They absolutely could if they wanted to, but what's more usual is the leaders getting some adjustments later.
Like Geeta actually picking the right lead and anchor in SV.
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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
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Like Geeta actually picking the right lead and anchor in SV.
True, and that’s a good point because it’s an approach where you can clearly see how it’s influenced by the differences between DLC and third versions.
With third versions, there has to be the assumption that a fair number of players will have already played one of the initial versions of the game, so in order to make the experience more distinguished and less repetitive, GF have a compelling reason to revise the teams that players will face during the main story, while also offering even more new things in the spruced-up postgame.
Whereas with DLC, although there is no technical barrier preventing them from adjusting the main story content, I suspect that they would prefer to have that experience be consistent for all players rather than having some players stuck* having played the “lesser” or “unpolished” version of the game while other players who start playing after the DLC’s release reap an extra benefit. By simply giving the major characters better teams in the DLC postgame, every player gets the same deal in the end, no matter how far along in the game they are when the DLC comes out.
* Obviously no one is ever truly “stuck” since you can just create a second Switch profile to play through another save file, but I feel like GF, with their absolute insistence on having only one save file available, probably view that as more of a (mild) exploit that is merely a consequence of Nintendo’s hardware, and thus not their responsibility. To put it another way, I highly doubt that the games would offer multiple save files if the Switch didn’t have that convenient functionality.
i will say i refuse any geeta team rehaul that makes the kingambit the ace. i find it a very boring change, kingambit for the base game doesnt need to be fully powered up to be a good teammate and glimmora iself is a more interesting ace to build around.
in general im against team rehauls that just give leaders ou-esque compositions. overly optimized teams become samey and boring real quick, a team that might be objectively easier but gives you a more interesting puzzle while fitting the character will always be more fun imo!!!!
in general im against team rehauls that just give leaders ou-esque compositions. overly optimized teams become samey and boring real quick, a team that might be objectively easier but gives you a more interesting puzzle while fitting the character will always be more fun imo!!!!
I agree that Kingambit is fine earlier on in her team lineup but Glimmora is kind of built to be something that disrupts team composition from the start. I love the 'mon, and I think it's cool that it's Geeta's ace, but forcing her to send it out last just because of Tera is genuinely a boneheaded decision.
I mean the way to do it is to just make Glimmora higher level but have Kingambit sent out last lol. Turn it into a 'sometimes it is best to send in your best at the start' kind of deal.
i think that while not as cool visually, itd be much more interesting if the order was a bit looser and specifically it prioritized a kingambit on 4th (replicating max power doubles kingambit, which is still a menace) -> tera glimmora to blow even more holes on the team -> a 6th pokemon that you now have to deal with after a weakened team
apologies if this is wishlisting, but this is what I personally would do.
Notes:
- I avoid overlapping too much with gym leader teams, but im less interested in avoiding their rematch team. Rematching is an optional feature that not everyone will be interested in and I don't want that to stop me from giving geeta mons. also because modern dexes are small and I like featuring new pokemon of the region more than old ones. Hence why espathra was removed (mon from tulips og fight, which is pretty close to the champion fight) but i dont care about killowatrel overlap with the ionos rematch.
- I don't know if the champion has optimal evs. I went in by doing the middle term: give her good evs, but nothing extremely optimal like smogon/vgc sets. If they do have optimized ones though just imagine your average smogon automated 252 252 4 shit going on ok
- similarly, i didnt want to give them the most optimal moves ever or every single one an item. However i did try to think of a decent strategy and give Three Of Them items. I think thats a fair compromise?
Now i know this looks like just picking random ou pokemon (and kilowattrel) but trust me let me cook. let me cook a little bit ok. Character concept for this is that geeta is implied to be a bit of a shitty boss, so i thought wouldnt it be fun if her team felt a bit villanous, both in type/pokemon pick but also the moves selected.
You need to take a glance at this and go ooooh my god bruh. the team of someone who is self serving and takes what she wants/orders people around however she pleases, but she hides it under professionalism. "why are they all female" gaslight gatekeep girlboss. is that still popular
Garg is the wall. it sets up rocks, it messes you up with salt cure and then just hits you with moves. No recover, i feel like for the campaign having One Recover Powerhouse is good enough. It doesnt actually do insane damage, but i think starting fights by wearing you out is completely fine, especially that it makes pulling out a stat boosting strategy much more annoying with salt cure.
Killowattrel is there to be annoying, to set up tailwind for any teammate or for itself and spam shitty little moves. Its not here to do big damage, but its here to ramp up the damage spread, and you need to watch out for tailwind timers and the chance it just u-turns out there and brings in something stronger thats now faster than your entire team
Cerulege is the second ramp up. It benefits from killowattrels tailwind, but can manage on its own with a weak armor. it is not a sweeper, it has no boosting moves, but it has great coverage and a healing move that lets it hang around for longer than youd want.
This is the "first part" of the fight: these pokemon are meant to chip, set up annoyances and just put you in bad positions. They can be threats on their own if you dont respect them, but their main goal is to make you not have cheesy openings. Then we move on to the second part, i.e mons made to capitalize on any flaws of your gameplay
Kingambit is here with a not fully powered up supreme overlord, but one thats similar in power to a max power doubles kingambit, which i think is still extremely respectable especially for the base game. If you noticed, a lot of the earlier mons were made to put fighting types in trouble so that kingambit can have an easier time. It is also a pokemon that benefits from kilowattrels tailwind, which can happen since kilo will always be prioritized to tailwind again if it switched out with u-turn to ceruledge. no iron head, but thats because i dont actually think steel stab is that useful here, and throat chop is a fun counter to skeledirge. Our first booster too
Glimmora is the ace, with a power herb meteor beam strat and a tera grass + energy ball combo to flip the matchup on any ground types that were enjoying the matchup. spiky shield + toxic debris is cheeky, but it is useful if you're ever forced to swap out because of the tera and already hit it.
Gholdengo is glimmoras right hand girl. You get rid of the tera, and now you have to deal with cheese itself. Just an asshole set up + recovery + two stabs little cunt. a check to tell if you played the matchup correctly or tried to bruteforce it and lost too many pokemon in the process.
ok dats it sorry i rambled
Attachments
if I may make a suggestion, you could have it so that Armarouge appears instead of Ceruledge in the opposite version.
So a Scarlet player would deal with Ceruledge while Violet players get Armarouge, helps fill up the dex, keeps it so that one version exclusive isn’t just the blatant favorite and make Geeta feel like a bigger deal having a Mon you can’t get yourself without another person.
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Not sure what this is categorized as - probably a crackpot conspiracy theory, but in the Lumiose City thene in Legends ZA (during the day), I swear i here the Drought theme from Pokemon Ruby in one part of the song.....
I also think it would link up surprising well with Hau'oli cities day music - I tend to whistle iconic Pokemon songs and I notice when trying to whistle Lumiose City's theme- i always whistle parr of Hauoli city's theme instead. Weird....
I also think it would link up surprising well with Hau'oli cities day music - I tend to whistle iconic Pokemon songs and I notice when trying to whistle Lumiose City's theme- i always whistle parr of Hauoli city's theme instead. Weird....
to be fair i picked ceruledge because armarouge actually has a boss fight in scarvio, the mela rematch, while ceruledge is competely missing from any kind of boss battle in the main game or dlcs!
I have this distinct feeling that certain Pokemon they surely know are going to be popular are excluded from boss fights so they don't overlap with major spinoff characters. It cannot be a coincidence that Ceruledge is missing in SV while the main rival of the Horizons anime uses it as his signature Pokemon
More recently Mega Charizard Y was the only non-event Mega not used in a boss encounter in base Legends Z-A, and oh hey look at that it happens to be the Megazard of choice for Friede
It doesn't necessarily have to be that way.
Geeta could've used Glimmora as her ace and Tera, but on the lead position, and avoid the usual pitfalls of ace leading with Kingambit as an anchor.
And while I agree with the rest of your post... Geeta's team isn't even PU's finest, her team is just extremely bad, bland, and uninspiring. There's really nothing salvageable there.
She sure could've benefitted from a team that could abuse the Toxic Spikes Glimmora passively sets.
Just for clarification. Because of how the games are coded, any mon with a "gimmick" (Megas, D-Max, Tera) automatically do it ASAP, and are coded to be the last ones sent.
So in practice, the only ways to have Geeta use Tera are:
* Lead Glimmora Tera
* Final mon Tera
* 3rd option
The third option is have both Glimm and Gambit have the Tera flag, both will be kept for last for as long as possible. Then, as soon as she goes down to her 5th mon, she'll choose between Glimm and Gambit and have that Tera immediately.
One could argue that's not the worst thing in the world, but it also hardly makes sense.
But yeah, they could've switched it up and have Tera Lead Glimmora as her Champion battle ace and it'd have worked.
I understand most of Geeta's team being derided for being mediocre, but I also think her team as a whole isn't that bad. It's just that everything aside from Kingambit/Glimmora just has rather middling stats (or, at worst, will fold to any moderately powerful super effective special attack, in Avalugg's case).
- I think Gogoat is probably her most defensible pick; its base stat total is comparable to Grass Starters, and it has a very robust movepool for a Grass Type.
- Espathra should be a threat; it was banned from OU, after all! Unfortunately that's predicated on Tera use and access to its Hidden Ability. Without those two things, it's a pure Psychic type with mediocre coverage and middling stats. At least Opportunist is kind of interesting (it can even copy X Item boosts).
- Avalugg is really scary for Physical attackers and it boasts solid coverage. Its lack of Speed and Special Defense, and the game's insistence on Switch mode, unfortunately make the icy table a joke instead. This is another case where using its Hidden Ability would have added another layer of threat to a Pokémon on her team.
- Veluza's a funny case where if it actually had the speed stat it appears to have in the overworld (and, again, if it had its Hidden Ability), it might be a threat. Instead it's a fish with an unfortunate number of weaknesses, middling speed, and no boosting move.
I think any discussion of Geeta needs to consider that she's not actually the final boss of Victory Road. Beating her is the stated objective of the story, sure, but the actual climax of the route's story is Nemona, not her. Nemona is Paldea's top trainer, and functionally the 'real' Champion; beating La Primera is just a prerequisite. With that in mind, I don't think Geeta's team is even like, bottom 10 for Scarlet and Violet's bosses; Kingambit and Glimmora alone are memorable enough setpieces, and the way that the postgame tournament switches them around + gives Kingambit Tera-Flying is clever enough for me to overlook here. The boss design of SV's maingame is so poor across the board that I don't think Geeta stands out in any particularly bad way among them; Kingambit and Glimmora's abilities just makes her a bit more conspicuous. We need to fix things like Larry only having 3 Pokemon with a total of 8 moves, Grusha's bizarre choice of an ace, or literally everything about Kofu's team, before we worry about Geeta imo. Geeta suffices in her role of being a roadblock before the player moves on to fighting Nemona.
Still though, there's definitely changes that could be made. While still keeping main-game balancing in mind, I think the only thing I'd swap out is Veluza; the overlap with Kofu and the Psychic type on her team in Espathra is a bit awkward. I think Bakugame's pick in Ceruledge would be a good call here.
Still though, there's definitely changes that could be made. While still keeping main-game balancing in mind, I think the only thing I'd swap out is Veluza; the overlap with Kofu and the Psychic type on her team in Espathra is a bit awkward. I think Bakugame's pick in Ceruledge would be a good call here.
For decades people have been talking about which starter Pokémon are the “best” and “worst” choices for any given game, but the more I think about it, I’m honestly not the biggest fan of any of the Kanto starters, at least not in their fully evolved forms. I get unironic enjoyment out of Squirtle, but I feel like fully evolved starter Pokémon would only start to peak after this, specifically from Gens 2 to 4 since Gen 5 was when starter Pokémon began to be designed with Hidden Abilities in mind instead of actually being fundamentally well designed Pokémon.
Design wise, they’re iconic for a reason but this take really just centers around their performance in battle, especially in Gen 1 where I’m not particularly fond of any of them for the sake of team building. Even the often agreed upon “easy mode” option of the three in Bulbasaur can take a little bit to get going since, while its typing is good for Kanto and Sleep Powder is OP, Razor Leaf comes noticeably later than it does in later games following its nerfs and relying almost entirely on Normal and Grass-Type moves can only get you so far especially with Vine Whip being underwhelming in the early generations. Gen 1’s jank Trainer AI I feel carries Venusaur a lot in the endgame rather than Venusaur’s own talents (not to mention, having a winning matchup into Bruno is hardly anything special). Charizard and Blastoise, meanwhile, they each have their own disadvantages but only the Squirtle family really gets a consistent flow (pun intended) of STAB options here and both struggle with a lower Special stat and the occasional unwinnable matchups.
This is honestly less of a situation of “the Kanto starters are bad for single player” and more of a case of “I just think later starters are significantly better”, especially during that peak during the 2000s. I would take any of Typhlosion, Feraligatr, Blaziken, Swampert, Torterra, or Infernape over the Gen 1 Kanto starters, and Sceptile and Empoleon aren’t far behind. Even Meganium I would argue is an underrated Pokémon mainly only held back by the fact it’s a Grass-Type in the Johto region. I just feel like their in-battle designs have been more polished over time, you know?
The thing with Geeta is that she's "not the final battle" twice over. You have both Nemona and the Professor after her. These games also have Arvind and Penny to give multitype teams to. Given that, all the decisions related to her make sense(except for team order).
That said, of the various multitype Champions through the years, her team is definitely at the bottom.
That said, of the various multitype Champions through the years, her team is definitely at the bottom.
I understand that, but this doesn't preclude bad execution. It really feels like the game went out of its way to defang Geeta between how her loss to Nemona is basically how she's introduced and her disappointing team. You are effectively set you up to find her unthreatening and beneath notice, which you really shouldn't be feeling about one of the supposed best trainers in the region. Several Gym Leaders implying she just sucks as a person in the postgame doesn't help either. They could have at least tightened up her team composition to be kind of competent to sell that she is, indeed, a super strong trainer. It doesn't have to be zero sum here to allow Nemona to act as the final boss of the route.
(fwiw her Tera Flying Kingambit is DLC only and one of the most blatant "oops we fucked up" fixes I've ever seen.)
And the game's boss fights can definitely be jank, yeah, but I still felt more threatened by Larry's STAB Tera Normal Facade spam or Hassel's Tera Dragon Baxcalibur than the entirety of Geeta's team.
Something I do want to point out wrt difficulty levels, as I have in the past, is that we have to remember who the game is primarily marketed and sold to - young children.
Obviously though, there should be options available to turn off exp share and/or a higher difficulty mode but they refuse to do that unfortunately.
Obviously though, there should be options available to turn off exp share and/or a higher difficulty mode but they refuse to do that unfortunately.
see this is true but i think a good side of pokemon is that you can bruteforce it pretty easily. if anything i think modern gens could get even harder because if a kid has a hard time its never been easier to just overlevel and let them have fun ripping shit up with a lv 100 team. which i dont think is a flaw i think theres a lot of whimsy to it yknow
Tbh if anything I feel like in terms of where he's encountered in the game Grisham is a more successful pre-endgame boss with a team of 6. Nothing crazy, just a nice grouping of reasonably tough and cool-looking mons that fit a powered up ex-Team Flare member. Only iffy movesets are his Malamar and the Air Slash on Mega Charizard X.
Here, have my bid at a "fixed" Geeta team. I only swapped out Gogoat and Veluza with mons that shared their typings.
Here, have my bid at a "fixed" Geeta team. I only swapped out Gogoat and Veluza with mons that shared their typings.
I would argue that the games are more targeted towards very casual gamers in general, there are quite a few kids games that still have some sort of challenge (yo-kai watch, mario and luigi, kirby) pokemon is more so a very casual friendly series which makes it more accessable for kids yeah, but kids a really only a part of casual gamers.
If we're keeping it a stack, Nemona's team sucks too.
I feel it's not just the stats with VeGeeta, it's the fact that it's... bland? Uninspired? Kinda random even.
Her roster fillers are sloppy seconds of other bosses roster fillers, Veluza was on Kofu's team, Espathra was on Tulip's, she doesn't have *any* gravitas as La Primera. Even if we were to consider Nemona the real final boss of her route, there's nothing wrong with making Geeta more threatening.
It's honestly just... bad.
Yeah the thing with Geeta imo is that her team is quite literally white bread aesthetically. It's not even that her team overlaps with Gym Leaders, it's that none of her Pokemon stand out as having a large presence except Kingambit. Gogoat, Veluza, and Espathra isn't exactly an impressive set of Pokemon even aesthetically. Most of her team isn't just statistically average but also by and large "com mons" of Paldea.
Other Champions, even ones fandom considers easy, at least have a few memorable Pokemon. Cynthia may be considered "overrated" by a good number of people, and it's true she's not hard if you know what you're doing, but her actual Pokemon have a presence. A Spiritomb, one of the rarest Pokemon in the game, and a Pokemon with no weaknesses in Gen 4 to boot, and other rarities like Togekiss, Lucario, and Milotic, topping it all off with the imposing Garchomp. Diantha on the other hand may not be one of the hardest but she has a few standouts herself. Hawlucha, the two fossils, Goodra, and Mega Gardevoir is a pretty aesthetically striking combo. Even the likes of Steven and especially Lance still have presence. Lance's Johto team is hilarious but dragons are still imposing and larger than life, even three Dragonites back to back.
Geeta's team just...lacks presence. It doesn't *feel* like a major battle.
Other Champions, even ones fandom considers easy, at least have a few memorable Pokemon. Cynthia may be considered "overrated" by a good number of people, and it's true she's not hard if you know what you're doing, but her actual Pokemon have a presence. A Spiritomb, one of the rarest Pokemon in the game, and a Pokemon with no weaknesses in Gen 4 to boot, and other rarities like Togekiss, Lucario, and Milotic, topping it all off with the imposing Garchomp. Diantha on the other hand may not be one of the hardest but she has a few standouts herself. Hawlucha, the two fossils, Goodra, and Mega Gardevoir is a pretty aesthetically striking combo. Even the likes of Steven and especially Lance still have presence. Lance's Johto team is hilarious but dragons are still imposing and larger than life, even three Dragonites back to back.
Geeta's team just...lacks presence. It doesn't *feel* like a major battle.
The other thing I keep thinking with Geeta's team is that even if Glimmora gets to go out first, the rest of the team doesn't feel all that built for Toxic Spikes. Given there's no Set mode, the player mons are pretty unlikely to stay in after a KO. As a result, the team needs to be pretty bulky (or have other poison synergy) to get good value out of it. Gogoat/Chesnaught and Avalugg try, but the low SpDef is extra concerning when special attackers are less likely to have triggered Toxic Debris in the first place. Meanwhile, Veluza/Dragapult, Espathra, and Kingambit are all fully offensive. For something that's supposed to be her main mon, I feel like she could have built around it more. At least run Hex over Shadow Ball on Dragapult.