Pokémon Champions - releasing April 8, 2026

CynicalGiant said:
in a format without the like insane powerful megas from XY/ORAS, Mega Emboar is probably alright. Mold Breaker on a fire type can be useful sometimes. Really depends on what its movepool ends up being. Maybe Mold Breaker gets a buff in mechanics, maybe its like uniquely positioned to counter some new pokemon in gen 10, impossible to say really.

as far as the balance changes goes, I really think people are expecting a lot more than they will actually do. not impossible they'd do it but replacing abilities is pretty rare and most buffs they did in the past were movepool based. whenever they buffed stats it was very rare for them to do it by more than like 10.


I think they were going to expand on single player content regardless, as they have been doing, and I'm not sure why people continue to imply that can only be done with changing the battle system. This sort of thing comes up before every new generation, and it's very hard to read it as more than just motivated reasoning.
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tbh I don't think they need to do major changes nor do I think they will, but it'll probably be small changes

I have one thought which is the idea of maybe they'll have different "repeat" versions of a mon slightly tweaked for different metas.

They likely got rid of Encore on Gengar due to Megs Gengar Shadow Tag, for instance. Maybe if they do a format without Megas they give Gengar back, and maybe with this they could streamline with known "variants" where a mon with different gimmicks enabled has some movepool changes.

One thing I hope they change is Protean, the nerf due to Tera makes me sad, let us see Meowscarada at peak potential like Cinderace and Greninja, please.
 
RoyalDispenser said:
The only thing I can think of mold breaker helping mega boar is heatran but it already beats it with the 2nd stab.

The problem is the attack boost just to lose reckless is pretty undercooked. Same problem with glimmora gaining stats in a way that doesn’t fully justify killing off its original niche in abilities. Chimecho will probably suck but we don’t know the ability yet, at least we know it can’t be worse than base because the mega buff stats and redesigns it’s typing.

Tbh really just not sure what the point of mold breaker on a non-ground or non-water is. Even electric makes sense but fire beats wonder guard and fighting + EQ coverage handles flash fire.

I’m still holding out hope for scoliopede to either keep speed boost or gain something cracked. The speed nerf is a placebo if it keeps speed boost and the stats are no joke.
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Regarding Emboar, I already posted, its one niche in Singles is destroying Stall with SD ignoring Unaware. You either use it for that (which is valid), or not at all.

Glimmora has pretty lackuster Stats boosts, however the base Mon is already very good. Levitate will allow Glimmora to 1 vs 1 many Mons and sometimes switch into big threats. Some of the previous Megas are better, however among the new ones, its definetely in the upper half. Looking very forward to use this one.

Chimecho will be decent. It would have been great in Gen 6 and 7 with 16 PPs Recover. The ability for this one is easy to predict, most likely Levitate, which for a Steel Mon is great. It will have a big niche as a bulky attacker and is definetely a massive increase over the base form. With Levitate, its a Kyurem counter (and Glimmora counter) but I still don,t see it being very impactful. Mid Mon, but considering regular Chimecho is ZU and this has a chance to be relevant, its a big success regardless.
 
RoyalDispenser said:
The problem is the attack boost just to lose reckless is pretty undercooked. Same problem with glimmora gaining stats in a way that doesn’t fully justify killing off its original niche in abilities. Chimecho will probably suck but we don’t know the ability yet, at least we know it can’t be worse than base because the mega buff stats and redesigns it’s typing.

Tbh really just not sure what the point of mold breaker on a non-ground or non-water is. Even electric makes sense but fire beats wonder guard and fighting + EQ coverage handles flash fire.
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I agree with you but I'm not sure what they have cooking over there and was just trying to guess like what exactly they were intending with it. It does less with Flare Blitz than regular Emboar + Reckless but more with Close Combat. It would be nice if there was like any real reason whatsoever to care about Mold Breaker on a Fighting-type,

The only mold breaker mega that even really liked having it was Mega Gyarados, and even then we know from the teraleak that they were testing out Strong Jaw on it so Mold Breaker might've been a nerf. Mega Ampharos having it is kinda whatever in either format. Hoping they change Mold Breaker on Ampharos to be like Fluffy or Dragonize or something.
Eeveeto said:
Regarding Emboar, I already posted, its one niche in Singles is destroying Stall with SD ignoring Unaware. You either use it for that (which is valid), or not at all.
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does Emboar even get Swords Dance? I'm pretty sure it doesn't.
 
Eeveeto said:
Regarding Emboar, I already posted, its one niche in Singles is destroying Stall with SD ignoring Unaware. You either use it for that (which is valid), or not at all.

Glimmora has pretty lackuster Stats boosts, however the base Mon is already very good. Levitate will allow Glimmora to 1 vs 1 many Mons and sometimes switch into big threats. Some of the previous Megas are better, however among the new ones, its definetely in the upper half. Looking very forward to use this one.

Chimecho will be decent. It would have been great in Gen 6 and 7 with 16 PPs Recover. The ability for this one is easy to predict, most likely Levitate, which for a Steel Mon is great. It will have a big niche as a bulky attacker and is definetely a massive increase over the base form. With Levitate, its a Kyurem counter (and Glimmora counter) but I still don,t see it being very impactful. Mid Mon, but considering regular Chimecho is ZU and this has a chance to be relevant, its a big success regardless.
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Mega Chimecho is the kind of Mega that makes me have a weird relationship with megas as a whole because while it's cool
Mega Chimecho exists, it probably would've been better to just give it a regular evolution
 
RoyalDispenser said:
The only thing I can think of mold breaker helping mega boar is heatran but it already beats it with the 2nd stab.

The problem is the attack boost just to lose reckless is pretty undercooked. Same problem with glimmora gaining stats in a way that doesn’t fully justify killing off its original niche in abilities. Chimecho will probably suck but we don’t know the ability yet, at least we know it can’t be worse than base.

Tbh really just not sure what the point of mold breaker on a non-ground or non-water is. Even electric makes sense but fire beats wonder guard and fighting + EQ coverage handles flash fire.
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Mold breaker beats some unaware mons but the most popular ones emboar struggles against anyway, skeledirge, dozo, quagsire. Although clodsire would struggle on the physical side. You gain the assault vest with the spd bulk and access to bulk up+sd alongside the bulk. In the ZA mod Access to supreme overlord meant your flame charge/trialblaze hit hard enough to snowball.

Honestly we need more Pokémon that have volt absorb/water absorb/flash fire that aren’t just those types. Like volt absorb bird rather than thunder punching a Jolteon yaaay lol
 
CynicalGiant said:
does Emboar even get Swords Dance? I'm pretty sure it doesn't.
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Sulfurian said:
You gain the assault vest with the spd bulk and access to bulk up+sd alongside the bulk.
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I looked again and I was right, Emboar does not get Swords Dance. Multiple people in this thread just assumed it did because why wouldn't it but as far as I can tell it has literally never had it. Hopefully they rectify this in Champions.

Eeveeto said:
Wait, you are right. For some reason I thought it did. Lmao, without it, its pretty bad. Still has a shot with Bulk Up, but now its more unimpressive and needs more help.
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yeah the only possible movepool addition I can think of that can even save that mega emboar stat spread other than like SD is them deciding it can have Victory Dance, lol
 
CynicalGiant said:
as far as the balance changes goes, I really think people are expecting a lot more than they will actually do. not impossible they'd do it but replacing abilities is pretty rare and most buffs they did in the past were movepool based. whenever they buffed stats it was very rare for them to do it by more than like 10.
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Iirc masquerain got +40 overall during gen 6?

Edit: yeah in gen 7 60-80 speed + 80->100 SpA as an intimidate quiver dancer
 
Sulfurian said:
Mold breaker beats some unaware mons but the most popular ones emboar struggles against anyway, skeledirge, dozo, quagsire. Although clodsire would struggle on the physical side. You gain the assault vest with the spd bulk and access to bulk up+sd alongside the bulk. Access to supreme overlord meant your flame charge/trialblaze hit hard enough to snowball.
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Why would Emboar struggle against Skeledirge? Just Head Smash it. If it tries to heal a second Head Smash will kill it, and if not Sucker Punch will finish it off. And if there were rocks up when Dirge came in its just dead (or if Head Smash crits or if Dirge was already chipped by another mon). It's a bit of a mind-gamey matchup, but perfectly winnable.
 
AztecCroc said:
Why would Emboar struggle against Skeledirge? Just Head Smash it. If it tries to heal a second Head Smash will kill it, and if not Sucker Punch will finish it off. And if there were rocks up when Dirge came in its just dead (or if Head Smash crits or if Dirge was already chipped by another mon). It's a bit of a mind-gamey matchup, but perfectly winnable.
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I mean, moveslot issues. It pretty much needs STABs, BU and then only gets to use one coverage move. Knock Off probably the optimal one, which vs Skeledirge specifically is fine, but some Waters like Toxapex will wall it.
 
AztecCroc said:
Why would Emboar struggle against Skeledirge? Just Head Smash it. If it tries to heal a second Head Smash will kill it, and if not Sucker Punch will finish it off. And if there were rocks up when Dirge came in its just dead (or if Head Smash crits or if Dirge was already chipped by another mon). It's a bit of a mind-gamey matchup, but perfectly winnable.
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In that scenario the tank did its job by causing high recoil damage to your only mega, then just need a faster revenge to deny the drain punch and force out your buffs.
 
Eeveeto said:
Chimecho will be decent. It would have been great in Gen 6 and 7 with 16 PPs Recover. The ability for this one is easy to predict, most likely Levitate, which for a Steel Mon is great. It will have a big niche as a bulky attacker and is definetely a massive increase over the base form. With Levitate, its a Kyurem counter (and Glimmora counter) but I still don,t see it being very impactful. Mid Mon, but considering regular Chimecho is ZU and this has a chance to be relevant, its a big success regardless.
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I'm personally still on team steel-ate (metallicize?) or some sort of sound-based ability akin to punk rock in order to combo with its new access to boomburst in Z-A, since that would give Mega Chimichanga a distinct niche/gimmick entirely its own. They've generally avoided giving STAB boomburst to anything with over 100 base SpA, yes, but also, like, it's Chimecho. It probably still wouldn't be fully OU or high-level VGC viable even with that (although that's kinda more due to the competition for the mega slot more than anything lol)
 
Fivepoint said:
I'm personally still on team steel-ate (metallicize?) or some sort of sound-based ability akin to punk rock in order to combo with its new access to boomburst in Z-A, since that would give Mega Chimichanga a distinct niche/gimmick entirely its own. They've generally avoided giving STAB boomburst to anything with over 100 base SpA, yes, but also, like, it's Chimecho. It probably still wouldn't be fully OU or high-level VGC viable even with that (although that's kinda more due to the competition for the mega slot more than anything lol)
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Idk, so many Mega Mons just stay with regular abilities. Chesnaught, Greninja, Scizor, the Latis... With Chimecho gaining Steel typing, Levitate is going to be great on it. Pokemon Company won,t think too much if they don,t have to, this is one of the simpliest ways to do things right for Chimecho specifically. An offensive ability on something so slow won,t likely work, Levitate however would be amazing on it.
 
Eeveeto said:
An offensive ability on something so slow won,t likely work, Levitate however would be amazing on it.
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Wouldn't Chimecho's main benefit be trick room stuff, steel type version of liquid voice would be pretty useful for it. Like yeah it probably doesn't help in singles but Levitate is kinda whatever on a psychic type in doubles right?

Eeveeto said:
Idk, so many Mega Mons just stay with regular abilities. Chesnaught, Greninja, Scizor, the Latis...
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pretty sure Chesnaught and Greninja kept theirs because they were originally signature abilities. I don't think it's actually that common that Megas keep a previous ability. iirc most don't.
 
Eeveeto said:
Chimecho will be decent. It would have been great in Gen 6 and 7 with 16 PPs Recover. The ability for this one is easy to predict, most likely Levitate, which for a Steel Mon is great.
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There is a nonzero chance it'll lose Levitate so it can spam Expanding Force. Or Boomburst if it gets a Steel-type clone of Psychic Noise.

Or spam both I guess lol.
 
Bakugames said:
i do :(
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i also like it!!! im not knocking it as an individual system, i do think the way its used in the official games atp is hard to justify anymore cuz of how game freak wants to balance the games

i also think more people would like it if the games did more with it and asked more of the players

what did you think abt the arceus battle system? i know a lot of casual players who liked it but i thought it was really simplified way too much
 
ant4456 said:
what did you think abt the arceus battle system? i know a lot of casual players who liked it but i thought it was really simplified way too much
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the fact they explored was really good imo, and i think there Is a lot of potential on messing with turns and times one can attack (though for pvp that sounds like a nightmare lmfaoooo), but i found that the execution was a very weak "spam agile style", and the modified calcs also made defense stats feel pretty worthless, which wasnt fun. im not a stall player in the single player mode, but sometimes i want to slow the tempo of the battle to reposition myself and arceus made that impossible (or just unoptimal).

im not a game designer so maybe my ideas are even worse LOL but i think experimenting with new ways to win a battle other than complete team knock out would be super fun. beastieball does it because its a volleyball inspired game so obviously you can score if the ball touches the court, and pokemon isnt gonna start playing volleyball anytime soon LOL but new win mechanics, maybe implementing the bss/vgc pick 3/4 would also be really fun even in singles for gym leaders and their proxies
 
Bakugames said:
the fact they explored was really good imo, and i think there Is a lot of potential on messing with turns and times one can attack (though for pvp that sounds like a nightmare lmfaoooo), but i found that the execution was a very weak "spam agile style", and the modified calcs also made defense stats feel pretty worthless, which wasnt fun. im not a stall player in the single player mode, but sometimes i want to slow the tempo of the battle to reposition myself and arceus made that impossible (or just unoptimal).

im not a game designer so maybe my ideas are even worse LOL but i think experimenting with new ways to win a battle other than complete team knock out would be super fun. beastieball does it because its a volleyball inspired game so obviously you can score if the ball touches the court, and pokemon isnt gonna start playing volleyball anytime soon LOL but new win mechanics, maybe implementing the bss/vgc pick 3/4 would also be really fun even in singles for gym leaders and their proxies
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i thought it was really like, weird bc its not like losing 2 PP is that big of a detriment when you can just teleport back to spawn and heal instantly

defense stat calculation i felt like was them trying to make the battles more level agnostic because you can just catch a level 75 alpha garchomp it was really strange

i think those are cool ideas tbh, they should do more spinoffs where collecting mons is still a thing, ive always thought PMD/Conquest/Rumble were really cool for that and i havent gotten to play Pokopia yet but it seems similar
 
Karxrida said:
There is a nonzero chance it'll lose Levitate so it can spam Expanding Force. Or Boomburst if it gets a Steel-type clone of Psychic Noise.

Or spam both I guess lol.
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Did you not learn with Delphox? Ok, I get Chimecho is not as fast as Delphox, but its usable in Trick Room. If you want an Expanding Force Mega, you gotta use Alakazam, Gardevoir, Slowbro (watch out for this one with TR in Doubles) or Meowstic (also Metagross, Gallade, Medicham, Starmie, Malamar and Mewtwo, but all of them won,t use the move for different reasons, at least until Mewtwo becomes legal).

Now that I am on it, I like that the Mega Psychics they are doing are not gravitating towards Psychic Terrain. If every Mega went that route, it would be a very boring word. Psychic is probably my least favorite type, but even them deserve different strategies. Both Delphox and Chimecho would get big use out of Levitate canceling out their Ground weakness and getting to use their diverse movepool instead of just spamming Expanding Force.

In fact I think moves like Expanding Force need their distribution reduced, just like they did with Rising Voltage. Pokemon is more than just spamming a boosted by a Weather/Terrain high BP moves, both in Singles and Doubles.
 
CynicalGiant said:
Wouldn't Chimecho's main benefit be trick room stuff, steel type version of liquid voice would be pretty useful for it. Like yeah it probably doesn't help in singles but Levitate is kinda whatever on a psychic type in doubles right?


pretty sure Chesnaught and Greninja kept theirs because they were originally signature abilities. I don't think it's actually that common that Megas keep a previous ability. iirc most don't.
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It was just Blaziken, Scizor, Medicham, and the Latis in XY and Audino in ORAS. And Medicham had to otherwise the Mega would have been weaker than the base form. That's only 6 out of 48.

And then ZA adds Greninja, Chesnaught, and Dragonite so far. It's not the norm, but ZA's done it an unusual amount just with those 3 out of the currently revealed 10 out of 45.
 
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