Speculation: Metagame changes/ New pokemon's roles

[Tbird]

I thought I'd start a thread speculating as to how the competitive battling scene might change, and how the new pokemon might fit into it. Could be interesting.

At the moment there's not a huge deal known, however, in knowing abilities to certain pokemon we can see what types of teams they'll fall into etc. Also as there's more known, more can be speculated .

In the spoiler below I'll update what we know of each pokemon as and when the information comes. Feel free to use it as mini encyclopaedia of new information if you will.

I will be relying mainly on the information given from Serebii. If you think anything else should be added, post with a reliable source.

UPDATING HAS ENDED AS GAME HAVE BEEN RELEASED

A few note worthy sites to gander over:

Credit to OPers

The new Pokémon

Dream World Abilities

New Moves

Level Up Moves

Egg Moves

TM Learnsets

Up To Date Discoveries pertaining to new game mechanics and or/ changes to pre-existing ones

As stated, the idea is to discuss and speculate on the information given. Try to stay away from saying things such as "I think _pokemon_ will learn _move_." But feel free to say things like "If _pokemon_ learned _move_ It could probably Work well as a _role_ because of _reason/Nature/Other known moves_"

I know they seem similar but the latter better provokes discussion, and also provokes, at best, solid educated guesses.

And mods feel free to reformat as you wish.

Edited September 21, 2010 by Tbird
Added sites with all new information

[sb the great]

Yeah, Motor Drive is an awesome ability, but as is, Rotom-A being the premier electric type (which, obviously, is subject to change, but given its Rapid Spin immunity and amazing set of resistances, I'd have a hard time seeing it leave OU) makes it hard to abuse when its hard for Electric types to have a way to deal with it. It is worth noting that Shimama is very small and could therefore evolve and get a good secondary type to give it good secondary STAB and resistances to help it overcome this problem. Electric/Dark would REALLY help it, I think, and it's really the only secondary typing I could see it getting. That being said, if it remains pure electric, while I'll definitely look at it closely, I see it having a difficult time overcoming Electivire's problems without learning something like Ice Beam or having over 100 base speed.

Also, however Shimama turns out, when speculating competitive uses for it, definitely stay away from Choice items. Motor Drive's main strength is that it allows the user to emulate a Choice Scarf boost without the annoying move lock or wasting a turn. This lets it sweep up more offensive teams that rely on speed to stop threats. However, if you use Choice Specs, then even an offensive team can stop you right in your tracks with a pokemon that resists Electric. This is why Life Orb or Expert Belt make much better alternatives. Though, Electivire's main problem is that offensive teams generally Scarf'd pokemon that can still outspeed Electivire after the Motor Drive boost, teams in the middle of the spectrum generally have a wall that can stop Electivire comfortably, and stall teams just decimate Electivire with entry hazards and Electivire finding its Motor Drive boost useless versus them. It also has some trouble getting said boost in the first place...but hey, that's why it's near the bottom of the OU list!

Rankurusu is my favorite new pokemon of the batch, and also my #1 pokemon to watch out for competitively atm. Using my amazing stat calculating skills, I calculated an estimate of its base stats on smogon (http://www.smogon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2823136&postcount=18760). Both the 108 HP/85 SpD and 120 SpA interest me greatly. That is a lot of special survivability, although pure Psychic unfortunately has very few useful special resistances (hopefully they'll have a special fighting pokemon that ISN'T very good physically too!), but it should be fairly adept at taking neutral hits as well, especially when you consider passive damage immunity. Also, while not a staple of the type, pure Psychic means Recover is a decently plausible move for it to learn, which would help it greatly on the defensive front. The other reason I'm stoked for it is the 120 SpA, which helps it on the defensive end by allowing it to threaten more pokemon more easily and subsequently prone to taking less hits. But offensively? Magic Guard gives Life Orb recoil immunity, and it's pretty much guaranteed to learn STAB Psychic. This alone already solves the main problem of Life Orb Clefable has- non-existent STAB from its higher attacking stat. The vast majority of Psychic types also happen to learn Thunderbolt and Shadow Ball (actually I think every Psychic type learns Shadow Ball) which would improve Rankurusu's coverage from its 120 base Spa boosted with Life Orb. It's also pretty much guaranteed to learn Calm Mind, though that might be better with Leftovers than Life Orb. However, weakness to Pursuit is really annoying, and base 25 speed is just awful, being outsped by pretty much every wall. Hopefully Rankurusu can also learn Focus Blast to keep Pursuiters away. Anyways, with movepool knowledge being almost entirely limited atm, that's about all I can say about Rankurusu...

Hihidaruma and to a lesser extent Wooguru also have me hyped up due to Encourage. I don't think that the "secondary effects" it mentions will include recoil damage from Flare Blitz and Brave Bird, much to many people's dismay, but unlike a lot of the people who seem dismissive of the ability if it wouldn't do that, I still see a lot of potential in it. I think Hihidaruma will be a much better user of it than Wooguru of it though, because I most fire moves have some chance of burn attached to it (yes, even Flare Blitz, but I'd like to reiterate that I believe the recoil damage would still be present), and let's be realistic- do you honestly care about losing Fire Blast's 10% burn chance? While a lot of people are assuming something ridiculous like a 50% boost (that's far too large of a boost for giving up something so small...), even something like a 20% boost would still be well worth the trade off of burn chances. On the topic of Hihidaruma, it might also learn ThunderPunch/Ice Punch (if they bring back the tutors) which would also be boosted by Encourage. Wooguru I'm much less excited about because I'm having trouble thinking of Normal/Flying moves with added effects (browsing through serebii's pokedex I see...SecretPower and Sky Attack? lol), but depending on new moves it could make good use of it. Also, it looks epic.

Zoroark I'm also hyped up for due to Illusion. Stat-wise, it's not impressive (I've estimated the base stats to be around 56 HP/94 Atk/48 Def/114 SpA/56 SpD/94 Spd), but it's got a decent stat build to lead off with, and coincidentally, that's also where I think Illusion will be the easiest to abuse. This is because, you are otherwise restricted in what you can proficiently masquerade as due to entry hazards (for instance, a "Flygon" taking Spikes damage might raise a red flag to your opponent), and I believe what's in your second party slot switches around constantly (although I might be wrong and it the party has its default state and recalculates order based solely from that), making it difficult to use Illusion effectively. But yeah, back to leading off. Ignoring Illusion, it could Taunt slower leads (I think Taunt is a dark type staple move), and most likely learn Sucker Punch or maybe Quick Attack, either allowing it to live up to the old "Break the sash and win with priority" anti-lead mantra. Of course, Weavile can do this already, so Illusion is the main strength of Zoroark's leading capabilities. First off, while difficult to predict right now for obvious reason, you'd definitely need your Illusion to be of a pokemon that commonly leads so as not to look suspicious. There are a couple types of pokemon I'd look at to copy (ideally pokemon that fall into more than one of these categories). The type of pokemon I'd look for is something that doesn't learn Taunt but doesn't threaten the slower set-up leads offensively. An example in the current metagame of this would be Mamoswine. This would prompt said slower leads to set up whatever they want thinking there's no harm in doing so, but then you surprise them with Taunt. I'd also look for something that is slow, defensive and sets up entry hazards, like Bronzong. Bronzong is pretty much a Taunt magnet, but if you're using Zoroark in actuality, you can take advantage of this and just attack+priority move kill pokemon like Azelf. The last type of pokemon I'd look for is something that Zoroark can complement type-wise, such as Machamp. While it beats Azelf anyways, some people might just Psychic+switch out versus it (since SR isn't up yet you might be able to set it up yourself late or explode). but if you're using Zoroark, you can make Azelf's Psychic attempt useless as you nerf it while it accomplishes nothing. While the actual leads for B/W will most likely be fairly different, once it settles down there should still be pokemon that fit into these types of molds for fun with Illusion.

Also, while not directly relevant to leading, because there are stat screens of Zorua and Zoroark, as well as a battle between the two of them where Night Burst is used, an estimate that is exponentially prone to error can be made on its power. I calculated this a while back, and got that Night Burst was around 100 BP before STAB. Hopefully it actually stays around that high!

