Sword & Shield **Official news only** DLC Crown Tundra 22nd October

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I will admit though, the site mentioning that Max Strike (the Max Normal move) lowering Speed does make me interested in what secondary effects we can expect for other moves. I wonder if some Pokemon with more unusual coverage moves may benefit!
Well I think it's safe to assume that Fire will burn, Electric will Paralyze, Ice will Freeze, and Poison will Poison.

Now if we take a look over Let's Go's special Partner Eevee moves we may get an idea what they could do with some other Types: Water heals haels, Psychic sets up Light Screen, Dark sets up Reflect, Grass sets up Leech Seed, and Fairy cures status ailments.

That leaves Fighting, Flying, Ground, Rock, Bug, Ghost, Steel, & Dragon.

Not only that, since Normal decreases Speed, we could assume four other Types will decrease Attack, Defense, Special Attack, and Special Defense (or two other Types decreases both offense stats and both defense stats if they want to make it more convenient). There's also Accuracy and Evasion.

Then there's other status ailments. Notably Sleep, Confusion & Flinching, but there's also Infatuation, Trapping, Curse, & Telekinesis/Levitating. And there's also the possibility of increasing the user's stats, setting up Weather/Rooms/Terrain, copying the effect of another Move/Item/Ability.

That all said, with Dynamax only lasting 3 turns, they'd probably want to keep the Pokemon attacking the entire time so the Max Moves may not afflict any effects which could cause possible turn skipping (Paralysis, Confusion, Sleep, Infatuation, decreasing Accuracy, raising Evasion).

I'm not sure if this is the proper place to speculate about things like legendary typings, i supose it is. What types do u think they'd be?
Both look to be Steel-types (or rather it would make thematic sense, being what swords and shields are made of) at the very least. With Zamazenta being a shield thus probably defense focused would make sense for it to remain pure Steel or MAYBE, at a stretch, Steel/Fairy. Zacian could also remain pure Steel but I think would make sense to be Steel/Fighting so that it can get STAB on Sacred Sword which it'll no doubt learn.

So apparently, someone asked Morimoto about Moody, and he said "they're doing something about it." Japanese community seems to think this is a sign that it's finally getting nerfed! Would be great news, Smeargle is a menace in VGC, and Glalie is also loathed a lot by the Battle Spot Singles community. This would be rad, and probably a good sign of the competitive changes Gamefreak will make next gen!
Hmm, not sure what they plan on doing, the problem with Moody is that it's so simple that any changes risk making it a niche Ability. Make the boost happen only when a Pokemon other than itself is knocked out? Have the increased stat and decreased stat not be the same stat until all stats have been increased/decreased (though if they do that hopefully they'll remove Accuracy and Evasion).

"hurr If You LOoK FrOM tHiS AnGLe tHe HiLt KiNd of lOoKs LiKE a MoOn GUyS!"
There's no need to be rude.

Anyway, I'm interested at looking over those leaks which predicted some stuff in the trailer to see what else it had to say. I'll keep things in spoiler tags for obvious reason. For convenience sake I'll treat each leak as if they were true, though as always take every leak with a grain of salt:

LEAK 1: In addition to Hop there's two other rivals: Bede and Marnie.
LEAK 2: Team Yell is the gang in this game, who are well meaning fans of Marnie causing trouble.
LEAK 3: To become part of the gym challenge, you will have to get an endorsement. Bede gets an endorsement from Chairman Rose and his secretary Oleana.

So two more rivals, one associated with the "villain" team and another who has some influencial help.
Marnie (which I'm assuming is a girl) sounds like she may be an idol or at least a region darling if she has a sizable fan club. They don't sound like the typical "villain" team but rather probably obsessed fans who will go out of their way to make sure nothing gets in Marnie's way (and they call themselves Team Yell as during Marnie's Gym matches they probably are rooting for her the loudest). This is an interesting twist on the villain team if that's the case, though it'll also mean they aren't the main antagonist which, while would be a breath of fresh air, what would the antagonist be then?
That said, Marnie probably isn't going to be that mean of a character. However Bede is sounding like a rival who has potential thinking they're superior because they have a major corportation backing him and giving him instant access to challenge the Gyms. Of course, while initially we'd be bashing heads with Bede, wonder if the corporation Rose and Oleana are from will later play a bigger role (though would that be too much like the Aether Foundation twist if they're secretly evil?).
So together we have the "best buddy" Hop, the "part of a different social circle" Marnie, and "I'm better than you" Bede.

LEAK 4: Eternatus is the evil legendary.

Well if we aren't having an evil team, could this be the first game where the main antagonist is a Legendary. "Um, what about Necrozma"? I barely count Necrozma as it appeared at the very end of the story just before you're needed to go and defeat it. Team Skull and the Aether Foundation were the main antagonists for most of the story. Though there is some questions I have here. Eternatus doesn't match the naming scheme of Zacian and Zamazenta, so either the theory that the third member's name will be based on the color yellow or it's not related to the wolves at all and there's still another Legendary to be revealed.

LEAK 5: In addition to Dynamaxing there's Gigantamaxing. It's different from Dynamax as it changes what the Pokemon looks like: Meowth looks like long cat, Lapras gets layers like musical bars to its shell and musical notes, and Pikachu looks like retro fat Pikachu.

So in other words, much like with Z-Crystals, even though they made this mechanic to work with every Pokemon they couldn't help themselves giving a certain handful of Pokemon a special version of the gimmick. *Sigh* Well I suppose it means they put some additional thought into the mechanics, but I question was it worth the time. Once again, you can only Dynamax in certain locations so the chance you have to use these Gigantamax would be further limited.

LEAK 6: Some pokemon, like Farfecht'd, will get regional evolutions, like Sirfecht'd. Meowth looks like a ball of spiky grey fur.

Now this is big news, they're bringing back cross gen evolutions at them being absent for 3 gens! And they're finally giving us that Farfetch'd evo we've always thought about (which I'm kind of mixed about. For one thing I'd like to see Farfetch'd become better, but at the same time it ruins the "lore joke" about Farfetch'd). Though it's interesting Meowth is getting so much focus, last gen gave it a regional variation and now it's getting it's own Gigantamax and regional evolution. I'm also surprised this part of the leak doesn't mention Eevee since it would be the most obvious to get evolutions.

LEAK 7: Skwovet and Greedunt iirc are chipmunk pokemon who will hide in berry trees and attack randomly if you shake for too many berries. If they attack, you lose half the berries that dropped.

In the trailer we did see the trainer shaking the tree to get Berries, and there is that mysterious Pokemon we've seen on shirts and in the crowd that look like a chipmunk.
This mechanics sounds sort of similar to Crabrawler's which you found hidden in Berry piles. Curious if you need to make it attack in order to battle it, or if that's just an event and you can encounter another in tall grass. If this is how you battle it, do you still lose half the berries you got if you catch/defeat it? With Crabrawler you had to defeat/catch it to get the berries from the pile that it was in, so it a similar deal here?

LEAK 8: he fourth gym is the first Fairy type gym, led by an actress named Opal. Milo, Nessa, and Kabu are the first ones.
LEAK 9: Before fighting the gym leaders, you have to complete the gym challenges:
* Milo has you herding sheep pokemon named Wooloo, but Pamper, electric corgi pokemon, will startle them and send them rolling elsewhere.
* Nessa has you running through a maze where water blocks the way
* Kabu requires you to catch pokemon and get 5 points, but you have to be in a party battle with another trainer who's also trying to catch it

So does this mean you can battle Milo, Nessa, and Kabu in any order for the first three but Opal will always be the fourth? Also, since the player doesn't have an endorsement (guessing Hop has his brother, Marnie has her fan club, and Bede has Chairman Rose), is completing a Gym challenge the way the player gets an endorsement? Eitherway challenges sound more akin to the Island Challenge Trials then normal Gym Puzzles, which I like. My main problem with the Trials is that, without a trainer battle at the end, they kind of felt flat. Also these challenges already sound more engaging than some of the Trials.
Oh and new doggie Pokemon. Enjoy the memes spotlight now Wooloo, because the internet loves their cute dogs (interesting it's Electric-type, would think Electrike family had the solid claim of being the Electric canine).

LEAK 10: In the Wild Area you will randomly see nearby players and interact with them to get their league cards and items.

So there's an additional benefit to connecting with other players than just having humans helping you battle in Max Raids. Getting items is what it sounds, though curious what you get from collecting League Cards and if its the individual trainer's card that does anything or it's how many you collect that matters (similar to Secret Base Flags in ORAS).

LEAK 11: Camping is how you play with pokemon now. You'll get two toys, a feather toy and toy pokeball, which can raise friendship. You can make curry which will raise starts and friendliness.

Cute idea, instead of just suddenly stopping and spacing out you set up an actual camp (or maybe at least in the Wild Area and routes, this doesn't sound like something you'd do in a middle of a town/city). And this time around the food item is curry? Kind of odd, when I think UK food items I don't think curry, I think of something like biscuits and tea.

LEAK 12: Scorbunny will have fighting moves, but is pure fighter. It becomes Raboot, but I don't remember the final evolution, except that it looks like a fighter. It looks humanoid.
LEAK 13: Sobble becomes Sizzile and then Intelleon, a chameleon with a spy theme.
LEAK 14: Grookey will end up as a giant gorilla that beats a wood drum to attack.

I'm going to assume "pure fighter" is a spelling mistake and they meant "pure fire". Surprise it becomes a "fighter" instead of a soccer player, especially with the middle evo name being "Raboot".
Sobble becomes a spy? Is that supposed to be like a James Bond reference? If so, what's the reference with Grookey becoming a dummer, Ringo Starr from The Beatles?

LEAK 15: The best Pokémon so far is the blue seagull who when it dives, either gets a barracuda in its mouth or a pikachu, which it launches at its enemy.

Guessing that's a Move? Also is the barracuda a new Pokemon, a fish Pokemon we already know like Basculin, or does the move's animation just show a plain ol' barracuda (or sometimes a Pikachu which what?). Also another seagull Pokemon, we're getting a lot of copies of Pokemon based on animals that already have been done in some shape or form. Would like to see some Pokemon based on animals we haven't seen before.
 
The "balance changes" gen 8 will bring are something I'm really interested in.

They've always only really cared for their official format sadly (being, VGC doubles), and not a case last gen they hit extremely prominent threats (mega Salamence, mega Gengar, mega Kangaskhan, dark void, Talonflame) and possibly went overboard with some of those.

Unfortunately for the fellow smogoners, Lando-T doesn't quite have enough VGC usage for me to see it getting any hit.
Intimidate, on the other hand...

I'll be curious, sadly, that's something we're likely not going to know until WAAAAY later... When was that we knew of the nerfs to smogonbirb and similar things, was it before or after the leak of the game itself?
Dark Void and Talonflame were certainly overboard. Why make Dark Void have worse accuracy than Hypnosis? I know in Doubles, Dark Void does seem pretty broken by hitting both foes, but in most contexts, that move is used in a singles format. Weird you say Intimidate... You mean, that ability hasn't been nerfed before?
 
Dark Void and Talonflame were certainly overboard. Why make Dark Void have worse accuracy than Hypnosis? I know in Doubles, Dark Void does seem pretty broken by hitting both foes, but in most contexts, that move is used in a singles format. Weird you say Intimidate... You mean, that ability hasn't been nerfed before?
To be fair, being former frequent victim of DV, now I kinda feel bad of Darkrai (although I'd still want to avoid it in BSpot, maybe bringing Espeon just for it). Smeargle was the cause of this being so broken, and I'll just say it will suck whenever I see a Smeargle in rated BSTriples back in ORAS (I have grand total of one or two win against this thing by early wake-up / miss luck and even other attempts to thwart it like PrankTaunt, ganging up, or full offense will be thwarted back (mental herb, scarf, redirection, etc.) without me knowing which counter-strategy they bring). It will put 2/3 if not whole of my lead to sleep and then proceed to slaughter everything with minimal effort.
At least iirc, last Spooky Cup where Darkrai is usable is in Singles, so no more DV shenanigans, and looks like there's sleep cause in formal formats anyway.

