- updates length of submission phase because I keep being a day late and maybe making it official will even out
- is late by no less than four more days
I'm great at this
ahem
Oookay, so I think it goes without saying that all of us here kinda need a break, hahah - I apologize for the many repeated delays OTL
That said!! We have been succeeded as Pet Mod of the Season by
Fusion Evolution Under Used, meaning our time being hosted on Showdown has come to a close! It's been a huge honor, and we're so happy to have met everyone who's come to be a part of our community in this time!!
We'll now be going on a hiatus, with no new slates for the main mod, while everyone involved with the mod catches up on our personal lives - there's a smaller and low-stakes creative project that will be happening earlier in the break as we wind down
details... uh... pretty soon actually!, followed by two weeks of properly stepping away before we come back stronger than ever with slate 33!
Before I continue with the feedback post itself, I would like to deliver an update from the amazing
BlueRay, who's really stepped up in welcoming new users and making time to help everyone learn, as well as
seriously elevating the spirit of competition! One of the coolest benefits of being Pet Mod of the Season was giving us an active ladder where people who didn't even know each other could meet for a battle at any time, and BlueRay has taken it upon himself to try to organize a similar opportunity at our usual home of Dragon Heaven:
Here are some words from BlueRay to elaborate - he put it far better than I could have!
To anyone who loves laddering
Megas for All on Pokémon Showdown:
Ever since
Megas for All became Pet Mod of the Season, some people enjoyed the idea of meeting new people and trying to reach the top 1. The fact you could also discover new sets or test your battle skills and teambuilding against haxes, surprises, and skillful players also contributed to the popularity of laddering.
With April soon approaching,
Megas for All will no longer be supported on Pokémon Showdown, however. Therefore, the only way to ladder would be on
Dragon Heaven. It's a server where you can import your teams from Pokémon Showdown and have access to a plethora of game options not available on Pokémon Showdown, like
Megas for All VGC, Megas for All Monotype, or
Mix and Megas for All.
Laddering on Dragon Heaven is unusual, since people normally don't go out out of their way and ladder, especially when there aren't as many people as on Pokémon Showdown. Usually, you would ask in a community if someone was interested in a match if you wanted to try out your teams. This is a very individual-based experience and might not cover the wide range of players you would find on ladders.
To get around this issue, I made a poll to figure out if there are enough people who want to ladder on Dragon Heaven and on which day(s) they would like to play. The poll will last one week. Once I have the results, I will let you know.
To be up-to-date, please let me know via message on my Smogon account (
BlueRay) or just ping me on Discord if you want to be informed of the final result.
Next update: as usual, I'm here to give a detailed report on the latest balance changes update in the thread! The poll ended ages ago, and the results were already announced on the Discord and made live on Showdown, but it's always useful to bring them to the thread as well for posterity - here they are:
For
Krookodile to
lose access to the move
Shore Up:
19 in favor vs 0 against - passes with a 100% supermajority
For of
Mega Zoroark's Ability Forgery not to wear off when it is hit by a move:
17 in favor vs 0 against
(2 abstained) -
passes with a 100% supermajority
For 15 points of
Mega Zoroark's Special Defense to be moved into its other stats
(5 into Defense and 10 into Speed):
16 in favor vs 1 against
(2 abstained) -
passes with a 94.12% supermajority
For
Zoroark to gain access to the move
Focus Punch:
16 in favor vs 2 against -
passes with an 88.89% supermajority
For
Zoroark to gain access to the move
Gunk Shot:
17 in favor vs 1 against -
passes with a 94.44% supermajority
For
Zoroark to gain access to the move
Superpower:
13 in favor vs 5 against - passes with a 72.22% supermajority
For
Noivern to gain access to the move
Psyshock:
16 in favor vs 3 against - passes with a 84.21% supermajority
As noted, these changes are already live and have been for some time! :> Just noting the results in the thread as usual!
Okay, so this one might be disappointing news for some, but it was personally requested by the one who initially submitted this Mega, and we think it's important to respect his wishes!
As of now,
Mega Delibird (Festive Rider) is
no longer a part of Megas for All - there will be only one Mega Delibird.
At the time Festive Rider was added, it was intended as a sort of compromise:
DrPumpkinz had explicitly intended to withdraw his submission in the interest of letting another submission win, but it was so overwhelmingly popular at the time that we felt it would be disappointing for everyone if we just ignored it like he asked, so we decided to make a special exception and allow two Mega Delibird instead of one - the runner-up as the "main" Mega Delibird, as he had officially withdrawn, but his own as a fun bonus on the side (to reflect its popularity and the fact that it was clearly still the chosen winner).
However, he's since made clear that this choice made him uncomfortable, and he would rather have actually been excluded like he requested in the first place. We're currently looking into some alternative options, like leaving it as a surprise only to be found in Random Battles as pat of the upcoming overhaul, but for the moment, the important thing is that it is just being deleted from the main format and will no longer be usable starting with the next update.
With all of that out of the way, though: it's time for sub feedback!
Quick general updates on
Mega Zebstrika and
Mega Mudsdale first:
It's been pointed out that Volt Tackle, whether or not it needs to be strictly
disallowed, is an
extremely special case that we will
strongly discourage. It's an almost completely unique case
even compared to other signature moves (like Apple Acid or Origin Pulse, which have since been distributed), in that even the Pikachu line, its only existing users, does not learn it naturally. Prior to Generation VII, the move could only be learned at all as a hidden trick by breeding with the Light Ball; since then, it's also been made available as a move tutor dedicated overtly to Pikachu in every appearance. This is primarily flavor-driven, so it feels unwise to enforce it at the last minute given that we haven't communicated it in advance, but it will
probably become a rule from now on, and anyone who has already added Volt Tackle to their Zebstrika is
sincerely requested to remove it! Volt Tackle, as well as the equivalent examples of
Secret Sword,
Relic Song and
Dragon Ascent, was clearly never meant to be on any other line, and it's a more serious breach of flavor than redistributing a more normal signature move.
