So, what's the next batch after this? Might as well plan ahead.
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Megas For All (Read the whole 1st post and check current slate)
- Thread starter acestriker19
- Start date
- Status
Vileplume, Venomoth, Persian, and Golduck.
It's the next four uncompleted, unreserved Megas on the list. These are the remaining sets for Kanto Pokemon (luckily divisible by 4!)
Times will generally be from 8:00 PST on the first date to 8:00 PST on the last, but this is subject to change.
Also, regarding spritework/models for the Megas, does anyone have any ideas as to how to illustrate each Mega to differentiate it from its base form on a simulator? Currently the best ideas we have are using the shiny form for the Mega, or having some sort of mark on the sprite. Anyone have better suggestions? I was thinking maybe user-submitted spritework for them, but I'm not sure how receptive the userbase would be to that, so testing the waters here.
EDIT: Fixed dates
Times will generally be from 8:00 PST on the first date to 8:00 PST on the last, but this is subject to change.
5/23-5/25
Vileplume
Venomoth
Persian
Golduck
5/25-5/27
Primeape
Arcanine
Golem
Slowbro
5/27-5/29
Dodrio
Dewgong
Muk
Hypno
5/29-5/31
Electrode
Exeggutor
Marowak
Hitmonlee
5/31-6/2
Hitmonchan
Weezing
Seaking
Jynx
6/2-6/4
Vaporeon
Jolteon
Omastar
Moltres
Vileplume
Venomoth
Persian
Golduck
5/25-5/27
Primeape
Arcanine
Golem
Slowbro
5/27-5/29
Dodrio
Dewgong
Muk
Hypno
5/29-5/31
Electrode
Exeggutor
Marowak
Hitmonlee
5/31-6/2
Hitmonchan
Weezing
Seaking
Jynx
6/2-6/4
Vaporeon
Jolteon
Omastar
Moltres
Also, regarding spritework/models for the Megas, does anyone have any ideas as to how to illustrate each Mega to differentiate it from its base form on a simulator? Currently the best ideas we have are using the shiny form for the Mega, or having some sort of mark on the sprite. Anyone have better suggestions? I was thinking maybe user-submitted spritework for them, but I'm not sure how receptive the userbase would be to that, so testing the waters here.
EDIT: Fixed dates
Last edited:
Check your dates m8 you have 8 mons slated for 5/23 - 5/25
We could just change the name and type
Whats stopping people from nicknaming their megas as others to have better matchups?
In that case we'd have to do someting other than the shiny form
Is that 8 AM or 8 PM, PST?
PM. Nobody should be forced to get up at 8AM unless mandatory
Congratulations to the creators of all the selected Megas! Good job!
Alright, so I'll kick things off for this set of prospective Megas. I tend to write a lot, so I put each Mega in its own individual hide tag.
Vileplume
Vileplume
Typing: Grass / Poison -----> Grass / Poison
Abilities: Chlorophyll / Effect Spore -----> Stench
BST: 75/80/85/100/90/50 -----> 75/120/85/110/90/110
New moves: Extrasensory, Zen Headbutt, Dark Pulse
Vileplume is a cool-looking Pokemon. It's a Grass-type flower, but instead of being all pink and pretty, it's instead based on a Rafflesia, which smells like rotting meat--hence the Poison-typing. Unfortunately for Vileplume, it was introduced in Gen I, along with other Grass/Poison types like Venusaur and Victreebel. Venusaur as we now know is a superior defensive Pokemon, while Victreebel takes more advantage of the sun than Chlorophyll Vileplume. In Gen VI, things only got worse for poor Vileplume with the introduction of Roserade, overshadowing Vileplume's niche as a specially-based Grass/Poison attacker. Amoonguss beat out Vileplume in any support-based sets with the introduction of Black and White, hurting its viability even further. This Mega tries to give Vileplume a new niche that distinguishes it from its fellow Grass/Poison-types.
To start off, let's discuss the stat changes. Mega Vileplume morphs from a bulky specially-oriented tank to a quick, physical attacker. Venusaur does defense better, Victreebel is superior under sun, Roserade's a stronger special attacker, and Amoonguss exceeds in supporting roles. Vileplume's typing is far too integral to it's flavor for me to make a change, so I went ahead and made Mega Vileplume fill in a role that had not yet been filled by another Grass/Poison type, in this case a physical attacker. Now, this actually is rather neat in my opinion; while some Megas switch a Pokemon from offense to defense or vice versa, very few switch attacking spectrums as well; by this I mean that most Megas if they switch concept go from a Special attacker to a Special tank. Mega Vileplume, on the other hand, goes from a Special tank to a Physical attacker; this means that an opponent designed to handle a specially-based foe may be completely caught off guard when Mega Vileplume switches to a physical orientation. I really wanted to boost at least one of Vileplume's defenses, but it needed the Attack boost sorely to fill the role of a physical attacker, and the Speed boost was also necessary in order to solidify its transition from tank to attacker. Additionally, there was another reason for the switch as well...
Replacing Chlorophyll or Effect Spore on Mega Vileplume is Stench, an ability that, given Vileplume's Pokedex entries and origin in the Rafflesia, one has to wonder why it doesn't already have. Stench already belongs to many other Poison-type Pokemon, so it isn't exactly a rare ability. For a few generations after its release, it did precisely nothing in battle (it reduced the encounter rate outside of battle, but had no effect against trainers). Eventually it was given the effect of a 10% chance to flinch the opponent whenever the user attacks. It's a nice bonus, but it doesn't exactly happen often (same chance as Freeze), so it's not nearly on the same level as Paraflinching or the like. In particular, however, a major reason why you never see Stench in competitive play (aside from the fact that most owners have better abilities) is because no owner has particularly good speed, something that is necessary to even pull off a flinch on an opponent in the first place. With base 84 Speed, Skuntank is the current fastest user, and even then has Aftermath to use instead; no holder breaks the 100 Speed mark. Stench however, is a great ability flavorwise, and I think that it would be nice to give some Pokemon a niche in being a viable user of it; Vileplume, since almost all Pokedex entries refer to its horrible smell, seems like a prime candidate. Since I was already pushing it towards the physically attacking route, decent speed was already a given, and it was a great opportunity to further differentiate Vileplume by making it the fastest (and perhaps only viable) user of Stench. Extrasensory, Zen Headbutt, and Dark Pulse are all moves that I felt Vileplume could feasibly learn (sorry, no Sky Attack here) that also have a built-in chance of flinching. Paraflinching, luckily, shouldn't be a problem with Mega Vileplume. An extra 10% on moves isn't nearly as often as the 60% granted by Serene Grace, and its best paralysis move is the inaccurate Stun Spore. Stench gives it a new niche unoccupied by any other Pokemon, without having to work with anything flavorwise not already present in standard Vileplume.
Mega Vileplume differentiates itself from other Grass/Poison Pokemon by being a physical attacker, accomplished by a Speed- and Attack-boost. Additionally, it creates its own niche by being the only truly viable user of Stench as an ability. Both of these together should be enough to make Mega Vileplume a unique, original choice in this metagame.
Venomoth
Venomoth
Typing: Bug / Poison -----> Bug / Poison
Abilities: Shield Dust / Tinted Lens / Wonder Skin -----> Multiscale
BST: 70/65/60/90/75/90 -----> 70/95/85/110/80/110
As far as Bug/Poison-types go, Venomoth is likely the best. Tinted Lens, Quiver Dance, Sleep Powder, and Baton Pass make it a viable choice even in the upper tiers, where Bug-types that aren't part-Steel or Volcarona are shunned. With it's just-the-right-combination of movepool, ability, and stats, it functions well both as a passer and abuser of the powerful Quiver Dance. With that being said, buffing Venomoth in any manner would have to be done very carefully; too strong, and it becomes too powerful of an abuser of Quiver Dance; too bulky or fast, and it has a much easier time Baton Passing Quiver Dance boosts to a Pokemon more capable of putting them to use. How could this be solved?
Well, first came the ability. Bar something like Contrary, Venomoth would be able to pass sweeps no matter what ability it had. Shield Dust and Wonder Skin pushed Venomoth into a more defensive position--possibly viable, but a defensive Venomoth would have an even easier time passing Quiver Dances. Tinted Lens would at least give Venomoth incentive to stay in rather than solely pass boosts. Though its a rather powerful ability, it wasn't exactly broken on regular Venomoth, and if one was careful about the stat changes, it shouldn't be broken on Mega Venomoth, either. Thanks to Venomoth's lack of recovery, Multiscale likely will only work once, kind of a less reliable Sturdy for it to set up Quiver Dance.
Handling the stat changes was probably the most arduous task of creating Mega Venomoth. The combination of Quiver Dance and Baton Pass had to be taken into account for every stat change. I settled on moderate changes to the stats boosted by Quiver Dance, since Mega Venomoth would already likely be boosting those stats on its own. I boosted Special Defense the least because a too-bulky Quiver Passer is a scary thing indeed. Here I faced a problem. I still had another 55 points to work with, and didn't know what to do with them. Special Attack and Defense didn't need anything else considering Quiver Dance, and too much Speed would make the caution with Defense moot, as Venomoth could simply pass off its boosts before it was even hit by an attack; 110 was already starting to push it. At the same time, I didn't want to neuter Mega Venomoth by shoving all the remaining points to attack, as then it would be worse off than standard Venomoth. In the end, I relocated 30 points into Attack to avoid bulking up Venomoth too much, and put the rest in Defense, still keeping it slightly lower than Venomoth's Special Defense. Luckily, despite the buffed defenses, Venomothite prevents Mega Venomoth from holding Black Sludge, and its next best form is healing is the inconsistent Giga Drain. Mega Venomoth trades in passive recovery for increased bulk on both sides. In regards to moves, between Baton Pass, Quiver Dance, Sleep Powder, Bug Buzz, and Sludge Bomb, Venomoth already had everything it needed to be a decent passer of abuser of Quiver Dance; no new moves necessary here.
