Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Theorymon time: Body Slam Mega Kangaskhan

I was thinking about how we haven't had anything to teach Body Slam since gen 3, when it occurred to me that such a move would, in theory, be a really nice fit on Mega Kangaskhan. Typically, the balance between Return and Body Slam is that you sacrifice one sixth of your damage output for a 30% chance of paralysis. However, on Mega Kangaskhan that chance increases to 51%, and you still lose only one sixth of your damage compared to Return. So I was wondering, why is it so rarely seen on it? Just about nobody used it prior to its ban, and now that it's in ubers Return is still the near-unanimous choice.

There IS an opportunity cost that comes with Body Slam, however, and it's the fact that it's only legal with Early Bird. The benefits of Scrappy are well documented by now, but are they really enough to make up for the lack of paralysis cheese? Besides, the specific quirks of the uber metagame make Early Bird much more desirable than in OU, with the always threatening Darkrai and the lesser presence of the Ghost type. (Edit: Why do I always forget about the Ability Capsule? Probably because its relevance in simulator play is restricted to a handful of extremely niche scenarios. Such as this one.)

Other than being forced into Early Bird, though, there really is nothing else important you can use. All the major moves seen on Kangaskhan are legal with Body Slam. So why is it never used? Is the extra damage that crucial? Or is it just that no one thinks of gen 3 tutors anymore?

11 comments:

  1. An interesting idea, however there is one very prominent ghost type in the Ubers metagame which would cause serious problems for Kangaskhan: Giratina. While Giratina is about it's not safe for Kangaskhan to mega-evolve, otherwise Giratina would just flat out wall it, burn with Will-o-wisp to make it useless and use Dragon Tail to eliminate any boosts. By having Scrappy, Kangaskhan can bluff Mega Evolving and surprise Giratina as it switches in. I'm referring to both forms of Giratina, since both do a great job of walling Mega Kangaskhan and they can also bypass Sucker Punch by using will-o-wisp, which also makes Mega Kangaskhan useless.

    Another thing to consider is that Paralysis has kinda lost its place now. Not only are there more pokemon immune to it entirely with the buff to electric types and the changes to powder moves and Overcoat, there's also the Sticky Web hazard which can be set up a lot faster and will also slow down the opponent. Also, if you paralyse a pokemon, you can't inflict a possibly more crippling status on it. For instance, why paralyse an Arceus with Body Slam when you could burn it and make it useless. Similarly Toxic is so much more hindering to walls like Lugia and Giratina than paralysis is.

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    1. True. However, Scrappy and Early Bird are already split right down the middle in ubers as it is, Giratina or not. Smeargle, a Pokémon found on less than 5% of teams, is the only Pokémon that knows Sticky Web that's worth using, and even there it's found on less than half of them. As for the Electric type, it's almost nonexistent outside of Zekrom, with Thundurus-I and Rotom-W the only outside picks that get any use that ranks above "laughable".

      The thing with Body Slam is that you get a decent chance of paralysis, but you also get quite a bit of damage in regardless - as I said, just a bit less than Return. Toxic and WoW may be more crippling and more accurate in terms of status, but don't have that immediate oomph to them. The big selling point in favor of Return is, as you said, that one status grants immunity to others. You may get more bang for your buck with Body Slam when taken alone, but in the context of a battle that lasts longer than the one turn where it's used that's where the problem rises.

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    2. Some would even argue the power drop is very noticeable. As an example, Mega Kangaskhan's Return is a guaranteed OHKO against the standard Darkrai with 0 boosts. The same Kangaskhan using Body Slam on the same Darkrai only has a 12.5% chance to OHKO assuming there are no entry hazards.

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  2. That's cool Slow, but one problem with that theory: Ability Capsule.

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    1. Oh, right. I tend to forget this thing exists.

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    2. Understandable, due to the thing being so damn expensive compared to just breeding another Pokemon. On time, money, battle points and sanity.

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    3. I think it has more to do with its existence very rarely being relevant in simulator play. The only case I can think of where it matters is stuff like this, where a Pokémon only had one regular ability at one point but gained another one later on.

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  3. On a side note, I play a fair bit of competitive pokemon and have done for a while, but I have no idea what 'ability capsule' is ... Could you explain?

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    1. The ability Capsule changes a pokemon's ability, providing it has access to 2 non-hidden abilities. In Kangaskhan's example, it would turn the Early Bird ability into the Scrappy ability. It costs 200 bp at the Battle Maison and is one time use.

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  4. I can just imagine Kangaskhan using Body Slam and the baby Kangaskhan getting crushed to death in the process. If I recall correctly from when Ash fought Surge, Body Slam is performed like a belly flop. Kangaskhan weights 176.4lbs and assuming it jumps 20 feet it the air to land on the target (because you need to jump high to land on some Pokemon), according to a website that calculates the force of an object hitting the ground that baby is taking 47792.64000000001 Newtons of force. Sadly as long as that took me to figure out I don't feel like I learn anything. I guess the next thing to look up would be how much newtons of force it takes to kill a baby... um... cow thing... but I'm too lazy after figuring out the force exerted on the baby... so whatever you get the point... that baby Kangaskhan isn't having a fun time when mommy Kangaskhan uses Body Slam.

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  5. People probably forget the move exist, it being 3rd Gen and all.

    So, have you noticed Youtube's new layout? While ugly, it is surprisingly functional, so I'll give it a pass.

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