Violet Version (gen 1 mod. playable!)

lilyhollow

lilyhollow

approved by Eevee General and unfixable
Violet Version
Playable here: http://violetversion.psim.us/​

Violet Version is a gen 1 mod. There are very few RBY mods out there, and I know of none that are currently playable on Pokemon Showdown. So, well, here you go.

The big focus here is to create a game that plays a lot like RBY (which is super fun by the way), but actually has more than 15 viable Pokemon. I want to accomplish this by being as 'compact' as possible though; everything in Violet Version is there for a reason, and if I don't see a good reason, I don't include it in the game. I bolded that part because I think it's sort of the opposite of what people tend to expect from Pokemon mods.

Enough talk, look at this pokemon rainbow.

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Clauses/Misc
Yes, Team Preview is on. Feel free to speculate on that!
Team Preview on
Sleep clause
Freeze clause
Species clause

The type chart is modernized.
(Ghost is super-effective against Psychic; Ice is not very effective against Fire; Bug is NVE against Poison; and Poison is neutral against Bug)

1/256 is gone.
In other words, 100 accuracy moves really do have 100 accuracy.

Recover and Softboiled also don't fail like they do in RBY.

Paralysis as a secondary status works as it does in modern gens.
Most importantly, Body Slam can paralyze normal types.

Roster
The first thing that's very different about Violet Version compared to other pet mods is that I actually handpicked a roster of Pokemon that I felt would most effectively contribute to a 'healthy,' interesting game with unique options between each Pokemon. There are over 80 fully evolved Pokemon in RBY, but a lot of them (Golem/Rhydon, Farfetch'd/Pidgeot/Fearow/Dodrio) are super redundant. I could have made typing changes to dozens of Pokemon in an effort to stuff as many Pokemon into the game as possible, but my #1 goal for VV was to be as accessible as possible, so I didn't do that. The plan is for each Pokemon on the roster to be viable and for the overlap between them to be pretty minimal.
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Aerodactyl
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Alakazam
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Arbok
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Articuno
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Beedrill
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Butterfree
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Chansey
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Charizard
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Cloyster
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Dragonite
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Dugtrio
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Electabuzz
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Electrode
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Exeggutor
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Flareon
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Gengar
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Golbat
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Golduck
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Golem
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Gyarados
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Hypno
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Jynx
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Kabutops
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Machamp
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Magmar
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Magneton
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Moltres
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Muk
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Nidoqueen
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Ninetales
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Parasect
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Pidgeot
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Pinsir
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Poliwrath
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Primeape
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Raticate
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Slowbro
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Snorlax
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Starmie
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Tangela
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Tauros
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Vileplume
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Zapdos

Typings
Of course, it wouldn't be a pet mod without some cute type changes!
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- Bug/Psychic
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- Fire/Dragon
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- Electric/Fighting
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- Water/Ghost
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- Fire/Fighting
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- Electric/Rock
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- Fire/Psychic

Move changes
The meat of this mod. Every type now has at least one reasonable attacking move. Otherwise I'll just let the changes speak for themselves.
Acid: 70 BP, 50% chance to lower defense
Bind: Bug type, 30 BP, 8 PP, partial trapping for 2-3 turns
Wrap: 40 BP, 8 PP, partial trapping for 2-3 turns
Clamp: 70 BP, 5 PP, partial trapping for 2-3 turns
Fire Spin: 30 BP, 8 PP, partial trapping for 2-3 turns
Karate Chop: Fighting type
Gust: 80 BP, Flying type, 30% chance to lower attack
Poison Sting: 95 BP, 30% chance to poison
Tri Attack: Ghost, 20% chance to burn, freeze, or paralyze
Dream Eater: 200 BP, Ghost type, works against sleeping, poisoned, or badly poisoned targets, heals 100% of damage dealt
Leech Life: 60 BP, heals 100% of damage dealt
Mega Drain: heals 100% of damage dealt
Submission: 100 accuracy, 100 BP
Petal Dance: 120 BP
Thrash: 90 BP, Dragon type (still repeats 3-4 turns, then confuses user)
Toxic: 100 accuracy
Twineedle: 40 BP per hit (still 20% poison chance per hit)
Vice Grip: Bug type, high critical hit ratio
Mimic: Mimicked moves remain on the user’s moveset even if the user switches out. Jynx, Flareon, Articuno, Magneton, Dugtrio, and Pidgeot are now the only users of Mimic.
Disable: 100 accuracy
Solar Beam: 100 BP, +1 Special during charge turn
Sky Attack: +1 Defense during charge turn
Rock Slide: 85 BP (still 90 accuracy)