This is a ruling that is applicable to
all Mudsdale because it relates in no small part to Mudsdale's base form and not any one Mega Evolution:
the addition of Shore Up (and reliable recovery in general) is no longer allowed on Mudsdale, and any submissions that add the move will not be vetoed but
will have it removed when they are included the compilation of submissions.
Stamina is an incredibly strong Ability on paper that's pretty delicately balanced as-is, and giving Shore Up access to base Mudsdale risks turning it into... basically
Mega Nidoqueen without taking the Mega slot, which is already unhealthy competition for what's currently something of a metagame staple and goes against the spirit of the mod. Shore Up Mudsdale has been likened in the past to an alternative to Hippowdon, but Stamina does a ton more for it than Sand Stream would, especially with Mudsdale's access to Body Press; it seems like it could be pushed over the edge pretty easily by reliable recovery in a way we hadn't really considered before submissions opened.
Anyone who would like to amend their subs with this change in mind is welcome to do so! For what it's worth, though, we do have some shining examples of
Pokémon that rely on Rest for recovery in our metagame, and they're not any less of a threat for it - on review, we felt that most of the submissions that are affected by this loss would still have a great chance of being worthwhile additions without any further changes. They're all certainly welcome as they are, and we hope everyone will give them fair consideration despite the loss!
Now for user-specific feedback! (I would like to extend huge thanks to
inkbug and
ausma for sharing their own input as we went through these and
BlueRay for answering some specific questions of mine as well!)
Super quick clarification - I know you know this already yourself because you're the one who asked, but this is to have it somewhere in the thread for posterity, mostly! - but I believe we agreed that Body Press would not be affected by Inner Fortitude for consistency with other related mechanics!
We felt your Rapidash definitely needed to be streamlined and toned down a lot - raising Speed
probably only by one stage! when hit while preparing a move is already
very good and synergizes super well with Swords Dance (a move it already has that can't be removed, unfortunately), and that is absolutely all it needs! This will be vetoed as it is; it definitely should not affect any stat but Speed, and it's maybe up to you but should
probably only raise Speed by one stage even then.
While it's not at the point of needing to be vetoed on the movepool side, it was also brought up that it arguably doesn't need any of the moves you've given it except Moonblast for a STAB of its new type
(though it has Play Rough anyway) and Electro Ball, if competitively irrelevant, for the understandable synergy with its Ability; we would encourage you to remove some of these if you're open to it!
(On the opposite side, inkbug suggested as some more fun feedback that it could be cool for this to gain Whirlwind if you're interested in another way to exploit the Ability! It's a decreased priority move, meaning Rapidash will more reliably gain Speed from using it even if it already outspeeds its immediate opponent, but it also has useful utility at the same time.)
This one is prooobably too strong as it is - getting to +6 from one Flame Charge is super dangerous on something with Swords Dance access and effectively invalidates conventional Speed control - and having two more or less unrelated like this also comes off as pretty messy compared to how a normal Ability would look. It was suggested that you tone this down to
doubling modifications to the Speed stat - like the Ability Simple but for just the one stat, maintaining the direct synergy you wanted with Flame Charge without going to quite the same extreme.
This one is definitely not allowed for a lot more reasons, I'm afraid;;
The most straightforward alternative we could agree on was just to replace it with
Static, which has direct synergy with the stat boosts you've chosen to give it and avoids all of the problems with its current state.
To elaborate on the issues as it is:
- It's unrealistic and generally best to avoid making Abilities that do direct damage with a base power and a type, at least unless there is
absolutely no way to achieve the same premise any other way, and in this case it doesn't seem that way at all. We've made an exception in the past with the Ability Seismic Scream, but that was because type effectiveness was the entire point of the Ability, whereas this mild chip damage could be done any other way to more or less the same effect. On the note of Seismic Scream, we're actually also still polishing that one to try to make it more palatable as an Ability and have just recently been discussing minor revisions to it on the Discord, which is all the more reason not to replicate it.
- As a mechanic, recoil is fundamentally odds with
competitive use of RNG, because these moves are designed to be less spammable and therefore more luck-based; it's not about getting more chances to use the move but about getting lucky in the few you have.
This one is not a veto, but it's still a case of bad practice that's worth highlighting and advising against - fundamentally, everything about Mudsdale's role and the way it functions would be exactly the same or better if it had Stamina, so you should just give it that!
Also reiterating the above notice of no Shore Up (and it already has Mud Bomb) There's no reason to use a custom Ability here because it doesn't add anything to the sub.
Not a veto, but a point we felt was worth raising: consider dropping Calm Mind? As an addition, it doesn't
seem competitively significant, but it is very extraneous boosting and is not really an obvious flavor fit for the sub, and setup isn't reeeally something to take super lightly in any case.
Just gonna reiterate how Pursuit needs to work:
"I think the most realistic and streamlined take would be for it always to use its first move, at the priority of its first move, and then immediately follow it with the second move ('first' and 'second' being in moveset order)"
(
here on the Discord for those who are there)
Not a veto or anything, but I am making no promises to implement it any other way than that :P
Also not necessarily a veto, but we're
sorta questioning Pain Split after some discussion for being potentially too good at stallbreaking and would like to invite you to consider removing that; it strikes us as highly possible that it will eventually have to lose it in a nerf if it wins, and it would be easier just to remove it from the start? It's not worth completely disallowing the sub if you don't, but it would definitely be our preference :'D
(Optionally: ink also mentioned that giving it Stockpile but neither Swallow nor Spit Up feels odd-- if you want to give it one or both of those, I wouldn't mind and it can be a "freebie" without being considered too many moves!)
okay this is not necessarily a veto but I
cannot stress my stance on this enough so I
really want to bring this up regardless--
Are you a doubles player yourself? Do you play M4A VGC and is this something you feel is needed there?
If you are not, please don't do this.
In general, I
strongly, strongly discourage building for a format you don't play yourself and
would not do this unless you are actually confident in its purpose.
So far, nearly all of the Megas that are actually viable in VGC were built initially for singles and then discovered after the fact to work as well or better in a doubles context; you shouldn't
need to set aside our main format outright to build something doubles-viable, and no one has done so successfully so far.
I would really advise you to familiarize yourself with the format, or make something you expect to be singles-viable but give it some specific tools that give it an edge in doubles (see Cacturne gaining Assurance for synergy with its Ability), but I don't think it's
wise at all to go out of your way to make a doubles-and-not-singles Mega if you aren't actually a doubles player; the fact that, unlike even our other two doubles-oriented Megas, this doesn't have an effect in singles
at all is worrying to me and is a major obstacle to balancing it in that it leaves very little room for recourse if it turns out not to be a successful niche.
In this case it doesn't
look like it will go horribly wrong in any obvious way, so I don't think it would be appropriate to veto it, but I want to stress I am
hugely uncomfortable with this as a practice, and the way it's presented doesn't really suggest that it's based on personal experience or something you're personally confident is needed.
Please submit for the format you play ;-; that's all
Super minor - would you be cool with lowering Speed at least by like 10 points (to 140)?
Like, admittedly the general lack of things between 140 and 150 makes this feel weird as a nerf and I won't mandate it - high Speed with Swords Dance just really scares me and I'm at least leaning in favor of staying close to the other Megas we already have XP
If all else fails, we can just nerf it later; 150 does freak me out a little, though, so it would be appreciated!
Okay, this one... the boring but practical answer is "just use Tough Claws" - there's really little reason to introduce a new category like this, and it's something we've come to learn is best avoided unless it's either very unambiguous or very necessary. Realistically, the only difference that will actually come of changing to contact moves would make is that Tough Claws would also include its main STAB, and... arguably it needs that? so I don't think it's a bad change and I really would rather not introduce more extraneous categories if there's no substantial difference. Somehow people have problems understanding
Hard Worker.
Thiiis is going to be subject to a mandatory nerf; it's definitely not okay as-is and will be vetoed. The main nerfs that we'd accept are significantly lowering Attack (i.e. switch with Special Attack) or significantly lowering Speed (somewhere 110-, perhaps even lower than base Rapidash). The other Magic Guard Rapidash has much lower Attack and Speed than yours to avoid abusing Flare Blitz's sweeping potential beyond reason when removing its main intended balancing factor, but it's worth noting that yours still has an edge over that one in its access of a dual STAB (and one that synergizes super well with Rapidash's coverage in High Horsepower - Fire/Fairy/Ground is an amazing offensive combination) while the other Rapidash pointedly does not gain any physical Flying moves, so if you're using it as a reference point at all, I would suggest that you lean on the side of weaker rather than stronger in any other respect.
also, I think your movepool additions ("flavor moves to justify newfound typing") are rooted in a misconception: you don't have to have all of the strongest STABs of your type on both sides just to have that type - Moonblast in particular is neither consistently distributed to Fairy-types nor related at all to Rapidash, so that one in particular seems very extraneous as an addition, but really all it needs are the Fairy moves it's going to use, which in your case just means Play Rough and it already has that
Small thing first - we're not
totally sure if we're understanding the Ability correctly and it's worth double-checking what it means?
mostly I'm questioning because of the part where you changed it from 3% to 5% as a nerf and I can't really tell if the numbers mean what we think they do
To clarify, then, we're working under the assumption that you mean for the first part of the effect to change the damage it takes on switch-in by 95%? Like a sort of reverse Stakeout, in that a move that's targeting it deals 5% (1/20) of the damage it would have dealt, but only on the turn when it's switching in.
Uh, the first thing about the Ability itself is that (if we're interpreting it correctly) that seems kind of ridiculous and like way too big a damage reduction (consider just doing... half? not 19/20), and the second part is that it's
completely unrelated to the hazard-clearing part when it switches out and you do need to pick just one of the two - either reducing damage as it switches in or clearing a hazard as it switches out. As another alternative, ink brought up the possibility of Shadow Shield while we were discussing, which is close enough to the first part of the Ability but also has applications in easing setup (direct synergy with Rapidash's role) and also still stays very close to the flavor you seem to want, without any unneeded complexity.
The second thing is about the stats, and this one is in some ways a bigger deal and is definitely mandatory as a nerf - 185 Speed is
absolutely ridiculous for something with Swords Dance and Flare Blitz. Given the added Pursuit weakness from its new type, its unusually low Attack and the fact that it doesn't have a reliable Ghost STAB other than Shadow Sneak, we would tentatively allow something like 150 on this
(which I should note is higher than I've considered acceptable for any other sub), but 185 is definitely well beyond reason.
Fffirst thing:
This idea is based solely on my love for Terrains and my wanting to see one for every type.
This is really bad practice and you should never just do it for the sake of it.
We do not take field effects lightly here, and they are not to be introduced for something like this. If we eventually get a Ground terrain
(but bear in mind that we already have introduced a Ground weather, so it's hard to say whether we ever will), it will have to justify itself very well.
So uh-- yeah, no, this is vetoed; consider any other way to achieve the same effect, like Gooey or Tangling Hair... or Speed Boost...?? or really anything but this, haha.
Worth bringing up that there also already effectively exists a Ground terrain - we're still lacking an offensive Gravitas user if you want to use that!
But to this as it is, definitely not.
There are a few problems with the Ability on this; the first is that it has two completely unrelated effects, the second is that one of those effects introduces an entirely new category of moves that is absolutely not needed and most of which don't make any sense on base Mudsdale, and the third is that the other is vaguely confusing and unintuitive
(how do you mean an individual Pokémon be immune to the effects of a terrain? is it just like... non-grounded, so it can't benefit? on an individual level, being grounded is actually always strictly better than not when it comes to terrains specifically - unless you're a Steel-type, but you aren't - so the ideal way to be "immune" to a terrain is actually to stop everything else from using it).
