...ahem.
Lurantis-Mega
Grass-->Grass/Fairy
Leaf Guard/Contrary-->Elegance (this Pokemon's secondary effects are guaranteed, unless this Pokemon is afflicted with a status condition, volatile or non-volatile.)
New Stats: 70/125/110/100/110/65
HP: 70-->70 (+0)
Attack: 105-->125 (+20)
Defense: 90-->110 (+20)
Special Attack: 80-->100 (+20)
Special Defense: 90-->110 (+20)
Speed: 45-->65 (+20)
New Moves: Play Rough, Moonblast, Silver Wind, Moonlight
Description: Lurantis is a super cool Pokemon that I've always appreciated. I love its unique flavor, depiction in the anime and games, and I wish it was better competitively. I also fully realized that balancing a Mega Lurantis was a fine line to walk- make it too capable of abusing the pre-mega Contrary boosts, and it's broken. Make it not be able to take good enough advantage of the tools allotted it... and you just use another Grass type. This Mega Lurantis is admittedly very, very ambitious, and without a doubt the closest sub I've made to being broken
without actually being broken, but I digress.
Let me give you the backstory to this sub: I was doing some schoolwork, thinking about random stuff absently, and my mind caught on a thought. Back in Megas For All v6, I lurked a lot. Basically, from the Galar starters slate forward, I watched as many a concept was submitted and didn't even register an account to vote for my favorites. I simply watched. And then, slate 10 arrived. That one was Froslass, Butterfree, and Slowking, counterparts to canon Megas Glalie, Beedrill, and Slowbro respectively. One submission in particular caught my eye- so much so that I decided to make a sub for the next slate, and join the community. The submission in question was Mega Butterfree by Hematite. I thought it was absolutely brilliant. Its ability was Iridescence- the secondary effects of Mega Butterfree's Bug Type moves were guaranteed with that ability. In my eyes, no other Butterfree could possibly compete with that- Silver Wind and Bug Buzz with that ability? So cool! Ironically, on that slate, a different Mega Butterfree, albeit my second favorite, ended up winning- somewhat to my chagrin, although Hematite's Slowking and Froslass for that slate did end up winning as well, lol.
Anyways, point is, that Mega Butterfree was actually the
catalyst that convinced me to join the mod, so despite me not having been really involved or present really at all at the time, I remain very appreciative of that Butterfree to this day. And I was just sitting there thinking, and at some point my mind somehow remembered Iridescence Butterfree- and I wondered- what does Lurantis have to abuse this?
As it turned out, Lurantis did not have much to abuse it at all. It has the following: Nature Power turning into Tri Attack, Poison Jab/Cross Poison, Energy Ball, and Snore. I brought it up with the incredible Hematite on whether he would be okay with me using the idea for a Lurantis. I was met with enthusiastic support. After some discussion, including separate work-in-progress versions with varying stat spreads and movepools (Seed Flare, Fire Lash, and Thunderous Kick were all considered at separate times), we settled on the above move additions. Silver Wind, combined with Energy Ball, emulates the original Butterfree's gimmick- Guaranteed Special Defense drops, and guaranteed omniboosting with Silver Wind. It also changed typing to be Grass/Fairy- a type combination that I believe uniquely fits Lurantis quite well both in terms of flavor and being somewhat more competitively useful than pure Grass for this sub- it in turn gains STAB Moonblast and Play Rough to give it another fun form of stat drops and basic STAB on both sides. Moonlight, while unnecessary, adds a sort of flavorwise duality to Lurantis that will be explained momentarily once I get to the flavor-oriented section of this submission.
The stat changes were carefully selected- With them, Lurantis is a little bit bulkier, noticeably faster while remaining slower than a majority of offensive threats, and stronger on both sides of the spectrum. Mixed attackers, to paraphrase Hematite's words, are cool because they use tools from both sides that they otherwise wouldn't have access to if fully in one direction. The original Lurantis is like this as well- it technically is stronger on the special side than
Serperior, with Contrary Leaf Storm. However, unlike Serperior, instead of bypassing Steel types with Hidden Power, it instead goes mixed and runs Superpower- a tool that it wouldn't have access to if fully special. It runs Superpower
despite the opportunity cost of doing so- It loses out on power, speed, or bulk if it does- Contrary Leaf Storm is on its own plenty good enough as STAB and as a nuke, as clearly demonstrated by Serperior's viability in tiers like SM OU and NatDex. This Mega Lurantis does the same as base Lurantis, but in a super cool, different way, that I will explain once I flesh things out a little bit more here.
Now to get on to the competitive rundown of this submission- Mega Lurantis aims to carefully snowball with synergy between its moves- Energy Ball's guaranteed Special Defense drops force switches- and these switches give it room to set up Silver Wind boosts. These boosts let it become more threatening as time goes on.
