The PokéSmash College of Design - Round Ten!

[#HBC | ZoZo]

I think Mew should be limited to being a wall this generation anyway.

Either way, nice prompt. Who knows what I'll come up with.

 

[Bing]

Damnit I thought I would have done better

 

[TheReflexWonder]

I have some really cool ideas about changing the game, but, none that really fit the criteria. It's mostly slight mechanics changes.

What a shame; I wanted an awesome postbit.

 

[#HBC | ZoZo]

Instead of looking at an already widely used Pokemon like Deoxys-D, I wanted to look at something that genuinely lacks a moveslot;
Honchkrow.

Honchkrow has been a favorite of mine for a while. With a combination of Pursuit and Sucker Punch he can attain great attacking power, leaving the opponent with little options.
This is the set I'll be talking about:
Honchkrow (F) @ Life Orb
Trait: Super Luck
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SpAtk)
- Sucker Punch
- Pursuit
- Snatch / Roost
- Brave Bird
- Taunt

Honchkrow is the guy who has an answer for everything. That's what he's built to do. If you properly read your opponent, you might just get a full sweep out of it. I don't think this set requires much explanation, it just shows how far good prediction can do.

Snatch and Taunt look like they do the same, but there's a difference between catching a Sword Dance and preventing it, besides that there's the obvious outspeeding. Snatch also can't stop Leech Seed / Protect et cetera.

Roost is slashed because in some teams, Honchkrow prefers the sustainability.

Oh, and Brave Bird is ****. This guy is pretty cool.

 

[Bing]

Oh nice a Honchkrow, I want to use something underused or Rarely used...

I was looking Into Azumarill but eh..

 

[#HBC | ZoZo]

Azumarill is limited to a specific gimmick. Too bad.

 

[Bing]

Blastoise Leftovers Torrent Bold
Gender: Doesnt matter
Moveset:
Roar
Scald
DragonTail
RapidSpin
Toxic/Yawn

Evs
252 HP 252 Def / 4hp

Okay so there are some obvious reasons behind the selection of each move.

Roar is great for removing substitutes that Blastoise cant handle seeing as due to his attack/Sattack, Dragontail or Scald would not be able to remove them in one attack, so again, can simply roar them away

Can also be used to Roar others in and out of your own Spikes setup(Obviously there are other, speedier options)

Scald is obvious. Strong Water type attack for stab plus it can cause burns

Dragon Tail: Powerful Dragon Type attack derp

Rapid Spin: For removing opponents spikes setups

Toxic/Yawn: Some type of Status afflicting attack, would lean more towards Toxic for walls.


Foresight is another option but I dont find it to be as useful as the attack 5-6 attacks chosen.


Love me some water types <3

 

[Deleted member]

I name-searched and found out that someone wants me to be a psychic type? What did I do to deserve that? I'm already underpowered and now you want to make me functionally useless?

Deadline: Sunday, May 6, at 12:00 midnight CDT

Pokemon can now use five moves, instead of just four. Propose a moveset to take advantage of five moves.

RBY only

Chansey
- Thunderwave
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Softboiled
- Counter

Chansey in RBY is pretty much a requirement for every team, and it is well known going into competitive play. Thunderwave, Ice Beam, and Softboiled are also pretty much required. TW is the best move in RBY and makes life hell for anything attempting aggression, Ice Beam is the main attacking move and your best shot at beating the opponents chansey (freezing = OHKO) and softboiled cause it's chansey. After that you have to choose between tbolt and counter normally.

counter lets you handle the normal type attackers on their stabs, so things like persian, snorlax, and tauros, all of which are REALLY threatening and basically every team has one. thunderbolt lets you cover waters and jynx, which is like a quarter of the OU meta and without tbolt they can ice beam chansey fishing for a freeze while chansey's ice beam does **** damage back to them. you can't always counter because of HP obviously but thuderwave checks other threats when you can't counter or you want to gimp sweepers that don't lose to counter like zapdos or alakazam.

the thing is, usually 4 move slot syndrome leaves chansey open to repeated hits from prominent physical attackers or a risky stall war with freezing. having chansey be able to negotiate something like tauros so that you don't have to wall it with a golem and open yourself up to a blizzard is sick even when they're scouting you first. example, tauros vs chansey, tauros earthquakes first, if chansey has counter it fails because counter only works on normal and fighting moves, then they know that you don't have thunderbolt so they can lame you out with lapras or something.

with all 5 moves, chansey has no holes in competitive play. usually the 5th move adds to coverage, and stallers would like a 5th move but you'd still have to switch to handle threats accordingly. 5 move RBY chansey doesn't, she can just handle everything. it might not be creative or sexy, but it might get 20 points out of 8 for competitiveness. it's seriously much dumber than you can feasibly imagine it to be in your head if you haven't played RBY.

 

[#HBC | ZoZo]

So, you made an already amazing Poke broken? :v

Yeah I did that too. Twice. Didn't work out.

 

[Deleted member]

So, you made an already amazing Poke broken? :v

Yeah I did that too. Twice. Didn't work out.

you're trying to win a contest. i'm trying to inform the readers.

 

[#HBC | ZoZo]

Why don't you write articles then?

Serious question, I'm not intending to demean myself arrogant.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

My issue with 1st/2nd gen choices is that everyone has a role that they pretty much don't get to deviate from, due to EVs working the way they do. It's as simple as picking the next most useful move or not having to pick between two moderately-useful choices.

 

[Dre89]

I name-searched and found out that someone wants me to be a psychic type? What did I do to deserve that? I'm already underpowered and now you want to make me functionally useless?



RBY only

Chansey
- Thunderwave
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Softboiled
- Counter

Chansey in RBY is pretty much a requirement for every team, and it is well known going into competitive play. Thunderwave, Ice Beam, and Softboiled are also pretty much required. TW is the best move in RBY and makes life hell for anything attempting aggression, Ice Beam is the main attacking move and your best shot at beating the opponents chansey (freezing = OHKO) and softboiled cause it's chansey. After that you have to choose between tbolt and counter normally.

counter lets you handle the normal type attackers on their stabs, so things like persian, snorlax, and tauros, all of which are REALLY threatening and basically every team has one. thunderbolt lets you cover waters and jynx, which is like a quarter of the OU meta and without tbolt they can ice beam chansey fishing for a freeze while chansey's ice beam does **** damage back to them. you can't always counter because of HP obviously but thuderwave checks other threats when you can't counter or you want to gimp sweepers that don't lose to counter like zapdos or alakazam.

the thing is, usually 4 move slot syndrome leaves chansey open to repeated hits from prominent physical attackers or a risky stall war with freezing. having chansey be able to negotiate something like tauros so that you don't have to wall it with a golem and open yourself up to a blizzard is sick even when they're scouting you first. example, tauros vs chansey, tauros earthquakes first, if chansey has counter it fails because counter only works on normal and fighting moves, then they know that you don't have thunderbolt so they can lame you out with lapras or something.

with all 5 moves, chansey has no holes in competitive play. usually the 5th move adds to coverage, and stallers would like a 5th move but you'd still have to switch to handle threats accordingly. 5 move RBY chansey doesn't, she can just handle everything. it might not be creative or sexy, but it might get 20 points out of 8 for competitiveness. it's seriously much dumber than you can feasibly imagine it to be in your head if you haven't played RBY.

Reflect would be much better than counter. Reflect Chansey can beat physicals 1v1 barring crits and explosions. Counter does little against Rhydon or a Tauros who EQs instead to check for counter. Sing might even be better than counter because despite it's crap accuracy the biggest draw of sing Chansey is that she lures in things like lapras or normals that don't like getting slept.

Also, to whoever said it would be broken, with counter it definitely wouldn't be. It's still scared of physicals and explosions, and can be stalled out with special fall phsychics.

