ok I want to bring up three pokemon first of all Tauros and absol these two boast two of the best special movepools in the game sure tauros might have lost stab but it can use fire blast thunderbolt surf and more (did i mention sheer force?) then theres absol who sadly lost his nuke of a suckerpunch but now has dark pulse fire blast and so much more, and finally SLURPUFF the belly drum set was ok because slurpuff had barely any physical moves now it has flametrower surf dazzling gleam thats just the beginning but this meta sounds like so much fun. In regards to the unbans i say we allow kyurem w and reshiram back in so yeah fun meta.
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Physical Special Swap (Kyurem-B banned, Kyurem-W and Reshiram unbanned)
- Thread starter bobbyvaporeon
- Start date
As the Reptile/DremZ mentioned, Aggron will be beast! :) I've always appreciated this guy's special movepool and have even tempted myself to use one or two special moves in it in Black 2 and Emerald's story modes. I can see it being a very threatening wallbreaker, tank and sweeper.
Aggron @ Choice Band
Adamant Nature
Ability: Sturdy
252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
- Flash Cannon
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Earth Power
Aggron @ Aggronite
Impish Nature
Ability: Sturdy
252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
- Stealth Rock
- Thunder Wave
- Earth Power
- Flash Cannon/Ice Beam
Aggron @ Life Orb/Leftovers/Expert Belt
Adamant Nature
Ability: Sturdy
28 HP / 252 Atk / 228 Spd
- Autotomize
- Flash Cannon
- Thunderbolt/Earth Power
- Ice Beam
That coverage is amazing! On top of the four attacks used here, it also has access to Flamethrower, Fire Blast, Surf, Focus Blast, Dark Pulse, and Dragon Pulse. I didn't even mention a Curse set yet. Aggron has a lot of potential and I'll look forward to using it in this metagame! :D
Aggron @ Choice Band
Adamant Nature
Ability: Sturdy
252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
- Flash Cannon
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Earth Power
Aggron @ Aggronite
Impish Nature
Ability: Sturdy
252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
- Stealth Rock
- Thunder Wave
- Earth Power
- Flash Cannon/Ice Beam
Aggron @ Life Orb/Leftovers/Expert Belt
Adamant Nature
Ability: Sturdy
28 HP / 252 Atk / 228 Spd
- Autotomize
- Flash Cannon
- Thunderbolt/Earth Power
- Ice Beam
That coverage is amazing! On top of the four attacks used here, it also has access to Flamethrower, Fire Blast, Surf, Focus Blast, Dark Pulse, and Dragon Pulse. I didn't even mention a Curse set yet. Aggron has a lot of potential and I'll look forward to using it in this metagame! :D
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With that much raw power, I'd consider running Draining Kiss on Slurpuff to mitigate the health drop from Belly Drum and priority moves that are not Bullet Punch.
Forretress loses Explosion, Earthquake, and Gyro Ball, but it picks up Flash Cannon, Giga Drain (look, recovery!), Struggle Bug, Signal Beam, and can use Volt Switch off his higher attack stat.
Druddigon is another Sheer Force user who appreciates this change, picking up Sheer Force Dark Pulse, Flamethrower, Flash Cannon, Focus Blast, and Sludge Bomb, as well as Surf.
Zapdos now has a decent Flying STAB in Drill Peck, as well as U-turn, but loses Heat Wave
Azumarill gaining Scald is seriously a huge deal, as it allows him to take on a completely different roll with his great bulk.
Hariyama has an incredibly powerful STAB Sheer Force Focus Blast, backed up by Surf and STAB Vacuum Wave, but not much else.
Emboar picks up less recoily STABs in Fire Blast and Focus Blast, as well as rather unique access to Scald.
Meloetta's movepool goes on for days, with STAB Quick Attack, Acrobatics, Close Combat, U-turn, Drain Punch, elemental punches, Knock Off, STAB Frustration, Shadow Claw, and Stone Edge
Golurk gains a proper Ghost STAB in Shadow Ball, as well as STAB Earth Power and pretty good coverage in Thunderbolt, Ice Beam, Flash Cannon, and No Guard Focus Blast.
Gourgeist loses Shadow Sneak, but his movepool is otherwise greatly improved, with Shadow/Energy Ball as reliable STABs, and Fire Blast, Focus Blast, Psychic, and Sludge Bomb for coverage
Steelix gains STAB Sheer Force Earth Power and Flash Cannon, without actually losing his Rock-type coverage thanks to Sheer Force Ancient Power
Marowak has a powerful Thick Club boosted movepool consisting of Earth Power, Fire Blast, Focus Blast, and Ice Beam.
Aurorus gains Refrigerated Return, as well as STAB Stone Edge, Earthquake, and Dragon Tail
Linoone loses Extreme Speed, but gains much better coverage with Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, Surf, and Shadow Ball.
Omastar loses Earth Power and Ice Beam, but gains STAB Stone Edge and Knock Off
Kingler can now kind of properly use Sheer Force, with STAB Scald, Ice Beam, Ancient Power, and Mud Shot
Druddigon is another Sheer Force user who appreciates this change, picking up Sheer Force Dark Pulse, Flamethrower, Flash Cannon, Focus Blast, and Sludge Bomb, as well as Surf.
Zapdos now has a decent Flying STAB in Drill Peck, as well as U-turn, but loses Heat Wave
Azumarill gaining Scald is seriously a huge deal, as it allows him to take on a completely different roll with his great bulk.