Koromori gets a VERY handy ability in Unaware. There are 2 ways to take advantage of Unaware- one, you can be defensive enough to switch in on stat boosting pokemon with added security of negating their boosts, or two, you can use it to make revenge killing Dragon Dancing pokemon much easier. Unfortunately, Flying is one of the worst defensive typings in the game imo, with very bad Rock (which is especially bad with SR), Ice, and Electric weaknesses, although Fighting resistance and Ground immunity are fairly handy, and Bug to a lesser extent. It's not totally unsalvageable, but Psychic also happens to be the one of the worst defensive typings as well, because it possesses very few resistances (to make matters worse, its most useful resistance, Fighting, is already shared by Flying) and is weak to Dark and more specifically, Pursuit. So yeah, I don't think Koromori is going anywhere defensively. But offensively is where I see potential. If it has over 100 base speed, it would be able to outspeed every Dragon Dancer without the need for a Choice Scarf, which is huge. Psychic and Flying are both decent offensive types, and if the Heat Wave tutor comes back (for whatever reason, it's a staple on Flying-types), then Koromori will definitely have a lot of revenge killing potential. I think a Life Orb set with Roost would be best, and a Choice Band/Specs set could also be usable.

Overconfidence (I think even serebii said on the main page that this was a better translation of the ability, so you might want to update the OP with that) seems really good. However, a lot of its potential hinges on whether or not Meguroko learns Pursuit. If it does, then it will be a fantastic ability, since it can just switch into anything weakened and then hopefully clean house with a free attack boost. If not, then your opponent is free to switch out the weakened pokemon and switch to something that walls Meguroko. Not to say it would be useless without Pursuit, considering your opponent's good Meguroko switch-in could be dead or weakened, as well as what would probably be the most reliable Meguroko counter independently of any new pokemon being Skarmory, which makes Magnezone a great accessory to Meguroko. Also, Meguroko would need to be fast to take advantage of Overconfidence, or else it would just be easily revenge killed, though it could still wreak havoc on more defensive teams. We've also seen a scan of Meguroko's HP, and I calculated it to be around base 38 (though in the Pokemon Sunday footage it had an extra 12 HP...?), which sounds bad, but I think it's a good thing since it means Meguroko is probably more offensively oriented which allows for better synergy with Overconfidence.

Desukan is the last pokemon I want to talk about. I think pretty much everyone agrees that it will be a Ghost type, but the secondary type is debated a lot. Personally, I think it looks like a Rock type, and that's what I'll assume it is for my speculation. From how it looks, Desukan appears to be a defensive pokemon, and while its low HP would seem to contradict this (~base 46), remember what defensive Ghost pokemon we currently have- Rotom-A, Dusknoir, and Spiritomb. The highest base HP of these pokemon is 50. So yeah. Anyways, first good thing about Desukan is Rapid Spin immunity. However, if it's Ghost/Rock, I don't think it'll be as good at blocking Rapid Spin as the other ghosts due to being weak to Starmie's Surf, so Desukan's place on a team would probably be decided by its other merits. First off, no other Ghost would get Sandstorm immunity, which is very handy since the defensive Ghosts don't get good recovery moves. It would also get the special defense boost in Sandstorm, which would be where Desukan would get most of its advantages over its Ghost brethren. This would hopefully allow it to become a spinner that could fulfill some extra tasks, such as countering Infernape. Hopefully Desukan actually has good stats, since I do like it a lot.

in b4 tl;dr

[Avery Goodgame]

All but Rankurusu, Zekrom, and Tsutaja are Digimon.

Get these Digimon out of my Pokemanz

[Feralligates]

All but Rankurusu, Zekrom, and Tsutaja are Digimon.

Get these Digimon out of my Pokemanz

LOL! I have to say, their designs are Digimon-esque.

[Tbird]

in b4 tl;dr

Glad there's a nice big post on this thread . I agree with some things you're saying for sure. However, I am curious as to where you are getting these base stats?

[sb the great]

I calculated estimations of Zoroarks and Rankrusu's base stats from stats screens we've gotten from CoroCoro.

These are the most important ones since we get all their stats, but the base HP of various pokemon can also be calculated from battle screens where the player is using them (there are far too many of these to post, unfortunately). It's not an exact science, but every pokemon we saw in pre-release DP could have its base HP calculated precisely using the same method (assuming it had a 31 HP IV/0 EVs). However, pokemon seem to be changing their HP stats all the time in these BW screenshots (though it could just be them using different pokemon with different IVs). Still, they're fairly accurate estimations.

[Tbird]

Ah I see.

For a second there I thought you had your hands on some super time telling device or some such . Thanks for clearing that up.

Updated first post with the two newly released pokemon. One is rumoured to be a Luvdisc evo. Thoughts on that? It already has demon speed, so what might this bring in store for everyone's favourite water type?

[Feralligates]

Seems plausible; I'd say it's Luvdisc's evo. To tell you the truth, I'm not too crazy about it, as I believe other PKMN are far more deserving of an evo, but oh well, you keep what you get.

The other PKMN revealed is Gigaiasu, by the way (the red and blue rock)

[OriginShadow]

Although I hate Luvdisc, I'd like to see what the evo is (if it truly is a Luvdisc evo). Maybe it'll make Luvdisc good for something other than a Dex entry and heart scales.

Personally, I'd prefer it if a Mightyena evo was released, or Mightyena be given a better movepool.

[Riolu Aura Sphere Now]

Serebii has confirmed that Hihidaruma knows the move Fire Punch and Runkurusu knows the move Skill Swap. Serebii has also changed/edited Luvdisc so call evolution Mamanboo's name to Mamanbou.

[Tbird]

Serebii has confirmed that Hihidaruma knows the move Fire Punch and Runkurusu knows the move Skill Swap. Serebii has also changed/edited Luvdisc so call evolution Mamanboo's name to Mamanbou.

Thanks for letting me know about the edit .

I saw those moves were learnt, however, I was thinking of just putting the new moves up, so people would focus on speculating how even the moves may alter the game. Though, if people think it's a good idea to just add every move that gets released ... then so be it .

And so far I don't know where I stand on the could-be evo. I mean Luvdisc strongly needs an evo, however there are pokemon I would prefer to get an evo. I imagine, with the speed that it already has, and the fact that it's small, that we'll have a speedy special sweeper... but frail as hell, a lot like sharpedo (could be) just faster. As for the in-game design, I think it looks ok., I don't hate it; so that in itself is good I guess .

EDIT: Scrap that, just had another look and I do hate it ... Oh well.

[Riolu Aura Sphere Now]

Mamanbou is certainly Luvdisc Evolution. I would assume that Mamanbou's Speed would decrease and Mamanbou's Defensive increase making Mamanbou a Wall or a Special Wall.

I assume that Mamanbou will have the ability to learn Psychic Moves just by appearents such as Psychic, Skill Swap, Telekinesis, ect. Mamanbou might even learn Trick Room due to the decrease of Mamanbou's Speed.

[Tbird]

I don't see it slowing down at all really. I mean Vibrava looks way faster than flygon but, flygon pips it by 30. And even if it were to get some defensive boosts, it's already only at base 30 for both (I think), so even if it got 50 more HP and 50 more Def, Slowbro/slowking/Milotic would still make better walls - albeit slower.

I actually see it's speed going up to maybe 108 - 110. Because the bigger body arguably allows for more ... thrust while swimming.

[Feralligates]

I agree; I honestly doubt that it will lose speed, if not gain a bit more. If by looking at it is any indication, those wing-like flippers seem like they'll be providing better maneuverability.

I saw those moves were learnt, however, I was thinking of just putting the new moves up, so people would focus on speculating how even the moves may alter the game. Though, if people think it's a good idea to just add every move that gets released ... then so be it .

Hey, this is a speculation thread, anything goes. =)

And so far I don't know where I stand on the could-be evo. I mean Luvdisc strongly needs an evo, however there are pokemon I would prefer to get an evo. I imagine, with the speed that it already has, and the fact that it's small, that we'll have a speedy special sweeper... but frail as hell, a lot like sharpedo (could be) just faster. As for the in-game design, I think it looks ok., I don't hate it; so that in itself is good I guess .

Certainly. I mean, I could sit here and name all the PKMN that deserve an evo, but I'm sure by now we all know who they are. Besides, at the very least most are still usable.

