Unpopular opinions

True, I just feel like the trouble is worth it to have a team that you feel like you could genuinely be friends with. I would probably burn my hand if I tried to pet a cyndaquil, and totodile looks like it would bite my hand off. I'm a little weird I guess :/
Cyndaquill is only on fire in battle otherwise its just squishy and harmless, and Totodile won't bite at you even if you upset him
just check them in pokemon amie


oh and speaking of unpopular opinions I like amie/refresh
 
the one time chikorita Wins

(ok it also Wins in mystery dungeon where reflect and synthesis Actually Have Use and early razor leaf is the best thing ever)
Wow
Cyndaquill is only on fire in battle otherwise its just squishy and harmless, and Totodile won't bite at you even if you upset him
just check them in pokemon amie


oh and speaking of unpopular opinions I like amie/refresh
Ah, i suppose i was just being like misty's fear of bug pokemon... nonetheless, I'm still a chikorita person. (It's still the cutest one :P)

Edit: I love pokemon amie/refresh too. I could play the little yarn game in amie for hours.
 
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The point is the challenge, it's kinda like doing a pistol only run in an fps, you get to explore more options like level layout due to the time you are exposed to the environment.
Right, but the point is about whether or not Chikorita is good in-game. Which it is not. If you wanna do a challenge run or just like Chikorita (for which I simply can't blame you, thing's adorable), sure. But Chikorita being good in-game is not an opinion; it's simply a falsehood.
 
Right, but the point is about whether or not Chikorita is good in-game. Which it is not. If you wanna do a challenge run or just like Chikorita (for which I simply can't blame you, thing's adorable), sure. But Chikorita being good in-game is not an opinion; it's simply a falsehood.
This. Although, the original topic actually wasn't about Chikorita being good- simply that I prefer using it over the others. (Like you said, its adorable). The discussion just kinda morphed :/
 
The only reason you'd ever need a Grass-type in these games is if you started with Cyndaquil and need a way to deal with the rival's Totodile, which completely takes Chikorita out of the equation anyway.
Grass-type STAB is complete trash in Johto. There is really no point in 'replacing' something that is pretty much useless in the first place. Chikorita has one great and notable matchup against Chuck's Poliwrath.
It might offer bulk, but ingame a powerful offense is the best defense and just killing things saves you from many trips to the Pokémon Center.
Fair enough, but you are making Chikorita look significantly worse than it actually is.

Gym 1 is Flying. RIP.
Gym 2 is Bug. RIP.
How? Yes, those types resist Grass, but what are those Gyms going against Chikorita/Beyleaf? In GSC, Chikorita learns Reflect at lv12 and only Pidgeotto has a super effective move against the starter while in HGSS, it might not get that move early on, Pidgeotto's Gust will hit for less damage because of the poor special attack stat.
Against Bugsy, you have only to fear Scypher who has a 10 base power STAB move in gen 2 and while it has U-Turn in HGSS, you can set up Reflect and heal up with Synthesis after taking one U-Turn. What are Metapod and Kokuna going to do to it? Kokuna might win the Poison Stall war with Harden in GSC but you can still win with double resisted Razor Leaf.

Gym 3 is Miltank. No offensive presence will allow Miltank to use Rollout and Milk Drink forever. If your Chikorita is male, which it most likely is, you'll also have to deal with Attract (though that goes for all the starters). RIP.
(Cyndaquil might hate Rollout more but Smokescreen provides great utility here.)


In GSC, you have Reflect and Poison Powder before Whitney. Yes, Miltank is faster but of all starters, Chikorita has the best match up and can outlast the cow unless you are unable to attack at all.
In HGSS, Miltank might be physically bulkier to Razor Leaf but the addition of an early Synthetis allows you to still beat it one on one unless your opponent haxes you to death.

Gym 4 is Ghost/Poison. RIP².
Correct.


Gym '5' is Fighting. You beat Poliwrath unless it gets some serious Dynamic Punch and Hypnosis hax. Good.
Gym '6' is Steel. Magnemite walls you. Steelix is neutral. Still the worst out of the three possible starters at this point. Especially if you consider Dig Croconaw/Feraligatr.
Gym '7' is Ice. You hit them for super effective damage with Razor Leaf because of secondary typings, but they hit you for super effective with Ice-type moves. Mediocre.
You have a better match up against Magnemite with Chikorita than with Charmander against Brock. Magnemite can cripple you with T-Wave but still takes decent damage from your Razor Leaf on in HGSS's case, Magical Leaf. You can also use the Magnemites to set up Reflect to win against Steelix.
Against the ice types, you have the best chances to win with Chikorita ironicly because the other starters can't hit anything but Piloswine for super effective damage. Besides, Meganium will likely be faster than any of those Pokemon at that point.

Gym 8 is Dragon. Only one of the Dragonair hits you for super effective damage with Ice Beam, but Meganium is hardly an efficient way to tackle this Gym. It's not the worst though since Typhlosion hates this place more.
Here you have the best advantage with Meganium in GCS because of Maganium's raw bulk. Gator will need Ice Punch to hit anything Super Effectively and fears Thunderbolt from the Second Dragonair. In HGSS, Gator has the best match up because of level up ice fang and the lack of Super Effective moves against it. Meganium fears Fire Blast but otherwise it can outstall the rest of the Dragons.

All the Johto Team Rocket members either wall Chikorita or outright eat it alive.
They have Pokémon like Koffing, Weezing, Ekans, Arbok, Grimer, Muk, Magnemite (Scientists), Venonat, Zubat, Golbat, Gloom, Vileplume, Murkrow, Houndour, Houndoom, ...

???, the rival, has Cyndaquil, Zubat and Gastly in the early parts of the game and adds Magneton, Sneasel and Alakazam in the later parts of the game.
Have fun dealing with that team if you're relying on Razor Leaf + Normal-type attack coverage for damage with low offensive presence to begin with.
That is correct.

Meganium's matchups against the Gen II E4 are quite terrible too.
Will has Xatu, Exeggutor, Jynx and another Xatu. Slowbro has Amnesia and doesn't care about Body Slam, but you should be able to beat that one easily at least.
Koga eats Meganium completely. Even the crappy AI would get enough free turns against Meganium to set up forever and ever...
Non of Will's Pokemon except of Jynx will hit you for Super Effective Damage in GSC, while in HGSS, you can set tank their moves and set up an Reflect on their face. In HGSS, you can also hit Slowbro for good damage with Razor Leaf regardless of Amnesia boost.

Bruno is neutral. Fire Punch/Ice Punch Hitmonchan is laughable at best. He does only have one Onix in GSC though. Meganium shouldn't have too much trouble here, but there are many better ways to beat Bruno.
Karen will Mean Look Sand-Attack Confuse Ray a Meganium with Umbreon. If you get past that, have fun dealing with Vileplume, Gengar, Murkrow and Houndoom.
Lance. LOL. You kinda wall the Gyarados unless it gets low enough for a threatening Flail. Three Dragonite with elemental moves, Charizard, Wing Attack Aerodactyl and a bunch of Hyper Beams will have a great time against Meganium.
Umbreon will cause trouble to any of the three starters. Meganium can still cripple it with Bodyslam or Poison Powder. Besides in HGSS, non of the other Pokemon besides Houndoom will cause trouble against Meganium offensively. The rest will be haxed by Bodyslam bar Gengar (unless you are using Earthquake).
In HGSS, you have to look out for Mukurow in addition because of Drillpeck, but with Reflect it would need to rely on a crit to do significant damage.
Against Lance, you sadly need to rely on your other team mates. Depeding on what you are running on your Meganium, you can somewhat deal with Lance. Obviously if you have STAB, Poison Powder, Bodyslam, Reflect, you cant stall out the Dragonites. Meganium still has the option of Lightscreen per level up. However, non of Lance's Pokemon are immun to Paralysis from Bodyslam or Poison Powder.
 
