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Post your searing hot takes

in terms of psuedo-legendaries...

Dragonite: it's a simple, yet charming design. I think it works.

Tyranitar: this falls into the same version of "less is more". really, I think we need a lot more non-Dragon psuedos, it and Metagross are getting lonely down there.

Metagross: and speaking of, here's the cooler Hoenn psuedo-legendary, simply for the shiny, but also because the concept is so peak and the execution is even more peak.

Salamence: sometimes less is more, rendition three.

Garchomp: it just works, that's all I can say. Mega Garchomp is extremely cool and I like it. Shame they had to gut it so hard.

Hydreigon: cool design? yes! it also feels very... single-minded, which is ironic for something that has three heads.

Goodra [Kalos]: Hisui called, they did it better. Should've been Dragon/Poison.

Kommo-O: honestly, I think it's really cool. it's not that remarkable, but again, sometimes less is more.

Dragapult: now this is how you do a fossil pokemon

Baxcalibur: not what I had in mind for "new Ice/Dragon pokemon". it's silly but this silliness detracts from it too heavily to really make it worth liking imo.
 
icecarbon said:
if you dumb everything down like this you can make this same analysis about a majority of pokemon and their primary traits
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nope. many fully evolved pokemon's primary traits are not all building towards the same function (easy example is rhyperior, which luckily i already explained for you!) and/or are building up to a more novel idea (like cursola)
 
Gonna drop my opinions since i kinda half-started this whole thing

Dragonite: Solid 8/10 design in general (cute fat little big guy) but it's a bit too silly for a pseudo so i'm bumping it down to a 7 on that scale. I do half-wish they went for something skinny akin to its pre-evos but realistically that would be pretty boring.

Tyranitar: Honestly does a really good job of being imposing. TTar is in my opinion the benchmark for what a pseudo should be. This is of course based on looks only and not its generational (literally) OU runtime. 9/10 across the board.

Metagross: Really cool concept that's executed really well. Easily a top 3 pseudo. I love how the legs are just more beldum, a detail that is really unique among pokemon in general as not a ton of designs really call back to their concept as strong as metagross. 10/10

Salamence: Really simple, but exceedingly well executed. Really goes to show you don't need anything super complicated to be good. 8/10.

Garchomp: Not really sure what it's going for but I honestly don't mind it. 8/10.

Hydreigon: Really hard to rank this guy objectively since he's been my second favorite pokemon since I watched that B/W movie like 10 years ago. I see why people have issues with his design looking weird but I've seen him in a similar way to dragonite where he's kinda fat and stupid looking but it's not such a toll on his design that it detracts from the fact it's supposed to be one of the strongest mons you can get on your playthrough. 10/10 personally and that's the real hot take in this thread.

Goodra: Every problem I listed with dnite but pushed to 11 with a turbocharger and a cold air intake for maximum how-the-fuck-is-this-a-pseudo. 5/10.

Kommo-o: The concept is really dumb but somehow it's not terribly executed? Scales as instruments feels like something you'd see out of a route 5 bug-type barely shitmon a la scolipede but it's done on the pseudo for some reason and somehow it comes out not terrible. 7/10

Dragapult: Concept is cool as fuck. Hell yeah use your children as weapons. Half-dead jet engine ghost with questionable parenting methods. This is what I still play this game for and frankly it's one of like 3 good things out of galar as a whole. 10/10.

Goodra-Hisui: It's like goodra except it actually looks the way it's (supposed to be) used which is as a wall. Kalos goodra sucked at that both design wise on account of looking like a stupid slug as well as not actually being able to take hits after game freak plastered their new yaoi type across half the walls of paris. Literally the only thing it took was a shell HOW DID GAMEFREAK FUMBLE THAT HARD IN 2013. 9/10.

Baxcalibur: Made my opinion on it pretty clear but I feel like the concept would be cool if it wasn't handled with the brushstrokes of a future dementia patient. It's supposed to be an imposing ice dragon but with a design consisting of a beer belly and some kind of weird moth wings the most imposing part of it is the +4 it gets for free while standing behind veil.
 