Stats/Movepools
Anything unlisted is unchanged. Stats listed as hp/attack/defense/special/speed.
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- Learns Thrash
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- 70/55/60/95/80, learns Leech Life, Solar Beam
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- 65/80/40/45/130, learns Dream Eater, does not learn Swords Dance
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- 65/70/60/65/115, learns Slash, does not learn Body Slam
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- 83/110/75/70/100
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- 60/105/69/65/100
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- 90/92/87/75/85, learns Softboiled
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- Learns Psychic
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- 85/90/80/80/90, learns Acid, Gust
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- 80/105/85/100/80, learns Razor Leaf
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- 90/115/130/80/30, learns Twineedle, Vice Grip
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- Learns Tri Attack, does not learn Submission
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- 65/105/60/60/115
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- 115/130/90/110/65
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- 90/115/95/70/70, Learns Dream Eater
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- 100/130/100/65/55
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- 120/60/95/120/70
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- 145/105/85/75/50, learns Acid
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- 85/93/70/115/67
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- 65/65/70/110/140
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- Learns Sky Attack, Tri Attack
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- Learns Rock Slide, Softboiled
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- Learns Thrash
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- 65/95/57/85/120, learns Vice Grip
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- learns Solar Beam
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- does not learn Tri Attack
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- 35/110/50/70/120, learns Tri Attack
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- learns Rock Slide
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- 85/55/115/100/60

That should be it! Everything detailed in this post should be implemented and playable right now here, with some additional changes to come once I manage to implement them. It's a new server so you'll probably have to arrange matches via Smogon and whatnot but yeah!
 
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Hmm.. with Hypno, I'd probably increase its base HP by like 10 to base 95.. its main niche in OU is as a bulky on both ends status platform; increasing the HP a little augments that and lets it shine at that, whilst the attack boost makes stuff like uhh.. headbutt+meditate? useful potentially too.

Also I get what you mean about it being compact.. maybe after it is all /done/ then consider adding stuff similar to what's there like rhydon and bulky waters, insofar as if they don't completely remove or have no niche; maybe that could even be a second version [violet extended version and the current thing when done call it violet classic?] :]
 
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My dreams are coming true! Bug/Psychic Butterfree and Fire/Dragon Charizard ;o;
This pet mod seems pretty good cause some pokemon movepool sucks in R/B/Y
But why Golduck is Water/Ghost instead of Water/Psychic?
 
Here are a couple replays from games that went down yesterday! They were the first matches played with Team Preview on. SOME OF THE PLAY WAS KIND OF SLOPPY BUT HEY DEAL WITH IT:

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/violetversion-violetversion-94
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/violetversion-violetversion-95
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/violetversion-violetversion-96

Dream Eater wasn't working quite correctly but shooooould be fixed now?


LightningLord2 - Compared to RBY Venusaur, Vileplume has significantly higher attack (it stole Victreebel's attack) and Acid. Acid maybe isn't mandatory, but it's worth noting that it lets Vileplume beat Exeggutor, and even gives it a ~25-30% chance of a OHKO after a Swords Dance. All of the grass/poisons in RBY would have just been murdered straight up in that matchup. With or without acid you can 2HKO Chansey after a Swords Dance, which RBY Venusaur also could not do. So the higher stats are nice.

That being said, after chatting a bit in the server, it does feel like Petal Dance (and probably Thrash) has too much of a drawback. I'm okay with it being worse than Razor Leaf (which it is), but I'm seriously considering changing the 'confusion' drawback to a speed drop, which DreMZ suggested in the server chat. I also miiiiiight modernize the duration so it's 2-3 turns like in future gens, but I really want things to shake out a bit more first.


Delibird o3o - One of Golduck's biggest problems in RBY is that it's outclassed by Slowbro. Making it water/psychic unfortunately wouldn't solve that problem. Water/ghost is a really big difference though, and I feel like Golduck could be sort of 'ghosty' if it wanted to be. :P


Piexplode - THESE ARE HEAVY TOPICS. I'll start with the 'adding more Pokemon one day' thing. Here's the thing about simplicity or 'compactness' that makes me really want to stick to my guns here: literally everything else in the Pokemon community, including the few other gen 1 mods that exist, is all about having tons and tons of new stuff to keep track of and remember. So there's plenty of stuff for the kind of person who likes that, but almost nothing for the kind of person who wants a simple design. I'd like this to be the one thing for that second kind of person.

re: Hypno. The attack boost and tri attack make it the psychic that can beat up other psychics. It's been a pretty fun, useful Pokemon thus far, it seems to really challenge Alakazam for its spot on a team I think? Might need a buff later, but similar to Vileplume it's a little risky to go overboard right away, since things could be quite different once some of the truly mediocre Pokemon get properly buffed. The main balance focus right now is just making sure there's nothing that's miserably awful. Super fine tuning stuff will be an ongoing thing, but it'll mostly come after things like Aerodactyl and Magmar stop being crappy.

re: Gyarados. Yeah someone else asked about this earlier haha. Water/flying is a unique typing, so I felt no need to change it. Sky Attack will be receiving a (minor) buff soon, too, so that might be something.
 