I just want to say that Chikorita becomes infinitely better if you take the time to breed one with leech seed. It's not very hard to do because exeggcute with leech seed can be caught right next to the day care, so resetting for a female chikorita is the only thing that might take some time. Babying the chikorita shouldn't be very hard. You can also use the original bayleef as an HM slave, because bayleef learns like four HM's.

After you evolve your leech seed chikorita, it can go face to face with miltank, something that only like three pokemon can comfortably do at that point of the game. First you leech seed, then you reflect, and then you fish for crits with razor leaf. If you have anything remotely tanky at that point of the game, like flaaffy or quagsire, you can comfortably switch them in due to bayleefs support. It might take a little whole to beat Withney, but it's not exactly hard. Bayleef is easily the best starter for this gym.

The matchup against morty is still not very good. You can still set up leech seed and screens to make the fight easier for your other team members.

Bayleef completely breaks Chuck already, but beating him becomes even easier with leech seed.

Jasmine can't do shit to you. It might take a while, but bayleef can essentially stall out the entire gym if you are desperate. You really should teach dig to something though for the magnemites.

The matchup against Price is pretty interesting. Light screen cancels out its aurora beam/blizzard weakness, so meganium can just start killing things with petal dance or magical leaf. Leech seed on Dewgong or Piloswine cancels out hail damage too, if you can find an opportunity to set it up. Meganium actually does really well at this gym despite its typing.

Clair becomes easy if you have something to take care of the fire blast dragonair. leech seed + light screen should keep meganium healthy throughout the entire fight.

Leech seed also significantly increases Meganium's matchups against some annoyingly bulky elite four pokemon, like Machamp, Umbreon and Dragonite. Meganium also does really well in the second half of the game, unlike typhlosion. It shits on Brock, Misty and Lt. Surge, and he only has two or three bad matchups against the other gyms.

Even if Meganium has a shitty matchup against a certain pokemon, it can always set up a screen or a leech seed to make it easier to beat said pokemon for your other pokemon. Meganium's support is never wasted any a team. This is something that the other starters can't do, and it proves especially valuable if you do a run on set.

Besides, it's not like the other two starters are much better, if at all. I would say that cyndaquil is easily the worst, because his movepool is literally non-existent. Its coverage outside of fire type moves ends at focus blast and solar beam, two terrible in-game moves. Totodile is solid overall, and he only has one bad matchup against Chuck, but Feraligatr is no better than pokemon like Gyarados and Azumarill physically, or Starmie or Lapras specially. There are so many other good water types in the game, and the only other grass type that is especially good other than Meganium is tangrowth (and possibly Jumpluff but probably not), making Meganium much more valuable compared to Feraligatr.
 
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Fair enough, but you are making Chikorita look significantly worse than it actually is.
I'll answer you, but one disclaimer first, I was talking about GSC in my post. The games that introduced Chikorita as a starter. Things might be better or worse for Chikorita in HGSS but I don't know. I'm not nearly as familiar with the remakes.

How? Yes, those types resist Grass, but what are those Gyms going against Chikorita/Beyleaf? In GSC, Chikorita learns Reflect at lv12 and only Pidgeotto has a super effective move against the starter while in HGSS, it might not get that move early on, Pidgeotto's Gust will hit for less damage because of the poor special attack stat
Gust is physical in GSC. Pidgeotto outspeeds. Falkner's gimmick is lowering accuracy. Pidgeotto will be outspeeding and targetting Chikorita with super effective STAB Gust while you're praying that your Tackle doesn't miss.
Even if you didn't get Mud-Slap'd, Tackle can still miss (95% accuracy of trolling). Cyndaquil and Totodile at least are trying to land neutral STAB moves with base 100% accuracy. Chikorita has the weakest attack stat + the weakest and most unreliable move in this scenario.
It's also not true that Pidgeotto is the only Pokémon with a Flying-type move. One of the trainers on the way to Falkner has a Peck Spearow. Will it beat your Chikorita if you don't play like an idiot? Probably not. Will it inflict more damage than you would have liked and force you to backtrack to the Pokémon Center to heal your Chikorita? Maybe, but definitely more likely for a Chikorita run than a Cyndaquil or Totodile run. This might not be a big deal to most people, it wouldn't be to me, I don't care about speed running, BUT it is also not efficient since you either waste extra time or extra money/items/resources on healing because the other two starters would have comparably taken less damage.

Against Bugsy, you have only to fear Scypher who has a 10 base power STAB move in gen 2 and while it has U-Turn in HGSS, you can set up Reflect and heal up with Synthesis after taking one U-Turn. What are Metapod and Kokuna going to do to it? Kokuna might win the Poison Stall war with Harden in GSC but you can still win with double resisted Razor Leaf.
The first Fury Cutter is the weak one. The second Fury Cutter will damage you heavily. By the third Fury Cutter, your poor Chikorita will be dead. Reflect or not. Scyther has the stats of a fully-evolved Pokémon while you're trying to land Poison Powder and Tackle for mediocre damage at best.
Metapod and Kakuna are completely pointless, but even here Chikorita is comparably the worst choice. Cyndaquil just fries them in two turns. Next.
Totodile at least has Water Gun to not get stalled by fucking Harden.
Chikorita needs to break a defense that increases with every turn, wasting a bunch of time. Will Chikorita lose to Metapod or Kakuna? Of course not. Will it waste a bunch of time and take ten times as long as Cyndaquil? You can answer that question yourself.
The rest of the Gym before Bugsy isn't much better.
Cyndaquil runs through it without taking hostages.
Totodile at least has a neutral STAB to hit everything that isn't Paras for damage.
Chikorita is still stuck relying on Tackle two Gyms in.

In GSC, you have Reflect and Poison Powder before Whitney. Yes, Miltank is faster but of all starters, Chikorita has the best match up and can outlast the cow unless you are unable to attack at all.
In HGSS, Miltank might be physically bulkier to Razor Leaf but the addition of an early Synthetis allows you to still beat it one on one unless your opponent haxes you to death.
There is really nothing threatening in Goldenrod Gym besides Whitney.
There is also no way to reliably predict the outcome of that battle, no matter which starter you choose to use. The whole Whitney battle is one big fucked up RNG extravaganza.
Between
- Metronome Clefairy
- Attract Miltank
- Stomp flinches
- Smokescreen Quilava
- 75% Accuracy Poison Powder
- Headbutt flinches (Quilava can outspeed Miltank and fish)
- potential Ember burns (only 10% but battles against Miltank tend to be very long)
- Rollout damage rolls which can vary severely
- ...
you will have fun.

