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SPOILERS! Legends ZA Data Dumps - Adding Info to OP

Moyashi said:
Mega Starmie is all but confirmed to have pure power tbh. It follows Mega Medicham and Mawile in the "suddenly +40" to a stat design.
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To be honest I'd rather see it get a new ability based on kicks... the animations give so much emphasis on the newly grown legs, I could see this thing actually make sense with Aqua Step and Ice Spinner.
Good? Maybe. But it'd make a lot o fsense thematically.

Moyashi said:
Mega Meganium has a good typing and stats, so even with an average ability it would be solid thanks to what it can answer. For example, not that you'd use it in OU, but it handling both of Raging Bolt's stabs is huge, and it also checks a myriad of grounds, fighters and dark types. So it would on paper look like a solid defensive mega
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My ""problem"" so to say is that it's a mega, not a regular pokemon.
Megas always have the problem that they're not just competing with other similar pokemon, but also with megas of completely unrelated archetypes because they take your mega slots.

Due to their "1 off" nature, Megas don't need to just "be good", they need to be exceptional, and "good enough" doesn't quite cut it.

Not that I expect all of the new megas to be good. On the contrary, I expect almost all of them to be low tier fodder / have 0 usage in VGC and BSS. I'll be happy if (outside of Zygarde doing any% AG speedrun) even just 3 or 4 of them makes it to a top level play (be it OU or VGC).
Meganium is not one I see doing it. Defensive megas have almost 0 use in VGC, and in singles you're competing with monsters like charizard, kangaskhan, lopunny, lucario, etc etc.
 
Worldie said:
outside of Zygarde doing any% AG speedrun
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honestly I dont see it?
like sure it hits like a fucking train but like, its taking up your mega slot and by ubers standards its kinda slow? I could eat my words whenever champions drops but until then I kinda expect it to just be kinda ok
 
Worldie said:
My ""problem"" so to say is that it's a mega, not a regular pokemon.
Megas always have the problem that they're not just competing with other similar pokemon, but also with megas of completely unrelated archetypes because they take your mega slots.

Due to their "1 off" nature, Megas don't need to just "be good", they need to be exceptional, and "good enough" doesn't quite cut it.

Not that I expect all of the new megas to be good. On the contrary, I expect almost all of them to be low tier fodder / have 0 usage in VGC and BSS. I'll be happy if (outside of Zygarde doing any% AG speedrun) even just 3 or 4 of them makes it to a top level play (be it OU or VGC).
Meganium is not one I see doing it. Defensive megas have almost 0 use in VGC, and in singles you're competing with monsters like charizard, kangaskhan, lopunny, lucario, etc etc.
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This is overstating a lot of things really. If a Mega brings strong qualities to a team, it gets used. Simple as that. Being a mega doesn't inherently mean it competes with everything, because different Megas take on different roles and won't fit on the same team. What Mega immediately does what Meganium does?

Inherently, it's a significant step up from base Meganium. At worse, it would find a home somewhere in a lower tier like NU, maybe even RU, because the strong Spatk and typing will make it pretty robust offensively and defensively. Like a Mega Venusaur situation. Your tone seems more concerned with only OU/Ubers play for some reason, and the megas you listed all do different things and fit on different teams than Meganium would theoretically (ZardY offense) or are banned (Kangaskhan, Lucario). Lopunny fits on Balance too like Meganium would, but it does different things than Meg so the roles would be different enough that they fit on different types of Balance teams.

Even for VGC, Meganium has a fair amount of good qualities to justify its use potentially. It completely walls Urshifu (both forms) unless they run Poison Jab which is a big commitment. It walls Raging Bolt and non Overheat Miraidon, it's solid into most water attackers in general, it can use Leech Seed to stick around in addition to it doing its own damage.
 
The design of megas is more hostile in vgc due to the lack of tiers that allow anything outside the main sphere and peripheral niches to shine. Granted this makes using "unviable" options even more exciting at tours, but I personally find it a bit more harsh than the average power creep or universal gimmick having its favorite users vs bad users
 
Just A Seaking said:
My main takeaways from the level-up learnsets are:

  • Meganium just doesn't get Fairy STAB other than Disarming Voice; Moonblast is a tutor move, but it's got no access to it. If it doesn't get Dazzling Gleam TM compatibility, then it's just completely cooked.
  • Light That Returns to Nothing is nowhere to be found. If not by learnset or as a tutor move, I really don't know what condition there would be to learn it.
  • Sableye gets Parting Shot. God help us all.
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In the case of Meganium this also happened with learn sets in Legends Arceus. For example Overqwil had only dark pulse for STAB and no crunch. They'll most likely fix this with a legends day 1 patch or future gens/champions will give it moon blast or equivalent.
 
