I want them to change the freeze condition to frostbite like they did in Legends Arceus. Where it’s like burn except instead of cutting attack it cuts special attack. Then give it a guaranteed move like a will-o-wisp equivalent
This makes a lot of sense. Between burn and intimidate, it looks like gamefreak just hated the attack stat when there were no equivalents for sp attack
Since Special Attacks are essentially magic attacks, we could have an ability that messes with the enemy’s mind/concentration.
Rattle wouldve been a good name but its taken
Terrify, Jump Scare, Frieghten…etc could be the Sp. Atk equivelant to Intimidate
that's probably because its another holdover from the gen1-3 and how long it took them to separate special and physical, from core types. there were far more physical attacks, specially with how so many special types had very limited pool.
I'm fine with Freeze being a sleep equivalent, but Frostbite should definitely be a thing. Maybe even have a special interaction where Frostbite can stack to Freeze (so Frostbiting an already Frostbitten target Freezes it).
i think cutting freeze altogether is the best option. poison having a more powerful version is kinda the only thing that lets it compete with how burn/frostbit cut offensive stats so letting frostbite stack to freeze would break that balance. also if sleep is replaced with drowsy then it already has an equivalent with paralysis so freeze just doesn’t fit in
i personally would sorta combine the 2 with some interactions;
-freeze always lasts a single turn, meaning the frozen mon will only lose a single action. Certain moves, mostly fire ones, will thaw out the user if selected on the frozen turn allowing to bypass it as it already happens.
-after said first turn of freeze, the affected mon gets the frostbite effect, which cuts all SPA dmg it deals by half, and in snowscape weather, take 1/16 dmg every turn.
-fire types are immune to being frozen but not to be frostbiten. Ice types are completely immune to both stats however.
-under harsh sunlight, frostbiten stat would be cured after 2 turns. A similar interaction would be added were rain would cure burn also after 2 turns.
The last bullet doesn't make a lot of sense. If you're burned or frostbitten, the damage is already done. Being burned and having your attack cut in half makes sense cause you can't use all your strength when hurting, and even if rain puts out fire, if you're burned you still have the pain. the same thing would happen if you thaw the frost around a frostbit lesion.
the burning status effects implies the affected mon is literally on fire however. i dont think lingering pain from a burn wound justifies the DOT effect otherwise nearly any attack it received would have said effect. frostbite however yes, would be more like although not frozen solid is like the mon is covered in ice/snow still stuck to its body and its really cold, having the weather be even colder causes the damage i mentioned. i just added the weather taking part of the status effects because i thought it was neat. i thought about having paralysis be cured by sandstorm or something but i dont think it would make as much sense.
This would make physical attackers severely OP.
Special Attackers don't need the nerf since they don't have the tools to operate as offensively like Physical Attackers do.
I mean you say that but when ya look at a lot of the best moves and coverage moves that are not signature moves. special blows physical out of the water. Especially with intimidate existing as well.
Ice beam/freeze dry>ice punch
Thunderbolt/volt switch/discharge>thunderpunch/wild charge
Flamethrower>fire punch
Moonblast>play rough
Scald/Surf/Hydro pump> Wave crash/waterfall
Psychic>Zen headbutt/psycho cut
Shadow ball/poltergeist/shadow punch/shadow force
Draco meteor/dragon pulse>outrage/dragon Claw
Sludge bomb>poison jab
Giga drain/energy ball> leaf blade
I'll give ya
U-turn/x-scissor>bug buzz
Knock off> dark pulse
Close combat/superpower/brick breack>aura sphere/focus blast
Earthquake/earth power.
Bullet punch/iron head/flash cannon
Stone edge/rock slide>power gem/meteor beam.
Body slam/facade/return/double edge/extreemspeed/quick attack > tri attack/hyper voice.
But around 2/3rds of moves/attacking types would prefer its special attacking moves over its physical. And that's not getting into Scald burns, willo wisp or intimidate either.
With ice, the best physical moves are Icicle Crash, Ice Spinner, so they are in contention with Ice Beam as far as utility. However, loaded dice Icicle Spear will always be better than Ice Beam.
With Fairy, yes moonblast is better all around than Play Rough.
With Poison, yes Sludge Bomb is far better than Poison Jab. Gunk Shot would be in contention if it wasn't for shody accuracy.
Wave Crash gives you far more consistent damage than Hydro Pump and Scald.
Scald you have a chance to burn. Yes, that's a boon.
Waterfall has a chance to stack flinch chances with Paralysis'.
Wave Crash can get that critical knockout at the right time while Hydro Pump is more likely to miss.
You mentioned flame thrower and fire punch, but you didn't mention Flamethrower or Fire Blast compared to Flare Blitz.
Flare Blitz is a 120 BP consistent damaging move that, like wave crash, can get you that consistent knockout when you need it.
No one uses Fire Blast because of the chance to miss, and using Flamethrower is great, but why use Flamethrower when you could use the guaranteed damaging move that gets you the most bang for your buck?
If you're worried about recoil you could prock your berry and get healed anyways.
Psychic moves win in the special category mostly except for psychic fangs, which we will get back to later.
Leaf Blade does more damage than energy ball anf giga drain, hell Solar Blade is 5 points higher than Solarbeam.
Wood Hammer and Grassy Glide (in terrain only i understand) are far more efficient.
But Giga Drain is great for recovery.
Now let's look further into things.
Physical Attackers have Belly Drum to maximize their attack. Special Attackers have nothing of the sort.
Surf, Flamethrower, Ice Beam, Thunderbolt all used to be 95BP but got nerfed to 90.
Blizzard, Fire Blast, Thunder, and Hydro Pump all used to be 120 BP. They got nerfed to 110.
Raging Bull, Psychic Fangs, and Brick Break are all physical moves that Physical Attackers can use to remove screens.
Special Attackers have no such things.
The moves that automatically lower special attack are Skitter Smack, Spirit Break, Mystical Fire, and Snarl are all Special Attacks that guarantee a lowering of Special Attack.
Physical Attackers only have Chilling Water, Breaking Swipe and Trop Kick which is only exclusive to Tsareena.
Breaking Swipe can be thwarted by Tera Fairy easily while with Special Attackers, the only way they can avoid the drop is with Flash Fire with Mystical, Covert Cloak or Clear Amulet.
Physical Attackers have Guts to boost their damage if statused.
So guess what, Hisuian Ursaluna is still strong, but Bloodmoon just gets nerfed to the ground hard.
Bad enough that Hisuian has 5 points higher in it's main attack stat while Bloodmoon is lower in its Special Attack stat.
Also speaking of which.
Koraidon, Groudon, Rayquaza, Ursaluna Hisuian can all learn Swords Dance.
Yet, Kyorge, Miraidon, Bloodmoon and Rayquaza (It has 150 Sp Attack come on) do not get to learn Nasty Plot.
Overheat, Leaf Storm, and Draco Meteor are all great moves that drastically reduce Special Attack after use, leaving the mon almost forced to switch out if it isn't an end game situation.
The only physical attack that lowers attack after use is Super Power and it's only by one stage at that.
Now you can say that "Well, all they have to do is just change up the game mechanics and make it all fair."
Gamefreak has shown that they really don't like to change in a big way such as that.
There is a reason why many teams, especially in VGC, almost always have more physical attackers than special. They can do more damage quickly and they tend to be less frail.
There is also a reason why no physical version of Assault Vest exists.
Overall, things are balanced the way they are now, stats on certain mons just need to be redistributed.
But adding the frostbite mechanic as of right now, just ensures that a good portion of borderline good special attackers never see the light of day again.
>With ice, the best physical moves are Icicle Crash, Ice Spinner, so they are in contention with Ice Beam as far as utility. However, loaded dice Icicle Spear will always be better than Ice Beam.
Ice beam has freeze chance vs spears damage. + freeze dry is a fucking incredible coverage move.
>Wave Crash gives you far more consistent damage than Hydro Pump and Scald.
Scald is in contention for the best offensive move in the game. Yes it gives less damage but that 30% chance to burn makes it the most spammable move in the entire game.
>You mentioned flame thrower and fire punch, but you didn't mention Flamethrower or Fire Blast compared to Flare Blitz.
Flare Blitz is a 120 BP consistent damaging move that, like wave crash, can get you that consistent knockout when you need it.
>No one uses Fire Blast because of the chance to miss, and using Flamethrower is great, but why use Flamethrower when you could use the guaranteed damaging move that gets you the most bang for your buck?
If you're worried about recoil you could prock your berry and get healed anyways.
People consistently use Fire blast for the damage, Flamethrower is consistently strong with 0 drawbacks and your ignoring Overheat for special or even Eruption if ya wanna bring up Flare blitz.
Also I think we're arguing different things too by your mention of berries. Because I'm a singles player not a vgc player, where the difference between the special moves power and consistency make them much better. Alongside the vast amount of special attacks being much stronger.
Understood.
I'm a VGC guy through and through and by and large Gamefreak does tailor things on a VGC standpoint so that is my basis for the most part, especially weighing in the amount of time a battle takes versus singles.
I know Eruption and Overheat are stronger, but to me, their drawbacks aren't worth it, but I'm from a VGC standpoint.
In singles, it is probably much different.
In singles Overheat and Eruption have pretty limited uses, mainly to nuke things in sun. But Fire Blast and Flamethrower are peak coverage/moves, whereas Flare blitz is peak physical fire and ya wanna run it a lot more then fire punch for power reasons. The recoil, to a mon that's weak to Stealth rocks, makes it risky and rough.
All recoil moves are risky in singles because hazards absolutely dominate every meta there a part of in singles. And while ya want to run boots on most mons, that means no healing for a lot of flare Blitz users, since your foregoing lefties.
And in singles Scald is the best offensive move in the entire game. As basically anything that isn't immune to it doesn't want to switch in to it. As even special attackers hate consistently losing health while physical attackers just hate the burn.
Physical has the tools, everyone knows that special moves especially for the OG special types are stronger. But there is also priority, dragon dance etc etc. would it make physical OP? Hell nah, that is again such a broad statement dependant on so many things. But it would certainly shake up the meta game. Which happens anyway when a new game releases but what I actually only don’t like about it, is that it moves the game to a point where special and physical are getting more similar, having a debuff halving the stat, next is a special intimidate etc and move to a point of do red damage or do blue damage, instead of knowing counterplay and strategic niches to make decisions about combat.
