Whether it is worth while or not, dragon fang (along with bright powder) are currently the highest candidates for brokenness. Bright powder I may just modify, but Dragon fang mostly creates more sweepers, a role that frankly doesn't add a whole lot new to the game. We have life orb sweepers, mega sweepers, and setup sweepers. I want to play around with it more before deciding, or hear from people who have used it, but it's the shakiest item at the moment.
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FIVE ITEMS (playable on Aqua)
- Thread starter Chaoswalker
- Start date
To me, the problem with allowing the Dragon Fang to bypass Magic Guard and Sheer Force is that it outright ignores the game mechanics themselves.
Magic Guard prevents indirect damage from all sources. Since that includes Life Orb, Rocky Helmet, Iron Barbs, Rough Skin, etc., there is no logical reason for that to not apply to the Dragon Fang. The only exceptions to that rule are Struggle recoil and Pain Split, and Pain Split does not technically even deal damage. In fact, Pain Split is technically healing even for the Pokémon that ends up losing health overall. (Yes, a Magic Guard Pokémon still loses HP from using Belly Drum, Ghost Curse, and Substitute, but those are arguably self-induced direct damage.)
Sheer Force negates secondary effects by skipping the secondary effect check altogether. The game simply branches straight past post-move effects. As we've seen, this includes Life Orb. But that's not all. It also affects a foe's Red Card or Eject Button, and even stops the ability Colour Change. The only thing that could possibly justify the Dragon Fang ignoring Sheer Force's effects is that Sheer Force does not negate the effect of a foe's Iron Barbs, Rough Skin, or held Rocky Helmet.
If you want to make a less-stupid version of Dragon Fang, one of the item submissions in Noble Items was a Muscle Band that granted 1.15x Attack and 1.15x Speed with no negative impact whatsoever. That seems to me to be a much more useful item with a more positive effect on the metagame, allowing strong physical attackers that are ordinarily slightly lacking in Speed to speed-creep otherwise faster attackers. Its utility lies more in revenge killing than in enabling a sweep itself. If you wanted to, you could clone the effect for Wise Glasses with 1.15x Sp. Atk and 1.15x Speed. In fact, you could even reduce the boost to 1.12x in both Attack/Sp. Atk and Speed to make the item more speed-creep-y and less I-outspeed-everything-y. It also might let you use things like Primeape or Leafeon viably now that they have relevant Speed.
Heck, you could even make it an item that does something like "The holder has 1.12x Attack. If the holder is of a species that has less than 100 base Speed, their Speed is 1.12x as well." That could bring a few slightly-too-slow attackers out of UU while not introducing too much speed creep to the meta as a whole. This actually seems like the best idea to me. Rather than Dragon Fang, have:
Muscle Band: Holder has 1.12x Attack. If the holder is of a species that has less than 100 base Speed, their Speed is 1.12x as well.
Wise Glasses: Holder has 1.12x Special Attack. If the holder is of a species that has less than 100 base Speed, their Speed is 1.12x as well.
The biggest problem that I can see is that this forces you to rename your Pet Mod to "SIX ITEMS", but other than that I think it likely works much better on the whole.
Edit: Edited to fix grammar in a few spots, and to add a little more detail at the end of the post.
Magic Guard prevents indirect damage from all sources. Since that includes Life Orb, Rocky Helmet, Iron Barbs, Rough Skin, etc., there is no logical reason for that to not apply to the Dragon Fang. The only exceptions to that rule are Struggle recoil and Pain Split, and Pain Split does not technically even deal damage. In fact, Pain Split is technically healing even for the Pokémon that ends up losing health overall. (Yes, a Magic Guard Pokémon still loses HP from using Belly Drum, Ghost Curse, and Substitute, but those are arguably self-induced direct damage.)
Sheer Force negates secondary effects by skipping the secondary effect check altogether. The game simply branches straight past post-move effects. As we've seen, this includes Life Orb. But that's not all. It also affects a foe's Red Card or Eject Button, and even stops the ability Colour Change. The only thing that could possibly justify the Dragon Fang ignoring Sheer Force's effects is that Sheer Force does not negate the effect of a foe's Iron Barbs, Rough Skin, or held Rocky Helmet.