I'm not trying to say that Chikorita is the only one that has a hard time against Whitney, because they all three suffer hard here.
None of them are able to end the battle fast and clean. All three starters need items to actually stay alive and win 1on1.
BUT Quilava, while being weak to Rollout, is the only one that can turn the odds for the long game in its favor thx to Smokescreen*. It is also the fastest of the three starters and is the only one that has a chance to outspeed Miltank and fish for potential flinches with Headbutt. It can even fish for burns with Charcoal Ember once Miltank's accuracy is crippled.
Reflect runs out. Poison Powder damage doesn't grow over time, so can be healed by Milk Drink. There is no way for Miltank to heal a reduced accuracy and the lower accuracy won't end after 5 turns.

Croconaw is probably the weakest choice here, since Bayleef makes up for the lower physical bulk with Reflect (yes Croconaw has higher physical bulk than Bayleef) and actually has Miracle Seed Razor Leaf compared to Water Gun, Ice Punch and Headbutt.

None of the starters has the real obvious advantage here. Whitney is hard for every starter. The difference is in the bigger picture.
While they all have a hard time against Whitney and will lose if the RNG decides to make you lose, Cyndaquil and Totodile actually provide outstanding value in other parts of the game. Chikorita is not great against Whitney... or much else these games have to offer.

*I know that all three starters learn Mud-Slap by TM at that point in the game to get the same utility as Smokescreen Quilava, but I did not consider it for one simple reason. It is a unique TM.
Headbutt can be bought indefinitely. Mud-Slap is gone for good once you use it.

You have a better match up against Magnemite with Chikorita than with Charmander against Brock. Magnemite can cripple you with T-Wave but still takes decent damage from your Razor Leaf on in HGSS's case, Magical Leaf. You can also use the Magnemites to set up Reflect to win against Steelix.
What does Charmander have to do with anything? Or Brock for that matter?

Bayleef/Meganium can't poison the Magnemite. It is stuck using Razor Leaf, Headbutt/Body Slam or Rock Smash while wasting time against Thunder Wave + Supersonic parafusion.
Once it gets past that, it most likely is paralyzed and maybe confused.
Steelix comes in and outspeeds now. If you're a Bayleef user, pray that you don't get Screech into Iron Tail hit or it's over.

Quilava can avoid the whole parafusion bullshit because it just kills the Magnemite with STAB Charcoal Flame Wheel. It is also not too afraid of non-STAB Rock Throw or uneffective Iron Tail.

Feraligatr has most likely fully evolved by now and is spamming unresisted Mystic Water STAB 95 base power Surf against unevolved Magnemite and Steelix.

Against the ice types, you have the best chances to win with Chikorita ironicly because the other starters can't hit anything but Piloswine for super effective damage. Besides, Meganium will likely be faster than any of those Pokemon at that point.
That's just wrong.
All the starters should have fully-evolved by now with the whole Team Rocket arc bs.

Typhlosion runs into the Gym with an Ice-type resistance, STAB Charcoal Flame Wheel + Thunder Punch coverage and the highest Special Attack and Speed stats of all three starters.

Feraligatr runs into the Gym with an Ice-type resistance, STAB Surf for the Ground-types + Slash for the Jynx, Seel, Dewgong, Shellder and Cloyster coming from the highest Attack stat of all three starters.

Meganium runs into the Gym with an Ice-type weakness, STAB Miracle Seed Razor Leaf (low base power of 55 and troll accuracy of 95%) + Body Slam coverage coming from the weakest offensive stats of all three starters.
If it does not get crits left and right, Meganium is in a world of pain now. It is the only one that surely gets targetted by Ice-type moves like Jynx' Ice Punch and all the Powder Snow and therefore runs the highest risk of getting frozen.
It is the only one of the three that can miss a move and also the only one of the three that needs every move to land. Flame Wheel, Thunder Punch, Surf and Slash won't miss. Razor Leaf won't miss... until it does.
You most likely won't need to heal Typhlosion or Feraligatr while tackling this Gym. You will most likely need to heal Meganium while doing the same. Again, wasted time, wasted resources, efficiency.

Here you have the best advantage with Meganium in GCS because of Maganium's raw bulk. Gator will need Ice Punch to hit anything Super Effectively and fears Thunderbolt from the Second Dragonair. In HGSS, Gator has the best match up because of level up ice fang and the lack of Super Effective moves against it. Meganium fears Fire Blast but otherwise it can outstall the rest of the Dragons.
Feraligatr resists the Seadra + Kingdra while hitting the rest with a super effective move. It is literally the only good starter for this Gym. (Ice Punch can be bought and doesn't cost much. Blizzard can be bought but costs more.)
Typhlosion is just wrong for the job and easily the worst.
Meganium will do better than Typhlosion, no contest. It will probably win in the end, but by the time it does, Feraligatr is already half way to the league.
If you want to say that Meganium isn't the worst here, I wholeheartedly agree.
If you want to say that the value Meganium provides in this Gym makes up for all the other bullshit that a Meganium user had to deal with on his way to Clair, I wholeheartedly disagree.
There is nothing efficient or great about the value that Meganium provides in Blackthorn Gym besides maybe killing a few Horsea and Seadra and even Typhlosion can do that with Thunder Punch.

Non of Will's Pokemon except of Jynx will hit you for Super Effective Damage in GSC, while in HGSS, you can set tank their moves and set up an Reflect on their face. In HGSS, you can also hit Slowbro for good damage with Razor Leaf regardless of Amnesia boost
Yeah, but you won't hit them for super effective damage either. While they're spamming neutral STAB Psychic, you're trying to not waste too many Body Slam PP because you actually need them for the rest of the league. Razor Leaf won't take you far at all in this place.
Typhlosion and Feraligatr more or less run through Will.
Meganium always needs a turn more, another Ether, another Potion, more PP, more time while still being stuck with 55 base power 95% accuracy Razor Leaf at the league, which is just sad.
Exeggutor can also Reflect to waste even more of your Body Slam PP.
You also forgot to mention that while Meganium only gets hit for super effective damage by Jynx' Ice Punch, Typhlosion and Feraligatr don't get hit for super effective damage at all against Will (in GSC). Slowbro has no Water-type move. Exeggutor has no Grass-type attack.

Umbreon will cause trouble to any of the three starters. Meganium can still cripple it with Bodyslam or Poison Powder. Besides in HGSS, non of the other Pokemon besides Houndoom will cause trouble against Meganium offensively. The rest will be haxed by Bodyslam bar Gengar (unless you are using Earthquake).
In HGSS, you have to look out for Mukurow in addition because of Drillpeck, but with Reflect it would need to rely on a crit to do significant damage.
Meganium simply needs more attacks to get past Umbreon than Typhlosion and Feraligatr, which means more chances to hit yourself in confusion... more turns when you take a Sand-Attack to the face...
You're right that all the starters can get stalled for a few turns by Umbreon, but Meganium is also stuck with the weakest move and the lowest offensive stats while trying to land an attack through confusion and Sand-Attack.
Vileplume walls you, can paralyze you with Stun Spore, stay alive and waste even more time with Moonlight and has Acid to actually hit you for damage (in GSC).
Murkrow at least forces you to waste another Body Slam, because your STAB is still useless.
Gengar just stands there licking you while Curse slowly kills you.
Houndoom used Flamethrower it is super effective!

Earthquake is like the most valuable TM in the game. Wasting it on Meganium... yeah...

