Friday, August 8, 2014

A wild CoroCoro appears!

So, Mega Salamence is a thing (as many people expected). And it has Aerilate. FUCK. There goes the one crucial weakness this thing had - the inability to use its secondary STAB for anything worth a damn. Suddenly DRAGON is going to be its secondary STAB, and whether or not it'll keep being used is up in the air, considering the sheer destructive power of Aerilate Return. Just think about it. STAB OUTRAGE may suddenly be lacking in power. You don't see X-Scissor on Pinsir anymore, do you? Sure, Outrage is a lot more powerful than X-Scissor, which is why it's not a certainty, but since Dragon is only effective against itself it's easy to be tempted to look elsewhere for coverage.

As with Mega Metagross, it seems like it may not be a matter of IF it gets a suspect test, but WHEN. I mean, Pinsir started from so much further back than Salamence, and look where it is now. The one silver lining that you're going to need to take a good look at if Mega Salamence's stay in OU is going to last more than a few weeks or months is the fact that unlike Pinsir, it does NOT have Quick Attack. It does have Thrash, Body Slam and Double-Edge, but so does Pinsir, and when it's not running Return what it has is Frustration instead (for the sole purpose of frustrating Ditto). After all, while most drawback moves have to compete with moves in the 75-90 range, Return clocks in at an amazing 102. There's also the fact that apparently, its most notable stat boost will be defense (combine that with Intimidate antics for extra fun), so we won't be seeing a Mega Salamence with base 185 attack. I will say this, though: not a fan of the official art, hope it looks a lot better in the game (it has happened before). But hey, it can't be worse than the official Amano artwork for Kefka...

Next up is Mega Lopunny, complete with PANTYHOSE PARTY. Mr. Sugimori knew what he was doing, there's no denying it. Which, of course, makes it all the more embarrassing for the male ones. Anyway, it has a very distinct theme, that being milking Scrappy as much as humanly possible. With a Normal/Fighting typing and the addition of High Jump Kick to go along the likes of Drain Punch, Return and Quick Attack, no ghost is safe! And with the mass exodus of ghosts from the OU tier, this could be a very interesting critter to use in UU. One problem, though, is that regular Lopunny's attack stat is 76. That means they better pump a LOT of points into that attack stat. As in, at least 40. But I think Gamefreak are well aware of what Lopunny really needs, they had to look at its stats when they decided to give it a mega. Either way, another important thing this announcement suggests is the likelihood that the Hoenn Dex expansion doesn't apply only to evolutions of older Pokémon, such as Dusknoir. But I think we could all guess that already. Hopefully we're done with the era of regional Dexes of 200 and under.

Finally, we have Mega Altaria, which packs Pixilate and a brand new Dragon/Fairy typing. Pixilate user, specially defensive, where have I seen that before? It could well be some competition for Sylveon (or at least Florges in UU), though Sylveon's ability to use Wish and Leftovers may be the difference maker. Otherwise, if it gets a decent enough boost in special attack, it may have some potential as a bulky attacker, what with its ability to use Cotton Guard and Roost. Who knows? It all comes down to the stats, and we have virtually no idea what those are going to be.

On the non-mega front, we have some more information on the Pikachu costumes, which appear to behave similarly to the Rotom forms - as in, each costume gets a special signature move. And we're not talking about crap moves like in all those events, either. Well, there's Draining Kiss and Electric Terrain, but there's also Flying Press, Meteor Mash, and the main course, Icicle Crash! Yep, Pikachu now gets Icicle Crash. Pairing it with Volt Tackle would make for a very powerful physical attacker, but with that 90 speed it's unlikely to ever do any damage. That is, unless it DOESN'T keep that 90 speed... there's nothing preventing those costumed Pikachus from having different stats, while not losing the ability to lose the Light Ball. Hey, it's happened before, Eternal Flower Floette has stats that put regular Floette to shame. Fingers crossed!

By the way, if I'm understanding this correctly, there's going to be a shiny Beldum + mega stone event at launch, the same way Blaziken had one at X/Y's launch. So does that mean Metagross' stone will be event-only? If so, then that means Steven is going to taunt you with an event-only thing. And probably slaughter your team, if Diantha's Mega Gardevoir was anything to go by.

27 comments:

  1. I think the costumed Pikas are contests only, but don't quote me on that.

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    1. The scans clearly display them in battle, though.

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  2. I wonder if the different Pikachu will have secondary types depending on their forms, such as the Flying Press one having an Electric/Fighting type and the Icicle Spear one having an Electric/Ice type. If so, I wonder what type the Electric Terrain one will have.

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  3. They wanted Kalos Pokémon only on her team, and well, you know how many of them there are, especially since they wanted gym leader and E4 aces to be from Kalos as well...

    Either way, Mega Gardevoir was still the hardest Pokémon in the game if you were unprepared and/or turned off the Exp. Share. Though Wikstrom's Aegislash was a bitch too.

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  4. One comment on Altaria though, its offenses are pretty much the same on both physical and special, so if it gets enough of a boost there it can be a decent defensive mixed attacker. I think its role will be slightly different to Sylveon's enough to give it use in different circles, but at least it's headed to UU likely if it doesn't break OU (better than being the least-used dragon, eh?) As for Lopunny, they'll probably do like they did with Absol and give it all its stat boosts to offense/speed. Interesting to see, and it probably will end up in UU just because that's where it'd shine most with all the ghosts (since there's none in OU, which is slightly surprising even though I get why). And yeah Salamence at least its Mega will be gone by Valentine's Day easily as will Megagross. Oh well, better than Garchomp's mega at least.