If you want to make a less-stupid version of Dragon Fang, one of the item submissions in Noble Items was a Muscle Band that granted 1.15x Attack and 1.15x Speed with no negative impact whatsoever. That seems to me to be a much more useful item with a more positive effect on the metagame, allowing strong physical attackers that are ordinarily slightly lacking in Speed to speed-creep otherwise faster attackers. Its utility lies more in revenge killing than in enabling a sweep itself. If you wanted to, you could clone the effect for Wise Glasses with 1.15x Sp. Atk and 1.15x Speed. In fact, you could even reduce the boost to 1.12x in both Attack/Sp. Atk and Speed to make the item more speed-creep-y and less I-outspeed-everything-y. It also might let you use things like Primeape or Leafeon viably now that they have relevant Speed.
Heck, you could even make it an item that does something like "The holder has 1.12x Attack. If the holder is of a species that has less than 100 base Speed, their Speed is 1.12x as well." That could bring a few slightly-too-slow attackers out of UU while not introducing too much speed creep to the meta as a whole. This actually seems like the best idea to me. Rather than Dragon Fang, have:
Muscle Band: Holder has 1.12x Attack. If the holder is of a species that has less than 100 base Speed, their Speed is 1.12x as well.
Wise Glasses: Holder has 1.12x Special Attack. If the holder is of a species that has less than 100 base Speed, their Speed is 1.12x as well.
The biggest problem that I can see is that this forces you to rename your Pet Mod to "SIX ITEMS", but other than that I think it likely works much better on the whole.
Edit: Edited to fix grammar in a few spots, and to add a little more detail at the end of the post.
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I was thinking similarly. A smaller boost would prevent people from just slapping it on every current Life Orber to make them win condition with their Adamant/Modest nature. (modest Keldeo Stronger than Timid Chandelure).
Taking 25 or 50% more damage could also work, but the more I think about it, the more I see the item only doing one of two things:
Make lower tier pokemon more viable, or making anything mildly fast into a Weavile/Alakazam.
There are plenty of mods rearranging the tiers/buffing mons, so I frankly don't care to bring that over here. Sure, these items allow a lot of traditionally weaker pokemon a chance to shine, but that isn't the main goal of the project.
In the end though, I suppose whatever is most interesting for the players should be the top priority. It's just my personal feeling that we have enough fast offense in the OU meta at the moment.
Taking 25 or 50% more damage could also work, but the more I think about it, the more I see the item only doing one of two things:
Make lower tier pokemon more viable, or making anything mildly fast into a Weavile/Alakazam.
There are plenty of mods rearranging the tiers/buffing mons, so I frankly don't care to bring that over here. Sure, these items allow a lot of traditionally weaker pokemon a chance to shine, but that isn't the main goal of the project.
In the end though, I suppose whatever is most interesting for the players should be the top priority. It's just my personal feeling that we have enough fast offense in the OU meta at the moment.
I'm hard at work trying to rework the concept of this mod, but until then I'll be available to play most nights after 7PM. I'll leave a tab open on the aqua server at night to receive messages/challenges from anyone who wants to try out the meta/ test the items. (btw, I live in the pacific time zone) My username is Chaoswalker.
EDIT:
Please post movesets that you have tried and are working for you to give others an idea of what sets are effective in the new meta. This includes pokemon who are relevant as counters to the new items.
EDIT:
Please post movesets that you have tried and are working for you to give others an idea of what sets are effective in the new meta. This includes pokemon who are relevant as counters to the new items.
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Not sure if anyone has said this, but Armor Fossil looks good on Dragalge. It's got great SpD, decent Def, and rather nice offensive presence w/ Adaptability.
Dragalge @ Armor Fossil
Ability: Adaptability
Modest Nature
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
-Draco Meteor
-Sludge Wave
-Scald
-Hidden Power Fire
I haven't tried this, but I plan to very soon.
Dragalge @ Armor Fossil
Ability: Adaptability
Modest Nature
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
-Draco Meteor
-Sludge Wave
-Scald
-Hidden Power Fire
I haven't tried this, but I plan to very soon.