The main problem with creating a Venomoth that occupied a different niche than standard Venomoth was that, no matter what that niche was, it would have to be better than Quiver Pass to warrant its use, and there aren't many niches that can claim that. Before deciding to simply buff Mega Venomoth just enough to warrant its use over Quiver Pass Venomoth, I also considered a variety of other options: Tinted Lens, Wonder Skin anti-support, Toxic Spikes+Sticky Web support. In all of these options, the fact that Venomoth had Quiver Dance and Baton Pass simply made its intended purpose obsolete; additionally, with the stat arrangements of each of these purposes, Quiver Pass only became even stronger than it is in this set, further marginalizing the set's original purpose. So, I conceded that if I couldn't adequately surpass the viability of Quiver Pass Venomoth without severely affecting flavor or balance of the Pokemon, I should just run with it and make it as balanced as possible. As they say, "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
Venomoth was certainly a hard Mega to create, but it was a lot of fun. It's ability to Quiver Pass severely restricted what one could and couldn't do in order to keep its power reasonable. Because the mere presence of Quiver Dance and Baton Pass in Venomoth's movepool overshadowed any other intention in mind when designing Mega Venomoth, I decided that the best way to go with it was to play to its strengths and make it a slightly better regular Tinted Lens Venomoth. Though Mega Venomoth walks a tight rope, I think that I adequately managed to balance its strengths and its weaknesses.
Persian
Persian
Typing: Normal -----> Normal / Dark
Abilities: Limber / Technician / Unnerve -----> Super Luck
BST: 65/70/60/65/65/115 -----> 65/130/70/65/75/135
New moves: Pursuit, Crunch, Cross Chop
Is it just me, or does the XY model of Persian look bulkier than it used to as a sprite? Seems more mountain lion/puma-esque to me. Regardless, this doesn't translate much to its stats, as all of them sans speed are rather underwhelming. Unfortunately, Persian isn't exactly used often in the current metagame, given its poor stats and overshadowing by other Normals, even in NU. However, this wasn't always the case. In Gen I, thanks to the buggy mechanics and errors of Red and Blue, speed was a major factor in determining critical hits. And since Persian was so fast, it was also exceptional at landing crits. This Mega sets out to be an homage to Persian's Red and Blue days, without all of the bugs and glitches associated with it.
To start, the best ability to give to a Pokemon focused on critical hits (other than Sniper, which didn't fit as well flavorwise) was Super Luck. It went with the Meowth's whole schtick of good fortune and prosperity, as well as the whole "lucky cat" trope. Raising the critical hit chances of Persian's moves from 6.25% to 12.5% isn't too much of a boost, but thanks to the new XY crit mechanics, if Persian uses any move with a high crit-ratio (ie: Slash, Night Slash, Shadow Claw, all of which it already has access to), this chance jumps up to a whopping 50% chance! to Take advantage of this, I also gave Persian Cross Chop to deal with Steels and Rocks that would stop its Normal-type STAB attacks. While the crit chance may seem out of hand, the new XY crit mechanics also reduced the power boost of critical hits to only 50%. Factoring in accuracy, the average base power of Cross Chop is in fact 100; 131.25 for Slash (weaker than Return, unfortunately, but without the ability to break through defense boosts); 87.5 for non-STAB high-crit moves. In short, while a 50% critical hit rate helps Persian break through things like Calm Mind and Bulk Up sweepers, it on average doesn't give a very high boost to the raw power of its moves.
The Dark-typing is admittedly largely a flavor addition. However, it does have some competitive impact as well. Part-Dark typing gives Mega Persian a weaknesss to Fairy-types; however, it also gives it an immunity to Psychic-types, who commonly use the defensive set-up moves (mostly Calm Mind) that Persian is designed to break through with its critical hits. A weakness to Bug-types is offset by a STAB against Ghost-types, who Persian previously would not be able to touch with its lone STAB. Accompanying its type addition are Pursuit and Crunch, two standard Dark-type physical moves. In terms of stats, Persian gets the largest boosts in Attack and Speed, mainly to cement its role as a physical attacker. 10 went into each of its defenses to bulk it up just a tad, and to prevent all of its points from being shoehorned into just Attack and Speed. Persian already had rather mediocre stats, so I didn't feel as strong of a need to "throw away" as many points into useless stats as I did with some other prospective Megas.
Mega Persian is a callback to Red and Blue Persian, king of critical hits. While the nerfed XY crit mechanics may have cut down on Mega-Persian's prospective power, it also made relatively consistent critting a viable strategy by reducing the number of stages it took to get a Pokemon's critical hit ratio to a mostly reliable rate (50% is about the same as the chances for Charge Beam or Fiery Dance's secondary effects to occur, for perspective). A new Dark-typing differentiates Mega Persian from other pure-Normals, and is a mixed bag for it, giving it new weaknesses in Bug and Fairy, but new weapons against Psychic and Ghost. It's been 5 generations and over 10 years since Persian really had anything to truly have a niche against other fast Normal-attackers, and while Super Luck isn't a game-changing or revolutionary ability for it, maybe is just enough to change that.
Golduck
Golduck
Typing: Water -----> Water / Psychic
Abilities: Damp / Cloud Nine / Swift Swim -----> Cloud Nine
BST: 80/82/78/95/80/85 -----> 80/82/108/130/110/90
New moves: Power Gem
To be completely honest, I thought Golduck already was Psychic type before I looked it up and was corrected. Did anyone else make that mistake? I mean, Psyduck basically runs on headache-fueled mind powers, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one that assumed the line was part-Psychic too.
Anyways, Golduck gets the Psychic-typing because in my opinion it should've had it anyways. For a competitive reason, look at Slowbro and Starmie, representatives of the two currently-existing Water/Psychic lines. Both are notable defensive and offensive threats, respectively, so if we want to improve on Golduck (which we sorely, sorely do), Water/Psychic, in addition to being a good typing flavorwise, is a good place to start. Luckily, Golduck already has a plethora of Psychic moves to choose from (seriously, why isn't it a Psychic-type in the first place? Psychic, Psyshock, Confusion, Zen Headbutt, Amnesia, Wonder Room, Psybeam, Telekinesis... and that's not even all of them.), so I didn't need to make any movepool additions really. Power Gem is there because Game Freak seems bent on making Golduck seem like it has things but it really doesn't even beyond the Psychic-typing. The poor thing has a freaking gem on its forehead for crying out loud, even Persian got Power Gem.
The one thing Golduck has (or had) going for it, at least in Gen III, was a unique ability: Cloud Nine. It temporarily stops the effects of weather while the Pokemon is in play. Now, this ability could have been a game-changer if two things were true:
1. It actually stopped weather, like some assumed, instead of just pausing it, and...
2. Something decent actually got it. (Sorry, Altaria and Lickilicky)
With the weather nerf in Gen VI, some thought that the death of weather teams was near. But as we now know, this isn't true, and weather teams are still relatively common in OU. Enter Mega Golduck; with Cloud Nine and buffed defenses, it is capable of foiling the plans of many weather-dependent Pokemon. Tyranitar and Cradily lose Sandstorm's Special Defense boost. Mega Houndoom loses Solar Power while Victreebel no longer has Chlorophyll, letting Golduck outspeed it and slam it with an Ice Beam. Kabutops loses its Swift Swim boost, too, and Tornadus misses out on its perfect-accuracy Hurricanes. Walrein no longer gets auto-recovery, and... unfortunately Hail sucks too much for me to think of another example. Basically, Golduck can check weather-dependent Pokemon with Cloud Nine, useful in a weather-heavy metagame. Cloud Nine also could help it find a niche on weather teams of it's own, too. Need a Water-type to help deal with other Fire-types on your Sun team? Mega Golduck not only temporarily takes away the sun to neuter the opponent, but also doesn't have its Water-type moves halved by the weather. If you think about it, Cloud Nine is actually quite the decent ability, if only something usable got it as well.
Of course, being able to stop weather doesn't necessarily mean that Golduck will be able to defeat weather-dependent Pokemon with ease. For example, even without rain, switching Golduck in on say, Thundurus, would not be a smart idea. Cloud Nine enables Golduck to stop Pokemon on opposing weather teams that it would normally be able to had weather not been present (see the above Victreebel example). It does not let it defeat every Pokemon that relies on weather. Additionally, Cloud Nine doesn't stop weather, only pauses it; should Golduck be forced out, weather effects would resume as usual, for better or for worse. Golduck's Special Attack and Speed are boosted to help it hit harder and faster to take out some of the weather-heavy Pokemon it's intended to, while the boosted Defenses enable it to survive a few more hits, as if it went down too quickly the weather nullification would not be anything more than a minor annoyance to the opposing team; the longer Golduck is in play, the more turns of weather it wastes against its opponent.
Golduck really got the short end of the stick when it came to viability. It for some reason never was a Psychic-type, never got Power Gem (again, not particularly useful competitively but still), and never was particularly good at using what was once its signature ability. Mega Golduck tries to remedy all of these problems, giving Golduck a niche in being a unique candidate in surprising and stopping weather teams. Golduck was always a cool-looking duck...platypus...thing...(kappa?). While its many of its common fellow pond-dwellers (Politoed, Gyarados, Azumarill, and let's just forget about Seaking) have risen from the depths to become top-tier competitive Pokemon, Golduck has never really seen the light of competitive viability. While this Mega certainly won't raise it to the level of these Pokemon, it hopefully will give it a unique enough niche for people to consider it when building a team.
Alright, so I'll kick things off for this set of prospective Megas. I tend to write a lot, so I put each Mega in its own individual hide tag.
Vileplume
Vileplume
Typing: Grass / Poison -----> Grass / Poison
Abilities: Chlorophyll / Effect Spore -----> Stench
BST: 75/80/85/100/90/50 -----> 75/120/85/110/90/110
New moves: Extrasensory, Zen Headbutt, Dark Pulse
Vileplume is a cool-looking Pokemon. It's a Grass-type flower, but instead of being all pink and pretty, it's instead based on a Rafflesia, which smells like rotting meat--hence the Poison-typing. Unfortunately for Vileplume, it was introduced in Gen I, along with other Grass/Poison types like Venusaur and Victreebel. Venusaur as we now know is a superior defensive Pokemon, while Victreebel takes more advantage of the sun than Chlorophyll Vileplume. In Gen VI, things only got worse for poor Vileplume with the introduction of Roserade, overshadowing Vileplume's niche as a specially-based Grass/Poison attacker. Amoonguss beat out Vileplume in any support-based sets with the introduction of Black and White, hurting its viability even further. This Mega tries to give Vileplume a new niche that distinguishes it from its fellow Grass/Poison-types.
