Which/Do Pokemon gain/lose an advantage from Rock type Bide, Fighting type Mega Punch, Poison type Bind and Grass type Slam?
Actually, it
does matter that
Bide is Rock type, because it respects immunities in Gen VI! As such, Bide is now slightly less crappy because it's impossible to switch in something immune to it. (Well, I think Shedinja is still safe because it's fixed damage and thus not capable of being super effective, but otherwise...)
Mega Punch is utter garbage. Dexsearching to see if it adds Fighting coverage to anything at
all, the answer is no. Even aside from Facade being omnipresent and arguably far superior, everything that learns Mega Punch learns some other, better Fighting move. It's not like it's even OK for No Guard Pokemon -the only relevant ones get Dynamic Punch, and worse yet Machamp gets Cross Chop and Mega Kick. Nobody is going to run it, simple as that.
Bind is basically a downgrade. You can hit Ghosts with it, but you can't actually trap Ghosts so that's dubious in its utility, especially since Ghosts resist the Poison type and the initial hit is incredibly weak. (I'd actually forgotten moves still go down to 15 BP) Meanwhile you can't trap Steel types anymore, whom are one of the more worthwhile targets to trap and hit with residual damage, since so many of them lack actual recovery and have high defenses. Gaining STAB and the potential to hit Grass and Fairy super effectively is nice, but even a STAB hit on Whimsicott is still effectively 90 BP, at which point you might as well have used some
good off-stab move (eg Return), or just hit it with Poison Jab and popped it outright, honestly. It's bad.
Slam is essentially "inaccurate Seed Bomb" and so is pretty iffy,
but there's actually a decent selection of Pokemon where this is their whole Physical Grass coverage. Azumarill, Carracosta, Dewgong, Dragonite, Furret, Hydreigon, Kingler, Mawile, Omastar, Quagsire, Raichu, Rampardos, and Steelix (And in all cases their unevolved forms too) get Slam and that's it for their Physical Grass coverage. (If not their only Grass outright, though Omastar is far more likely to use Wring Out, which is Special Grass and much more powerful) I don't actually see this effecting.... well, any of them, in all honesty, but I
guess it might show up on Azumarill or something, at least in Gravity abusing teams.
Which entries for this week do you agree/disagree with? [Remember: Be to the point and decisive, no hate]
Not a big fan of giving the Weather Trio Weather Ball to be honest. Groudon and Kyogre
could, I
guess, use it as "Stronger than Flamethrower/Surf but more reliable than Fire Blast/Hydro Pump/Eruption/Water Spout" but I don't see it happening ever, and for Rayquaza it's... actually thinking on it, we made Weather Ball Flying type, and Delta Stream doesn't change its typing but
does double its firepower, so on second thought that's actually
cool, that Mega Rayquaza gets a Special Flying move of note!
But Kyogre and Groudon getting it is still dumb, and I don't think it's even all that flavorful.
The only other thing I have to comment on is: isn't it kind of not in the spirit/letter of the rules to submit 5 move-added possibilities where one of those is two species? (Nidoran) Isn't that in fact submitting six Pokemon to get the move?
Do you think any of last week's Recipient-Pokemon will get more usage because of these new moves and why?
The Regis are now usable! Hooray for
Slack Off! (Well, maybe not Regigigas still...) Also Curselax is more threatening than ever. Bibarel is pretending to be relevant. Stallrein is better than ever. And Dewgong is also pretending to be relevant and doing a less convincing job than Bibarel.
Boomburst makes Yanmega actually kind of scary when backed by Tinted Lens, makes Flare Boost Drifblim something I can believe might actually happen because that's a
lot of firepower to throw around, even off a mere 90 base Special Attack. Also Electrode is pretending to be relevant. (Actually it
is relevant, because Explosion is a good type now. But 80 Special Attack on an off-STAB move, even when it's Boomburst, is only relevant if Electrode tries frying things with Electric and the enemy switches in a Grass type to "wall" it, which is
extremely questionable when Explosion is Fire typed)
Tri Attack has little effect on Klinklang (It already gets Thunderbolt, which is stronger and has a predictable side effect, as well as Discharge, which is just as strong and the effect kicks in more often), isn't going to save Vespiquen however much I might hope, gives Weezing Electric coverage which is nice but slightly flawed (Ground resists Poison and is immune to Electric), Exeggutor has simply gained a non-Terrain-alterable Tri Attack (It already gets Nature Power), Probopass doesn't particularly care for the same reasons as Klinklang, Sudowoodo doesn't care because where its Attack is 100 its Special Attack is
30, Jumpluff has picked up Electric coverage in actual fact (It doesn't get Nature Power) but this is iffy since it already struggles against Grass types, and Roserade is in the same position as Exeggutor. (Already gets Nature Power) So basically Weezing might run it and matter. Ouch. Wasn't expecting it to be
this disappointing before I started writing...