All Gens The "What if" thread - Topic #66 : Physical-Special split in ADV

A few more. The game will revolve around Raikou, Raikou checks, the Eevee evolutions, PHazing, Psych Up, Explosion, and bomb wallers. Jolteon has the fastest speed, but Raikou can still come in anytime and Roar. Espeon is scary and can pack a Hidden Power for some stuff (Water hits the PHazers that resist or are immune to Physic), but Umbreon walls it and will just Amnesia as well. Despite the SpD drop for Fighting types, they can still check Umbreon (thank God he doesn't have Psychic yet) as well as other PHazers.

Blissey can attack again of course. That said, it's not like she walls the Amnesia dudes. They'll set up on her face. So bleh. Use Umbreon instead for walling. Heal Bell is still there, I guess.

Explosion becomes even more valuable than before. Otherwise, it would be impossible to kill some stuff. But Gengar would be ready to receive the passes and avoid the bomb.

Actually, I wonder if this Meta would even function because of Psych Up. Raikou outspeeds Espeon and Roars. In fact, all you need to do is let shit get to +6 and focus on keeping Spikes out all game (for clearing out exploders with Crunch). Use Raikou/Zam as the last Mon. Don't see how anyone can beat that. Electrode and Dugtrio for chip damage?

*Edit*

Not even those are good because they can be hit by Pursuit during the match when baited in early.
 
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Vaporeon is much better, being able to beat electrics with Growth
Not too sure about being better. It'll be scarier, but will be halted by Alakazam, Suicune, or Tentacruel all day. Basically, one can build a core with Haze, Roar, RestTalk, and Amnesia/Psych Up while Blissey/Miltank does the cleric duty (both can also Psych Up lol). As long as you have an answer to the most notable boosters/recievers, you can't be touched. The Eevee evos themselves don't have Roar, so they can only attack or Baton Pass. Easy to take advantage of (otherwise, it would suck trying to Roar Vaporeon or Umbreon). Dance around and use Raikou for the finish.

Shows how important that Special split was. Amnesia works in RBY because there's no Roar, Sleep Talk, or Psych Up. The game wouldn't have been able to progress in GSC (or very well probably in ADV too) and Game Freak would have been severely limited in what they could add (unless they did make changes to specific moves)


And this.

Also, I don't know why they even bothered nerfing Articuno. Giving back its 348 Special Attack would make it a bit less more viable (but just a bit less)
Even now, many years later and several gens later, there's not much an ice bird can do. Not many moves would fit it. Now take that in RBY/GSC where it literally has no moves. After the Blizzard nerf, all it has is Ice Beam and I guess Hidden Power (but that won't help much). They had to do 95-125 and what good is 125 SpA when you don't have the moves, speed, or typing for it? They basically saved it from complete obscurity and gave it good SpD (until SR came in DP and snuffed it out anyways lol).
 
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Inspirited

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Exeggutor is now a very real threat to Vaporeon and Jolteon now that it "Special
Defense", of sorts, isn't trash, but really good again. Being able to reliably paralyze them so they can be dealt with some other physical attacker after Egg Explodes, or threaten to involuntarily put then to sleep so they can potentially be phazed is pretty big in my inexperienced opinion. It doesn't look like Jolteon can do much to stop its pass recipient from being statused in some way without substitute. Vaporeon looks like it will be heavilly crippled (by being forced to rest / take status and potentially eating an egg-splosion) and might need to carry Ice Beam in order to deal with a weakened Egg without it damaging Vaporeon at all. Vaporeon still looks stupid strong though since Egg is forced to Explode to cause damage to it after a couple Growths.

As far as Amnesia users go, there is good ol Slowbro who is looking pretty strong and Nidoking who looks like he could pull it off decently well.
 

Disaster Area

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Tauros now has strongest Tbolt/Fire Blast/Ice moves etc than Lax although it lacks amnesia to boost it. Probably helps it a lot, being able to 2HKO skarm is big. Tbolt hits Cloyster too now, which is much more relevant :] maybe bslam/dedge/return,eq,tbolt,blizz tauros? !
 

Typhlito

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Our next topic will be.... What if gastrodon existed in ADV?



Most of us are aware that shellos and gastrodon were (supposedly) planned to be in RSE but never made the cut until the following gen. The question is begging to be asked though. If it did make it in, how would it change up the meta?

As for you adv lc players, feel free to tell us how shellos would affect the meta!

IMO, at first glance gastrodon might not look as if it would make much of a difference in adv besides the fact that it will become a better version of milotic since their defenses are almost equal (but no hypnosis). Maybe a better swampert since it has recover. It would most likely just have sticky hold as an ability and learn all the moves it knows in dpp that exists which as a whole doesnt look very impressive. It does have a few nice moves though. Memento would be a cool move to use to help set up your sweeper and sub + recover(pain split too but its high hp makes it meh) laughs at seismic toss even though it cant do a ton back to s toss users. It can probably make for a decent curse mon if you get rid of their grass mon. Its tanking capabilities are not quite that high tho compared to the other bulky waters but its sure to put a decent enough dent in a meta that cant have enough bulky waters.
 