Just reviewed the entire paste-bin for the new learnsets and I can confidently say Chandelure is absolutely the biggest winner here. Granted, it was already decent in Gen 6, but 110 defenses, 175 Special Attack (which I believe breaks Mega Gengar’s record for Ghosts) and an extra 10 Speed is big for it. This will get banned if it has a good Ability. Friendly reminder that Pursuit’s not in the game anymore and in Champion’s you’re going to be able to bluff which generational mechanic you’re using- this could be a Mega or it could be a Terastalized Chandelure just as easily.

There were other smaller changes I saw with moves that I noticed. Honedge no longer gets Swords Dance as early as it used to which is a big nerf, and Clefable gets a lot of coverage with level-up moves now. Metronome being a TM is hilarious though I believe that was already a thing. I also noticed that other Pokémon with stat boosting Abilities that are not part of an evolution like with a Mega, such as Furfrou, are not getting the stat boosts mentioned previously in this thread for stuff like Mawile and Medicham.
 
Some additional thoughts now that I've looked at the megas a bit more.

Slow pivoting on Mrga Sableye will be nice if it keeps parting shot. I could see it being nice on base sabeleye as well to like, debuff a mon like Wellspring before swapping out to a real check. That said, Dark-types being super common will be annoying for it. Still, I think a lot of teams will have use for this mon as an anti Hazard pivot. A big issue though is that it will worsen its 4MSS even more.

I think Meganium will def have a place, but it does suffer from "invalidated by GKING / torn-T Syndrome" that most defensive grasses suffer from. It's big issue is the lack of utility moves, though it at least gets Knoxk Off as a progress making tool.

Mega Scrafty could be OP vs defensive teams with Bulk Up / Dragon Dance, depends on what its final ability is. Those stats buffs are really nice for it, especially the bulk.

Mega Greninja is a wild card. Not sure about the stats since it is noticeably worse than ash Gren imo, but getting Nasty Plot is crazy and could push it to ubers. I could also see it being worse than your average Boots Darkrai set due to hazard chip so its a 50-50. The bulk increase is nice for these set up strats at least.

Mega eelektross was one i was hyped for but it looks to be mediocre. No bulk increases is very unfortunate and its other stats like speed and attack dont seem high enough. Coil will probably be better at least.

Mega Starmie is a weirdo. I am glad its stats, specifically its bulk, power, and speed, are up to snuff with modern standards, but getting huge power is just such a weird direction to go with it. Really need to see what it gets in the next games to properly comment on it. At this point, I would have preferred it if those points into its attack were distributed into its other stats like Speed and bulk.

Mega Frosslass will be cool offensive spiker with good offensive STAB combo, with Wisp to cripple its various checks.

I like Mega Chandelures extra bulk and power, but wasting 20 points on attack is lame and I am not sure it is fast enough. I also dont think the extra bulk makes up for Stealth Rock weakness. At least 90 speed is noticeably better than 80.

Mega Dragonite is weird and I think we need to wait till champions to see if it gets another ability as it stands, im not sure a special attacking set will be better than standard boots or Dragon Dance Dragonite. At least 100 speed is a significant step up from 80, letting it beat out key targets like Great Tusk, Kyurem, and a few others like Urshifu.

Mega Emboar looks decent. Really good bulk + good moves like Knock Off and Drain Punch should let it run a solid bulk up set, and it even has other cool options like Wisp and Scald for checks like Lando-T. That said, idk how all of this will come together in practice.

I think mega Excadrill improved the wrong stats (wanted special defense not defense) but the extra speed and attack should let it compete as strong breaker or sweeper. Extra bulk will help vs Gambit too.

Mega scolipede has a really weird stat spread so idk how it will perform. That stab combo is also still bad. It should be able to do some speed boost SD shenanigans at least.

Most of this speculation is pointless w/o abilities to go off of but its still fun lol
 
To give you an example of Mega Zygarde-Complete's power:

252 SpA Zygarde-Complete-Mega Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Vessel of Ruin Ting-Lu: 242-286 (47 - 55.6%) -- 18.4% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

And this is without usable Ability since I'm guessing its official Ability will boost its offenses in some way.

I can see this its primary moves being:

Core Enforcer/Draco Meteor
Earth Power
Focus Blast
Sludge Wave (for Fairy-type Pokemon)

This pretty much hits the entire Ubers meta for huge damage, even defensive Ho-Oh is 2HKOed by Core Enforcer with a boost equivalent to that of Protosynthesis.

252 SpA Protosynthesis Zygarde-Complete Core Enforcer vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Ho-Oh: 214-253 (51.5 - 60.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

It'll certainly be a nuclear Pokemon if you manage to get it into its Complete form without taking too much damage and then Mega Evolving after that. This is a mon that will primarily be a wallbreaker. It might not get banned to Anything Goes though due to how much resources it would take to get it into its Complete form before Mega Evolving.

It has a decent speed tier for Ubers which gets the jump over Kyogre, Landorus-Therian, Rayquaza, Kyurem-Black, and Lunala.
 
