beej
everybody walk the dinosaur
This will be the final concept poll. Your choices are Deck Knight's Dragons [No] Be Here and reachzero's Utility Counter. Vote for whichever you think will be the best concept to explore.
Because this is not a bold poll, posts such as "I voted for x" will not be allowed. This is a discussion thread, and if you post, please add substance to it. Justifying your vote is fine if you can back it up in more than a sentence or two.
EDIT: I have changed the time that the poll ends, as I won't be in the house at 10. It will now be ending at 8:30.
Because this is not a bold poll, posts such as "I voted for x" will not be allowed. This is a discussion thread, and if you post, please add substance to it. Justifying your vote is fine if you can back it up in more than a sentence or two.
Deck Knight said:Concept: Dragons [No] Be Here
General Description: A Pokemon which breaks new ground in reducing the potency or usefulness of Dragon-type moves.
Justification: Dragon Steel Dragon Steel blah blah blah. One of the biggest problems with Dragons is that the only current way to defang them in the slightest is to resist Dragon STAB (e.g. be Steel type). This has generally been ineffective, no matter how many Scizor, Metagross, Bronzong, Jirachi, Skarmory, Forretress, and Heatran infest your metagame, they are eventually worn down by the sheer power of Dragon attacks combined with most Dragon's ability to slaughter them with a backup Fire, Fighting, or Ground move.
Questions To Be Answered:
- Is it even possible to stop Dragons, or are their stats/coverage too overwhelming?
- If there were a Pokemon that could actually punish, field lock, or otherwise negate Dragon Moves rather than just resist them, would their usage decline?
- If Dragon attacks are more easily addressed, will the metagame then revolve entirely on Steel types because of resistances, ushering a more defensive era? Or will Steel's weaknesses to Fire, Fighting, and Ground become a death knell simply because many effective defensive pokemon can utilize these attacks with STAB?
Explanation: While it wouldn't necessarily require an ability, it's clear that typing alone has been unable to stop this centralization. This leaves the options of ability, moves, and stats. There's no real barometer for stats because Ubers has access to even more powerful Dragons than OU. However, I think a defensive pokemon with an ability that punishes the use of Dragon moves would make them far less flippantly used. If you had a pokemon that posed enough of a threat that Mence and Latias would rather try spamming UNSTAB moves that hit this theoretical Pokemon effectively instead of Draco Meteor, that alone might prove an interesting point of study.
This poll will close on March 7th, 8:30 AM (EST).reachzero said:Name: Utility Counter
General Description: This Pokemon is capable of being customized to counter virtually any specific Pokemon, but is incapable of countering a large number of Pokemon at the same time.
Justification: It is not unusual for people to say that "versatility is broken" from an offensive standpoint; less attention is given to versatile defensive Pokemon such as Zapdos or Hariyama. This Pokemon would allow us to study the impact of having a Pokemon that is capable of dealing with such varied threats as Salamence, Lucario, and Gengar....but not all at once.
Questions To Be Answered:
--How useful is defensive versatility in a metagame with so many different threats to account for?
--Given the existence of a Pokemon that can hard counter only specific major threats, which threats will be prepared for the most?
--How would team building change if certain difficult-to-prepare-for threats became easier to prepare for?
--Which is more useful, a Pokemon that can somewhat handle a wide range of threats, or a Pokemon that can handle a few threats extremely well?
Explanation: I envision this concept as looking like a more extreme version of Porygon2 or Hariyama; it can be custom designed to handle virtually any threat given the correct selection of EVs, moves, etc. However, in choosing to deal with certain threats almost flawlessly, it leaves itself open to other threats. Multitype would obviously make this concept's job much easier, though I doubt it is absolutely necessary to making it work.
EDIT: I have changed the time that the poll ends, as I won't be in the house at 10. It will now be ending at 8:30.