Looking at overpowered Pokémon

[Dufniall]

I've had a Doublade on my team in X for ages before I found out the guy actually had a third stage and it requires a stone for evolution.

[Glen-i]

2 minutes ago, Dufniall said:

I've had a Doublade on my team in X for ages before I found out the guy actually had a third stage and it requires a stone for evolution.

Oof...

Still, I hope it taught you to always scroll through your stones whenever you get a new Pokémon, just in case.

And hey, could be worse. You could be the guy who had a male LV 50 Salandit during his first playthrough of Sun, and was wondering why the hell it wasn't evolving.

Pssst. It's me, I'm that guy.

[Glen-i]

One of the absolute biggest glow-ups Mega Evolution gave a Pokémon was one that elevated it from the absolute lowest tier on Smogon, to a monstrosity that had to be banned to Ubers.
If you ask me, I think all those other Pokémon are mad that they suck so much, a toddler could beat them.

Mega Kangaskhan is another one of those Mega Evolutions that I think has a really clever design. The Kangaskhan itself doesn't Mega Evolve, but the child in it's pouch does. It still gives the Kangaskhan a stat boost though, somehow...

The stats would be good for a normal Pokémon, but they're kind of underwhelming for a Mega. Which, if you've been paying attention, means you can guess what it is that made this Pokémon so OP.

Parental Bond: Every move used by the Pokémon will hit twice. The damage inflicted by the second hit is reduced by 50%. If the move used is a damaging move, each hit is capable of afflicting Secondary Effects and Critical Hits.

The effective 50% damage boost is nice, but it's that last part that you should pay attention to. Take the move Body Slam, for example. It's an attacking move that has a 30% chance to paralyse the Pokémon it hits. But because Parental Bond makes the move hit twice, that means it checks for this paralysis chance twice. (I think that makes it effectively a 51% chance of paralysis with each use)

But it goes further then that, do some research into what moves Kangaskhan can learn, and you can come up with some absolutely killer synergies!

• Seismic Toss is a move that does fixed damage based on Kangaskhan's level. That fixed damage isn't reduced on the second hit, so in a Level 50 fight, that's a guaranteed 100 HP worth of damage. There aren't many Pokémon that have 201 HP or more.
• Rock Tomb and Bulldoze both also reduce the target's speed when it hits. Pokémon that rely on speed are pretty much crippled with that.
• Power-Up Punch, much like the name implies, attacks while also boosting Kangaskhan's Attack stat by one stage. Being able to do this twice means that you effectively attack while also getting the same attack boost as Swords Dance.

A lot of Pokémon in the OU tier can't deal with the constant secondary effects Kangaskhan rains down. Not to mention, the sheer power of 125 base Attack multiplied by 2 after one Power-Up Punch (Because it's an attacking move, you can't block it with Taunt), followed by another attack at half that power. That second hit also means that you can't use Substitute or Focus Sash to block it.

And don't think you can use a revenge killer, because Kangaskhan can also learn Sucker Punch (70 power Physical Dark Move that always goes first, but fails if the target is not using an attacking move). Fast Fighting Pokémon are your only answer, which severely limits options, and is why Mega Kangaskhan got banned only 2 months after Gen 6 (X/Y) started. Unfortunately, Ubers is not kind to it, it doesn't do well there where 100 in a base stat isn't impressive, and it's attacking options are relatively weak. It's also easily countered by other Uber Megas like Gengar and Sableye.

By the way, this is another Pokémon where Game Freak nerfed the ability in the next generation (Sun/Moon). Parental Bond's second hit only does 25% of the damage there. It's still OP, even if more reliant on Seismic Toss.

Does that mean it's good in casual play?

Hell yeah! It's one of the best Megas to use in X and Y! But that's pretty much the only game where Kangaskhan is any good in a playthrough... Mega Stones don't show up in Sun/Moon until the post game, and it's not much good in Let's Go as well, because abilities in that game don't exist, and Kangaskhan desperately needs that ability to be any good.

It'll be interesting to see if Legends: Z-A will let Mega Kangaskhan do what it's meant to do.

[Ashley]

3 hours ago, Glen-i said:

The Kangaskhan itself doesn't Mega Evolve, but the child in it's pouch does. It still gives the Kangaskhan a stat boost though, somehow...

 

 

[Glen-i]

A lot of these Pokémon utilise smart strategy or exploit the mechanics in such a way, that they can be unexpected in their brokenness.

And then there's Pokémon like Mega Lucario.

Lucario, being the third most popular Pokémon in the entire series, was a sure thing to get a Mega Evolution when Gen 6 (X/Y) rolled around.

I'm afraid you're not gonna get much insight here, because there's not much to say. Take a massive Attack stat, with impressive Speed;

Combine that with a similarly high power ability;

Adaptability: Increases the Same Type Attack Bonus from X1.5 to X2.

Double that attack power again with Swords Dance, and then proceed to use Fighting and Steel moves like Close Combat (120 Power, lowers users Defense and Sp. Def 1 stage), Iron Tail (100 Power, 75% accuracy) and Bullet Punch (40 Power, always goes first) to bulldoze everything in your way. Simply put...

"MEGA LUCARIO SMASH!"

Does that mean it's good in casual play?

You tell me. Granted, you can only get a Mega Lucario during a playthrough in X/Y, but you're given one for free halfway through the game. The game just gives you a Pokémon that destroys any sense of difficulty curve. Probably why it's considered the easiest Pokémon game.

[Glen-i]

If you're hoping this week's Pokémon will be more in-depth then "Punch things until they die", I'm afraid you're gonna be kind of disappointed. More nuance then Lucario, mind you. But that's not saying much.

Mega Mawile didn't just benefit from Mega Evolution in Gen 6, it's base form was one of the older Pokémon that got the newly introduced Fairy type added to it. That makes both it and it's Mega Evolution Steel/Fairy, an absolutely irritating type combination to fight.

No, I haven't accidentally posted Mawile's usual stats, that's the Mega Evolution. Mawile isn't a very good Pokémon, and Mega Evolution only adds 100 to the base stat total, no matter how bad or good they were in the first place.

But in reality, Mega Mawile sneakily cheats the system, and actually gets 205 extra BST. Yes, it's the ability.

Huge Power: The Pokémon's Attack stat is doubled while it has this ability.

If you've ever wondered why the Pokémon Azumarill suddenly became not crap at some point, that ability is why. I've mentioned the move Swords Dance a few times, and at first glance, that ability just looks like a free Swords Dance, but it's not quite the same. Which means I'm about to go into more detail about how in-batttle stat modifiers work! YAAAAAAYYYYYY!

So when it comes to moves that raise or lower stats, I refer to them as "stages". Swords Dance raises the users Attack stat by two stages, for example. What this actually means is that the Attack stat is now multiplied by 2.
So, quick question, what do you think happens if you use Swords Dance twice?
If you said it multiplies the Attack stat by 4, you'd be wrong. The stat changes are additive, not multiplicative. So two uses of Swords Dance multiplies it by 3, while a third use makes it 4.

The double Attack gained from the Huge Power ability is not an in-battle stat modifier, so if you then use Swords Dance once, it still applies the multiplier of 2 to that already doubled Attack stat, so that's times 4, or three Swords Dance after only one turn!

By the way, STAB (Same Type Attack Boost) is also a seperate multiplier, so take that and add another 1.5 multiplier to the above, and things get very scary! One Swords Dance can get Mega Mawile to a staggering 630 Attack! For comparison, the same manuever with Mega Lucario only gets it to 580 Attack (Swords Dance + Adaptability powered STAB).

It's also worth noting that normal Mawile can also get Intimidate as it's ability, so it can pull some Salamence-esque double ability shenanigans, which is always nice.

On paper, that makes Mega Mawile even better then Mega Lucario. In reality, it's not as good. Still absolutely overbearing to the OU tier, but once it got banned to Ubers, it really struggled to carve a niche. There's two reasons for that. The obvious one is that it's Speed is atrocious. The second reason is that Steel/Fairy, while an excellent type combination defensively, is merely sub-par offensively. It doesn't hit many weaknesses, especially with the big hitters of the tier, like Primal Groudon.

This means that most people don't actually use Swords Dance in Ubers. Instead, Mega Mawile is used to check special attackers and to stop Xerneas from running rampant. So it can't fully live up to it's ridiculous Attack stat.

Does that mean it's good in casual play?

You can only currently get a Mega Mawile in Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire. It's good, but you need to be mindful of the awful Speed stat, that can let you down.

Normal Mawile is utter crap though, even with the added Fairy typing, don't ever use it.

[Glen-i]

Hey, remember when Greninja was good?

So, yeah. Greninja is a Water/Dark (Although the type of this particular Pokémon is completely irrelevant in this topic) Pokémon. It's the final evolution of Froakie, the Water type starter for Gen 6 (X/Y). This also makes it the second starter to get banned to Ubers

It's a ninja frog, of course Speed is it's best stat.

Greninja didn't actually get banned in the game it debuted in. It was very good, but despite having a respectable Attack stat, it learned no good physical moves to actually function as a mixed attacker, so it had trouble dealing with special walls, such as Blissey and Clefable.

But then Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire were released, and in those games were various "Move Tutors" which expanded the movesets of Pokémon. Greninja in particular really benefitted from that, because it could now learn some good physical moves like Gunk Shot (120 Power Poison attack) and Low Kick (Fighting Type, damage is higher in accordance with the target's weight). And now that it had answers to the Pokémon that could previously shrug it off, it became a centralising force in the Gen 6 metagame, and that got it banned.

So what gives? Why is a Pokémon with OK attacking stats so much of a... You already know it's the ability, don't you?

Protean: Before the Pokémon uses a move, it becomes a Pokémon of that type.

I shouldn't have to explain why this ability is amazing, should I? Being able to change your type while attacking is incredibly useful. Adding to that is the fact that the type change happens before the attack is used. Which means that good old "Same Type Attack Boost" applies, to every attack. So Greninja's offensive stats are 50% better then what they look like. Not to mention the sheer confusion you can inflict on your opponent by changing type so freely.

And you know what? Greninja got better in Gen 7 (Sun/Moon), but it actually dropped back into OU, so there's no need for me to talk about that. But this happened because Gen 7 introduced a lot of Pokémon that could deal with it, such as Toxapex, and Tapu Koko.
These days though, Greninja has fallen quite heavily. Protean was nerfed because of a completely different Pokémon, and it no longer has it's Ash-Greninja form that it had in Gen 7.

So yeah, as far as competitive Pokémon goes, Greninja just doesn't hold up anymore. Which sucks, because it's one of my favourite Pokémon!

Does that mean it's good in casual play?

It's OK. Protean is the hidden ability, so you'll struggle to get one of those.

However, if you still have the downloadable demo for Sun/Moon, you can transfer a special Greninja to the full game that has the "Battle Bond" ability. That's the one that lets it transfrom into Ash-Greninja.
Ash-Greninja is stupid powerful for a casual playthrough. Both Attack and Sp. Atk go up by 50, and it's Speed goes up by 10.
You'll look lame doing it, mind you.

Man, I hope Z-A gives it a Mega Evolution...

Edited 5 hours ago by Glen-i