Anyway here is my RBY set-

Snorlax:
body slam
psychic
reflect/harden
amnesia
rest

If this thing can set up it can be a monster. It's actually more of a staller/tanker than amnesia sweeper. The point is to reflect and amnesia at least once to boost your defences (barring crits obviously). Body slam is to damage (and possibly spread paralysis) everything except rocks and gengar (although you still have a good chance of beating rocks with bslam if they don't explode). Psychic is for extra pp, and to hit gengar super effectively, as well as specially weaker mons like rocks and other normals when psychic is boosted from amnesias.

The choice between harden and reflect depends on what your prefer. Reflect gives a stronger defensive boost immediately, but doesn't stack like harden does, so harden can give a superior boost in the long run.

 

[Deleted member]

i also cut counter in favor for thunderbolt, never considered reflect though. tbh i think sing might be better b/c dual status is ridiculous in rby, hits rocks, etc. twave is def the better choice vs persian or tauros.

i don't think -spec psychics are the way to go. like it might be okay when chanseys coming in but pretty much you don't want to keep any of the psychic users in on a possible twave fishing.

i don't like writing much. i don't like feeling obligated to write either.

 

[Dre89]

Alakazam doesn't really mind paralysis as it can take special hits and recover them off.

It's starmie that wants to avoid paralysis, but starmies rarely run psychic anyway unless it's a lead to deal with gengar.

Rest lapras doesn't mind paralysis and can take on chansey (if it doesn't have tbolt).

 

[Bing]

Here's my terrible idea



Blastoise Leftovers Torrent Bold
Gender: Doesnt matter
Moveset:
Roar
Scald
DragonTail
RapidSpin
Toxic/Yawn

Evs
252 HP 252 Def / 4hp

Okay so there are some obvious reasons behind the selection of each move.

Roar is great for removing substitutes that Blastoise cant handle seeing as due to his attack/Sattack, Dragontail or Scald would not be able to remove them in one attack, so again, can simply roar them away

Can also be used to Roar others in and out of your own Spikes setup(Obviously there are other, speedier options)

Scald is obvious. Strong Water type attack for stab plus it can cause burns

Dragon Tail: Powerful Dragon Type attack derp

Rapid Spin: For removing opponents spikes setups

Toxic/Yawn: Some type of Status afflicting attack, would lean more towards Toxic for walls.


Foresight is another option but I dont find it to be as useful as the attack 5-6 attacks chosen.


****. For the record I dont have internet at home so I couldnt post this until Monday when I got to work :S Please still accept this lol...

 

[Wave⁂]

Sorry for the delay this week. Finals, moving back from college, and finding a job has kept me busy.

Pokemon can now use five moves, instead of just four. Propose a moveset to take advantage of five moves.

Deoxys-D - UltiMario
Creativity: 8/10
Competitive: 7/10
Sexiness: 6/10
The only possible weakness I can see here is the unreliability of Sleep Talk. People can switch to a Pokemon with a phazing move or Taunt while you're sleeping, since you have a pretty low chance of picking Taunt. You're also vulnerable to Dragon Tail. Other than that, I'm pretty sure there's not much that could stop this set, really. Rest is a great PP stalling move, and Recycle Red Card is silly.

Average score: 7/10


Honchkrow - Xonar
Creativity: 7/10
Competitive: 5/10
Sexiness: 4/10
This is a very peculiar set. The use of Roost and Taunt allow you to combat walls, but your poor type coverage will make killing them off difficult. At the same time, Brave Bird and Sucker Punch are a potent sweeping combination, but you're too slow to get past sweepers that aren't OHKOed by Sucker Punch. Overall, it's an interesting combination that could work well in lower tiers.

Average score: 5.3/10


Chansey - Umbreon
Creativity: 6/10
Competitive: 7/10
Sexiness: 7/10
I'm not completely familiar with the RBY metagame, to be honest. Even with the limited knowledge I have, however, this seems pretty broken, despite it being a simple addition of one offensive move to a tank.

