I've always thought it'd be hilarious if Regigigas finally got a hidden ability and it was... Truant. Or, correspondingly, if the reverse happened with Slaking.
People would be so fucking salty
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(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon
- Thread starter BriarRose
- Start date
I've always thought it'd be hilarious if Regigigas finally got a hidden ability and it was... Truant. Or, correspondingly, if the reverse happened with Slaking.
People would be so fucking salty
Slow Start is significantly worse than Truant though.
Yes, and? Did you think I was making a serious suggestion?
The thing that annoys me about Slow Start is that I get the reasoning, but it also just feels like a joke that no one besides GF finds funny anymore.
Compare how Regigigas always has it in games and has never gotten a HA, while constantly having things like no Protect/Rest for several gens to force you to deal with the gimmick. Meanwhile EVERY other depiction either ignores the ability or finds a write around: Regigigas in the anime never acknowledges it (unless you count being awoken at all in Giratina & the Sky Warrior), Mystery Dungeon it takes 15 turns in which you probably won't even see a Pokemon before it matters (without reducing ATK so it can still defend itself adequately), Rumble Blast reduces it to "beat 10 Pokemon (in a game that's about plowing through much weaker enemies to reach bigger targets), and the manga will usually have it wear off in a negligible amount of time, skip over that part, or include a throwaway solution (DP Adventure does all 3 between its introduction at Snowpoint, the Spear Pillar fight, and Kadabra's use for the Galactic HQ fight respectively).
At this point the ability is something no incarnation of Regigigas actually integrates, it's just an albatross it's stuck with because GF did something mildly humorous for its first appearance and refuses to tweak the game mechanics for even when they now impede its lore and image.
Compare how Regigigas always has it in games and has never gotten a HA, while constantly having things like no Protect/Rest for several gens to force you to deal with the gimmick. Meanwhile EVERY other depiction either ignores the ability or finds a write around: Regigigas in the anime never acknowledges it (unless you count being awoken at all in Giratina & the Sky Warrior), Mystery Dungeon it takes 15 turns in which you probably won't even see a Pokemon before it matters (without reducing ATK so it can still defend itself adequately), Rumble Blast reduces it to "beat 10 Pokemon (in a game that's about plowing through much weaker enemies to reach bigger targets), and the manga will usually have it wear off in a negligible amount of time, skip over that part, or include a throwaway solution (DP Adventure does all 3 between its introduction at Snowpoint, the Spear Pillar fight, and Kadabra's use for the Galactic HQ fight respectively).
At this point the ability is something no incarnation of Regigigas actually integrates, it's just an albatross it's stuck with because GF did something mildly humorous for its first appearance and refuses to tweak the game mechanics for even when they now impede its lore and image.
I like X and Y a lot. I do! I find it comforting and I enjoy its Pokémon variety. That being said, it has terrible pacing after the third gym, and two battles (at mininum) that are the Pokémon embodiment of "This could've been an email:" the second rival battle, and the second battle against Lysandre. There's extremely little change between the battles beforehand (okay, Lysandre evolves Mienfoo and Murkrow) and they just feel wildly forced.
I loved to annoys my opponents with my Regigigas + Weezing strats. It's satisfying to pull it out yet it also pretty easy to dismantle this strat.
What annoys me is that now that it's Slaking turn in SV. Koffing family are not available (yet)
What annoys me is that now that it's Slaking turn in SV. Koffing family are not available (yet)
Yeah XY really should be among the most replayable main series games (huge regional dex, lots of optional stuff to do), but it's a slog in parts and has some of the strangest boss battle design decisions in the entire series. I've given up more than one XY challenge playthrough because I just didn't feel inspired to keep going
Not that anyone would want to waste time on the roamers in FRLG or RS, but I just read that Gen II generates the IVs and shininess upon first encountering the roamer (good) while Gen III generates the roamer's stats from when you give Celio the Sapphire or when you check the TV in your house in RSE.
Not only is the latter method intensely time-consuming, it's also extremely unintuitive. I imagine a lot of people screwed themselves over incorrectly thinking they could try again for a better one. Way to make a hellish mechanic even worse.
Thankfully I believe all games after Platinum generate a new set of values for roamers if the trigger for the roamer is refreshed (i.e. beat the Elite Four then set them roaming again).
Not only is the latter method intensely time-consuming, it's also extremely unintuitive. I imagine a lot of people screwed themselves over incorrectly thinking they could try again for a better one. Way to make a hellish mechanic even worse.
Thankfully I believe all games after Platinum generate a new set of values for roamers if the trigger for the roamer is refreshed (i.e. beat the Elite Four then set them roaming again).
