[Meta thread] Iron's PokeRole Adventure: The Skull Ruins

[Spiritmon]

Spoiler

Mega Gyarados case in my opinion get the most worse part of his Mega Evolution. I already stated here my thoughs and opinions about Gyarados and his Mega Evo. 5 Weakness its a little to much to my opinion, even more if his pre-evo was only have 2 Weakness (even if he have double weakness to Eletric). Not to mentioned the ability Mold Breaker who only use I can see is hit Fairies with Dragon Moves, with his useful but not very great thanks to the Dark typing. 

Anyway, its indeed pretty useful to have a Mega Evo capable of deal with the typing weakness (or raise the number of them) to certain levels. In Mega Aggron case almost his weakness is completely disminish since he become a pure Mega Metal Pokemon, with one of the best defensive abilities in the game: Filter. Capable of half all super effective damage? Its a ability made in have. I know the Pokerole ability reduce in 1 the weakness of super effective damage, but still a great ability to have it, even more for a pure steel pokemon who only have Fire, Fighting and Ground Weakness. The less weakness the better I always said!

Sure, M-Gyarados does gain 3 weaknesses, but it also trades its immunity to Ground for Psychic, becomes less weak to Electric, and becomes resistant to Ghost, Dark, and Ice, which are all popular attacking types.  The change to Water/Dark from Water/Flying completely flips Gyarados's weaknesses and resistances on their heads.  And even discounting that, it becomes very, very bulky with 95/109/130 defenses (which are backed up further by Intimidate and the type change mind games shenanigans) and very, very powerful with 155 Atk.  Helps create plenty of opportunity for it to exploit Dragon Dance to patch up its 81 Speed, the one major flaw it has.

In fact, gaining more weaknesses after Mega Evolving can work in M-Gyarados's favor.  If your opponent uses a Fighting, Bug, grass, or Fairy type move because they expect you to Mega Evolve and you don't, you'll just tank the hit easily due to not being weak to the attack and get what's effectively a free Dragon Dance off.  Then you can try and outpredict your opponent and attempt to Mega when they predict you won't, and get another 'free' DD off.  And with 2+ DDs, any M-Gyarados is terrifying and will probably sweep through an entire team with ease.

Mold Breaker isn't a major concern for M-Gyara, tbh.  It does allow it to break Sturdy 'mons in a single hit in the games, which is cool.  Ignoring Multiscale is also cool.  You also ignore Storm Drain, Dry Skin, and Water Absorb.  And you can crit pokemon with Battle/Shell Armor.  And Waterfall can Flinch enemies with Inner Focus/Shield Dust.  And you ignore Sand Veil and Snow Cloak if they're active.  And Solid Rock and Filter don't reduce your damage output, either.  Nor do you have to worry about Friend Guard, Fur Coat, Fluffy, and Disguise screwing with your damage output.

But all of that can be considered situational, and Gyarados doesn't miss Mold Breaker at all in LGPE because Mold Breaker was never the reason why M-Gyara was so good in the first place.

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Yeah, M-Aggron has practically no weaknesses while its Ability is active, which is a huge, huge plus for it.  I think it really says a lot when a Mega can be considered amazing even if its Ability isn't active, though.

Spoiler

Well, we'll just have to wait and see what happens.  Mika already turned down one chance to get a Sableye, but maybe someone will get one to use eventually.


Honestly, Calam's Mega is probably going to look almost exactly the same as a standard Mega Absol.  They can be described as 'Dark Angels' because of their appearance, and even if they aren't Fairy types, they can almost be described as being similar to some fairies as is.  An actual Dark/Fairy Mega Absol...well, the differences are probably going to be subtle.  Unless you know what to look for, it's kinda hard to tell Calam is part Fairy type until you attack him with a move that has its effectiveness affected by the additional Fairy type or he uses an actual Fairy type move.