To start off, let's discuss the stat changes. Mega Vileplume morphs from a bulky specially-oriented tank to a quick, physical attacker. Venusaur does defense better, Victreebel is superior under sun, Roserade's a stronger special attacker, and Amoonguss exceeds in supporting roles. Vileplume's typing is far too integral to it's flavor for me to make a change, so I went ahead and made Mega Vileplume fill in a role that had not yet been filled by another Grass/Poison type, in this case a physical attacker. Now, this actually is rather neat in my opinion; while some Megas switch a Pokemon from offense to defense or vice versa, very few switch attacking spectrums as well; by this I mean that most Megas if they switch concept go from a Special attacker to a Special tank. Mega Vileplume, on the other hand, goes from a Special tank to a Physical attacker; this means that an opponent designed to handle a specially-based foe may be completely caught off guard when Mega Vileplume switches to a physical orientation. I really wanted to boost at least one of Vileplume's defenses, but it needed the Attack boost sorely to fill the role of a physical attacker, and the Speed boost was also necessary in order to solidify its transition from tank to attacker. Additionally, there was another reason for the switch as well...
Replacing Chlorophyll or Effect Spore on Mega Vileplume is Stench, an ability that, given Vileplume's Pokedex entries and origin in the Rafflesia, one has to wonder why it doesn't already have. Stench already belongs to many other Poison-type Pokemon, so it isn't exactly a rare ability. For a few generations after its release, it did precisely nothing in battle (it reduced the encounter rate outside of battle, but had no effect against trainers). Eventually it was given the effect of a 10% chance to flinch the opponent whenever the user attacks. It's a nice bonus, but it doesn't exactly happen often (same chance as Freeze), so it's not nearly on the same level as Paraflinching or the like. In particular, however, a major reason why you never see Stench in competitive play (aside from the fact that most owners have better abilities) is because no owner has particularly good speed, something that is necessary to even pull off a flinch on an opponent in the first place. With base 84 Speed, Skuntank is the current fastest user, and even then has Aftermath to use instead; no holder breaks the 100 Speed mark. Stench however, is a great ability flavorwise, and I think that it would be nice to give some Pokemon a niche in being a viable user of it; Vileplume, since almost all Pokedex entries refer to its horrible smell, seems like a prime candidate. Since I was already pushing it towards the physically attacking route, decent speed was already a given, and it was a great opportunity to further differentiate Vileplume by making it the fastest (and perhaps only viable) user of Stench. Extrasensory, Zen Headbutt, and Dark Pulse are all moves that I felt Vileplume could feasibly learn (sorry, no Sky Attack here) that also have a built-in chance of flinching. Paraflinching, luckily, shouldn't be a problem with Mega Vileplume. An extra 10% on moves isn't nearly as often as the 60% granted by Serene Grace, and its best paralysis move is the inaccurate Stun Spore. Stench gives it a new niche unoccupied by any other Pokemon, without having to work with anything flavorwise not already present in standard Vileplume.
Mega Vileplume differentiates itself from other Grass/Poison Pokemon by being a physical attacker, accomplished by a Speed- and Attack-boost. Additionally, it creates its own niche by being the only truly viable user of Stench as an ability. Both of these together should be enough to make Mega Vileplume a unique, original choice in this metagame.
Venomoth
Venomoth
Typing: Bug / Poison -----> Bug / Poison
Abilities: Shield Dust / Tinted Lens / Wonder Skin -----> Multiscale
BST: 70/65/60/90/75/90 -----> 70/95/85/110/80/110
As far as Bug/Poison-types go, Venomoth is likely the best. Tinted Lens, Quiver Dance, Sleep Powder, and Baton Pass make it a viable choice even in the upper tiers, where Bug-types that aren't part-Steel or Volcarona are shunned. With it's just-the-right-combination of movepool, ability, and stats, it functions well both as a passer and abuser of the powerful Quiver Dance. With that being said, buffing Venomoth in any manner would have to be done very carefully; too strong, and it becomes too powerful of an abuser of Quiver Dance; too bulky or fast, and it has a much easier time Baton Passing Quiver Dance boosts to a Pokemon more capable of putting them to use. How could this be solved?
Well, first came the ability. Bar something like Contrary, Venomoth would be able to pass sweeps no matter what ability it had. Shield Dust and Wonder Skin pushed Venomoth into a more defensive position--possibly viable, but a defensive Venomoth would have an even easier time passing Quiver Dances. Tinted Lens would at least give Venomoth incentive to stay in rather than solely pass boosts. Though its a rather powerful ability, it wasn't exactly broken on regular Venomoth, and if one was careful about the stat changes, it shouldn't be broken on Mega Venomoth, either. Thanks to Venomoth's lack of recovery, Multiscale likely will only work once, kind of a less reliable Sturdy for it to set up Quiver Dance.
Handling the stat changes was probably the most arduous task of creating Mega Venomoth. The combination of Quiver Dance and Baton Pass had to be taken into account for every stat change. I settled on moderate changes to the stats boosted by Quiver Dance, since Mega Venomoth would already likely be boosting those stats on its own. I boosted Special Defense the least because a too-bulky Quiver Passer is a scary thing indeed. Here I faced a problem. I still had another 55 points to work with, and didn't know what to do with them. Special Attack and Defense didn't need anything else considering Quiver Dance, and too much Speed would make the caution with Defense moot, as Venomoth could simply pass off its boosts before it was even hit by an attack; 110 was already starting to push it. At the same time, I didn't want to neuter Mega Venomoth by shoving all the remaining points to attack, as then it would be worse off than standard Venomoth. In the end, I relocated 30 points into Attack to avoid bulking up Venomoth too much, and put the rest in Defense, still keeping it slightly lower than Venomoth's Special Defense. Luckily, despite the buffed defenses, Venomothite prevents Mega Venomoth from holding Black Sludge, and its next best form is healing is the inconsistent Giga Drain. Mega Venomoth trades in passive recovery for increased bulk on both sides. In regards to moves, between Baton Pass, Quiver Dance, Sleep Powder, Bug Buzz, and Sludge Bomb, Venomoth already had everything it needed to be a decent passer of abuser of Quiver Dance; no new moves necessary here.
The main problem with creating a Venomoth that occupied a different niche than standard Venomoth was that, no matter what that niche was, it would have to be better than Quiver Pass to warrant its use, and there aren't many niches that can claim that. Before deciding to simply buff Mega Venomoth just enough to warrant its use over Quiver Pass Venomoth, I also considered a variety of other options: Tinted Lens, Wonder Skin anti-support, Toxic Spikes+Sticky Web support. In all of these options, the fact that Venomoth had Quiver Dance and Baton Pass simply made its intended purpose obsolete; additionally, with the stat arrangements of each of these purposes, Quiver Pass only became even stronger than it is in this set, further marginalizing the set's original purpose. So, I conceded that if I couldn't adequately surpass the viability of Quiver Pass Venomoth without severely affecting flavor or balance of the Pokemon, I should just run with it and make it as balanced as possible. As they say, "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
Venomoth was certainly a hard Mega to create, but it was a lot of fun. It's ability to Quiver Pass severely restricted what one could and couldn't do in order to keep its power reasonable. Because the mere presence of Quiver Dance and Baton Pass in Venomoth's movepool overshadowed any other intention in mind when designing Mega Venomoth, I decided that the best way to go with it was to play to its strengths and make it a slightly better regular Tinted Lens Venomoth. Though Mega Venomoth walks a tight rope, I think that I adequately managed to balance its strengths and its weaknesses.
Persian
Persian
Typing: Normal -----> Normal / Dark
Abilities: Limber / Technician / Unnerve -----> Super Luck
BST: 65/70/60/65/65/115 -----> 65/130/70/65/75/135
New moves: Pursuit, Crunch, Cross Chop
Is it just me, or does the XY model of Persian look bulkier than it used to as a sprite? Seems more mountain lion/puma-esque to me. Regardless, this doesn't translate much to its stats, as all of them sans speed are rather underwhelming. Unfortunately, Persian isn't exactly used often in the current metagame, given its poor stats and overshadowing by other Normals, even in NU. However, this wasn't always the case. In Gen I, thanks to the buggy mechanics and errors of Red and Blue, speed was a major factor in determining critical hits. And since Persian was so fast, it was also exceptional at landing crits. This Mega sets out to be an homage to Persian's Red and Blue days, without all of the bugs and glitches associated with it.
To start, the best ability to give to a Pokemon focused on critical hits (other than Sniper, which didn't fit as well flavorwise) was Super Luck. It went with the Meowth's whole schtick of good fortune and prosperity, as well as the whole "lucky cat" trope. Raising the critical hit chances of Persian's moves from 6.25% to 12.5% isn't too much of a boost, but thanks to the new XY crit mechanics, if Persian uses any move with a high crit-ratio (ie: Slash, Night Slash, Shadow Claw, all of which it already has access to), this chance jumps up to a whopping 50% chance! to Take advantage of this, I also gave Persian Cross Chop to deal with Steels and Rocks that would stop its Normal-type STAB attacks. While the crit chance may seem out of hand, the new XY crit mechanics also reduced the power boost of critical hits to only 50%. Factoring in accuracy, the average base power of Cross Chop is in fact 100; 131.25 for Slash (weaker than Return, unfortunately, but without the ability to break through defense boosts); 87.5 for non-STAB high-crit moves. In short, while a 50% critical hit rate helps Persian break through things like Calm Mind and Bulk Up sweepers, it on average doesn't give a very high boost to the raw power of its moves.
The Dark-typing is admittedly largely a flavor addition. However, it does have some competitive impact as well. Part-Dark typing gives Mega Persian a weaknesss to Fairy-types; however, it also gives it an immunity to Psychic-types, who commonly use the defensive set-up moves (mostly Calm Mind) that Persian is designed to break through with its critical hits. A weakness to Bug-types is offset by a STAB against Ghost-types, who Persian previously would not be able to touch with its lone STAB. Accompanying its type addition are Pursuit and Crunch, two standard Dark-type physical moves. In terms of stats, Persian gets the largest boosts in Attack and Speed, mainly to cement its role as a physical attacker. 10 went into each of its defenses to bulk it up just a tad, and to prevent all of its points from being shoehorned into just Attack and Speed. Persian already had rather mediocre stats, so I didn't feel as strong of a need to "throw away" as many points into useless stats as I did with some other prospective Megas.