FWIW the time of generation is irrelevant for the roamers in Gen 3 anyway because the IVs are glitched and they're guaranteed to be Really Bad.
Okay so it's been months since I last posted in the forums, I was busy doing other things (read: passively watch YouTube videos).
I was watching this video about making Ledian functional in HGSS and at one point, the voice-over points out how nonsensical most of Ledian's Pokédex entries are:
First, what the heck is that powder? Ledian can't learn any powder move.
Second, all these Pokédex entries imply that Ledian is a nocturnal Pokémon: it flies at night, uses starlight as energy (BTW where are Moonblast and Moonlight?), and sleeps during daytime.
And yet, Ledian is only encountered during the morning or daytime.
I get that Ledian saw a few changes during the development of Gold (case in point, the stars on its back), but this is a pretty ridiculous case of Pokédex entries not matching the gameplay.
Also, speaking of morning... What's the point of having matutinal Pokémon? Only the Johto games have these, and the majority of morning encounters also appear during the day or the night. The only morning-only encounters are the Ledyba line... if you don't Headbutt trees in Crystal and SoulSilver.
I was watching this video about making Ledian functional in HGSS and at one point, the voice-over points out how nonsensical most of Ledian's Pokédex entries are:
Gold said:
Crystal said:
Ruby and Sapphire said:
DPPt/BW/B2W2 said:
Sun said:
Ultra Moon said:
Second, all these Pokédex entries imply that Ledian is a nocturnal Pokémon: it flies at night, uses starlight as energy (BTW where are Moonblast and Moonlight?), and sleeps during daytime.
And yet, Ledian is only encountered during the morning or daytime.
I get that Ledian saw a few changes during the development of Gold (case in point, the stars on its back), but this is a pretty ridiculous case of Pokédex entries not matching the gameplay.
Also, speaking of morning... What's the point of having matutinal Pokémon? Only the Johto games have these, and the majority of morning encounters also appear during the day or the night. The only morning-only encounters are the Ledyba line... if you don't Headbutt trees in Crystal and SoulSilver.
Fomantis is like this too. Its Dex entries describe it as nocturnal, but in practice, its encounter rates never seem to vary with the time of day — not even in Sun & Moon, where it debuted and where day/night encounter differences were emphasized. Compare that to Morelull, who indeed only appears at night in the Alola games.
The major benefit IMO is that it allows more Pokemon to be incorporated into one area without being too overwhelming (using Route 43 as a random example, there's eleven different species in the tall grass alone, but only 7 or 8 will show up at once, which can make finding a specific species easier). Personally I think it's a better approach than just shoving a load of species together and making it a free-for-all: a lot of routes in Kalos, for instance, have between 7 and 10 different Pokemon in them, which looks nice but can make finding a specific species incredibly tiresome. It's less about restricting species outright and more about making them more common, which makes hunting them down much easier - though I acknowledge it can, in practice, be extremely inconvenient unless you're able to change the clock.
GS is a bit hit-and-miss with how Pokemon are placed according to time; Crystal improved on things somewhat. When I was doing my Crystal challenge recently it made things a little easier as there are a few Pokemon that are much more common in the morning/night.
I'm going to guess a mistake they MAY fix.
If I had to guess, maybe they were originally thinking of moving around some of Wiglett's stats (I'm going to assume they would have moved the 20 points to physical Defense, therefore swapping the defense stat numbers) but for whatever reason decided not to... BUT forgot to put the 20 points back into Wiglett's SpD.
Now, I say they may fix this because something like this has happened before. Mega Alakazam originally was only a 90+ BST increase instead of a 100+ because GF forgot that they also gave normal Alakazam a small 10 point buff into its Special Defense (likely so its BST is a nice looking 500). In Gen VII they added 10 points to Mega Alakazam's SpD so it was a proper 100+ BST increase and making its BST 600.
Of course, one is a Mega Pokemon where this little stat difference is not only gonna be noticed but could affect M-Alakazam's competitive performance. Wiglett meanwhile is a weak basic stage that will likely be 1HKO by a neutral move even in Little Cup. Should it be fixed? Yes, for consistency sake. Is it a priority? Not in the least.
Duraludon has a big downside: it's Abilities suck. For Normal Abilities you have either one which halves its weight or one which doubles its weight, how so very useful. Even its Hidden Ability is meh, just preventing its Moves from be redirected (maybe useful on some Types, though not on a Steel/Dragon).
And unless you're cheesing Max Raids, it is also a very late game Pokemon on Route 10 (aka after the 8th Badge and just before Wyndon; or a rare encounter at Lake of Outrage in a blizzard), to the point where you may not even bother with it when you could catch it because your team would be pretty much set.
