Leo M.R. asks:

I think the execution of Solar Power is bizarre. It’s understandably given to various Pokémon who are supposed to draw power from the sun (e.g. Sunflora or Heliolisk) but the HP loss means that these Pokémon would actually be *harmed* from being in intense sunlight. Sure, they get that Sp. Atk boost but is it worth the drawback? The current mechanics of Solar Power would actually incentivize them to not be in the sun, unless they’re feeling particularly suicidal and want to go out in a solar blaze of glory. I wonder two things:

1) Must there even *be* a drawback to Solar Power? Other weather-dependent Abilities don’t have drawbacks (compare Chlorophyll, which just freely doubles your Speed); I feel like Solar Power giving Pokémon a free Sp. Atk boost wouldn’t break the game; 2) If there *must* be a drawback, why not have it so that it increases your Sp. Atk in sunlight but decreases it in rain/any other weather condition? Making a Solar Power Pokémon wholly dependent on the weather – their own preferred weather – makes more sense to me than the current ‘they lose an eighth of their health every turn even though it’s their preferred weather’ thing.

I dunno if I’m with you on this. There’s not no precedent to the way Solar Power works – it’s unlike the other weather abilities, sure, but its drawback is pretty similar to the way a Life Orb functions. You get more power, you lose health every turn. Solar Power seems worse: it takes more of your HP (1/8 per turn rather than 1/10), only benefits special attacks and doesn’t work without the weather support, but its bonus is larger (50% rather than 30%). I think the trade-off is more interesting than a pure buff, although there’s certainly an argument that Solar Power isn’t strong enough to make up for the damage it does to you. I would also suggest that thematically it makes sense for the Pokémon that get it; Charizard is all about burning up in a blaze of glory and Mega Houndoom has a certain self-destructive cast to it, while for Grass Pokémon like Sunflora and Tropius, their weakness to Fire attacks has always made fighting under the sun a bit of a double-edged sword. Actually, it really reminds me of the energy-burning effects that Charizard and other Fire Pokémon tend to have in the TCG, where you have ridiculous power on tap, but you have to win quickly and efficiently because you’re destroying so much of your own resources. It’s like the sheer CELESTIAL POWER of the BLAZING SUN is too great for your mortal body to contain and it will BURN YOU FROM THE INSIDE if you try to channel it for too long.

Chlorophyll and Solar Power aren’t really comparable, in my opinion, because speed works differently to all the other stats; once you’re 1 point faster than the competition, you already have everything you’re going to get out of extra speed. Extra special attack only stops being useful when you’re already powerful enough to one-shot everything that matters, which is a much higher threshold. The other consideration is that most Pokémon with Chlorophyll are pretty slow to begin with (the major exceptions being Jumpluff, who can’t actually do anything, and Whimsicott, who gets more out of Prankster anyway); the ability bumps them up to merely “acceptable.” Apart from Tropius, all the Pokémon that get Solar Power have quite high special attack stats already. They still aren’t very good, but it’s not specifically a lack of power that lets them down, so I’m not convinced that buffs to Solar Power would change their fortunes. Sunflora and Tropius are bad because they’re slow and have garbage movepools; Heliolisk’s problems are that it’s ludicrously fragile and it can’t figure out which weather condition it wants to synergise with; Charizard historically has mostly been fµ¢£ed over by its double weakness to Stealth Rock, but hey, at least we have Heavy Duty Boots now. Dynamax that $#!t, you can really easily set up your own weather support with Max Flare and go to town.

I’m also… honestly not even sure Solar Power is a bad ability? Like, a 50% buff to special attack, on top of any bonuses your moves already get from bright sunlight, really is quite a lot! It’s a bigger bonus than Sand Force, which is the only other ability that gives you extra damage from weather. I think the only reason we don’t see more of it is because most of the Pokémon that get it are so terrible. I mean… Sunflora? I’m not even sure Wonder Guard would make Sunflora good. Tropius is less awful but still pretty ineffectual; Heliolisk has pretty nice stats for a weather-based sweeper but also has basically no Fire attacks and is better under rain with Dry Skin (despite being a Pokémon with a solar energy theme and the Greek word for “sun” in its name). The only Pokémon you’d ever really expect to see succeeding with Solar Power is Charizard, and that genuinely kinda works, even with Charizard’s iffy special movepool and the Stealth Rock weakness that makes it nearly impossible to take a Life Orb (or really any item other than Heavy Duty Boots).

what was the question?

yeah, no, I think Solar Power is actually fine

Anonymous asks:

Not sure if you’ve done this before but it strikes me that there are a number of gen 2 pokemon that are severly lacking and in need of some love. Which design out of Sunflora, Dunsparce and Delibird do you think is most worthy of being saved and how would you make the one of your choice relevant again?

Well, I actually did ramble about Sunflora and Delibird long, long ago when I did a Top Ten Worst Pokémon Ever list, the point of which was mostly to bitch about Pokémon who got the short end of the stick with respect to… well, everything, but partly also to try and fix them. I actually love both Delibird and Dunsparce; my suggestion for Delibird was to rewrite Present into a sort of souped-up Fling, that would have made him into a bombardier Pokémon whose specialty was fighting with dangerous items like Iron Balls and Toxic Orbs (as well as just giving him a pile of extra attacks and better stats). Dunsparce… well, Dunsparce seems like an obvious candidate to evolve into some huge derpy dragon-thing with too many wings and cool magical powers. Dunsparce makes sense already and has a cool thing going with Serene Grace; better stats and access to Dragon attacks (especially some kind of signature move that works with Serene Grace – Dragon-type Ancient Power variant, anyone?) might just push him over into actually being useful.

Pokémottos #191 and 192

House Sunflora: Dawn Will Come

Anonymous asks:

Do you like Cherrim?

Eh. Ambivalent. Cherrim shares Sunflora’s main flaw – namely, that she’s a Grass Pokémon whose most interesting characteristic (her love of and dependence on sunlight) is shared by… well, all Grass Pokémon. Now, in Cherrim’s case, Game Freak gave her a transformation gimmick so that her sun theme would actually matter and so that her dependence on sunlight would be more dramatic than that of other Grass-types, which is great. The trouble is that, because of that amazing Flower Gift ability, they felt they needed to smack her with a rare double dose of Grass Pokémon Don’t Get Nice Things in order to make absolutely sure she wouldn’t somehow be overpowered, and as a result Cherrim is beyond terrible (of course, Flower Gift applies to her partners as well, so I imagine in doubles and triples you must be able to make something out of her, with appropriate team composition). But I applaud the concept. Cherrim is basically Sunflora done right, if you ask me.

The Top Ten Worst Pokémon Ever, #8: Sunflora

I’ve searched long and hard to bring you the worst Grass Pokémon of all time, and I reckon I’ve found it. Yes, I sincerely think that even Maractus is… um, that is to say… on balance, I really think that Maractus…

…look, I don’t want to say it. I can’t actually go on the record as saying that Maractus might be… y’know… better than something. I just couldn’t take it. Haven’t I been through enough?

Okay, today’s Pokémon is Sunflora, who really is the worst Grass Pokémon ever, with the most boring design and arguably with the weakest powers as well. Sunflora, the sunflower Pokémon, was released way back in Gold and Silver and is the evolved form of Sunkern, a tiny seed Pokémon whose unfortunate claim to fame is that she has the worst stats of any Pokémon in the entire game (yes, worse than Magikarp and Caterpie). Sunkern is… bizarre. The reason this entry is titled “Sunflora” and not “Sunkern and Sunflora” is that I honestly think Sunkern is an absolutely fascinating Pokémon. Like Metapod, Sunkern spends her entire life preparing for evolution. She eats nothing, rarely moves, drinks only morning dew, and can defend herself only by vigorously shaking her leaves in the general direction of her attackers. She also, and I quote, “suddenly falls out of the sky in the morning.” This… is probably the weirdest non sequitur the Pokédex has ever spat at me, which is saying something, and it keeps doing it; variations of the same line reoccur in game after game, like it’s the most important aspect of the design, but there’s never been any explanation of where they fall from or how they get there. For all I know, Sunkern inflate themselves with helium while they sleep and gently drift into the sky each night before expelling the gas with a massive belch in the morning and plummeting back to earth. That’s why I find myself unable to dislike Sunkern; I can’t muster any emotion towards her at all other than abject bewilderment. Sunflora, on the other hand, I am capable of disliking with immense vigour. The entire point of Sunflora’s design was that she gains nutrition and energy from sunlight and is extremely active during the day, but becomes inactive after sunset. The first problem is that this is a baseline characteristic of all Grass Pokémon. They’re plants, they all draw energy from the sun; even Gloom and Vileplume, who are based on one of the few plants in the world that doesn’t photosynthesise, learn Solarbeam and were eventually given the Chlorophyll ability in Ruby and Sapphire. The second and much thornier problem (if I may be excused the pun) is that Sunflora wasn’t even the only Grass Pokémon introduced in Gold and Silver who was associated particularly closely with the sun. The other was Bellossom, whose ritualistic dances to summon the sun are a far more interesting way of emphasising the solar connection than Sunflora’s frightfully generic characteristics. There’s nothing to justify Sunflora’s existence. I mean it. I’ve checked.

That, then, is why I think Sunflora deserves everything she suffers; now to look at what exactly constitutes that suffering. Sunflora is, in many ways, the epitome of “Grass-types don’t get nice things.” Like many Grass Pokémon, she enjoys an excellent special attack stat. Sadly, that’s all she has to offer; she’s delicate and one of the slowest Pokémon in the game, so many opponents can simply outrun her and stomp her into the dirt. Sunflora’s passive abilities are the key to her survival; Chlorophyll doubles her speed in bright sunlight, while Solar Power boosts her special attack in bright sunlight by burning up a bit of her health each turn. Clearly, as her design would lead us to expect, Sunflora needs Sunny Day to operate effectively (she can either set it up herself or have another Pokémon that’s actually competent do it for her). Solar Power is great for offense and will allow Sunflora to rip through her enemies like tissue paper with Solarbeam or Leaf Storm, but it exacerbates her frailty and, unlike Chlorophyll, doesn’t address her biggest problem – her lack of speed. Chlorophyll, on the other hand, doesn’t give Sunflora the power she needs to muscle through strong opponents before they murder her; moreover, Sunflora is so slow to begin with that many Pokémon still outrun her at twice her normal speed, and a lot of them can one-shot her without difficulty. As a Grass-type, Sunflora’s offensive movepool is very limited outside of Grass attacks; the only bright spot is Earth Power, which allows her to take revenge upon Fire- and Poison-types, but you have to jump through hoops to get it; she learns it from a move tutor on Heart Gold and Soul Silver. Sunkern from the Dream World may have Earth Power, but they’ll also have Sunflora’s Dream World ability, Early Bird (and if you thought Sunflora was useless when she had to choose between Chlorophyll and Solar Power, wait until you see what she’s like with neither). Even with Earth Power, her only option against most Bug- and Flying-types is Sludge Bomb (heaven help her if she comes up against a Crobat or something). She has some of the support moves you’d expect from a Grass-type, but she’s too slow and too fragile for them to save her; even Leech Seed, Ingrain and sun-boosted Synthesis can’t help her if she’s going to drop after one hit anyway, and many physical attacks will drop her. Light Screen keeps her safe from special attacks, at least, if she can get it up fast enough (which she can’t).

Not quite what I had in mind, but you get the general idea. This Grass/Fire evolution of Sunflora is the work of Ryknow, whose Pokémon fanart can be found at http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=64295

Sunflora practically embodies everything that has ever gone wrong with the Grass type… and now, heaven help me, I have to try to fix her. The major difficulty is that I don’t think I’m allowed to evolve Sunflora. Sunkern evolves through use of a Sun Stone, and long-established convention dictates that once a Pokémon uses an evolutionary stone, it’s the end of the line – so we have to change something else. Chlorophyll and Solar Power are already really good abilities. That’s not to say we can’t write a better one, but it would have to be pretty obscene; it might be fun to try a kind of über-Chlorophyll that grants priority (like Quick Attack) to all attacks of the user’s own type. What I want to do is retcon her into a Grass/Fire dual-type (giving her very strong coverage to use with the ability I’m suddenly going to call Solar Vigour) and liberally splash her artwork with reds, oranges and some flame imagery. According to this version of Sunflora, Sunkern are born when the rays of the morning sun strike seeds blowing on the wind, which is why they mysteriously drop out of the sky every morning. They carry a glowing spark of sunfire inside their bodies, but because of their weakness it quickly goes out and they have to store and conserve their energy to reignite it when they evolve into Sunflora. Sunflora collect and amplify solar energy to fuel their fire, but they cannot store that energy, so they become dormant at night to keep their fire from burning out. During the day, their flowers shine like tiny suns and encourage other plants to grow rapidly. Sunflora have to live near water, because their ability to amplify sunlight sometimes causes soil to become parched in summer (one of the few salient points of Sunflora’s original ‘dex entries is that she needs a lot of water to be healthy – which, again, is fairly standard for a plant, but I’m going to run with it). Unfortunately for me, I don’t think it’s technically ‘allowed’ to retcon a Pokémon’s type (it happened with Magneton in Gold and Silver, but only because the Steel type didn’t exist before then), which means that I can only have my Fire-typed Sunflora either by breaking the evolution rule or by retconning the way Sunkern evolves, which is likewise unprecedented (Feebas gained a new path to evolution in Black and White, the Prism Scale, but technically the old way still works too – it’s just that the mechanic supporting it has dropped into obscurity). I think my rewrite is still better than what Sunflora’s got at the moment even without Grass/Fire typing, and would just about fit if she gained Weather Ball or Heat Wave, either of which would dramatically improve her coverage. I’m also tempted to give her Agility, since Sunflora is characterised by frenetic activity during the daylight hours and honestly shouldn’t be slower than a tortoise in a sack race; provided she had someone else to set up Sunny Day for her, Agility might make Sunflora fast enough for Solar Power to be a realistic option.

Honestly, I think we’ve been written into a corner with Sunflora. Except for giving her Weather Ball and Agility, which I don’t think would be enough on their own (they’ll help, but Sunflora needs something that will fundamentally change her fighting style), every suggestion I can think of is forbidden by an unwritten law of Pokémon design. I advocate writing down these laws, and then burning them because they are dumb. For now, though, I have to move on to my next unmitigated disaster…