Still, you'll know this thing is vile in multi-mon format (Doubles, Triples), as it cripples you in the start. I've faced enough to join Theorymon's prayer for Tapu-Koko to save us from the void during Gen7 hype. But I kinda think at least the accuracy should be a little higher to justify using it over standard Hypnosis ever since now it's locked to Darkrai (but not the original accuracy, that's just forcing anyone in BSDouble to run Espeon or at least Tapu-Koko or PrankTaunt if they don't use Mental Herb).

And on Intimidate thing, only thing I can think of is that it'll most likely be indirect. I can't really imagine how they will directly nerf it. That's it. I'll better dig to the lores again before things get outta hand.
 
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The "balance changes" gen 8 will bring are something I'm really interested in.

They've always only really cared for their official format sadly (being, VGC doubles), and not a case last gen they hit extremely prominent threats (mega Salamence, mega Gengar, mega Kangaskhan, dark void, Talonflame) and possibly went overboard with some of those.

Unfortunately for the fellow smogoners, Lando-T doesn't quite have enough VGC usage for me to see it getting any hit.
Intimidate, on the other hand...

I'll be curious, sadly, that's something we're likely not going to know until WAAAAY later... When was that we knew of the nerfs to smogonbirb and similar things, was it before or after the leak of the game itself?
It was like top 10 usage for every VGC format except GS cups. Even then, it had high usage. Why wouldn't Lando-T recieve nerfs?
 
It was like top 10 usage for every VGC format except GS cups. Even then, it had high usage. Why wouldn't Lando-T recieve nerfs?
Because Lando-T per se isnt what was overused, Intimidate is. Which Lando-T happens to have as only ability. ;)

If you watched VGC 2018, every team had 2 if not 3 intimidater (usually Incin, Lando-T, and one of the 4 megas with it), and only reason you see less of it in 2019 is due to ubers not having it and being mostly special oriented rather than phisical (bar lord PDon).

I advocated of it in the past on this post and others, and if gen 7 nerfs are a indicator, the fact they already mentioned hitting one of the most obnoxious mechanics of gen 7 vgc (moody) makes me feel Intimidate also has it coming :P
(Also still betting on the Zdogs or the "tapus" of the games to have Defiant or something similar as ability)
 
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Because Lando-T per se isnt what was overused, Intimidate is. Which Lando-T happens to have as only ability. ;)

If you watched VGC 2018, every team had 2 if not 3 intimidater (usually Incin, Lando-T, and one of the 4 megas with it), and only reason you see less of it in 2019 is due to ubers not having it and being mostly special oriented rather than phisical (bar lord PDon).

I advocated of it in the past on this post and others, and if gen 7 nerfs are a indicator, the fact they already mentioned hitting one of the most obnoxious mechanics of gen 7 vgc (moody) makes me feel Intimidate also has it coming :P
(Also still betting on the Zdogs or the "tapus" of the games to have Defiant or something similar as ability)
Do you really think Lando-T will suffer a huge drop if Intimidate was nerfed or removed? It still has a sky high attack.
 
Do you really think Lando-T will suffer a huge drop if Intimidate was nerfed or removed? It still has a sky high attack.
In singles? Likely not. But we already agreed that that's not what they'd want to affect to begin with.