The thing about being the exemplar of the Dragon type is that I don't like what Dragon generally represents: brute force is boring. I recall that when I was ranking the types at some point Dragon was bottom 2 alongside Fighting. Salamence is only interesting to me as a Flying-type, both how its dex lore is set up and the mechanical implications of a type with great offensive matchups but rare good offensive moves. There's a pretty easy comparison here: Salamance without Flying exists in the form of Roaring Moon, and I hate it.

As for my personal ranking of all pseudos, I'd probably go with this:
1747134778200.png

(Tiermaker doesn't have Goodra-Hisui but I'd have it sharing B tier)
 
1747135561937.png


If I had to make a ranking of my own for the psuedo legendaries, it would prob be like this (the tier list I used had archaludon, which does have 600 bst and by some definitions fits in there, though the term is a fan made one so ignore it if you don't like it).

Might do reasonings later lol
 
I think Pseudo legendaries are overall the best designed grouping of Pokemon. (almost) all of them have their own character and work their inspiration in an interesting way

I liked how starting with Hydreigon, they all specialized in a different stat from attack. And I like how how different they can look, Hydreigon is edgy and dark, whilst Goodra is cuddly and cute

It's really just Baxcalibur that I dislike. He's so boring. It's like the 20th mon that's inspired by Godzilla, he also specializes in attack, nothing about his gameplay or his design is interesting. It's like you asked an AI to make a pseudo legendary honestly
 
KDE Plasma Houston said:
Liberal/Leftism in politics is so overrated, even more so than Conservative/Rightism. Like, where are all the Centrists at? I mostly see Liberals/Leftists, not that it's a problem, but I like balance!

Don't take this personally, there is no hate. I'm just curious, do you think the echo chamber in this forum explains why so many people here lean left?

By the way, I'm a Centrist. I think both sides of the political spectrum are too divisive/one-sided, where one side is mostly praised while the other is attacked, and the people in the middle or who are neither are ignored.

Oh yes, I'm a fan of Jack Layton, Jean Chrétien, and two other Canadian party leaders (will people get upset at me if I name the two?), and for US leaders, I like Al Gore and Barack Obama.

As for the ones I despise, Donald Trump, Justin Trudeau, Mark Carney, Jagmeet Singh, Chrystia Freeland, Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz, and the whole Trump Administration 2.0 because they are not good people. They do not have the best interest of their citizens at heart and only care about what benefits them. Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney have damaged this country, Canada, something Jack Layton or Jean Chrétien would have never done. Man, I wish Jack Layton had been our Prime Minister. He was such an amazing person. If he were still alive today, he would have made Canada a great place, unlike the Liberal Party of Canada, which I have no respect for after ten years of destruction of Canada.

I do hope the CFP (Canadian Future Party) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Future_Party, or even the NDP once they get their act together, replaces the Liberals for good. I think we need more than two parties in Canada.

Oh yes, I almost forgot. Please give this video a good watch:
Click to expand...
a solid 90% of modern day centrists are conservatives with too many liberal friends to admit to being conservative (at least in america). Every party leans one direction or the other because in order to be a centrist party you must fundamentally do absolutely nothing and shill out for the majority party because your beliefs will contradict each other non stop.

Also i'd recommend cutting this discussion here because we had a politics thread over in cong a while ago that got shut down after like 3 months of batshit insanity for frankly good reason (on top of the previous one from a few years ago that went very similarly).

Sometimes political conversations can't be avoided but unless it's a space specifically for said political conversations you should try to vy away from political topics or at the very least not try to instigate one for no reason as your 4th post.
 
KDE Plasma Houston said:
Liberal/Leftism in politics is so overrated, even more so than Conservative/Rightism. Like, where are all the Centrists at? I mostly see Liberals/Leftists, not that it's a problem, but I like balance!

Don't take this personally, there is no hate. I'm just curious, do you think the echo chamber in this forum explains why so many people here lean left?