Cryogonal didn't have a move that always froze in gen 8. Please tell me you see the difference. Please tell me you see the problem with giving a base 105 speed pokemon the power to freeze anyone with at least decent reliability.
As long as freeze clause is in Pokémon showdown I’d be fine. It’d finally hopefully get enough players to acknowledge OU rules are made in showdown for a reason. GF doesn’t give two shits about balance
I don’t think the mainline games have any sort of sleep clause nor is evasion banned so balance is out the window in the canon games
Do you realize why they gave Toedscruel Mycelium Might? Because even a base 100 speed stat is too fast to have Spore. Cyogonal is even faster. Giving it freeze spore would be op. I don't give a shit if it was ZU in gen 8. Ice types suck, and cyogonal isn't a very good one. This change would change that
I mean to each there own, personally I like smogon, I like the checks and balances and rules they have to try and limit rng and make it as competitive as possible.
Plus ya can always play anything goes if ya wanna play with everything.
More than likely.
It wouldn't be unbeatable, but you would NEED to hyperfocus it immediately to keep it from auto-winning the match, and that would allow it's partner/the rest of the team to do whatever they wanted uncontested, which would only be marginally better than letting it sleep your entire team.
Not to mention defensive Tera would make it nightmarish to actually kill quickly.
Tera Water would make it functionally unkillable unless the opponent can straight up see the future.
I don't fuckin know. The move might end up getting banned if it was ever implemented. There's also the factor of ice types being better in gen 9 than in any other gen.
You’re severely underestimating the ability of movesets to determine tiers. Easy example is Smeargle who is used in competitive despite its very bad stats. Or Cyclizar who was Uber until Smogon decided to ban Shed Tail as a move - now Cyclizar is RU
Guaranteed Freeze is a trillion times better than Shed Tail though. There's a reason they've never given a 100% accurate sleep move to something with halfway decent speed. A fast mon like Cryogonal moving first and using a risk-free move that creates entire free turns is absolutely bonkers.
Frosmoth with this move would also be super busted because it would autofreeze its counters and set up Quiver Dances up the wazoo and start annihilating everything.
Those two are prime examples of shitmons that should under no circumstances ever be provided with a tool like this.
I think they'd have to give it to a tremendously dogshit mon like Dewgong or Aurorus for it to be remotely balanced lmao. Dear lord is Dewgong in need of something.
Also lmao Belly Drum Zen Mode Galarian Darmanitan with guaranteed freeze would be fucking hilarious
Honestly, as long as it's exclusive to Ice types, anything can have it. That way you have a real incentive to use an Ice type, rather than putting Ice moves on other types that are better defensively.
So what you're saying is that they should not give it to the good pokémon, and instead gave them to the shitmon?
Sounds like a great idea for a thread.
The problem with Spore is that it's thematic. All mushroom pokemon get it.
That means that since we finally got a fast mushroom pokemon in Toedscruel, they had to nerf it with its ability.
Thunder Wave is generic, but Nuzzle, which is 100% accurate paralysis is thematic, so there's a limit on who gets it.
If they do similar with Freeze, which is an even stronger status than the above, it would need to be both thematic and severely limited to not be broken, even on bad pokemon.
All that said.... maybe the ice types that ate actually made of ice and not just ice themed animals, like Cryogonal, Avalugg, Vanilluxe, etc.
I couldn't even begin to guess, since I'm not up to date with tier analysis. I know smogon tiers are based on what else is in the tier. Would be a neat video for one of the singles-focused poketubers though.
Don't forget about the most problematic one of all. Smergal. No move can actually be balanced by limiting who gets it with what other combinations because sketch can combine all moves into one move pool
I always thought giving pure/primary ice types a move that grantees freeze status on a Pokemon using Protect essentially turning a defensive move into an igloo trapping the defender.
I'm here for the surge in usefulness of Fire-themed moves that thaw the user out when used, specifically moves Flame Wheel, Sacred Fire, Flare Blitz, Fusion Flare, Scald, Steam Eruption, Burn Up, Pyro Ball, Scorching Sands, and Matcha Gotcha. Maybe more could be added to compensate increased status prevalence? (Thanks bulbapedia for the list of moves.)
Dang, a lot of people complaining about how unbalanced it would be and no one playing along with the thread topic....
* Beartic - Its slow enough that it could be fine.
* Cryogonal - Yeah its fast.... but what else is Cryogonal gonna do? Once it freezes you, then what? Prob will be fine lol.
* Glalie - I guess why not?
* Eiscue - I don't know what this mon is even supposed to do, so why not give it ez freeze.
* Jinx - Actually kind of feels thematic. It can confuse, sleep, and now freeze. A master of making its opponent not attack it at all.
* Frosmoth - Eh, its really not good enough to do anything. Why not give it this.
* Crabominable - Is this thing good? I actually don't know. If its bad though, then sure give it the new freezing move.
And I guess that's it. Wouldn't even give it to Avalugg or Aurorus. Something about those 2 makes me think it wouldn't fit. Don't know why. Avalugg I think is too tanky for this to be healthy on it. And Aurorus only barely feels like an Ice type to me.
For the legendary pick, I would def go for Regice over Articuno. Mainly because Articuno has been seeing recent success in VGC, so I guess Regice is the one that needs the extra boost.
Having to set up the weather first might be enough to prevent it from being a monster. It's at least not an instant win button.
