I'm going to be blunt. If a "generic" move exists that would be beneficial for a Pokemon to learn while making enough sense to be part of its movepool, I want that move on that Pokemon. We have plenty of non-Dragon types and non-reptilian Pokemon learning Dragon moves (Samurott with Dragon Tail, Snorax with Outrage, Chesnaught with Dragon Claw), so non-feathery flying types attacking like a brave bird isn't that far of a stretch.
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(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon
- Thread starter BriarRose
- Start date
oh i agree it would be a very convoluted way to make aerodactyl better, but also that seems to be the current m.o. for gamefreak, and i wouldn't really mind in this case. that, or just giving him head smash? i find it hard to believe it would be unbalanced since it's still low accuracy.
my issue with brave bird is more that its japanese name is the same and gamefreak really makes a point of not giving things that are too off-flavor... but then again the zubat line gets it so sometimes they just don't seem to mind? if they do then aerodactyl definitely could, i'd just rather not go that route lol
Sky Attack is called "God Bird" in Japanese and Aerodactyl gets it when that's available (since gen 1, even) so I don't think gamefreak doesnt see it as a "bird"
So whatever reason it doesn't get Brave Bird is probably not for that.
Regardless, if their intent was really to buff Aero at some point, I still think it's way more likely to get Head Smash than Brave Bird.
Like, H-Arca was deliberately given the flare blitz / head smash / rock head combo. It's pretty obvious what they were going for.
While I can see them actually giving both to Aero if they REALLY wanted, due to the recent reluctancy to give BB to anything that isnt an actual bird, the other recoil stab seems the most likely.
Like, H-Arca was deliberately given the flare blitz / head smash / rock head combo. It's pretty obvious what they were going for.
While I can see them actually giving both to Aero if they REALLY wanted, due to the recent reluctancy to give BB to anything that isnt an actual bird, the other recoil stab seems the most likely.
Blaziken, Tapu Koko, and Quaquaval all get it, and if you put the three of them next to Aerodactyl and asked people which was more like a bird, Aero would win.
(Archeops also doesn't get it, which is similarly weird. It wouldn't be good, but Archeops being a bird is kind of significant.)
Archeops may be a bird, but it sure isn't brave.
You know generally speaking I don't see them ever giving another ability to the bad ability trio and I still find "Defeatist" weird flavor that's not representative of the actual Pokemon
but
Wimp Out/Emergency Exit would be pretty funny on Archen & Archeops following on from "Defeatist", even keeping the 50% trigger
I think an 80-90 BP move would be worth having, yes, every mon isn't OWED a 100 BP Stab move but it can help balance out stall, and Dual Wingbeat doesn't really do it justice and doesn't hit hard enough to my liking, and anyways.. mons like Char X and Blaziken get 100+ BP Stab moves, so you might as well give it either move to kinda make it fair
Its weird cause it looks like its ability would be Unnerve, I find it asisnine how even after 5 gens they still refuse to change its ability along with Regigigas's slow start, it really reflects upon the issues gamefreak has with actually making all Pokemon fun and useable, I mean Archeops has incredible stats but has an ability that doesn't make sense one bit and is exclusive to its evolution line lol
back then it made sense that slaking and archeops didn't get different abilities because nothing really had that BST without being a legendary (let's ignore that regigigas is one and got saddled with slow start anyway.........), but now that palafin exists with 650 BST that barely has an actual handicap... it rings hollow
Unlike Aero however, they’re all based on birds.
Yes, but they're not avian esque to any degree, and Blaziken and Quaquaval don't have wings,
My counterargument to this would be most flying types anyways often tend to be avian bird mons like Yveltal and Honchcrow, so overall I could care less about Biology and break the biology rule one more time, just like Zubat line got Brave Bird and for Aerodactyl to get it, that way you avoid an Uber's ban with Head Smash Aero that's healing itself with Roost and U-Turning for momentum and get something that's less problematic, Char X anyways gets 120 Stab with Flare Blitz so you might as well just give Mega Aero that same thing and other flying types as well
Um, how does Quaquaval not have wings?
As in functional move-around wings
Visually seeing it, its a bipedal bird pretty much just Water-Type Version of Blaziken, nothing more, the description of Brave Bird means a mon that fly's up and crashes into its opponent and Quaquaval and Blaziken obviously cannot do that
I've always said (in jest, but people never seem to take it as a joke) that it'd be really funny to swap around the bad abilities on the mons that get them: like give Slaking Slow Start as a HA just for laughs.