By the way, I'm a Centrist. I think both sides of the political spectrum are too divisive/one-sided, where one side is mostly praised while the other is attacked, and the people in the middle or who are neither are ignored.

Oh yes, I'm a fan of Jack Layton, Jean Chrétien, and two other Canadian party leaders (will people get upset at me if I name the two?), and for US leaders, I like Al Gore and Barack Obama.

As for the ones I despise, Donald Trump, Justin Trudeau, Mark Carney, Jagmeet Singh, Chrystia Freeland, Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz, and the whole Trump Administration 2.0 because they are not good people. They do not have the best interest of their citizens at heart and only care about what benefits them. Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney have damaged this country, Canada, something Jack Layton or Jean Chrétien would have never done. Man, I wish Jack Layton had been our Prime Minister. He was such an amazing person. If he were still alive today, he would have made Canada a great place, unlike the Liberal Party of Canada, which I have no respect for after ten years of destruction of Canada.

I do hope the CFP (Canadian Future Party) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Future_Party, or even the NDP once they get their act together, replaces the Liberals for good. I think we need more than two parties in Canada.

Oh yes, I almost forgot. Please give this video a good watch:
Click to expand...
This isn't really a hot take outside of insular Internet communities where leftist political thought has a strong foothold. Any economic position to the left of "capitalism with corporate regulation and welfare programs" doesn't have meaningful support in most parts of Euro-America, and even that position often finds itself voted out in favor of right-wing policy when elections roll around. You're inundated with leftism here because you're on a nerd website, and nerd websites are prone to radicalization one way or the other for a variety of reasons.
 
KDE Plasma Houston said:
Liberal/Leftism in politics is so overrated, even more so than Conservative/Rightism. Like, where are all the Centrists at? I mostly see Liberals/Leftists, not that it's a problem, but I like balance!

Don't take this personally, there is no hate. I'm just curious, do you think the echo chamber in this forum explains why so many people here lean left?

By the way, I'm a Centrist. I think both sides of the political spectrum are too divisive/one-sided, where one side is mostly praised while the other is attacked, and the people in the middle or who are neither are ignored.

Oh yes, I'm a fan of Jack Layton, Jean Chrétien, and two other Canadian party leaders (will people get upset at me if I name the two?), and for US leaders, I like Al Gore and Barack Obama.

As for the ones I despise, Donald Trump, Justin Trudeau, Mark Carney, Jagmeet Singh, Chrystia Freeland, Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz, and the whole Trump Administration 2.0 because they are not good people. They do not have the best interest of their citizens at heart and only care about what benefits them. Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney have damaged this country, Canada, something Jack Layton or Jean Chrétien would have never done. Man, I wish Jack Layton had been our Prime Minister. He was such an amazing person. If he were still alive today, he would have made Canada a great place, unlike the Liberal Party of Canada, which I have no respect for after ten years of destruction of Canada.

I do hope the CFP (Canadian Future Party) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Future_Party, or even the NDP once they get their act together, replaces the Liberals for good. I think we need more than two parties in Canada.

Oh yes, I almost forgot. Please give this video a good watch:
Click to expand...

Smogon didn't make me a leftist, learning about politics and world history did.
 
I’m at war everyone. War with one faction. Can you guess who it is? That’s right. It’s the dog lesbians.

You might be asking, “what is a dog lesbian?” You know the ones. They wear sporty tanktops, cargo shorts, and hiking shoes. Oh yeah, they’re really into hiking. They claim they are “outdoorsy” types, perfectly symbolized by none other than the carabiner. They wear their hair tied up tightly with no loose strands whatsoever. They even lean towards a “crunchy” lifestyle, sometimes they’re vegan. Yeah, you know exactly what I’m talking about. But the most important fact about dog lesbians, of course is their unyielding devotion to their dogs. Which is cool, I guess. We are all about loving our pets. As an arthropod owner, I totally get it. But these dog lesbians, wow, they LOVE their dogs. Half of their personality revolves around their dogs. They LOVE dogs period. But not just any type of dog—no no. They discriminate against small dogs. Yeah I said it. They only respect medium- to large-sized dogs, like labradors and shit. But if they see a Bichon Frise? That’s an annoying thing to them. The paradox here is they’re not even real dog fans. They just love certain dogs. I should call them Selective Dog Lesbians.