Mega Persian is a callback to Red and Blue Persian, king of critical hits. While the nerfed XY crit mechanics may have cut down on Mega-Persian's prospective power, it also made relatively consistent critting a viable strategy by reducing the number of stages it took to get a Pokemon's critical hit ratio to a mostly reliable rate (50% is about the same as the chances for Charge Beam or Fiery Dance's secondary effects to occur, for perspective). A new Dark-typing differentiates Mega Persian from other pure-Normals, and is a mixed bag for it, giving it new weaknesses in Bug and Fairy, but new weapons against Psychic and Ghost. It's been 5 generations and over 10 years since Persian really had anything to truly have a niche against other fast Normal-attackers, and while Super Luck isn't a game-changing or revolutionary ability for it, maybe is just enough to change that.
Golduck
Golduck
Typing: Water -----> Water / Psychic
Abilities: Damp / Cloud Nine / Swift Swim -----> Cloud Nine
BST: 80/82/78/95/80/85 -----> 80/82/108/130/110/90
New moves: Power Gem
To be completely honest, I thought Golduck already was Psychic type before I looked it up and was corrected. Did anyone else make that mistake? I mean, Psyduck basically runs on headache-fueled mind powers, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one that assumed the line was part-Psychic too.
Anyways, Golduck gets the Psychic-typing because in my opinion it should've had it anyways. For a competitive reason, look at Slowbro and Starmie, representatives of the two currently-existing Water/Psychic lines. Both are notable defensive and offensive threats, respectively, so if we want to improve on Golduck (which we sorely, sorely do), Water/Psychic, in addition to being a good typing flavorwise, is a good place to start. Luckily, Golduck already has a plethora of Psychic moves to choose from (seriously, why isn't it a Psychic-type in the first place? Psychic, Psyshock, Confusion, Zen Headbutt, Amnesia, Wonder Room, Psybeam, Telekinesis... and that's not even all of them.), so I didn't need to make any movepool additions really. Power Gem is there because Game Freak seems bent on making Golduck seem like it has things but it really doesn't even beyond the Psychic-typing. The poor thing has a freaking gem on its forehead for crying out loud, even Persian got Power Gem.
The one thing Golduck has (or had) going for it, at least in Gen III, was a unique ability: Cloud Nine. It temporarily stops the effects of weather while the Pokemon is in play. Now, this ability could have been a game-changer if two things were true:
1. It actually stopped weather, like some assumed, instead of just pausing it, and...
2. Something decent actually got it. (Sorry, Altaria and Lickilicky)
With the weather nerf in Gen VI, some thought that the death of weather teams was near. But as we now know, this isn't true, and weather teams are still relatively common in OU. Enter Mega Golduck; with Cloud Nine and buffed defenses, it is capable of foiling the plans of many weather-dependent Pokemon. Tyranitar and Cradily lose Sandstorm's Special Defense boost. Mega Houndoom loses Solar Power while Victreebel no longer has Chlorophyll, letting Golduck outspeed it and slam it with an Ice Beam. Kabutops loses its Swift Swim boost, too, and Tornadus misses out on its perfect-accuracy Hurricanes. Walrein no longer gets auto-recovery, and... unfortunately Hail sucks too much for me to think of another example. Basically, Golduck can check weather-dependent Pokemon with Cloud Nine, useful in a weather-heavy metagame. Cloud Nine also could help it find a niche on weather teams of it's own, too. Need a Water-type to help deal with other Fire-types on your Sun team? Mega Golduck not only temporarily takes away the sun to neuter the opponent, but also doesn't have its Water-type moves halved by the weather. If you think about it, Cloud Nine is actually quite the decent ability, if only something usable got it as well.
Of course, being able to stop weather doesn't necessarily mean that Golduck will be able to defeat weather-dependent Pokemon with ease. For example, even without rain, switching Golduck in on say, Thundurus, would not be a smart idea. Cloud Nine enables Golduck to stop Pokemon on opposing weather teams that it would normally be able to had weather not been present (see the above Victreebel example). It does not let it defeat every Pokemon that relies on weather. Additionally, Cloud Nine doesn't stop weather, only pauses it; should Golduck be forced out, weather effects would resume as usual, for better or for worse. Golduck's Special Attack and Speed are boosted to help it hit harder and faster to take out some of the weather-heavy Pokemon it's intended to, while the boosted Defenses enable it to survive a few more hits, as if it went down too quickly the weather nullification would not be anything more than a minor annoyance to the opposing team; the longer Golduck is in play, the more turns of weather it wastes against its opponent.
Golduck really got the short end of the stick when it came to viability. It for some reason never was a Psychic-type, never got Power Gem (again, not particularly useful competitively but still), and never was particularly good at using what was once its signature ability. Mega Golduck tries to remedy all of these problems, giving Golduck a niche in being a unique candidate in surprising and stopping weather teams. Golduck was always a cool-looking duck...platypus...thing...(kappa?). While its many of its common fellow pond-dwellers (Politoed, Gyarados, Azumarill, and let's just forget about Seaking) have risen from the depths to become top-tier competitive Pokemon, Golduck has never really seen the light of competitive viability. While this Mega certainly won't raise it to the level of these Pokemon, it hopefully will give it a unique enough niche for people to consider it when building a team.
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(Damn clapyourhands let me announce the new mons first XD)
Congrats to our winners and thank you to everyone who submitted megas for the last round since voting is now over...
Congrats to our winners and thank you to everyone who submitted megas for the last round since voting is now over...
Submissions are now open for own second slate which is...
Vileplume
Venomoth
Persian
Golduck
Just like before, you are allowed to submit one mega for each pokemon listed above. Make sure to follow the rules listed in the OP with your submissions or it will not be counted. You will have another 24 hours to submit for each of these so make sure to submit now and don't delay!
Gonna take a shot at Persian, mainly because I have 0 inspiration for the others
Persian
Typing: Normal -----> Normal / Dark
Abilities: Limber / Technician / Unnerve -----> Prankster
BST: 65/70/60/65/65/115 -----> 65/100/80/75/95/125
New Moves: Parting Shot, Thunder Wave, Encore
As opposed to an offensive set which Persian looks like it has decent potential for, I decided to reinvest EVs into bulk and give it a fantastic ability in Prankster. With natural access to Taunt, Toxic, etc. and being given Encore, it makes a great Stallbreaker. It can also cause a dent in offensive teams, with priority parting shot crippling many sweepers.
Persian
Typing: Normal -----> Normal / Dark
Abilities: Limber / Technician / Unnerve -----> Prankster
BST: 65/70/60/65/65/115 -----> 65/100/80/75/95/125
New Moves: Parting Shot, Thunder Wave, Encore
As opposed to an offensive set which Persian looks like it has decent potential for, I decided to reinvest EVs into bulk and give it a fantastic ability in Prankster. With natural access to Taunt, Toxic, etc. and being given Encore, it makes a great Stallbreaker. It can also cause a dent in offensive teams, with priority parting shot crippling many sweepers.
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Oooo girl killem, looks like everyone took my voting advice after all (caps lock such influence)
These new ones look hella fun to make, lemme share some thoughts:
1. VILEPLOOM NEEDS SPORE. FOR REALSIES YOU GUYS. Also if we could change her type to Grass/Dark so she isn't a cheap Mega Venusaur ripoff/Amoonguss clone.
2. Persian's movepool is like 90% normal/dark. So Normal/Dark would be some hella flavourful tasty typing. Prankster is like the most fitting thing ever for something that steals yo coins but it has like no status moves as of now
3. I love the everloving fuck outta venomoth so don't fuk up or i might cry
4. Mega Golduck's design should be a Psyduck with a cape.
These new ones look hella fun to make, lemme share some thoughts:
1. VILEPLOOM NEEDS SPORE. FOR REALSIES YOU GUYS. Also if we could change her type to Grass/Dark so she isn't a cheap Mega Venusaur ripoff/Amoonguss clone.
2. Persian's movepool is like 90% normal/dark. So Normal/Dark would be some hella flavourful tasty typing. Prankster is like the most fitting thing ever for something that steals yo coins but it has like no status moves as of now
3. I love the everloving fuck outta venomoth so don't fuk up or i might cry
4. Mega Golduck's design should be a Psyduck with a cape.
You posted this as I was typung mine, god bless ur brilliant mindGonna take a shot at Persian, mainly because I have 0 inspiration for the others
Persian
Typing: Normal -----> Normal / Dark
Abilities: Limber / Technician / Unnerve -----> Prankster
BST: 65/70/60/65/65/115 -----> 65/80/100/75/95/125
New Moves: Parting Shot, Thunder Wave, Encore
As opposed to an offensive set which Persian looks like it has decent potential for, I decided to reinvest EVs into bulk and give it a fantastic ability in Prankster. With natural access to Taunt, Toxic, etc. and being given Encore, it makes a great Stallbreaker. It can also cause a dent in offensive teams, with priority parting shot crippling many sweepers.
We already have a winner guys, no need to do any more Persian ones, this is literally perf
Edit: not literally perf, I think attack should be higher than def. He still isn't bulky with the def boost, and had no recovery. Besides that tho it's great
I'm thinkin like 105 atk 85 def would be flawless
EDIT: SHIEEET CLAPYOURHANDS IS REALLY GOOD TOO that super luck is really clever and original props to you mang
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Mega Persian
Normal ----> Normal / Dark
Limber / Technician / Unnerve ----> Disarmer, any attack that makes direct contact removes the target's item, and moves are 50% stronger when the target has an item
65 / 70 / 60 / 65 / 65 / 115 (440)----> 65 / 110 / 80 / 75 / 85 / 125 (540)
New Moves: None
No matter how you try, you can't make a Pokemon's stats good if they suck, and I realized that when making Mega Persian. Even when we add 100 points to the BST, it's just hard for Persian to stand out, so I thought I'd take a different approach. Instead of being a run-of-the-mill attacker, Mega Persian has a more disruptive playstyle, adding a new ability that works like a built-in Knock Off, providing excellent power from the get-go, and make Fake Out significantly more useful. Since Persian already has a wide variety of attacks at its disposal, I felt that there was no need to add a new move, and adding a new move could make it broken.