With all of this in mind, it reeeally shouldn't be allowed in its current state until you work on it a bit, I'm afraid. One very simple suggestion would be to give this the existing custom Down-to-Earth for the part of the Ability that can't be replicated any other way (terrain "immunity") and simply Normal STAB for the part that can (the only relevant part of boosting "travel moves" to Mudsdale is definitely having a stronger Extreme Speed and Rapid Spin), which I think would result in basically the same outcome while avoiding all of the issues.
Drought actually came up a few times on the Discord before you got to it, and... to be honest, I do want to say first that I'm actually pretty impressed by your restraint, and you did come a lot
closer to making a balanced sub than I think most people would have when they tried to work with Drought. That said, I'm afraid it's still borderline even now - I do not believe Rapidash is a safe time for Drought and I do not think this is or can be balanced, so I'm not going to allow this even so;;
(super minor: Zebstrika is totally fine assuming it works like Body of Water and doesn't count boosts to Speed - your description and the addition of Work Up imply that this is already as you intended, so nice! but just felt like clarifying this for posterity)
Onnn the other hand, I do not think I am comfortable with the Rapidash at all, statwise or Ability-wise - this one is going to be vetoed;;
The
main thing here is that the Ability boosts moves that already have recoil without being able to add any more of a drawback to them; Rapidash's main STAB already has recoil, so it just gets the
massive 1.5x boost from it entirely for free. I don't think Rapidash's stats are at a level where this is okay at all; this basically gives it a 180 BP STAB, and that's on top of Swords Dance and 125 Speed.
I think there are... much simpler and more effective ways to do what you want? If I'm not mistaken, your goal is to have a different Speed stat between the first and second turns of Bounce, right? I think the better approach would be
just to swap Attack with Speed on the semi-invulnerable turn of a move, with nothing else/let Speed be Speed under any other circumstances (or even just to lower Speed by some amount on the semi-invulnerable turn of a move). I'm rrreally not comfortable allowing something this unintuitive and awkward as it is.
As a side note, I think you are misusing the term "grounded" but I feel like I should note that Rapidash has no way to become non-grounded except by an opposing Pokémon's Telekinesis - from your previous comments on the intended outcome, I believe you mean "during the semi-invulnerable turn of a move" and will be working with that assumption unless clarified otherwise!
While discussing this, we generally agreed that this is super unintuitive and has way too much going on, and the Defense-raising effects have the potential to be...
situationally kind of broken (maybe? unclear) in conjunction with the type change; I'm pretty sure I'm not okay with this, I'm afraid.
This one is actually totally fine! but you have 10 more points to spend C:
if you put them in Special Attack, your middle stats can be 90/90/90 (eyes emoji)
As with okispokis, on account of Swords Dance + dual STABs that pair very well with High Horsepower, I would adviiise lowering Speed a bit from here, even with the offenses as tame as they are; in your case, I think something in the 140 to 130 range would be fine! I would probably not veto this either way, but I feel like asking if you don't mind at least!
as a clarifying note, I believe you miscalculated - your Speed it should be 145 as it is!
... ahem
my friend ink has asked me to beg you to rename the Ability to Bug Zapper.
you don't have to listen to him. he just really wanted me to ask.
This is... not a veto or anything he just
he really wanted me to ask
okay moving on--
Yyyeah, I believe this hits too hard? You're either gonna have to get a bit slower or choose an Ability that doesn't boost damage to this extent
(especially in conjunction with all of the added coverage, which kind of misses the point of Adaptability if I'm being honest - this Ability has few non-boring applications, but the thing it does well is incentivizing STAB and disincentivizing coverage in favor of more varied STABs or more freedom to run non-attacking moves, while here you're using it and giving massively stronger STAB than Rapidash normally has, for just a major power boost all around). As one alternative Ability, ink suggested Flash Fire, which provides defensive utility in the form of additional switch-in opportunities, while resulting in
roughly the same effect but not unconditionally (and therefore not nearly broken).
In our discussion, we were vaguely concerned by how hard it hits with Body Press given that it can boost with Iron Defense, especially after having to nerf Araquanid; I talked it over with the competitive council and we decided that it would prooobably be safest to ask you to keep its Special Defense lower/perhaps the same as base Mudsdale's (so it still has some kind of clear weak point), and possibly also lower Defense a little (to 130ish at most?) if you can? I think the Special Defense point is perhaps the more important of the two, though addressing both would be nice if you're willing!
aaaa I feel bad because I'm pretty sure
I said I was okay with this when you initially posted it, but when we were conferring, it seemed to be met with more concern than I expected because of the Ability in conjunction with Swords Dance; I don't thhhink it warrants vetoing and I plan to allow it even if you leave it as-is, but I guess I should mostly be advising caution or at least relaying that for posterity and transparency?
This one is considered to overlap too significantly with ChoiceScarfed's Zebstrika; we're just gonna have to ask you to collaborate on this and not accept both, I'm afraid. :x
This one was deemed to hit much too hard with Reckless, so we're not going to allow that;;
Oookay, so the thing you need to remember is that every single one of the moves you add is given to
base Rapidash, which is a major optics concern - say whatever you will about the flavor of the Mega, but there is no way that regular Rapidash should ever be getting any of these except maybe Air Slash, Horn Attack and Defog.
Of particular note, I think Acrobatics should be singled out as an unwelcome addition because it is actively unusable for a Mega while buffing its base form, which is the exact opposite of the scope of the mod.