I'm pretty sure that, flavor-wise, it'd be best to keep the starters relevant and not ditch Venusaur and Blastoise.

Also, I don't see that much in the way of Normals and Psychics not being the undisputed best types - only thing that stops normal is that Golduck lacks an EQ weakness Gengar has, but otherwise, you only really have Karate Chop to slow down Chansey, Tauros and Snorlax (which several psychics can absorb). Psychic now has notable weaknesses, but their main STAB is still horribly overpowered and allows them to plow over anything as bugs and ghosts don't resist them. Being hit on the physical side matters little as most psychic-types get smashed by Hyper Beam anyways.
 
Now that i seem the replays Golduck became a counter to many Normal Types like tauros lol.And i see now that Slownro really outclasses Golduck if it was Water/Psychic so Water/Ghost is better for him :)
 
LightningLord2 said:
Also, I don't see that much in the way of Normals and Psychics not being the undisputed best types - only thing that stops normal is that Golduck lacks an EQ weakness Gengar has, but otherwise, you only really have Karate Chop to slow down Chansey, Tauros and Snorlax (which several psychics can absorb). Psychic now has notable weaknesses, but their main STAB is still horribly overpowered and allows them to plow over anything as bugs and ghosts don't resist them. Being hit on the physical side matters little as most psychic-types get smashed by Hyper Beam anyways.
Click to expand...
Yeah, the approach I've taken has been fairly conservative in that I've avoided making changes that completely undermine how the top tiers operate. I could have made ghost resist psychic or something, but besides being weird and inconsistent with every other Pokemon game, I felt that sort of thing would go against the 'buff-first' philosophy I have for the project.

One way to weaken a typing is to introduce stuff that outright beats it, but another way is to simply improve the competition. I'm doing both of those things to an extent, but the latter is the main focus.

That being said, as you pointed out, there's already some stuff that challenges Normal/Psychic types directly:



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Golduck
- Amnesia
- Surf
- Tri Attack
- Rest

The new typing really seems to be all it needed. Tri Attack lets it smack Starmie but maybe that doesn't quite justify itself over Ice Beam or Blizzard. Either way this thing can switch in on Tauros/Snorlax, and stay in, without ever worrying about Body Slam paralysis. Raticate basically needs a crit thunderbolt after Golduck switches into Super Fang. Pidgeot actually has a ~40% chance of a 3hko, so that's probably the normal type that hates Golduck the least.

The resistance to bug is another nice upside over Slowbro. Pinsir 2hkos Slowbro easily, but 4-5hkos Golduck.


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(uh what the hell are you doing machamp)

Machamp
- Karate Chop
- Body Slam
- Hyper Beam
- Earthquake

I'm pretty sure this is the go-to fighting type right now. Maybe someone can prove me wrong and do some impressive stuff with Electabuzz or Primeape though, and I'm giving Magmar some extra juice soon. VV Machamp has physical bulk roughly identical to Cloyster's, and Karate Chop eats normals alive. Tauros barely survives a OHKO. Rest seems like an option, I guess over Hyper Beam? Earthquake is needed to touch ghosts, and could also be good for uhhh Muk? Is Muk usable yet?


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Pinsir
- Vice Grip
- Body Slam
- Hyper Beam
- Swords Dance

I'm starting to be convinced that a solid STAB move is all Pinsir needed? First of all, it thoroughly checks every psychic barring Ninetales. Outside of that, only Slowbro avoids the OHKO entirely (Starmie and Hypno survive ~half the time). Swords Dance is an awkward move for Pinsir now because Vice Grip doesn't care about it, but still cool maybe.

It seems to be pretty good even when it's not cutting psychics in half, I guess time will tell. It might get hard-walled by a few too many things?


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Hypno
- Psychic
- Tri Attack
- Thunder Wave
- Rest

I'll go ahead and say it: I think Hypno will be one of the biggest things keeping the Psychic type in check going forward. Yes, I think a Psychic type is making Psychic types more manageable.

Hypno is everything it was in RBY: so, basically mediocre. Its whole role in RBY was some jack-of-all-trades type thing, and... that hasn't actually changed in Violet Version. The only difference is that Hypno turned traitor and beats up really hard on its old buddies. Namely: Alakazam and Exeggutor, two of the most mandatory Pokemon in all of RBY. Reflect Alakazam can pray it never eats a crit Tri Attack, but otherwise those two want nothing to do with Hypno.