Oooh, Spore is good. Only problem I see is that I don't think Vileplume will ever get it in reality because it isn't a mushroom, and with the current build I have on my proposal that would be an awfully fast Spore, which scares me a bit.
You're right... I didn't even think about that mushroom bit. Hm. What if got an ability that increases the accuracy of powder moves? So SleepPowder would never miss. That'd be cool
Alright, time to take a shot at venomoth.
Venomoth (Venonite)
Poison/Bug-->Psychic/Bug
New Moves: Zen Headbutt ,Swords Dance ,X-Scissor
75/65/60/90/75/90--->75/95/70/100/95/120
Ability: Shield Dust
Concept: Venomoth becomes a mixed sweeper. With his increased speed, he can easily sweep with his expanded physical movepool. If you still want to use him as a cleric, you have swords dance to baton pass.
Question: Can we see how many votes everyone's megas got?
Venomoth (Venonite)
Poison/Bug-->Psychic/Bug
New Moves: Zen Headbutt ,Swords Dance ,X-Scissor
75/65/60/90/75/90--->75/95/70/100/95/120
Ability: Shield Dust
Concept: Venomoth becomes a mixed sweeper. With his increased speed, he can easily sweep with his expanded physical movepool. If you still want to use him as a cleric, you have swords dance to baton pass.
Question: Can we see how many votes everyone's megas got?
That'd be OP
Congratulations to the creators of all the selected Megas! Good job!
Alright, so I'll kick things off for this set of prospective Megas. I tend to write a lot, so I put each Mega in its own individual hide tag.
Persian
Crits boost power by 50%, not 33%. I like everything else about this submission though. The typing and ability are perfect for it.
Persian
Typing: Normal -----> Normal / Dark
Abilities: Limber / Technician / Unnerve -----> Super Luck
BST: 65/70/60/65/65/115 -----> 65/130/70/65/75/135
New moves: Pursuit, Crunch, Cross Chop
Is it just me, or does the XY model of Persian look bulkier than it used to as a sprite? Seems more mountain lion/puma-esque to me. Regardless, this doesn't translate much to its stats, as all of them sans speed are rather underwhelming. Unfortunately, Persian isn't exactly used often in the current metagame, given its poor stats and overshadowing by other Normals, even in NU. However, this wasn't always the case. In Gen I, thanks to the buggy mechanics and errors of Red and Blue, speed was a major factor in determining critical hits. And since Persian was so fast, it was also exceptional at landing crits. This Mega sets out to be an homage to Persian's Red and Blue days, without all of the bugs and glitches associated with it.
To start, the best ability to give to a Pokemon focused on critical hits (other than Sniper, which didn't fit as well flavorwise) was Super Luck. It went with the Meowth's whole schtick of good fortune and prosperity, as well as the whole "lucky cat" trope. Raising the critical hit chances of Persian's moves from 6.25% to 12.5% isn't too much of a boost, but thanks to the new XY crit mechanics, if Persian uses any move with a high crit-ratio (ie: Slash, Night Slash, Shadow Claw, all of which it already has access to), this chance jumps up to a whopping 50% chance! to Take advantage of this, I also gave Persian Cross Chop to deal with Steels and Rocks that would stop its Normal-type STAB attacks. While the crit chance may seem out of hand, the new XY crit mechanics also reduced the power boost of critical hits to only 33%. Factoring in accuracy, the average base power of Cross Chop is in fact 93.2; 122.3 for Slash (weaker than Return, unfortunately, but without the ability to break through defense boosts); 81.7 for non-STAB high-crit moves. In short, while a 50% critical hit rate helps Persian break through things like Calm Mind and Bulk Up sweepers, it on average doesn't give a very high boost to the raw power of its moves.
The Dark-typing is admittedly largely a flavor addition. However, it does have some competitive impact as well. Part-Dark typing gives Mega Persian a weaknesss to Fairy-types; however, it also gives it an immunity to Psychic-types, who commonly use the defensive set-up moves (mostly Calm Mind) that Persian is designed to break through with its critical hits. A weakness to Bug-types is offset by a STAB against Ghost-types, who Persian previously would not be able to touch with its lone STAB. Accompanying its type addition are Pursuit and Crunch, two standard Dark-type physical moves. In terms of stats, Persian gets the largest boosts in Attack and Speed, mainly to cement its role as a physical attacker. 10 went into each of its defenses to bulk it up just a tad, and to prevent all of its points from being shoehorned into just Attack and Speed. Persian already had rather mediocre stats, so I didn't feel as strong of a need to "throw away" as many points into useless stats as I did with some other prospective Megas.
Mega Persian is a callback to Red and Blue Persian, king of critical hits. While the nerfed XY crit mechanics may have cut down on Mega-Persian's prospective power, it also made relatively consistent critting a viable strategy by reducing the number of stages it took to get a Pokemon's critical hit ratio to a mostly reliable rate (50% is about the same as the chances for Charge Beam or Fiery Dance's secondary effects to occur, for perspective). A new Dark-typing differentiates Mega Persian from other pure-Normals, and is a mixed bag for it, giving it new weaknesses in Bug and Fairy, but new weapons against Psychic and Ghost. It's been 5 generations and over 10 years since Persian really had anything to truly have a niche against other fast Normal-attackers, and while Super Luck isn't a game-changing or revolutionary ability for it, maybe is just enough to change that.
Golduck
I like this MegaDuck submission. The reasoning you give for it is really good.
Golduck
Typing: Water -----> Water / Psychic
Abilities: Damp / Cloud Nine / Swift Swim -----> Cloud Nine
BST: 80/82/78/95/80/85 -----> 80/82/108/130/120/95
New moves: Power Gem
To be completely honest, I thought Golduck already was Psychic type before I looked it up and was corrected. Did anyone else make that mistake? I mean, Psyduck basically runs on headache-fueled mind powers, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one that assumed the line was part-Psychic too.
Anyways, Golduck gets the Psychic-typing because in my opinion it should've had it anyways. For a competitive reason, look at Slowbro and Starmie, representatives of the two currently-existing Water/Psychic lines. Both are notable defensive and offensive threats, respectively, so if we want to improve on Golduck (which we sorely, sorely do), Water/Psychic, in addition to being a good typing flavorwise, is a good place to start. Luckily, Golduck already has a plethora of Psychic moves to choose from (seriously, why isn't it a Psychic-type in the first place? Psychic, Psyshock, Confusion, Zen Headbutt, Amnesia, Wonder Room, Psybeam, Telekinesis... and that's not even all of them.), so I didn't need to make any movepool additions really. Power Gem is there because Game Freak seems bent on making Golduck seem like it has things but it really doesn't even beyond the Psychic-typing. The poor thing has a freaking gem on its forehead for crying out loud, even Persian got Power Gem.
The one thing Golduck has (or had) going for it, at least in Gen III, was a unique ability: Cloud Nine. It temporarily stops the effects of weather while the Pokemon is in play. Now, this ability could have been a game-changer if two things were true:
1. It actually stopped weather, like some assumed, instead of just pausing it, and...
2. Something decent actually got it. (Sorry, Altaria and Lickilicky)
With the weather nerf in Gen VI, some thought that the death of weather teams was near. But as we now know, this isn't true, and weather teams are still relatively common in OU. Enter Mega Golduck; with Cloud Nine and buffed defenses, it is capable of foiling the plans of many weather-dependent Pokemon. Tyranitar and Cradily lose Sandstorm's Special Defense boost. Mega Houndoom loses Solar Power while Victreebel no longer has Chlorophyll, letting Golduck outspeed it and slam it with an Ice Beam. Kabutops loses its Swift Swim boost, too, and Tornadus misses out on its perfect-accuracy Hurricanes. Walrein no longer gets auto-recovery, and... unfortunately Hail sucks too much for me to think of another example. Basically, Golduck can check weather-dependent Pokemon with Cloud Nine, useful in a weather-heavy metagame. Cloud Nine also could help it find a niche on weather teams of it's own, too. Need a Water-type to help deal with other Fire-types on your Sun team? Mega Golduck not only temporarily takes away the sun to neuter the opponent, but also doesn't have its Water-type moves halved by the weather. If you think about it, Cloud Nine is actually quite the decent ability, if only something usable got it as well.
Of course, being able to stop weather doesn't necessarily mean that Golduck will be able to defeat weather-dependent Pokemon with ease. For example, even without rain, switching Golduck in on say, Thundurus, would not be a smart idea. Cloud Nine enables Golduck to stop Pokemon on opposing weather teams that it would normally be able to had weather not been present (see the above Victreebel example). It does not let it defeat every Pokemon that relies on weather. Additionally, Cloud Nine doesn't stop weather, only pauses it; should Golduck be forced out, weather effects would resume as usual, for better or for worse. Golduck's Special Attack and Speed are boosted to help it hit harder and faster to take out some of the weather-heavy Pokemon it's intended to, while the boosted Defenses enable it to survive a few more hits, as if it went down too quickly the weather nullification would not be anything more than a minor annoyance to the opposing team; the longer Golduck is in play, the more turns of weather it wastes against its opponent.
Golduck really got the short end of the stick when it came to viability. It for some reason never was a Psychic-type, never got Power Gem (again, not particularly useful competitively but still), and never was particularly good at using what was once its signature ability. Mega Golduck tries to remedy all of these problems, giving Golduck a niche in being a unique candidate in surprising and stopping weather teams. Golduck was always a cool-looking duck...platypus...thing...(kappa?). While its many of its common fellow pond-dwellers (Politoed, Gyarados, Azumarill, and let's just forget about Seaking) have risen from the depths to become top-tier competitive Pokemon, Golduck has never really seen the light of competitive viability. While this Mega certainly won't raise it to the level of these Pokemon, it hopefully will give it a unique enough niche for people to consider it when building a team.
Psychic fun house go
Persian
Typing: Normal -----> Normal / Psychic
Abilities: Limber / Technician / Unnerve -----> Magic Bounce
65/70/60/65/65/115 -----> 65/130/60/65/75/145 (Spe +30, Atk +60, SDef +10)
New Moves: +Zen Headbutt
Psychic makes more sense to me than Dark does tbh, although I can definitely see why people want dark, both flavor and competitively. Normal / Psychic is a pretty cool typing I guess - still has a nasty Pursuit weakness, but one of the few /Normal typings that actually appreciates the Normal part of the typing. It works similarly to Espeon, except its a physical attacker rather than a special one. It also have U-Turn for shenanigans. Magic Bounce is cool because it bounces back burns and paralysis aimed at Persian. Physical bias was chosen because it works better for Persian imo (stronger U-Turn, Knock Off, slightly better coverage in general). Zen Headbutt is because this thing needs a STAB move.