Nah, the award for "are we really just gonna let players have this Dragon that easily" goes to Cyclizar. Sure, it's BST is 501 so not TOO outrageous. Though if you know where to go you can get it relatively early; it has high Speed, good offense, and descent bulk; and finally its normal Ability is alright Shed Skin and Hidden Ability is great Regenerator. Early on it gets Rapid Spin, STAB Quick Attack, & Breaking Swipe; and later Moves include U-turn, Shed Tail, Shift Gear, and of course stronger STABs. Being both a Normal and Dragon-type also means it gets a wide TM Type coverage. Finally the Types its weak too are all late game bosses which at that point you should have another Pokemon able to handle.
A +10 to HP wasn't going to be any more useful to Swoobat. If it was gonna get a single stat buff I'd say it needs a 20-30 point increase to its Special Attack. Also a better Ability, it looks like a Moody Pokemon.
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Now entering the Regigigas discussion. I haven't read all the posts so just gonna quickly answer as I come across them:
The Ability isn't the problem, the problem is that it RESETS. I think if they do the following changes to Regigigas it'll be all the better while still having that initial "warm-up" period:
Shorten it to 3 turns. Nowadays 5 turns is a long time, we have Moves with field effects which don't even last 5 turns.
Give it two forms. When first sent into battle it'll be in its "Awakening Forme" which has Slow Start, the 6 colored discs on its body are black. When Slow Start ends, it'll turn into its "Awakened Form", for the rest of the battle its Ability is changed to Insomnia, and the discs regain their color making it look like the Regigigas we all know.
Yes... though it only applies to one specific Regigigas, Sinnoh's.
Originally, the reason Regigigas had Slow Start is because it was sealed away deep below Snowpoint Temple for who know how many years (going to guess at least a few centuries). Those who sealed it used the original Regi Trio as the "keys" to wake it up, taking them to Hoenn and sealing them there. However, by transferring the 3 Regi from RSE up to DPPt and presenting them to Regigigas, it'll re-activate. However, it's been inactive for so long (hinted by the plantlife growing on its shoulders and feet), it now takes a few turns to fully power-up.
However, things then get complicated. BW2 revealed there was a Regigigas in Unova, it too sealed away. ORAS had there been a Regigigas in Hoenn all along, oddly sealed in the same cave as Regice. Then we come to the Regigigas who don't seem to have been sealed away yet still have Slow Start and plantlife growing on them: one in Ultra Space and another just hanging out in a Galar Raid Den (you need all 5 Regi to encounter it, so maybe it was sealed away via the den?).
Now we could go for the non-canon angle for many of these, the only ones which are canon is the one in Sinnoh and maybe Galar. And what happened to both of them put them in a similar enough situation where they have Slow Start as their Ability (and plantlife growing on them; unless we re-textualize that as a natural part of it as its a being of nature & creation).
Still, unless they want to make it so they have to do a sealed away narrative for all Regigigas, I wouldn't be against them adding onto its lore which would allow them to make some positive changes.
Hm, I'm more on the side of coincidental. While I don't think its ever been confirmed, I'm with the belief the original Regi are based on the "ages" that notably mankind had existed for: Stone Age, Ice Age, and the Metal Ages. Thus Regidrago and Regieleki fit into this concept representing the most extremes of the time scale: Regidrago the "Primordial Age" or even "Age of Dinosaurs" being Dragon-type and Regieleki the "Modern Age" or "Digital Age" being Electric-type.
While it's no excuse, it's known that the team which writes the Pokedex descriptions aren't/weren't the same who design the Pokemon nor which decide its battling traits (at least they used to, not sure about recently).
Would be nice if GF took a read through Pokemon Dex descriptions to maybe see if there's any new ideas they could pull from it, but no, instead let's make a dex entry making fun how weak Ledian punches are.
Outing myself as a supremely obsessed lore nerd here, but ORAS Regigigas isn’t actually sealed. The little girl in Pacifidlog who gives you the clues about how to find it says, “Grandpa used to say that this huge Pokémon sometimes visits our region,” and later mentions (after catching Regigigas) that her grandpa originally “came from a cold region.” The implication seems to be that the ORAS Regigigas is the Sinnoh Regigigas, and that it makes occasional journies from Sinnoh to Hoenn in order to check up on the kids. If any ‘Gigas has had time to shake off the Slow Start, it should be that one!