Charmeleon prefers Y, but I don't think he'd be against X either.  And honestly, since I have both Mega Stones, I can kinda just pick and choose whichever one I want to use at a whim.  M-'Zard is flexible like that, and it'll keep my opponents guessing even if they already know I have a Mega Charizard.  Having Megas that can drastically alter your pokemon's immunities, weaknesses, and strategies can allow you to play some serious mind games with your opponent.  M-Gyarados, M-Arbok, and M-Charizard are all great for that.  M-Sceptile, M-Altaria, and M-Audino can all do that as well to a certain degree, so long as it isn't obvious that they're going to go Mega.  M-Pinsir, M-Aggron, M-Ampharos, M-Mewtwo, and M-Lopunny don't have drastic enough type changes for it to make a significant difference when trying to predict what they're going to be weak to, as they still retain most (if not all) of their most common weaknesses when going Mega.

If anything else, Terra probably will catch a Sabes for Nathan if you want, out of the justification of knowing your super good with Pokemon + super good period, and so can reform/make the gem fiend a good Pokemon instead of bad. Still wouldn't want to be remotely around it, but if he has a chance to remove a problem Pokemon and turn it into a good one, he'll take it.

Terra can easily spot the differences imo, as he's extremely familiar and knowledgeable on all Hoen species of Pokemon, but in the same vein he probably wouldn't be able to tell those changes are due to it being a Fairy type unless its behavior suddenly starts mirroring that of Genie's. The funny thing about Dark/Fairy types is that they are basically just Fairy types in terms of Weaknesses, but gains another immunity and resistance + Double STAB, so that just makes them better than vanilla fae! Unseelie rules!

On the subject of M-Aggron, he basically has no weakness in Pokerole, as Pure Steel typing + PR Filter = Neutral Damage for everything but resisted hits, which combined with a Defense Buff can make the darn thing damn near impentrable without Moves that ignore Defense entirely or EXTREME firepower. Its probably one of the best Megas in the group, beyond Mega Manetric (Intimidate!), Calam (Ignore Debuffs/Non Offensive Status, and bounce them back along with Hazards!), and Charizard Y and X (If only for the Sun for the former, as Iron's interp of Weather means Weather Setters are even more special than before).

If I remember correctly, the only other Pokemon in the game with Filter is Mr. Mime, and he too has no Weaknesses in Pokerole due to it, which combined with its potential to learn Barrier, Calm Mind, and/or Nasty Plot + a slew of debilitating Moves....yeah, he's one beast of a 'mon in Iron's game. Now that I say this, I want one Filter Mime on my wishlist pronto!

Terra can easily spot the differences imo, as he's extremely familiar and knowledgeable on all Hoen species of Pokemon, but in the same vein he probably wouldn't be able to tell those changes are due to it being a Fairy type unless its behavior suddenly starts mirroring that of Genie's. The funny thing about Dark/Fairy types is that they are basically just Fairy types in terms of Weaknesses, but gains another immunity and resistance + Double STAB, so that just makes them better than vanilla fae! Unseelie rules!

On the subject of M-Aggron, he basically has no weakness in Pokerole, as Pure Steel typing + PR Filter = Neutral Damage for everything but resisted hits, which combined with a Defense Buff can make the darn thing damn near impentrable without Moves that ignore Defense entirely or EXTREME firepower. Its probably one of the best Megas in the group, beyond Mega Manetric (Intimidate!), Calam (Ignore Debuffs/Non Offensive Status, and bounce them back along with Hazards!), and Charizard Y and X (If only for the Sun for the former, as Iron's interp of Weather means Weather Setters are even more special than before).

If I remember correctly, the only other Pokemon in the game with Filter is Mr. Mime, and he too has no Weaknesses in Pokerole due to it, which combined with its potential to learn Barrier, Calm Mind, and/or Nasty Plot + a slew of debilitating Moves....yeah, he's one beast of a 'mon in Iron's game. Now that I say this, I want one Filter Mime on my wishlist pronto!