Golduck
Typing: Water -----> Water / Psychic
Abilities: Damp / Cloud Nine / Swift Swim -----> Prankster
BST: 80/82/78/95/80/85 -----> 80/82/108/125/110/95 (Def +30, SpDef +30, SpA +30, Spe +10)
New Moves: +Taunt, +Encore, +Nasty Plot
So I can here you thinking - Why does Golduck get Prankster? Well, the main reasoning is that Golduck is based off Kappa, which were known to be mischievous little pranksters. Originally I was going to do Water / Dark to further illustrate this, but decided that Water / Psychic fits much better.Fairies in lore were also pranksters but I refrained from that because lolFairy The additional moves are to give it more support options with Prankster, and Nasty Plot is there to enable a sweep, while keeping with the Kappa flavor. This keeps a decent amount of bulk while also giving it decent power and speed.
Persian
Typing: Normal -----> Normal / Psychic
Abilities: Limber / Technician / Unnerve -----> Magic Bounce
65/70/60/65/65/115 -----> 65/130/60/65/75/145 (Spe +30, Atk +60, SDef +10)
New Moves: +Zen Headbutt
Psychic makes more sense to me than Dark does tbh, although I can definitely see why people want dark, both flavor and competitively. Normal / Psychic is a pretty cool typing I guess - still has a nasty Pursuit weakness, but one of the few /Normal typings that actually appreciates the Normal part of the typing. It works similarly to Espeon, except its a physical attacker rather than a special one. It also have U-Turn for shenanigans. Magic Bounce is cool because it bounces back burns and paralysis aimed at Persian. Physical bias was chosen because it works better for Persian imo (stronger U-Turn, Knock Off, slightly better coverage in general). Zen Headbutt is because this thing needs a STAB move.
Golduck
Typing: Water -----> Water / Psychic
Abilities: Damp / Cloud Nine / Swift Swim -----> Prankster
BST: 80/82/78/95/80/85 -----> 80/82/108/125/110/95 (Def +30, SpDef +30, SpA +30, Spe +10)
New Moves: +Taunt, +Encore, +Nasty Plot
So I can here you thinking - Why does Golduck get Prankster? Well, the main reasoning is that Golduck is based off Kappa, which were known to be mischievous little pranksters. Originally I was going to do Water / Dark to further illustrate this, but decided that Water / Psychic fits much better.
acestriker19 I think it would be nice if after we finish all of the unreserved Megas, we could go back and vote to see if we want to change any of the ones that have been completed before it was changed to a community project
Mega Golduck
Water -> Water/Psychic
Damp/Cloud Nine/Swift Swim -> Adaptability
HP: 80 -> 80
Atk: 82 -> 82
Def: 78 -> 83 (+5)
SpA: 95 -> 140 (+45)
SpD: 80 -> 90 (+10)
Spe: 85 -> 125 (+40)
Total: 500 -> 600
Seriously, why wasn't Golduck Water/Psychic in the first place? It makes far more sense than Starmie IMO. Anyways, the base stat increases are pretty simple, and in conjunction with Adaptability, let it function as an effective special sweeper.
Mega Vileplume
Grass/Poison -> Grass/Dark
Chlorophyll/Effect Spore -> Solar Power
HP: 75 -> 75
Atk: 80 -> 80
Def: 85 -> 125 (+40)
SpA: 110 -> 170 (+60)
SpD: 90 -> 100 (+10)
Spe: 50 -> 40 (-10)
Total: 490 -> 590
Moves: +Dark Pulse, +Earth Power
Mega Persian
Normal -> Normal
Limber/Technician/Unaware -> Adaptability
HP: 65 -> 65
Atk: 70 -> 70
Def: 60 -> 15 (-45)
SpA: 65 -> 255 (+190)
SpD: 65 -> 20 (-45)
Spe: 115 -> 115
Total: 440 -> 540
Moves: +Boomburst (He meows so loud, things explode)
Mega Golduck
Water -> Water/Psychic
Damp/Cloud Nine/Swift Swim -> Adaptability
HP: 80 -> 80
Atk: 82 -> 82
Def: 78 -> 83 (+5)
SpA: 95 -> 140 (+45)
SpD: 80 -> 90 (+10)
Spe: 85 -> 125 (+40)
Total: 500 -> 600
Seriously, why wasn't Golduck Water/Psychic in the first place? It makes far more sense than Starmie IMO. Anyways, the base stat increases are pretty simple, and in conjunction with Adaptability, let it function as an effective special sweeper.
Mega Vileplume
Grass/Poison -> Grass/Dark
Chlorophyll/Effect Spore -> Solar Power
HP: 75 -> 75
Atk: 80 -> 80
Def: 85 -> 125 (+40)
SpA: 110 -> 170 (+60)
SpD: 90 -> 100 (+10)
Spe: 50 -> 40 (-10)
Total: 490 -> 590
Moves: +Dark Pulse, +Earth Power
Mega Persian
Normal -> Normal
Limber/Technician/Unaware -> Adaptability
HP: 65 -> 65
Atk: 70 -> 70
Def: 60 -> 15 (-45)
SpA: 65 -> 255 (+190)
SpD: 65 -> 20 (-45)
Spe: 115 -> 115
Total: 440 -> 540
Moves: +Boomburst (He meows so loud, things explode)
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Vileplume-Mega (Vileplumate)
Design Description: Vileplume's petals become infested with pollen and becomes more toxic-colored. Its feet turn root-like.
----->
Chlorophyll/Effect Spore -----> Pollinate (Priority to Powder Moves)
75/80/85/110/90/50 (490) -----> 75/100/120/120/125/50 (590)
New Moves:
Powder
Leech Seed
Vileplume was always considered a poor man's Roserade. Mega Vileplume breaks that taboo with its fantastic access to Powder moves and an Ability which carves an unique niche for it in the Metagame. I initially thought of giving it Spore, but priority Spore sounded a bit too much and unnecessary, since it already has Sleep Powder. The additional EVs are aimed at giving reasonable bulk to survive upto the standards of OU. Vileplume learns 4 Powder moves: Powder, Stun Spore, Sleep Powder and Poison Powder. You can use all of these except Powder to Stall the opponent in conjunction with Leech Seed and Substitute (Vileplume also naturally learns support moves like Ingrain and Infestation). A more offensive route is possible with Stun Spore and Swords Dance, but ultimately, Mega Vileplume's Attack stat is mediocre.
Thanks! Updated it.
Persian-Mega (Persianate)
Design Description: Persian's body turns tiger-like and has dark-colored spots here and there. The jewel on its head also turns Dark. Its claws grow sharper.
----->
Limber/Technician/Unnerve -----> Hustle
65/70/60/65/65/115 (440) -----> 65/110/70/85/75/135 (540)
New Moves:
Extreme Speed
Sucker Punch
Persian's Mega, if any in the future, should scream 'Dark Type' because it learns so many Dark Type Moves. It naturally learns Hone Claws as well, so Hustle makes a very good connection, especially with its Dark Typing. The new moves puts it in a good place in the Metagame. Its not overpowered as well because it's weak 4x Weak to Fighting and has little to nothing against Steel types (Scizor counters it left to right, as well as many bulky Steel types). It can function as an effective late-game cleaner with investment in bulk; using Hone Claws + Hustle and its dual priorities to dish out pain.
Golduck-Mega-X (GolgateGolduckite-Y)
Design Description: The horn-like protrusions on its head grow into a crown of sorts. The gem on its head grows bigger and glows much stronger.
----->
Swift Swim/Cloud Nine -----> Magic Bounce
80/82/78/95/80/85 (500) -----> 80/92/88/145/90/105 (600)
New Moves:
Bulk Up
Recover
Storm Throw
Your usual Calm Mind Sweeper, now with an additional Typing in Psychic and great Mega Ability in Magic Bounce. As per the flavour, the Y-Mega has gained quite a lot of Special Attack. Recover is based on the supposed medicinal qualities of the Japanese Kappa, a creature from folklore, on which Golduck is based.
Golduck-Mega-X (Golduckite-X)
Design Description: The gem on Golduck's head and its horn-like protrusions merge and form an head-gear/armour. Its body becomes more muscular and scaly.
----->
Swift Swim/Cloud Nine -----> Adaptability
80/82/78/95/80/85 (500) -----> 80/132/88/105/90/105 (600)
New Moves:
Bulk Up
Recover
Storm Throw
Once again, the new Typing and Moves are justified by the fact that Kappas are expert wrestlers (Note how Golduck naturally learns so many Fighting Type moves). They draw their prey, sometimes humans, near a water body and drown them using their great wrestling skills. The stat spread is as per all X-Megas gaining a superior Attack Stat. Bulk Up is to compliment Calm Mind that it already learns; Storm Throw because it sounds like a good name for a wrestling move.
Venomoth-Mega (Venomothate)
Design Description: Venomoth's wings become larger and more vivid. It also grows legs, which resemble two poisonous vines.
----->
Shield Dust/Tinted Lens/Wonder Skin -----> Multiscale
70/65/60/90/75/90 (450) -----> 70/75/85/120/100/100 (550)
New Moves:
Roost
Psyshock
Venomoth's Stats are very low and its Bug typing doesn't give it anything to work with either. An Ability like Multiscale is extremely necessary to make Venomoth OU-worthy. Why exactly Multiscale? Because its Dex Entries are swarmed with how scaly it is. Roost is not only to go with Multiscale, but also because it's technically a Butterfly. Psyshock need not necessarily be there; it learns a good deal of Psychic Type Moves naturally. So, it's just a bonus to enable it to deal with Special walls.
Design Description: Vileplume's petals become infested with pollen and becomes more toxic-colored. Its feet turn root-like.
Chlorophyll/Effect Spore -----> Pollinate (Priority to Powder Moves)
75/80/85/110/90/50 (490) -----> 75/100/120/120/125/50 (590)
New Moves:
Vileplume was always considered a poor man's Roserade. Mega Vileplume breaks that taboo with its fantastic access to Powder moves and an Ability which carves an unique niche for it in the Metagame. I initially thought of giving it Spore, but priority Spore sounded a bit too much and unnecessary, since it already has Sleep Powder. The additional EVs are aimed at giving reasonable bulk to survive upto the standards of OU. Vileplume learns 4 Powder moves: Powder, Stun Spore, Sleep Powder and Poison Powder. You can use all of these except Powder to Stall the opponent in conjunction with Leech Seed and Substitute (Vileplume also naturally learns support moves like Ingrain and Infestation). A more offensive route is possible with Stun Spore and Swords Dance, but ultimately, Mega Vileplume's Attack stat is mediocre.
Thanks! Updated it.
Persian-Mega (Persianate)
Design Description: Persian's body turns tiger-like and has dark-colored spots here and there. The jewel on its head also turns Dark. Its claws grow sharper.
Limber/Technician/Unnerve -----> Hustle
65/70/60/65/65/115 (440) -----> 65/110/70/85/75/135 (540)
New Moves:
Persian's Mega, if any in the future, should scream 'Dark Type' because it learns so many Dark Type Moves. It naturally learns Hone Claws as well, so Hustle makes a very good connection, especially with its Dark Typing. The new moves puts it in a good place in the Metagame. Its not overpowered as well because it's weak 4x Weak to Fighting and has little to nothing against Steel types (Scizor counters it left to right, as well as many bulky Steel types). It can function as an effective late-game cleaner with investment in bulk; using Hone Claws + Hustle and its dual priorities to dish out pain.
Golduck-Mega-X (
Design Description: The horn-like protrusions on its head grow into a crown of sorts. The gem on its head grows bigger and glows much stronger.
Swift Swim/Cloud Nine -----> Magic Bounce
80/82/78/95/80/85 (500) -----> 80/92/88/145/90/105 (600)
New Moves:
Your usual Calm Mind Sweeper, now with an additional Typing in Psychic and great Mega Ability in Magic Bounce. As per the flavour, the Y-Mega has gained quite a lot of Special Attack. Recover is based on the supposed medicinal qualities of the Japanese Kappa, a creature from folklore, on which Golduck is based.
Golduck-Mega-X (Golduckite-X)
Design Description: The gem on Golduck's head and its horn-like protrusions merge and form an head-gear/armour. Its body becomes more muscular and scaly.
Swift Swim/Cloud Nine -----> Adaptability
80/82/78/95/80/85 (500) -----> 80/132/88/105/90/105 (600)
New Moves:
Once again, the new Typing and Moves are justified by the fact that Kappas are expert wrestlers (Note how Golduck naturally learns so many Fighting Type moves). They draw their prey, sometimes humans, near a water body and drown them using their great wrestling skills. The stat spread is as per all X-Megas gaining a superior Attack Stat. Bulk Up is to compliment Calm Mind that it already learns; Storm Throw because it sounds like a good name for a wrestling move.
Venomoth-Mega (Venomothate)
Design Description: Venomoth's wings become larger and more vivid. It also grows legs, which resemble two poisonous vines.
Shield Dust/Tinted Lens/Wonder Skin -----> Multiscale
70/65/60/90/75/90 (450) -----> 70/75/85/120/100/100 (550)
New Moves:
Venomoth's Stats are very low and its Bug typing doesn't give it anything to work with either. An Ability like Multiscale is extremely necessary to make Venomoth OU-worthy. Why exactly Multiscale? Because its Dex Entries are swarmed with how scaly it is. Roost is not only to go with Multiscale, but also because it's technically a Butterfly. Psyshock need not necessarily be there; it learns a good deal of Psychic Type Moves naturally. So, it's just a bonus to enable it to deal with Special walls.
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Congratulations to the creators of all the selected Megas! Good job!
Alright, so I'll kick things off for this set of prospective Megas. I tend to write a lot, so I put each Mega in its own individual hide tag.
Vileplume
Vileplume
Typing: Grass / Poison -----> Grass / Poison
Abilities: Chlorophyll / Effect Spore -----> Stench
BST: 75/80/85/100/90/50 -----> 75/120/85/100/90/110
New moves: Extrasensory, Zen Headbutt, Dark Pulse
Vileplume is a cool-looking Pokemon. It's a Grass-type flower, but instead of being all pink and pretty, it's instead based on a Rafflesia, which smells like rotting meat--hence the Poison-typing. Unfortunately for Vileplume, it was introduced in Gen I, along with other Grass/Poison types like Venusaur and Victreebel. Venusaur as we now know is a superior defensive Pokemon, while Victreebel takes more advantage of the sun than Chlorophyll Vileplume. In Gen VI, things only got worse for poor Vileplume with the introduction of Roserade, overshadowing Vileplume's niche as a specially-based Grass/Poison attacker. Amoonguss beat out Vileplume in any support-based sets with the introduction of Black and White, hurting its viability even further. This Mega tries to give Vileplume a new niche that distinguishes it from its fellow Grass/Poison-types.
To start off, let's discuss the stat changes. Mega Vileplume morphs from a bulky specially-oriented tank to a quick, physical attacker. Venusaur does defense better, Victreebel is superior under sun, Roserade's a stronger special attacker, and Amoonguss exceeds in supporting roles. Vileplume's typing is far too integral to it's flavor for me to make a change, so I went ahead and made Mega Vileplume fill in a role that had not yet been filled by another Grass/Poison type, in this case a physical attacker. Now, this actually is rather neat in my opinion; while some Megas switch a Pokemon from offense to defense or vice versa, very few switch attacking spectrums as well; by this I mean that most Megas if they switch concept go from a Special attacker to a Special tank. Mega Vileplume, on the other hand, goes from a Special tank to a Physical attacker; this means that an opponent designed to handle a specially-based foe may be completely caught off guard when Mega Vileplume switches to a physical orientation. I really wanted to boost at least one of Vileplume's defenses, but it needed the Attack boost sorely to fill the role of a physical attacker, and the Speed boost was also necessary in order to solidify its transition from tank to attacker. Additionally, there was another reason for the switch as well...
Replacing Chlorophyll or Effect Spore on Mega Vileplume is Stench, an ability that, given Vileplume's Pokedex entries and origin in the Rafflesia, one has to wonder why it doesn't already have. Stench already belongs to many other Poison-type Pokemon, so it isn't exactly a rare ability. For a few generations after its release, it did precisely nothing in battle (it reduced the encounter rate outside of battle, but had no effect against trainers). Eventually it was given the effect of a 10% chance to flinch the opponent whenever the user attacks. It's a nice bonus, but it doesn't exactly happen often (same chance as Freeze), so it's not nearly on the same level as Paraflinching or the like. In particular, however, a major reason why you never see Stench in competitive play (aside from the fact that most owners have better abilities) is because no owner has particularly good speed, something that is necessary to even pull off a flinch on an opponent in the first place. With base 84 Speed, Skuntank is the current fastest user, and even then has Aftermath to use instead; no holder breaks the 100 Speed mark. Stench however, is a great ability flavorwise, and I think that it would be nice to give some Pokemon a niche in being a viable user of it; Vileplume, since almost all Pokedex entries refer to its horrible smell, seems like a prime candidate. Since I was already pushing it towards the physically attacking route, decent speed was already a given, and it was a great opportunity to further differentiate Vileplume by making it the fastest (and perhaps only viable) user of Stench. Extrasensory, Zen Headbutt, and Dark Pulse are all moves that I felt Vileplume could feasibly learn (sorry, no Sky Attack here) that also have a built-in chance of flinching. Paraflinching, luckily, shouldn't be a problem with Mega Vileplume. An extra 10% on moves isn't nearly as often as the 60% granted by Serene Grace, and its best paralysis move is the inaccurate Stun Spore. Stench gives it a new niche unoccupied by any other Pokemon, without having to work with anything flavorwise not already present in standard Vileplume.
Mega Vileplume differentiates itself from other Grass/Poison Pokemon by being a physical attacker, accomplished by a Speed- and Attack-boost. Additionally, it creates its own niche by being the only truly viable user of Stench as an ability. Both of these together should be enough to make Mega Vileplume a unique, original choice in this metagame.
Venomoth
Venomoth
Typing: Bug / Poison -----> Bug / Poison
Abilities: Shield Dust / Tinted Lens / Wonder Skin -----> Tinted Lens
BST: 70/65/60/90/75/90 -----> 70/95/85/110/90/110
As far as Bug/Poison-types go, Venomoth is likely the best. Tinted Lens, Quiver Dance, Sleep Powder, and Baton Pass make it a viable choice even in the upper tiers, where Bug-types that aren't part-Steel or Volcarona are shunned. With it's just-the-right-combination of movepool, ability, and stats, it functions well both as a passer and abuser of the powerful Quiver Dance. With that being said, buffing Venomoth in any manner would have to be done very carefully; too strong, and it becomes too powerful of an abuser of Quiver Dance; too bulky or fast, and it has a much easier time Baton Passing Quiver Dance boosts to a Pokemon more capable of putting them to use. How could this be solved?
Well, first came the ability. Bar something like Contrary, Venomoth would be able to pass sweeps no matter what ability it had. Shield Dust and Wonder Skin pushed Venomoth into a more defensive position--possibly viable, but a defensive Venomoth would have an even easier time passing Quiver Dances. Tinted Lens would at least give Venomoth incentive to stay in rather than solely pass boosts. Though its a rather powerful ability, it wasn't exactly broken on regular Venomoth, and if one was careful about the stat changes, it shouldn't be broken on Mega Venomoth, either.
Handling the stat changes was probably the most arduous task of creating Mega Venomoth. The combination of Quiver Dance and Baton Pass had to be taken into account for every stat change. I settled on moderate changes to the stats boosted by Quiver Dance, since Mega Venomoth would already likely be boosting those stats on its own. I boosted Special Defense the least because a too-bulky Quiver Passer is a scary thing indeed. Here I faced a problem. I still had another 55 points to work with, and didn't know what to do with them. Special Attack and Defense didn't need anything else considering Quiver Dance, and too much Speed would make the caution with Defense moot, as Venomoth could simply pass off its boosts before it was even hit by an attack; 110 was already starting to push it. At the same time, I didn't want to neuter Mega Venomoth by shoving all the remaining points to attack, as then it would be worse off than standard Venomoth. In the end, I relocated 30 points into Attack to avoid bulking up Venomoth too much, and put the rest in Defense, still keeping it slightly lower than Venomoth's Special Defense. Luckily, despite the buffed defenses, Venomothite prevents Mega Venomoth from holding Black Sludge, and its next best form is healing is the inconsistent Giga Drain. Mega Venomoth trades in passive recovery for increased bulk on both sides. In regards to moves, between Baton Pass, Quiver Dance, Sleep Powder, Bug Buzz, and Sludge Bomb, Venomoth already had everything it needed to be a decent passer of abuser of Quiver Dance; no new moves necessary here.
The main problem with creating a Venomoth that occupied a different niche than standard Venomoth was that, no matter what that niche was, it would have to be better than Quiver Pass to warrant its use, and there aren't many niches that can claim that. Before deciding to simply buff Mega Venomoth just enough to warrant its use over Quiver Pass Venomoth, I also considered a variety of other options: Multiscale defensive (the ability was a beautiful fit flavorwise), Wonder Skin anti-support, Toxic Spikes+Sticky Web support. In all of these options, the fact that Venomoth had Quiver Dance and Baton Pass simply made its intended purpose obsolete; additionally, with the stat arrangements of each of these purposes, Quiver Pass only became even stronger than it is in this set, further marginalizing the set's original purpose. So, I conceded that if I couldn't adequately surpass the viability of Quiver Pass Venomoth without severely affecting flavor or balance of the Pokemon, I should just run with it and make it as balanced as possible. As they say, "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
Venomoth was certainly a hard Mega to create, but it was a lot of fun. It's ability to Quiver Pass severely restricted what one could and couldn't do in order to keep its power reasonable. Because the mere presence of Quiver Dance and Baton Pass in Venomoth's movepool overshadowed any other intention in mind when designing Mega Venomoth, I decided that the best way to go with it was to play to its strengths and make it a slightly better regular Tinted Lens Venomoth. Though Mega Venomoth walks a tight rope, I think that I adequately managed to balance its strengths and its weaknesses.
Persian
Persian
Typing: Normal -----> Normal / Dark
Abilities: Limber / Technician / Unnerve -----> Super Luck
BST: 65/70/60/65/65/115 -----> 65/130/70/65/75/135
New moves: Pursuit, Crunch, Cross Chop
Is it just me, or does the XY model of Persian look bulkier than it used to as a sprite? Seems more mountain lion/puma-esque to me. Regardless, this doesn't translate much to its stats, as all of them sans speed are rather underwhelming. Unfortunately, Persian isn't exactly used often in the current metagame, given its poor stats and overshadowing by other Normals, even in NU. However, this wasn't always the case. In Gen I, thanks to the buggy mechanics and errors of Red and Blue, speed was a major factor in determining critical hits. And since Persian was so fast, it was also exceptional at landing crits. This Mega sets out to be an homage to Persian's Red and Blue days, without all of the bugs and glitches associated with it.
To start, the best ability to give to a Pokemon focused on critical hits (other than Sniper, which didn't fit as well flavorwise) was Super Luck. It went with the Meowth's whole schtick of good fortune and prosperity, as well as the whole "lucky cat" trope. Raising the critical hit chances of Persian's moves from 6.25% to 12.5% isn't too much of a boost, but thanks to the new XY crit mechanics, if Persian uses any move with a high crit-ratio (ie: Slash, Night Slash, Shadow Claw, all of which it already has access to), this chance jumps up to a whopping 50% chance! to Take advantage of this, I also gave Persian Cross Chop to deal with Steels and Rocks that would stop its Normal-type STAB attacks. While the crit chance may seem out of hand, the new XY crit mechanics also reduced the power boost of critical hits to only 50%. Factoring in accuracy, the average base power of Cross Chop is in fact 100; 131.25 for Slash (weaker than Return, unfortunately, but without the ability to break through defense boosts); 87.5 for non-STAB high-crit moves. In short, while a 50% critical hit rate helps Persian break through things like Calm Mind and Bulk Up sweepers, it on average doesn't give a very high boost to the raw power of its moves.
The Dark-typing is admittedly largely a flavor addition. However, it does have some competitive impact as well. Part-Dark typing gives Mega Persian a weaknesss to Fairy-types; however, it also gives it an immunity to Psychic-types, who commonly use the defensive set-up moves (mostly Calm Mind) that Persian is designed to break through with its critical hits. A weakness to Bug-types is offset by a STAB against Ghost-types, who Persian previously would not be able to touch with its lone STAB. Accompanying its type addition are Pursuit and Crunch, two standard Dark-type physical moves. In terms of stats, Persian gets the largest boosts in Attack and Speed, mainly to cement its role as a physical attacker. 10 went into each of its defenses to bulk it up just a tad, and to prevent all of its points from being shoehorned into just Attack and Speed. Persian already had rather mediocre stats, so I didn't feel as strong of a need to "throw away" as many points into useless stats as I did with some other prospective Megas.
Mega Persian is a callback to Red and Blue Persian, king of critical hits. While the nerfed XY crit mechanics may have cut down on Mega-Persian's prospective power, it also made relatively consistent critting a viable strategy by reducing the number of stages it took to get a Pokemon's critical hit ratio to a mostly reliable rate (50% is about the same as the chances for Charge Beam or Fiery Dance's secondary effects to occur, for perspective). A new Dark-typing differentiates Mega Persian from other pure-Normals, and is a mixed bag for it, giving it new weaknesses in Bug and Fairy, but new weapons against Psychic and Ghost. It's been 5 generations and over 10 years since Persian really had anything to truly have a niche against other fast Normal-attackers, and while Super Luck isn't a game-changing or revolutionary ability for it, maybe is just enough to change that.
Golduck
Golduck
Typing: Water -----> Water / Psychic
Abilities: Damp / Cloud Nine / Swift Swim -----> Cloud Nine
BST: 80/82/78/95/80/85 -----> 80/82/108/130/120/95
New moves: Power Gem
To be completely honest, I thought Golduck already was Psychic type before I looked it up and was corrected. Did anyone else make that mistake? I mean, Psyduck basically runs on headache-fueled mind powers, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one that assumed the line was part-Psychic too.
Anyways, Golduck gets the Psychic-typing because in my opinion it should've had it anyways. For a competitive reason, look at Slowbro and Starmie, representatives of the two currently-existing Water/Psychic lines. Both are notable defensive and offensive threats, respectively, so if we want to improve on Golduck (which we sorely, sorely do), Water/Psychic, in addition to being a good typing flavorwise, is a good place to start. Luckily, Golduck already has a plethora of Psychic moves to choose from (seriously, why isn't it a Psychic-type in the first place? Psychic, Psyshock, Confusion, Zen Headbutt, Amnesia, Wonder Room, Psybeam, Telekinesis... and that's not even all of them.), so I didn't need to make any movepool additions really. Power Gem is there because Game Freak seems bent on making Golduck seem like it has things but it really doesn't even beyond the Psychic-typing. The poor thing has a freaking gem on its forehead for crying out loud, even Persian got Power Gem.
The one thing Golduck has (or had) going for it, at least in Gen III, was a unique ability: Cloud Nine. It temporarily stops the effects of weather while the Pokemon is in play. Now, this ability could have been a game-changer if two things were true:
1. It actually stopped weather, like some assumed, instead of just pausing it, and...
2. Something decent actually got it. (Sorry, Altaria and Lickilicky)
With the weather nerf in Gen VI, some thought that the death of weather teams was near. But as we now know, this isn't true, and weather teams are still relatively common in OU. Enter Mega Golduck; with Cloud Nine and buffed defenses, it is capable of foiling the plans of many weather-dependent Pokemon. Tyranitar and Cradily lose Sandstorm's Special Defense boost. Mega Houndoom loses Solar Power while Victreebel no longer has Chlorophyll, letting Golduck outspeed it and slam it with an Ice Beam. Kabutops loses its Swift Swim boost, too, and Tornadus misses out on its perfect-accuracy Hurricanes. Walrein no longer gets auto-recovery, and... unfortunately Hail sucks too much for me to think of another example. Basically, Golduck can check weather-dependent Pokemon with Cloud Nine, useful in a weather-heavy metagame. Cloud Nine also could help it find a niche on weather teams of it's own, too. Need a Water-type to help deal with other Fire-types on your Sun team? Mega Golduck not only temporarily takes away the sun to neuter the opponent, but also doesn't have its Water-type moves halved by the weather. If you think about it, Cloud Nine is actually quite the decent ability, if only something usable got it as well.
Of course, being able to stop weather doesn't necessarily mean that Golduck will be able to defeat weather-dependent Pokemon with ease. For example, even without rain, switching Golduck in on say, Thundurus, would not be a smart idea. Cloud Nine enables Golduck to stop Pokemon on opposing weather teams that it would normally be able to had weather not been present (see the above Victreebel example). It does not let it defeat every Pokemon that relies on weather. Additionally, Cloud Nine doesn't stop weather, only pauses it; should Golduck be forced out, weather effects would resume as usual, for better or for worse. Golduck's Special Attack and Speed are boosted to help it hit harder and faster to take out some of the weather-heavy Pokemon it's intended to, while the boosted Defenses enable it to survive a few more hits, as if it went down too quickly the weather nullification would not be anything more than a minor annoyance to the opposing team; the longer Golduck is in play, the more turns of weather it wastes against its opponent.
Golduck really got the short end of the stick when it came to viability. It for some reason never was a Psychic-type, never got Power Gem (again, not particularly useful competitively but still), and never was particularly good at using what was once its signature ability. Mega Golduck tries to remedy all of these problems, giving Golduck a niche in being a unique candidate in surprising and stopping weather teams. Golduck was always a cool-looking duck...platypus...thing...(kappa?). While its many of its common fellow pond-dwellers (Politoed, Gyarados, Azumarill, and let's just forget about Seaking) have risen from the depths to become top-tier competitive Pokemon, Golduck has never really seen the light of competitive viability. While this Mega certainly won't raise it to the level of these Pokemon, it hopefully will give it a unique enough niche for people to consider it when building a team.
Fix Vileplume, Venomoth and Golduck. Golduck has 615 when he should have 600, Venomoth has 560 when she should have 550 and Vileplume has 580 when she should have 590
- Status