(Incidentally, I suppose now’s as good an opportunity as any to pick a bone with the notion that the Snowpoint Temple Regigigas was ever “sealed,” which is a word that’s never used in the games to describe its condition, as opposed to the original Regi trio whose lore and Dex entries explicitly describe them as being sealed away out of fear. While it’s easy to see why people would put 2 and 2 together here and assume that the Regi trio were sealed away as a way of making it harder to unseal Regigigas (especially considering that the English translation of RSE had that infamous “we feared it” bit that people interpret as a hint at Regigigas, even though the Japanese text doesn’t make a distinction between that “it” being singular or plural), I’m skeptical that Regigigas was ever meant to be thought of as “sealed away,” rather than just being in a deep slumber after it finished towing the landmasses.)
Time-dependent encounters are also critical for making routes and dungeons feel alive and worth revisiting.
I'm also just generally in favour of anything that helps the player feel like they have some control when they're trying to catch 'em all; running back and forth in search of that 1-5% encounter gets boring very quickly, but it becomes way more bearable if you can boost the chance (even a little!) by waiting until nightfall. It seems like a no-brainer to have clues or NPC lines in the games themselves that tell you about these increased encounter rates, but it's less common than I'd like. Alongside tools like creating hidden areas with special encounters (e.g. Bagon in Meteor Falls), morning/day/night encounters create a system that rewards exploration and forethought rather than pure time investment.
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Know where to go? It just lives in the giant ass field outside the town with the second gym.
Was thinking about posting this in the movepool thread, but it's about Regigigas so it's almost certainly the result of active maliciousness on Game Freak's part.
Anyway, unless I missed something, Regigigas cannot learn any moves to directly boost its stats outside of Power-Up Punch. Because GF wants to ensure it's as garbage as possible.
Anyway, unless I missed something, Regigigas cannot learn any moves to directly boost its stats outside of Power-Up Punch. Because GF wants to ensure it's as garbage as possible.
That's something I actually forgot about Duraludon.
But if balance is a factor, then it's an interesting decision because:- I didn't expect a Duraludon evolution at all, and I doubt Game Freak did back in 2019;
- Other NFE Pokémon with high BSTs have good, if not great Abilities:
- Primeape (475) has Defiant to boost its good base 105 Attack stat;
- Magneton (465) has the very-niche-but-useful Magnet Pull, Sturdy, and Analytic backed up by a great 120 SpA stat;
- Rhydon (485) has Lightning Rod (to redirect Electric-type moves) and two decent offensive Abilities in Rock Head and Reckless, plus great physical stats;
- Scyther (500) has Technician, allowing for, among other things, a powered-up STAB Dual Wingbeat (or Aerial Ace before that) backed by a great Attack stat of 110 and Swords Dance;
- Electabuzz (490) and Magmar (495) have okay-at-least-on-paper Abilities in Static/Flame Body (to punish opponents who use contact moves) and Vital Spirit (so no opponent can put them to sleep);
- Previous record holder Porygon2 (515) has Trace (very handy against some opponents), plus Download AND Analytic to hit fairly hard with its base 105 SpA;
- Ursaring (500) has an excellent Attack stat of 130 and Guts;
- Piloswine (450) has Thick Fat to cancel its weakness to Fire;
- Stantler (465) has Intimidate and Sap Sipper, two great defensive Abilities on a Pokémon that lacks stats;
- Girafarig (455) also has Sap Sipper;
- Dusclops (455) has Frisk (often derided as useless, but knowing the opponent's held item is useful information);
- Bisharp (490) has Defiant to boost its already great 125 base Attack.
I don't dislike the weight mechanic, it's just that... I dunno, Light Metal doesn't achieve much in the grand scheme of everything? Heavy Metal isn't a great Ability either, but at least I can think of Aggron and Copperajah hitting very hard with Body Slam. And for what it's worth, Grass Knot and Low Kick are great moves against big fat Legendary Pokémon.
But all Pokémon with Light Metal right now are Steel-type, making Grass Knot useless, and only Registeel is really worried about a potential Low Kick.
Also, who used a Float Stone besides a VGC Gastrodon who's afraid of Grass Knot?
Meanwhile, Regice, Regirock, Registeel, and Regieleki have Charge Beam to increase their SpA.
Also, Regirock and Registeel have not just Body Press, but also Iron Defense. Regigigas does not learn Iron Defense.
searches on Bulbapedia
Well, Regigigas can at least learn Psych Up. That's a good move, right?
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fwiw the majority of those Pokemon were fully evolved at the time abilities were introduced.
Duraludon on the other hand was introduced with a specific G-Max so I doubt there was any forethought on what they may do in the future with it at that point.
