Reflecting on BW and Looking Ahead to Gen VI - SEE POST #508

[Sound]

Especially dual-type moves, I really don't see that happening anytime soon.

I am quite disappointed by the name Fairy-type though, it just doesn't fit in with the scheme of the other types. Not just because I have never seen a type chart with it, but more because the entire theme seems bizarre. The closest to being an odd type is Steel, who ended up fitting in our competitive mons really well. I wonder if Light type might have been a better name, but w/e. This has the potential to make it or break it for next gen mons.

Really? I see it as another version of Dragon, or Bug.

On the topic of Fairy type, assuming just a resist, Azumarill now forces most Dragon types not named Kyurem-B to run a new coverage move or be defeated. I went through my calcs somewhat quickly, as it's late where I am, but it seems that Azumarill can switch into most Dragons without a care in the world. Even without a good physical Fairy STAB, there's always good ole Ice Punch. Now, if Azumarill (and, by extension, all Fairies) had an immunity to Dragon... That would be insane. Sure, the OU Dragons (The ones who would be OU next gen) may not drop, but you probably wouldn't be seeing one on every team, as now you can't slap one on to improve synergy anymore.

 

[Boondocker]

Really? I see it as another version of Dragon, or Bug.

On the topic of Fairy type, assuming just a resist, Azumarill now forces most Dragon types not named Kyurem-B to run a new coverage move or be defeated. I went through my calcs somewhat quickly, as it's late where I am, but it seems that Azumarill can switch into most Dragons without a care in the world. Even without a good physical Fairy STAB, there's always good ole Ice Punch. Now, if Azumarill (and, by extension, all Fairies) had an immunity to Dragon... That would be insane. Sure, the OU Dragons (The ones who would be OU next gen) may not drop, but you probably wouldn't be seeing one on every team, as now you can't slap one on to improve synergy anymore.

Wouldnt it be funny if trollfreak only made Marril fairy? Azuril and Azumarril are already different types (normal and water respectively). As far as i know only Marril is confirmed to be a Fairy.

 

[SHUCKLE MAN]

I agree. We'd probably think types like Bug, Ghost, etc. were weird if they were introduced now, since they're named after actual objects rather than elements. Plus there's Flying (which was originally going to be called "Bird-type") and Fighting. I don't find Fairy weird tbh.

I was hoping that Fairy would be super-effective against Steel too (as well as weak to it), since that's an over-powered type defensively. It seems weird for two types to be both super-effective and weak to each other, but Bug and Poison were both super-effective against each other in RBY, so there's no reason why it can't happen.

But the usage of Steel-types would probably decrease anyway if Dragon-type usage decreases next gen.

 

[GCSChris]

I definitely don't see dual type moves happening. As Pokemon is a video game geared towards children, and the complexities this would create, I agree with Dcae; I don't see them happening anytime soon.

Fairy type is supposedly is immune to Dragon, but is only confirmed to hit it super effectively. Although balancing, it would make all the cool pokemon much worse, as Lavos said. If the other rumors about Fairy-type are true, it is a pretty solid type, but Scizor usage will only go up if its weak to steel, and it will be interesting to see how that works out (again, if it's all true). Azumarill is easily OU next gen; we'll see with Wigglytuff and Gardevoir.

 

[Dark Fallen Angel]

Steel-types do not need to be weak to Fairy. Fairy just needs to hit them neutrally. Steel do not need more resistances, but it just does not seem reasonable that they gain an weakness either.

With that said, I hope that not just Fire and Psychic-types resist Fairy. Fire is not the best defensive type despite its five resistances, and Psychic is vulnerable to Pursuit and would lack defensive utility outside resisting Fighting and Fairy. Why not something like Grass? Grass is criticized for having too many weakness, however they already have a lot of good resistances. Another resistance would encourage people to use them defensively and would probably end this infame as a bad defensive typing. In addition, fairies wouln't destroy their natural habitat (forests - and Forest = Grass).

 

[Scorpiopt]

From what i saw on thew news on the developer roundup oh boy Gen6 will bring crazy tier shifts

 

[G-Von]

if fairy type really is super effective against dragon/dark/fighting then it's just a huge fuck you to all the cool pokemon

poor scrafty

Never knew you were such a huge Scrafty fan. Anyway I hope all Fairy type will add is another way of hitting dragons hard. I can't imagine how broken it would be if all the speculation turns out to be true about the fairy-type.