Average score: 6.7/10


Snorlax - Dre.
Creativity: 4/10
Competitive: 6/10
Sexiness: 4/10
This is a strange set. You've combined boosting offense and defense while attacking with physical and special moves into one set. However, I'm unsure of your choice of only one special move, and it being Psychic. Dropping Body Slam and/or Reflect for Ice Beam or something might work better.

Average score: 4.7/10


Blastoise - Bing
Creativity: 4/10
Competitive: 7/10
Sexiness: 5/10
This set remidies the Roar vs. Dragon Tail dilemma Blastoise often encounter. With Roar, Dragon Tail, and Yawn, you should be able to force pretty much any Pokemon to switch, making you a fairly potent phazer. However, it doesn't solve Blastoise's bigger problems: his lack of signficant bulk, utility, and recovery.

Average score: 5.3/10


Congratulations to this week's winner, UltiMario!

This week's prompt:

Deadline: Sunday, May 13 at 12:00 midnight CDT

Change the effect of the ability Pressure.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

This week's prompt:

Deadline: Sunday, May 13 at 12:00 midnight CDT

Change the effect of the ability Pressure.

Like, how? With something that makes sense with the theme of "pressuring" someone, or, just, make up an ability that would be good for Pokémon who currently have Pressure as an ability?

 

[UltiMario]

How about a simple one.

Let's reverse the effect of Pressure entirely.

All moves that affect the opponent cost double PP, but damage done to the opponent is multiplied by 1.3

Instead of Pressure being great for stalling, it's now an offensive tool, while not hindering the bulky legendaries that showcase this ability often. You're now getting an LO boost for simply having the ability, and while it costs double PP to attack, a double LO boost, or an LO + Specs/Band Boost could be enough to turn 3HKOs into 2HKOs and 2HKOs into OHKOs, not to mention getting power and speed on Scarfers with pressure. Of course, any move that has no affect on your opponent doesn't get punished, just like how Pressure works with opponent's moves that don't do anything to you with Normal pressure. This allows old Pressure stallers to not be too inhibited by new Pressure, by still being able to abuse RestTalk and the like without a PP Penalty. Overall, you can kill a lot quicker, but the time you can spend on the field attacking is cut in half. Certainly a fair trade, and also a very scary one with boosting moves.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

How about a simple one.

Let's reverse the effect of Pressure entirely.

All moves that affect the opponent cost double PP, but damage done to the opponent is multiplied by 1.3

Instead of Pressure being great for stalling, it's now an offensive tool, while not hindering the bulky legendaries that showcase this ability often. You're now getting an LO boost for simply having the ability, and while it costs double PP to attack, a double LO boost, or an LO + Specs/Band Boost could be enough to turn 3HKOs into 2HKOs and 2HKOs into OHKOs, not to mention getting power and speed on Scarfers with pressure. Of course, any move that has no affect on your opponent doesn't get punished, just like how Pressure works with opponent's moves that don't do anything to you with Normal pressure. This allows old Pressure stallers to not be too inhibited by new Pressure, by still being able to abuse RestTalk and the like without a PP Penalty. Overall, you can kill a lot quicker, but the time you can spend on the field attacking is cut in half. Certainly a fair trade, and also a very scary one with boosting moves.

I would only argue that as a neat effect if regular Pressure still existed; that would create an interesting power struggle in PP stalling (as the opponent's defensive Pressure would stack) that may or may not be a good idea for people to use. However, if all Pressure changes that way, I think that would just make the game degenerate toward offense even more than it already has, especially in the hard-hitting world of Ubers.

Anyway, here's my submission--

At the end of each turn, a random stat of the opponent's Pokémon falls one stage (includes evasion and accuracy).

First off, I like it because it matches the idea of putting pressure on the opponent--They're gonna feel the pressure and get increasingly worse. If we want to get creative, we could say "Pokémon with Moxie have a reversed effect," but, it's not that important.