Meanwhile, Horn Attack, while inoffensive as an addition, is still questionable in that it has no more to do with the Mega than the base form, and we have no more reason to add it than Game Freak did; the fact that it is utterly irrelevant means it's not a problem, but it also means it's not worth adding in the first place and I would be on board with removing it anyway if you don't have a particular reason to feel strongly about it.
I know this sounds stupid, but actually it does matter and Dual Wingbeat, Fly and Roost are all not allowed.
This is probably the least questionable thing here, rrrelatively speaking, but High Jump Kick specifically is almost definitely too strong on it and should not be allowed.
Following up on the previous note, while this has important
enough competitive applications that I wouldn't object to stretching it if it were well balanced
(but again, pretty sure it's actually too strong in this case), it's worth noting that High Jump Kick is explicitly a knee-based move learned exclusively by bipeds, while the weaker Jump Kick is a better option that's more often learned by ungulates (see also: Sawsbuck) and actually is a kick. I would be far more comfortable allowing a 100 BP move than a 130 BP move on this in any case, so I would go with that if you want a move in this vein? Your spread of, uh, basically 100/160/115/60/100/115 is still going to do just fine with one less thing going for it.
This... does not need to be nearly this fast. The low Special Attack helps a
bit with balancing it, but it should still be like. 150-ish at most? Definitely not 174 with Dazzling.
Obligatory reminder that the fastest thing in our meta right now is 170 with absolutely no setup.
O k a y , I don't like that this has a 150 BP Dark STAB that burns the target if resisted. If I were just asking you to nerf this, that would be the first thing to go (either the inclusion of Lash Out or the fact that the Defense drop happens before its attack and not after).
Admittedly, though, I'm rrreally not sure I'm comfortable with this in general?
Punishing opponents
this significantly for switching to a resist, i.e. using the most basic form of defensive counterplay, would be okay on something that didn't need it that badly - but resistances being valid matters a lot against something with a Swords Dance sweeper with 145 Attack, 115 Speed and decently complementary dual STABs. I think this premise would be okay on something that either wasn't a setup sweeper or wasn't as good at it, but I think it's an unsafe premise on this Rapidash in particular and I don't believe it would be safe to allow this Ability here at all.
This one seems like it's a bit more complicated and less streamlined than it needs to be
(personally, I would much rather you just made the move and the Ability do recoil separately - however much recoil the move should do, then also 1/3 from the Ability - instead of making the Ability modify the recoil that's already there; it seems more consistent and intuitive for the Ability to add 1/3 of the damage dealt like it does for every other move than to make, say, Wild Charge only do an extra 1/4). Admittedly, I'm also kinda scared of how strong it sounds on a Pokémon with this much Speed, added recoil or no
(this isn't because of Extreme Speed or anything - its other moves are much better); instinctively, I feel like I would lean towards making the effect boost by only 50% instead of 2x, even if that means buffing the Ability as a whole (such as removing either the HP requirement or the recoil, but not both), than making it hit as hard as it does now with dual STABs as good as it has, even circumstantially. I'm not sure this calls for a veto, and unlike Rapidash it's probably fine as it is, so it's your choice; however, if you'd be willing, I think I would appreciate a change like that? OTL
Hi this is a really dumb and minor problem but you...
do have to rename the Ability, because there is already a
move called Overdrive and that will cause problems with the coding that I don't know how to solve. Uh, you can kind of just do this whenever you want/if it wins and you haven't decided by then, I'll just ask again on the Discord, so this is far from a veto or anything! but yeah that is. a thing we will have to deal with eventually.
I know it's so dumb I'm so sorry
(Admittedly I'm historically against Electric Scrappy and I believe I advised someone else against that, but the low Special Attack in particular kind of helps, and notably the simplicity of the Ability and weaker Electric options both make this tamer than that one at least)
I am just supposed to ask if this happens every five turns or just once at the five turn mark! I'm guessing every five turns? but just making sure!
(Also, it feels wrong to say so - I know it's a buff and I have no idea if I'm properly judging how strong it is in its current state, so I should be afraid to suggest buffs - but... for the purposes of having
cleaner numbers and being more consistent with other healing... thoughts on making it 1/8 instead of 1/10?
this is mostly aesthetic and maybe a bad idea but I would be for it if you wanted!)
Okay, I know you got advice from the rest of the competitive council earlier, so I feel like I
can't reasonably veto it outright and therefore won't; however, I'm peeersonally still against this and I feel like drawing attention to the obligatory Mawile comparison to highlight the crazy breaking power this has:
252+ Atk Huge Power Mawile-Mega Play Rough vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mew: 279-328 (69 - 81.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Sheer Force Rapidash Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mew: 280-330 (69.3 - 81.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
(I know they wouldn't have the same nature realistically, but they
could - the fact is just that Jolly is even better for it than Adamant, and that makes this comparison more flattering, not less so)
Anyway, uh, my own instinct is that this + Swords Dance + 65 more points of Speed than Mawile is probably not a great idea and I would adviiise against doing it? This is, again, not a veto, but I hope you'll take it into consideration regardless because I don't love the idea of giving so much breaking power to something so fast;;
Super minor: in terms of
interactivity, I would support making it happen only after a physical move rather than after just any move? but I can't see that being necessary for balance - it's more just a personal opinion! I'm totally a fan of this in any case!!
Okay, uh-- there is an infinitely better-
balanced Speed Boost Zebstrika already, so I'm just vetoing this one outright anyway, I think? but to elaborate a bit for your own reference: Nasty Plot is definitely a problem with this (and to a lesser extent I'm kind of skeptical of even just Work Up + Speed Boost); strong Fighting coverage is a problem in conjunction with its type change and Speed Boost; and you, like some others before you, have fallen into the trap of giving a lot of moves that Zebstrika would never learn just because they suit your vision of the Mega. Remember that a Mega Evolution learns the same moves as its base form - if regular Zebstrika can't fly and doesn't have wings, you can't give Fly and Dual Wingbeat to regular Zebstrika just to help it as a Mega.
