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

phosphor

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Off the top of my head...

A lot of heavy sand builds rely on Burn+ Spikes+ Knock to deal with Ferro, going back to Gen 1 mechanics will make it live that much longer and can only be a nerf to these kinds of sand

Amoonguss relies heavily on both Spore and Stun Spore, now that Ferrothorn checks it and Latios isn't a sitting duck when paralyzed Amoonguss' career is over

Specs users in Latios and Torn will probably stop having Sleep Talk, Jirachi is nerfed as well since it can't hax its way through Magnezone anymore aside from not decommissioning stuff with para/ letting in Rotom-W for free

My prediction is these changes will greatly shift the metagame towards offense
 
Burn being 1/8 damage is a pretty big deal in BW Stall matches for rain teams, an entire game could come down to whose Tentacruel gets burned first as that's the only way to shut down Tentacruel's passive recovery, I know I have had stall vs stall matches go into the hundreds of turns waiting for this; now, that's not even a win-condition like it use to be, there would need to be some kind of shift to deal with it otherwise.

I wonder if Tornadus would be as much of an Uber-level threat is Hurricane got a confusion nerf.

Also, Amoongus is a hard Breloom check, no need to sleep sack some Pokemon now. Any good defensive team had a way to deal with the shroom, but that does improve pivots against it, maybe Celebi and Roserade might be other options.
 
Ok, very little discussion, so let's move onto the next topic. What if Hidden Power worked like it did in ADV, in ORAS?

So in this scenario, Hidden Power will use physical attack and defense if its type was a physical type back in gen 3, and it will also vary its power from 30 to 70. Additionally, how different would it be if Hidden Power fairy existed (requires all IVs to be even)?

So who would run this new hidden power, and how would old HP users benefit from this change?
 

phosphor

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Off the top of my head

-Magnezone will be a much more effective trapper again

-Keldeo usually falls into the dilemma of HP Ice vs Icy Wind on Specs for Amoonguss or Latios, but in Gen 6 this was forcefully resolved. Keldeo benefits the most from this as Specs and Scarf can run HP Ice effectively again
 
All right. There hasn't been any discussion in several days, so let's move on to the next topic.
In RBY, almost nothing that is viable in the OU meta can effectively use grass STAB. What if we brought in two pokemon from gen 4 to remedy this, Torterra and Abomasnow?


Now, since we're porting two gen 4 pokes to gen 1, we need to clarify this a bit. First off, both Torterra and Abomasnow will derive their Special stat from their Special Defense (85 for both of these), giving stats of 95/109/105/85/56 for Torterra and 90/92/75/85/60 for Abomasnow. Secondly, any gen 1 move these Pokemon are able to learn in DPP, they will be able to use in RBY, including Razor Leaf.

Third, discuss how RBY would be played both if only Torterra was allowed and also if both Torterra and Abomasnow were in here.

I'm going to start with some discussion of my own. Abomasnow would be absolutely everywhere - Grass/Ice may well be the single best offensive typing in RBY, and it 2HKOes everything except the normals, Articuno, and Gengar (tauros is 2HKOed with some chip). It's not weak to anything important either, only really Zapdos's Drill Peck, and Aboma easily 2HKOes in return(ohko with a crit). It outspeeds and 2HKOes Exeggutor as well while surviving a boom from full health. It'd run Razor/Blizz/SD or EQ/Hyper Beam and make for a terrifying cleaner after everything is paralyzed, maybe as an alternative to zapdos.

Torterra, on the other hand, actually does decently well when you ignore that it's 4x weak to what may well be the best attack in the game. It avoids the 2HKO from Zapdos's drill peck and 3HKOes in return with Rock Slide. It is a very good counter to reflect lax. It finds almost no opportunities to switch in to anything, but only Zapdos and Exeggutor can switch in to it in return. EQ/Razor/Bslam/Rock Slide or Hyper Beam.
 

