Isn't the cover legends based on an ability? Could have sworn from their flavour texts.
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SPOILERS! Pokemon Sword & Shield Pre-Release SPOILERS - Check Post 2!
- Thread starter DHR-107
- Start date
Zamazenta needs to hold the Rusty Shield to change formes so yes it's tied to the items.
Originally the 'balance' involved with Dragons was that they were hard to obtain and took a lot of training to get to their fully-evolved OP forms. They were just supposed to be the best/strongest type. Once they took the competitive side of things into account and added more Steel types and eventually Fairy types, Dragons could be treated more like any other type and their designs didn't have to be reserved for rare pseudolegends.
I meant from a logic and design standpoint. At one point normal was the “we don’t know wtf type this is” given to random Pokémon but now it’s seemingly Dragon.
Dragon is pretty much the repitilian type now, and not the mythical type it was before. There’s some exclusions like Eggy but eggy was specifically a meme
What dragon types can't be at least argued for, considering dragon's treatment as also a "reptile" type? Garchomp the land shark, Altaria the heaven bird, and Exeggutor for the pun. Dialga, Plakia, Giratina, and Ultra beasts. And some of the preevolutions of proper dragons being only loosely connected.
But they aren't treated as any other type. From a competitive PoV yes, they've been balanced with the introduction of Steel and Fairy types, but from a lore perspective they aren't just another type. Every, and I mean every one of the pseudolegends from any generation is Dragon-type. Dragonite, Salamence (and Metagross, because Gen 3 has two), Garchomp, Hydreigon, Goodra, Kommo-o and now Dragapult.
There's only 1 exception in 23 years of franchise, Tyranitar. Which by the way, learns Dragon Dance. In Gen 2 the Dragon is Kingdra, the iconic Pokémon of Clair, 8th Gym Leader of the Johto Region and little sister of Lance, the Champion of said region and master of dragons (gosh you even have the Dragon's Den lore part of the story).
The three main Pokémon related to the creation of the entire Pokémon Universe are Dragon-types (Giratina, Dialga and Palkia), the most broken Pokémon ever made is a Dragon-type (Mega-Rayquaza), also the most powerful of the weather trio in terms of lore. The same occurs now with Eternatus, another Dragon-type. Without taking into account the lati twins, the generation inmediatly after IV, V Gen, had —again— 3 main Dragon-legendary types (Zekrom, Reshiram and Kyurem). Even in XY, with the newly introduced Fairy type and the main legendaries representing Fairy and Dark types, the third legendary and, again, most powerful in terms of lore (Zygarde) was... a Dragon type.
And I'm not even talking about a lot of them being either extremely prevalent or outright banned at a certain point in their careers (Salamence in DPPl, Garchomp in DPPl, Latios in DPPl, Naganadel in USUM). They're just not one more type. Altho I understand your argument from a design standpoint in that they can be less mystical now, but still.
Still, most of the Dragons have some kind of mythical offspring, no matter how they may look like. c:
Dragon is more the "monstrous" kind of mythic, while fairies are the "cute" mythic monsters ... not talking about Mr Mime, tho. xD
In general, I like how most of the new Mons look more like JRPG monsters (especially Dragon Quest, in my opinion)
Which is funny as dragon type STAB wasn't even used competitively until gen 4 and the only dragon type to see OU prior was Salamence. It took Draco Meteor, an Outrage buff, and the phys / special split in in 4 to make Dragons actually good.
They were broken in gen 4 and 5 due to the easy 4 move slot of Dragon + Ground + Fire + Setup pretty much reducing their counters to prediction and a Choice Scarf.
Then they became kind of bad again once Fairy types became dominant. Dragon STAB is basically unseen and the few dragons that survive in OU do so due to raw stats and secondary typing.
So Gamefreak's "chosen ones" spent probably 75% of comp battles at least somewhat worthless despite being played up to be gods. I guess they were in gen 4 + 5. I can't even remember the last time I clicked Dragon Pulse.
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Just read a little better. I said 'more like any other type' not 'exactly like any other type.' They aren't almost exclusively limited to legends and pseudolegends now. Yes I have played Pokemon games before and know that a lot of the legendary Pokemon are Dragon type. Naganadel being banned isn't even that good of an example considering there are like 10 other non-legendaries banned and more of them are Steels, which again underscores that Dragon isn't by far the most OP type like it was a few generations ago.
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The Apple line is easy to explain. They had an idea to make a Pokémon based on the worm in apple (a very well-known thing). But then instead of leaving it at that they said but ah, what if it's not a WORM in the apple but a WYRM in the apple, and voila, dragon apple is born.
Regarding the spreadsheet: where did the fossil stats come from? Are they confirmed? I thought we only had definitive stats for the rental Pokemon.
Sableye got away with low as shit stats because of prankster. Grimsnarl might be the same depending on what status moves it actually gets.