Against Lance, you sadly need to rely on your other team mates. Depeding on what you are running on your Meganium, you can somewhat deal with Lance. Obviously if you have STAB, Poison Powder, Bodyslam, Reflect, you cant stall out the Dragonites. Meganium still has the option of Lightscreen per level up. However, non of Lance's Pokemon are immun to Paralysis from Bodyslam or Poison Powder.
Typhlosion at least can Thunder Punch Gyarados and take on Charizard.
Feraligatr roflstomps Lance.
Meganium has reached the climax of the journey and is still stuck using Poison Powder and STAB Razor Leaf. There is also no chance in hell, that you still have Body Slam PP left after the last four battles unless you stockpiled Ether and Elixir like crazy and even if you did...
Meganium once again needs more time and more resources for less value.


EDIT: I agree with the following post and I have said anything that I had to say anyway.
 
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Fair enough, but you are making Chikorita look significantly worse than it actually is.



How? Yes, those types resist Grass, but what are those Gyms going against Chikorita/Beyleaf? In GSC, Chikorita learns Reflect at lv12 and only Pidgeotto has a super effective move against the starter while in HGSS, it might not get that move early on, Pidgeotto's Gust will hit for less damage because of the poor special attack stat.
Against Bugsy, you have only to fear Scypher who has a 10 base power STAB move in gen 2 and while it has U-Turn in HGSS, you can set up Reflect and heal up with Synthesis after taking one U-Turn. What are Metapod and Kokuna going to do to it? Kokuna might win the Poison Stall war with Harden in GSC but you can still win with double resisted Razor Leaf.



In GSC, you have Reflect and Poison Powder before Whitney. Yes, Miltank is faster but of all starters, Chikorita has the best match up and can outlast the cow unless you are unable to attack at all.
In HGSS, Miltank might be physically bulkier to Razor Leaf but the addition of an early Synthetis allows you to still beat it one on one unless your opponent haxes you to death.



Correct.




You have a better match up against Magnemite with Chikorita than with Charmander against Brock. Magnemite can cripple you with T-Wave but still takes decent damage from your Razor Leaf on in HGSS's case, Magical Leaf. You can also use the Magnemites to set up Reflect to win against Steelix.
Against the ice types, you have the best chances to win with Chikorita ironicly because the other starters can't hit anything but Piloswine for super effective damage. Besides, Meganium will likely be faster than any of those Pokemon at that point.



Here you have the best advantage with Meganium in GCS because of Maganium's raw bulk. Gator will need Ice Punch to hit anything Super Effectively and fears Thunderbolt from the Second Dragonair. In HGSS, Gator has the best match up because of level up ice fang and the lack of Super Effective moves against it. Meganium fears Fire Blast but otherwise it can outstall the rest of the Dragons.



That is correct.



Non of Will's Pokemon except of Jynx will hit you for Super Effective Damage in GSC, while in HGSS, you can set tank their moves and set up an Reflect on their face. In HGSS, you can also hit Slowbro for good damage with Razor Leaf regardless of Amnesia boost.



Umbreon will cause trouble to any of the three starters. Meganium can still cripple it with Bodyslam or Poison Powder. Besides in HGSS, non of the other Pokemon besides Houndoom will cause trouble against Meganium offensively. The rest will be haxed by Bodyslam bar Gengar (unless you are using Earthquake).
In HGSS, you have to look out for Mukurow in addition because of Drillpeck, but with Reflect it would need to rely on a crit to do significant damage.
Against Lance, you sadly need to rely on your other team mates. Depeding on what you are running on your Meganium, you can somewhat deal with Lance. Obviously if you have STAB, Poison Powder, Bodyslam, Reflect, you cant stall out the Dragonites. Meganium still has the option of Lightscreen per level up. However, non of Lance's Pokemon are immun to Paralysis from Bodyslam or Poison Powder.
I just want to say that Chikorita becomes infinitely better if you take the time to breed one with leech seed. It's not very hard to do because exeggcute with leech seed can be caught right next to the day care, so resetting for a female chikorita is the only thing that might take some time. Babying the chikorita shouldn't be very hard. You can also use the original bayleef as an HM slave, because bayleef learns like four HM's.

After you evolve your leech seed chikorita, it can go face to face with miltank, something that only like three pokemon can comfortably do at that point of the game. First you leech seed, then you reflect, and then you fish for crits with razor leaf. If you have anything remotely tanky at that point of the game, like flaaffy or quagsire, you can comfortably switch them in due to bayleefs support. It might take a little whole to beat Withney, but it's not exactly hard. Bayleef is easily the best starter for this gym.

The matchup against morty is still not very good. You can still set up leech seed and screens to make the fight easier for your other team members.

Bayleef completely breaks Chuck already, but beating him becomes even easier with leech seed.

Jasmine can't do shit to you. It might take a while, but bayleef can essentially stall out the entire gym if you are desperate. You really should teach dig to something though for the magnemites.

The matchup against Price is pretty interesting. Light screen cancels out its aurora beam/blizzard weakness, so meganium can just start killing things with petal dance or magical leaf. Leech seed on Dewgong or Piloswine cancels out hail damage too, if you can find an opportunity to set it up. Meganium actually does really well at this gym despite its typing.

Clair becomes easy if you have something to take care of the fire blast dragonair. leech seed + light screen should keep meganium healthy throughout the entire fight.

Leech seed also significantly increases Meganium's matchups against some annoyingly bulky elite four pokemon, like Machamp, Umbreon and Dragonite. Meganium also does really well in the second half of the game, unlike typhlosion. It shits on Brock, Misty and Lt. Surge, and he only has two or three bad matchups against the other gyms.

Even if Meganium has a shitty matchup against a certain pokemon, it can always set up a screen or a leech seed to make it easier to beat said pokemon for your other pokemon. Meganium's support is never wasted any a team. This is something that the other starters can't do, and it proves especially valuable if you do a run on set.

Besides, it's not like the other two starters are much better, if at all. I would say that cyndaquil is easily the worst, because his movepool is literally non-existent. Its coverage outside of fire type moves ends at focus blast and solar beam, two terrible in-game moves. Totodile is solid overall, and he only has one bad matchup against Chuck, but Feraligatr is no better than pokemon like Gyarados and Azumarill physically, or Starmie or Lapras specially. There are so many other good water types in the game, and the only other grass type that is especially good other than Meganium is tangrowth (and possibly Jumpluff but probably not), making Meganium much more valuable compared to Feraligatr.
I'll answer you, but one disclaimer first, I was talking about GSC in my post. The games that introduced Chikorita as a starter. Things might be better or worse for Chikorita in HGSS but I don't know. I'm not nearly as familiar with the remakes.


Gust is physical in GSC. Pidgeotto outspeeds. Falkner's gimmick is lowering accuracy. Pidgeotto will be outspeeding and targetting Chikorita with super effective STAB Gust while you're praying that your Tackle doesn't miss.
Even if you didn't get Mud-Slap'd, Tackle can still miss (95% accuracy of trolling). Cyndaquil and Totodile at least are trying to land neutral STAB moves with base 100% accuracy. Chikorita has the weakest attack stat + the weakest and most unreliable move in this scenario.
It's also not true that Pidgeotto is the only Pokémon with a Flying-type move. One of the trainers on the way to Falkner has a Peck Spearow. Will it beat your Chikorita if you don't play like an idiot? Probably not. Will it inflict more damage than you would have liked and force you to backtrack to the Pokémon Center to heal your Chikorita? Maybe, but definitely more likely for a Chikorita run than a Cyndaquil or Totodile run. This might not be a big deal to most people, it wouldn't be to me, I don't care about speed running, BUT it is also not efficient since you either waste extra time or extra money/items/resources on healing because the other two starters would have comparably taken less damage.