 

[ck49]

My biggest problem with fairy is that it basically describes every single psychic type. They already mentioned Gardevoir, but wouldn't Munna be a fairy? Cresselia? All the pixies (most of which are psychic)? Uxie/Mesprit/Azelf? It seems to me that Psychic and fairy will soon be thought of in the same way flying/normal is though of, always combo'd together.

 

[Bent1ey]

There is some logic to splitting Psychic into two types though, they get pretty much all the utility moves (see Trick Room), they have a hefty amount of monotypes, and you get to specialize Psychic types to be better at what they do. I do think some pokemon should straight up change typings and not add combinations though, Gardevoir stays psychic because that way Gallade can stay Psychic Fighting, but Azelf and Uxie can become full Fairy types for all we care.

 

[Aasgier]

When I thought about the Fairy type, I thought directly about Gardevoir getting that type - but not about the others you mentioned. This is because its kin - Gallade - has a secondary type as well, as well as that Gardevoir still is not up to par with Alakazam or the aforemented Gallade in terms of usage. Gardevoir also looks eerie, something the other Psychic's you mentioned do not.

Though I can see the Sinnoh pixies getting the secondary Fairy type as well (or become pure Fairy), I don't see Cresselia getting it, or any other Psychic type currently around for that matter.

 

[Codraroll]

From what i saw on thew news on the developer roundup oh boy Gen6 will bring crazy tier shifts

I'd be disappointed if it didn't. After all, we got pretty crazy tier shifts in all the other generation transitions too.

 

[Soul Fly]

Wigglytuff OHKO-ing Scrafty.

kill me.

 

[Legitimate Username]

I don't really think Fairy types will be as incredible as some people think.

Azumarill is OU viable because of Aqua Jet. If it doesn't get physical Fairy priority, then it's not getting much of a buff. Sure, it can switch in on Dragons, but all it can do is hit them with a resisted Aqua Jet before getting smacked by a coverage move. Gardevoir simply doesn't have the stats to do well in OU.

If Fairies are really weak to Steel like the rumours are saying, then Magnezone becomes far better on DragMag teams, being able hit Fairies with Flash Cannon while beating Steels with HP Fire. Similarly, if Psychic resists Fairy, Gothitelle gains an advantage on DragMag as well, being able to trap a potentially choice-locked Fairy and dent it with whatever attack is needed.

Besides that, while Dragon is certainly good typing, many dragons are strong thanks to their high stats. Kingdra, Flygon, Altaria, Druddigon, and potentially Haxorus have more mediocre stats and find themselves in the lower tiers. Fairies existing does not make their stats alone any worse.

Chances are, we'll get some OU fairies better than stuff like Gardevoir that'll be able to handle dragons pretty well. Dragons will be nerfed. My guess is that the current dragons will maybe be only somewhat more threatening as the DPP OU dragons, but it's not like fairies alone will completely change the metagame.

 

[MikeDawg]

What if team preview doesn't exist in gen 6? Will the metagame fall into complete shit? I feel as if something that is helping circumvent the ridiculous offensive threats is the fact that we can see the opposing team. Thus, we know if we need to preserve our jirachi/celebi/whatever (and if a trapper or something of the like exists)

Without this insight, how do we deal with all of these pokes?

 

[Nyara]

Team Previews just make the next differences:

- Less gimnicky surprises.
- Less strategy in-battle about hiding Pokémon and stuff.
- Zoroaks' ability will be improved.

- More strategy previous to the battle about with what Pokémon lead.
- More strategy at team building as you need to make more viable-leads.
- More focused in-battle play about disabling specific Pokémon of the enemies' team

It's not a huge difference, anyway, I'm ok with whatever option, but I can't stop liking the random factor of fixed leads and the surprise strategies, I feel it more "Pokémon" in exchange for a bit of previous-battle meta.

 

[Bent1ey]

Turning on and off team preview would lead to some interest differents metagame wise.

 

[MikeDawg]

Team Previews just make the next differences:

- Less gimnicky surprises.
- Less strategy in-battle about hiding Pokémon and stuff.
- Zoroaks' ability will be improved.

- More strategy previous to the battle about with what Pokémon lead.
- More strategy at team building as you need to make more viable-leads.
- More focused in-battle play about disabling specific Pokémon of the enemies' team

It's not a huge difference, anyway, I'm ok with whatever option, but I can't stop liking the random factor of fixed leads and the surprise strategies, I feel it more "Pokémon" in exchange for a bit of previous-battle meta.

Wut.