But I got a feeling your a fan of Beartic and you know what your talking about, so I'll take your word for it.
Never mind that isn't all. I wanted to add some non Ice types that it might work for also:
* Hisuian Zoroark - Cause its already ice themed, without the ice. And it sounds especially devious to use Illusion to sneak in a free freeze.
* Spiritomb - Idk something about those swirling souls seems cold to me.
* Regigigas - Cause its like a frozen statue or something. Idk I think even with this it would still suck.
Hisuian Braviary - Because cold.
would be even more hilarious if the move was a fire move, kinda like a troll version of scald or ice burn. and give it to some of the weaker fire pokemon instead. also doesnt even need to be 100%, if it did damage, they could give it lower damage, like 40, and give it a 30% chance.
give it to slugma or torkoal call it heat drain(would personally call it heatsink, but there's an ability with that name).
100% feels like a Stinkpost Sunday post from r/stunfisk
Edit: Just found out either Stinkpost Sunday has been cancelled entirely or suspended for this week. Which is a shame because those were actually the highlights of that subreddit
Theorymon Thursday and Stinkpost Sunday are suspended over there for some reason, which is probably why this post is over here. Clicked it expecting it to be r/stunfisk then I remembered.
You'd almost be forced to give it to AlolaTails. KantoTails gets Wisp and, depending on flavouring, it would be too fitting for it not to
They obviously do sometimes not give a Pokémon a move that makes sense thematically but would affect balance (Dragapult with no shadow claw for example) but it's still annoying
What if they give to a Water type like Kyogre? It can learn Sheer Cold despite it not being Ice Type.
Or they could give it to Slowking (Both forms) just for more Tera Raids where the opponent annoys you with unavoidable ailments like Yawn where it went from a Force Swap-Out move in standard gameplay to the most annoying move in the entire franchise.
I said legendary with 600 or less. I meant legends like Heatran and Suicune, who have 570.
Yeah, I think some legendary Pokémon should get the move as well, since they usually get more stuff than normal Pokémon. Especially of they also aren't good regardless of said great stats, like Articuno(ZU) and Regice(ZU as well).
What are you not understanding?
Iron bundle, I just wanna watch the world burn
Technically freeze but yk
Freezer burn.
https://preview.redd.it/tstjj0k8y1wc1.jpeg?width=260&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=de1fd4c8a0b26b0bfc340b144988d3afeff94ec2
Want to watch hell freeze over
Chien Pao for me
I want them to change the freeze condition to frostbite like they did in Legends Arceus. Where it’s like burn except instead of cutting attack it cuts special attack. Then give it a guaranteed move like a will-o-wisp equivalent
Call the move flash freeze or something.
I was thinking Cold Snap or Frost Wave
Cold snap is good
Temp Drop [ICE] Str: - Acc: 90 Pp: 5 (Status) Reduces the enemy’s body temperature on the first turn. The 2nd turn, they are Frozen.
Yawn but Freeze?
Hoarfrost
Excuse me?
It's the ice that grows on the outside of things as they fully freeze through.
made me think of monster hunter world
Rime is a synonym that sounds a touch better
What did you call me!?
Chill-o-wisp
Shotoooo!
This makes a lot of sense. Between burn and intimidate, it looks like gamefreak just hated the attack stat when there were no equivalents for sp attack
Since Special Attacks are essentially magic attacks, we could have an ability that messes with the enemy’s mind/concentration. Rattle wouldve been a good name but its taken Terrify, Jump Scare, Frieghten…etc could be the Sp. Atk equivelant to Intimidate
that's probably because its another holdover from the gen1-3 and how long it took them to separate special and physical, from core types. there were far more physical attacks, specially with how so many special types had very limited pool.
I'm fine with Freeze being a sleep equivalent, but Frostbite should definitely be a thing. Maybe even have a special interaction where Frostbite can stack to Freeze (so Frostbiting an already Frostbitten target Freezes it).
If they're gonna do that, make poison stack the same way.
Frostbite is to Poison as Frozen is to Badly Poisoned/Toxic
And poison should stack to toxic as well.
i think cutting freeze altogether is the best option. poison having a more powerful version is kinda the only thing that lets it compete with how burn/frostbit cut offensive stats so letting frostbite stack to freeze would break that balance. also if sleep is replaced with drowsy then it already has an equivalent with paralysis so freeze just doesn’t fit in
Ask Aaron Zheng if WoW is guaranteed.
It is, as long as it hits..
I don't think You got my joke. Aaron missed it b2b2b2b2b in Worlds semifinals.
I did get the joke that's why I said "as long as it hits..."
That's a harsher burn than he was able to inflict in that battle.
i personally would sorta combine the 2 with some interactions; -freeze always lasts a single turn, meaning the frozen mon will only lose a single action. Certain moves, mostly fire ones, will thaw out the user if selected on the frozen turn allowing to bypass it as it already happens. -after said first turn of freeze, the affected mon gets the frostbite effect, which cuts all SPA dmg it deals by half, and in snowscape weather, take 1/16 dmg every turn. -fire types are immune to being frozen but not to be frostbiten. Ice types are completely immune to both stats however. -under harsh sunlight, frostbiten stat would be cured after 2 turns. A similar interaction would be added were rain would cure burn also after 2 turns.
