Category: Reader Questions

Anonymous asks:

How do you feel about the idea of Game Freak making more dramatic changes to rebalance weaker Pokemon? For example, switching Flareon’s Special Attack with HP or Speed, and giving it access to Earthquake? I know they don’t do this, but should they?

I don’t think it’s unreasonable.  I mean, I’ve sort of given up caring about game balance in Pokémon, because – in my opinion, at least – Mega Rayquaza pretty much puts it beyond doubt that Game Freak certainly doesn’t care, and doesn’t regard a balanced competitive metagame as a significant goal of what they’re doing.  More importantly, I suspect that, given the sheer number of Pokémon we have now (or, good heavens, the number we will have by the end of the year – have they announced a number?  No, don’t tell me, I don’t even want to know), even a more aggressive balancing strategy like what you’re suggesting would probably not be sufficient.  There aren’t all that many viable roles a Pokémon can fill on a team (special/physical sweeper, Rapid Spin support, tank, pivot, wall, etc), and when you have 700+ of the damn things, it’s sort of inevitable that some will outstrip others at pretty much everything.  On top of that, some Pokémon that are bad on their own somehow become good when partnered with certain others through the strange alchemy of team-building.  So in short, I don’t think it’s a bad idea, I certainly don’t think it would hurt, and some of the really unfortunate Pokémon like Wigglytuff or Ariados could do with just having some big numbers slapped on them, but I’m also not convinced it would actually solve anything in the long term.

Anonymous asks:

Would Regigigas be more usable if instead of Slow Start, it began with very low Attack and Speed, and very high Defense and Special Defense- but every turn, the offensive stats go up +1 and defensive go down -1?

I feel like the answer is probably “no,” because I think with a set-up like that you run into the Darmanitan problem, where you have one Pokémon with two radically different strategies and it’s impossible to commit your moveset and EV spread entirely to one or the other.  Also, part of the problem with Slow Start is that the clock resets when you switch out, and in a game between two human players it’s actually not all that easy to guarantee that Regigigas will be able to stay in play without being killed for long enough to turn off his ability – this way of doing Slow Start has the same difficulty.  You can’t really play defensive because you get weaker the longer you stay in, and you can’t really play offensive because it takes you so damn long to set up.

Anonymous asks:

Which other legendaries do you think are likely to get Primal forms?

Well, at the moment, none.  I mean, I always avoid spoilers in the lead-up to new Pokémon games, so maybe I’m out of the loop on something that’s been revealed for Sun and Moon, but so far I feel like we’ve been given every reason to think that primal reversion is something specific to Groudon and Kyogre.

Anonymous asks:

If you could give any Pokemon a Mega Evolution, which would you choose?

I have a sort of rationale for this, which I outline here… basically I think mega evolutions should go to Pokémon 1) who are weak primarily because their stats are low, and 2) are unlikely ever to receive a conventional evolution.  Suggestions I put forward there are Ledian, Bibarel, Delcatty, and Plusle and Minun (disclaimer: I avoid spoilers on new Pokémon games, so if one or more of those Pokémon is getting a mega evolution in Sun and Moon, I don’t know and I don’t want to).  We could also add, perhaps, Seaking to that list, for most of the same reasons, and maybe Zangoose and Seviper (whose base stats are high enough that they seem unlikely to ever get regular evolutions, but not high enough for them to actually do anything).

VikingBoyBilly asks:

Pokémon generations will be what the anime should have been from the start. Calling it now. (I can’t wait to see how much they cram into 3-5 minutes! Planet Namek exploded in approximately that long)

Past experience tells me that you and I have radically different notions of “what the anime should have been,” Billy (for one thing, I actually like the anime).  It strikes me more as a successor to Origins.  But I’ll see if I can write something on each of the episodes as they come out.

Anonymous asks:

A common problem of turn-delayed moves (things like Fly, Bounce, Dive, Dig) is that they’re too predictable. I wonder, would that remain so if these moves had variants whith different typing? Things like Secret Blade (steel dig), Vine Trap (grass dig), Burning Dive (fire fly) meteor drop (dragon fly), etc, whith identical preparatory turn but different execution. Also, do you think such additions would be justifiable fluff-wise? And what would it say of a pokemon to be specialized in such moves?

So, if I’m understanding this right, the idea would be that the move looks exactly the same on the first turn?  Fly and, say, Meteor Dive or whatever we call it both give the message “the Pokémon flew up high”?  I think that does help a lot, at least for Pokémon that can learn multiple versions of the same move.  You can’t see “the Pokémon dug underground” and just say “HAHA I’ll switch in a Flying Pokémon and their attack will do nothing!” because it might turn out that your opponent is actually using, like, Stalagmite Crush or something.  I think you’d probably find that there are a lot of Pokémon for whom it wouldn’t be possible to justify including two versions of the same move (like, clearly you can’t give a Fire-type Fly variant to Delibird) but in most cases it’s probably no crazier than a typical Pokémon movepool (I mean, Pidgeot already gets Heat Wave).  You don’t even need to teach a Pokémon more than one of these moves to get the benefit, because it’s the possibility that you might have that deters the opponent from trying to exploit the delayed attack.  Adds a whole new dimension of bluffing and mind games.  Of course, you still get royally screwed over by Protect, but I think that’s sort of fine; this addresses what is probably the most important reason that Fly, Dig et al. don’t get used.