FEU Tries to Balance A Pokemon Metagame

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On a fateful day in the Underest…

Rules are simple: suggest potential changes for a metagame for the purpose of retooling the game. Almost anything is fairgame, unless it breaks any clauses (like evasion or ohko), goes against the pokemon’s nature (ditto/unown learning more moves), or is stupidly broken.

Also: making changes to pokemon that are already high tier is discouraged
OU clauses remain so don’t bother making changes for things in Ubers
All hidden abilities are released

Here’s a few example changes:

-X now learns Move
-X gets a new typing: Exa/Mple
-X’s [ability] changes to [new ability]
-Move/Ability gets changed
-Item now does [effect]

Let’s get the ball rolling:

Stealth Rock does 1/4 on flying types, 1/8 on everything else, 1/16 on anything that resists rock
Clear Smog now removes your stat changes as well
Life Orb’s health drain effect is treated like recoil damage. Reckless will boost the damage of all moves with the Life Orb and Rock Head will negate the health drain effect.
Ice now resists Water, Flying, and Dragon

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I propose we make the pokemons that look cool good

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Sky Attack is now a physical Flying version of Overheat

Gale Wings gives priority if you’re at 75% health or higher.

Aura Sphere is 90 power again, Dark Pulse is also 90 BP.

Dragon Rush is now a Dragon Typed Quick Attack.

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Changes from discord I’ll throw in here:
Soh: New learned moves: Psycho Cut and Zen Headbutt for Zangoose, Close Combat and Superpower for Seviper
Grass pledge/water pledge/fire pledge become 100 base power when overgrow/torrent/blaze is active
this will be edited

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Seviper has no hands to chop with. Maybe Superpower.

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Thought it would’ve been redundant, my bad. I’ll change it

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New mechanic: Intrinsic Flight:

Pokémon that previously get Levitate are now immune to Ground intrinsically, Mold Breaker will be changed to bypass intrinsic flight, and they take the same damage as Flying types do from Stealth Rock.

Gastly Cursed Body
Haunter Cursed Body
Koffing Unaware
Weezing Unaware
Misdreavus Dazzling
Unown Slow Start
Vibrava Tinted Lens Sand Rush
Flygon Tinted Len Sand Rush
Lunatone — —
Solrock — —
Baltoy — —
Claydol — —
Duskull — Frisk
Chimecho Trace
Latias Pressure
Latios Pressure
Mismagius Dazzling
Chingling Trace
Bronzor Heatproof Heavy Metal
Bronzong Heatproof Heavy Metal
Carnivine Sap Sipper
Rotom Speed Boost
Heat Rotom Flash Fire
Wash Rotom Storm Drain
Frost Rotom Snow Warning
Fan Rotom Cloud Nine
Mow Rotom Intimidate
Uxie Insomnia
Mesprit Oblivious
Azelf Defiant
Giratina-O Cursed Body
Cresselia Synchronize
Tynamo Water Absorb
Eelektrik Water Absorb
Eelektross Water Absorb
Cryogonal Snow Warning
Hydreigon Intimidate
Vikavolt Speed Boost

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I don’t know how I feel about giving Cryogonal and Frost Rotom access to hail, everything else is fine

also: suggestion: Give pokemon that float but don’t levitate intrinsic flight, and add gengar to the list

also why does unown have slow start? wouldnt it be better if it had technician?

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That’s fair, I was just thinking Rotom Frost’s only Ice STAB should get good accuracy

Gengar lost levitate in Gen7, and I think he’s fine without it. Venomoth and friends getting flight would be cool

it’s already a meme mon, I dunno.

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Huh.
Neat topic.
If we’re gonna talk about redefining the Pokemon Meta, I want to introduce some odd faces into the scene.
Of course, these reworks won’t be turned into Uber mons or anything (if we’re talking about Smogon tiers), but it’ll give them a nice niche.

This big guy’s name is Carnivine, and he’s pretty useless in any metagame.
He doesn’t deal enough damage, he’s too frail for his speed, and his ability, although nice, isn’t the best for an offensive grass type.
He’s based on a Venus Flytrap, so let’s give him so nice Flytrap properties.

First, he’ll gain access to a Hidden Ability, Strong Jaw, increasing moves that involve… well, a Jaw.
But that’s not enough, is it? He needs some biting moves to make use of those massive chompers.
So we’ll give them to em.

He’ll now be able to learn Hyper Fang, Super Fang, Poison Fang, Fire Fang, and Thunder Fang.
Not sure if that’s entirely enough though…
Oh, the perfect idea! He’ll gain a new signature move, called Giga Fang.
It’s pretty much Giga Drain, but physical, and that it’s buffed by Strong Jaw.

This is good and all, but a One-trick pony isn’t that great (most of the time), so we need to feed this Flytrap some spices,
We’ll also allow Carnvine to learn Clear Smog, Poison Jab, and Gunk Shot, since it’s a bit more venomous than your average plant.

Further more, we’ll give it some more utility, by granting it Spikes, Toxic Spikes, and Spiky Shield. Not only can it now provide a poisonous and a not-so-poisonous carpet for the enemy team to land on, it can now use it’s pointy jaw as protection from enemy foes, with some extra damage to cushion the enemies blow.

Now that’s simple stuff, but what about his stats?
Well, they’re not too fantastic honestly.

Nothing is particularly strong.
Sure he’s got good attacking stats, but he’s not going to take out many threats,without a crippling item, like a Choice Band or Life Orb.
So, let’s rework those shaky vines of his and make him Nature’s best devouring machine!

We’ll buff his Attack by 25 points, making it 125 Base Attack.
It’s pretty good offensively, but with Strong Jaw, that allows Carnivines bite to be much worse than it’s bark.
But there’s many mons with good Attack stats, but terrible viability (Just look at Crabominable), so, we’re gonna need to do more than just adding on to his chomping power.

We’ll take away 30 points out of his Special Attack, since in this rework, he won’t really need it (now 60 Special Attack).
In contrast, we’ll put those stats into his HP, to make him much bulkier, with 104 HP.
We’ll also add 10 into each of his defenses, allowing Carnivine to tank at least one more hit than he could have before.
To end it off, Carnivine now has a BST of 499, 45 higher than his original BST of 454.

However, how much will this actually change Carnivine?
Well, definitely not enough for the higher tiers of play, but I feel now, Carnivine will have a good niche, as a powerful Wallbreaker, with his Strong Jaw ability or as a utility mon that can stall the enemy and apply pressure to them whenever they switch, along with being immune to pesky Earthquakes with it’s Levitate ability.

Oooh, Big Root + Giga Fang + Leech Seed + Spikes and an even more Spiky Shield.
Now that would be a pain to deal with… For the lower tiers at least.

I’ll probably rework some more Less than viable pokemon in the future, but this is a good starting ground I suppose.

Edit: Oh fuck I forgot no stat changes.
Well, even without the extra stats, this Carnivine’s going to be a LOT better than Vanilla Carnivine.

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Use RSE engine. Frick off powercreep / megas / z moves

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Eh screw it I’ll allow stat changes because this writeup was really good

Edit: Ukelele put ability changes for mons with levitate but I think I’ll go with Strong Jaw over Sap Sipper because of the fact that I enjoy drastic changes

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Doublepost but let’s take a look at a Pokemon I’d love to see crop up in the meta without any drastic changes like STAB surf and its main weaknesses gone: Masquerain

Looking at all the quiver dancers, Masquerain is by far one of the weaker options. Before Generation 7, it was too slow, too frail, and not powerful enough to serve itself a viable choice on a team, especially with its absolutely horrendous typing. Generation 7 was kind enough to give it a massive +20 in special attack and speed, but it wasn’t enough to save it from the clutches of Untiered. Let’s change that, shall we?

First off, typing. Let’s keep Bug/Water from Surskit. While this will remove a ground immunity and two 4x resistances, Masquerain much prefers it over its numerous weaknesses, especially when Bug/Water is decent defensively. This will also give it STAB boosted Hydro Pump and Scald.

Secondly: Movepool. Masquerain has coverage nearly unrivaled among the other dancers, such as Hydro Pump, Energy Ball, Ice Beam, Blizzard, Scald, and support moves like Defog and Sticky Web. It even learns Roost for reliable recovery. We won’t change much, but Air Slash isn’t that great, especially now that it loses STAB on it. We need it to have a bit of a niche over other dancers like Vivillion, so we’ll be giving it Hurricane.