Would definitely push the agenda of defensive Pokémon in general, which I feel is something the game could really use. The SubRoost users and similar stallers, like Deoxys-D or Spiritomb, could play a strategy similar to normal SubRoost to weaken something. Maybe Zapdos' Substitutes won't break after the opponent's (Special?) Attack drops; Pain Split and Recover users can stall for stat drops that let you stay in longer than before. Absol and Bisharp have another tool to force people to attack despite their fear of Sucker Punch; the longer they wait, the weaker they get. It has good potential to force switches, which would allow anything with a stat-up move to predict and potentially sweep, so it isn't limited to stall wars. Calm Mind Suicune would be an even greater force to be reckoned with. I'm sure it would shift tiers around, and there are potentially useful Pokémon with the ability in every current tier.

I understand that most people are not fond of luck-based effects, but in a game with Serene Grace, 10% burn/freeze/paralysis, totally-viable 75-80% accuracy moves, and the like, I don't think it's fair to treat it as any (or, at least, much) worse than stuff that's already in the game. I include Evasion and Accuracy for consistency (like Acupressure, it affects all seven potential stats), as well as to make it less powerful (since a majority of moves used are 100% accurate, lowered Evasion is often a wasted turn of Pressure).

It's also worth noting that, like any other stat-change directed toward the opponent, it would not work against opponents sitting behind a Substitute or Mist. I expect Mist would be just as useless, but Substitute could see an increase, and Clear Body/White Smoke would become a much more useful ability. Contrary is affected. Even better--Defiant Pokémon pretty much force Pressure users to switch, for fear of creating a behemoth of an enemy. Based on that, a lot of things change, and Ubers would be more than just luck-based combat. Empoleon could become a menace in Ubers because of it. Bisharp, Primeape, Thundurus, and Tornadus all greatly benefit in Ubers as a result; maybe Contrary Serperior could be the new Water-type Ubers counter. All Bisharp sets appear to get a pretty sweet deal out of it.

 

[Wave⁂]

Like, how? With something that makes sense with the theme of "pressuring" someone, or, just, make up an ability that would be good for Pokémon who currently have Pressure as an ability?

Either one is fine. If you can think of a third option, that's okay, too. Just change it to something that isn't only useful to SubRoost legendary birds.

 

[Bing]

Change the ability of Pressure to give all attacks done by a Pokemon with the Ability Pressure a 20% chance of flinching.(Doesnt have to be 20%, just dont want to make it horribly broken)

If the attack already has a chance of flinching. Add 20% or X amount to the attacks current chances.

Example. Bite has a 30% chance of causing the opponent to Flinch. Bite + Pressure = 50% chance of flinching.

A set up like this could work well while holding a Kings rock(10%) or a Razor Fang (11.7%).

 

[#HBC | ZoZo]

When the opponent switches out, he loses 12.5% of his total life.

Applies on Roar/Whirlwind.

Not sure on the percentage. Started at 20%. Meh. This should fix the whole voltturning in OU at least, and make a whole new set of walls viable. Not to mention, phazing teams will get a nice boost. Good shee.

 

[SxK]

Change the ability of Pressure to give all attacks done by a Pokemon with the Ability Pressure a 20% chance of flinching.(Doesnt have to be 20%, just dont want to make it horribly broken)

If the attack already has a chance of flinching. Add 20% or X amount to the attacks current chances.

Example. Bite has a 30% chance of causing the opponent to Flinch. Bite + Pressure = 50% chance of flinching.

A set up like this could work well while holding a Kings rock(10%) or a Razor Fang (11.7%).

Yeah, hax items are generally frowned upon in competitive play.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Yeah, hax items are generally frowned upon in competitive play.

Brightpowder + Sand Veil/Snow Cloak stuff and King's Rock Cloyster are lame as hell, but, they're the gold standard, too. Luck's just a part of the game.