Jorgen

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Abomasnow with Growth could be interesting. Sure, it doesn't help Razor Leaf, but the things you want to be hitting with that are hit for SE damage anyway, and STAB Ice Beam or Blizzard is more than scary enough on its own. Setting up would be slow and kind of tricky, but if the Physical attackers are weakened and it's just a fight against stallers such as Chansey, this thing can set up & sweep and not even have to worry about silly things like being frozen. Having STAB Ice is what seals it, as that allows it to actually 2HKO Chansey at +6 (unlike, say, AmnesiaLax). Imagine a world where Fire Blast Chansey is a legit tech: that could be a world where Abomasnow exists in RBY.

Of course, this assumes that Growth is fair game, as it is an egg move. Otherwise, it overlaps a lot with Lapras. Aboma is not as tanky so it's worse at fighting Tauros / Snorlax (even if they don't spring for something silly like Fire Blast, they guarantee a 3HKO on Aboma with 2 slams & a hyper beam or 2 slams & a crit slam, whereas against Lapras it's an unfavorable damage roll). Moreover, Aboma's problems against Alakzam and Chansey would be exacerbated by the lack of useful support options in Confuse Ray and Sing (it couldn't even settle for Leech Seed, as that's also an egg move). It would, however, do better against Gengar and Starmie (no Tbolt weakness), giving it unique chances to switch in and play for freezes. So even in this case, I could see it being used. In both cases, I'm skeptical that it would be "everywhere", because that implies breaking into at least Exeggutor-tier usage, and Aboma is not quite that good (Sleep + Explosion + Psychic typing are all very, very good, even if it's in vogue right now to hate on Eggy a little bit).

Torterra would be able to claim the role of "best Rhydon switch-in, period". Unfortunately, that point would be moot, as Exeggutor gets Sleep Powder and Explosion and it can also actually tank a dang Blizzard, making it a way better Pokemon. At least Tangela (who is the current holder of the title Torterra is vying for, not Exeggutor) gets Sleep Powder and Bind. Torterra gets an Earthquake that doesn't even match Golem's power and an inability to even tank non-STAB Ice Beams, rendering its ability to attack Chansey moot in many cases.

EDIT: ah yeah I missed Swords Dance.
 
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As Anna pointed out, Abomasnow gets swords dance. This is huge. The combination of swords dance with Earthquake and hyper beam gives Abomasnow a much better tool to pressure Chansey than any filler moves Lapras has. Abomasnow is essentially impossible to wall, outside of pokemon like Articuno. The only thing that holds it back is its low base stat tota and weakness to fire, which I think merely prevents it from being overpowered. I think it would certainly be OU, because of its typing and ability to pressure basically everything in the meta.
 

Oldamar999

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As Anna pointed out, Abomasnow gets swords dance. This is huge. The combination of swords dance with Earthquake and hyper beam gives Abomasnow a much better tool to pressure Chansey than any filler moves Lapras has. Abomasnow is essentially impossible to wall, outside of pokemon like Articuno. The only thing that holds it back is its low base stat tota and weakness to fire, which I think merely prevents it from being overpowered. I think it would certainly be OU, because of its typing and ability to pressure basically everything in the meta.
The fire weakness isn't really a big problem though. Fire coverage is rare (the only relevant mons it hits are Exeggutor, Victreebel, and Jynx, and ice coverage deals with the first two just fine and jynx is frail) and the best fire type in RBY OU, Moltres, isn't really common and wouldn't always switch in to abomasnow due to being weak to ice (fire didn't resist Ice yet so moltres is weak to it).
 

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Chansey can use fire blast to ohko Abomasnow, which is the most notable method of exploiting its fire weakness that I could see working in the meta.
Fire Blast's 30% burn rate makes you think twice about even touching it. Suddenly it becomes appealing to switch Starmie/Alakazam in to catch an immunity to par/frz.

The only thing Chansey can run to discourage that is twave, which means missing out of ice beam or tbolt and making Chansey a sitting duck against various things
 
I don't think it would be a standard set obviously, but it could catch Abomasnow off guard and land an immediate ohko. People would not usually switch in Starmie or Alakazam since it is unexpected.
 
I don't think it would be a standard set obviously, but it could catch Abomasnow off guard and land an immediate ohko. People would not usually switch in Starmie or Alakazam since it is unexpected.
abomasnow would become commonplace in the meta due to otherwise rare fire attacks and otherwise Chan would be potential setup fodder
it would certainly make Chansey not a switch until you scout
 
Torterra, on the other hand, actually does decently well when you ignore that it's 4x weak to what may well be the best attack in the game. It avoids the 2HKO from Zapdos's drill peck and 3HKOes in return with Rock Slide. It is a very good counter to reflect lax. It finds almost no opportunities to switch in to anything, but only Zapdos and Exeggutor can switch in to it in return. EQ/Razor/Bslam/Rock Slide or Hyper Beam.
Uh... Reflect Lax stomps Torterra pretty hard. First of all, Razor Leaf is a 4HKO and is already critting, so Snorlax can rest loop without fear. Second, Snorlax 4HKOs Torterra with Body Slam, so a FP or crit is all it takes to beat Torterra. Third, Reflect is very commonly ran alongside Ice Beam on Snorlax nowadays, which 2HKOs, so a Snorlax with IB actually is a switch in to Torterra. Victreebel atleast can cheese through Lax with Wrap or threaten sleep.

Torterra's only niche is switching into Rhydon, Golem and Gengar, but if Torterra really became a thorn in their sides, they can adapt with Fire Blast (or Blizzard in Rhydon's case). Considering Exeggutor also switches into these Pokemon but has much better tools and typing, Torterra would be in the borderline outclassed/unusable pile with stuff like Gyarados and the Nidos.

Abomasnow would be legit though. Grass without Ice weakness is very nice, and STAB Razor Leaf + Blizzard as noted is an amazing combo. Having Earthquake to bully Gengar is a nice cherry on top, and +6 Earthquake even 2HKOs Reflect Chansey. I expected it to do well against Lapras though, but Lapras vs. Abomasnow surprised me, Lapras speed ties and has about a 1/3 chance to survive 2 Razor Leafs and 3HKOs Abomasnow with Blizzard, so it does have a small chance of winning 1v1 against it. Main meta shifts I could see are slight increases of Tauros with Fire Blast, Moltres, Flareon, and random Fire Blast on Chansey/Slowbro/Snorlax, and notable decreases of Starmie + Rhydon + S4 teams and Slowbro.
 

Hipmonlee

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Torterra gets Swords Dance as well right? A Swords dancer with twave immunity and the automatic damage of Razorleaf seems pretty usable to me. It comes in trivially against Rhydon or SToss Chan, and what can switch into it? Just Articuno (or Abomasnow).

So the set is some combination of Swords Dance, Sub, Razor Leaf, Earthquake and Hyperbeam.

Abomasnow seems even better, but that has been pretty well covered in this thread, I dont have much to add to that.
 
All right, that was a lot of excellent discussion. For our next what if, let's make it something simple that has wide implications. What if GSC had RBY's crit mechanics?

For those who are unfamiliar with RBY, crits worked nothing like they do nowadays, or even how they worked in gen 2. Here's a list of what this change entails.
- High critical hit-ratio moves have a chance of (user's base speed / 64) to crit, capped at 63/64.
- Other moves have a chance of (user's base speed / 512) to crit.
- Critical hits do not have a fixed damage multiplier, they instead double the user's level when calculating damage (so at level 5, crits do 1.5x damage, at level 100, they do 1.95x damage)
- Critical hits ignore all stat changes, regardless of whether or not this would be beneficial to the attacker, except for Explosion/Selfdestruct's defense-halving effect.
- Focus Energy is bugged and quarters the user's crit rate instead of increasing it.

For simplicity's sake, pretend that Stick and Lucky Punch don't exist. Also let's say that crits would ignore the boosts from species-specific items (thick club, metal powder, light ball). Additionally, discuss how the meta would be both if Focus Energy was bugged and if it was fixed (in Stadium, it works properly and now quadruples the user's crit rate, capped at 127/128).

So how would the way GSC is played change with this? There's no way it could be small, as crits are a huge part of why RBY is so offensive.
 

Bughouse

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The first thing that jumped out to me based on already existing GSC threats is that Zapdos now crits around 20% of the time, so Snorlax can't try to rest through its Thunders nearly as effectively.

Ursaring would use Slash and have an ~85% crit rate. This would be a 25-30% power boost on average from Return, as well as ignoring curse. Crit Slash from Ursaring onto Snorlax actually outdamages Snorlax's Double Edge onto Ursaring, and Ursaring is faster... so Ursaring suddenly has an actual niche.

There are some other effects that could drag Pokemon up from lower tiers to OU too.

Primeape might become viable, since it now has ~100% crit Cross Chop, which OHKOs Snorlax. However, its Rock Slide still isn't likely to 3HKO Zapdos, who both is faster and 2HKOs with Thunder. I'm not positive which would be better between Machamp and Primeape. Probably still Machamp, since Machamp's Cross Chop itself is an 85% crit move.
Electabuzz maybe gets a niche in OU as an Electric that can 2HKO Snorlax :o - I could see using it over Raikou as a Zapdos check, and now it checks Lax too.
The only other mons that learn Cross Chop are Golduck and Magmar, and I don't think either would become viable due to other flaws, though they certainly appreciate threatening Lax lol.

Beyond Ursaring, no other mon with Slash would be viable, I think. You really need stab for it to be worth it, since it has no super effective coverage and GSC is a bulkier generation than RBY in general due to rest mechanics, etc. The critmaster of RBY, Persian, is almost certainly still not viable in GSC. It still doesn't even 3hko Snorlax, while being easily 2hkoed by edge or 3hkoed by slam in return, unboosted. Plus GSC has new threats that Persian doesn't like, such as Tyranitar, Steelix, and Misdreavus.

Oh and not relevant to OU lol but also Lugia would get a lot better in ubers since Aeroblast now crits ~100% of the time, which means it 2HKOs snorlax and mew most of the time and mewtwo almost all of the time. Potentially the best mon in the meta now, since it beats the current top 3. Zapdos gets a lot better in Ubers as a result to counter it. Still, though, 8 PP on Aeroblast suuuuucks.
 
Besides Cross Chop users and Ursaring, Victreebel, Venusaur and Meganium would've greatly enjoyed the crit mechanics. Meganium's crit Razor Leaf coupled with Leech Seed for example lets it 3HKO Raikou.

Stall in general becomes less viable as virtually everything but Snorlax and Steelix increase their odds of critical hits. In longer matches, getting the right crits to bust through a check or counter is much more likely to happen.
 
It would be a significantly faster metagame, which would probably weaken things like spikes that need many turns to stack up. Screens are less viable, set up is significantly less viable. Slowly setting up a Curse Lax with Rest is now risky, for example.
Snorlax is also generally worse, which is probably a good thing.
 
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Sorry for being absent so long, I believed that such a huge change would generate more discussion.

No image for this change, but what if the physical-special split happened in ADV instead?

This change is self-explanatory, moves are categorized as physical or special based on how they acted in DPP.

So what new threats would rise? Would old ones fall? You tell me!
 
Winners:
-Tyranitar, having physical Dark STAB to smack CM Celebi and Claydol (including Pursuit for CB sets)
- Gengar, gaining special STAB in Shadow Ball and Sludge Bomb to replace Ice Punch
- Salamence, would probably be suspected or at least become top-tier with its DD/Dragon Claw/EQ/Fire Blast set (and to a lesser extent, Dragonite)
- Metagross would get the elemental punches for Salamence (Ice Punch), Gyarados, Suicune and Milotic (Thunder Punch), and also Pursuit to trap Celebi.
- Flygon would gain secondary physical STAB in Dragon Claw
- Gyarados would gain physical STAB in Waterfall (but would lose Hidden Power; Kingdra could also try such a set and has actually good SpA)
- Alakazam would finally hit Dark-types with HP Bug or Fighting (though it'd lose the elemental punches)

Losers:
- Houndoom, losing its special Dark STAB
- Celebi, with Gengar and Tyranitar having better tools to check it
- Physical attackers dependent on physical Hidden Powers and gaining no viable replacements, such as Breloom
 
The reason I think this change would be different enough from gen 4 is that a lot of the moves that make full use of the physical-special split aren't around in gen 3. For instance, no Focus Blast, no Earth Power, no U-Turn or X-Scissor, no Flash Cannon, no Poison Jab, no Seed Bomb, no Air Slash, etc.

Here's how each type is affected by the split.

Normal is affected pretty fairly - all of the commonly used moves stay physical, while special normals gain the option of Hyper Voice or Tri Attack.
Fighting is completely unaffected, bar Hidden Power.
Ground gains special Mud-Slap and Mud Shot, neither of which see any serious use. Practically, it's unaffected bar Hidden Power.
Psychic is completely unaffected.
Steel is unaffected bar Hidden Power (and i guess Doom Desire but that doesn't actually do Steel damage)


Grass gains access to physical Razor Leaf, and two signature moves are made physical.
Rock Pokemon gain the option to run Ancient Power for special coverage.
Water gains access to physical Waterfall and Crabhammer. Waterfall doesn't have its 20% flinch rate yet, but 80 power is nothing to laugh at.
Fire Punch becoming physical is actually a big deal, since a lot of different mons ran it for coverage. Now there are different mons running Fire Punch for coverage. Thunder Punch is affected the same way. However, this is kind of big since it means you can now hit Skarmory for super-effective damage physically.
Ice is affected the same way as Water, Fire, and Electric - the random mons that ran Ice Punch for special coverage suffer a bit, but they retain their most consistent move.

Dragon switches from being a special type to being effectively physical. However the only mons who ran Dragon moves in ADV OU ran them as STAB and were physically inclined anyway.
Ghost is a major change - A lot of random physical mons ran Shadow Ball or HP Ghost for coverage, and the only physical ghost moves are laughably weak, capping out at 60 power with Shadow Punch, which isn't even that well distributed.
Flying is also notable because the 3 OU mons that ran Flying STAB the most ran it as Hidden Power, and two of them lack any other viable alternative. However, both of those have viable physical secondary STABs which they will switch to using instead.
Dark goes from being a completely special type to a completely physical type (barring HP Dark).
Poison is a major change - the only physical Poison move now is Poison Sting, which is so pitifully weak that it's better to just use Sludge Bomb despite being off-stat.
Bug is weird - the only physical Bug moves are either really weak or have horrendous distribution. However, there isn't much that actually wants to run special Bug coverage - in most cases, you're better off with Fighting if you're choosing between Hidden Powers. So Bug moves become effectively restricted to Heracross, and maybe the occasional Flygon that really really has it in for Celebi.



So that's everything. These changes only have certain types be viable attacking types from both sides of the spectrum. Being able to run coverage of a type is still restricted by which attacking stat you favor, it just switches up that attacking stat for a several types.
 

Bughouse

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I’m gonna focus in just on hidden power.

Hidden Power being all special hits everything physical that has commonly run HP hard. While Salamance picks up physical Dragon Claw in place of HP Flying, Aerodactyl just loses HP Flying entirely and needs to run the slightly weaker Aerial Ace. Gyarados has no HP Flying replacement and so becomes pretty much unviable. HP Bug is a common move too, for hitting Celebi, and now this is only usable on attackers with good special attack too.

One notable change of this is how Dugtrio can’t trap Celebi, since Hidden Power (or sludge bomb even) are now special. Its best tool for hitting Celebi is now Aerial Ace.

While Tyranitar can run physical Pursuit, CB even, to try to trap Celebi, Celebi can run Baton Pass to evade it. As a result CM or SD pass Celebi gets significantly better, since it doesn’t need to fear being trapped at all really.

On the other side of Hidden Power being all special, Gengar and Zapdos and really any other special attacker now has special HP Fighting for Tyranitar. They can also run the now special HP Bug for Celebi where they might have run Ice in the past.
 
Waterfall becomes physical, which Gyarados, Swampert, Poliwrath, Kingdra, Kabutops, Azumarill, Crawdaunt and Feraligatr all get. Kingler gets physical Crabhammer too. Special Shadow Ball and Sludge Bomb gives Gengar a boon. Metagross, Machamp, Hariyama, Jirachi and Medicham all get to play with physical Elemental Punches now, and some physical Water-types like Azumarill get Ice Punch too. Porygon2 gets STAB Special Tri Attack to play with.

Might be premature to say Gyara is unviable, STAB physical Waterfall might keep it in the game, and if it really wants something for Celebi, it can run Double-Edge or the now physical Bite.
 

Bughouse

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You’re right about waterfall. I totally forgot about it since it has no competitive relevance prior to gen 4!
 

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