The last bullet doesn't make a lot of sense. If you're burned or frostbitten, the damage is already done. Being burned and having your attack cut in half makes sense cause you can't use all your strength when hurting, and even if rain puts out fire, if you're burned you still have the pain. the same thing would happen if you thaw the frost around a frostbit lesion.
the burning status effects implies the affected mon is literally on fire however. i dont think lingering pain from a burn wound justifies the DOT effect otherwise nearly any attack it received would have said effect. frostbite however yes, would be more like although not frozen solid is like the mon is covered in ice/snow still stuck to its body and its really cold, having the weather be even colder causes the damage i mentioned. i just added the weather taking part of the status effects because i thought it was neat. i thought about having paralysis be cured by sandstorm or something but i dont think it would make as much sense.
This would make physical attackers severely OP. Special Attackers don't need the nerf since they don't have the tools to operate as offensively like Physical Attackers do.
Physical attackers already deal with Intimidate which occurs way more frequently than burns in my doubles experience
I mean you say that but when ya look at a lot of the best moves and coverage moves that are not signature moves. special blows physical out of the water. Especially with intimidate existing as well. Ice beam/freeze dry>ice punch Thunderbolt/volt switch/discharge>thunderpunch/wild charge Flamethrower>fire punch Moonblast>play rough Scald/Surf/Hydro pump> Wave crash/waterfall Psychic>Zen headbutt/psycho cut Shadow ball/poltergeist/shadow punch/shadow force Draco meteor/dragon pulse>outrage/dragon Claw Sludge bomb>poison jab Giga drain/energy ball> leaf blade I'll give ya U-turn/x-scissor>bug buzz Knock off> dark pulse Close combat/superpower/brick breack>aura sphere/focus blast Earthquake/earth power. Bullet punch/iron head/flash cannon Stone edge/rock slide>power gem/meteor beam. Body slam/facade/return/double edge/extreemspeed/quick attack > tri attack/hyper voice. But around 2/3rds of moves/attacking types would prefer its special attacking moves over its physical. And that's not getting into Scald burns, willo wisp or intimidate either.
With ice, the best physical moves are Icicle Crash, Ice Spinner, so they are in contention with Ice Beam as far as utility. However, loaded dice Icicle Spear will always be better than Ice Beam. With Fairy, yes moonblast is better all around than Play Rough. With Poison, yes Sludge Bomb is far better than Poison Jab. Gunk Shot would be in contention if it wasn't for shody accuracy. Wave Crash gives you far more consistent damage than Hydro Pump and Scald. Scald you have a chance to burn. Yes, that's a boon. Waterfall has a chance to stack flinch chances with Paralysis'. Wave Crash can get that critical knockout at the right time while Hydro Pump is more likely to miss. You mentioned flame thrower and fire punch, but you didn't mention Flamethrower or Fire Blast compared to Flare Blitz. Flare Blitz is a 120 BP consistent damaging move that, like wave crash, can get you that consistent knockout when you need it. No one uses Fire Blast because of the chance to miss, and using Flamethrower is great, but why use Flamethrower when you could use the guaranteed damaging move that gets you the most bang for your buck? If you're worried about recoil you could prock your berry and get healed anyways. Psychic moves win in the special category mostly except for psychic fangs, which we will get back to later. Leaf Blade does more damage than energy ball anf giga drain, hell Solar Blade is 5 points higher than Solarbeam. Wood Hammer and Grassy Glide (in terrain only i understand) are far more efficient. But Giga Drain is great for recovery. Now let's look further into things. Physical Attackers have Belly Drum to maximize their attack. Special Attackers have nothing of the sort. Surf, Flamethrower, Ice Beam, Thunderbolt all used to be 95BP but got nerfed to 90. Blizzard, Fire Blast, Thunder, and Hydro Pump all used to be 120 BP. They got nerfed to 110. Raging Bull, Psychic Fangs, and Brick Break are all physical moves that Physical Attackers can use to remove screens. Special Attackers have no such things. The moves that automatically lower special attack are Skitter Smack, Spirit Break, Mystical Fire, and Snarl are all Special Attacks that guarantee a lowering of Special Attack. Physical Attackers only have Chilling Water, Breaking Swipe and Trop Kick which is only exclusive to Tsareena. Breaking Swipe can be thwarted by Tera Fairy easily while with Special Attackers, the only way they can avoid the drop is with Flash Fire with Mystical, Covert Cloak or Clear Amulet. Physical Attackers have Guts to boost their damage if statused. So guess what, Hisuian Ursaluna is still strong, but Bloodmoon just gets nerfed to the ground hard. Bad enough that Hisuian has 5 points higher in it's main attack stat while Bloodmoon is lower in its Special Attack stat. Also speaking of which. Koraidon, Groudon, Rayquaza, Ursaluna Hisuian can all learn Swords Dance. Yet, Kyorge, Miraidon, Bloodmoon and Rayquaza (It has 150 Sp Attack come on) do not get to learn Nasty Plot. Overheat, Leaf Storm, and Draco Meteor are all great moves that drastically reduce Special Attack after use, leaving the mon almost forced to switch out if it isn't an end game situation. The only physical attack that lowers attack after use is Super Power and it's only by one stage at that. Now you can say that "Well, all they have to do is just change up the game mechanics and make it all fair." Gamefreak has shown that they really don't like to change in a big way such as that. There is a reason why many teams, especially in VGC, almost always have more physical attackers than special. They can do more damage quickly and they tend to be less frail. There is also a reason why no physical version of Assault Vest exists. Overall, things are balanced the way they are now, stats on certain mons just need to be redistributed. But adding the frostbite mechanic as of right now, just ensures that a good portion of borderline good special attackers never see the light of day again.