I already stated as such in the game thread when he got the wish tag, but Calam's horn glows with a very subtle, difficult to notice moonlight now (it'd be a lot easier to notice at night/in the dark.  Whenever he uses a fairy type move, though, he briefly looks like he has wings made of moonlight, and it's rather obvious that he isn't a normal Absol.  In addition, the changes to his personality are also subtle.  He was already kinda mischievous and vengeful due to being a Dark type, but being part Fairy now is only going to make those personality quirks more apparent.  It won't be an extreme change, but it will be a change nonetheless.

Dark/Fairy is definitely an awesome typing.  Both are great offensive types, and the Fairy typing trades your weaknesses to Bug and Fighting for Steel and Poison plus an immunity to Dragon (you remain weak to Fairy to compensate, though).  However, the only types you resist/are immune to are Ghost, Dark, and Psychic, so it's easy to wear the type combination down with almost anything.  Magic Bounce means M-Absol is extra difficult to cripple without directly attacking him, though, which is a huge plus.

Or you could also get around Filter by using Mold Breaker or an attack that changes M-Aggron's Ability to something else

With how Weather Abilities work in Pokerole, Drought really only benefits M-Charizard Y unless participating in a battle alongside allies.  And in this campaign, Drought by itself isn't a huge advantage over Blaze since Blaze can easily provide an equal damage boost or better.  The main benefit of M-'Zard Y would be the +1 to all stats and instantaneous Solar Beams (provided Charmeleon is compatible with that TM).  Compared to Tough Claws giving +1 damage dice to all Contact moves regardless of type on top of the +1 to all stats, Drought looks a little lackluster (provided Charmeleon learns some powerful Contact moves to abuse TC with, of course.  Though given that he immediately gets Dragon/Shadow Claw upon evolving and Fire Fang is justifiable if only for its effects, he might be good to go for that).  Base 'Zard (as long as you don't mind not having +1 to all stats) and M-'Zard Y are definitely better at using non-contact Fire moves, though, which is their main strength over M-'Zard X.

Looks through some of the Moves that Mr. Mime has/can learn, and I re-discovered two potentially interesting ones: Power Swap and Power Split. Normally, these be useless, but what if they were used against Legendary Pokemon or heavily Plot Deviced Pokemon? Would they actually be extremely useful in those niche situations?

Also, Power Trick would be a balling move for his Medicham and Forrestress (If Iron allows it to be tutored onto her, of course), as that could give his Pokemon 6-7 STR (Without Buffs) and possibly even more (If Defense Buffs are converted into STR buffs) while still maintaining impressive bulk and unmodified HP. Certainly a neat trick, eh?

Hmm, never though about this use of mind about Gyarados. Making your foe use a Super Effective thinking Gyarados would Mega Evolve, to not evolve and go with Dragon Dance. Then go with Mega Evo and use Dragon Dance again and make the foe use a less effective move. Its indeed a interesting mind game and good strategy to lure the foe into a trap against a M-Gyarados buffed with two Dragon Dances. And the uses of Mold Breaker...maybe M-Gyarados its not completely bad as I first though. Even so, I still think Dragon-type would be better over Dark-type, due to both Lore, moves and use, but I cant disagree with the uses.

Even so, I still would like a alternative Mega Evolution. Maybe a quest to a alternative Mega Evolution like I Mega Gyarados Y maybe? That way would be have more than one option to foward. Since Gyarados its a very much iconic pokemon as much Charizard, so two options of Mega Evolution would be fair to me.

Dark/Fairy its indeed a great combination of typing, not to mention the meaning of duality. Until Nintendo make some kind of Light-type or something, the Fairy-type could be consider the only "Light" type in Pokemon franchise, who in my opinion make a interesting duality with Dark-type. Dark and Light. Always a good concept to explore in any story.

Maybe I will of course focus in get the Aggronite first before anything. Filter its indeed a super duper awesome ability, and have a Pokemon with pratically no weakness its always good to me. I have one with me and I will of course make Typhon become Eelektross, so having 2 pokemon with no weakness its pretty dang awesome.