[Riolu Aura Sphere Now]

Serebii has confirmed that Chiramii knows the move You First, both Gochiruzeru & Rankurusu knows the move PsyBeam and Munna knows the move Hypnosis.

Edit: Tbird, you posted Zekrom two times.

[Tbird]

Oops .. I guess that's what I get for trying to be lazy .

Thoughts on bikutini/Vicutini?

I don't see it doing a whole lot the standard Mew of each generation doesn't already do, and probably to a lesser extent too.

[Feralligates]

It's type hasn't been revealed yet, right?

Either way, I'm with you; I don't see what new it will bring to the table, although I'm quite curious to know its ability and type (Electric maybe?).

[Tbird]

I don't know know about electric. It's got the colouring for it. But I'm thinking a couple of things.

It's 'the Phantom Pokemon', it's the mew of the generation, and they seem to be doing a 'new start' sort of thing with it. So, I can only guess that it will have 100/100/100/100/100/100 stats, it will probably be a ghost type (rivalling mew's psychic type + phantom pokemon ... If it's dark I will be pissed ).

What this says to me is that we are going to have one hell of a bulky spin blocker on our hands. Something that's going to replace celebi (same bulk more resistances), and rotom (same type, better bulk).

In thinking a little deeper, I think we are actually going to see a lot of use from this thing. It may even get nasty plot or something and just be a beast.

As for the ability, it won't get pressure, because that's so 2001. The wish maker got serene grace, Manaphy got hyrdation, Shaymin also got serene grace, so I'm thinking it's going to be some kick you in the face ability that'll make it a great wall. I think Pressure would be really good suited ability though.

[Feralligates]

That thing is a "phantom"?

Right.

That's why I love PKMN.

If it's a Ghost, then yeah, it might end up being awesome. But, honestly, no Pressure. It splits families in two, and puts people on streets. We don't want that.

[Tbird]

Serebii has confirmed that the romanisation of Chiramii is Chillarmy as in Chinchilla and the romanisation of Munna is the same.

That sort of thing doesn't need to be posted on this thread really mate. Doesn't change the metagame much - at all in fact , alas I changed all that yesterday .

[Riolu Aura Sphere Now]

Haha, sorry about, I did not notice.

For some strange reason, I can not stop feeling that Victini will be a Bug Type Pokémon. It has the charactristics of a Bug Pokémon such as Big Eyes, Small Body, ect.

[mewandcelebi]

victini=bug and fighting

it may sound weird i have a feeling about victini that its a fighting bug

lolololololololololoololololoolol

[mewandcelebi]

should be fighting and bug the fightin bugger lol

[Tbird]

For some strange reason, I can not stop feeling that Victini will be a Bug Type Pokémon. It has the charactristics of a Bug Pokémon such as Big Eyes, Small Body, ect.

It could work as a bug, however, most the bug types in the game have closely correlating names to the bugs they are derived from - ledyba, kricketune and even this possibly new bug Ononokuso - Omomantis. Plus big eyes and small body also describe ever baby in the world . So I can't see it being a bug. However it would be just gamefreaky enough to make it bug to pwn every mew variant from every other gen . But again it lacks any other bug characteristics.

Plus with it's phantom classification there's no way I can see it being a bug type. The only phantom bug I know of is the phantom crane and it looks nothing like that either .

[Feralligates]

And even then I doubt they'll make a phantom crane a Ghost-type, to be honest. Bug/Dark maybe, but not Ghost.

Either way, I too doubt that pipsqueak will be a Bug-type; I still get this Electric vibe from it... But if it's classified as a phantom, then it'll probably be a Ghost-type, or part as far as we know. Maybe it'll be another Rotom as far as typing goes, or maybe a weird combo...who knows. Tell you the truth, that thing doesn't look that special, it even seems too "normal", as in Rattata- or Sentret-looking (if that even makes sense). So...Normal/Ghost...? I dunno. I often don't bother speculating and what have you, but this critter I have to admit has piqued my interest...what with it being #000 and all.

By the way, a bit off topic, but I found this fan-made drawing of Gigaiasu, which thus far is the closest thing we've got to official art:

By Pokemon-Diamond from deviantART.