I really don’t have anything against dogs. My gripe is with the dog lesbians themselves. But why? Let me tell you why. You see, I’m a cat lesbian. That’s right. I have two cats. My cats, they are dumb as rocks. They throw shit outside of their litter box constantly. They won’t eat their food if there’s an absence of food in the middle of the bowl. They jump on me in the middle of the night. Truly, these are imperfect beings. See, that’s the difference (among many others) between the cat lesbians and dog lesbians. Us cat lesbians, we can acknowledge the duality of things, like people and cats. The duality here being that these are flawed beings still worth love and respect. Dog lesbians, on the other hand, they think their dogs can do no wrong. That these animals are above criticism. I don’t like that one bit. No creature is above criticism.

And you know what? I hate hiking. I don’t want to revolve my life around “adventure.” I’m way too out of shape for that. You know what I’d ratner do? Spend 30 minutes writing a forum post about Dog Lesbians. It’s a terrible use of my time but again, I am a flawed individual and I recognize that. Unlike these Dog lesbians. And you know, I’ll just say it—dogs, they smell bad. Yep. Cats do too. They shit in a box after all. All animals are smelly. Even my bugs. They eat rotting material and shit. Everyone smells. But hey, that’s okay. Again, we are all flawed individuals.

But I digress, this about dog lesbians, the most individuals. If there are any dog lesbians here reading this, here is my message to you:

We get it. Your dog is on a raw diet. That is really cool for you and your dog. But you know what else is cool? Toy poodles. Maybe don’t discriminate against certain dogs. Also, stop trying to get your friend group to do outdoor activities. Please, it’s 102F out. Can we please just play pinball or something? I don’t feel like I’m asking a lot here. It’s time for you to start considering others in your life, not just what you or your dog (allegedly) wants.

I know this is controversial in the community, but I tried to conduct a good faith review of dog lesbianism. As a member of the cat lesbains, I am willing to take feedback as well. Let’s come together, please. Thank you.
 
fx said:
I’m at war everyone. War with one faction. Can you guess who it is? That’s right. It’s the dog lesbians.

You might be asking, “what is a dog lesbian?” You know the ones. They wear sporty tanktops, cargo shorts, and hiking shoes. Oh yeah, they’re really into hiking. They claim they are “outdoorsy” types, perfectly symbolized by none other than the carabiner. They wear their hair tied up tightly with no loose strands whatsoever. They even lean towards a “crunchy” lifestyle, sometimes they’re vegan. Yeah, you know exactly what I’m talking about. But the most important fact about dog lesbians, of course is their unyielding devotion to their dogs. Which is cool, I guess. We are all about loving our pets. As an arthropod owner, I totally get it. But these dog lesbians, wow, they LOVE their dogs. Half of their personality revolves around their dogs. They LOVE dogs period. But not just any type of dog—no no. They discriminate against small dogs. Yeah I said it. They only respect medium- to large-sized dogs, like labradors and shit. But if they see a Bichon Frise? That’s an annoying thing to them. The paradox here is they’re not even real dog fans. They just love certain dogs. I should call them Selective Dog Lesbians.

I really don’t have anything against dogs. My gripe is with the dog lesbians themselves. But why? Let me tell you why. You see, I’m a cat lesbian. That’s right. I have two cats. My cats, they are dumb as rocks. They throw shit outside of their litter box constantly. They won’t eat their food if there’s an absence of food in the middle of the bowl. They jump on me in the middle of the night. Truly, these are imperfect beings. See, that’s the difference (among many others) between the cat lesbians and dog lesbians. Us cat lesbians, we can acknowledge the duality of things, like people and cats. The duality here being that these are flawed beings still worth love and respect. Dog lesbians, on the other hand, they think their dogs can do no wrong. That these animals are above criticism. I don’t like that one bit. No creature is above criticism.

