Looking at overpowered Pokémon

[Dcubed]

New Frame Plus actually did a really good video on how Game Freak have handled battle animations over the years some few years ago.

Should give you an appreciation of the immense challenge they've faced and some of the clever ways that they tackled them.

[Jonnas]

One of the few things I knew about 4th Gen meta was that Machamp had a niche as a DynamicPuncher. It's one of my faves, hence why I knew.

I kept reading Glen's write-up, waiting for him to say why this moveset had become such an issue as of late... and apparently, nothing in particular happened. Just, after several years of DynamicPunch Machamp being a thing, some folk decided it was too much to deal with, and banned him to Ubers?

It's weird how a metagame evolves, sometimes. It's like DK and Yoshi recently becoming high tiers in Melee, despite nothing about the game changing.

[Glen-i]

23 hours ago, Jonnas said:

Just, after several years of DynamicPunch Machamp being a thing, some folk decided it was too much to deal with, and banned him to Ubers?

Yeah, pretty much. Just a steady increase of people complaining about it, until there were too many to ignore.

It is possible that it might lead to Jirachi becoming uncontested in the OU meta there without Machamp keeping it in check. Funnily enough, the next Pokémon is a good example of that kind of thing, but that will have to wait.

[Glen-i]

So, like I hinted before, sometimes a Pokémon getting banned to Ubers does end up paving the way for another Pokémon to start dominating the Smogon scene. Because if people couldn't use Garchomp in the Gen 4 (Diamond/Pearl) meta, well, they'd just find a new Dragon Powerhouse Pokémon to use.

Salamence is one of the Powerhouse Pokémon of the third generation (Ruby/Sapphire). It's Dragon/Flying and definitely has the stats to back up it's Powerhouse title.

When Gen 4 rolled around, there were two things holding Salamence back. The first was Garchomp kicking around the place. Dragon types are weak against Dragon moves, and if you would care to remember, Garchomp has a base Speed of 102, so Salamence struggled to outspeed it. It was just begging to be revenge killed by the land shark.
The second is that it's movepool was quite limited. That attack stat is nice, but Salamence's strongest physical moves that matched its typing were Dragon Claw (80 Power), and Fly (90 Power). Fly needs a turn to charge up, and despite Salamence being unable to be hit during that time, it just lets your opponent set up or switch Pokémon freely.

So Salamence had to rely on it's Sp. Atk, and become the kind of Pokémon that functions as a "Mixed Attacker", one that uses both Physical and Special attacks with coverage moves like Earthquake and Fire Blast. Generally, spreading yourself out like that is difficult to do well. You can only put so many extra points into a Pokémon's stats, which is why most people tend to favour only one of the attacking stats.

To be fair, 110 is good, so it's not like Salamence is lacking there.

Garchomp was just a more appealing option, but it getting booted from OU wasn't the sole reason for Salamence's rise to glory. It was certainly doing better without Garchomp ruining it's day, it's balanced, but still good, stats made it hard to predict, but that same balanced approach meant that it could be handled with the right approach.
And then HeartGold/SoulSilver happened. These Gen 2 remakes, introduced some new moves for Pokémon to learn via various tutors. One of these moves was Outrage, and well, that was the last straw.

Outrage is a physical Dragon move that boasts 120 Power, and 100% accuracy. The downsides are that once you use it, you're locked into using Outrage for 2 or 3 turns, and then your Pokémon becomes confused. The benefits outweigh the cost in most scenarios as very few Pokémon can resist Dragon moves. That, combined with the general unpredictablity of Salamence made it a very dangerous Pokémon to deal with.

You see, because of it's balanced offensive stats, Salamence can make excellent use of Outrage, but also Draco Meteor (Special attack, 140 Power, 90% Accuracy, lowers the users Sp. Atk stat two stages). Hell, it can even learn moves like Roost to play a more defensive role. That will throw people off! Predict it wrong, and you'll get destroyed, which is very easy to do. Because if it decides to start using Dragon Dance when you were expecting Draco Meteor, well... Sucks to be you.

It all proved too much, there were barely any Pokémon that could reliably counter Salamence, and it shut down a lot of typical OU teams, so it ended up following Garchomp into Gen 4 Ubers.

But unlike Garchomp, Salamence would actually find itself banned in multiple generations. Not in Gen 5 (Black/White), but the two generations after that. I'm sure most fans can guess why.

The Gen 3 remakes, Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire gave Salamence a Mega Evolution.
Apart from looking like a croissant, Mega Salamence has absolutely bonkers stats.

The general thing with most Mega Evolutions is that it raises the BST of a Pokémon by 100, hence the really good stats across the board. Why they thought giving a Powerhouse Pokémon more stats was a good idea is baffling (It's because of popularity), but a pure stat boost isn't what makes a good Mega Evolution. It tends to be the ability.

Normal Salamence has the Intimidate ability, while Mega Evolution changes this to Aerilate.

Intimidate: Upon entering battle, the opponent’s Attack lowers one stage. In a Double Battle, both opponents’ Attack are lowered.

Aerilate: Increases the power of Normal-type moves by 20%. It then changes those moves to Flying-type.

These two abilities gel really well with how Mega Evolution works. Salamence comes in on a physical attacker, lowers their Attack, and then Mega Evolves and uses Aerilate.
See, when Aerilate changes a Normal attack to a Flying one, it does become a true Flying type attack, which means STAB also applies!

STAB stands for "Same Type Attack Boost". When a Pokémon uses a move that matches it's type, it gets 50% stronger. Multiply that by the 20% Aerilate boost, and that becomes 80%.
Thankfully, Salamence can't learn any strong Normal attacks. Oh wait, no. It can learn Double Edge...

So Double Edge is 120 Power. 80% of 120 is 96. Which means Double Edge used by Mega Salamence is 216 Power!
That's stronger then two Earthquakes!
With that sky high Attack stat, and a way to have a Flying type attack that doesn't suck, it wasn't even remotely surprising that it was deemed too powerful for Single Battles and banned to Ubers in those two generations.
Fun detail, in Gen 6, Aerilate boosted a move's power by 30% instead. Seems even Game Freak thought it was too powerful.

I should point out that Mega Salamence alone was banned in Gen 6 (X/Y) and 7 (Sun/Moon). You were allowed to use normal Salamence, it just wasn't allowed to use the item that let it Mega Evolve.

Does that mean it's good in casual play?

Much like Garchomp, Salamence is good purely because it's a Powerhouse Pokémon. Assuming you can even get one, mind. The typical trappings with these Pokémon applies here as well. Hard to catch, and hard to train.

Edited March 13 by Glen-i

[Jonnas]

Did the Salamence buff happen after Garchomp was banned to Ubers? Because it feels like this Outraged Salamence could've served as a decent check against Garchomp.

[Glen-i]

18 hours ago, Jonnas said:

Did the Salamence buff happen after Garchomp was banned to Ubers? Because it feels like this Outraged Salamence could've served as a decent check against Garchomp.

Actually, yes, Garchomp got banned around one year before HG/SS, but I don't think it would've helped too much.

I mean, if the Garchomp hasn't used Swords Dance beforehand, then Intimidate may force it to switch out, but if it already has, then Garchomp's 2 extra speed makes it unlikely for Salamence to win that matchup. It would be forced to hold Choice Scarf to deal with that, which kinda ruins the flexibility Salamence benefits from.

And remember, Sand Veil was Garchomp's only ability back then, so it'd be very risky anyway.

In the Ubers meta, Salamence doesn't do quite as well as Garchomp, and seeing as they both have a crippling weakness to Ice, you'd be hard pressed to find people who use both.

Simply put, we'll never know for sure. Pokémon don't tend to come back from Ubers. But what is certain is that there was an increase in Salamence usage in Gen 4 OU once Garchomp got the boot. It just wasn't the sole reason for it's ban.

Edited Tuesday at 04:05 PM by Glen-i

[Glen-i]

OK, I know at the beginning of this thread I said that I wouldn't be looking at legendary Pokémon because they're designed to be overpowered.

I fibbed.

You see, there are a handful, and only a handful, of legendary Pokémon that are so powerful, that they had to be banned from Ubers! These Pokémon make Mewtwo look crap! So where do these monstrosities go? They go to the AG tier.
AG stands for "Anything Goes". As the name implies, there are pretty much no rules here (Except for purposely making a match never end, so Wobuffet still can't have Leftovers). Use whatever you like, use the following Pokémon 6 times! Actually, that's not a bad idea, this Pokémon is that good.

Arceus is a Mythical (Basically, a legendary that's gotten through some kind of online event) Pokémon that was introduced in Gen 4 (Diamond/Pearl). It's best known for being Pokémon's equivalent of God. What is it anyway, some kind of Llama? We may never know...
Anyway, Arceus in Gen 4 may be our first example of an AG Pokémon, but it's not the first one to be banished to the tier. The AG tier was actually created in Gen 6 (X/Y) in response to a certain Pokémon, and then Arceus was retroactively put there for Gen 4. Why?
Well, for starters, let's see what stats Arceus excels in.