Finally: Stats.
They’re not very great.

Note: Prior to Generation 7: Masquerain had 80 special attack and 60 speed.

Anyways, these are fine but nothing too outstanding.
We’ll give it +10 to HP and Defense to improve its lacking bulk.
Finally, we’ll give it +10 speed to help it outspeed a few threats after a quiver dance. It’ll still be slower than Leavanny and Galvantula as sticky web leads, but 90 speed certainly isn’t bad if you want to go that path.

Overall, we now have a fairly decent dancer that can stand to the likes of Ribombee, Venomoth, and perhaps, maybe even Volcarona. It won’t be meta changing, but it’ll be a fine threat.

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i know jack about the pokemon meta, but i do know that i would like to improve mighteyana soooo

stat increases, spd and def bumped to about 85 a piece, sp atk bumped to 70 to give em a bit more spcl coverage and bumping atk all the way to 110. or, perhapes atk to 100 and bumping def and spd to 90 a piece

hypothetically it would be
hp: 70
atk: 110 or 100
def: 85 or 90
spatk: 70
spdef: 60
spd: 85 or 90

total: 480

which isnt unreasonable i would think and probably make him more appealing to chose.

abilities… i dont think i would change them but then i really dont know much about pokemon meta sooo… maybe switch out quick feet for moxie and change its hidden ability to something else? idk

moves… id let em learn crunch earlier, but other then that im not sure what id change…

EDIT:
another possible stat build

hypothetically it would be
hp: 70
atk: 110
def: 70
spatk: 70
spdef: 60
spd: 100

Total: 480

more attack focused here.

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Vikavolt now has 150 speed

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Here, let’s try to fix one of my favorite mons: Luxray.

First of all, he’s Electric/Dark now. This gives him 3 new weaknesses, but 4 new resistances and an immunity to psychic. It also gives him STAB crunch as a better option for reliable physical damage.

Luxray’s whole deal is that he can see through walls to hunt his prey, so I gave him a new ability to reflect this:
Gleam Eyes: STAB attacks never miss and have a 1/3 chance to paralyze the target.
This means that all STAB moves, not just Electric ones, have a paralyze chance. It’d be cool to have this stack with the innate paralyze chance of a lot of Electric moves.

So now Luxray has a paralyzing crunch, but what else can we do to make him better? Well, his stats.

523’s not a bad BST, it just needs to be shuffled around a bit. I took 40 points from his Special Attack and giving them out to his other stats. I put 20 into speed, and give 10 to each defense stat, giving Luxray:
80 HP
120 Atk
89 Def
55 Sp. Atk
89 Sp. Def
90 Spd

I don’t know much about competitive Pokémon, but this should make Luxray a better mon. Maybe? I don’t know.

Edit: If we’re not doing drastic stat redistributions, you can just buff his speed by 20 or something.

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I don’t know how to feel about massive stat redistributions. If anything, I think huge changes like this should reserved for Megas.

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Lots of Theorycrafting going on, liking it so far.
Let’s do some more, but instead of buffing a pokemon…
We’re going to do something MUCH more interesting.
Why stop at just one?
Why not all?
Or at least, all of the frozen, variety of Pokemon?

That’s right! I’m going to be tackling the type!

Before we delve into it’s negatives, let’s look into the positives!

There’s no doubt that offensively, Ice is one of the best. It’s effective against Ground and Flying, two common and strong types, Grass, which, although situational, is still always a good thing, and Dragon, one of the most powerful typings in ALL of Pokemon!
It has a similar amount of resistances, but not only are these resistances not too difficult to deal with (with the exception of steel types), many Pokemon that use Ice Type moves, also have moves to deal with these Pokemon (mainly Fire types).
There’s also the fact that Freeze-Dry exists.
So add that to the Super-Effective pool.

Seems pretty good, right? Well, it won’t be for long.
Why is that, you may ask?
Well…
It’s because, well, it’s Ice.

It’s about as defensive as Glass.
Only 1 resistance (that being itself), and 4 weaknesses.
These weaknesses, by the way, are preeeetty bad to have, considering Fighting and Rock are two VERY common coverage moves (and break away Ice with ease),
Fire is obvious,
and Steel shrugs off most things the frozen lads at em.

