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for the record, since we're using a cutoff to determine winners, nothing would've won in its place, so if it was removed from the votes completely there'd be no change to the winners. just thought i'd mention since this was brought up at least one other time.
Ah, noted. Must have missed that. Sorry. If anything, then that makes it turning out to be unsurprisingly overpowered still even more disappointing in a way since other things would have been voted on if it hadn't been submitted at all, but oh well. What happened happened.
Anyway, to make this not a completely wasted post, have add two more abilities (one new and one old), two more items (one new and one old), and one more adjustment (new). May adda fourth one to every category before end of slate, but meh. (I'm just glad I caught that I stupidly didn't give regular Raichu special Fairy STAB. I thought it already had more than Draining Kiss on that side, but nope.)
Name: Volition Effect: This Pokemon's healing status moves become physical attacks with 30 BP. Permanent (Yes or No): Yes Mold Breaker (Yes or No): Yes Potential Pokémon With This Ability: (literally anything im leaving the flavor vague on purpose) Justification: av funnies. use recover and heal bell and stuff on AV.
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Name: Mamoswine Type:
Abilities: Oblivious / Prehistoric Might / Thick Fat New Moves: Headlong Rush, Rollout Removed Moves: None Justification: mamo can now be a real scarfer. ganhamos
If you can believe it, it's already been 5 days, so it's time for a sub review (and vetoes)!
As always, during the Veto Phase, we'll give people a chance to fix potentially broken submissions. Any sub that's vetoed and isn't appropriately nerfed/replaced will not be eligible for voting. Like the last few veto phases, new subs CAN be made and existing non-vetoed subs can be edited during the veto phase, but note that they could be vetoed without warning if they're broken.
Additionally, this is also a sub review, I'll also be giving feedback on all subs, not just vetoed ones. These are just my opinion, so unless it is a veto, it's up to you whether or not you take my advice.
Moves: Powder Bomb is fine except for the part where it has +2 priority, as 100 BP is way too high for a priority move that can't fail, so that gets it vetoed. I recommend making it 0 priority but making it so that the Powder effect happens at the start of the turn. Lash Out is still really cool. Items: Both are still fine, particularly Protective Pads Abilities: Embody Aspect is alright, though it would be awkward if it wins and the item sub doesn't since we can't really give it to anything, Rising Tide is alright, and Padded Paw is meh, it's sort of like a better Cloud Nine which isn't particularly good. Grounding gets vetoed as we can't give this to anything remotely viable without breaking them, allowing Electric-types to Volt Switch all over Ground-types makes it a super hard type to handle defensively Adjustments: The Ogerpons get vetoed, not because of Embody Aspect because it actually doesn't activate if Ogerpon has Terastalized, which it never can in VaporeMons, it's actually because Fairy/Fire Ogerpon-H with Raging Fury is pretty insane with a potentiall 200 BP STAB, great stats, and one of the best offensive typings in the game, so I recommend removing Raging Fury. That said, I'm not a fan of these since Ogerpon-W being Grass/Water and having Water Absorb is quite important for the meta rn and Ogerpon-H is still extremely scary even without Raging Fury
Moves: I don't think Tornadus-T needs the buff but these are okay Items: Diancite is still cool, Spinning Top is a neat concept but gets vetoed as 1.5x is too high of a boost for this as having to use a different move every turn isn't that big of a downside, so I recommend making it 1.3x. Sticky Glob is probably a bit too underwhelming, as Tera Shard gives you the effects of Sticky Hold by being unknockable and most set up sweepers won't want to give up their item to prevent phazing. Not a fan of Runic Pyramid at all since sweepers getting to keep any of their boosts and then pick their opportunity later is a little wild, though I don't think it's quite broken enough to get vetoed.
On the statement, I will say that that idea did come up in discussion, but we ended up favoring the Jolte Blunder effect instead, nevertheless I do agree that it would've been an adequate option for a Blunder Policy nerf Moves: Kinda getting tired of multi-hit moves at this point, it's fine but I'm crazy about it Adjustments: Cetitan is okay but probably still a little underwhelming, I think it would be safe to give this Swords Dance OR make it Ice/Fighting with a couple move Fighting moves (Ice/Ground would probably be a bit much and Ice/Steel would just make it a really fat Alolan Sandslash, and most other types wouldn't be as big of a buff with the Rocks weakness still there though stuff like Electric or Water being good as well). Donphan is a funny TCG reference but not really helpful at all without some movepool improvements
Moves: Sky Attack is fine idea, but since Tailwind sucks in singles this is still pretty bad Adjustments: Haxorus just barely gets vetoed as having both Multiscale and Glaive Rush gives it insane potential as a setup sweeper, so I recommend removing one or the other. Tinkaton also just about gets vetoed due to how insane Gigaton Hammer's damage output becomes. Tinkaton's current set of abilities (being Mold Breaker / Counteract / Blunt Force) is fine as is
Moves: Metronome is always fun,and you really really tried to make it a legitimate option, but even with all those buffs, it still has just about 0 competitive value due to its inherent inconsistency, so I can't really get behind it
Abilities: Dethrone is a pretty neat way to punish setup sweepers, though Kingambit definitely wouldn't get it, Grindstone sounds super fun on mons that Steels wanna come in on, Defibrillate is fun, and Slow Roast is also pretty fun
Moves: X-Scissor is still alright, Crafty Shield is also fine Abilities: Power Spot is still fine Adjustments: Ambipom is fine but is probably still pretty bad, Mamoswine is a little concerning with all of Swords Dance, Mountain Gale, and Headlong Rush, though I might be being overly cautious. Raichu is somewhat funny. Spiritomb is probably still a little sucky but Strengh Sap and more utility help a lot. Add Defog if real.
Moves: Pursuit is Pursuit Adjustments: Wasn't my favorite Gholdengo nerf from last slate, but it's adequate and probably just about my favorite of the two this slate
Adjustments: Krookodile is pretty cool with Prehistoric Might and especially DDance (kinda surprised it doesn't have the latter already now that I think about it), Kommo-o is fine (also you don't need to get rid of Belly Drum with screens being dead as a playstyle), Staraptor is fine, mostly a worse Zapdos-Galar but Muscle Memory is something, not too big on the Toxtricities
Already gave my thoughts on Discord on most of these and my thoughts still apply there (shoutouts to Delphox in particular), so I'm just commenting on stuff I haven't reviewed already below Moves: Kinda getting tired of Rock-type buffs at this point, but Ancient Power is alright, should probably be weaker due to the stat boost though, maybe like 50 or 60 BP. Also I just noticed that the category of Feint is listed as "Dark" instead of Physical, did you mean to make it a Dark-type move? Abilities: Oblivious and Shell Armor both exist
Moves: Not sure if I understand Nightfall's effect correctly, if it deals damage equal to the raw HP stat (i.e. for Driblim with max HP that would be 504 BP) then this would be insanely broken, but if it's the raw stat (150 BP for Drifblim), then that's fine depending on the distribution. Sugar Rush and Crash are a neat concept and have fun flavor, but I think most Fairies would rather just run a coverage move for Steels since Poison coverage is otherwise not very valuable and the secondary effect isn't great. Violent Tornado is probably too weak for its effect, since the opponent switching after you lower your own speed puts you in an awkward situation and it has to compete with all the other amazing physical Fighting moves. It would probably be better as a special move with 90% accuracy, being a valid alternative to Focus Blast that more Flying-types can have Abilities: All of these abilities being permanent is very odd, as that's usually reserved for form-changing abilities or special cases like the Paradox abilities. That aside, all of them are alright, particularly Fair Fight being a sort of pre-emptive Unaware as opposed to Unaware's reactive nature Adjustments: Talonflame is alright, Heracross is also fine (though it doesn't need to lose Swords Dance, you're always using Tidy Up anyway since that's the one thing keeping it from being a worse Slither Wing). Regieleki gets vetoed as, even with the Transistor, it still can't be trusted with a move for Ground-types unfortunately, so Grass Knot will have to go
Already reviewed Steadfast (pretty good) and Iron Bundle (pure Ice or Ice/Steel better but I still like Bundle). Barricade is pretty neat actually, idt more hazard counterplay is super duper needed but this is a fairly inoffensive way to go about it so it's cool
Moves: Inertia Negator, Mythical Fire, and Chilling Water are all fine. Barb Barrage and Infernal Parade get vetoed are still pretty crazy at 20 BP with how high their status chances are, so I recommend lowering them back to 15 BP again Items: A Proper Topper might not need the additional SpD boost to make, at the very least, Weezing-G all real option, the healing and fairly significant damage boost combined with Life Dew, a good typing, and 3 amazing abilities already give it something to do. Amazing flavor though, that is a right fine hat. The fan and Desert Rose are alright. Abilities: Wasn't too crazy about the terrain abilities when IceLevel subbed them and my opinion stays the same there. Down-to-Earth and the -ates are fine. Adjustments: The Raichus are alright, though I definitely recommend giving Raichu-A Rising Voltage and giving Kanto Raichu Moonblast since it'd likely want to use special sets. Not huge on buffing the already amazing Rain, though. Bundle and Flutter are still fine. The Sawsbucks I also think are possible, will be annoying to code but possible, though they do get vetoed as (at least according to Showdown) Trick-or-Treat isn't in the game
Name: Damp
Effect: This Pokemon's moves add water type to the target.
Permanent (Yes or No): No
Mold Breaker (Yes or No): No
Potential Pokémon With This Ability: What normally gets damp+Any pokemon that should be part water type that isnt (i’ll let the council decide this)
Justification: I think the interactions that come from this ability could be interesting. Water types are known to be flexible offensively and defensively and with this ability you can add water type resistances to yourself with self-targeting moves or add water type weaknesses to opposing walls. This also keeps the ability in balance because some walls would enjoy gaining water typing and its useful resistances to fire, ice and of course itself.
Abilities: Natural Cure / Fur Coat / Sheer Heart New Moves: None Removed Moves: -Will-o-Wisp, -Cotton Guard Justification: Fur Coat + Typing stops most Ogerpons from destroying things, as well as being able to somewhat stop Roaring Moon's snowy shenanigans. Physical walls are in good demand right now, so something that isnt Crabominable-like will have to do.
aight, when i said "a little less than 24 hours left", I meant, like, midnight, but instead I'm only 10 minutes early, oops
Voting is now open, one last time!
The following submissions CANNOT be voted for:
Ogerpon (Sacred Fire isn't in the game + would be broken on every Oger form)
Hot Sauce (Attack boosts are too high for the downside)
Clever Disguise (Too powerful of a scouting tool + forces crazy 50/50s against sweepers)
Wartortle (already won our hearts)
In each category, you may vote for 6 submissions, with 2 self-votes in each category (so you can vote for 24 submissions with 8 total self-votes). Please specify which votes are self-votes. You don't have to list who made the submission unless someone else subbed something with the same name/species. The order you put it in does not matter, every vote is worth 1 point
Moves:
Natural Gift (SV)
Bleakwind Storm/Sandsear Storm/Wildbolt Storm/Springtide Storm (SV)
X-Scizzor
Mystical Fire | Chilling Water
Items:
Diancite Stone Fragment (SV)
Spinning Top (SV)
Desert Rose
Quick Claw
Abilities:
Steadfast
Volition
Rising Tide
Oblivious
Sticky Hold
Adjustments:
Rotom Forms (Yoshiblaze bc wtf how did I somehow do nearly the same thing without even seeing the post my fault og)
Heracross
Ambipom
Delphox
Tornadus || Tornadus-Therian
Popping in really quick to say that I will be leaving voting open for just a little longer than usual, just to get a couple more votes + me needing to sleep well before the 24 hours would be up, likely closing sometime in the morning or early afternoon. See you then!
Moves
Flying Press | Software Crash (Catzzadilla)
Signal Beam (Yoshiblaze)
Graveling Gambit (Yoshiblaze) (misfire was cool and tapler was just mean)
Mystical Fire | Chilling Water (The Damned)
Items
Spinning Top (Orangesodapop)
Runic Pyramid (Orangesodapop)
Name: Signal Beam Power: 75 Accuracy: 100 PP: 10 Category:
Type:
Effect: Suppresses the target's ability until they switch out. Priority: 0 Flags (ex: Contact, Sound): Protect, Mirror Potential Pokémon With This Move: + Some of the following (literally everything that got it previously is listed + Gen 8/9 mons, would get cut down if it wins): Justification: Signal Beam is a "sinister beam of light" but now instead of confusing you, it's sinister in another way. Ability suppression via moves returns in a SylveMons metagame, but instead of being the super strong force that Core Enforcer Wishiwashi was, it's instead the more tame utility and coverage of the more widely distributed Signal Beam.
Name: Flying Press | Software Crash Power: 100 Accuracy: 95% PP: 10 (max 16) Category: Physical | Special Type: Fighting | Bug Effect: Inflicts Fighting or Flying (FP) | Bug or Electric (SC) damage depending on which type would be more effective against the target. Priority:0 Flags (ex: Contact, Sound): Mirror, Protect, Contact (FP) Potential Pokémon With This Move: FP: Current Distribution + | SC: Justification: Finally fixing Flying Press by getting rid of its horrible typing (both flying and fighting at once actually weakens it) and this actually makes it worth running if you wanna save a moveslot or something. Software Crash can help against flying or grass types and gives coverage without sacrificing STAB.
Name: Lash Out Power: 70 Accuracy: 100% PP: 10 Category: Physical Type: Dark Effect: If the user has any negative stat changes and/or status conditions (both volatile and non volatile), base power doubles. Priority: 0 Flags: Protect Potential Pokemon with this Move: Current distribution
Justification: Lash Out's current criteria of having the stat drop be on the same turn is too niche, let's loosen the restraints a bit.
Name: Natural Gift Power: -- Accuracy: 100 PP: 5 / 8 Category: Special Type: Normal Effect: Power and Typing depend on the users berry. Berry is not consumed. The power of the move is doubled if the user has the ability ripen or harvest.
Potential Pokemon With This Move: Same as Previous + Applin, Appletun, Flapple, Dipplin, Trevenant, Arboliva Justification: i love physden power. Anyways this as stated gives coverage to physical attackers (most notably and at the cost of their item slot. garchomp is the one that particularly benefits from this, as now it can blow up zone, notable enemy of ground dragon stab. another benefactor is which now gets a new choice of coverage. However, because of this fact, its pp is heavily reduced to account for its extreme versatility. however, some berries don't exist anymore and therefore cannot be used as a higher bp of some other existing berry variants (watmel, blue, being fire and electric respectively)
Name: Quick Claw Effect: Boosts priority moves power by 1.2x. They do not make contact Can Be Knocked Off (Yes or No): Yes Ignored by Klutz (Yes or No): Yes Fling Power & Effect: 20 Justification: This gives quick claw 2 things
1) Doesn't make it an RNG item that is just a toxic addition whenever pokemon start abusing it
2) This makes pokemon that have powerful priority moves or special priority moves to feel more powerful.
Name: Protective Pads Effect: Powers up moves that inflict recoil or crash damage by 20% + Protects the holder from effects caused by using contact moves. Can be Knocked Off: Yes Ignored by Klutz: Yes Fling Power & Effects: 30 BP
Name: Desert Rose [original] Effect: "If holder is Florges, ability becomes Sand Cloak, is immune to Heal Block effect, and in Sand gains 50% SpD and restores 1/8 of its max HP per turn." Can Be Knocked Off: No. (for Florges only) Ignored by Klutz: No. (for Florges only) Fling Power & Effect: 10, summons Sand
Justification: Given Denebstargazer is submitting Brambleghast this time and given that I would still like to buff Sand in some capacity so that it might actually be usable this Gen, I started thinking of other Sandstorm-vulnerable mons that I could make compatible with it indirectly, especially with all the mon-exclusive item submissions from last Slate. Cacturne came to mind immmediately of course, but its lackluster defenses, lackluster Speed that Sucker Punch can only solve so much of, and Grass-type stacking more Ice weaknesses for Sand especially if Brambleghast finally wins meant it's not as ideal as it seems to try to buff in this way--at least that I can currently think of.
So instead I eventually settled on pseudo-Grass mon Florges, in part due to my newest move idea but mostly because other plants besides cacti can thrive in the desert (even if a real life desert rose isn't an actual rose--whatever). A Fairy type is something that Sand hasn't really had before and neither is a special set-up sweeper, which was true even when weather was horribly infinite. The item still feels like it needs something more, but I'm honestly unsure how to add to it while it keeping it both in theme and intuitive as well as not bloated and something makes you want to actually Sand rather than use just to have constant access to Draining Kiss no matter what. Shrug. (All I know is that adding 50% SpD in Sand like it's a Rock type would probably be overkill.)
Name: Diancite Stone Fragment Effect: If held by Diancie, +1 attack, +1 sp attack, +1 speed, ability becomes magic bounce Can be Knocked Off: nah Ignored by Klutz: Yes Fling Power & Effects: Reasoning: mbounce = mmmbased??? speed is slightly under 100 base at max speed w nature, but adds another offensive option to the meta. Also resub sadly because I forgot to vote
Name: Illusion Effect: Same effects as standard + user takes 0.5x damage from attacks while disguised. Permanent (Yes or No): No Mold Breaker (Yes or No): No Potential Pokémon With This Ability:(if the wynaut line comes back i've giving them illusion you can't stop me) Justification: Zoroark has always been extremely flawed, partially because Illusion kinda sucks in a world with team preview (which is for the better since it'd be insane in a no team preview world), but also because of Zoroark's awful bulk forcing it to take on an insane amount of risk to do just about anything, making it extremely hard to use while you're usually not gonna get much out of it anyway. A boost for Zoroark's bulk while cloaked makes it a lot easier for it come in and out of battle to do its shenanigans while also giving it easier opportunities to attack or setup.
Name: Steadfast Effect: This Pokemon is immune to flinching. It also takes half damage from any Pokémon with a higher base stat total than it. Permanent (Yes or No): No Mold Breaker (Yes or No): Yes Potential Pokémon With This Ability: Justification: uhhh not much to say here, just a cool idea i had. was thinking of giving it to hands but that mon doesn't want this lol.
Name: Fair Fight Effect: While the user is active, no additional stat changes can be added or removed from either pokemon Permanent (Yes or No): No (I had this as yes for a previous ability and forgot to turn it off for these, oops) Mold Breaker (Yes or No): Yes Potential Pokémon With This Ability: Bisharp (over Inner Focus), Braviary (over Keen Eye), Hariyama (over Thick Fat), Lucario (over Inner Focus), Arcanine (over Flash Fire) Justification: weird way of blocking set up, and also blocks your own. Potentially a problem with things like close combat drops being ignored, but it’s ignored on both sides might help keep it in check. Neat interactions with Mold Breaker and Counteract.
Name: Rotom Type: All same as standard Abilities-
Base - Levitate / Adaptability
Heat - Levitate / Smelt
Wash - Levitate / Water Veil
Frost - Levitate / Permafrost
Fan - Levitate / Gale Wings
Mow - Levitate / Natural Cure New Moves-
All - Defog, Pain Split, Memento, Weather Ball, Dazzling Gleam
Heat - Lava Plume
Wash - Wash Away
Frost - Freeze-Dry
Fan - Air Cutter
Mow - Grass Knot Removed Moves: N/A Justification: It's best to leave as much of the past in the past as possible, but the world is a better place when you can stick Rotom on your team as a viable pivot. Gaining back Defog and Pain Spilt allows Rotom to fufill the defensive pivot and hazard remover roles it used to be able to, and do it quite well at that, particularly Rotom-Heat who can threaten Gholdengo and Rotom-Mow who's Natural Cure allows it to Defog on Gliscor safely. With these buffs come a good amount of new tools for the Rotoms, too. Base, Wash, and Mow all get hidden abilities, with Mow's aforementioned Natural Cure helping it Defog against Gliscor and generally absorb status, Base's Adaptability making it a lot more threatening offensively (in lower tiers), and Wash's Water Veil means that, if you're willing to lose out on Levitate's huge benefits, makes it a lot less reliant on Pain Split for recovery. Each one also gets a single, weaker STAB move that isn't meant to completely outclass their strong, risky moves, but provides some sort of utility. Heat can spread burns with Lava Plume, Wash gets another hazard removal method, Frost gets a more reliable Ice STAB that hits Gastrodon, Fan gets....., and Mow gets a decent alternate STAB option.
Name: Delphox Type: Fire / Fairy Abilities: Blaze / Magician New Moves: Fairy Wind, Draining Kiss, Moonblast, Peekaboo, Round, Echo Chamber, Thunder Wave, Court Change Justification: Fire/Fairy is a new unique typing in this game and with fire / fairy typing it is able to provide a new defensive profile to the meta. Being able to check things like dragapult with sp. def, valiant, zamazenta, hattrene, ogrepon-flamemask, etc. With an offensive set it is also able to bring a lot to the table with its utility moves.
Delphox also gaining some new utility moves allow it to be a great def pokemon on some teams esp with court change, wish + round, and esp being a tool with snatch and stealing the opponents moves
So, what's next? Well, with slates done (for now, we'll let you know if any plans change down the line), we enter the next stage of VaporeMons, being the playtesting phase! From here we have a few goals:
- Find out what's broken and nerf/ban things when necessary
- Find out what voted-in things could receive buffs that would be beneficial to the metagame
- Create resources
- Have roomtours and possibly even forum tours
- Prep for DLC 2 in a month
To get started with all of this, we will have another playtesting roomtour on Sunday! In the meantime, be sure to play the metagame, talk about it here or on our Discord, get other people to play the metagame, give suggestions on buffs or nerfs or when we should have roomtours, etc. Anything you want to do to help us develop the metagame!
Why are stat changes not allowed in this? Is it because that it would give far too much freedom to how a Pokemon should be edited? Like, if they're theoretically allowed with a loose rule of "keep it around the same BST, with a varying degree of intensity", it would still be too much right?
I was not around when this rule was put in place, but I personally find it nice for doing damage calcs during battles. No need to /dt every mon and edit stats in the calculator.
Well, I suppose other than a restrictive restraint, its also useful that no one has to refer to /dt or a spreadsheet when trying to convert the damage done with new stats.
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(SV)
(SV)
+ Some of the following (literally everything that got it previously is listed + Gen 8/9 mons, would get cut down if it wins):
| SC: 
and 
at the cost of their item slot. garchomp is the one that particularly benefits from this, as now it can blow up zone, notable enemy of ground dragon stab. another benefactor is 
which now gets a new choice of coverage. However, because of this fact, its pp is heavily reduced to account for its extreme versatility. however, some berries don't exist anymore and therefore cannot be used as a higher bp of some other existing berry variants (watmel, blue, being fire and electric respectively)
Desert Rose [original]