And you know what? I hate hiking. I don’t want to revolve my life around “adventure.” I’m way too out of shape for that. You know what I’d ratner do? Spend 30 minutes writing a forum post about Dog Lesbians. It’s a terrible use of my time but again, I am a flawed individual and I recognize that. Unlike these Dog lesbians. And you know, I’ll just say it—dogs, they smell bad. Yep. Cats do too. They shit in a box after all. All animals are smelly. Even my bugs. They eat rotting material and shit. Everyone smells. But hey, that’s okay. Again, we are all flawed individuals.

But I digress, this about dog lesbians, the most individuals. If there are any dog lesbians here reading this, here is my message to you:

We get it. Your dog is on a raw diet. That is really cool for you and your dog. But you know what else is cool? Toy poodles. Maybe don’t discriminate against certain dogs. Also, stop trying to get your friend group to do outdoor activities. Please, it’s 102F out. Can we please just play pinball or something? I don’t feel like I’m asking a lot here. It’s time for you to start considering others in your life, not just what you or your dog (allegedly) wants.

I know this is controversial in the community, but I tried to conduct a good faith review of dog lesbianism. As a member of the cat lesbains, I am willing to take feedback as well. Let’s come together, please. Thank you.
Click to expand...
thought you meant something else by dog lesbian
 
LPBvgc said:
Not my hot take, but this is definitely a searing hot take (that I agree with partially).
Screenshot_2025-05-09-12-27-16-813_2.jpg

(We got 3DS Era Elitists before GTA6)
Click to expand...
I agree that SM was peak (only issue is the cutscenes, but on a first playthrough that factor isn't nearly as bad, only is really a problem in making repeat playthroughs a bit of a slog, but its still dealable with), but XY was bad. Not the worst pokemon game mind you (looking at you BDSP), but it was nowhere close to peak.
And mind you, I played these games when I was young, so even looking back I remember, man, these games are bad. And even replaying XY, they still were not good.
 
XY's biggest crime is all of the potential for something far greater that was squandered so hard and so badly.

Color me not someone who does deep-dives, because I'm not that kind of person, but I feel like if you look at... everything about XY, from the gimmick it introduced, to the story, to the gameplay, Zygarde, all of it, really, you can definitely pick out some good beats.

The problem is that the game does nothing with them or actively half-asses a way to work with them that does not do their creative potential any sort of justice. Using Mega Evolution as the most prominent example, you'd think that as the shining gimmick of the generation, they'd be featured all over the place. In reality, though, only THREE trainers actually use them in the game! [This one is actually a much larger topic than I'm willing to write about in this post, so I'll spare you that rant]

XY really reminds me of Scarlet and Violet, and honestly to some extent Sword and Shield in terms of how badly they squandered the concepts that they presented. The only difference is that there's a much stronger argument for those two in terms of quality, even in spite of their admittedly rushed dev times and the "push it now, fix it later" approach that has befallen them, whereas with XY it really feels like their low quality is genuinely inexcusable for something that's supposed to be the first 3D pokemon game.
 
LPBvgc said:
Not my hot take, but this is definitely a searing hot take (that I agree with partially).
Screenshot_2025-05-09-12-27-16-813_2.jpg

(We got 3DS Era Elitists before GTA6)
Click to expand...
I mean, points for being a take I don't see that often, but "unplayable due to grind" is a very funny reason to dislike the earlier generations. Sure, a lot of them will involve some tedium if you want to use a full team of six, as many people do, but unplayable? That's such an overstatement that it's driving me to sit in a rocking chair with a cane and rave about how kids these days lack grit and toughness.
 
Divine Retribution said:
I don't know if it's even a hot take but grinding =/= difficulty. Way too many people seem to think that making a game grindier makes it harder or, vice versa, that removing grinding from a game makes it easier. These are ridiculous self-evidently wrong sentiments and if you espouse them your brain is broken.
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I agree
 
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