Hariyama has an incredibly powerful STAB Sheer Force Focus Blast, backed up by Surf and STAB Vacuum Wave, but not much else.
Emboar picks up less recoily STABs in Fire Blast and Focus Blast, as well as rather unique access to Scald.
Meloetta's movepool goes on for days, with STAB Quick Attack, Acrobatics, Close Combat, U-turn, Drain Punch, elemental punches, Knock Off, STAB Frustration, Shadow Claw, and Stone Edge
Golurk gains a proper Ghost STAB in Shadow Ball, as well as STAB Earth Power and pretty good coverage in Thunderbolt, Ice Beam, Flash Cannon, and No Guard Focus Blast.
Gourgeist loses Shadow Sneak, but his movepool is otherwise greatly improved, with Shadow/Energy Ball as reliable STABs, and Fire Blast, Focus Blast, Psychic, and Sludge Bomb for coverage
Steelix gains STAB Sheer Force Earth Power and Flash Cannon, without actually losing his Rock-type coverage thanks to Sheer Force Ancient Power
Marowak has a powerful Thick Club boosted movepool consisting of Earth Power, Fire Blast, Focus Blast, and Ice Beam.
Aurorus gains Refrigerated Return, as well as STAB Stone Edge, Earthquake, and Dragon Tail
Linoone loses Extreme Speed, but gains much better coverage with Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, Surf, and Shadow Ball.
Omastar loses Earth Power and Ice Beam, but gains STAB Stone Edge and Knock Off
Kingler can now kind of properly use Sheer Force, with STAB Scald, Ice Beam, Ancient Power, and Mud Shot
I was thinking of an other metas metagame a few days ago, and I had the idea that all pokemon should get their atk and spA stats swapped. Before making the thread, I decided to search through the other meta threads to see if there were any similar ideas, and I found this thread, which is pretty similar. So I was wondering if my idea is still worthy of considering, or if it's too similar to this one.
Potential differences:
-Walling will be different. Here, a Hippowdon will still wall a Machamp, but if atk and spA were switched, a special wall would be needed to defend against a Machamp.
-Less mechanics need to be changed
-Certain pokemon are changed more, mainly Huge Power users
-Setting up is harder/more interesting. If physical and special moves were just swapped, a Haxorus can run dragon dance and dragon pulse as a "physical" sweeper. If atk and spA were swapped, Haxorus would have a much harder time setting up since it'd have a miserable 60atk. This also leads to more interesting sets like swords dance Roserade
Potential differences:
-Walling will be different. Here, a Hippowdon will still wall a Machamp, but if atk and spA were switched, a special wall would be needed to defend against a Machamp.
-Less mechanics need to be changed
-Certain pokemon are changed more, mainly Huge Power users
-Setting up is harder/more interesting. If physical and special moves were just swapped, a Haxorus can run dragon dance and dragon pulse as a "physical" sweeper. If atk and spA were swapped, Haxorus would have a much harder time setting up since it'd have a miserable 60atk. This also leads to more interesting sets like swords dance Roserade
^this is not the place for om suggestions
Kit Kasai
Love colored magic
that's already a meta I think
I was asking if my idea was sufficiently different enough from this to warrant a thread by itself.
Pikachuun
the entire waruda machine
Well, in order to do that, you'd need to make a thread in the OM submissions forum first. If the mods approve you copy the thread and put it in the normal forum :p
Gallade looks like an interesting wallbreaker with Shadow Ball, Psyshock, Focus Miss, Thunderbolt, Dazzling Gleam, and Magical Leaf.
would hustle work on formerly special moves now or just formerly physical moves like it always does (accuracy drop)
Sort of a bump, but i just found out that this is now playable on Joims Lab.
So if you want to play matches, just come on by there, ill be there sometimes!
So if you want to play matches, just come on by there, ill be there sometimes!
All abilities stay the same.
Necrobumping for a cool meta with not enough attention...
The Rocky Helmet has largely flipped its utility in this meta -now instead of going on Physical walls to punish Physical attackers, it's on Special Walls to punish Special attackers! Same for that matter for Iron Barbs, Rough Skin, and all the other contact-punishing Abilities and effects -which makes Flame Body really unappealing, since virtually the only Pokemon that will trigger it are going to be unimpressed with the Attack drop. In any event Ferrothorn mostly changes which Pokemon it walls, and not even all of those -Seismic Toss from Eviolite Chansey is still a thing, regardless. On the other hand, don't put a Rocky Helmet on Skarmory -but consider putting it on Goodra.
Notable priority abusers include...
Vacuum Wave replaces Mach Punch perfectly fine for Breloom, Blaziken, Gallade (Replacing Shadow Sneak, really), Hariyama, Heracross, Hitmonchan (Lose that Iron Fist boost, though), Hitmonlee, Hitmontop, Toxicroak, Lucario, Mew, Poliwrath, Scizor, Medicham, Machamp, and Primeape -several of whom didn't get Mach Punch anyway, actually.
Speaking of Mach Punch, Infernape can still use it and Magmortar appreciates the expansion to its movepool.
Shadow Sneak functions fine for Aegislash, Gardevoir (heck yes), Giratina, Mismagius, Dusclops, Sableye, and Spiritomb. Gardevoir and Mismagius are the most notable users here, because the others already could use Shadow Sneak validly.
As far as Aqua Jet, Masquerain gets a boost, as well as Clawitzer, Empoleon, Golduck, Keldeo, Blastoise, and even Samurott.
Quick Attack doesn't see much use normally, but here Heliolisk, Jolteon, Meloetta-Aria, Xatu, Shaymin-Sky, Masquerain (But it has Aqua Jet), Yanmega, Ninetales, Sylveon (Pixilating it!), and Accelgor are all more liable to use it. There's also plenty of Pokemon still capable of plausibly running it without it being a notable improvement over being Physical, but they'd have been running it in the first place if they cared.
Ice Shard is more viable on Cryogonal, Vanilluxe, Articuno, Froslass, and Glaceon, while being much the same for a surprising number of Ice types like Abomasnow.
Bullet Punch has all but been lost to this meta -only Lucario has reasonably similar Physical/Special competency, and no Pokemon exists that can't use Bullet Punch competently in Standard while having it.
And of course the king, Extreme Speed, is actually more viable for Suicune, Raikou, and Togekiss. (Who gets Nasty Plot!)
Sucker Punch is runner up, and now Gengar, Mismagius, Darkrai, Lanturn, Flare Boost Drifblim, Froslass, Electrode, Houndoom (Particularly the Mega), Nidoqueen, Meowstic, Xatu, Rotom, Zoroark (Nice!), Latias, Galvantula, and entirely possibly others are quite happy with this version of it. (There's so many I wouldn't be surprised if I overlooked something) A lot of classic abusers hate the change of course, most obviously Bisharp, but Sucker Punch is most certainly not out of the game.
Also worth commentary, kinda, is Feint, which is better than ever for Accelgor, Yanmega.... er... just those two, actually. Ouch. Several Pokemon have suffered only minor losses, but one of the only Pokemon to ever use it in Singles -Mega Pinsir- curses the fates for eternity for this agonizing twist.
Lastly, Fake Out is particularly worth discussion. Most Pokemon with Fake Out are unhappy it's gone Special -but exceptions include (Mega) Blastoise, Infernape (Its Attack and Special Attack are identical), Dewgong (Same as Infernape), Ludicolo, Sableye (Close enough on the two stats), Jynx (Whose access has always been a joke, and now isn't), Meowstic, Shiftry (Slight drop), and I guess Delibird. (Which for some ungodly reason has slightly higher Special Attack than Attack in spite of only learning Present naturally) Mega Blastoise and Jynx particularly stand out to me, the former because it's already viable and the latter because this might help it become viable -Jynx has a huge Physical movepool in general, actually, vs its surprisingly shrimpy Special movepool, while its Special Attack is more than twice its Attack! If nothing else it might be something Dry Skin Jynx uses in Rain teams -switch in on Stealth Rock, or not but on below 100% health, and Fake Out to buy a turn of rain-healing.
Some specific Pokemon that stand out to me include Alakazam (Elemental punches, Special Focus Punch), Swellow (Guts STAB Boomburst, when its Attack is only slightly lower than the Special Attack of the other Boomburst users), Gallade and Gardevoir (Who share a bunch of moves that are normally useless on one but not the other -and now it's flipped, such as Shadow Sneak being useful for Gardevoir rather than Gallade and Stored Power for Gallade rather than Gardevoir), Groudon and Kyogre (WHOSE THE SCARFED DOOM MACHINE NOW?! though to be fair you have to be Primal Groudon for STAB on Eruption), Mega Gyarados (Real Dark STAB at last!), Keldeo (Priority and Calm Mind Close Combat!), Jynx (Because it has such a huge Physical movepool -and of good moves!) and the Eeveelutions. (The Physical ones are mostly stuck with Special movepools for coverage, while Sylveon replaces Hyper Voice with Return/Frustration and/or Quick Attack gladly)
The Rocky Helmet has largely flipped its utility in this meta -now instead of going on Physical walls to punish Physical attackers, it's on Special Walls to punish Special attackers! Same for that matter for Iron Barbs, Rough Skin, and all the other contact-punishing Abilities and effects -which makes Flame Body really unappealing, since virtually the only Pokemon that will trigger it are going to be unimpressed with the Attack drop. In any event Ferrothorn mostly changes which Pokemon it walls, and not even all of those -Seismic Toss from Eviolite Chansey is still a thing, regardless. On the other hand, don't put a Rocky Helmet on Skarmory -but consider putting it on Goodra.
Notable priority abusers include...
Vacuum Wave replaces Mach Punch perfectly fine for Breloom, Blaziken, Gallade (Replacing Shadow Sneak, really), Hariyama, Heracross, Hitmonchan (Lose that Iron Fist boost, though), Hitmonlee, Hitmontop, Toxicroak, Lucario, Mew, Poliwrath, Scizor, Medicham, Machamp, and Primeape -several of whom didn't get Mach Punch anyway, actually.
Speaking of Mach Punch, Infernape can still use it and Magmortar appreciates the expansion to its movepool.
Shadow Sneak functions fine for Aegislash, Gardevoir (heck yes), Giratina, Mismagius, Dusclops, Sableye, and Spiritomb. Gardevoir and Mismagius are the most notable users here, because the others already could use Shadow Sneak validly.
As far as Aqua Jet, Masquerain gets a boost, as well as Clawitzer, Empoleon, Golduck, Keldeo, Blastoise, and even Samurott.
Quick Attack doesn't see much use normally, but here Heliolisk, Jolteon, Meloetta-Aria, Xatu, Shaymin-Sky, Masquerain (But it has Aqua Jet), Yanmega, Ninetales, Sylveon (Pixilating it!), and Accelgor are all more liable to use it. There's also plenty of Pokemon still capable of plausibly running it without it being a notable improvement over being Physical, but they'd have been running it in the first place if they cared.
Ice Shard is more viable on Cryogonal, Vanilluxe, Articuno, Froslass, and Glaceon, while being much the same for a surprising number of Ice types like Abomasnow.
Bullet Punch has all but been lost to this meta -only Lucario has reasonably similar Physical/Special competency, and no Pokemon exists that can't use Bullet Punch competently in Standard while having it.
And of course the king, Extreme Speed, is actually more viable for Suicune, Raikou, and Togekiss. (Who gets Nasty Plot!)
Sucker Punch is runner up, and now Gengar, Mismagius, Darkrai, Lanturn, Flare Boost Drifblim, Froslass, Electrode, Houndoom (Particularly the Mega), Nidoqueen, Meowstic, Xatu, Rotom, Zoroark (Nice!), Latias, Galvantula, and entirely possibly others are quite happy with this version of it. (There's so many I wouldn't be surprised if I overlooked something) A lot of classic abusers hate the change of course, most obviously Bisharp, but Sucker Punch is most certainly not out of the game.
Also worth commentary, kinda, is Feint, which is better than ever for Accelgor, Yanmega.... er... just those two, actually. Ouch. Several Pokemon have suffered only minor losses, but one of the only Pokemon to ever use it in Singles -Mega Pinsir- curses the fates for eternity for this agonizing twist.
Lastly, Fake Out is particularly worth discussion. Most Pokemon with Fake Out are unhappy it's gone Special -but exceptions include (Mega) Blastoise, Infernape (Its Attack and Special Attack are identical), Dewgong (Same as Infernape), Ludicolo, Sableye (Close enough on the two stats), Jynx (Whose access has always been a joke, and now isn't), Meowstic, Shiftry (Slight drop), and I guess Delibird. (Which for some ungodly reason has slightly higher Special Attack than Attack in spite of only learning Present naturally) Mega Blastoise and Jynx particularly stand out to me, the former because it's already viable and the latter because this might help it become viable -Jynx has a huge Physical movepool in general, actually, vs its surprisingly shrimpy Special movepool, while its Special Attack is more than twice its Attack! If nothing else it might be something Dry Skin Jynx uses in Rain teams -switch in on Stealth Rock, or not but on below 100% health, and Fake Out to buy a turn of rain-healing.
Physical Water attackers are largely glad to replace Waterfall or Aqua Tail with Scald, and in fact the only Pokemon in the game that ever runs either and doesn't get Scald is Dragonite. Poor Dragonite, I guess. 30% chance of Burn vs either a 20% chance of Flinching if you go first or a 1/8th increase in BP with a 10% chance of missing pretty strongly favors Scald, particularly if you're slow anyway like Azumarill. And no more contact punishment! Unfortunately, Crawdaunt and Kingler are left out in the cold -they at least have Surf, which can't miss and is a smaller loss in power compared to Crabhammer than Scald, but they would've really liked Scald.
Special Water attackers aren't nearly so happy, being punished by contact-punishing effects, losing the sheer overwhelming power of Hydro Pump, and trading away the potential to Burn for the potential to flinch the target -though to be fair, Special Water attackers are generally faster than Physical ones and thus more likely to actually get the Flinch, and Clawitzer is reasonably OK with replacing Water Pulse/Surf/Scald with Crabhammer for that bit more raw power. Pelipper and Rotom-Wash are the only strongly Special-oriented Water types that get none of Waterfall, Aqua Tail, and Crabhammer, and it's not like people use Peilipper as is.
Special Fire types that have little or no Special STAB in this meta and care include Chandelure, Delphox, Magcargo, and Moltres.
Physical Fire types are actually more-or-less fine. Rotom-Heat is literally the only Fire type that lacks even one general-use Special Fire move, and it's not Physical anyway. (Though really all the Rotom variants are kind of mediocre here)
Grass types are just fine. Rotom-Mow is the only Grass type that is actually hugely missing out -the various Special Grass types who love to abuse Solar Beam and have insufficient Attack to use it are probably unhappy overall, but there's also Pokemon like Tangrowth who love Solar Beam becoming Physical, so the type is not, collectively, unhappy.
Steel types as a whole are surprisingly little affected -most of the Steel types with Iron Head have Flash Cannon and vice-versa, and some of the exceptions include the likes of Klinklang, which replaces Iron Head with Gear Grind. Nonetheless, Bisharp, Excadrill, Escavalier, and Klefki (As if anyone cares) all lose access to their primary Steel STAB with no replacement at all -on the reverse, oddly enough Forretress goes from having no on-stat STAB to having on-stat STAB, because it gets Flash Cannon but not Iron Head.
Ground types... are actually pretty minimally effected on their STABs. Zygarde and Diggersby lack Earth Power -and even then Diggersby gets Mud Shot- dramatically worsening their Physical STAB access (Specifically Zygarde is completely screwed) but that's it.
Rock types are obviously completely screwed, right? Gigalith, Corsola, Probopass, and Carbink are it for fully evolved Rock types with Power Gem -but keep in mind the only Rock types that don't get Ancient Power are Crustle, Sudowoodo, Gigalith itself, and Terrakion, and quite frequently Rock types run Rock Slide as their Physical STAB in standard, and Ancient Power is actually not far behind that. Special Rock types are just fine: there is literally no Rock type lacking both Stone Edge and Rock Slide.
Fairies overall suffer in this meta -the only fully evolved Pokemon in the entire game that get both Dazzling Gleam and Play Rough are Klefki, Slurpuff, Granbull, and Wigglytuff, so every other Fairy is basically losing its STAB if it lacks the stats to run either stat competently. (eg Mawile, Azumarill, Gardevoir..) Draining Kiss would be worth commentary, except that it+Play Rough is Klefki and Slurpuff. Keep in Mind Play Rough is literally the only Physical Fairy move of the entire game -any Fairy without it is completely without Special Fairy STAB in this meta.
Specific Fairies, however, are thrilled with this meta -Slurpuff suddenly has coverage, and can actually choose between being slightly weaker but more accurate than in Standard (Dazzling Gleam) vs finally giving itself a way to get HP back competently after an Unburden Belly Drum. (Draining Kiss) Togekiss has no STAB unless you're going the Physical Hustle route (What, you count Sky Attack and Aerial Ace?), but that's OK, it's got Nasty Plot and Extreme Speed, not to mention Drain Punch. Clefable's job doesn't change that much -it replaces Flamethrower with Fire Punch for instance- but it does lack a primary STAB, but on the other hand it picks up some useful coverage and synergy with its assets in general. Special Meteor Mash and Drain Punch? Yes please.
Fighting types, as been addressed by others, are overall pretty unhappy -most of them are Physical with their 'best' ("I'm not your best friend, I'm your only friend") option being Focus Miss. However, Fighting is basically king of priority -a number of Fighting types get Vacuum Wave, which is normally useless but here allows a ton of Fighting types to keep their on-stat priority just fine. Not only that, but Lucario doesn't really care about these shenanigans, (Mega) Medicham is perfectly happy to replace Psycho Cut with Psychic for a free power boost, isn't that unhappy replacing High Jump Kick with the weaker, less accurate but no half-killing yourself Focus Blast, and can always replace Bullet Punch with Vacuum Wave if it only cares about the priority. Mostly it loses its ability to abuse Fake Out -but it gains Shadow Ball for perfect coverage. Really, it's biggest frustration is the loss of Drain Punch, which was its only good way to heal. I guess a gimmick Medicham could surprise an enemy with Dream Eatering their sleeping Pokemon? Maybe a nasty surprise to a Resttalker...
Psychic types are surprisingly little affected, barring Psyshock presumably being worthless. (Unless it now is a Physical attack that hits on Special Defense?) Only Delphox, Meowstic, and Starmie, out of fully evolved Psychic types, are completely lacking in Physical Psychic moves to replace Psychic, and even more surprising there are no physical Psychic types that lack the move Psychic!
Dark types actually only suffer if they're Special oriented -there is literally no Dark type that lacks Dark Pulse, so the Physical Dark types are completely fine. Out of the Special ones... that means Darkrai suffers alone -a decent number of Dark types lack both Night Slash and Crunch, but most of them don't care at all in this meta, or only care in terms of how it interacts with other holes in their list, such as Yveltal's only option being Sucker Punch. Mandibuzz, Sableye, Spiritomb, Shiftry, and still others lack Special options in this meta, but just aren't Specially oriented in statline -nor in utility when you look at the likes of Mandibuzz, who often lacks any direct attacking move other than Foul Play. (Foul Play uses the target's Special Attack, right?)
Ghost types uniformly have Shadow Ball (Except Honedge and Doublade), but unfortunately in this meta Mismagius, Cofagrigus, Chandelure (ie Chandelure is crap in this meta), Jellicent, Froslass, Drifblim and Rotom are all without a Special Ghost STAB option, barring Shadow Sneak, which most of them lack anyway. Ouch.
Special Poison types that suffer a complete lack of options include (Mega) Venusaur, Amoonguss, Dragalge, Venomoth, Vileplume, and a number of less fully evolved Pokemon. Gengar's fine but not Ghastly, for instance.
Physical Poison types are completely fine, and in fact are universally upgraded, since Sludge Bomb and Sludge Wave are both stronger than Poison Jab or Cross Poison and more accurate than Gunk Shot.
Physical Normal types are worth discussing, not so much Special ones since they'll all just run Return/Frustration. Ambipom, Bibarel, Bouffalant, Braviary, Dunsparce, Farfetch'd, Furfrou, Kangaskhan, Kecleon, Miltank, Pidgeot, Raticate, Slaking, Stantler, Staraptor, Tauros, Unfezant, Watchog, and Zangoose are all Physically oriented Normal types that lack Hyper Voice, Tri Attack, Tri-Attack-through-Nature Power, or Wring Out to provide them a good Physical Normal STAB. Strictly speaking, Swellow is on this list too, but it gets Boomburst and will probably be pretty good actually! (Unfortunately, it can't run Heat Wave alongside Boomburst... though perhaps this will change when ORAS is released) Some of these might be able to compensate with Uproar -but locking yourself into a Normal move with no switching possible is not exactly brilliant, and Kangaskhan is the only one of the bunch with Scrappy.
Physical Flying types suffer badly in this meta. Aerodactyl, Archeops, Dodrio, Fearow, Gliscor (Oh wait its best thing is Aerial Ace in Standard never mind), Gyarados (Wait a second), Hawlucha, Honchkrow, Ho-oh, Landorus (waaaait), Mega Pinsir, Ninjask (Like it ever attacks anyway), Staraptor, and most notably Talonflame all lack both Air Slash and Hurricane -and if they have any other Flying moves that would now be Physical, I assure you they suck so bad Hidden Power Flying is legitimate competition! On the other hand, note that Rain Dragonite is upgraded in a big way -it can run Surf, Hurricane, Draco Meteor/Pulse and Dragon Dance and just tear things apart in the rain, with Flying STAB on its stronger attacking stat at last!
Special Flying types aren't particularly thrilled either. Molrtes, Yanmega, Rotom-Fan, Pelipper, Noctowl, Masquerain, Lugia, Shaymin-Sky, and Togekiss are all mortified at their options or lack thereof. Heck, Shaymin-Sky might be un-bannable, just because its Air Slash spam will be too weak to win it fights at all reliably.
Dragons are basically fine, overall. Tyrantrum lacks Physical Dragon STAB (But is much more concerned by the lack of synergy between Strong Jaw and its statline), while Dragalge, Hydreigon, Goodra, and Mega Ampharos are frustrated at lacking good Special Dragon STAB, but that's about it -and now tons of them can Dragon Dance before Draco Meteoring something out of existence!
Electric types are fine, albeit often different -Volt Switching Electivire makes sense? Yes, it does! Oh well there is that tiny detail that Rotom is completely screwed. (Finally a meta in which I can ignore Rotom-Wash's existence!)
Physical Bugs are less-than-thrilled, with Armaldo, (Mega) Beedrill, Crustle, Heracross, Parasect, and Scolipede all completely lacking an on-stat STAB option.
Special Bugs are even less happy, with Volcarona, Beautifly, Butterfree, Dustox, Illumise, Volbeat, Wormadam, Accelgor, Masquerain, and Venomoth all lacking an on-stat STAB option of any use. Oh and Ledian too, I guess, but its offenses are crap regardless.
Lastly, Ice types are without exception functional -Aurorous would be the only exception, except it Refrigerates Return/Frustration for an around 50% damage increase over Nature Power-turn-Tri Attack, and loves this meta all around.
Special Water attackers aren't nearly so happy, being punished by contact-punishing effects, losing the sheer overwhelming power of Hydro Pump, and trading away the potential to Burn for the potential to flinch the target -though to be fair, Special Water attackers are generally faster than Physical ones and thus more likely to actually get the Flinch, and Clawitzer is reasonably OK with replacing Water Pulse/Surf/Scald with Crabhammer for that bit more raw power. Pelipper and Rotom-Wash are the only strongly Special-oriented Water types that get none of Waterfall, Aqua Tail, and Crabhammer, and it's not like people use Peilipper as is.
Special Fire types that have little or no Special STAB in this meta and care include Chandelure, Delphox, Magcargo, and Moltres.
Physical Fire types are actually more-or-less fine. Rotom-Heat is literally the only Fire type that lacks even one general-use Special Fire move, and it's not Physical anyway. (Though really all the Rotom variants are kind of mediocre here)
Grass types are just fine. Rotom-Mow is the only Grass type that is actually hugely missing out -the various Special Grass types who love to abuse Solar Beam and have insufficient Attack to use it are probably unhappy overall, but there's also Pokemon like Tangrowth who love Solar Beam becoming Physical, so the type is not, collectively, unhappy.
Steel types as a whole are surprisingly little affected -most of the Steel types with Iron Head have Flash Cannon and vice-versa, and some of the exceptions include the likes of Klinklang, which replaces Iron Head with Gear Grind. Nonetheless, Bisharp, Excadrill, Escavalier, and Klefki (As if anyone cares) all lose access to their primary Steel STAB with no replacement at all -on the reverse, oddly enough Forretress goes from having no on-stat STAB to having on-stat STAB, because it gets Flash Cannon but not Iron Head.
Ground types... are actually pretty minimally effected on their STABs. Zygarde and Diggersby lack Earth Power -and even then Diggersby gets Mud Shot- dramatically worsening their Physical STAB access (Specifically Zygarde is completely screwed) but that's it.
Rock types are obviously completely screwed, right? Gigalith, Corsola, Probopass, and Carbink are it for fully evolved Rock types with Power Gem -but keep in mind the only Rock types that don't get Ancient Power are Crustle, Sudowoodo, Gigalith itself, and Terrakion, and quite frequently Rock types run Rock Slide as their Physical STAB in standard, and Ancient Power is actually not far behind that. Special Rock types are just fine: there is literally no Rock type lacking both Stone Edge and Rock Slide.
Fairies overall suffer in this meta -the only fully evolved Pokemon in the entire game that get both Dazzling Gleam and Play Rough are Klefki, Slurpuff, Granbull, and Wigglytuff, so every other Fairy is basically losing its STAB if it lacks the stats to run either stat competently. (eg Mawile, Azumarill, Gardevoir..) Draining Kiss would be worth commentary, except that it+Play Rough is Klefki and Slurpuff. Keep in Mind Play Rough is literally the only Physical Fairy move of the entire game -any Fairy without it is completely without Special Fairy STAB in this meta.
Specific Fairies, however, are thrilled with this meta -Slurpuff suddenly has coverage, and can actually choose between being slightly weaker but more accurate than in Standard (Dazzling Gleam) vs finally giving itself a way to get HP back competently after an Unburden Belly Drum. (Draining Kiss) Togekiss has no STAB unless you're going the Physical Hustle route (What, you count Sky Attack and Aerial Ace?), but that's OK, it's got Nasty Plot and Extreme Speed, not to mention Drain Punch. Clefable's job doesn't change that much -it replaces Flamethrower with Fire Punch for instance- but it does lack a primary STAB, but on the other hand it picks up some useful coverage and synergy with its assets in general. Special Meteor Mash and Drain Punch? Yes please.
Fighting types, as been addressed by others, are overall pretty unhappy -most of them are Physical with their 'best' ("I'm not your best friend, I'm your only friend") option being Focus Miss. However, Fighting is basically king of priority -a number of Fighting types get Vacuum Wave, which is normally useless but here allows a ton of Fighting types to keep their on-stat priority just fine. Not only that, but Lucario doesn't really care about these shenanigans, (Mega) Medicham is perfectly happy to replace Psycho Cut with Psychic for a free power boost, isn't that unhappy replacing High Jump Kick with the weaker, less accurate but no half-killing yourself Focus Blast, and can always replace Bullet Punch with Vacuum Wave if it only cares about the priority. Mostly it loses its ability to abuse Fake Out -but it gains Shadow Ball for perfect coverage. Really, it's biggest frustration is the loss of Drain Punch, which was its only good way to heal. I guess a gimmick Medicham could surprise an enemy with Dream Eatering their sleeping Pokemon? Maybe a nasty surprise to a Resttalker...
Psychic types are surprisingly little affected, barring Psyshock presumably being worthless. (Unless it now is a Physical attack that hits on Special Defense?) Only Delphox, Meowstic, and Starmie, out of fully evolved Psychic types, are completely lacking in Physical Psychic moves to replace Psychic, and even more surprising there are no physical Psychic types that lack the move Psychic!
Dark types actually only suffer if they're Special oriented -there is literally no Dark type that lacks Dark Pulse, so the Physical Dark types are completely fine. Out of the Special ones... that means Darkrai suffers alone -a decent number of Dark types lack both Night Slash and Crunch, but most of them don't care at all in this meta, or only care in terms of how it interacts with other holes in their list, such as Yveltal's only option being Sucker Punch. Mandibuzz, Sableye, Spiritomb, Shiftry, and still others lack Special options in this meta, but just aren't Specially oriented in statline -nor in utility when you look at the likes of Mandibuzz, who often lacks any direct attacking move other than Foul Play. (Foul Play uses the target's Special Attack, right?)
Ghost types uniformly have Shadow Ball (Except Honedge and Doublade), but unfortunately in this meta Mismagius, Cofagrigus, Chandelure (ie Chandelure is crap in this meta), Jellicent, Froslass, Drifblim and Rotom are all without a Special Ghost STAB option, barring Shadow Sneak, which most of them lack anyway. Ouch.
Special Poison types that suffer a complete lack of options include (Mega) Venusaur, Amoonguss, Dragalge, Venomoth, Vileplume, and a number of less fully evolved Pokemon. Gengar's fine but not Ghastly, for instance.
Physical Poison types are completely fine, and in fact are universally upgraded, since Sludge Bomb and Sludge Wave are both stronger than Poison Jab or Cross Poison and more accurate than Gunk Shot.
Physical Normal types are worth discussing, not so much Special ones since they'll all just run Return/Frustration. Ambipom, Bibarel, Bouffalant, Braviary, Dunsparce, Farfetch'd, Furfrou, Kangaskhan, Kecleon, Miltank, Pidgeot, Raticate, Slaking, Stantler, Staraptor, Tauros, Unfezant, Watchog, and Zangoose are all Physically oriented Normal types that lack Hyper Voice, Tri Attack, Tri-Attack-through-Nature Power, or Wring Out to provide them a good Physical Normal STAB. Strictly speaking, Swellow is on this list too, but it gets Boomburst and will probably be pretty good actually! (Unfortunately, it can't run Heat Wave alongside Boomburst... though perhaps this will change when ORAS is released) Some of these might be able to compensate with Uproar -but locking yourself into a Normal move with no switching possible is not exactly brilliant, and Kangaskhan is the only one of the bunch with Scrappy.
Physical Flying types suffer badly in this meta. Aerodactyl, Archeops, Dodrio, Fearow, Gliscor (Oh wait its best thing is Aerial Ace in Standard never mind), Gyarados (Wait a second), Hawlucha, Honchkrow, Ho-oh, Landorus (waaaait), Mega Pinsir, Ninjask (Like it ever attacks anyway), Staraptor, and most notably Talonflame all lack both Air Slash and Hurricane -and if they have any other Flying moves that would now be Physical, I assure you they suck so bad Hidden Power Flying is legitimate competition! On the other hand, note that Rain Dragonite is upgraded in a big way -it can run Surf, Hurricane, Draco Meteor/Pulse and Dragon Dance and just tear things apart in the rain, with Flying STAB on its stronger attacking stat at last!
Special Flying types aren't particularly thrilled either. Molrtes, Yanmega, Rotom-Fan, Pelipper, Noctowl, Masquerain, Lugia, Shaymin-Sky, and Togekiss are all mortified at their options or lack thereof. Heck, Shaymin-Sky might be un-bannable, just because its Air Slash spam will be too weak to win it fights at all reliably.
Dragons are basically fine, overall. Tyrantrum lacks Physical Dragon STAB (But is much more concerned by the lack of synergy between Strong Jaw and its statline), while Dragalge, Hydreigon, Goodra, and Mega Ampharos are frustrated at lacking good Special Dragon STAB, but that's about it -and now tons of them can Dragon Dance before Draco Meteoring something out of existence!
Electric types are fine, albeit often different -Volt Switching Electivire makes sense? Yes, it does! Oh well there is that tiny detail that Rotom is completely screwed. (Finally a meta in which I can ignore Rotom-Wash's existence!)
Physical Bugs are less-than-thrilled, with Armaldo, (Mega) Beedrill, Crustle, Heracross, Parasect, and Scolipede all completely lacking an on-stat STAB option.
Special Bugs are even less happy, with Volcarona, Beautifly, Butterfree, Dustox, Illumise, Volbeat, Wormadam, Accelgor, Masquerain, and Venomoth all lacking an on-stat STAB option of any use. Oh and Ledian too, I guess, but its offenses are crap regardless.
Lastly, Ice types are without exception functional -Aurorous would be the only exception, except it Refrigerates Return/Frustration for an around 50% damage increase over Nature Power-turn-Tri Attack, and loves this meta all around.
Some specific Pokemon that stand out to me include Alakazam (Elemental punches, Special Focus Punch), Swellow (Guts STAB Boomburst, when its Attack is only slightly lower than the Special Attack of the other Boomburst users), Gallade and Gardevoir (Who share a bunch of moves that are normally useless on one but not the other -and now it's flipped, such as Shadow Sneak being useful for Gardevoir rather than Gallade and Stored Power for Gallade rather than Gardevoir), Groudon and Kyogre (WHOSE THE SCARFED DOOM MACHINE NOW?! though to be fair you have to be Primal Groudon for STAB on Eruption), Mega Gyarados (Real Dark STAB at last!), Keldeo (Priority and Calm Mind Close Combat!), Jynx (Because it has such a huge Physical movepool -and of good moves!) and the Eeveelutions. (The Physical ones are mostly stuck with Special movepools for coverage, while Sylveon replaces Hyper Voice with Return/Frustration and/or Quick Attack gladly)
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Volcarona gets U-turn. That's pretty okay, especially considering its access to Flare Blitz and Wild Charge. Scarf Volcarona anyone?]
Volcarona @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Flare Blitz
- U-turn
- Wild Charge
- Poison Jab / Zen Headbutt / Will-O-Wisp
That just emphasizes its vulnerability to Stealth Rock and denies it its single biggest advantage -access to Quiver Dance- while it does have Bug Bite as a crappy STAB option that can potentially heal it, such as if it steals a Sitrus Berry off of a Belly Drummer. Or, really, I'd probably just run Flare Blitz/Wild Charge/Quiver Dance/Roost for sheer overwhelming lethality and the ability to Roost off the recoil damage.
But yeah Volcarona actually has a really good Physical movepool, just not so much on the Bug end of things... and that's inevitable, really, since Physical Bug sucks generally.
But yeah Volcarona actually has a really good Physical movepool, just not so much on the Bug end of things... and that's inevitable, really, since Physical Bug sucks generally.
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Contact works the same since it is not related to the P/S Split (Draining Kiss and Grass Knot are special contact moves normally for example). So Flare Blitz and Dragon Claw are still Tough Claws-boosted on Mega Charizard X for example.
The OP lays most of it out -the only changes relate to things like Draco Meteor lowering the relevant offensive stat and Crunch lowering the relevant defensive stat. Burn still halves Attack.
I have wondered about King's Shield myself. It would be pretty useless if it still lowered Attack in this meta.
EDIT: Only just noticed the OP actually does address the Psyshock/Secret Sword/Psystrike question. Awesome, they're still useful, and now Physical Psychic types can push past Physical walls -Mega Medicham can use it get hit on Skarmory's weaker defensive stat with STAB, for instance.
On the other hand Secret Sword is useless.
I have wondered about King's Shield myself. It would be pretty useless if it still lowered Attack in this meta.
EDIT: Only just noticed the OP actually does address the Psyshock/Secret Sword/Psystrike question. Awesome, they're still useful, and now Physical Psychic types can push past Physical walls -Mega Medicham can use it get hit on Skarmory's weaker defensive stat with STAB, for instance.
On the other hand Secret Sword is useless.
I would imagine that Aegislash is banned here too. However, Smeargle can use King's Shield... if he wants.
I would say yes to both your questions, or at the very least they should.
The only thing that changes is moves in this meta, and the only reason stuff like Crunch lowers Special Defense of the target while Draco Meteor lowers the user's Attack is so the moves keep their actual behavior eg Draco Meteor is not a spam move, barring critdra or the like. There's absolutely no reason for Burn to lower Special Attack in this meta.
But King's Shield really ought to lower Special Attack, because otherwise its behavior makes basically no sense -Special Attackers will be the main ones making contact, and they won't care about an Attack drop. Hopefully it already does this... the OP doesn't clarify, and I've had, like, two matches thus far because nobody plays it. Even trying to experience it vicariously through replays didn't work out so well, because there's only one replay that involves both sides understanding what the meta is about and using a team built for it. So testing it myself is not happening anytime soon.
But King's Shield really ought to lower Special Attack, because otherwise its behavior makes basically no sense -Special Attackers will be the main ones making contact, and they won't care about an Attack drop. Hopefully it already does this... the OP doesn't clarify, and I've had, like, two matches thus far because nobody plays it. Even trying to experience it vicariously through replays didn't work out so well, because there's only one replay that involves both sides understanding what the meta is about and using a team built for it. So testing it myself is not happening anytime soon.
I am not sure that was intended by the OP; however, since @bobbyvaporeon is RIP (and Aegislash is banned anyway) I might apply the boost reversion to King's Shield as well.
Like the comment above (from Ghoul King) if you support this, or comment below if you wouldn't want to see that happen.
By the way, the code for Physical Special Swap has long been available in the OM Coding thread, so if you want to make it available in other servers, let it be.
Why would this be an upgrade for it?