Anonymous asks:

What would you say to wonder guard gaining an additional magic guard effect?

Well, it might make Shedinja suck less, and I’d be in favour of that… but the thing about Shedinja and Wonder Guard is that, because it’s so all-or-nothing, it’s almost impossible to balance. If your opponents can consistently damage it, it’s completely worthless. If your opponents can’t consistently damage it, it’s horrendously overpowered, until people wise up and start building their teams so that they can. There’s no middle ground. I don’t think changing the list of things that can insta-kill Shedinja actually helps much. Maybe if Wonder Guard worked differently – like if, in addition to its existing effect, it reduced all damage Shedinja does take to 1, and then Shedinja could be given more than one hit point (something like 3 or 5)… I feel like, at that point, you have more variables involved and more capacity to fine-tune the ability (by giving Shedinja a different number of hit points). But that’s just me brainstorming.

Anonymous asks:

Good news, Kricketune found his niche! I saw this really cool strategy in doubles of pairing Kricketune with Cresselia. This takes advantage of Focus Sash, Protect, Endeavor, and Perish Song under the effects of Trick Room to easily clear your opponent’s Pokemon.

What exactly does Kricketune specifically add to that? Wigglytuff and Marowak also get both Endeavour and Perish Song, are faster than Kricketune under Trick Room, are significantly tougher than Kricketune (although I’m not sure whether that matters in the context of this strategy) and have more useful abilities. I mean, major props to whoever found a way to make Kricketune useful, but without more details I kinda suspect there are still other Pokémon who would do it better, even for something as specific and contrived as this.

Anonymous asks:

Which of the major rivals from the anime do you like the most, and why? It can be Ash’s or one of his companions’!

Tricky… I’m not as familiar as perhaps I should be with the anime after maybe the first half of Hoenn, bear in mind, and that doesn’t help a lot. Having said that, I’m rather fond of the anime’s portrayal of Bianca. Most of Ash’s rivals have a way of making you want to punch their stupid smug faces in, but Bianca just makes you want to root for her… from a safe distance. She’s basically girl Ash – headstrong, determined to succeed despite the odds, a little clueless – but with some of the same backstory stuff that makes her interesting in the games. And her dad is awesome.

Anonymous asks:

What do you think of the comment going around the internet about James actually being the best Trainer in the anime, because he actually asks and/or invites his Pokémon to join him? What do you think that says about his character?

Well, I don’t know about best necessarily, but he definitely has a lot going for him! We don’t actually see how a lot of his Pokémon join him, but off the top of my head, Yamask, Mime Jr., Cacnea and Inkay all come along because he shows them kindness (and Yamask is particularly interesting because it shows that James retains this trait even during the Unova series, when he and Jessie are portrayed in a much more sinister manner than at other times). I probably see this somewhat differently to a lot of people because I think Pokémon usually choose their trainers, to an extent – the battle is a test, of sorts; ultimately Pokémon are captured when they feel they’ve found a trainer who will make them stronger. I think the fact that James doesn’t do things this way speaks to his very unassertive personality – next to the domineering Jessie and Meowth he sometimes seems outright wimpy, but he also ends up being the closest thing their group has to a voice of reason sometimes, because he’s not so concerned with imposing his will on others. Winning a Pokémon’s respect by defeating it in battle, as most trainers tend to do, probably seems needlessly confrontational to him. This kind of approach sets a different tone for how he interacts with his Pokémon, because they’re not necessarily joining him to grow stronger by fighting for him; they’re joining him for more of a mutual protection/benefit arrangement. The result is probably a degree of equality that we don’t normally see between trainers and Pokémon – though of course James is still nominally in charge.

Anonymous asks:

You do old stuff, do you know the civilization games? Why is Alexander the leader of the Greeks?! He wasn’t even Greek, right?

Ohhhhhhhhhh boy; you have no idea of the can of worms you just opened.

As luck would have it I actually gave a presentation on this yesterday so buckle the f#$% up, kids.

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Anonymous asks:

Which major character from the pokemon anime would you like to have on a team with you in a double battle? Who do you think they would use and what team would you have to complement theirs?

Hmm. Tough one. I’m tempted to say Ash, purely because I think having more Pokémon in play multiplies the amount of completely insane bull$#!t he can pull off – see his battle against Tate and Liza in Mossdeep City (if you know what I’m talking about, great, if not… well, I don’t want to spoil the surprise). Ash thinks ‘creatively,’ and that can be a huge asset in a double battle. Ash’s Pikachu has shown in the past that he works really well with mobile Flying-types who have the physical strength to carry him, so maybe something like Noivern? Both of them can lay down some serious hurt from a distance, and they’re both used to a very fast-paced combat style. Assuming we both have two Pokémon… well, Ash has a lot to choose from but when the chips are down he’ll very often call in a favour from Charizard. Charizard is something of a one-Pokémon show, and he’ll work best with someone who is very clearly there to help amplify his own magnificence, so I’d go with a tough supporter like Bronzong (who has the added advantage of being weak to an element that Charizard can easily tank against) – just hang back, use stuff like Light Screen and Confuse Ray to protect Charizard, and watch the fireworks.

Onethousandrbirds asks:

if you could rewrite or redirect the plot of any of the games (main series or spin-off) which would you pick?

Hmm… until last year I would have said Emerald, but Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby did a pretty solid job of that with Delta Episode, I think. Black and White are tempting because I think a more nuanced way of looking at their central conflict could have resulted in something absolutely amazing, but the fact is, their story is really good as it stands. I’d probably go with Diamond, Pearl and Platinum, because their flippancy with the whole cosmology has never sat well with me – call me crazy, but I think if you’re going to give the player control of Pokémon that are capable of literally unmaking the universe, you need to be just a little bit more explicit than they were about why that is okay.

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