Thursday, May 8, 2014

More speculation on Kyogre and Groudon

This is, of course, a follow-up to the post I made earlier today. After thinking about it some more, I'm more and more certain whatever these things on the box art are have something to do with weather inducing, which makes sense considering their existing lore. However, they definitely don't look like mega evolutions to me - the apperance differences are very minor, à la Resolute Keldeo (though you can bet that unlike Resolution Keldeo, these will actually do something). So them even looking like alternate forms is a bit of a stretch, but since this is the bare minimum of what they are, I won't try to argue with TPC.

So here's what I'm thinking: these are alternate forms, presumably triggered by some sort of item. Possibly the Red and Blue orbs, which would get promoted from plot coupons to actual held items, and would work like the Griseous Orb does for Giratina. As alternate forms, there would be no BST change (though the stat spreads may be different), and they'd gain abilities (let's call them Drizzle Plus and Drought Plus) that'd work just like Drizzle and Drought used to. However, it does come at the cost of the held item slot, so you have to think about whether you want to keep Leftovers, your Choice item or whatever else or give those up for permanent weather. So those items would be Damp/Heat Rocks on steroids, but would only work on Kyogre and Groudon, and give them a slightly different appearance to boot.

That's what I'm hoping for, at least. Mega evolutions would be a terrible idea, for two reasons:

1. Do we really need Pokémon that have the ability to induce weather (regardless of whether it's for five turns or permanently)... and come fully loaded with a BST of 770?

2. Mega evolutions would be self-defeating in a way. Let's suppose we get a Mega Kyogre that knows Drizzle Plus. Kyogre gets sent out, vanilla Drizzle activates, you megavolve it... and Drizzle Plus doesn't do jack because it's already raining, just like how the counter isn't reset when you megavolve Tyranitar or Abomasnow. So you'd be forced to switch out, THEN back in again once rain is gone to get your permanent rain. Of course it could be a way to balance things slightly, but it's still just silly and defeats the whole point. With alternate forms you don't need to go through that, your ability takes effect right away.

Still, and I can't stress this enough, THEY DON'T NEED THIS. With Smogon's new weighting system, Kyogre jumped to third place in front of Mewtwo in the monthly stats. Imagine that: Mewtwo gets two devastating mega evolutions and tremendous unpredictability in the process, while Kyogre's rain gets cut to five turns. AND KYOGRE STILL GETS MORE USE.

Oh well, looks like the die has been cast, and we can only hope the devs listened to reason.

19 comments:

  1. I find Game Freak kinda hypocritical. They're trying to make old Pokemon that never got a chance better through Mega evolutions but they still give Ubers like Kyogre and Mewtwo Megas when they don't need them whatsoever.

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    1. Except that they never EVER stated directly they'd use Mega Evolution only as a mean to help old Pokémon. Calling them hypocritical for something they never said, but was actually assumed by the fans is kinda hypocritical too... I thought it was pretty clear it'll also be used as a method of fan-service when it was revealed Mewtwo and Charizard would have 2 Megas instead of only 1.

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    2. Yeah, they pretty much said outright that Popular pokemon were the ones that got Megas.

      Do you even know what Hypocritical even means?

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    3. But I would assume that you would try to give Mega Evolutions to Pokemon that really need them, just like with evolutions themselves. If you never give Pokemon that need MEs one then they'll never get popular in the first place.

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    4. Maybe it'll be what happens in future generations, but as far as gen 6 goes, they're using this new mechanic as a huge marketing lever, and it just wouldn't work as well if everything that got megas was trash no one cares about.

      Also, you're assuming there's a correlation between power and popularity. That couldn't be further from the truth. Pikachu is the mascot, and it sucks greasy Bouffalant balls. Jigglypuff is absolutely huge in Japan, and it evolves into total trash. Charizard has always been among the most popular Pokémon, and before it got its megas it never, at any point in time, has been a very good Pokémon.

      Meanwhile... find me a Landorus fan, or a Conkeldurr fan. Just one will do.

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    5. a guy name shofu on youtube is one. is that good enough?

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    6. Yes.

      (Note to self: hyperboles can rot in hell from here on out.)

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    7. Dude one of your best buds is a Conkeldurr Fan D:

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    8. mega pikachu. mega jigglypuff. electric/fairy with huge power. Make it happen, gamefreak.

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    9. Huge Power wouldn't be enough if they don't touch its attack. It takes a Light Ball for it to be usable without evolving, and even there, it lasts about as long as a wet tissue in a fire...

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    10. I'm a Landorus and a Conkeldurr fan.

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  2. If they're like Resolute Keldeo, they wouldn't require holding the, say, the orbs to change forme. And that would be amazing.

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    1. When I brought up Resolute Keldeo, I was talking about cosmetics, not functionality. It would be absolutely stupid to induce a form change that would be outright better, but at no opportunity cost whatsoever. Mega Gengar and Mega Lucario were freaking stupid, but at least you needed to give up your held item slot for these.

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  3. I agree with your logic that a mega is unncessary and would be OP. Alternate Form seems far more likely (Omega Groudon, Alpha Kyogre?)

    I'm afraid of the perma-weather coming back after you mention that. Personally I was hoping they'd be alternate forms that had traits that weren't weather-related. Nothing crazy, but something to give the two of them more versatility.

    It makes less sense in lore, but it'd mean GameFreak was smart enough to see that weather was broken the last couple gens and wanted to move away from it.

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  4. Anything goes in ubers. Sorry, Slowflake, you don't have billions of dollars to bribe gamefreak. It's all coming from the wallets of parents with kiddies who want things stronger than the creater of the universe.

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    1. Well that's money wasted, because it's not working very well. Put all of Arceus' types together (seriously, why are they ranked separately?), and it makes even Xerneas look like an incredibly rare encounter.

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    2. Gamefreak's goal is this: Make all ubers battles consist of Kyogre, Xerneas, Arceus with a Steel Plate to counter Xerneas, Groudon, Excadrill, and a wild card swift swimmer. All the swift swimmers is their idea of variety in the ubers metagame! Sand rush excadrill isn't so relevant anymore? My bad. Take out him and groudon so we can have 3 swift swimmers!

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  5. This is a bit off topic, but I would like people's opinion on something. There is an anomaly which happened on Showdown in a Random Double Battle, where the Red Card item triggered the Moxie ability to transfer to the replacement pokemon. Is this a glitch with the ability, the item or Showdown itself? Here's the replay in question

    http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/randomdoublesbattle-118247578

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    1. Huh. No idea. You might want to take that to Smogon or the Showdown forums.

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