I don’t think GF is necessarily bad at predicting metagames/viability instead - they just don’t care that much which is fair enough since competitive players make up a relatively tiny population of players. We do see the occasional Pokemon designed with some sort of competitive forethought but (rightly so) its mostly geared towards the VGC meta - the only meta that really matters to them.
Duraludon on the other hand was introduced with a specific G-Max so I doubt there was any forethought on what they may do in the future with it at that point.
I don’t think GF is necessarily bad at predicting metagames/viability instead - they just don’t care that much which is fair enough since competitive players make up a relatively tiny population of players. We do see the occasional Pokemon designed with some sort of competitive forethought but (rightly so) its mostly geared towards the VGC meta - the only meta that really matters to them.
To add to that, GameFreaks has never really cared of "fairness" when it comes to designing Pokemon. There's no "oh Pidgeot has lost his mega we should do something to make it strong again", there's no "Alolan Ninetales has usage but Ninetales does not, we should buff Ninetales".
Whenever they buff something it's usually because they feel like it or have some cool idea. Someone probably come up with the idea that having a building evolve in a bridge would be a fun meme and they did it, or maybe they thought that the "Tyranitar vs Duralodon" fantasy didn't deliver well enough, that's all.
The only times we've seen they do changes with competitive in mind is when they *nerf* something, which has been a thing since gen 7 (remember smogonbirb and Mega Gengar/Kanga/Salamence nerfs?).
And even then, it's usually with VGC mostly and sometimes BSS in mind, not 6v6.
Remember Last Respects? You don't really see it ever show up in VGC or BSS, noone remotely considers it busted, because surprise surprise, with only 3 / 4 pokemon it doesn't really reach the hilarious levels it reaches in 6v6.
Scald nerfs had nothing to do with smogon's big stall, it was cause even in VGC it was the go-to move type for special water types 99% of the time (the other 1% being Muddy Water), as Surf wasnt worth using due to hitting the partner, and Hydro Pump was too risky to use (see all the hate for Delibird-on-steroids, which often lives or dies on the Icy Wind / Hydro Pump hitting).
Even the healing move nerf was made due to the fact people were actually occasionally using timer stall strategies in VGC/BSS, which make for a very poor viewing experience as well as honestly being awfully boring when you're on the receiving end.
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Hm, interesting. Well there's a few ways to interpret some of that:
Wise Old Gramps: This raises a few questions about her grandfather (and possibly Sinnoh lore). How does he know this? I've always thought it was lost knowledge that the Titan Trio were taken to Hoenn, possibly purposely done so no one would attempt to wake up Regigigas prematurely. Yet, here's this random grandpa telling his granddaughter this exact connection between Hoenn and Sinnoh? So is it known that Titan Trio are somewhere in Hoenn? If not, what does that mean about the grandpa? Did he just piece 2 and 2 together that there's three sealed Pokemon in Hoenn and back in his home region Sinnoh there's Regigigas which can be awakened by 3 Pokemon sealed away from a far away region (well, at least across PokeJapan, which I guess is far for ancient people who may not have travelled far from their homeland before)? Are these people descendants of one of the people who sealed the Titan Trio away and over time it turned into a folktale/legend they tell to their children? Because that's another thing, yes the little girl of course completely believes in this as little kids would do any folktale/legend told to them, but does the grandpa? Is he passing down knowledge or just entertaining his grandkid with a story.
Shake Off the Cobwebs: Eitherway, if the ORAS encounter is canon, then that is a major blow against at least the original intention of the Regigigas lore. It now longer has been sleeping for centuries, it sounds like every century or so it wakes up and gets some exercise in (and apparently in a secret way that the guardian of Snowpoint Temple have no clue it does it). Like, as we discussed, already we're seeing some "decay" of the reason that it has Slow Start, but those are from different Regigigas; at the very least it was still the canon reason for the Sinnoh Regigigas... but now I guess now either.
UNLESS There Is Another: Or, maybe there is another Regigigas in Hoenn. Somehow the grandpa learned this, presumed it was the same Regigigas in Sinnoh, and filled in the gaps meaning he came up with the story (or at least someone he knew). Of course that still doesn't explain things like how the grandpa (or whoever told him) knew that in the first place. Like, the sealed chambers are still sealed in ORAS, so unless there's actually a batch of them how can anyone know of the Titan Trio (though there being multiple would mean Brandon could canonically have his Titan Trio).
Yeah, overall I do think the Regigigas lore needs a new chapter to it. It's no longer a sleeping titan that was underneath Sinnoh Temple for centuries, they've made too many instances of both it and the Titan Trio that there's multiple of them. Now this isn't a bad thing, as I said it would allow them to improve Slow Start, and establishing new lore let's them expand on what they could do with it in the future.
My point exactly.