I think Hypno successfully competes with Alakazam for a teamslot. All of the annoyances Alakazam has in dealing with other Psychic types (including itself), Hypno has a pretty solid answer to, and it fills the rest of its role well enough. But since Hypno's still generally worse at oppressing non-Psychics, every time it replaces Alakazam on a team is a minor victory for them.


I'm mildly busy with travel arrangements and whatnot but I'm planning a batch of updates for the near future. So look forward to that or something~
 
Any Psychic-Type not named Mewtwo was already at least soft countered by Chansey - the only one being dangerous is Exeggutor, which it usually has to explode for.

Still, consider dropping Vileplume for Venusaur and another water for Blastoise (maybe Tentacruel or Poliwrath).
 
Okay so I finished moving and have gotten back to work on Violet! There's a big chunk of updates rolling in that I'll detail right here.


1/256 is gone.
In RBY, all the moves that have '100 accuracy' really only have 255/256 accuracy. There's a tiny chance that they can miss, and although it's deeply hilarious when that happens, it's pretty misleading and bad for the game to be that way. That's gone now, so in Violet you won't have to worry about your Ice Beams missing or whatever.

Body Slam can paralyze normals.
It was very recently discovered that in RBY, body slam can't paralyze normal types, thunderbolt can't paralyze electrics, etc. I won't get into the details of why that is, but the point is that in Violet, I've reverted that. This is a minor nerf to most normal types, which is probably a good thing. It also just matches most people's expectations of how Body Slam works, which is the real reason for the switch.

New move: Solar Beam.
Though it's not really a new move, it was completely useless in RBY as far as I'm aware. Now Solar Beam has a scary new perk that should make it a very interesting option: the user gains a special boost during the charge turn. To keep things in control a bit, it's now base 100 instead of 120. Oh, and Exeggutor doesn't learn Solar Beam anymore. S-sorry, but that thing isn't getting that kind of buff any time soon!

Sky Attack has received a similar perk, but it's only a defense boost, just like Skull Bash in modern gens. It's probably not a big deal, but let's see if Aerodactyl or Gyarados can make some decent use of it!

Submission doesn't suck.
Submission is still almost strictly inferior to Karate Chop, which I'm fine with. But it now basically does equal damage at 100BP. Compared to RBY it's hugely buffed, with its 100 expected damage output, compared to RBY's 64 (80 BP, 80% accuracy). But Machamp and Primeape are still living it up with the no-recoil Karate Chop.

Healing moves heal more.
Mega Drain and Leech Life heal 100% of the damage they deal, instead of 50%. Let's see how this works out I guess.

Various Pokemon buffs!
hp/atk/def/spc/spd

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- 115/130/90/110/65
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- 65/95/57/85/120, learns Vice Grip
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- 90/115/95/70/70
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- 85/90/80/80/90
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- 90/115/130/80/30 (HP and defense buffed more)
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- learns Solar Beam
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- learns Softboiled
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- learns Solar Beam

Fire types are not joking around anymore. Flareon is bulkier than Entei, Moltres gains a situational coverage move in the new-and-improved Solar Beam, and Magmar has become some creepy Infernape-type creature.

If Aerodactyl could pick one move from its modern incarnations, it'd probably want Stone Edge or Earthquake or something. Instead it gets "roost," a somewhat awkward but potentially interesting move for such a frail Pokemon.

The other buffs are just 'prods in the right direction' for Pokemon that otherwise felt underwhelming to me. Perhaps Parasect or Poliwrath will find some use in the wake of these changes. Golbat and Butterfree, on the other hand, are still rather incomplete.

Let's run some matches or something!

LightningLord2 said:
Still, consider dropping Vileplume for Venusaur and another water for Blastoise (maybe Tentacruel or Poliwrath).
Click to expand...
Yeahhhhhh, that's definitely a real consideration I had. A lot of people feel good about having all the starters playable. The problem is Blastoise though, it's just the most boring thing ever. Blastoise would have to be changed majorly to justify replacing Tentacruel/Poliwrath with it. I'm not even sure what I'd do with Blastoise, but even if I did figure something out, it'd still be weird because why make all these changes to a Pokemon, only to replace something that was already pretty cool without the need for huge changes, like Tentacruel/Poliwrath?

Probably if I were to include Blastoise (which I have no plans to do), I'd try changing it to water/ground? but it would feel a little gross to me, like it's not nearly as purposeful of a change as any of the other type changes. Having all the starters would be nice but I'm okay with things being a little weird on that end, plus I really really like Vileplume haha.
 
Just posting to indicate that Violet is still being continuously updated, and it's still totally playable here.

Here's most of what's happened since april:

Tangela has replaced Tentacruel.
Tentacruel wasn't doing too much, and after some talk with Disaster Area I went ahead and made the switch. Tangela seems quite interesting and I have even more interesting things planned for it once I'm able.

Partial trapping has been retooled a bit.
All partial trapping moves are now 2-3 hits, and 8pp. The exception is Clamp, which has 5pp. You have to choose your trapping moves wisely! Clamp still hurts a ton though.

Also, Bind is now a bug type move, giving Arbok, Tangela and Pinsir some additional options.

Dugtrio, Golbat, and Rock Slide got buffs.
Dugtrio now has 110 base attack and Tri Attack, giving it great coverage. Golbat has Super Fang, and Rock Slide is base 85, giving the rock types a little extra juice.

replays:

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/violetversion-violetversion-199
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/violetversion-violetversion-232
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/violetversion-violetversion-233
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/violetversion-violetversion-241
 
can you make thrash less shitty?
How about it locks u in for 2 turns only and no extra effect, or just a -1 speed drop?
also if u give it softboiled then I think
softboiled agility thrash filler (I think reflect is cool but u have a lot of options.. maybe twave!) would be an awesome set that checks fires prety well, especially zard I guess.

e: thoughts on:
-Butterfree outclasses Hypno apart from the suprise factor that hypno can muster in its other moves and no rock weakness
-Tangela is actually pretty incredible on paper, tons of ground weak mons (poisons electrics fires and the odd rock) which you can easily stack, and then u have a mon that sticks around all game and can't be easily abused due to extra weakness brought by secondary typing (no 4x bug weak, 2x ghost weak, 2x rock weak, 2x psychic weak, etc) even though it can be exploited it's really a pretty cool pivot.
-SD Zard is a monster as is aero. Both have their fair few checks, but no real counters. Zard is fast and boosts up quick, and has ground/normal coverage + fire, aero can hit most mons. they're so strong it is a tiny bit disconcerting. I think dnite getting softboiled would add another workable check to zard I guess. Zards typing is so cool as well, with no special weaknesses outside of the non-existent still dragon. =/ nerf plz y/n xd.. or find more checks we can add. Testing out a sky attack moltres atm, had reflect earlier.. idrk yet what to think of it. Tons of shit is potential zard bait tho. Any bug, grounded fire, grass, grounded poison (bat sux tho!) are bait for it, at least it has no leftovers.
- oh also I made vileplume and poliwhirl work (on a team together too!!)
 
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Ohhhhh wow, THANK YOU. I've been trying sporadically to get the Disable buff done and making very little progress. There's a tournament for Violet happening now so I won't be able to properly test/implement it until the tournament ends, but this is huge, much appreciated.

Disaster Area

re: Thrash -
My slowness in improving Thrash is mostly a result of it just not being a high priority. In RBY, the dragons had literally zero dragon moves at all. Now they have one, and it's pretty bad, but that's still at least better than the literally nothing they had in RBY. At some point I'd probably like it to be a decent move but I'm not entirely set in what my approach will be. 2-3 turns would be the maximum lock-in I'd have, and I also will probably change the confusion thing to a -1 speed drop. It could also get a BP increase or something but I'm not really sure. In any case, both of those Pokemon would feel "complete" to me even if Thrash were deleted from the game.

re: Butterfree outclassing Hypno -
Yeah I basically agree there. At first I was really high on Hypno because I didn't expect the Leech Life change to be so big for Butterfree. I thought Alakazam was pretty much the only game in town as far as Psychic types, so based on that I figured Hypno would have a considerable niche (as a Psychic type that beats the best Psychic type). Butterfree really muscled in on that territory though.

re: Aero and Zard -
It's really funny how much these Pokemon improved with only a couple of changes each (though that's basically the story of Violet Version at this point). Aero basically sucks in RBY. Its improvements in Violet are: learning Rock Slide (which is 85 BP instead of 75), learning Softboiled, and a defense boost from Sky Attack. Now it's really making waves and is probably one of the top 3 most feared Pokemon right now (not to say that it's top 3 in the game, but adjusting to it has become very important very quickly). Charizard literally just changed typings from Fire/Flying to Fire/Dragon.

That being said, I think I'm not really as high on Charizard as you are. I think it's good but it's not something I'm super afraid of when building a team or anything. Offensively it has good coverage but I don't worry about it ripping through my team to the extent that I (still) fear Tauros. Its typing is super fun defensively but I don't know how easy it really is to switch it into the other fire types. It doesn't really want to eat Body Slam from Flareon or Psychic from Ninetales. Even Magmar can throw out Submission which is nice. I think Moltres might fare the worst against Charizard (which I think is kind of a good thing given how strong it is). Even Moltres can say some things to Charizard though; you mentioned Sky Attack, but it also sucks running into Fire Spin and having to deal with a free switch. Overall I think Charizard is good but I'm not yet 'afraid' of it.
 