But wait, you may be asking…
“Didn’t you JUST say that many Ice types have moves that DEAL with Fire’s and pyre’s?”
Ah, you almost caught me,
but I didn’t say THAT per say…
I said Pokemon that HAD Ice moves…
So Water Types pretty much.

Actual Ice types just kinda, burn.

So how do we fix this?
Well, for starters,
I think making Ice resistant to would be a nice change.
Not only does it make sense thematically (Ice is just frozen water after all, and it’s resistant to itself.,)
It also helps out a lot in defenses, since Water is a very common type (the most common in fact).

Next up, just make it resistant to Dragons.
It should have been like that in the first place.

Other typings could work, but we don’t want to overstay our welcome.
Ice, Water, and Dragon.
Seems fair enough.

We’re not done yet, however,
or faaaaar from it.
We still have one BIG elephant in the room…
And NO I’m not talking about Mamosine…
We’ll get to him later.

No, it’s the worst Weather in the entire game…
That’s right!

First off, damages everything but Ice types.
That’s…
Wow.
Ice types only synergizing with Ice types.
At least the Rocks that made Sandstorm shared it with the Grounds and Steels.

It wouldn’t make sense changing this though, so we’ve got to deal with it.
What about the abilities?
That’s always helps out for Weather teams!
Well…
Slush Rush is definitely a +…
But literally only 2 Evolution lines learn it.
And one of them is Beartic.
Yeaaah, we’re adding more to this exclusive group.

Now, the following Pokemon get Slush Rush (I’ll be listing the abilities they replace).
Mamoswine line (replaces Snow Cloak)
Snorunt Line (Replaces Ice Body, Snow Cloak for Froslass)
Glaceon (Replaces Snow Cloak)
Crabominiable (Replaces Anger Point).
So that’s about… 5 New Fully Evolved Pokemon.
Much better, I can especially imagine Glaceon and Crabominiable appreciating this change.

Next up, the moves that synergize with weather.
The only one that does this, is Blizzard.
Which I suppose works, but we should give it… more.
What about, just Ice moves in general?
Ice moves in the Hail now do 50% more damage.

Does that seem broken?
Not at all.
Water and Fire moves get the boost in their respective weathers,
Why should Ice types not get that treatment?

Well, we did.
We reached a quarter of a mil-
I’m stopping myself there.

We did a LOT for the ice type today; we gave it some defensive buffs, we added to their Slushy Rushers, and we made Hail MUCH more threatening.

How about we check how some of the Ice types are doing now?

Say hello to the Ice cream cone!

This is an obvious buff for Vanilluxe, and all the other Snow Warners out there.
Since Ice Type moves now gain 50% more damage, their Blizzards and Freeze-Dry’s (especially the Blizzards,) are going to hit like trucks chucked by a Machamp (owned by Chuck).

With Slush Rush, this benevolent (but occasionally malevolent) Ice Queen will have an ASTONISHINGLY high maximum speed of 700!
And that’s not even with scarf!
Couple that with buffed Ice moves in the hail, and that’s a powerful sweeper right there.
Oh, don’t forget,
it’s also now resistant against Water and Dragons!
So this frozen witch can more easily switch in on threats, which is always a treat.

OU.
This thing is OU.
It loses it’s Water weakness, and coupled with Thick Fat…
Holy shit this thing is OU.
Welcome back bud.

Well ain’t this a chilling sight.
Yes, regular Kyurem is now a LOT stronger,
thanks to it now being 4x resistant to Water moves,
and the fact it now no longer has a Dragon weakness.
Bring your martial artists folks,
and maybe a boulder or two…
Oh, since you might be wondering…
Black Kyurem gets banned.
Very, very banned.
To Ubers you go.

Well, I think that’s MORE than enough writing for one day.
A good Ice type…
Never thought Ice’d see the day.

Oh come on, you expected at least ONE pun.

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Giga Impact, Hyper Beam, Rock Wrecker, Fissure, and Sheer Cold get similar changes to Sky Attack.
New 40 BP 100 Acc priority moves include Swift, Razor Leaf, Magical Leaf, Electro Ball, Spark, and Disarming Voice.
Flame Burst is now a Fire-type Water Shuriken.