Phantom's Art Thread - just Pokemon

[Lord Windos]

Spoiler

Honestly, I'm of the opposite opinion.  I like D-Orchynx's design because it's not fully optimized.  It reminds me of the base designs for the canon pokemon, where flavoring is more of a concern than functionality.

While Ice/Steel isn't an awesome defensive typing on its own, it fits the concept rather well, and I love it.  And I'm sure that either Phantom and/or I can come up with ways to make up for any shortcomings (though being able to increase its Defense by 2 via either Barrier or Hail in Pokerole is pretty strong as is) if necessary.  And even though it does have two 4x weaknesses to Fighting and Fire, it only has 3 weaknesses total (Ground being the third), 8 Resistances, 1 Immunity, and we're not talking about competitive pokemon where the most powerful attacks of the most commonly used attacking types are getting thrown in your face constantly.  So I think it can definitely work.

Personally, I'm always geared towards competitive and optimized strats + gameplay, as no matter how awesome a Pokemon is conceptually or the unique traits they have, if they have such massive liabilities and/or not too good stats/moves, then I'm not going to enjoy it. Dragonite is one of my favorite Pokemon, for example, but in Showdown I hardly ever use them because getting the most of the OG Dragon is not easy as running other more robust/reliable Pokemon like T-Lando. I also happen to find Aggron and Bastiodon to be really cool Pokemon, but their huge Weakness to common types leaves a lot to be desire, even with high Utility Moves, Sandstorm, and/or Defense Buffs. 

As for its Typing, those three Weakness happen to be some of the most common Moves in the game, and its still takes neutral Damage from Electrics + Water + Steel types without being able to do much to them (especially Bulky Waters and Heavy Metals, since they resist BOTH of their STABs). Fire types are also just straight up a Hard Counter to Ice/Steel because they get QE on them and resist their STABs, which in Iron's Pokerole is what a Pokemon will have to settle for, as coverage, TM, Tutor, and Egg Moves are at a premium unless you're one of a select few Pokemon or have oddles of Poke/XP to spend. Sure, Hail Buffs and/or Barrier works to give it a lot of Defense to mitigate those problems, and it has a pretty killer offensive typing, but the trade off of being a Glass Cannon with debatebly good Defenses/attack power is just too steep for my liking. I agree that in Pokerole making Phantom's D-Metalynx work would not be an insurmountable task, but it would certainly be harder to do than most other Pokemon. Of course, since I now permanently own a Bastiodon via Terra, I really should be one to throw stones here, but....well, you get my points, right?

However, I don't necessarily find it wrong to have these sorts of flavor or unoptimal 'mons, since they do provide a lot of variety, quirkiness, and pleasing asethetics, which goes a long way to keeping a game fresh. Plus, they can bring with them all sorts of unique Moves/traits that could be game changing in the right hands. You just won't see me using those sorts of Pokemon, unless I can find a way around that and make them good in spite of its inherent flaws, or it has something else going for it. If others want to use inoptimal Pokemon, good on them, and if they can make them work, even greater! To paraphrase an old saying: to each their own, and darn anyone that says otherwise!