So Violet has received a bunch of updates, live here: http://violetversion.psim.us/

Disable
Probably the most unique change in the game, Disable is now permanent. If you Disable someone's move, that move remains Disabled for the remainder of the match, even if the Pokemon switches out. You can Disable a second move, but if you do that, the first move is no longer Disabled. Disable has 3 PP, so you have up to three attempts to try and Disable the move you want. Huge thanks to Slayer95 for this!

Thrash/Petal Dance now last 2-3 turns instead of 3-5
I could have sworn I had already done that. In any case, it's done now. Also, in the next update, Thrash will be 100BP instead of 90 (I overlooked it for the current update but oh well). Probably not a large enough buff, but whatever, baby steps.

Chansey no longer learns Solar Beam
This was never intended, but it was discovered during the tournament so I had to keep it around for the duration. Now it's gone.

Muk learns Disable
One of the most iconic users of Disable in actual Pokemon (in-game at least), Muk is one of the extremely few Pokemon to retain it in its improved form.

Tangela learns Disable; does not learn Sleep Powder
Tangela becomes even more unique among the Grass types by being the only one that can't use Sleep, and the only one that has Disable.

Ninetales learns Disable
Very smart and very vengeful. Grabbing one of its many tails could result in a 1000-year curse.

Primeape speed +10
At 125 base speed, it is now the fastest fighting type.

Pidgeot special +35
That gives it 105 base special. Nice for bulk, but the real reason behind this buff was to give Pidgeot wayyy more of a reason to use Mimic. With no special attacks, Pidgeot would love to score a Blizzard or Thunderbolt. The added bulk also makes it happier if it gets a healing move of some kind.

Hypno attack +20
That's 113 base attack-- 20 more than the previous version of Violet (or 40 more than RBY). Between Alakazam and Butterfree, Hypno was really being muscled out of its niche. It now holds the distinction of being the hardest-hitting Psychic (physically) in the game by a wide margin (Exeggutor is in second place with base 95. Even Mewtwo would be outmuscled, with its base base 110 attack).

Poison Sting PP is now 15
It was some absurdly huge number before, now it's reasonable.





Also, we recently ran our first Violet Version tournament! If you want a look at how people's teams are looking, and how the differences play out in practice, there are some great replays:

Round 1
Disaster Area vs SunnyR g1 g2 g3
Pelipperr vs Mister Tim
Enigami vs Ortheore g1
Endeby vs Superb
Xaqwais vs marcoasd g1 g2
jiraffejustin vs Wreckdra g1 g2 g3

Round 2
Mister Tim vs Disaster Area g1 g2 g3
Ortheore vs Endeby
Xaqwais vs Wreckdra

Finals
Ortheore vs Mister Tim g1 g2 g3 g4
 
I've recorded a couple commentary videos of some solid Violet matches! They should give a pretty good idea of what to expect in this format~

Match #1
Match #2



Also I decided to do a ranking list that reflects my current thoughts on Pokemon viability in the format. It is

1) biased, since i'm the designer
2) general, since i found it really hard to split things up into more precise tiers. i'm sure that will be a bit easier to do as people get better at the game
3) just one player's opinion, so there's probably tons to disagree with on anyway!


S - basically just the standouts from A. i get worried if i don't have fairly reliable answers to these.
Aerodactyl
Dugtrio
Moltres

A - i'll throw any of these things on a team without even thinking about why.
Alakazam
Butterfree
Chansey
Dragonite
Electrode
Exeggutor
Gengar
Golem
Hypno
Jynx
Nidoqueen
Ninetales
Parasect
Snorlax
Starmie
Tangela
Tauros
Zapdos

B - i'll use any of these but i might have to think harder about what goal i'm trying to accomplish or what niche i'm trying to fill.
Arbok
Articuno
Charizard
Cloyster
Electabuzz
Flareon
Golduck
Gyarados
Kabutops
Machamp
Magmar
Magneton
Muk
Pidgeot
Pinsir
Slowbro
Vileplume

C - i'll use these, but there needs to be a pretty specific reason.
Beedrill
Golbat
Raticate
Poliwrath
Primeape


More specific thoughts:

S
Aerodactyl - My pick for #1 in the game right now. A scary offensive threat that has the typing/healing to be really useful defensively.

Dugtrio - Glass cannon with wonderful coverage. Most of the things Aerodactyl has some trouble with, Dugtrio smacks hard (and vice versa).

Moltres - When it gets what it wants, Moltres really feels like a broken piece of shit. Starmie basically just straight up loses the matchup, which doesn't even make sense. In reality there's a lot of counterplay; namely, the other Fire types, and, importantly, Aerodactyl. Still a top 3 pokemon in my book.

A
Alakazam - Still Alakazam, but has a lot of new competition for its role. It's the fastest psychic with the most reliable healing, but actually loses in direct combat with most of the new psychic types.

