As many of you know, Sword and Shield has cut a lot of Pokemon and moves from the game completely, making them unusable in the game. This proves annoying for us as we have to retcon and update Pokemon movepools to accurately reflect the state of the game as after all, our goal is to make the CAPs as accurate to something real as possible. For most CAPs this ranges from a minor annoyance to a major overhaul but none are affected as much as Necturna.
With Smeargle no longer in the game, Sketch has been cut and was found to be completely unusable in SwSh, instead, it is greyed out and unclickable as shown in this screenshot found by Anubis in this post. Necturna is already a special case within CAP as due to the generational changes to egg moves in Gen 7, we had to create a clause to make sure Necturna could only use Sketch once. We kept it this way because being able to use Sketch once is the entire "gimmick" behind Necturna and with the changes brought by Sword and Shield, it stands to completely lose this. This puts Necturna in an awkward spot, especially as it is currently useable on PS! whilst not conforming to the mechanics of the generation.
So far I have heard a few possibilities of what we can do with Necturna which are;
- Create a Sketch-like custom move, which can only be used once. This eliminates the need for the Necturna Clause and keeps Necturna functionally the same as it was in previous generations. The downside to this is the addition of another custom element, which is something we have avoided for a long time now and for good reason. Adding a custom element sets a precedent that we are willing to do so.
- Remove Sketch from Necturna's movepool and compensate it with other options. This option keeps Necturna in line with the SwSh mechanics and we can balance the movepool as needed. The obvious huge downside to this is that its identity is completely lost.
- Remove Sketch from Necturna but otherwise leave it as is.
- Keep Sketch despite the generational changes.
If there are any other possibilities you might have thought of please do share them, along with your opinions on what should happen to Necturna in the generational updates. It is important we iron out what we want to happen before Necturna's update starts.
With Smeargle no longer in the game, Sketch has been cut and was found to be completely unusable in SwSh, instead, it is greyed out and unclickable as shown in this screenshot found by Anubis in this post. Necturna is already a special case within CAP as due to the generational changes to egg moves in Gen 7, we had to create a clause to make sure Necturna could only use Sketch once. We kept it this way because being able to use Sketch once is the entire "gimmick" behind Necturna and with the changes brought by Sword and Shield, it stands to completely lose this. This puts Necturna in an awkward spot, especially as it is currently useable on PS! whilst not conforming to the mechanics of the generation.
So far I have heard a few possibilities of what we can do with Necturna which are;
- Create a Sketch-like custom move, which can only be used once. This eliminates the need for the Necturna Clause and keeps Necturna functionally the same as it was in previous generations. The downside to this is the addition of another custom element, which is something we have avoided for a long time now and for good reason. Adding a custom element sets a precedent that we are willing to do so.
- Remove Sketch from Necturna's movepool and compensate it with other options. This option keeps Necturna in line with the SwSh mechanics and we can balance the movepool as needed. The obvious huge downside to this is that its identity is completely lost.
- Remove Sketch from Necturna but otherwise leave it as is.
- Keep Sketch despite the generational changes.
If there are any other possibilities you might have thought of please do share them, along with your opinions on what should happen to Necturna in the generational updates. It is important we iron out what we want to happen before Necturna's update starts.
Last edited: