[RBY] Theorymon- making bad pokemon viable

Discussion in 'Past Gens Discussion' started by Ortheore, May 24, 2015.

  1. Ortheore

    Ortheore One beautiful monster

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    Relative to other generations, it is safe to say that RBY's OU metagame is definitely the least diverse. So it's often fun to think "If I changed X about that pokemon, it would actually be not all that bad". In an environment where Egg, Tauros, Lax and Chansey are on almost every team, these what-ifs become even more intriguing. So I created this thread, for us to dump some of our theorymon in.

    There's a few catches though, just to make things more interesting:
    • Limit ideas to modifying a pokemon's stats, typing or movepool. That means no inventing moves or changing the mechanics of existing moves
    • You're limited to one change total- excessive changes would result in something that doesn't resemble the original pokemon, while I think restricting the number of allowable changes makes for a more interesting exercise
    • No wild stat changes, let's say >30 base points. It depends on the pokemon though.
    • Try not to go wild with stuff like Recover, Amnesia, Psychic typing etc. Basically stuff that virtually anything in the game can have and be significantly better for it.
    • Try to use pokemon that aren't very viable in the actual metagame. We'll say that C rank and above of the viability rankings aren't really the best candidates
    My ideas:
    [​IMG]
    Raichu
    Special 90->120

    One of Raichu's biggest issues is that it's just really weak. So bumping up its base special to just below Zapdos fixes that easily. Comparisons to Jolteon are obvious, but I think Jolteon still wins out here- Jolteon is walled by Golem and Rhydon, while Raichu is walled by Exeggutor, which is far more common. But I definitely think Raichu would have a more respectable niche.
    [​IMG]
    Venusaur
    Grass/Poison->Grass

    I think this is really interesting because of how it compares with Victreebel and Exeggutor. Obviously Venu becomes a more consistent pokemon, using its respectable bulk to check a variety of things, while threatening to sweep with SD. Egg has only slightly better bulk, but Psychic, Stun spore and Explosion means it is by far the more consistent team player, meanwhile Victreebel still has its Wrap set going for it
    [​IMG]
    Golduck
    Water->Ice

    Good lord, an Ice type with Amnesia? With no readily exploitable weaknesses? That's pretty crazy. On the other hand, its mediocre stats means it has difficulty setting up, while not supporting the team the way Slowbro can. Definitely it would be a huge change to OU though

    I just realised that all the theorymon I just did would absolutely wreck GolDon *shrugs*

    Feel free to chime in with your own ideas!
     
    Last edited: May 24, 2015
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  2. magic9mushroom

    magic9mushroom Active Member

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    Yeah, I think the list of things not to add goes something like

    Ghost-type (immunity to Normal, sole weakness to Ghost which has no good moves and Ghosts are immune to Lick para anyway)
    Psychic-type (resistance to and STAB on Psychic, sole weakness to Bug which has no good moves)
    Normal-type (STAB on Body Slam and Hyper Beam, immunity to Body Slam para, sole weakness to the mostly-useless Fighting)
    Amnesia (just a broken move)
    Recover/Softboiled (reliable recovery is rare as hen's teeth and a huge force in the meta)
    75%+ accuracy sleep (again, rare as hen's teeth and a huge force in the meta)
    Crabhammer (180 BP; I remember playing RBY Hackmons and two-shotting Mew with my Crabhammer Starmie)
    Slash (140 BP, Normal type)

    Ice typing is a bit iffy in these because if there were Electric-neutral Ices sturdier than Jynx Fire Blast would see use and like a billion things can learn it. So "no real weaknesses" might be true of Ice in the current meta but it wouldn't be so in the altered meta (just "uncommon weaknesses").

    Nidoking - Poison/Ground -> Water/Ground

    Loses all three of its crippling weaknesses (Ice/Psychic/Ground) while only gaining one hard-to-exploit weakness (Grass) and keeping its primary STAB and Thunder Wave immunity.

    Gyarados - Drill Peck

    Flying is only a bad type if you don't get Drill Peck. Now Gyarados can use that 125 base Attack, two-shotting Egg and having a small chance to 2HKO Gengar and Chansey.
     
  3. Ortheore

    Ortheore One beautiful monster

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    hmm I actually had a look at things and decided a lot of pokemon are too bad for any one subtle change to redeem them. You'd either need multiple changes or something on that list you made. But the rules aren't intended to be too restrictive anyway, it's more just guidelines so ppl be a bit more creative.

    I like those ideas, especially the Nido one, I think that's a really elegant way of making it useful. Could even go Ice>Water for shits and giggles.

    Drill Peck Gyara is cool as well, of the top of my head I can't think of anything that resists Gyara's STAB combo which is cool. Slap Hyper Beam and Tbolt/BSlam on there and you're ballin. Defensively its typing still sucks, but at least this way it packs enough power to kinda make up for it

    Some more ideas I had
    [​IMG]
    Arbok
    Poison->Ground (Normal is even better ofc)

    Arbok goes from being a complete shitmon to being, well, not as crap. With STAB on its EQ, its power isn't entirely negligible. Coupled with Wrap and Glare, I think it makes for an intriguing option. Of course, its stats still range from mediocre to shit, and even with Wrap it would struggle against anything resisting Ground attacks

    If you went with Normal, that's still interesting- much more powerful Wrap obviously, while loss of Twave immunity isn't as big a deal as one might think, since either way it needs to take care switching into stuff like Chansey

    [​IMG]
    Porygon
    Defense 70->100

    Meet your new physical wall. This gives Porygon 65/100/75 defenses. That may seem mediocre but it's more physical bulk than Starmie (60/85/100), and an immunity to paraslam to top it off. Still probably wouldn't be very good- its offensive stats are pathetic and it only manages to speed-tie Rhydon. Still, it would give Lax grief, barring Amnesia, and that's enough to make it a niche pick in OU

    Also Moltres would absolutely love Twave- being able to paralyse Star/Chans/Zam rather than accidentally burning them would be an absolute godsend for the firebird
     
  4. Spoovo The Pirate

    Spoovo The Pirate Meep! Article Contributor Article Contributor

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    ...so this is essentially one of those 'break a pokemon' threads, but geared towards the RBY metagame?

    I like these things! :3

    I can't profess to knowing much about the RBY metagame like at all, aside from what I've read in analyses, but here's one I saw that kinda stands out:

    [​IMG]

    Base Speed: 50 -> 80

    Sleep Power
    Body Slam / Stun Spore
    Hyper Beam
    Mega Drain

    Bumping up Vileplume's Speed to a base 80 puts it past Victreebel, and gives it stats on par with Venusaur, everywhere except Attack. However, what Venusaur lacks is the double powders thing. Body Slam can paralyse things that aren't Normal-types, but Stun Spore can paralyse everything that isn't Grass (if I remember the mechanics correctly. I could be wrong here). Double powders are fairly obvious, with their semi-reliable accuracy, Hyper Beam's for finishing weakened things off, and Mega Drain's a STAB to keep it relatively healthy, especially against any Golem or Rhydon that comes in on it.

    ...did I do good? Sorry if this is shit lol; I tried at least. :D

    EDIT: Ahh damn, one change. Looks like we'll have to use Mega Drain in the last slot to keep Plume healthy then. Shame GSC egg moves can't be used in RBY meta, huh?
     
  5. Ortheore

    Ortheore One beautiful monster

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    Pretty much, except it's so incredibly easy to make broken pokemon in rby that I thought it would be more interesting to make pokemon that are viable but not too ridiculous

    As for Vileplume, I can't say I would use it even with better speed- probably its biggest issue is its poison type

    Also although tradebacks aren't standard, it's still an interesting meta, so talking about it is all good imo, as long as it's clear what you're talking about =]
     
  6. magic9mushroom

    magic9mushroom Active Member

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    Tentacruel - base Speed 100 -> 130

    Wrap off base Speed 130 would just be obnoxious in the extreme.
     
  7. Xdevo

    Xdevo Phrasing Super Moderator Tour Director Super Moderator Tour Director

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    Electrode with Surf
    Thunderbolt
    Explosion
    Surf
    Thunder Wave / Screech

    Still not all that great, but does give a bit of competition to Jolteon. A crit Tbolt + Boom can take out a Chansey, so that's nice. Eggy will wall the fuck out of you though. No more Twave Para on Electrode is neat too.

    1700 posts wooo
     
  8. magic9mushroom

    magic9mushroom Active Member

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    What? Twave works on Electrode, and adding Surf wouldn't make it immune.


    If you have to add only one move, for Electrics I'd probably pick Blizzard instead of Surf. Deals with Egg as well as Rocks.
     
  9. Xdevo

    Xdevo Phrasing Super Moderator Tour Director Super Moderator Tour Director

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    Sorry, I was thinking Electrics were immune to para from /all/ electric attacks, not just electric damage attacks.

    Surf is decent for electrode since it completely stops rocks from attempting to block explosion, though a 2HKO still isn't bad.
     
  10. magic9mushroom

    magic9mushroom Active Member

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    It's only secondary effects that are stopped. So Glare works on Normal types, Stun Spore works on Grass types, and Thunder Wave works on Electric types.

    Well, against Rhydon it's 57% to OHKO with Surf (27% hit and crit + 30% hit and non-crit and high damage roll) vs. 31% for Blizzard (24% hit and crit + 7% hit and non-crit and freeze). Surf's better, but it's not a case of "Surf OHKOs and Blizzard doesn't".

    (At the pointy end of Speed, everything gets a little wonky in RBY. I remember doing average-damage calculations on Jolteon regarding "at what point of Psychic specfalls is Pin Missile more effective against Alakazam than Thunderbolt" and coming to the initially-puzzling conclusion that Jolteon's average damage with Tbolt after 2 specfalls is 70% of what it is normally - the trick there is that 40% of Jolteon's DPS is in its crits, and those aren't affected by the specfalls.)
     
    Last edited: May 31, 2015
  11. borat

    borat Member

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    theorymoning on theoretical pokemon

    i dont even
     
  12. Spoovo The Pirate

    Spoovo The Pirate Meep! Article Contributor Article Contributor

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    It's a theorymon thread. What's so weird about that?
     
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  13. Disaster Area

    Disaster Area Badged Deucer

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    Riachu - I think that 120 Special is important but buffing it to 110 or even higher speed, as well as maybe upping its attack a bit, would both contribute heathily in making it harder to wall, or an alternative is increase the bulk to let it beat zapdos better.

    Parasect - Base 90 HP (making it 90/80/80 > 60/80/80).. its 4x weaknesses are pretty non-existent apart from zapdos and moltres. The extra bulk lets it take on stuff like starmie with ease. Add in Leech Life Base Power 20->60, and all of a sudden you have a bit of a monster, albeit one requiring careful support.

    Venomoth - base speed 90->100, Leech Life BP 20->60 again. Now it can beat Jynx leads, and annihilate egg leads, and generally is a lot more effective. With leech life/psychic/double powder (or the rare mega drain) and it's a very effective attacker (and base 65 attack makes leech life more potent than you realise, but bumping it up to say 75 or 85 could make it hurt more)

    Poliwrath - give it Thunderbolt/Thunder and HJK. Great power and coverage, amnesia/hypnosis/electric/psychic/water/ice/fighting coverage. Could buff stats a lil.

    Machamp - Special 65->95, Speed 55->60, Body Slam Paralysis chance to 50%, buff submission (no recoil, 100% accuracy would be enough). Body Slam letting it get para on starmie, earthquake already hits rly hard anything that resits fighting other than egg, which with the speed buff you now outspeed, and the special buff helps you nail it with fire blast if you need to. A buff to HP could help it out a ton too.

    Weezing - Mega Drain would give it MD/Tbolt/Explosion/Sludge as a solid enough set, being a consistent exploder not worried by the rocks, and can hurt starmie sorta too. At least none of its attacks are actually resisted by Starmie! Up its attack from 90->110 and then its explosion has a passable shot at OHKOing starmie, and makes it altogether more powerful.
     
  14. magic9mushroom

    magic9mushroom Active Member

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    RTFOP?

    On topic:

    Wigglytuff - Transform

    It's not Chansey, but it's still got a lot of health and crappy other stats, so it's a natural for Transform. Starmie in particular would loathe facing this. Probably still not great, but you could at least cause some mayhem.


    I know I'm breaking my own rule here, but I think this one's still worth mentioning:

    Scyther - Bug/Flying -> Normal/Flying

    Scyther has zero Bug moves and its entire attacking movepool besides Wing Attack is Normal-type (and it has Slash and Swords Dance + Hyper Beam + Quick Attack, so it's not exactly a narrow movepool). This is just giving it a straight 50% boost to all its attacks. The lack of coverage is still problematic, but this helps a lot. Bug/Normal would probably be even better, but it's less justifiable.
     
    Last edited: Jun 13, 2015
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  15. Disaster Area

    Disaster Area Badged Deucer

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    o sorry ;-; I guess it's a pertinent point though that the biggest issue for a lot of Pokemon though could be most easily remedied by buffing one or two of their moves.
     
  16. Ortheore

    Ortheore One beautiful monster

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    It's relevant in that that's an area you would address if you were doing a mod for rby similar to 2K10's rby+. But messing with moves to me doesn't seem right as a change, especially since some of them have huge consequences, such as anything to do with BSlam.

    That said, I think I was too restrictive in the OP, since a lot of pokemon require some serious changes to sniff at viability. At this point I'd just be like w/e works, as long as it's nothing super ridiculous.

    DA, I think those changes you described basically make Weezing into Muk lol- Muk already does MD, as well as having Acid Armour to back it up. Poliwrath is an interesting case, since it feels like it doesn't need much of a push to be a respectable option, but there's no one change that fixes things for it. I think giving it Tbolt is more useful to it, since then it can attempt to fend off water types. Parasect I think is interesting but it suffers a bit from Tangela syndrome- it takes hits nicely but does exactly nothing in return

    Wigglytuff makes for a nice Transform user, it's just a shame it can't have better speed so it could make use of it before taking a beating.

    Aerodactyl learns Drill Peck

    The only thing to resist Normal+Ground gets a worthwhile STAB. That's pretty awesome, backed by a good attack stat and an awesome crit rate. It would actually be really useful.

    Edit: m9m you're right, it needs more than that. Certainly Rock Slide is a much better addition if we're sticking to just the one change since obviously nothing outside GolDon resists it in OU
     
    Last edited: Jun 14, 2015
  17. Disaster Area

    Disaster Area Badged Deucer

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    Weezing has better speed and bulk though - notably outspeeding exeggutor. Quite usable in the end-game, at least with that buff (currently you use haze instead for slowbro i guess.. it rly has nothing good to put there)

    Also you underestimate how good boosted bug stab is, especially with healing and swords dance.
     
  18. magic9mushroom

    magic9mushroom Active Member

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    Well yeah, if Hidden Power Bug existed in RBY it'd be a completely-different meta, but that's not exactly a matter of improving Pokemon so much as changing the core mechanics.

    EDIT: Aerodactyl needs more than Drill Peck to be good. Electrics and Rocks both resist it. It'd need at least Earthquake, and preferably Rock Slide as well for Zapdos (although it can get by with Normal coverage against the Electrics).

    Now I'm remembering that RBY Hackmons game I played (I forget who against) where we both fielded Drill Peck/Earthquake/Rock Slide Aerodactyls (I had Swords Dance, he had Recover). It's a nasty sweeper, but rather fragile in a meta where Crabhammers fly around like popcorn.
     
    Last edited: Jun 14, 2015
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  19. Kristoph

    Kristoph New Member

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    As someone who's designed a mod, I've tested a good number of possible changes. Of course, a lot of them are move changes, like making Mimic permanent or improving Leech Life, which are outside the scope of this thread.

    Regardless, some ideas:

    Hypno attack boost
    Takes it a little more out of Alakazam's shadow, possibly lets it make some real use out of Body Slam or even Submission

    Ninetales Fire/Psychic type, learns Psychic
    Yes it's probably true for a lot of Pokemon that they'd benefit a lot from being part Psychic, but at least with Ninetales it makes a lot of sense to have that typing.

    Softboiled on any bird
    Yeah giving recovery to anything would be really nice, but again, at least it makes sense here. Especially because of Roost emerging in later gens. Aerodactyl/Moltres/Articuno could all benefit a whole lot from this.

    Drill Peck and Solar Beam to Moltres
    Drill Peck/Agility/Fire Blast/Solar Beam seems really good here. Smacks Chansey, can say something to Starmie, Rocks need to be scared of something other than just getting burned. Yeah it would prefer Razor Leaf, but it actually learns Solar Beam in later gens.
     
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  20. Ortheore

    Ortheore One beautiful monster

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    On the note of giving things Psychic typing, Electric/Psychic Electabuzz would be pretty nifty, seeing as it already learns Psychic. I mean that's a pretty decent type combo, it gets dual STAB, fun times. Probably bumps it up to BL, but not OU status, if I'm remembering its stats correctly.

    Softboiled Articuno would be a lord, though Aero and Moltres are cool too.
     
  21. magic9mushroom

    magic9mushroom Active Member

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    SolarBeam doesn't beat Starmie unless it crits; it only does about 2/3. Also Electrics/Jynx(/Gyara) switching in on the charge is curtains. Mega Drain would probably be better, in all honesty. That lets it regenerate a little damage as Starmie switches in, and it's still enough for a 2HKO on the Rocks.