily exploit the timer Toxic places on opponents to generate momentum and apply pressure, and 4) Toxic'd their best checks.
Even with what little we know about 30, we can tell it can easily avoid many of these issues.
- Given 30's bad offensive typing, and 30i already filling an offensive niche, it's unlikely 30b will be able to seriously threaten many things with attacks, and thus is inherently somewhat passive.
- Without Lotl’s free Regenerator healing or Libra’s 10/10 defensive typing, alongside a rocks/knocks weakness, any action 30b takes is inherently more committal, as it can be more easily punished for minor misplays.
- 30b would be designed with Toxic in mind from the get-go, so its checks would be designed primarily around what can handle the move.
The comparison is also brought up, that Libra/Lotl were Toxic users that beat Steels.
Even against Steels (like
,
, etc); even after poisoning them, 30b, without relevant coverage, could still easily be walled, and ultimately lose the 1v1.
Practically, probably equivalent to if, say,
had Brick Break. It certainly helps a lot, but it isn't going to dramatically swing the MUs in the opposite direction.
IV: Grab Bag of Toxic Checks
Earlier I compared Corrosion poison to something like
’s Shadow Ball. That comparison was a little unfair, because Shadow Ball actually has way less counterplay.
- Regenerators like
, , or 
don't really care about being poisoned, if they already don't plan on staying in for very long on average.
's Misty Terrain protects not only it, but its entire team from poison. Even with Corrosion, there's very little 30b could do to or with terrain active.- Magic Guarders like
, 
, or 
are all still immune to poison, and can all retaliate with super-effective Electric or Psychic moves
- Guts users like
, 
, or 
can absorb poison for free once their Flame Orb activates, and all either resist 30b's STABs or could easily threaten it out with their own.
- Similarly,
is completely immune to status (thanks to Comatose), resists Poison, and can scare 30 with its own attacks.
isn't the greatest check, due to a weakness to Flying STAB and general subpar viability, but I bring it up to ask: how likely is it Corrosion 30b runs both Poison AND Flying STAB on the same set? With toxic/poison/flying, you only have one moveslot left for utility. Ditching Poison STAB means and become more consistent checks. Ditching Flying STAB means becomes a more consistent check. Regardless of the answer, I like having the potential for this kind of decisionmaking in the teambuilder.- Heal Bell and Aromatherapy exist. Given how common these are (particularly among CAPs), that they only require 1 moveslot on an entire team, and help deal with far more than just Corrosion 30b, slotting these moves on a team is not a significant opportunity cost.
- [Insert point about Substitute here]
- Even defensive mons who'd traditionally be the #1 targets of Corrosion, like
or 
, could still get by if they manage to find room to Recover throughout the match.
- Pex in particular, with its dual combo of Recover and Regenerator, might be a lot less crippled by Toxic than we'd expect, particularly in shorter games.
The point here being, there's way more counterplay to Toxic than just typing, so removing typing as counterplay doesn't instantly make it unmanageable.