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Hm, I think that Gastro would probs have a p. decent niche. It's a Rock resist with reliable recovery, decent physical bulk, and it doesn't get bopped too hard by HP Grass; while it falls a bit short of pert's bulk it'd defs shape the meta. With Water Absorb/Curse or something along those lines you could have a great non-roarcune counter which balances and basically any team would really appreciate. while it probably can't hold up against stuff like focus punch from cbtar, it'd still be a cool alternative to pert imo. plus the water immunity is p sexy.
 
Hm, I think that Gastro would probs have a p. decent niche. It's a Rock resist with reliable recovery, decent physical bulk, and it doesn't get bopped too hard by HP Grass; while it falls a bit short of pert's bulk it'd defs shape the meta. With Water Absorb/Curse or something along those lines you could have a great non-roarcune counter which balances and basically any team would really appreciate. while it probably can't hold up against stuff like focus punch from cbtar, it'd still be a cool alternative to pert imo. plus the water immunity is p sexy.
Storm Drain didn't give a Water immunity or SpA boost in DPP, so it'd presumably suck in ADV as well. Sticky Hold did exist in ADV, and it'd probably run that anyway.

Swampert's packing more of a punch with Earthquake, and has more Speed (neither are super notable, but at least Pert beats out Blissey / Forry / Regice and does more damage to all three, plus Pert can pull off a Salac End set.) Gastro is more capable of setting up Curses thanks to Recover, but it's weaker. Defensive sets can stick around longer than Pert thanks to Recover, but it's notably lacking Roar in its movepool. I'm guessing we'd mostly just see EQ / IB / Recover / Toxic, with some offensive sets taking Curse over Toxic. HP Grass becomes more important, and Gastro would probably see the same common partnership with Flygon for beating Electrics.
 
Oh, I forgot that it ran Storm Drain; it's been a while since I actually used that thing =/ ya then pert has more versatility/physical bulk but i can see gastro still being decent with Recover. I'd probably say pert is better overall though
 
A rock resist with recover seems pretty cool, I think it would definitely see use. It wouldn't completely outclass swampert or milotic but it would definitely give them competition. Milotic's main problem is that it can get easily flinched to death by stuff like aerodactyl, and gastro wouldn't experience this problem. Milotic would still have a niche for its ability to tank mixed attackers and opposing waters more easily. Swampert's main issue is how it can easily be worn down and this wouldn't be as much of a problem for gastro, that being said its lack of physical bulk and more importantly its lack of offense would definitely come into play, and the lack of roar would be another huge advantage for using pert. I don't know how great a curse set would be, the majority of cursepert's problems aren't solved by giving it recover, it still has to deal with only having earthquake to take advantage of attack boosts. I do think the toxic set mentioned by jellicent would be pretty good though.
 
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Typhlito

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Ok so for our next topic, we will be asking what if DPP never received Stealth Rocks?



This one move can be a huge game changer and it results in a big nerf for all that is weak to it. But what if this wasnt the case? How would this change the meta? Will new threats appear with the change? How will it affect other tiers besides ou? You tell me!
 

Oglemi

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Suddenly Moltres, everywhere. Actually probably not in OU because TTar and crew still exist, but Moltres in UU without SR would be fucking asinine. It'd at least have a niche in OU for "countering" Scizor and isn't just TTar bait since it has U-turn too.

I think the biggest difference would obviously be the huge change in the lead meta. No longer would you see suicide Aero, Azelf, gross, Infernape, etc. leads. You'd probably see far more Froslass suicide leads for offense teams, but aside from that the lead meta would look far more similar to ADV, aka there not really being a lead meta. The lack of a lead meta would probably shape the metagame the most, and probably push it to be more conservative than what it currently is, and probably more hazards based around Spikes like ADV.
 
Obamasnow wouldn't suck so bad for starters, making Hail a little bit more viable. Suddenly lategame sweepers like SD Lucario and revenge killers like CB Scizor will have to wait a bit longer before you can bring them out. Weavile may have stayed a viable pokemon even after the banning of dragons and the unintended effect of the drop in Cresselia usage. Salamence probably would have been banned quicker. Sneaky pebbles was definitely one of the things that made him tolerable.

But those are all minor differences that may or may not be true. What absolutely will happen is the changing of how leads are played. Oglemi nailed it.
 
This is huge. No other move had every affected the game as much as Stealth Rock, not even Scald.

As stated, the most obvious change would be the overhaul of the lead metagame. With no race for hazards (Spikes just doesn't cut it, you need a dedicated setter that can reliably do it during the heat of the match, plus Frosslass isn't good), you're down to just attacking leads and Choice mons.

Flyers get a huge buff. Zapdos does well already even with rocks, but now it can last forever with Roost. Same for Gyarados, and the RestTalk set becomes almost flawless. My favorite thought, Yanmega would come back (nostalgia). Salamence would have had little issues back in the day and would have gotten banned sooner in Platinum. Moltres would certainly make it big with its Choice sets and especially SubRoost (would also be one of the many reasons Shaymin would never exist).

The game would have been so different in terms of how playstyles in 4th gen functioned. Whether running offense, stall, or balance, you maximize your team's potential with rocks. Balance would probably take a hit however. You use hazards (especially rocks) to beat stall. Without it, you can't consistently break through some of the best cores. Stall uses hazards to put actual pressure on other teams to beat them in time. They lose a lot of that ability, but will still do well in general. Offense also takes a hit without the extra damage on switch-ins. Hyper, a little less because it's based on constant pressure, and a lot of DPP mons are used to the whole "one shot/chance to work" thing.
 

Typhlito

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Cool. So next up we have an interesting topic. What if fairy types and mega forms existed in BW2?



So Dragons and fighting types do leave a good mark on the meta with pokemon like garchomp, dragonite, and terakoin but what if fairy types existed? Would this change anything at all? In this scenario, we will say that all oras fairy moves existed however, the only fairy types that exist are pokemon that already existed in bw which really is only a handful. As for the mega pokemon, same applies EXCEPT that they would only learn their moves from BW (so no crunch gyarados).

So how would the meta change? This would surely affect every tier so feel free to mention changes in each one!
 

Typhlito

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Ok so maybe thats a bit much to discuss at once. How about if I limit the megas to just mawile, charizard, gardevoir, medicham, and abomasnow? How would the addition of these mons + fairy types affect the bw meta?
 
No Defog, but Charizard would make Ninetales useless. Or fool everyone you're running sun then Dragon Dance and smoke something out that expects Y. Pretty much the same as in XY really, just more "fitting" in the BW game because of the whole weather thing. Nice check to Volcarona though.
 

Funbot28

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Dragon spam would drastically decrease, as that was a common playstyle late BW and early BW2, Rain would still be dominant, and would help mega's like Gyrados and Sharpedo sweep teams effectively. Mawile would still be considerably broken as it was in XY, and would get the banhammer, since Gen 5 was so focused on offense, so bulky balanced teams and stall weren't that effective. Mega Zard Y would indeed outclass Ninetales, and Venausuar would be used more than it's mega thanks to Chlorophyll. Reuniclus could potentially be checked in a meta like this, thanks to the addition of more powerful wallbreakers.
 
I think BW with megas and fairies would be disgusting. While the fairies could kinda balance the metagame, megas would still be too much especially with permanent weather. Rain would actually be dominating and the players with mediocre metagame knowledge would finally have a point. MegazardX would actually make Dragspam stronger, even with fairies in the tier. I'm not so sure about ZardY though. While ZardY is definitely better than Ninetales, it would make sunteams being even more pressured by stealth rocks, because Defog doesn't remove Hazards in BW and Forretress and Donphan are easily spinblocked by Jellicent. Xatu + Dugtrio would be a good way to keep pressure and hinder the opponent from getting up rocks, especially if the opponent has a sandteam with TTar as his SR-setter. I think the standard SunOffense-team would be something like ZardY / Venusaur / Xatu / Dugtrio / Donphan / Volcarona or Heatran. It's funny how even with all these new megas there still wouldn't be a reliable check to sunvolc besides a few revengekillers like ScarfTerrak, ScarfChomp, CB-Nite or PsychUp-Alakazam. SpDef Mega-Altaria would be the only new addition that could actually reliably check volcarona in sun, and i think defensive Mega-Altaria would actually see much usage because it would be a reliable check to rain, sun and even dragspam. Azumarill would be an amazing revengekiller in rain and another nice check to dragspam, but it would lose against SD-Chomp. Azumarill + Magnezone would be an amazing wallbreaking core that I can see getting a lot of usage. Clefable would be a really nice check to CM-Reuniclus, DoubleDance Terrak or physical sweepers in general, but it would still have trouble switching into things like ZardX or attacks boosted by weather.
 

Typhlito

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Good stuff. But its finally time for the next topic! Next we have...... What if hidden power existed in rby?



Type coverage was considered absolute without the move hidden power. Electrics had very little options when it came to beating ground and grass types unless you count aiming for the horn as an option. But if hidden power did exist, what kind of changes would we see? Would new threats appear and would current threats fade into obscurity? You tell me!
 

Funbot28

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I think a ban of HP Legends in RBY more so than in GSC, due to the fact that there would be less answers compared to the minimal answers already in GSC...
 

Bedschibaer

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Exeggutor's fourth move is always kinda meh, stun spore is the best option but it doesn't fit on every team. Hidden Power Bug for example is huge in the eggy ditto which serves a 2hko, which happens quite often (to block sleep when you got your eggy parad for example). It also 2hkoes Alakazam, Jynx (both leads that will come in to cockblock your sleep after they got parad or absorb the sleep if they are unparad) and is a solid 3hko on Starmie. Would probably be the more useful move on eggy to use then.
Electrics would get slightly better because of the possible ohkoes on the rocks. Only slightly because the rocks have become a rather rare sight anyways.
I did some calcs on hidden power fighting from several mons on chansey and lax and it's really meh, don't think anything could even use it.
Gengars hp ghost would actually ohko alakazam, which is pretty useful, apart from that i don't really see any uses for it. edit @ below: guess the hp bug 2hko isn't too bad then
 
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