In VGC? That's a different beast, considering his typing, moveset and speed tier aren't the greatest, to the point people were running special Lando-T to circumvent opposer intimidaters and not oneshot your own team with Earthquake. (That said, Dynamaxed Lando-T... o.o )

That said, I specifically say Intimidate because of how abused that mechanic is in VGC: as I pointed out, I mean on its own it raised Incineroar from barely used to the most used pokemon of the format, even more present than any ubers in this year VGC. Being able to -1 attack both enemy pokemon with virtually no drawback has historically been a great thing.

Indirect nerfs aren't to exclude either.
The two cover legendaries being knight for example makes me think abilities like Defiant aren't impossible to run into. You'd be much more deterred from showing up with 4 intimidates on your team if you're giving whatever 600 BST pokemon the enemy has a free +1/2 in its main offensive stat.
It's the kind of changes that would not impact any in-game Pokemon with it, leaving Intimidate as a good ability overally, but would significantly strike the viability of Intimidate stacking and thus the viability of intimidaters themselves, Lando-T included.
After all, purely nerfing Prankster and ThunderWave managed to tone down Thundurus usage by a mile, I wouldn't see why nerfs to the ability wouldn't tone down Lando-T's one.

That said, I don't want to derail the topic into competitive or wishlisting, I've been over my thoughts about gen 8 very likely to strike Intimidate enough times, I just thought that seeing that one of the other abused mechanics (Moody) was mentioned to be hit, would also mean that we could see this one hit as well.
 
I can see 2 ways an Intimidate nerf can happen. 1: In Doubles / Triples it only affects the Pokemon directly opposite you. 2: It also affects your partner. Personally I'd prefer the former, although the latter does open the door for some interesting strategies, like pairing your Intimidate user with something that has Defiant / Competetive.

I'm probably in the minority here, but I actually really like the idea of Dynamax. Seeing Pokemon like Pikachu and Clefable get gigantic is hilarious for me, and it's been confirmed that it only takes place in specific locations, so unlike Z moves and megas it (hopefully) won't break the game. Even moves like Ember and Water Gun got to 100 BP when turned into Z moves, so you could pretty much always KO the target with them if they were neutral. Most megas have BSTs on par with most legendaries, so unless that were at a severe type disadvantage they were pretty much always an instant win button.
 
it's been confirmed that it only takes place in specific locations, so unlike Z moves and megas it (hopefully) won't break the game
I feel the biggest part of this is the fact that differently from megas (and honestly, Z-moves to some degrees), plot NPCs including Gym leaders also get access to it from the get go.
In XY/ORAS, only the latest enemies of the game had Megas, while you get access to them somewhat early, and at that point you were so overleveled that it didn't matter anyway.
In SM/USUM, totems didn't use Z-moves, most route trainers didn't either so you could brutally murder them, and even Kahuna/E4 only had one, often on their "signature" Pokemon, and being usually at total-pokemon-disadvantage anyway in best scenario they'd KO one of your pokemon, and in the most common one get absolutely nothing out of it due to you having type advantage or immunity anyway, or outspeeding and 1shotting their Z-user before they can even use it.

However, by limiting the Dynamaxing to Gyms and potentially plot-relevant battles, SwSh is both making sure that the enemy also has access to the mechanic right away, as well as preventing you from neutralizing every non-plot-relevant battle by pressing your overpowered button.

Can't complain, I definitely like this aspect of Dynamaxing.

I'm probably in the minority here, but I actually really like the idea of Dynamax.
I actually like the concept/mechanic per se, I just think it also feels a bit "lazy" as it gives vibes of "let's put Mega and Z toghether in one".
 
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Now that as Worldie mentioned, the way Dynamax is handled can indeed be good, limiting it from in-game abuse to gamebreaker territory. This means, things left are to see how they'll handle the general EXP system (flat or proportional like BW/SuMn) and level curve in general, and they're not that bad at that, at least (barring the easy XY) and this means the good ol' way of adventure. This is while actually highlighting the gimmick itself in important battles instead of we spamming it everywhere (think "if you emphasize everything, nothing's emphasized").
This would also be the first time they're actually trying to seam it to the world (think of what would realistically happen if you make EQ in a city).