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Magcargo said:
Mega Dragonite is weird and I think we need to wait till champions to see if it gets another ability as it stands, im not sure a special attacking set will be better than standard boots or Dragon Dance Dragonite. At least 100 speed is a significant step up from 80, letting it beat out key targets like Great Tusk, Kyurem, and a few others like Urshifu.
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Mega Dragonite's stat spread is in line with Mega Salamence, and Mence was easily one of the best Megas. If Mega Dragonite gets a good ability it will be more than fine, especially since you can hold off on going Mega to abuse Mutliscale.
 
A while ago I theorymonned (theorymane?) a way to make Meganium usable - swap some of the defs with HP/Atk (so it'd become 100/102/80/83/80/80) and replace Leaf Guard with Flower Veil. This way it would have some tankish ability while being immune to Burn and Poison (and Intimidate), which is interesting because it has a better physical than special movepool already. Game Freak would never rearrange its base stats like that (but maybe they would change the HA...), so I was still banking on the Mega - something like 80/142/120/83/120/80 with Grass/Fairy and Flower Veil would be workable.

Then this Mega Meganium drops and instead of investing on its physical side, they go for the usual Special-oriented fairymon. The goddamn flower dinosaur has to be Special because it's girl-coded. Like Enamorus being female-only and Fairy and pink and related to love. Of course.
 
Avira said:
To give you an example of Mega Zygarde-Complete's power:

252 SpA Zygarde-Complete-Mega Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Vessel of Ruin Ting-Lu: 242-286 (47 - 55.6%) -- 18.4% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

And this is without an item boosting its offenses or a usable Ability since I'm guessing its official Ability will boost its offenses in some way.

I can see this its primary moves being:

Core Enforcer/Draco Meteor
Earth Power
Focus Blast
Sludge Wave (for Fairy-type Pokemon)

This pretty much hits the entire Ubers meta for huge damage, even defensive Ho-Oh is 2HKOed with a Dragon Fang-boosted Core Enforcer although I expect its Ability will also boost its strength in some way.

252 SpA Dragon Fang Zygarde-Complete Core Enforcer vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Ho-Oh: 198-234 (47.7 - 56.3%) -- 84.8% chance to 2HKO

It'll certainly be a nuclear Pokemon if you manage to get it into its Complete form without taking too much damage and then Mega Evolving after that. This is a mon that will primarily be a wallbreaker.
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All that work just to get wiped by Calyrex-Ice in VGC next season :worrywhirl: I have bro on major fraud watch currently
 
I think specially oriented Mega Dragonite has the potential to be very interesting in its own right. Obviously, what ability it gets when it enters Champions/Gen 10 is gonna play a big role in how good it is, but it's a good way to make it distinct from Mega Salamence, especially since Dragonite has a colorful special movepool to boot. Not to mention its physical attack while weaker is still respectable, so it can go physical or mixed too. I'm interested in its potential.
 
Is there any confirmed breeding, or other way to get Pokemon at very low levels (like 1-5)? Or will it be like Arceus Legends where sometimes the lowest level for a type would be 30 or so, making it hard to start the game with them being leveled so high.
 
I think mega starmie could genuinely be demonic
the fact we have a mixed pure power/huge power mon now is a very scary thing to think about, and one with rapid spin at that

I honestly could see it getting banned to ubers in a future metagame because having a mixed pure power user is just a really scary pokemon to deal with
 
apologize if this has already been asked, especially considering I don't know much about the games outside the "main" line: Will Mega Evolutions be tradeable into Scarlet/Violet and, consequently, usable in Gen 9 OU on Showdown? Thank you
 
Napoli Burns said:
apologize if this has already been asked, especially considering I don't know much about the games outside the "main" line: Will Mega Evolutions be tradeable into Scarlet/Violet and, consequently, usable in Gen 9 OU on Showdown? Thank you
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no, we gotta wait for champions ou which may end up being somewhat similar to natdex in some ways
 
BolTingBlazie said:
I think mega starmie could genuinely be demonic
the fact we have a mixed pure power/huge power mon now is a very scary thing to think about, and one with rapid spin at that

I honestly could see it getting banned to ubers in a future metagame because having a mixed pure power user is just a really scary pokemon to deal with
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Oh...come to think of it, while digging through this, I thought Mega Starmie having a 140 BST increase was weird, but this might explain it: in a classic battle system it'll likely have Huge Power as its ability and its actual stat increase will be a standard 100, but it has a higher Attack stat than otherwise to compensate for this battle system and lack of abilities.
 
ScraftyIsTheBest said:
Oh...come to think of it, while digging through this, I thought Mega Starmie having a 140 BST increase was weird, but this might explain it: in a classic battle system it'll likely have Huge Power as its ability and its actual stat increase will be a standard 100, but it has a higher Attack stat than otherwise to compensate for this battle system and lack of abilities.
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yep that seems to be the case, but of all the new megas starmie's ability is the only one we know, as it got the same treatment that medicham and mawile got
 
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