 

[Wave⁂]

Brightpowder and Lax Incense are banned, though I agree that use with Sand Veil and Snow Cloak is (was) a legit strategy.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Brightpowder and Lax Incense are banned, though I agree that use with Sand Veil and Snow Cloak is (was) a legit strategy.

My bad; I assumed it hadn't gotten any sillier since 4th gen, where it has always been legal. I don't actually play online for 5th gen; I just try to keep up with the metagame and mess with the Battle Subway on my White cart.

King's Rock and Razor Fang are still okay, though, right? Same thing, I feel.

 

[#HBC | ZoZo]

There's a difference. Having a chance to flinch means you have to actually hit your opponent. Evasion is just pretty terrible overall, but it's arbitrary to ban it to some degree I guess.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Having a chance to miss means you have to actually attack your opponent, though. Still the same thing in that respect.

 

[#HBC | ZoZo]

Toxic, Will o Wisp, Hazards.

 

[Bing]

I cant tell if my idea was good or not...

so.. go team?

 

[TheReflexWonder]

I cant tell if my idea was good or not...

so.. go team?

Creatively, no, since 5th gen Stench is the same thing, just with a 10% flinch rate that doesn't stack with items. Stench is presumably like that to make sure it ended up balanced.

People generally hate having the ability to do anything taken away from them, and there's not much of a way to outright prevent it in the current metagame (Inner Focus isn't used on much, and everything with Steadfast is too frail). The only Pokémon that can (ab)use it are Bisharp (Thunder Wave/Iron Head), Absol (Thunder Wave/Bite), and Aerodactyl (super-fast Rock Slide), so it becomes less about strategy and more about dumb luck for most things.

 

[Bing]

Hmm, I see what you're saying, I was trying to actually stick with the idea of actually Pressuring someone and not something unrelated to the term lol.

But yeah. Also, It ment that it gives every attack the additional 20% flinch rate, and is added to any other attacks that already have flinch + items(There a formula on this works but I cant understand it to be honest)

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Hmm, I see what you're saying, I was trying to actually stick with the idea of actually Pressuring someone and not something unrelated to the term lol.

But yeah. Also, It ment that it gives every attack the additional 20% flinch rate, and is added to any other attacks that already have flinch + items(There a formula on this works but I cant understand it to be honest)

I understand, and I like the flavor that goes along with it. This was actually the first idea I came up with for this round (general flinching).

It gives every attack +20% flinch, but, outside of the abusers I mentioned, it just puts more of an emphasis on Speed due to luck-based combat. I imagine Ubers would start to look like RBY as a result of all the Pressure users and the need for Thunder Wave to deal with it.

 

[Bing]

Wouldnt that also make NU's like Absol a bit more viable though?(Nothing major, just maybe a tier up at most)

 

[#HBC | ZoZo]

Absol is already a lesser version of Honchkrow. Nothing special there.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Well, Absol is still pretty frail and has a mediocre defensive type, and since NU is packed with Bug-types already, I don't think it would benefit him too much. Absol is too slow to just start Biting things without a Choice Scarf, in which case it becomes too weak to get through things like Registeel. If you opt for bulk and Thunder Wave, it doesn't have the stats to set itself up, and if you're unlucky just once, you're dead.

It would certainly help, but, I don't think making a set around it would be much more effective than just slamming things with its ridiculous Attack stat. It's a little like how Gyarados is thankful for Waterfall's flinch rate--It's nice to have, but, it's not really what makes Gyarados an excellent Pokémon, and even if it were, Gyarados has nice defensive stats, a (relatively) unique and useful typing offensively and defensively, and Intimidate.

 

[SxK]

King's Rock and Razor Fang are still okay, though, right? Same thing, I feel.

If you follow Smogon's standard ruleset, which I'm assuming is the basis of most standard play right now, then yeah those are banned too.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

It's strange that it lists King's Rock in its moveset analysis for Cloyster, then. They should fix that.

 

[UltiMario]

Smogon didn't ban hax items other than brightpowder and lax incense.