The first Fury Cutter is the weak one. The second Fury Cutter will damage you heavily. By the third Fury Cutter, your poor Chikorita will be dead. Reflect or not. Scyther has the stats of a fully-evolved Pokémon while you're trying to land Poison Powder and Tackle for mediocre damage at best.
Metapod and Kakuna are completely pointless, but even here Chikorita is comparably the worst choice. Cyndaquil just fries them in two turns. Next.
Totodile at least has Water Gun to not get stalled by fucking Harden.
Chikorita needs to break a defense that increases with every turn, wasting a bunch of time. Will Chikorita lose to Metapod or Kakuna? Of course not. Will it waste a bunch of time and take ten times as long as Cyndaquil? You can answer that question yourself.
The rest of the Gym before Bugsy isn't much better.
Cyndaquil runs through it without taking hostages.
Totodile at least has a neutral STAB to hit everything that isn't Paras for damage.
Chikorita is still stuck relying on Tackle two Gyms in.


There is really nothing threatening in Goldenrod Gym besides Whitney.
There is also no way to reliably predict the outcome of that battle, no matter which starter you choose to use. The whole Whitney battle is one big fucked up RNG extravaganza.
Between
- Metronome Clefairy
- Attract Miltank
- Stomp flinches
- Smokescreen Quilava
- 75% Accuracy Poison Powder
- Headbutt flinches (Quilava can outspeed Miltank and fish)
- potential Ember burns (only 10% but battles against Miltank tend to be very long)
- Rollout damage rolls which can vary severely
- ...
you will have fun.

I'm not trying to say that Chikorita is the only one that has a hard time against Whitney, because they all three suffer hard here.
None of them are able to end the battle fast and clean. All three starters need items to actually stay alive and win 1on1.
BUT Quilava, while being weak to Rollout, is the only one that can turn the odds for the long game in its favor thx to Smokescreen. It is also the fastest of the three starters and is the only one that has a chance to outspeed Miltank and fish for potential flinches with Headbutt*. It can even fish for burns with Charcoal Ember once Miltank's accuracy is crippled.
Reflect runs out. Poison Powder damage doesn't grow over time, so can be healed by Milk Drink. There is no way for Miltank to heal a reduced accuracy and the lower accuracy won't end after 5 turns.

Croconaw is probably the weakest choice here, since Bayleef makes up for the lower physical bulk with Reflect (yes Croconaw has higher physical bulk than Bayleef) and actually has Miracle Seed Razor Leaf compared to Water Gun, Ice Punch and Headbutt.

None of the starters has the real obvious advantage here. Whitney is hard for every starter. The difference is in the bigger picture.
While they all have a hard time against Whitney and will lose if the RNG decides to make you lose, Cyndaquil and Totodile actually provide outstanding value in other parts of the game. Chikorita is not great against Whitney... or much else these games have to offer.

*I know that all three starters learn Mud-Slap by TM at that point in the game to get the same utility as Smokescreen Quilava, but I did not consider it for one simple reason. It is a unique TM.
Headbutt can be bought indefinitely. Mud-Slap is gone for good once you use it.


What does Charmander have to do with anything? Or Brock for that matter?

Bayleef/Meganium can't poison the Magnemite. It is stuck using Razor Leaf, Headbutt/Body Slam or Rock Smash while wasting time against Thunder Wave + Supersonic parafusion.
Once it gets past that, it most likely is paralyzed and maybe confused.
Steelix comes in and outspeeds now. If you're a Bayleef user, pray that you don't get Screech into Iron Tail hit or it's over.

Quilava can avoid the whole parafusion bullshit because it just kills the Magnemite with STAB Charcoal Flame Wheel. It is also not too afraid of non-STAB Rock Throw or uneffective Iron Tail.

Feraligatr has most likely fully evolved by now and is spamming unresisted Mystic Water STAB 95 base power Surf against unevolved Magnemite and Steelix.


That's just wrong.
All the starters should have fully-evolved by now with the whole Team Rocket arc bs.

Typhlosion runs into the Gym with an Ice-type resistance, STAB Charcoal Flame Wheel + Thunder Punch coverage and the highest Special Attack and Speed stats of all three starters.

Feraligatr runs into the Gym with an Ice-type resistance, STAB Surf for the Ground-types + Slash for the Jynx, Seel, Dewgong, Shellder and Cloyster coming from the highest attack stat of all three starters.

Meganium runs into the Gym with an Ice-type weakness, STAB Mystic Seed Razor Leaf (low base power of 55 and troll accuracy of 95%) + Body Slam coverage coming from the weakest offensive stats of all three starters.
If it does not get crits left and right, Meganium is in a world of pain now. It is the only one that surely gets targetted by Ice-type moves like Jynx' Ice Punch and all the Powder Snow and therefore runs the highest risk of getting frozen.
It is the only one of the three that can miss a move and also the only one of the three that needs every move to land. Flame Wheel, Thunder Punch, Surf and Slash won't miss. Razor Leaf won't miss... until it does.
You most likely won't need to heal Typhlosion or Feraligatr while tackling this Gym. You will most likely need to heal Meganium while doing the same. Again, wasted time, wasted resources, efficiency.


Feraligatr resists the Seadra + Kingdra while hitting the rest with a super effective move. It is literally the only good starter for this Gym. (Ice Punch can be bought and doesn't cost much. Blizzard can be bought but costs more.)
Typhlosion is just wrong for the job and easily the worst.
Meganium will do better than Typhlosion, no contest. It will probably win in the end, but by the time it does, Feraligatr is already half way to the league.
If you want to say that Meganium isn't the worst here, I wholeheartedly agree.
If you want to say that the value Meganium provides in this Gym makes up for all the other bullshit that a Meganium user had to deal with on his way to Clair, I wholeheartedly disagree.
There is nothing efficient or great about the value that Meganium provides in Blackthorn Gym besides maybe killing a few Horsea and Seadra and even Typhlosion can do that with Thunder Punch.


Yeah, but you won't hit them for super effective damage either. While they're spamming neutral STAB Psychic, you're trying to not waste too many Body Slam PP because you actually need them for the rest of the league. Razor Leaf won't take you far at all in this place.
Typhlosion and Feraligatr more or less run through Will.
Meganium always needs a turn more, another Ether, another Potion, more PP, more time while still being stuck with 55 base power 95% accuracy Razor Leaf at the league, which is just sad.
Exeggutor can also Reflect to waste even more of your Body Slam PP.
You also forgot to mention that while Meganium only gets hit for super effective damage by Jynx' Ice Punch, Typhlosion and Feraligatr don't get hit for super effective damage at all against Will (in GSC). Slowbro has no Water-type move. Exeggutor has no Grass-type attack.


Meganium simply needs more attacks to get past Umbreon than Typhlosion and Feraligatr, which means more chances to hit yourself in confusion... more turns when you take a Sand-Attack to the face...
You're right that all the starters can get stalled for a few turns by Umbreon, but Meganium is also stuck with the weakest move and the lowest offensive stats while trying to land an attack through confusion and Sand-Attack.
Vileplume walls you, can paralyze you with Stun Spore, stay alive and waste even more time with Moonlight and has Acid to actually hit you for damage (in GSC).
Murkrow at least forces you to waste another Body Slam, because your STAB is still useless.
Gengar just stands there licking you while Curse slowly kills you.
Houndoom used Flamethrower it is super effective!

Earthquake is like the most valuable TM in the game. Wasting it on Meganium... yeah...


Typhlosion at least can Thunder Punch Gyarados and take on Charizard.
Feraligatr roflstomps Lance.
Meganium has reached the climax of the journey and is still stuck using Poison Powder and STAB Razor Leaf. There is also no chance in hell, that you still have Body Slam PP left after the last four battles unless you stockpiled Ether and Elixir like crazy and even if you did...
Meganium once again needs more time and more resources for less value.
I don't mean to be rude, but does anyone else think that this argument has gone on too long? I think the consensus is, if you like chikorita, use it, if not, don't. I'm just saying, it is getting to the point where it should probably have its own thread.
 

Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
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I don't know if this is an unpopular opinion or not, but I hope that Game Freak starts giving old Pokemon not named Eevee new evolutions again. And I hope they buff Zen-Mode for Darmanitan or Forecast for Castform.
Or at the very least stop giving Eevee any new evolutions. All but three are terrible, design or competitive-wise.

Zen Mode seriously needs a buff, and while Castform too needs a good buff... it's a gimmick - a buff is too unlikely to happen.
New evolutions for older Pokemon has become a bit harder since they have to justify that over just giving it a Mega Evolution. I think we'd likely see new Prevo and Split Evos than a next Evo stage though I think there's a few Pokemon would deserve a normal evolution (like Jynx so it could once again be on par with Magmar and Electabuzz).

Also some Pokemon just need to have their stats redistributed/re-adjusted. The Eeveelutions being one of them, many of them really should be made to reflect the type they are or play the role they're meant to play.

Best I can see for Zen Mode Darmanitan is a way to turn it into Zen Mode at the start of battle. An item that automatically halves its HP at the start of battle (thus turning it to Zen Mode) but increases its Special Attack or defensive stats in exchange.

As for Castform, buffing Forecast so that when transformed it raises some of its stats (Speed and Special Attack ideally) is the best idea I have.

That being said, here's my unpopular opinion: I really, really hate prevolutions/baby Pokemon as a concept. I can stand Pokemon like Onix, who were worthless before an evolution, but introducing a weak-as-hell grindfest to be babied and raised diligently until a late evolution only nerfs the family of Pokemon, as I can just go over and catch and train something much easier through leveling up.
GF really hadn't used Baby Pokemon to their full potential. Baby Pokemon should be able to get Egg Moves and learn moves (be it level-up, TM, or Tutor) their evos don't normally have access to. Though they are starting to use them as early game catches to give you an opportunity to get a Pokemon normally saved for late game early which is nice.

I hate the Incense items as breeding tools. They add literally nothing but problems to the design, and seem to exist for no reason besides in-universe justification for why we couldn't breed pre-evolutions of mons before they existed (notably, several of the Incense Pre-Evos are among the "useless" Baby lines mentioned above). They effectively just make breeding more of a pain because if I'm trying to breed an incense-based Pokemon line, I either have to give up 2 IV guarantees, or the Nature guarantee in cases like Budew to get Sleep Powder. For that matter, why do some of these Baby lines have different Egg Move pools in the first place.
Considering what Incenses are, maybe just give us the option to have the Daycare "set up" the Incense instead of having the Pokemon hold it. They could have it do additional effect to the breeding pair in addition to getting a specific Baby Pokemon. And/Or if they have the specific Pokemon holding its Incense it gives an additional benefits to the specific Baby Pokemon, like guaranteeing it'll inherit the highest IV for certain stats its species relies on.

Hm... interesting topic here. I guess I'll share some of mine then. (Though not all of them, since I can't think of everything right off the bat.)

I HATE Misty in the Pokemon Anime. I was neutral about her.... Until one episode. I can't remember the name of it. But both her and Jesse did some "princess" contest or something? The prize was a set of dolls. Jesse NEVER had the chance to own them. Thanks to being super poor. Meanwhile, Misty got hand me down dolls....

And of course, because she's the "hero", Misty wins. And what does she do with them? Send them to her sisters out of spite. I'm sorry, but that rubbed me the wrong way, even back when I was a kid.... I'm no moral guardian, far from it. But I feel like that actually sent a kinda bad message to little kids.
Well it's not like Misty knew that, and even then I think Misty wanting them is justifiable still. In a few ways Misty's situation parallels Jessie's. Yes, Jessie never owned a set of Pokemon Dolls, but Misty never owned a set of Pokemon Dolls she could call her own. She never got to pick the dolls she wanted in her collection, they were given to her by her sisters and only because they got the new dolls. To Misty it's not because she wanted new dolls instead of hand me downs, it's because she wanted to feel she was on even footing with her sisters who always teased her about being the runt of the family.

Also that was only one point of the episode, and I would argue not the main point. The main point was not to underestimate what you have. Jessie's newly caught Lickitung swept Pikachu, Vulpix, and Bulbasaur and, before Misty could send out her next choice, Psyduck came out. Misty gives up hope of winning but then Lickitung's licking activates Psyduck's psychic power and it wins; teaching Misty not to count Psyduck out even if the situation looks bleak.

And this ladies and gentlemen is an unpopular opinion (like seriously even the whole "more elemental monkeys" thing is more popular than "I had more fun in X/Y")
"Previous games" could mean any generation of game. Like I would put SM above XY but I'd put ORAS above SM and BW/BW2 above ORAS.

Not the only time.
Notable ones:
2:31-2:50
3:44-4:49
7:45-8:43
8:52-9:32
 
So the motive for this opinion might not be unpopular, but perhaps the idea would be.

We all know Entry hazards are an infamous part of Competitive play, particularly Sneaky Sediment for its very lucrative risk-reward in usage. While removers have slowly been appearing more frequently with the Defog buff, I feel like Hazards need a bit more blunting, akin to the style Toxic Spikes gets, where certain types or actions can remove them depending on the circumstances. Might be something like switching a resist into SR over time "dulls" the points on the stones and gets rid of them after a while. I won't go into more detail to avoid wish-listing, but I think rather than simply adding more Hazard removers (who S/M is showing is not going to be the end-all solution to the increasing number of viable Hazard users/supporters), the hazards themselves as a mechanic should come with some type of neutralizing option available. Anyone playing S/M right now with the lack of high viability Removers knows how stupid not just SR, but Spikes are getting to be.
 
So the motive for this opinion might not be unpopular, but perhaps the idea would be.

We all know Entry hazards are an infamous part of Competitive play, particularly Sneaky Sediment for its very lucrative risk-reward in usage. While removers have slowly been appearing more frequently with the Defog buff, I feel like Hazards need a bit more blunting, akin to the style Toxic Spikes gets, where certain types or actions can remove them depending on the circumstances. Might be something like switching a resist into SR over time "dulls" the points on the stones and gets rid of them after a while. I won't go into more detail to avoid wish-listing, but I think rather than simply adding more Hazard removers (who S/M is showing is not going to be the end-all solution to the increasing number of viable Hazard users/supporters), the hazards themselves as a mechanic should come with some type of neutralizing option available. Anyone playing S/M right now with the lack of high viability Removers knows how stupid not just SR, but Spikes are getting to be.
I think the mistake was making Stealth Rock a TM (and later a tutor move) in the first place, making hazard setters much more prevalent than hazard removers.

Beforehand you had a few Spikes setters and a few Rapid Spinners.

Now you have a few Spikes setters, a few Toxic Spikes setters, A METRIC TON of Stealth Rock setters, a few Rapid Spinners and some Defoggers.

(That being said, once a Gen IV remake comes back, at least we'd get a lot more Defoggers. Almost half the Pokedex did not get the chance to have access to the Defog HM)
 
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One of My favorite anime seasons, if not my favorite, is Black and White(/Best Wishes if you like subs).

I liked Delphox more than Greninja.

I absolutely love the new exp. share. Now Pokemon isn't a total grindfest!

Proffesor. Kukui being the (technical) champion was a better and more suprising plot twist than Blue being the champion. He was your rival, you should of been expecting him to be ahead of you by now.

The reason I really want Gen 4 remakes is not just to have gen 4 remakes, but because even though D/P/P where good games as a whole, the battle engine and animimations are SO SLOW; Water gun takes like 5 seconds to finish it's animation.

I think Swoobat is cooler than Golbat.

Not really an unpopular opinion but a counter to Genwunners, Ultra Beasts are PROOF that Game Freak still have fresh and creative ideas for Pokemon designs.

Black 2 and White 2 were some of the best Pokemon games ever created (though Black and White did kinda suck)

Serena was stupid shipbait

Misty was really annoying, atleast Brock's love interest gimmik was kinda cute.

Also for either nostalgia or irony, Swalot is my favorite Pokemon.
Though if you were to ask me coolest looking
I'd probably say Hydreigon.

MOD EDIT: Double posts merged
 
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Codraroll

Cod Mod
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An annoyance somewhat related to that of pika pal above, it goes in this thread because I think it could be unpopular to boot:

I don't particlarly like how a small handful of moves come to dominate a metagame, or rather that a certain specific niche filled by those moves becomes so good as to be dominant.

Okay, that sentence might not make that much sense by itself, so let's try with an example: Stealth Rock. It became the most coveted move in the game immediately after its introduction, because of its many positive qualities. It stacked with everything, had no crippling drawbacks, and dealt damage in a unique fashion. As such, everybody wanted Stealth Rock.

Three generations later, Stealth Rock still has the same lack of drawbacks, still stacks with everything, and still deals unique damage. As such, everybody keeps wanting Stealth Rock. No other move exists to mirror that playstyle, it still hinges on that one move. And hazard removal is also a niche job, forcing you to run Rapid Spin or Defog if you want to deal with it. Either one of those two, but none other. Want to both use and handle hazards? Congratulations, now two of your 24 move slots have to be taken by one of four plus one of two moves. And of course the number of Pokémon learning those moves is limited too, meaning that a small pool of Pokémon compete for your six team slots as well.

Or Trick Room? The only move to swap turn order around. Want to build a strategy around swapping turn order around? Then at least 1/24th (4 %) of your moveslots are sealed already, by one move.

Other niches are affected too. Resetting stat boosts? One move (Haze), or a smaller handful of moves and items that do the job halfway or so. Changing the weather? Behold, four options. Removing the foe's held item? Five moves might do the job, but four of them require that your own item is spent or swapped away. Taunting is extremely powerful, but can only be done by one move. Substitute? Substitute.

This is weird, seeing as some niches are practically swimming with moves. Multi-hit moves are extremely common. Priority moves exist of nearly all types. HP recovery can be done in a myriad of different ways. All non-volatile statuses can be inflicted by a variety of different moves (but the volatile ones suit this complaint to a tee - most of them are inflicted by one move and maybe one Ability too).

It's as if Game Freak keeps thinking of myriads of new strategies, only to forget about most of them the second they are introduced. I know "clone moves" aren't exactly in popular demand, but I think they should seriously consider a few, if only for variety's sake. At least then we wouldn't have that many playstyles dictated by exactly one move each.
 

Pikachu315111

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Stealth Rock: Ugh, the move that really needs a nerf. I struggled to think of ways to do it but always considered it too much of a debuff, however I'm liking the idea of it just wearing off after a few activation. Of course the question is how many turns before it wears off and should multiple layers be allowed (and if so should is be the same amount per layer (each layer equals 3 activation), putting down multiple layers allow it to last longer (like one layer is 2 activation, two layers is 5, & three layers is 10), or if it should be diminishing returns (one layer is 5 activation, two layers is 8, three layers is 10))?

(Entry) Hazards (Removal): Wouldn't mind seeing more entry hazards but I think rules should be made otherwise we'd have too many things stacking. Right now we have 4 types of entry hazards:

Type Damaging (Stealth Rock)
Status Inflicting (Toxic Spikes)
Stat Decreasing (Sticky Web)
Miscellaneous (Spikes)

If any more Entry Hazards are introduced I think they should be fit placed in one of these four categories and only one of each type can be activate at any time (so if they introduce, say, a Paralysis inflicting entry hazard, you can't have both it and Toxic Spikes on one side of the field as they're both Status Inflicting; you have to pick one. However you can have Stealth Rock, Toxic Spikes, Sticky Web, and Spikes all active since they're different types of entry hazards). I think this is why GF hadn't introduced any other entry hazards, they don't want too many to stack which is why I think a rule like this would help set up guidelines to follow as well as not changing what we have now.

As for removal, yeah, they need more moves, maybe even an Ability and item or two. Like I can't believe we don't have an entry hazard ignoring/removing Ability yet.

Move Slots: I don't think it's unpopular that for some Pokemon that 4 move slots feel limiting. However that's also one thing that makes Pokemon competitive in my opinion. Yes, to set up hazards, clear hazards, create weather (without an Ability), reset stats, or any number of useful support moves you need to decide whether in the long run is it worth it or should you focus on using an attacking move or status move with a more immediate effect. The limitation means you need to plan a winning strategy, to carefully pick and assign Pokemon and what roles they'll be playing. And from a spectators point of view it increases the chance of seeing varied strategies thus more interesting battles to see whose strategy is better and overcome their limitations.
But, has maybe the strict four moves only format become outdated? Would really letting a Pokemon have one or two extra moves change that much or allowed for more varied battle strategies? Maybe, though I don't think they should just add an extra move slot or two, I think that's going too far. I thought about this and came up with three possible ideas:

Extra Options: They do add in an extra slot or two BUT after choosing 4 the other moves that weren't picked becomes locked. That way you have more moves to choose from letting your Pokemon be more flexible but still limits to just 4 moves.
Hierarchy Moves: Mostly for attacks, in many other RPGs you don't lose your lower tier moves. Like in Final Fantasy you don't lose Fire once you get Fira or that once you get Firaga; you keep all three and it's just that they have different magic cost and damage output. Maybe they can implement a similar idea for moves, at least damaging moves. Maybe let us stack certain moves in a hierarchy, requiring the moves to be the same type, increasing Power, & decreasing PP as you go up the stack. Like an example or a Fire-type one would be Ember (40 Power, 25 PP) > Flamethrower (90 Power, 15 PP) > Heat Wave (95 Power, 10 PP) > Fire Blast (110 Power, 5 PP). Why do this? Well to preserve PP, why us a stronger move and all the PP it'll use up when a weaker version of that move would KO the target? As for how the PP would work, that'll involve how much each move is worth related to another (using my above example: Flamethrower is worth 3 Embers. Heat Wave is 2 Flamethrower & 3 Embers. Fire Blast is 2 Heat Wave, 3 Flamethrower, & 5 Embers) and also if one move in the stack has 0 PP that means the entire stack is used up.
Parallel Moves: You know all those copy moves, they're the same in every way except maybe in type and what status ailment they inflict/stat they decrease/etc.. And sometimes if a Pokemon can learn one they can learn two or more others. Since these moves are so similar, why not allow Pokemon who learn these moves be able to have like two or three of them share a move slot instead of forcing the Pokemon to use more than one move slot? If a Pokemon can learn Slash, Night Slash, Shadow Claw, and Psycho Cut, why not let them have two of those moves share a move slot. Or if they can learn all the Weather Moves how about have one move slot be able to hold three of said weather moves (I'm sure Castform would love that). While this is sort of adding in an "additional" move slot, there is restrictions: not only must the moves be similar but they also share PP.

Options Limited: Eh, for some of the things you're mentioned I think it's okay if there's only one option. Like do we really need multiple moves to summon the same weather condition when the ones that exists already are widely distributed? Same with the "Rooms/Terrains", if anything they just need their summoning move more widely distributed than making more moves to summon them.
However there are some which I agree we could use more of, like Haze being the only stat reseter is odd and I could see other types having ways to reset a target's stats. Same with Taunt, it's just annoying the target which I think other types have their own way of doing.
Substitute, eh, I think one is fine but wouldn't mind seeing them play with the idea. Like how about a move that creates a Substitute but it only has 1 HP? Or how about one that creates a Substitute before the Pokemon switches out so the Substitute is for the new Pokemon. Speaking of which, I think the mechanic of a move switching out hasn't been fully explores. We have Baton Pass and Parting Shot but why not explore this idea more with different utilities?

Distract By New Toys: But this all comes back to a problem GF has had for a long time: disregarding old mechanics to focus solely on the new one. Just like when we complained that Z-Crystals took the focus away from Mega Evolutions, it's not the only mechanic being ignored. GF aren't interested in exploring an older mechanic after the generation they introduced it cause they got new toys to play with. Which is said, as if they gone back and expanded on older mechanics instead of constantly creating news one they're going to abandon next gen then Pokemon wouldn't feel like a shallow ocean.
 
The problem with stealth rock is that any nerf to it is a big fucking buff to stall.

We don't need that.

Stealth rock is OK as it is, we just need better hazard removal tools, we have two, one locked behind body type and the other almost locked to half the dex due to HM availability.

If we fix that Hazards won't be as restrictive, not that they actually are, only poor teams without offensive synergy that are forced to switch a lot suffer from SR weakness.
 
The problem with stealth rock is that any nerf to it is a big fucking buff to stall.

We don't need that.

Stealth rock is OK as it is, we just need better hazard removal tools, we have two, one locked behind body type and the other almost locked to half the dex due to HM availability.

If we fix that Hazards won't be as restrictive, not that they actually are, only poor teams without offensive synergy that are forced to switch a lot suffer from SR weakness.
One idea I liked was that Rock Types could absorb Stealth Rocks, like how Poison Types can absorb Toxic Spikes. I mean, it makes sense at least. Though it would probably make Rock Types WAY more abundant in the meta game.
 

Karxrida

Death to the Undying Savage
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Stealth Rock doesn't need a nerf. Tons of things weak to it are either already shitty (most Bug/Flying-types come to mind) or are stupidly good regardless. Spikes tends to be more an issue when hazard removal is restricted because it deals higher damage at a consistent rate.

We just need more good Rapid Spinners and Defoggers. Just wait for the Sinnoh remakes, which will deliver unto us our lord and savior - Defog Poison Heal Gliscor.
 
Just wait for the Sinnoh remakes, which will deliver unto us our lord and savior - Defog Poison Heal Gliscor.
And whichever Gen V+ Pokemon they want to give access to Defog to.

As a reference, only 16 evolutionary lines get access to Defog without the HM.
 
Stealth Rock doesn't need a nerf. Tons of things weak to it are either already shitty (most Bug/Flying-types come to mind) or are stupidly good regardless. Spikes tends to be more an issue when hazard removal is restricted because it deals higher damage at a consistent rate.

We just need more good Rapid Spinners and Defoggers. Just wait for the Sinnoh remakes, which will deliver unto us our lord and savior - Defog Poison Heal Gliscor.
While revitalizing the Defog Pool in Sinnoh Remakes would help the removal side, I think it still needs to be acknowledged that since Hazard Removal is an inherently reactionary move, there's a bit more "turn-to-turn" cost to dealing with hazards compared to putting them up. Rapid Spin/Defog are inherently worthless to click unless/until hazards have gone up on the field, and thus they usually come when the hazards are already on the field creating pressure, whereas Rocks or Spikes can be thrown up by anything sitting on a favorable turn like Greninja. Hazards and removal are a game of act and react, but as of right now reacting doesn't exactly take momentum for yourself, it simply slows down the momentum created by the hazards you're reacting to.

Not to say there won't be an increase in hazard control, but I don't think simply adding more defoggers alone is going to fix the imbalance behind the mechanics themselves, not to mention Sinnoh remakes are going to most likely bring back Tutors (you are now picturing SR Celesteela), and even possibly the odd movepool revision (less likely to correlate, but not out of the question).
 
Not to say there won't be an increase in hazard control, but I don't think simply adding more defoggers alone is going to fix the imbalance behind the mechanics themselves, not to mention Sinnoh remakes are going to most likely bring back Tutors (you are now picturing SR Celesteela), and even possibly the odd movepool revision (less likely to correlate, but not out of the question).
Rocks Celesteela and Gunk Shot Ash-Ninja. Hahahahaha.
 
We need to also see that giving up a turn to set up rocks is stupidly exploitable.

Unless the rock setter has a considerable offensive presence such as Garchomp, Mamoswine or both Landorus the opponent will get an almost guaranteed free switch in.

The guessing game is not only reactionary but a game about resource preservation.

Most people can remember how retarded the game got when both Deoxys+Scolipede and aegislash formed a core? People actually got used to having guaranteed hazards some of them still think hazards on turn one must be guaranteed for a metagame to be healthy.

Out of the back of my head I can also only think of 4 successful offensive Defog users, Scizor, Salamence, Zapdos(Although mostly used by stall some speedcreep offensive variants gave a lot of teams headaches in thinking Zapdos was just bulky) and Togekiss by that I mean Pokémon that could take advantage of a SR user and punish their actions of regardless of their choice.

We need offensive Defoggers, I for one can't wait for Defog Thundurus/Tornadus/Landorus, Sygiliph, Druddigon, Kyurem, Golurk or hydreigon if the HM/Tutor move returns.
 
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