I highly doubt recovery is in there anywhere, but utilities of several types could be, I could see spikes being a thing considering the lore. Taunt, bulk up and probably hone claws are a given, will-o and t-wave are possible. It all really depends on how prankster focused they wanna make his move pool and also we dont know his other abilities yet so who knows he might get intimidate or moxie too (moxie would be pretty trash with that speed though).
We probably looking at prankster abuse or underwhelming assault vesting though. His viability really leans on how valuable a stab sucker punch and play rough are gonna be this meta.
Hatterne really depends on how valuable bulky faeries end up being, but it's getting some stark competition from togekiss and sylvain. It seems to have vgc potential but so does alcremie. Coverage and movepool options might carve it a niche though. Its bulk isnt impressive but a decent mixed wall when most faeries are pure s.defensive could prove useful.
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dark fairy is an amazng offensive typing resisted only by Galarian Weezing and regular Mawile in the galar dex so with things like knock off and play rough that'll make it hard to switch into alone. Hopefully it gets good status moves like wisp or recovery, but one thing people haven't really mentioned is how prankster substitute is actually one of the most reliable ways of stalling out Dynamax turns.
Re-read my post because I lowkey posted it before I was done lol.
Substitute is going to be a boon for it yes. A sub set with left overs and drain punch (Im the queen of wishful thinking) would be pretty great and it wouldn't be risking much running fighting along side dark and fairy because as you said it is only resisted by two pokemon, only one of witch is even likely to be seen, but I dont have high hopes weezing is going to be seen anywhere other than vgc.
I hadn't thought of that. Max moves can't even get priority as far as we know, now that Gale Wings is removed, so unless you have Infiltrator, there's no counterplay.
Given that practically everything can learn Substitute, we can also pretty much extend this to "anything can be stalled out of Dynamax turns with substitutes from something faster". I can easily imagine a scenario where Substitute is basically a moveslot tax, the way Protect is in doubles, and Dynamax as a mechanic is only ever used on mons like Dragapult which can reliably outspeed opponents.
Are we even 100% sure max moves dont hit through subs?
As far as we know, the only difference between a Giga Pokemon and a Dyna Pokemon of the same species are appearance and one of its max moves. However, Giga Cream's description on the website calls out its resilience to physical attacks, which while not necessarily reflective of anything (fast Vikavolt) could suggest that Giga Pokemon have altered stats. I also seem to remember Giga Zard screenshots showing much more HP than thought possible, so they might also get more HP than a Dyna Pokemon. If signature Z moves are anything to go by, G Max moves might also have higher base powers than Max moves based on the same move.
I really hope Giga Pokemon get some buff outside of an altered move effect, because most of the effects we know of don't seem worth it compared to the usual effects. Especially for Charizard.
Z-moves didn't, and it seems like it would have been advertised when they made them immune to flinching. We don't know, but it's a safe assumption.
Now that I've had some time to think it over, I really think that Heavy Duty Boots will benefit pivot and defensive Pokemon much more than the 2x or quad-weak set-up mons. The main benefit of hazards, after all, is to wear down Pokemon that love to switch in and out, which frail set-up mons are loathe to do. Volcarona, Gyarados, and now Frosmoth don't really need the HP to sweep as long as they get a chance to pull off a DD or QD, which you can really only do for free a few times per battle, after which they are likely to stay in and punch holes till they die. There's also the downside of running the Boots over another, maybe prefered item, like Lum Berry/HP restoring Berry or Life Orb.
Instead, let's look at a pokemon like Reuniclus. HDB allow it to run Regenerator over Magic Guard, while still getting alot of the benefits of the latter. From there you can run a defensive utility set. Another few Pokemon that might benefit from HBD would be Unaware Quag, Regen Pex (though it might still prefer shed shell or sludge), Sand Stream Hippo (especially with what will amount to a new weather war with Dynamax), and Shuckle.
Instead, let's look at a pokemon like Reuniclus. HDB allow it to run Regenerator over Magic Guard, while still getting alot of the benefits of the latter. From there you can run a defensive utility set. Another few Pokemon that might benefit from HBD would be Unaware Quag, Regen Pex (though it might still prefer shed shell or sludge), Sand Stream Hippo (especially with what will amount to a new weather war with Dynamax), and Shuckle.
The first thing I'm going to do once Showdown implements gen 8 is run a stall team with 6 HDB mons. Go ahead, use Stealth Rocks.
Who says you can't do both and use the boots to make a defensive pivot out of a mon whose otherwise good typing is hampered by a hazard weakness? To use the late Volcarona as an example:
Volcarona @ Heavy Duty Boots
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Bold Nature
- Roost
- Will-O-Wisp / Defog
- U-turn / Defog
- Flamethrower
I have some bad news for you
Umbreon can handle Hydreigon pretty well barring the rare Superpower variant (even then not an OHKO).