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  5. Mega Aerodactyl, use Iron Head!

    ... Wait, Diantha's Mega Gardevoir was supposed to be threatening?

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    1. The Exp. Share really makes that kind of call hard to make, but if you don't use it, and you can't OHKO Mega Gardevoir, it WILL kill you back. (Seriously, that fight was one of the unsung highlights of the TSG Pokéthon. Just stall out its PP with a kazillion Revives!)

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    2. It's Diantha, not Cynthia. Cut her a break!

      Seriously though, it's hard, not unbeatable. It's like bringing an Electivire against Cynthia's Milotic or a Blaziken against Norman's Slaking, there's not a damn thing they can do to you then.

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    3. I'm not arguing, though I would've expected Mega Gardevoir to be able to hang on with that special defense and maybe even attack first with that speed.

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  6. Stuck with 80 speed then... that explains a lot. This is one thing Gamefreak might want to look at. Something like Mega Banette, as crappy as it is anyway, only suffers more from it.

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  7. What's the hardest Pokemon of each game? In R/B/Y there was Raticate in Mt Moon. G/S/C had Whitney's Miltank, R/S/E had Norman's Slaking, D/P/Plt had Cynthia's Milotic and X/Y has Diantha's Gardevoir. What does that leave the Generation 5 games with?

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  8. Looks like Feebas evolves through contests this time. Huge blow to Milotic fans, especially if Mega Milotic does become a thing.

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    1. I think they'll still throw out some Prism Scales. After all, a Feebas could still evolve with Max beauty when transferred to Gen 5 or 6 (Bulbapedia says so). But I don't wanna do work, so I've already prepared a Level 1 Milotic for use in Omega Ruby. I didn't give it Surf or Ice Beam yet, though. THAT would be cheating...
      Oh, and the Contest Hall returns. Let's hope that like HGSS, they use some Emerald elements, like NOT REMAKING THE BATTLE TOWER AS A CLONE OF THE BATTLE MAISON JUST TO SAVE TIME AND EFFORT! Everyone wants the full Battle Frontier again...With modern conveniences of Pokemon...

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    2. What I think is, Prism Scales will still be in the game code (compatibility with X/Y and all), but you won't be given any in this game.

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  9. Apparently, if regular Salamence had Aerilate, it could 3HKO Skarmory of all things with 140 BP Facade.
    Regular, that is. Imagine Mega Salamence with Double-Edge.

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    1. Mega Salamence's attack is probably going to be around the same as Mega Pinsir's, so imagination isn't particularly required.

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  10. B1W1 to me didn't really have a "hardest" 'mon. The elite 4 all had decent pokemon but nothing that could really sweep you if you played semi-competently. The champ's best pokemon was just Volcarona--decent but nothing out-classing. At most you had N's legendary and/or Ghestis' Hydreigon but then you had the other legendary too so it hardly mattered. B2W2 Challenge mode was harder but nothing obscene for the prepared. Iris has two pseudo-legends in the rematch but that's about it. Not that I thought Gen V was necessarily easier as a whole, but I'd say it had the smallest peak in challenge (hell to me the hardest part was how post-game you were initially severely underleveled, though facing shitty 'mons mostly).

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  11. Ghetsis' Hydreigon is the one everyone's afraid of. Personally I just obliterate it with a Mienshao HJK and I'm done with it, but not everyone packs a Fighting-type (their loss, with how good it was last gen), so...

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  12. In my Challenge Mode run of White 2, Iris annihilated half of my team with her Haxorus... You know, Outraging like no tomorrow after a Dragon Dance, which she can already do in your first E4 run in Challenge Mode. To be fair, as an added challenge I was trying to use crap nobody uses, like Claydol and Octillery for example... But hilariously enough, I still didn't keep the starter. I did win in the end, but I got really scared.

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  13. Shows how sad the Gen V starters are when you dump them for frigging Octillery.

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  14. Actually, my starter was Tepig, so I technically dumped it for Camerupt.

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  15. This Mega Altaria thing makes me wonder, just when exactly in the game will you be able to Mega Evolve your Pokemon?
    Are you going to get the option to Mega Evolve right at the start of the game, will Steven give you the Mega Bangle after you get Surf or is it Winona who is going to give it to you and be your first opponent to sic a Mega Pokemon (that being Mega Altaria) at you?

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    1. It may even be Wattson who does it. Remember in Emerald he has a Manectric. They could easily use the Emerald teams for the Remale and make Wattson the man in charge of Mega Evolution.

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  16. Okay. The free Shiny Beldum IS something you get at launch, meaning the people who don't choose Gardevoir get to break the game. AND you don't have to use the Pokeradar for Shiny Beldums that suicide anymore! Problem will be just what set to give mine...
    Oh, and Hordes return, making those people who will use it is their primary competitive file until Z will still have the ease of training...For me, it depends on the presence of the Battle Frontier and not just the Battle Maison being in Pokemon Japan for some reason. It was in HGSS. And we need those Move Tutors...

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    1. It looks like horde battles with TRAINERS are a thing. There's a screenshot of you being challenged by 5 Magma Grunts

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  17. Hey, don't dis Devilmon. Or Salamence's Jet Scrander, either one really works.

    Come on, look at Devilman and look at the Jet Scrander upgrade for Mazinger Z, and you TELL ME that's not what they were going for.

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