Butterfree - Probably the #1 psychic type in the game right now, and one of the best sleepers. Psychic + Leech Life is a great combination.

Chansey - Still Chansey, but the new physical and mixed threats can put a strain on it that wasn't there in RBY.

Dragonite - Honestly its biggest 'buff' is that it's just not such an annoying piece of shit anymore. Agility Wrap is still probably the best thing going for it, but it's pretty much quick and painless. Its resistances are way more important now too (bug exists, fighting exists, fire exists). Thrash may be a real option over Blizzard/Surf.

Electrode - Probably the electric of choice right now? Outspeeding Aerodactyl is huge. It's really sad about Dugtrio, though.

Exeggutor - "Still Exeggutor." I might as well say that about every RBY OU staple though. Like Alakazam, Exeggutor is really pushed around by the emergence of Butterfree, and also the new pair of physically bulky grassers, Tangela and Parasect.

Gengar - Out of all the RBY standards, Gengar may have benefited the most in the transition to Violet. It has interesting Toxic/Dream Eater toys to play with if it wants to, but even if you just run classic RBY stuff, the defensive value of its typing has made it way less one-dimensional.

Golem - You'd think it'd be really sad about the new ground types (Nidoqueen is even better at anti-electric in lots of situations), but in addition to its slight Rock Slide buff, Golem stops Aerodactyl in its tracks, which is a big deal.

Hypno - Hypno is a great mixed attacker now, with flawless physical coverage. It still has a deep bag of tricks though (Hypnosis, Toxic/Dream Eater, Thunder Wave), which take advantage of how hard it hits-- it's not easy to switch something in to absorb status when you can just as easily get punched in the mouth or Psychiced.

Jynx - Still Jynx! The Mimic buff is fun.

Nidoqueen - Does any Pokemon suffer from 4MSS more than Nidoqueen? This Pokemon is a total workhorse, defending from poisons, bugs, and electrics better than just about anything. Her value against Aerodactyl can't be ignored either, though she's destroyed by a crit Sky Attack.

Ninetales - Challenges Butterfree, makes Exeggutor mega sad, and with Disable it's possibly the best response to Moltres in the game. Psychics are diverse in this game!

Parasect - Parasect is so good. Tends to compete with Tangela and Exeggutor, and Butterfree to an extent. Compared to Tangela, it struggles more with Aerodactyl and Dugtrio, which is very important, but it also has Spore, the strongest leech life in the game, and a real reason to run Swords Dance.

Snorlax - The new fighting type threats haven't really deterred it! I should probably use this thing more....

Starmie - I think Starmie might secretly be a bit better in Violet than it was in RBY. Its versatility was kind of 'wasted' in RBY, whereas now it can actually get some good extra mileage with a STAB water attack, for example.

Tangela - An extremely important defensive resource. It's probably the best single answer to Dugtrio, which alone is an accomplishment. Very reliable, though its lack of sleep and terrible offense can make the other defensive grassers more attractive at times.

Tauros - I'm really high on Aerodactyl right now and it might be causing me to overlook the greatness of Tauros. Good things still tend to happen when it's on-screen. Golduck can be sort of annoying?

Zapdos - I've gotten into a few scary situations where I suddenly realize I'm about to be torn up by a Zapdos. I think Aerodactyl is really the difference-maker that causes Electrode to feel like the more reliable electric right now, but that could change. Dealing with grass-types is really big, and actually harming Nidoqueen without exploding is not nothing.

B
Arbok - Still very underexplored, like most of the pokemon in this tier. Or in this game, for that matter. It hits pretty hard, can paralyze, has a choice of two different partial trapping moves, and has earthquake, which is big. There's a lot to like here, shrug, will have to play with it more.

Articuno - I think Articuno mainly benefits from Lapras just not existing. The Mimic and Sky Attack buffs are nice little things too, and like all birds it benefits from its bug resistance actually being relevant. It's a little tough to measure up to Moltres though.

Charizard - "Super great response to Moltres" is the main thing I think about with this thing. I've barely used it

Cloyster - Clamp is sort of weird now with the 5 pp. Like Articuno I think Cloyster benefits from Lapras being gone, but unlike Articuno Cloyster doesn't terribly mind all the new fire types and their fancy ice resistance. I use it a lot but being weak to rock is an important concern.

Electabuzz - A really interesting electric. Trades raw power for the ability to fight against the classic electric counters. There's just a lot of stuff that can comfortably sponge its attacks, like Ninetales or Parasect--basically anything with half-decent bulk and no weaknesses to its attacks. Exeggutor completely walls it, and smart switching can really frustrate it in general. I don't think you can really play Electabuzz in a 'lazy' way.

Flareon - What a tank. It's not that sad about Aerodactyl (which has to risk Paralysis or Burn if it wants to switch in), and it can be a great resource against Moltres. Basically everything that counters it has some delicious stuff for it to Mimic. Softboiled Flareon, yes please.

Golduck - It's hard to say where this thing ranks compared to Slowbro. Early on I had some games where it didn't really do much, but the ghost typing is pretty nice for Tauros, and great for avoiding partial trapping.

Gyarados - Amazing response to Golduck/Slowbro, overall great mixed attacker, hits ridiculously hard with Sky Attack. I may be underrating this thing. Once its threats are paralyzed it can go on a tear, and has good defensive value too. Outspeeding Butterfree is nice.

Kabutops - Very underexplored (the other rocks are so useful!). +2 Rock Slide sounds really scary. I'm not 100% sure what set to run with this thing. Submission and Surf both probably compete for a slot?

Machamp - I'm not sure if the new crop of psychic types has worked against Machamp, or for it. Paralyzed Butterfree and Ninetales are both way more afraid of Machamp than paralyzed Alakazam, but on the other hand, Hypno is a beefcake. Machamp is probably a big fan of Tangela and Parasect, both of which fight with Exeggutor for spots on teams, and both of which are way worse at handling Machamp in most situations. Karate Chop only having ~80% crit rate is a little awkward, but otherwise Machamp is just about what you'd expect from RBY Machamp with actual STAB moves and better defense.

Magmar - Magmar feels like a hard-to-use Infernape or something. Like Electabuzz, there are Pokemon that just tank hits from it without batting an eye. Unfortunately for Magmar, one of those Pokemon is Moltres. Still, it outspeeds every Psychic except Alakazam (which it speedties, wtf) and hits most of them hard with Vicegrip. I think both Magmar and Electabuzz will improve quite a bit once people start learning how to strategize around them.

Magneton - Other than its natural duty as a really nice sponge and anti-electric (which can become even nicer if it mimics softboiled from Nidoqueen or Chansey), Magneton is another decent response to Aerodactyl, and, to a lesser extent, Moltres. It pretty much despises Dugtrio, though. I've had mixed success with this so far. It might be best to play things patiently with Mimic. If you're too predictable, it's not hard for an opponent to bait you into Mimicking something mediocre.

Muk - It's kind of a weird Pokemon right now. Defensively I feel like I'd generally rather just run Nidoqueen, but Disable is unique and it's nice to explode.

Pidgeot - Tough to compete with Tauros, especially without body slam. The special bulk is really nice though, and mimic has potential on either side of the spectrum. Beating up defensive grassers is big enough that it's definitely worth considering.

Pinsir - I haven't used it too much yet. Its buffs are sort of awkward; it gets the amazing Vice Grip, but it's supposed to be all about the Swords Dance set I guess? It can run a SD Bind set, and it can throw Vice Grip on there 'just in case,' but I think it might compete with Submission for a slot?

Slowbro - I could be underestimating this thing. It's not entirely happy about Toxic/Dreameater stuff, which can make it more difficult to run Rest when Gengar is around. It also has to compete with Golduck.

Vileplume - The best parts of Venusaur and Victreebel, minus the partial trapping. A good sleeper and SD Acid seems nice. I think it sort of struggles with slight competition from Butterfree on one end and the defensive grassers on the other.

C
Raticate - I may be way underestimating this thing, but I just haven't gotten it to do much of anything yet. Ghosts and rocks are really annoying, especially Aerodactyl. It just feels tough to use this over Tauros.

Primeape - Fast and has STAB Karate Chop, but I dunno. Machamp at least has Earthquake for ghosts, and hits psychics hard enough to really deter them.

Poliwrath - Am I hugely underrating this maybe? Amnesia set seems pretty attractive now that it has a real fighting type STAB move, though the self-damage kind of contradicts that. I just don't think that's enough for it to feel super competitive with Golduck. I typically use this to take advantage of Dream Eater in some way; usually when I'm running something like Electrode that has an extra slot for Toxic. Hypnosis is really good too so maybe this thing could be worthy of B rank.

Beedrill - Beedrill has been really hard to make work for me. I think the big thing is that it's pretty reliant on having the right things poisoned on an opposing team. If your opponent is smart with normal or poison types (damn you Nidoqueen), those can be big obstacles to Beedrill accomplishing much of anything. Beedrill might need a pretty well-thought-out team composition to truly shine, but I haven't seen that happen just yet.

Golbat - I've barely used Golbat so far because it just seems really bad at first glance. The first time I used it it put in tons of work though. It's easy to forget how good Super Fang and Leech Life are, in particular. It outspeeds important stuff like Butterfree, and is a total menace to stuff like Parasect. Even Nidoqueen has to be kind of careful about just switching into this thing when it's not healthy. I think the big thing that's probably holding Golbat back for the moment is Aerodactyl.
 
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