But yeah, Wimp Out or Emergency Exit would actually be really interesting on Archeops, if only because it would actually back up the existing ability's flavour. Like nothing about Archeops really does scream Defeatist, other than its Ultra Sun dex entry talking about how delicate its plumage is which is... kind of a stretch, it's not the only bird Pokemon with similar lore.
Weirdly when thinking about what should get Defeatist Cincinno came to mind because it's characterised as incredibly fussy and something of a perfectionist. If not that, you'd expect it to fit on a Pokemon which wants to do things "my way or not at all" and which gives up in a huff and refuses to make an effort if it fails to win battles quickly. Idk I feel like it's an ability which could very easily be repurposed and used much better than it is.
But the description is
The user lands and rests its body. This move restores the user's HP by up to half its max HP.
I mean Aero has wings, I'd say Feather rest is more of a adjective if anything or a mild mistranslation, or a hyperspecific translation
but they pretty much give Brave Bird to any Avian mon, like an Ostrich and an Emu is a bird, just flightless,
Nah this is the real reason why the Aerodactyl talk is funny:
252 Atk Aerodactyl Head Smash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 138-163 (27.3 - 32.3%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
252 Atk Aerodactyl Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Ting-Lu: 139-165 (27 - 32.1%) -- 42.6% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
The problem isn't that Aerodactyl is too weak; it's that the overall power level has gotten completely out of hand. I don't think we can buff our way out of this, and if we try, I worry that Pokemon will lose a lot of their charm as individual species.
If you want to play a competitive metagame where Aerodactyl can shine, Gen 3 OU is seeing a massive resurgence in popularity and Aero has a great niche there.
252 Atk Aerodactyl Head Smash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 138-163 (27.3 - 32.3%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
252 Atk Aerodactyl Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Ting-Lu: 139-165 (27 - 32.1%) -- 42.6% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
The problem isn't that Aerodactyl is too weak; it's that the overall power level has gotten completely out of hand. I don't think we can buff our way out of this, and if we try, I worry that Pokemon will lose a lot of their charm as individual species.
If you want to play a competitive metagame where Aerodactyl can shine, Gen 3 OU is seeing a massive resurgence in popularity and Aero has a great niche there.
Also being fair you're comparing Aerodactyl against Physical Walls when its Schtick would be more a fast anti-offense guy to pick off Glass Cannon peeps.
That said these were just weird absences for several generations well before power creep reached THAT point.
I wrote a screed about this hypothetical buffed Aerodactyl's OU prospects and why I thought it still wouldn't be very good, but I deleted it because it was needlessly combative and I was actively contributing to a discussion I found frustrating and pointless lol.
Massive change of subject, but I find it annoying how almost any time I've heard people discuss Pokemon Sleep, it's been about how to exploit the sleep detection or avoid 'incorrectly' playing the game. I've found Pokemon Sleep surprisingly helpful as a gentle reinforcement of a better sleep schedule and the gameplay is cute and low-stakes, but just knowing that you can trick it into thinking you're asleep when you aren't and that there's this clear-cut metagame for all the Pokemon/skills/etc adds a small amount of background anxiety to something I otherwise enjoy.
Massive change of subject, but I find it annoying how almost any time I've heard people discuss Pokemon Sleep, it's been about how to exploit the sleep detection or avoid 'incorrectly' playing the game. I've found Pokemon Sleep surprisingly helpful as a gentle reinforcement of a better sleep schedule and the gameplay is cute and low-stakes, but just knowing that you can trick it into thinking you're asleep when you aren't and that there's this clear-cut metagame for all the Pokemon/skills/etc adds a small amount of background anxiety to something I otherwise enjoy.
I feel the meta despite having the most tools Gen 6/7 is severely underexplored
We just had the hyper generic CHALK and variant Hyper Offense teams, and people treating Smogon OU as the only meta that matters. I feel GF grew more aware of this, which explains the super crazy Minmax glass cannon powercreep and reduced stall as of late
Yet somehow, they still have early game bug be pretty bad. Even early flying regressed
I don't think GF realizes that having mons be flat out disposable worsens powercreep. It was archaic RPG practice, and really makes me think Venipede was a fluke. Especially if a legendary is given to you early
I dunno, I feel they got too swamped with hyper offense fans
We just had the hyper generic CHALK and variant Hyper Offense teams, and people treating Smogon OU as the only meta that matters. I feel GF grew more aware of this, which explains the super crazy Minmax glass cannon powercreep and reduced stall as of late
Yet somehow, they still have early game bug be pretty bad. Even early flying regressed
I don't think GF realizes that having mons be flat out disposable worsens powercreep. It was archaic RPG practice, and really makes me think Venipede was a fluke. Especially if a legendary is given to you early
I dunno, I feel they got too swamped with hyper offense fans
My brother in Christ, you didn't show how much it does after a DD boost,
+1 252+ Atk Tough Claws Aerodactyl-Mega Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ting-Lu: 265-313 (51.5 - 60.8%) -- 93.4% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
And also
If you want to play a competitive metagame where Aerodactyl can shine, Gen 3 OU is seeing a massive resurgence in popularity and Aero has a great niche there.
I agree with you 100% but Pokémon has pretty much strayed away from god/arceus but you might as well wreck the meta more, I will say that this is the gen RIGHT NOW where stall is the worst, Gen 6 was so much more fun cause genwunners and stall players were malding and wanted all Megas gone and IIRC there was a metagame with no Megas the only reason Megas didn't get clapped unlike Dynamax is how much it benefited the mons that were so sidetracked by Gamefreak in the first place with their poor stat allocation, I just felt like more mons needed it, shockingly more than I thought.
I brought up Shiftry because its an example of a mon with an inanely sordid stat allocation despite being a 3 stage evolution, and Flygon because while it has a decent stat allocation it doesn't have alot of attack power for either of its stats, so it getting a speed and equal attack increase like Mega Lopunny/Manectric would've propelled it to new heights, but gamefreak couldn't think of a design, and i'd probably say the same thing for Shiftry,
with older gens maybe Gamefreak makes Gen 6 remakes and adds more megas that way?? I feel like this is the only way to satisfy the nostalgia ghouls like me and others
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(Mild spoilers on indigo disk mon availability below)
Now that Indigo Disk has been datamined and it's confirmed my beloved Marshadow did not make it in, I am annoyed that GameFreak is developing a habit of adding characters with swag based on mons that aren't making it into the game! Klara prepared us for this possibility, but SV stepped it up by adding Cyrano with a Honedge-line scarf and Raifort who is decked out with legendaries, including the Marshadow hairpin pictured and a Tapu Koko bracelet (iirc).
Realistically, I don't expect the character designers to know which mons are going to make it in or that the final list is even going to be anywhere close to decided when the characters are being designed, I'm just bummed I have to keep using Annihilape as a shoddy Marshadow stand-in for my Indigo Disk playthrough. :P
(SV really did gens 7 and 6 dirty. Only the box legends and Magearna made it in from Gen 7, while only the mythicals made it in from Gen 6 - the first box legends that haven't all made the final cut post-dexit.)
Now that Indigo Disk has been datamined and it's confirmed my beloved Marshadow did not make it in, I am annoyed that GameFreak is developing a habit of adding characters with swag based on mons that aren't making it into the game! Klara prepared us for this possibility, but SV stepped it up by adding Cyrano with a Honedge-line scarf and Raifort who is decked out with legendaries, including the Marshadow hairpin pictured and a Tapu Koko bracelet (iirc).
Realistically, I don't expect the character designers to know which mons are going to make it in or that the final list is even going to be anywhere close to decided when the characters are being designed, I'm just bummed I have to keep using Annihilape as a shoddy Marshadow stand-in for my Indigo Disk playthrough. :P
(SV really did gens 7 and 6 dirty. Only the box legends and Magearna made it in from Gen 7, while only the mythicals made it in from Gen 6 - the first box legends that haven't all made the final cut post-dexit.)
Ah yes, Aerial Ace, a move learned only by the most iconic birds:
In all fairness, this move is named after a swordmanship technique, but we still have oddities like
Golduck, like how the heck does it slash?Also,
Gogoat has Aerial Ace on its level-up learnset since its debut. Out of all non-avian Pokémon, GF has to pick the goat bike.