This said, I believe we haven't seen everything about this Pocket Kaiju(TM), so I'm still indifferent / "well, ok" for this gimmick.
 
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This means, things left are to see how they'll handle the general EXP system (flat or proportional like BW/SuMn) and level curve in general, and they're not that bad at that, at least (barring the easy XY) and this means the good ol' way of adventure.
Honestly, I cannot disagree that exp curve in XY, ORAS and SM was awful. If you used exp share, you were grossly overleveled almost everywhere, and even if you didn't you'd easily be even leveled without even trying.

However... USUM really felt they got the exp curve right. If you didn't have exp share on, you had to put effort in matching levels, expecially once you hit the infamous Guzma-2 level (masquerain :psynervous: ), and with exp share you'd be about on level with everything all the time and still decently lower than the big fight with Necrozma.

I can't really speak for Let's Go due to how weird the exp curve is in there and the completely different exp system, though it was overally also somewhat balanced as far as level go if you didn't take weird routes (like doing Blaine before Surge o_o )

I do have significant hopes that aside intentional detours / grinding, SwSh will have again a level curve balanced around exp share (that is, if exp share is even a thing and isn't built-in like in Let's go)
 
I do have significant hopes that aside intentional detours / grinding, SwSh will have again a level curve balanced around exp share (that is, if exp share is even a thing and isn't built-in like in Let's go)
To be fair too, USUM got it right not just by level, but by the IV; most important battles have high IV and optimal natures and whatnots, which means even level is often not enough. But it gives a certainly thrilling adventure. I can think that they'd make it internally easier for the vanilla (IV and whatnots), and making it harder on third version/sequel/whatever with high IV as a generation format now, although that remains to be seen soon.
I'd want to continue that Exp. Share can be tiered, nerfing/adjusting it at start before giving the full un-nerfed version postgame, or something else (challenge mode when), but I don't want to veer to wishlisting. Now I'll just give faith in GF that they can make the difficulty curve reasonably good, they have done USUM.
 
The shield dog is also primarily blue and white, how does that make a fire type so obvious? Kyogre also glows red, does that make it a fire type too!?
Shield dog most distinctive colour is red, and so is its shield. I don't remember a trailer with Kyogre glowing red and his companion glowing blue. Those lines, that just add a bit of a pulse in red (or yellow in rayquaza's case) aren't the same.

"hurr If You LOoK FrOM tHiS AnGLe tHe HiLt KiNd of lOoKs LiKE a MoOn GUyS!"
It clearly resembles a moon and we have nordic mythology as the common base since Generation VI. Those two could very well be inspired in the wolves that hunt the Sun and the Moon, which makes even more sense considering Zygarde had a plot in SuMo and Solgaleo/Lunala are from the past gen. But the point is: it looks like a moon. Check this, you may find i helpful: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falacia_del_hombre_de_paja

u WeLcOmE >S

No, the safest guess is Steel/Fighting because the first thing we see them doing is engage in some sort of medieval knight duel and you can literally hear the metallic sound coming from their movements. It's fine if you think your theory makes any kind of sense, just get ready to post your surprised_pikachu.jpg meme when the actual typings are revealed lol.
Thanks for repeating what I have already said. Next time i'll try to write in a way YoU ArE FaMiLiArIzEd WiTh, if that makes things easier. It's just a theory, i can be wrong. Thats the reason we are discussing.
 

Merritt

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It clearly resembles a moon
I dunno man, to me it really resembles a fishtail. Paired with the shape of the blade when it gets the additions and I'm seeing a giant fish.




More seriously, I think you're reading a bit too much into the shape there, it looks like a generic anime-fancy pommel to me. I doubt that GF would have the "Blue" game's cover legendary have moon imagery two gens and three games in a row.
 

TMan87

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Disappointing, kinda.
Though, I like the fact they actually announce Gym Leaders now instead of having a plain sign with the title. It really fits the stadium theme they have and I hope it stays after Galar.
 

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