If there is no team preview, who cares about gimmicky surprises? I'd be more concerned with a dugtrio hiding in the wings to kill my weather starter that I didn't know was in danger. Or that they have a landorus that can sweep my team once I lose my celebi which gets killed by the scarftar also hiding in the wings?

Is hiding pokemon really an aspect that we want for a fully competitive metagame though? Maybe in past gens, but with trappers and the like up the butt (no more just wobuffet which did indeed become uber), hiding pokemon just exemplifies the issues that people complain we already have.

Yay zoroark!

I think team preview makes much more of a difference than you realize. There simply is no time to scout and such with the offensive powerhouses and iffy abilities and whatever that gen 5 (and almost certainly gen 6) contains.

 

[Homeslice]

No team preview just means more bans that are for Pokemon that become more powered through no team preview. My best example here would probably be something like weather. Not all weather teams can come out right off the bat with their weather starter because they die to bad match-ups. What if you're facing a Sun team with your rain team, and you don't realize they're also a weather team until your Politoed is dead? Weather seems to be a huge buff to me under this mechanic, and most likely banned. Last time there was no team preview, there was only two weathers to deal with, which were mainly used for residual damage, not to power up Pokemon like they do know, which is why they weren't broken in that system. Definitely believe auto-rain/sun will be agreed to be broken under those conditions at some point during X/Y.

 

[Nyara]

Wut.

If there is no team preview, who cares about gimmicky surprises? I'd be more concerned with a dugtrio hiding in the wings to kill my weather starter that I didn't know was in danger. Or that they have a landorus that can sweep my team once I lose my celebi which gets killed by the scarftar also hiding in the wings?

Is hiding pokemon really an aspect that we want for a fully competitive metagame though? Maybe in past gens, but with trappers and the like up the butt (no more just wobuffet which did indeed become uber), hiding pokemon just exemplifies the issues that people complain we already have.

Yay zoroark!

I think team preview makes much more of a difference than you realize. There simply is no time to scout and such with the offensive powerhouses and iffy abilities and whatever that gen 5 (and almost certainly gen 6) contains.

Well, that's what I like (the part of hidding and stuff), but I completely understand the other point. Anyway, it depends a lot of the metagame that develops, at least on the current generation the difference is not that abysmal as some people wants to make it seems (for whatever side), you can almost deduce most of the enemy team by just its' lead, I played a time on PO without preview and later on Showdown, so, it's not just theorymon. Also, most of you did show up was also present on the fourth generation and a lot of people kinda enjoyed that generation.

By the way, whatever its' better or worst for the new generation it can't be said as nobody knows how that generation will be at the end.

 

[Soul Fly]

I'll just quote a little something from a significant someone regarding team previews.

I'm especially annoyed that certain idiots believe team preview, a function that increases information provided thereby increasing the merit potential of decisions, could possibly reduce skill.

 

[Halcyon.]

Yeah, maybe it's just me, but I love team preview. Admittedly, I never played competotive Pokémon until the start of BW, but I did watch other people play DDPt if that counts. I just feel like the ability to see what your opponent has allows you to formulate a strategy to guide you to victory. Your opponent has to do the same, so it becomes a battle of who can execute their strategy first, which I think demonstrates skill. Why would we want to take away something that allows you to do this? Why would we go back to having to guess what the opponent has? Think about it. Landorus could totally not fit their team's style, so you decide you don't need to keep your Celebi and sac it, only to find out that their last Pokémon was a Landorus, and it now sweeps you. Great battlers take a minute during the team preview part of battles to think about what Pokémon are most important to the success of their strategy, which are useless, and which of the opponent's Pokémon need to be taken out in order for that strategy to come to fruition. Yeah, I guess Zoroark would be better without Team Preview, but I don't think it's worth it at all.

 

[dcae]

Imo the lack of Team Preview emphasizes a different type of skill than the one Halcyon of Light describes. One of the key factors when playing without Team Preview is knowledge of the metagame, as well as been able to force your opponent to reveal their hand early on so you know their plans. For example, you can see that your opponent is clearly avoiding to reveal their last mon, then you can use that to know that is probably a mon that threatens your own team a lot. I have played DPP LC, and an example of knowledge of the metagame I would list here is from that. For example, I switch my Magnemite into Scarf Snover's Blizzard. Obviously, knowing the DPP LC meta, the most likely mon to be switched in here is Gligar, even if your opponent hasn't revealed it yet. Magnet Rise, although a gimmick, allows you to force your opponent to switch again.

The lack of Team Preview does not promote less skill, but merely a different type of skill. However, at this point in the OU meta, I really do not know if we can play OU without Team Preview anymore, due to the immense power creep. RP Landorus is absolutely terrifying without Team Preview, as is Volcarona. I am sure there would be more bans made than without Team Preview, but I feel the overreaction is brought about more by people who haven't played without Team Preview. I do not have extensive experience with it, but I've played without it enough to know that it isn't merely a guessing game, and that skill is lacking versus with Team Preview's building strategies off the bat.

 

[peng]

I assume I'm one of the "idiots" being referred to so I should probably reply. Not really sure why I'm an idiot for having an opinion lol.

My issue with team preview isn't directly the information it provides; its the fact that I feel "autopilot" strategies gain a lot more from that information. VoltTurn + trappers knows that it wins as soon as Pokemon X is trapped and KOd. A Hidden Power [Bug] Keldeo team can learn that as soon as they bait in and KO Celebi, Landorus-I can sweep. Team Preview shows my hand to the opponent and they have a good idea of how to proceed from the offset. This does go both ways, but you don't get anywhere near the same advantage from the information of team preview if you aren't running a Dugtrio / Magnezone / Gothitelle / HP Bug Keldeo / U-Turn Landorus etc.

You only have to look at Expert Belt Keldeo to see how much more efficient lures have become with the advent of team preview. The closest examples in a non-team preview metagame are Passho Heatran and EBelt Tyranitar from DPP. With Heatran, you have to actually think everything through before you end-up Exploding on Starmie / Suicune - you probably need to scout for Rotom-A, and also need to make sure that you aren't reliant on Heatran for anything else on the opposing team before you go boom. In BW, Team preview has already done 90% of the work for you. Team Preview has dictated your game plan for you.

In my opinion, Team Preview massively exacerbates the team match-up thing we have going on too. If I see I have a huge team advantage at team preview, it is very very difficult to screw that up. Team match-up definitely still exists in other generations (not to the same extent), but we very rarely hear about it because its possible to play out of a bad match-up before either one of you even knew it existed.

tl;dr I like Team Preview as a concept, but I feel it gives a distinct advantage to strategies (trapping, luring) that shouldn't be the norm in a truly competitive game. Obviously we can't ban lures but I don't think a competitive game should have a mechanic that favours them so heavily.

If anyone wants to use the "we can't change cartridge mechanics" argument then take it to PM. Shouldn't really come up in this thread.

 

[MikeDawg]

My issue with team preview isn't directly the information it provides; its the fact that I feel "autopilot" strategies gain a lot more from that information. VoltTurn + trappers knows that it wins as soon as Pokemon X is trapped and KOd. A Hidden Power [Bug] Keldeo team can learn that as soon as they bait in and KO Celebi, Landorus-I can sweep. Team Preview shows my hand to the opponent and they have a good idea of how to proceed from the offset. This does go both ways, but you don't get anywhere near the same advantage from the information of team preview if you aren't running a Dugtrio / Magnezone / Gothitelle / HP Bug Keldeo / U-Turn Landorus etc.

While this is true, would it not be /worse/ without team preview?

Imagine this: You have a keldeo/lando/ttar core. You have keldeo out, the opponent has no choice but to switch in celebi, only to have tyrannitar come in and allow either lando or keldeo to sweep.

Or maybe you have a scarf moxiemence in the back and so you bring out your hidden magnezone to kill their skarm and suddenly you can now sweep without the opponent ever seeing it coming.

Basically, without team preview you have to predict what is on the other team (and, as we all know, the word predict in pokemon terms is just a glorified version of guessing), something that is not healthy from a skill standpoint and certainly isn't feasible with yet ANOTHER generation of powerhouses about to be released. Maybe you guess that the opponent's team is one of the 4% that has a magnezone on it so you switch out ferrothorn from the opponents dragonite. Turns out they don't have a magnezone and dragonite can now set up and sweep.

And you can't seriously believe that team preview gives the benefit to trappers/lures. If the opponent had a gothitelle that could kill my landorus-t and allow terrakion to sweep I would MUCH rather know about it than guess that they have one of the very few teams that use gothitelle.

 

[Woodchuck]

I don't think PenguinX's problem is with Team Preview so much as with trappers. Yes, team preview makes it easier to avoid trappers, but the use of trappers becomes disproportionately easier when you know exactly what you can trap on their team and what they will switch in. The problem is that you can just revenge kill something with a trapper mon and KNOW that after that one thing is dead, something else on your team can sweep. It takes the game out of the hands of the player and makes the game more about team matchup than in-battle skill. The problem here isn't really team preview so much as the trappers.