However, there is still the issue of dealing with Steels. Weather Ball is unfeasible due to it relying on playing the long game and slowly accumulating boosts, which doesn't synergize well at all with Sun, a very limited field effect, especially with the prominence of weather as a whole. And it isn't like you can just bring Torkoal back in- Doing so costs valuable boosts on a move with a mere 8 PP, and Lurantis can't afford to fit Sunny Day itself- that alone costs two moveslots, just to run a special Fire move! Hidden Power Fire is also
very weak until several boosts have been accumulated, and even then it disrupts the process due to the fact that Lurantis will be forced out until it acquires the very boosts it needs to make real use of HP Fire! As you can see, Special coverage for Steels is a no-go. However, Lurantis still has Superpower, of course! Though it doesn't snowball with Superpower anymore, having lost Contrary, the stat drops that it brings are in fact
mitigated by Silver Wind! Because Lurantis can, fairly reliably, set up with Silver Wind, in most contexts, it is capable of not dropping to the negative stat stages because Silver Wind is doing the lifting now instead of Contrary!
Now to speak more on the ability, and the flavor of this sub. Lurantis's Pokedex entries state:
Sun | It requires a lot of effort to maintain Lurantis’s vivid coloring, but some collectors enjoy this work and treat it as their hobby. |
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Ultra Moon | As it slashes into its enemies, it looks like it’s dancing. Its elegant appearance has led some to call it the most glamorous Grass Pokémon. |
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Sword | This Pokémon resembles a beautiful flower. A properly raised Lurantis will have gorgeous, brilliant colors. |
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Shield | The petals on this Pokémon’s arms are thin and super sharp, and they can fire laser beams if Lurantis gathers light first. |
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Essentially, from these four, we essentially learn a few things:
1. Lurantis is
elegant. It is absolutely beautiful.
2. Lurantis is super high maintenance. It takes work to make it beautiful. It's no easy feat.
3. Lurantis is
powerful, and from not only these but its depiction in the anime and games, it seems to draw a lot of its power from light. It used to have Solar Blade as its signature move, in fact!
So to put these together with the ability, added moves, and new typing, Lurantis has become an incredibly powerful (albeit light and maintenance dependent) Pokemon. Drawing its power now from both the sun and moon (which ties in neatly to its games of origin), Lurantis is more powerful than ever. This is all flavor of course, but it explains Moonlight, Moonblast, and I guess Play Rough on this, as well.
However, the maintenance aspect of this Pokemon remains- as suggested by Hematite, it musn't be statused, otherwise its beauty and in turn its power, wanes (excuse the moon pun.) The status drawback actually brings up even more little nuances and unique things about the submission. First, RestTalk sets are a no-go. It has to use its (light-dependent) low PP recovery moves to stay healhty. It also neatly eliminates any chance of Snore somehow being problematic with its theoretical 100% flinch chance. On top of this, Lurantis now must choose- Leaf Guard uniquely protects it from status as long as sun is up (another cool interaction with light!), at the obvious cost of possible pre-mega Contrary boosts. Another cool thing is that it does get Aromatherapy to work around status at the cost of a moveslot as well! Elegance was the name I chose for this ability- Lurantis's beauty and power is dependent on both light and how well it is maintained!
I believe that that this sub will in fact, be balanced, for those concerned. A long discussion with Hematite about it concluded in the fact that it clearly has a very powerful gimmick, but one that entirely is balanced. First of all, it is dependent on Silver Wind, a non-STAB (although flavorwise it fits quite well due to Lurantis being an honorary Bug and all) and weak attack that does nothing for its coverage- it remains walled by Fire, Poison, Steel, and Flying types, and costs Lurantis a STAB in most cases, which leads me to the next point- Lurantis essentially isn't using its Fairy STAB on most sets! This means that it isn't taking advantage of half of the benefits of the added typing, making it arguably more of a hindrance than a help, on top of the fact that it has
very extreme four-moveslot-syndrome. It needs Silver Wind, Moonlight/Synthesis, and Energy Ball, but that fourth slot is a toss up between Superpower to not get walled by Steels and Fires, Aromatherapy/Substitute to mitigate status and ease setup, basic Fairy STAB on either end of the spectrum, Defog and Knock Off for utility, and the list probably goes on! Its best sets are crippled by not being able to run everything it needs. On top of this, it is dependent on low-PP moves- Its main healing move in Moonlight/Synthesis is a mere 8 PP, its primary snowballing tool in Silver Wind is a mere 8 PP, and its best coverage move is a mere 8 PP! And due to the amount of switches that Energy Ball forces, it can be difficult to make progress and lose PP on all of Lurantis’ moves without extremely good play. Corviknight is a particularly good counter, given that Pressure effectively halves Lurantis’ incredibly limited PP and its 4x resistance to both Energy Ball and Silver Wind means that it walls Lurantis pretty handily. Flying and Poison types in general are very challenging for Mega Lurantis to deal with.
However, this is still a very powerful submission regardless, and I understand concerns that people may have, which is why it will be thoroughly tested in the new M4A Sandbox format to ensure that it isn't overbearing, though I genuinely believe it isn't.
All in all, this Mega Lurantis has a ton of cool interactions, it means a lot to me as far as my involvement in this mod goes, and I just think it's super cool and will be an amazing addition to the mod! Thanks so much to Hematite for the inspiration, support, and aid he gave to this sub- it would not have been possible without him! Shoutout to him and everything he does for this mod! And thank you for reading this through to the end- I wasn't expecting to stay up until 2 AM writing this, but here I am. Enjoy!