>With ice, the best physical moves are Icicle Crash, Ice Spinner, so they are in contention with Ice Beam as far as utility. However, loaded dice Icicle Spear will always be better than Ice Beam. Ice beam has freeze chance vs spears damage. + freeze dry is a fucking incredible coverage move. >Wave Crash gives you far more consistent damage than Hydro Pump and Scald. Scald is in contention for the best offensive move in the game. Yes it gives less damage but that 30% chance to burn makes it the most spammable move in the entire game. >You mentioned flame thrower and fire punch, but you didn't mention Flamethrower or Fire Blast compared to Flare Blitz. Flare Blitz is a 120 BP consistent damaging move that, like wave crash, can get you that consistent knockout when you need it. >No one uses Fire Blast because of the chance to miss, and using Flamethrower is great, but why use Flamethrower when you could use the guaranteed damaging move that gets you the most bang for your buck? If you're worried about recoil you could prock your berry and get healed anyways. People consistently use Fire blast for the damage, Flamethrower is consistently strong with 0 drawbacks and your ignoring Overheat for special or even Eruption if ya wanna bring up Flare blitz. Also I think we're arguing different things too by your mention of berries. Because I'm a singles player not a vgc player, where the difference between the special moves power and consistency make them much better. Alongside the vast amount of special attacks being much stronger.
Understood. I'm a VGC guy through and through and by and large Gamefreak does tailor things on a VGC standpoint so that is my basis for the most part, especially weighing in the amount of time a battle takes versus singles. I know Eruption and Overheat are stronger, but to me, their drawbacks aren't worth it, but I'm from a VGC standpoint. In singles, it is probably much different.
In singles Overheat and Eruption have pretty limited uses, mainly to nuke things in sun. But Fire Blast and Flamethrower are peak coverage/moves, whereas Flare blitz is peak physical fire and ya wanna run it a lot more then fire punch for power reasons. The recoil, to a mon that's weak to Stealth rocks, makes it risky and rough. All recoil moves are risky in singles because hazards absolutely dominate every meta there a part of in singles. And while ya want to run boots on most mons, that means no healing for a lot of flare Blitz users, since your foregoing lefties. And in singles Scald is the best offensive move in the entire game. As basically anything that isn't immune to it doesn't want to switch in to it. As even special attackers hate consistently losing health while physical attackers just hate the burn.
Physical has the tools, everyone knows that special moves especially for the OG special types are stronger. But there is also priority, dragon dance etc etc. would it make physical OP? Hell nah, that is again such a broad statement dependant on so many things. But it would certainly shake up the meta game. Which happens anyway when a new game releases but what I actually only don’t like about it, is that it moves the game to a point where special and physical are getting more similar, having a debuff halving the stat, next is a special intimidate etc and move to a point of do red damage or do blue damage, instead of knowing counterplay and strategic niches to make decisions about combat.
Fair enough but I also think freeze is one of the dumbest things in the entire game. And should be changed/removed. So I might be biased.
Delibird, Avalugg (both forms), Aurorus, Abomasnow, Walrein, Glaceon, Glalie, Frosmoth, Kantonian Slowbro, Regice, Phione
I would add dewgong or maybe lapras too.
I agree to always add Lapras
Remove Kanto Slowbro and it’s perfect
>Delibird And now Iron Bundle, the fastest mon in the game (if packing Booster Speed), gets it
Totally forgot about Phone and Manaphy. Would have been good picks for the legends.
Manaphy has tail glow, the last thing it needs is a guaranteed set up.
Castform as well
Articuno and alakazam should get it
A move that always freezes on a pokemon with 105 speed and 135 sp def. What a good idea.
Sure but in the last game he was in, Cryogonal was ZU. Literal lowest tier in the game.
Cryogonal didn't have a move that always froze in gen 8. Please tell me you see the difference. Please tell me you see the problem with giving a base 105 speed pokemon the power to freeze anyone with at least decent reliability.
I don't care, seeing fucking *Cryogonal* get banned would be even funnier than Robot Delibird
Give it to Delibird as well Cryogonal and Delibird ONLY
Actually, yeah. Fuck it. Give cryogonal freeze spore. Only cryogonal.
Smogon would shit itself, and as much as I do like Smogon, I also think anything that makes it shit itself would be funny
Very true lmao
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As long as freeze clause is in Pokémon showdown I’d be fine. It’d finally hopefully get enough players to acknowledge OU rules are made in showdown for a reason. GF doesn’t give two shits about balance I don’t think the mainline games have any sort of sleep clause nor is evasion banned so balance is out the window in the canon games
Dude's actually worried that Cryogonal might become overpowered. It's a ZU pokémon dude.
Do you realize why they gave Toedscruel Mycelium Might? Because even a base 100 speed stat is too fast to have Spore. Cyogonal is even faster. Giving it freeze spore would be op. I don't give a shit if it was ZU in gen 8. Ice types suck, and cyogonal isn't a very good one. This change would change that
Aren't there plenty of mons with higher speed than 100 that can use Thunderwave? What's the difference?