This one is definitely a no - it has much higher Speed and Attack than we've allowed for others, and that's a much bigger deal in conjunction with Rock Head removing the main balancing factor of Flare Blitz.
This is not a veto, but we were talking about this and just wanted to draw your attention to Filter as an alternative option (on account of that Ability revolving entirely around defensive type and this one having an entirely different defensive type, we would consider allowing it regardless of there being other Filter subs), because Soot Guard on this is... almost impressively pointless, haha - there are so few types that hit it neutrally and almost no one is going to target it with them.
Sigh.
So, uh, first of all I just want to like. point out. that people
did give you feedback on these already and pointed out how far they were from the scope of the mod, and you just chose not to take that into account? Which is kind of disappointing, and I cannot stress enough that I
dislike these and strongly oppose them, whether you fix the balance issues or not. Please just have an ounce of respect for the people who take this mod seriously, and maybe we wouldn't even be talking about these subs.
But more importantly:
Reiterating the doubles issue - if you are not a doubles player and don't know what you're doing, please do not make Abilities that do nothing in singles
(also, even if you do stick with this effect after making other changes, please make the modifier 1/3 rather than 35%). That aside,
none of these moves are optically sound on
base Rapidash, and you're going to find another way to give STABs to the Mega (such as an -ate Ability or Liquid Voice) because I'm just not going to allow that.
Feel like emphasizing that Ghost -ate is not to be taken as lightly as other type-changing effects, and I don't reeeally like it with Double-Edge, Return and 120/126 physical offenses; it's maybe tolerable given Zebstrika's lack of setup, so I won't veto it, but I would invite you to lower either Attack or Speed if nothing else
also, what mod do you think this even is
Yyyeah, no, we are not giving a Mega multiple forms for as little or as baseless mechanical reason as this, reference or not
also, what mod do you think this even is
Thiiis is broken, and most of the move additions do not make optical sense on base Zebstrika; we're just giving it a hard no.
(First thing: we already had this conversation, so I want to stress that I am rather annoyed by your saying "I think that we lack megas who can take an advantage of the weather" and your persistence in tying all three of these to field effects; please remember that this was
against the advise of everyone present in submission feedback and I am still wholly opposed. .-.)
More importantly, though:
This might highkey be broken in sun on account of Inferno (which was obviously the point); I'm gonna say that you should pick one between the accuracy boost and the Speed boost, but not both.
That aside, for the purposes of use outside of sun, is it... weird to ask for at least just -5 base Speed? I would rather it had 115 than 120, but that's not the biggest of its worries.
This one is just a hard no. We have one Electric Scrappy Zebstrika already
(not also Corrosion on top of that) already, and it was much tamer and had no setup; that one is all I will allow and we don't need another. Meanwhile, Corrosion is also an entirely separate effect and has no reason to be tied into ignoring immunities.
Also going to point out that we have enough precedent for how ignoring immunities works to say that it doesn't turn them into resistances, and even though it's ostensibly a balancing factor in this case, defying that precedent for just one edge case is not something I'm comfortable with. There's also just a lot going on here and this is way more complicated an effect than it needs to be; the field effect association continues to be completely unnecessary, Electric Scrappy is an effect unto itself and has already been done, and Corrosion for Paralysis is also an effect unto itself but not one I would really suggest using on Zebstrika specifically.
I'm preeetty sure this one is too strong off the bat, and the 25% HP "downside" will realistically not be enough to keep it in check because that's such a small range. You could maybe get away with giving it some crazy offensive stats and just giving it Defeatist, or perhaps do the opposite and play with recoil + Rocks weakness + the need for setup time by giving it Second Wind, but in its current state I'm not comfortable allowing it (and I'm not entirely sure those two alternatives are actually worth pursuing).
This is conceptually very similar to BitBitio's (and the Ability is much messier), and the difference as far as voting basically just comes down to "does a given voter want Fighting STAB or not," which I think would be unfair and go against the spirit of the mod; the subs overlap enough that I feel you can be asked to direct suggestions to him and collaborate if you have input, but I'm not going to allow this separately because it does not seem appropriate to have it come down to that one factor, and they essentially are not otherwise different subs.
When we discussed this one, people were uncomfortable with the fact that the point of this one is ostensibly just flinchhax on something so fast; I know Serene Grace + flinching is
precedented and it's not, like, completely abhorrent, but at least our recommendation would be that Zing Zap should pretty much just not be added if you want Serene Grace on this. As an alternative, ink suggested leaning on the special side to take advantage of STABs like Discharge and Charge Beam for useful-but-less-RNG-based secondary effects if anything? I'm not sure this one should be a veto at this time, but I would like to advise against the direction all the same.
All three of these overlap very, very significantly with subs other people have already made, so instead of including them separately in the voting slate, I am just going to ask you to direct your feedback to the other people who got to them first (and suggest that you collaborate and provide input if you disagree with how they handled them).
In your case, that would be:
KamranShah's Rapidash if they fix it
(if they don't and it still has illegal moves when voting starts, yours could maybe be allowed instead, but I would ask you to lower its offenses if so - I would prioritize removing its Speed increases at least, since being naturally super fast kind of undermines the point of the Ability and just encourages Swords Dance sweeping, but probably some of its Attack too because it's also just a very strong spread; something much more like 65/130/100/100/100/105 seems reasonable to me)
StarFalcon555's Zebstrika
JetManJo's Mudsdale (also be aware that you can't raise HP on yours anyway, and I should point out that dual Ground/Rock with Solid Rock is massively redundant to Rhyperior)
Last thing for this post: I think I should take this opportunity to respond to
KamranShah's
recent post, in which they observe a potential bias towards physical attackers in our metagame and call for action against this.
There are actually a
lot of reasons why I don't agree with this stance, but I think these are the most important points to address:
The first issue is more with the nature of the list - as noted in the first post of this thread,
raw base stats mean almost nothing out of context!
A much greater range of factors, including Speed, setup access, offensive movepool and boosts from Abilities, is necessary to gain a complete picture of a Pokémon's role in the metagame.
This list is unwittingly misleading, and it places undue emphasis on the high raw attacking stats of Pokémon that actually aren't anywhere near the biggest offensive threats; there are obvious reasons why Archeops's high Attack shouldn't count (and this is noted with an asterisk), but it's also worth bringing up that Mega Conkeldurr's best chance of being used over its base form is in a supportive role as a Defogger, as it doesn't come anywhere close to outdamaging its base form (it also often doesn't even invest EVs in Attack because the returns on investment are so low).
Conversely, one of the most threatening physical sweepers in the mod - a genuinely highly dangerous setup abuser that's had to be nerfed once before and has since proven to be a top threat all the same - is our Mega Bibarel, whose base Attack is below the threshold used to make this list. Bibarel is setup- and Ability-reliant for its power rather than having an immediate raw attacking stat, but these factors actually go so much further than a raw stat alone possibly could - its low-
looking base 130 Attack is one of the most threatening in the mod by because of the power of its STABs (which are boosted by its Ability and also complement each other well, making it hard to wall) and Swords Dance access with the benefit of pre-Mega Simple.
(On the subject of setup- and Ability-reliant physical attackers, Reuniclus is down as the second-strongest special attacker given a glance at its base stats and isn't even present on the physical list at all, but it's actually a mixed breaker that primarily prefers to attack on the physical side once it's used Psycho Boost once or twice. The fact that Reuniclus is so convincingly strong on the physical side is actually the most important part of its viability, and it takes advantage of the incredible value of mixed offenses on a breaker that can pull them off, with a type combination that can harshly punish the Pokémon that would ordinarily be able to take a Psycho Boost the best; the fact that it's being recognized as the second-highest Special Attack in the mod and nowhere to be seen on the physical side is a huge misrepresentation of its strengths, rooted in overreliance on base stats out of context as a way to judge power.
Meanwhile, ask, say, BitBitio what special attackers he fears most, and I believe you'll be told Slowking and Araquanid, neither of which is on your list right now!
Tl;dr here: base stats alone are
not enough to make a judgment like this, and other than Speed (and perhaps HP in the case of, like, Wish only), a direct comparison of any one stat between two Pokémon is essentially meaningless without the context around them. While we appreciate the attempt at help, it's very important to stress that this goes against many of our design principles and is very misleading - the same stat alone does not mean the same thing between two different Pokémon, and we strive to tailor (and limit) the stats of all submissions based on the Pokémon they're on, the moves they learn and the benefits their Abilities contribute rather than trying to standardize around benchmarks for one number at a time.
The other thing, though, is just that there's no reason why it would be a
bad thing for there to be stronger Pokémon on the physical side.
By the nature of many of the game's core mechanics, more abundant counterplay exists for physical attackers than special attackers!
Among other things, nearly every team (or at least every team that attempts to form a defensive backbone) has a way to inflict burns and punish physical attackers, plenty of relevant Abilities and items exist to punish
contact (a primarily physical-oriented trait) but not a single effect exists to punish exclusively non-contact moves, physical attackers are vulnerable to the important Ability
Intimidate (notably found on more than one of the most prominent glue Pokémon in the metagame) while no such equivalent exists for the special side (the closest thing that will ever exist to special Intimidate is the Assault Vest, which is viable only on a few Pokémon in singles), and even important moves like Foul Play and Strength Sap and Abilities like Stamina (not just on Mudsdale here - we have several new Megas with this) are all stacked against physical attackers. Even of our own defensive Megas, Corviknight and Nidoqueen are highly effective blanket checks that can handle almost every physical attacker safely and reliably, something we don't really have on the special side.
In other words:
the mechanics are not symmetrical - why should the Pokémon be?
That aside, it's important to recognize that our Mega Evolutions cannot be paired with each other, but they
can be paired with what is already there. Of the Pokémon that currently exist in the metagame, some of the
non-Mega attackers that prove the most straining and require the most specific attention when teambuilding are Ash-Greninja and Tapu Lele; special attackers are already more versatile and harder to blanket-check by their nature, and it can be argued that putting even more pressure on the special side to manage an even more diverse array of Pokémon is unwise.
Fun bit of history, by the way: the very game that introduced Mega Evolution as a mechanic also categorically nerfed special attackers, by individually weakening almost every competitively relevant special move. It was actually one of the biggest mass balance changes in the series, and I would argue it was one of the best - special attackers totally deserved to be toned down, and plenty of them are on the scarier side even now!
I think it's worth noting even then that
despite the comparisons you've made based on their raw stats, the ongoing viability rankings project is probably a more useful way to get a picture of what offensive threats are most prevalent in the metagame, and plenty of the lower-end special attackers are abundant in the higher ranks all the same!
To conclude, the most important thing is not to focus on whether the overall shape of the metagame is
physically and specially equal but on whether the additions to the metagame are
balanced and sustainable, and
holding physical attackers and special attackers to different standards (which often means special attackers being weaker!) is
more important (and better in the long term) than actively trying to create more special threats and "keep up" with the physical attackers. Our mod is healthier for embracing its asymmetry, and I would, at least personally, not want it any other way.
Thank you for your input! but I hope this puts your mind at ease a bit and also gives you a better idea of what to expect here. C:
That should be all for now!
Submissions will close and voting should begin in about 24 hours, and I'll make a compilation of all of the legal entries then! If you've gotten feedback here, it would be best to implement it as soon as possible with that in mind.
(As usual, though: no worries if you can't quite make it by then! If you need to make changes, then as long as you can do that before voting closes
just leave enough time for people to vote for you!, I'll be happy to make the amendments you need!)
Uh, at some point I am also meant to add a sub of my own for Zebstrika, but I'm not going to make this post take e v e n l o n g e r trying to justify it, so I'm just going to edit it in at some point today and not keep you guys waiting for the important part to go up!
Mega Zebstrika
New Ability: Lightning Rod/Motor Drive/Sap Sipper ->
Seismic Scream
(The existing Mega Exploud's Ability: after using a sound move, follows up with 60 BP of Ground-type spread damage.)
Type: Electric/
Ground
New Stats:
HP: 75
Attack: 100 ->
135 (+35)
Defense: 63 ->
103 (+40)
Special Attack: 80 ->
105 (+25)
Special Defense: 63
Speed: 116
(
597 BST)
New moves: High Horsepower, Horn Leech, Overdrive
In much the same way that our Mega Raichu's Electric/Fighting STAB combination makes it stand out, I've long had the opinion that Electric and Ground are individually two of the strongest and most important attacking types in the game, so I've always been interested to see an offensive Pokémon that can make use of both.
Offensively, Electric and Ground are both
dangerous; they're individually relatively hard to resist, and the types that do resist them are easy to cover, so each of them is part of some of the most well-known coverage combinations (think EdgeQuake and Bolt Beam as examples - but it's also worth noting that
both Electric and Ground individually pair well with Ice, so even the weak Hidden Power can complement this STAB combination super well in just one type! or how about Zebstrika's existing access to Overheat,
my last short essay on Ground/Fire coverage in mind?).
It's also worth bringing up that - alongside Mega Raichu's famously optimal Electric/Fighting STAB combination - Electric/Ground is one of the only two combinations of STABs that can hit both Steel and Water (two of the most important defensive types in the series) super effectively without being resisted by the other... and Electric and Ground aren't resisted by Fairy, either!
Electric even directly covers the main switch-ins to Ground-type damage - at least provided they're not named Landorus or Gliscor, your opponent's Flying-types can't come in to avoid Ground-type damage without being punished by Electric STAB that hurts twice as much.
With this in mind, and in the context that a somewhat obvious horse flavor move in High Horsepower is already Ground-type, I actually
started approaching Zebstrika with the vague direction that it would be neat to have an Electric/Ground-type - being able to attack with both of those types sounds like an appealing selling point for an offensive Pokémon, doesn't it?
So I started doing research on Zebstrika's flavor, and--
They have lightning-like movements. When Zebstrika run at full speed, the sound of thunder reverberates.
Literally the first Pokédex entry and I've learned that one of Zebstrika's key design elements (and the clever detail that's supposed to bridge the gap between zebras and electricity) is themed after sound.
A sound-related Pokémon that would benefit from a way to do Ground-type damage, huh...? Why does that sound familiar?
... they say we don't revisit old customs enough around here. Let's fix that!
Seismic Scream is an Ability from the sound-themed slate 26, created by the amazing
ausma for her Mega Exploud.
Like my Zebstrika, her goal was to exploit the type chart in a unique way - her Exploud had not one but two powerful sound-based STABs that were both resisted by Steel, and Ground is notably one of the best ways there is to punish Steel-types for switching in on a move. Attacking with two types in one turn has proven to be a major advantage for Exploud, and it's one of the coolest wallbreakers in the mod and can be genuinely terrifying in the right circumstances.
With everything I said about Electric and Ground, then-- what if you could attack with
those two types in one turn?
One key difference between her Exploud and my Zebstrika is how much closer together the power of its moves is - her Exploud used the 140 BP STAB Boomburst and the 100 BP STAB Clanging Scales, but it paired them with the non-STAB 60 BP Ground coverage from Seismic Scream, so the difference between the two hits was more like 140:40 or 100:40. Here, Zebstrika's main sound STAB is only the 80 BP Overdrive - but its Ground-type followup
also receives STAB, so its second hit is still hitting for 75% as much damage.
On one hand, this makes Zebstrika's one-two punch that much more dangerous, since resisting the first hit no longer remotely means escaping the worst. As mentioned earlier, Zebstrika's first hit also hits Flying-types twice as hard, so just switching one of them in to mitigate the second hit's damage still leaves them taking more damage overall than a neutral hit, which can be devastating! It can be incredibly challenging to take less than neutral damage from Zebstrika's Overdrive.
On the other hand, as Seismic Scream fails to activate if the move doesn't hit, you can still send in a Ground-type to deal with Zebstrika and nullify both hits - just be wary of doing that too often, because Hidden Power can still punish it severely.
With its advantages from exploiting the type chart in mind, I opted to give Zebstrika relatively tame offenses, especially for the Special Attack which it uses for its sound-based moves; I'm also honestly relieved that Zebstrika is
for the first time in what feels like ages a fast enough Pokémon to be threatening
without also having setup, meaning it's okay to experiment with dangerous coverage like this without the risk of turning it into something uncounterable after one stray free turn to set up. Overall, I'm pretty sure this Zebstrika can create interesting lose-lose situations when played skillfully and live up to the advantages of its intriguing combination of STABs and coverage, but hopefully without being so dangerous a wallbreaker as to put undue pressure on defensive team styles.
One minor addendum worth noting: in the near future, we'll be announcing and polling a potential change that was agreed upon for Seismic Scream - making the second hit do physical damage unconditionally - which might make now seem like a bad time to experiment with a second Seismic Scream user.
However, I would like to draw attention to the fact that its offenses are exactly 30 base stat points apart! 31 is the number of base stat points you get from EV investment, so (at least provided its nature doesn't modify either one) the offenses of a Zebstrika with fully invested Special Attack and uninvested Attack should be almost identical, with final values of 306 Attack and 309 Special Attack.
Consider this a bit of insurance to make sure Zebstrika is an equally fine addition to the metagame no matter how the poll goes - it shouldn't affect the stats that Zebstrika was designed around at all! Hopefully that puts people's minds at ease about voting however they like on the poll regardless of whether how this particular Zebstrika fares. C: