Signature Items

ZhengTann

Nargacuga
is a Forum Moderator Alumnus
Stick: I contemplated using it's origin story as a source of inspiration (the leek duck joke) and just give it a variant of Simple, but it sounds too simple, pun intended. We can also try buffing its Inner Focus to grant a flat increase in Accuracy when Stick is equipped (sort of like Jaw Fossil). I'd still advocate to keep guaranteed critical hits too.

Jaw Fossil: I agree it's good as is, and sees enough usage.

Old Amber: While most non-Mega-Aerodactyls would rather use a generic buff item, I don't like having Old Amber gives an effect that only affects 1 move. I'd rather have an Unnerve buff described by EM above added on.
 
Stick: I'm not overly fond of maintaining stick's status as a critbot. Ignoring the fact that Farfetch'd is already very weak, it's absolutely vulnerable to Knock Off, which even does good damage to it in most cases to boot. While I see the merit of this as an item in its current form, I think maybe a deviation from its traditional design might help. Anybody who's playing Farfetch'd is being defiant in the first place ( :^) ), so I think a focus on Defiant could be a potential focusing point of this item:
Activates Defiant two (2) times upon sendout. Adjusts the natural stage to +2.
This iteration has a similar effect to the stick version, reliably increasing its attack by a substantial portion that is likewise immune to debilitating effects such as Burn and Reflect. However, unlike the current Stick, it is much more difficult to mitigate its effect, making sure that Farfetch'd doesn't go from a bad pokemon to a god-awful pile of trash left to rot in some corner.

Jaw Fossil: Yeah this is ok.

Old Amber: Haven't taken much time to evaluate this, may add an opinion later, but it's definitely weak.

Skull Fossil: Like Stick, I think this needs a major overhaul.
Confers Rock Head on the user.
Rampardos' biggest issue currently is the fact that while it's a beat stick, it never should use its best STAB. This alleviates the problem, while also giving the player a choice between Life Orb and this item as valid selections. Life Orb is better for its coverage, while Skull Fossil is better for its STAB. As for Rank increases, I think that the simple rock head conference may be enough, however, if a rank were to be increased I'd recommend SDef.
 

JJayyFeather

Drifting~
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Moderator
Skull Fossil: Like Stick, I think this needs a major overhaul.
Rampardos' biggest issue currently is the fact that while it's a beat stick, it never should use its best STAB. This alleviates the problem, while also giving the player a choice between Life Orb and this item as valid selections. Life Orb is better for its coverage, while Skull Fossil is better for its STAB. As for Rank increases, I think that the simple rock head conference may be enough, however, if a rank were to be increased I'd recommend SDef.
Tabling that until we get to that part of the discussion.

===== BEGIN OPINIONS =====

Stick
We can't deviate from the critical hit route on that item. That's a part of it in-game and it makes sense. The right angle would be just generally increasing the power level of the item rather than reworking/tweaking it.

Suggestion:
Stick - Item Cost: 6 CC | Effect: Guarantees all attacks score a critical hit. Triggers Defiant upon sendout. sIncreases Attack Rank by one (1).
Adding the bolded section to the pre-existing item is my suggestion. I don't see a reason to completely rework the item, but I do believe the item needs a little bit more power to help Farfetch'd out.

==========

Old Amber
Making Unnerve do that still might be about as useless as its current form is, just with a slight niche that RCB users (non-existent) and WP users (also non-existent) don't get to use their items.

==========

Jaw Fossil
Moving past this item given that it seems to be the consensus that the item is fine.

===== BEGIN NEW TOPICS =====

Next: Cloaks
Sandy Cloak - Item Cost: 8 CC | Effect: Increases Attack and Defense by two (2) ranks. Boosts the Base Attack Power of Ground-Typed moves by two (2). Boost the Base Attack Power reduction of Overcoat by one (1).
Plant Cloak - Item Cost: 8 CC | Effect: Increases Special Attack and Special Defense by two (2) ranks. Boosts the Base Attack Power of Grass-Typed moves by two (2). Boost the Base Attack Power reduction of Overcoat by one (1).
Trash Cloak - Item Cost: 8 CC | Effect: Increases Defense and Special Defense ranks by two (2). Boosts Base Attack Power of Steel-Typed moves by two (2) and of Gyro Ball by an extra one (1). Boost the Base Attack Power reduction of Overcoat by one (1).
These are probably the most overtuned items we have in the game, as seen from their effects.

Driving Questions
1) Do you want to nerf/buff this item? Explain.
2) Is having an item this powerful problematic at all?

==========

Next: Relic Crown
Relic Crown - Item Cost: 8 CC | Effect: Boosts the Base Attack Power of Ancient Power by three (3) and of Rock Slide by one (1). Boosts Special Defense by one (1) rank. Increases STAB Base Attack Power bonus by one (1).
Users: Tangrowth, Yanmega, Mamoswine

Driving Questions
1) Do you want to nerf/buff this item? Explain.
2) If you want to change this item, what change do you propose and why?
 

Frosty

=_=
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnus
Cloaks:
a) no. they are fine. wormadam suck anyway, why bother?
b) see above

Relic Crown:
a) Not a buff per se. Just move the SpD boost to highest stat or something of the like, since the revision made +SpD largely unnecessary. Although with the recent changes to other items it might be a tad underpowered.
b) see above
 

JJayyFeather

Drifting~
is a Forum Moderatoris a Community Contributor
Moderator
Organizational

Stick
Moving this to a vote in 24 hours unless opposed.
What should the effect of Stick be?
a) Guarantees all attacks score a critical hit. Increases Attack Rank by one (1).
b) Activates Defiant two (2) times upon sendout. Adjusts the natural stage to +2. Increases Attack Rank by one (1).
c) Guarantees all attacks score a critical hit. Triggers Defiant upon sendout. sIncreases Attack Rank by one (1).
Old Amber
Moving this to a vote in 24 hours unless opposed.
What should the effect of Old Amber?
a) Raises the Energy Cost of all incoming attacks by two (2). Increases Attack by one (1) Rank.
b) Unnerve prevents the consumption of all consumables. Increases Attack by one (1) Rank.
c) Attacks that take time to charge are charged instantaneously, preventing them from being disrupted. All charge attacks will have 0 priority instead of -1. Increases Attack by one (1) Rank.
Cloaks and Relic Crown I'll give another couple days before I progress.
======
Houndoominite and co.
Allows Houndoom to Mega-Evolve into Mega Houndoom. Activates Flash Fire and enables Solar Power's damage increase effect in or outside of Sunny Day weather (Damage is still taken for Solar Power in Sunny Day).
Oh boy oh boy this item has caused headaches recently as Grass and Ice gyms have fully opened and people have been abusing the insane Fire STAB provided by this item.

Comments:
Hi! Item rants.

So Houndoom was originally BST21, hence it got silly effects on Houndoomnite. Given it's now BST22, can we cut at least one of them? BST22 is still a smidgen low for a Mega, but it doesn't need a free Charcoal on it's Fire moves.

Also can we cut one of Manectric's two, and instead give bonus effects to Altarianite (BST 22), Banettite (BST 22), and potentially Audinite (It's current one is b/c of duplicated ability and is weak as the piss some people call beer, it's a fairly bland BST22 otherwise).

... alternatively, we can just cut all non-double ability/klutz mega stone effects because aaa.
Piggybacking off of the above post to add some more context.

Houndoominite is one of the few Mega Stones that give arbitrary boosts to the Pokemon as an added effect. The reason for this is that when Gen 6 was released, Mega Houndoom was trash.


However, Mega Houndoom has gotten several buffs since then. First, both Flash Fire and Solar Power were boosted from +2 to +3. There wasn't much forum discussion on this -- it was pushed largely from a "consistency" standpoint with no real consideration to the actual Pokemon involved in the buff. Which isn't a necessarily bad, but it's also not like this was a conscious effort to buff Mega Houndoom. so plz don't try that as a counterargument

Second, Mega Houndoom gained a Special Attack rank from the recent stat cutoff changes.

One thing we could do to bring the boosts back down to their intended buffs is to have Flash Fire and Solar Power only partially activate for free. This is similar to what is done on a lot of the evolution stone items.

We can probably do the same to Minus on Manectite. I'm not as worried about rebalancing that item because Mega Manectric is overall worse, and hasn't received as many buffs post Mega Stone implementation as Mega Houndoom (only Minus was buffed as opposed to two abilities + stat rank).

I don't care about buffing the other Mega Stones mentioned above. I'd prefer not to since I don't think any of those megas are horrible. They're obviously not top tier, but I don't think that means we need to buff them either.
Driving Questions
1) Should this item be changed? If yes, how and why? If no, why not?
2) Do any of the other mega stones need changes?
 

JJayyFeather

Drifting~
is a Forum Moderatoris a Community Contributor
Moderator
Comments

Cloaks
1) Strong as fuck items but I don't see Wormadams tearing shit up anywhere so nah

Relic Crown
1) Full support from me for just moving Relic Crown to buffing the highest true base stat

Houndoominite and co.
1) Houndoominite definitely needs a change. In the time span of a couple of months it gained 3.5 BAP on Fire-typed Special moves and 2.5 BAP on the other Special moves. As a whole, the item is incredibly strong. I would like to see the Solar Power effect entirely stripped. It cuts what I think was the bigger problem with the item which is removing the need for the set up requires by Solar Power while amplifying basically every move it uses because no one actually uses Physical moves outside of Dig and Counter. But I do think the Flash Fire effect helps it maintain its spot as an effective Fire STAB spammer, and to be real, that ability never sees use in Singles except when it gets Skill Swapped away to screw it over.
Suggested new desc said:
Allows Houndoom to Mega-Evolve into Mega Houndoom. Activates Flash Fire.
2) I do not think any of the other Mega items need buffs. Manectric has its love, Banette got fucking Prankster so it definitely does not need anything else to go with its natural R7 Atk, That'd be as big a mistake as giving MMawile more Atk when she just got Huge Power (see: this happened and was reverted). Altaria picked up Pixilate which is good enough, not its fault that it will just be eternally outclassed by every other Pixilate mon.
 

ZhengTann

Nargacuga
is a Forum Moderator Alumnus
One thing about Old Amber is that we probably want to clarify that the Hit Phase of Charge Attacks hit at 0 instead of -1. Whether the Charged Phase remains at +1, or is also moved to 0 a la Sunny Day Solar Beam, should be clarified by the one who proposed this. Personally I'm happy enough with the former, although it still feeling like a deliberate buff that has no interaction whatsoever with Aerodactyl's Abilities turns me off. I don't think the Signature Item has to be the go-to for it's corresponding user.

Agreeing with removing free Solar Power from Houndoominite, would agree with removing free Minus from Manectite if it was proposed, no personal experience on Banettite and Altarianite to add to the discussion.
 
If we're keeping Flash Fire on Houndoom I see zero reason why the other BST22s like Altaria shouldn't be buffed as well. From a consistency standpoint, it should be either all of them or none of them get extra effects. Why does Houndoom alone arbitrarily get special treatment? It'd be nice to buff other weaker megas to add more viable Pokemon to the metagame. A small boost to their STABs (not even the +3 that Houndoom gets) would do wonders in increasing their viability.

If we don't think it's worthwhile to increase the number of viable megas, let's at least be consistent and not play favorites with Houndoom.
 
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JJayyFeather

Drifting~
is a Forum Moderatoris a Community Contributor
Moderator
Houndoom isn't the only one that has it's buff. Manectric has his, and I stated I wanted it to keep it.

Consistency doesn't apply when it comes to directly buffing/nerfing mons. At that point, it needs to be individually done case-by-case. My reasoning for leaving Flash Fire on Mega Houndoom is that a sudden 6 BAP hit to a mon is entirely excessive. We'd be pulling it so far down the ladder just because in a spree of changes we didn't recognize the cumulative effect on it. The proper move here is just to reduce his power level back to what it was before all the changes, which is how I got around to just cutting the Solar Power effect. It's a basically universal 3 BAP cut, which makes it more niche in abusing Fire STAB, while not having overwhelming power altogether for a reason that really was just us not being thorough in the past.

As for the rest of them.

- Manectric: I've already stated that I don't think Manectite needs any changes. +3 BAP all around is good enough, and then also a Lightningrod trigger too.
- Altaria: This is just a purely outclassed mon. It's not that its bad, unviable, or anything of the nature. It's just outclassed. The other two users of its Mega ability, Sylveon and Mega Gardevoir, are much better for using it. The mon still is viable given its 100/4/4 bulk and great coverage suite, just not a preferred option.
- Banette: R7 Atk and Prankster... yeah this mon doesn't need shit.
- Audino: This mon probably needs love, but we'd mostly just be tossing a buff its way for the sake of feeling like we tried to help it. It's not a good mon, and no reasonable amount of buffs is actually going to make it viable suddenly outside of certain niche spots.
 
Banette got fucking Prankster so it definitely does not need anything else to go with its natural R7 Atk, That'd be as big a mistake as giving MMawile more Atk when she just got Huge Power (see: this happened and was reverted).
Just want to point out that Banette and Mawile is not an apples to apples comparison. Mawile has Sheer Force on two strong STAB moves at 8 and 9 BAP respectively (so 9+3+2 for those keeping count at home) whereas Banette has Shadow Claw and a D/E for STAB. Not advocating for a buff, just wanted to point out Banette isn't really in the same ballpark in case that was the point of comparison.

For reference, Mega Banette's STAB hits for less damage than a mono-Ghost type with R5 Atk before Rare Candy. Food for thought.
 

Frosty

=_=
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnus
Can't we just stick with the basic "if your mega ability is a copy of a normal ability, you will get a buff. If not, then scram" policy?

Because let me tell you: if you want to balance out mons, you are in for big trouble. We have way too many mons to do that. Even megas are plenty. If we were to make mega banette as good as mega metagross we are better off closing up shop and starting a career in modeling. It won't work.

Yes I know Manectric and Houndoom (Pidgeot has a Keen Eye + No Guard interaction that warrants special treatment) technically still got boosts outside the rule above (and if things went my way, all of them would lose them), but its not like they are dominating the metagame, so we are better off just letting them be (nerfing Houndoom in some manner at least).

But as for the others, just stay away. You won't want to start hoping that all pokemon are born equal in strength and useability. That will drive you nuts. Some pokemon will be shitty, its a thing of nature we just need to accept.
 

Frosty

=_=
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnus
I lied

Next stuff

Cloaks: nothing on this. Can we put it on ignore?

Relic Crown: Gonna put "change "SPD" for "Highest base stat"" as option for a voting. Anyone wanna propose something else?
 

JJayyFeather

Drifting~
is a Forum Moderatoris a Community Contributor
Moderator
Cloaks: No changes
Relic Crown: Awaiting Frosty's lead
======
Sail Fossil
Sail Fossil - Item Cost: 8 CC | Effect: Boosts Base Attack Power Boost from Refrigerate by one (1) and causes it to be applicable also to moves originally Ice-Typed. Increases Special Attack by one (1) Rank.
No real suggestions yet, awaits discussion.

Plume Fossil
Plume Fossil - Item Cost: 8 CC | Effect: Defeatist Rank drops are ignored. Increases Defense by one (1) Rank.
Only proposition from initial discussion is moving the stat change to Attack (highest base stat) given how arbitrary the stat of choice feels.

Skull Fossil
Skull Fossil - Item Cost: 8 CC | Effect: Sheer Force becomes Passive, and no longer removes the secondary effects from attacks. Increases Defense by one (1) Rank.
Two starting proposals:
- Change the boosted stat to Special Defense.
Skull Fossil: Like Stick, I think this needs a major overhaul.
Rampardos' biggest issue currently is the fact that while it's a beat stick, it never should use its best STAB. This alleviates the problem, while also giving the player a choice between Life Orb and this item as valid selections. Life Orb is better for its coverage, while Skull Fossil is better for its STAB. As for Rank increases, I think that the simple rock head conference may be enough, however, if a rank were to be increased I'd recommend SDef.
 
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JJayyFeather

Drifting~
is a Forum Moderatoris a Community Contributor
Moderator
Sail Fossil
Thinking on small ways to nudge this item, I was thinking either conferring Ice Body or making Snow Warning costless/longer (6a).

Plume Fossil
The initial suggestion was mine, so sticking with that.

Skull Fossil
I personally prefer just switching the boosted stat to SpD, but that's because my entire reasoning for suggesting the item for changes was to correct its odd stat boost.
 

ZhengTann

Nargacuga
is a Forum Moderator Alumnus
Sail Fossil: No strong experiences to warrant suggesting a change.

Plume Fossil: The thing with Plume Fossil's stat increase is that increasing any one stat is awkward. Given that it's a staple item for Archeops aside from RCB, min-maxers will simply use that increased stat as the sacrifice to get a positive Speed nature. Just look at mine. So while we can go ahead and just make things nice and pretty with "highest base Stat", I seriously doubt that such a change will affect anything aside from CC coffers for a Nature change.

Skull Fossil: If I've not said it before, I'll say it again - I love Comp's idea of giving Rock Head through Skull Fossil, and the reasoning behind it. Heck, give it Reckless while we're at it! Okay maybe not Reckless as well as Rock Head. And definitely not just Reckless.
 

Frosty

=_=
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnus
I lied

Next stuff

Cloaks: nothing on this. Can we put it on ignore?

Relic Crown: Gonna put "change "SPD" for "Highest base stat"" as option for a voting. Anyone wanna propose something else?
Slate
A) keep relic crown as is
B) make it boost atk
C) make it boost spa
D) make it boost highest stat

Pokemon interested: yanmega, mamoswine and tangrowth iirc.

24h
 

Frosty

=_=
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnus
Thoughts:

Sail Fossil: small nudges won't change a thing, you will still keep on not using aurorus. Given that aurorus has snow warning, the item basically gives you +3bap on your go-to ice move (Blizzard) and boosts SpA by 1, so it is on par (better, actually) than rare candy. I don't see any point for a change

Plume Fossil: negating Defeatist is a huge effect. Even more now that Archeops has 6 base Attack. I am in favor of keeping things as is, simply because the ability effect is already pretty good and a more meaningful attack boost may tip the edge a little too much, IMO.

Skull Fossil: agreed on making it give Rock Head. idc about which stat to boost. Either attack or spd (or def as is) seem fine by me.
 

Frosty

=_=
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnus
Not gonna wait forever for people to bother with discussions so let's call in to vote.

Sail Fossil: not gonna touch it for now. If you want this to change, say so and propose a change.

Plume Fossil: slate
a) Boost Atk
b) Boost Def

Skull Fossil: slate 1
a) As is
b) Give auto Rock Head

slate 2
a) Boost Atk
b) Boost SpD
c) Boost Def

24h
 

JJayyFeather

Drifting~
is a Forum Moderatoris a Community Contributor
Moderator
Proposing 2 things:

Sail Fossil
Add "Hail summoned from Snow Warning lasts for 6 rounds."
I still want to give the item some love :>

Skull Fossil
Confer Rock Head to the holder, but remove the Sheer Force effect.
- to Slate 1
- I personally think that we shouldn't just lob such a strong effect on to the item without stripping an effect
Boost SpA
- to Slate 2
- If we're going to vote on arbitrary rank boosts, then I think it's also worth giving consideration to SpA considering that Rampardos has the movepool to go mixed as well.
 

Frosty

=_=
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnus
If you go SpA on rampardos you are better off using Life Orb. But I see your point

As for Skull Fossil, I meant rock head as a replacement, just forgot to write it :>

ok sail fossil w/e

Sail Fossil: slate
a) Add "Hail summoned from Snow Warning lasts for 6 rounds"
b) as is

Plume Fossil: slate
a) Boost Atk
b) Boost Def

Skull Fossil: slate 1
a) As is
b) Give auto Rock Head instead of current Sheer Force interaction

slate 2
a) Boost Atk
b) Boost SpD
c) Boost Def
d) Boost SpA


24h from this post
 
If I'm not too late, I would like to mention that, given how poor Aurorus is in the first place, I think that we could feasibly give Sail Fossil one of the following effects:

a)
Add "Hail summoned from Snow Warning lasts until it is replaced by a different weather condition or dispelled.
b)
Add "Hail summoned from Snow Warning inflicts three (3) damage per action rather than two (2).
 

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