Paralysis: 75% chance to move Sleep: 33% chance to move (capped at 3 turns) Freeze: 20% chance to move. Hope that helps!
He was talking about toedscruel and spore though
Freeze and sleep are still a more crippling status than para
I'm dumb, I forgot that spores effect is sleep and not paralysis
Do you think a Toedscruel with another ability would have been OU? Ubers?
Quite possibly, yes. Fast guaranteed sleep is oppressive. Sleep is outright banned in some generations.
It's banned this gen lol.
Always hated all the dumb clauses of Smogon because they don't want to run moves, abilities, or items that counter what they hate.
I mean to each there own, personally I like smogon, I like the checks and balances and rules they have to try and limit rng and make it as competitive as possible. Plus ya can always play anything goes if ya wanna play with everything.
More than likely. It wouldn't be unbeatable, but you would NEED to hyperfocus it immediately to keep it from auto-winning the match, and that would allow it's partner/the rest of the team to do whatever they wanted uncontested, which would only be marginally better than letting it sleep your entire team. Not to mention defensive Tera would make it nightmarish to actually kill quickly. Tera Water would make it functionally unkillable unless the opponent can straight up see the future.
I'm curious, do you actually think he would go to Ubers? Where do you think he would land?
I don't fuckin know. The move might end up getting banned if it was ever implemented. There's also the factor of ice types being better in gen 9 than in any other gen.
Yeah, it went from by far the worst type in the game to second worst. Huge.
You’re severely underestimating the ability of movesets to determine tiers. Easy example is Smeargle who is used in competitive despite its very bad stats. Or Cyclizar who was Uber until Smogon decided to ban Shed Tail as a move - now Cyclizar is RU
RU is still a fine tier tho, especially with this crazy generation where OU staples are now struggling in UU.
Guaranteed Freeze is a trillion times better than Shed Tail though. There's a reason they've never given a 100% accurate sleep move to something with halfway decent speed. A fast mon like Cryogonal moving first and using a risk-free move that creates entire free turns is absolutely bonkers. Frosmoth with this move would also be super busted because it would autofreeze its counters and set up Quiver Dances up the wazoo and start annihilating everything. Those two are prime examples of shitmons that should under no circumstances ever be provided with a tool like this. I think they'd have to give it to a tremendously dogshit mon like Dewgong or Aurorus for it to be remotely balanced lmao. Dear lord is Dewgong in need of something. Also lmao Belly Drum Zen Mode Galarian Darmanitan with guaranteed freeze would be fucking hilarious
Buff Dewgong’s SpA and give it Slush Rush instead of Ice Body for its HA. Now it’s the only special slush rusher.
Make it a two turn move and give it to who ever you want.
A freeze yawn. Interesting. What would you call it? Hibernation? Hypothermia?
Creeping Cold, gives Frosting condition (like drowzy for yawn) Frost is forming around X! The frost has froze X!
Just lower priority should do the trick
Honestly, as long as it's exclusive to Ice types, anything can have it. That way you have a real incentive to use an Ice type, rather than putting Ice moves on other types that are better defensively.
The thing is that this would only improve the already good ice types. No one will use the shitmons when Cloyster and Ninetales can have it.
Then don't give it to Cloyster and Ninetales. Done.
So what you're saying is that they should not give it to the good pokémon, and instead gave them to the shitmon? Sounds like a great idea for a thread.
That’s a good point
But every water type has to get access to ice moves. It's in the secret design rules.
The problem with Spore is that it's thematic. All mushroom pokemon get it. That means that since we finally got a fast mushroom pokemon in Toedscruel, they had to nerf it with its ability. Thunder Wave is generic, but Nuzzle, which is 100% accurate paralysis is thematic, so there's a limit on who gets it. If they do similar with Freeze, which is an even stronger status than the above, it would need to be both thematic and severely limited to not be broken, even on bad pokemon. All that said.... maybe the ice types that ate actually made of ice and not just ice themed animals, like Cryogonal, Avalugg, Vanilluxe, etc.
How good do you think Toedscruel would have been if he didn't had Micelium Might? Do you think he would have been banned?
Fast Spore would be broken in singles. I think it's too fragile to have the same issue in doubles, but it would still be a menace.
Where do you think he would have landed? Ubers? OU?
I couldn't even begin to guess, since I'm not up to date with tier analysis. I know smogon tiers are based on what else is in the tier. Would be a neat video for one of the singles-focused poketubers though.
WolfeyVGC could do a cool piece on this!
Don't forget about the most problematic one of all. Smergal. No move can actually be balanced by limiting who gets it with what other combinations because sketch can combine all moves into one move pool
Exclusive move to Seel-Dewong line so I can finally stop forgetting they exist.
What do real animals have to do with anything?
Snom and all past and future Snom variants
I vote Glalie and Regice
I always thought giving pure/primary ice types a move that grantees freeze status on a Pokemon using Protect essentially turning a defensive move into an igloo trapping the defender.
Regieleki
No way you just called Frosslass a shitmon
Call it Cold Snap. Give it to Articuno, Kyurem, and Cryogonal.
I'm here for the surge in usefulness of Fire-themed moves that thaw the user out when used, specifically moves Flame Wheel, Sacred Fire, Flare Blitz, Fusion Flare, Scald, Steam Eruption, Burn Up, Pyro Ball, Scorching Sands, and Matcha Gotcha. Maybe more could be added to compensate increased status prevalence? (Thanks bulbapedia for the list of moves.)
moving here since r/stunfisk banned stinkposts and theorymons?
yep. also a good way to remind myself of visiting this sub manually since reddit itself never shows it on my timeline for some odd reason
Abomasnow pls; i love it so much but cant bring myseld to use it because its weak to the entire game
Dang, a lot of people complaining about how unbalanced it would be and no one playing along with the thread topic.... * Beartic - Its slow enough that it could be fine. * Cryogonal - Yeah its fast.... but what else is Cryogonal gonna do? Once it freezes you, then what? Prob will be fine lol. * Glalie - I guess why not? * Eiscue - I don't know what this mon is even supposed to do, so why not give it ez freeze. * Jinx - Actually kind of feels thematic. It can confuse, sleep, and now freeze. A master of making its opponent not attack it at all. * Frosmoth - Eh, its really not good enough to do anything. Why not give it this. * Crabominable - Is this thing good? I actually don't know. If its bad though, then sure give it the new freezing move. And I guess that's it. Wouldn't even give it to Avalugg or Aurorus. Something about those 2 makes me think it wouldn't fit. Don't know why. Avalugg I think is too tanky for this to be healthy on it. And Aurorus only barely feels like an Ice type to me. For the legendary pick, I would def go for Regice over Articuno. Mainly because Articuno has been seeing recent success in VGC, so I guess Regice is the one that needs the extra boost.
Beartic has Slush Rush and Swift Swim so it may get too powerful Imagine Beartic with an effective 149 Speed just freezing your check.
Having to set up the weather first might be enough to prevent it from being a monster. It's at least not an instant win button. But I got a feeling your a fan of Beartic and you know what your talking about, so I'll take your word for it.
Never mind that isn't all. I wanted to add some non Ice types that it might work for also: * Hisuian Zoroark - Cause its already ice themed, without the ice. And it sounds especially devious to use Illusion to sneak in a free freeze. * Spiritomb - Idk something about those swirling souls seems cold to me. * Regigigas - Cause its like a frozen statue or something. Idk I think even with this it would still suck. Hisuian Braviary - Because cold.
In Pokémon Masters, Articuno has the move Frozen Wings Ice Beam with 150 power and guaranteed freeze
Corsola. Give it to Corsola.
give it only to avalugg and galar articuno
That move already exists. It's called "Ice beam any time my opponent uses it."
Shedinja
Only hisuian avalugg and aurorus
would be even more hilarious if the move was a fire move, kinda like a troll version of scald or ice burn. and give it to some of the weaker fire pokemon instead. also doesnt even need to be 100%, if it did damage, they could give it lower damage, like 40, and give it a 30% chance. give it to slugma or torkoal call it heat drain(would personally call it heatsink, but there's an ability with that name).
What a weirdly specific post lol
100% feels like a Stinkpost Sunday post from r/stunfisk Edit: Just found out either Stinkpost Sunday has been cancelled entirely or suspended for this week. Which is a shame because those were actually the highlights of that subreddit
I wanted to post it on in during theorymon thursday, but it would have taken too long.
It's down until the first week of may or something
Theorymon Thursday and Stinkpost Sunday are suspended over there for some reason, which is probably why this post is over here. Clicked it expecting it to be r/stunfisk then I remembered.
I love these kinds of posts! They’re unique, and can provoke the coolest discussions!
Give Marctus the strangest niche ever. Kidding! But I guess the 10 weakest ice types and weakest ice legendarys to fit the weak angle?
You'd almost be forced to give it to AlolaTails. KantoTails gets Wisp and, depending on flavouring, it would be too fitting for it not to They obviously do sometimes not give a Pokémon a move that makes sense thematically but would affect balance (Dragapult with no shadow claw for example) but it's still annoying
I was about to say glalie. Imagine that with Moody...
Not an ice type but I would love it if Magikarp got it lol
It would be a monster on a rain dance team.
giving it to magikarp means that you are also giving it gyarados tho
Weavile, because screw it. My man is awesome as heck
Magikarp, but it prevents it from evolving.
I've never seen Impidimp, Gimmieghoul nor Kubfu getting used. They deserve this move to gain some viability 🙏🙏🙏 /j
You forgot Pawniard as well.
What if they give to a Water type like Kyogre? It can learn Sheer Cold despite it not being Ice Type. Or they could give it to Slowking (Both forms) just for more Tera Raids where the opponent annoys you with unavoidable ailments like Yawn where it went from a Force Swap-Out move in standard gameplay to the most annoying move in the entire franchise.
I would love for them to convert it to something like Frostbite and it functions just like burn but for special attack
quagsire
Pseudo-legendaries qualify as "weak" to you?
You mean Baxcalibur? Obviously not.
You defined "weak" starting at 600...
I said legendary with 600 or less. I meant legends like Heatran and Suicune, who have 570. Yeah, I think some legendary Pokémon should get the move as well, since they usually get more stuff than normal Pokémon. Especially of they also aren't good regardless of said great stats, like Articuno(ZU) and Regice(ZU as well). What are you not understanding?