Yeah, I don't really need to tell you why these stats are amazing. These aren't even merely good, 120 are the kind of numbers any Pokémon would like to have in any stat.
This also means that Arceus has the highest BST (720) of any base form Pokémon. So, it can theoretically fill any kind of role you can think of.

But that's not even remotely all that Arceus has up it's non-existant sleeve. Because it has all the singular aspects that make Pokémon great.

Arceus has a signature move. Quite a novel thing back in Gen 4. Judgment is a Special normal type move with 100 base power and 100% accuracy. It has no downsides, in fact, it has a very neat benefit that leads us nicely to the next thing that makes Arceus insanely good, it's ability.

Multitype: Changes the Pokémon's type to match the Plate or Z-Crystal it holds.

So there are these various items known as plates, there's one for every type, and they usually boost the power of moves whose type matches the plate. But if you give a plate to Arceus, it also changes Arceus's type to whatever the plate is. And it also changes the type of Judgment. So Arceus has access to an excellent attack of any type it likes.
But that's only one move. You need more then that, and Arceus is more then capable in that regard. It can learn a ridiculous amount of moves from TM or Move Tutors, hell, it can even learn Spacial Rend, a really good move that normally only Palkia can learn. Arceus don't care about other Pokémon's signature moves.

This all serves to make Arceus practically impossible to predict. It can be defensive, or offensive, lightning fast, or play support, it can be any type, and it can learn almost any move it needs. Honestly, the only weakness is that the items it can hold are limited. Unless you decide to forego plates, it's still very effective, even as a normal type.

Honestly, I'm quite surprised it's only in Gen 4 where Arceus is not allowed in Ubers. My guess is that Mega Evolution helped even the playing field during the 3DS era, and Scarlet/Violet has an immense amount of power creep behind it, but I can't think of why Gen 5 (Black/White) didn't follow suit.

Does that mean it's good in casual play?

No. Don't get me wrong, Arceus would absolutely wreck shop in any casual playthrough, but these days, you can only legitimately catch Arceus in two games. Legends: Arceus only allows you to catch Arceus after you get every other Pokémon in that game. The other game, Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl, only lets you get an Arceus after the credits roll, and only if you have a save file from Legends: Arceus that has caught Arceus in the first place. Which feels redundant.

[Ashley]

5 hours ago, Glen-i said:

and only if you have a save file from Legends: Arceus that has caught Arceus in the first place. Which feels redundant.

As the old saying goes; you wait ages for a god and then two come at once. 

[bob]

I did wonder what all those plates were for in the Arceus game. I never used them because I never caught Arceus though. 

[Glen-i]

17 minutes ago, bob said:

I did wonder what all those plates were for in the Arceus game. I never used them because I never caught Arceus though. 

Actually, those plates work a little differently in that game, because abilities aren't a thing there. They're also not items that you can have a Pokémon hold, again, because they removed that mechanic. They're just key items that you use to change Arceus's type.

There's also 2 extra plates. The Blank Plate, which reverts Arceus back to Normal type, and the Legend Plate, which makes Arceus normal type, but when Judgment is used, automatically changes Arceus's, and Judgment's type to whatever will do the most damage to the opponent, while also resisting their native type if possible.

Thankfully, that second plate never left Legends: Arceus, the last thing it needs are bloody buffs!

Edited 8 hours ago by Glen-i

[bob]

I actually respect that they made the god Pokémon all powerful. It would be a bit stupid if they created a Pokémon that created the universe, but could be beaten by a trained caterpillar. 

[Ashley]

11 minutes ago, bob said:

I actually respect that they made the god Pokémon all powerful. It would be a bit stupid if they created a Pokémon that created the universe, but could be beaten by a trained caterpillar. 

I reckon I could beat up God. He's really old and hasn't done anything for thousands of years. Must be pretty weak by now.

[Glen-i]

12 minutes ago, bob said:

I actually respect that they made the god Pokémon all powerful. It would be a bit stupid if they created a Pokémon that created the universe, but could be beaten by a trained caterpillar. 

I mean, yeah, that would be silly...

7 minutes ago, Ashley said:

I reckon I could beat up God. He's really old and hasn't done anything for thousands of years. Must be pretty weak by now.

 

Capitalism is stronger then religion, according to Spike Chunsoft

[Hero-of-Time]

11 minutes ago, Ashley said:

I reckon I could beat up God. He's really old and hasn't done anything for thousands of years. Must be pretty weak by now.

I'm not so sure.