Entry tags:
Pokemon SoulSilver Part 23: We hold a power that is greater than all
In this update:
* Awkward conversations about Pokemon exhumation!
* The standards held by Younger Celine might not have been realistic, it turns out!
* Team Rocket gets forcibly disbanded for a THIRD time??
* A genetically enhanced super-soldier learns how to be a person. Aww....
* We finally address this whole power outage situation!
* Return of the Roaming Legendary mechanic!
* The Magnet Train looks really cool now!
Follow us on Twitch
Some notable clips and highlights from this session:
CASSANDRA NOOOOO
It is kind of messed up though
When the House of Memories is kind of growing on you in real time in the middle of your rant
Badgertwo may be a bit TOO strong
Badgertwo may in fact actually be Supermon
Even Badgertwo's weakest move is OP
(The quote was from Winston Churchill, by the way)
The safeword is "Yarah?"
Badgertwo Steals Our Hearts (Thanks to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
xaq_the_aereon for this clip)
Maybe not the ideal location for this, but still adorable
What an incredible likeness
Steven Stone's true form revealed!?!?
Anyway, here, have the strongest magic word in the world. (Note: If you don't get the reference in the title, it's fromxyzzysqrl's Willow stream. Here's the clip in question.)
After this stream concluded, we've been spending the time in between leveling and catching everyone up, as per usual. I think we're just about good to go for next time; everyone (including every second-stringer) now is at least level 53 at the lowest, ranging up to 57 at the highest.
Also, since everyone is more or less on equal footing level-wise, I figured now would be a good time to check out their stats again. We do have quite a few absurdly heavy hitters on the team, now. Where do they stack up? A ranked list behind the cut, plus the latest thoughts on their movesets and held items and whatnot.
PHYSICAL ATTACKERS (PLUS MIXED ATTACKERS)
No surprise that Badgertwo has the strongest Attack stat of all the physical hitters, though he actually doesn't have the highest primary offensive stat overall (see below.) That said, he probably remains the most potent damage dealer due to pairing said Attack stat with some downright gruesome high-power moves. In fact, we're pretty sure that Badgertwo's Focus Punch (150 base power just for the move itself, plus STAB, coming off a current Attack stat of 194) is the single most damaging move known to any mon in the entire squad, even after accounting for a certain Special Attacker having a higher SpA and a damage-increasing held item.
Just how overkill is a good solid Badger Punch? Well, bear in mind that Priscilla comes in a solid 4th place in this list with over 50 points fewer in her Attack, and Earthquake "only" has a base power of 100 before STAB (50 points behind Focus Punch,) and she was still doing this. Honestly, any amount of power over that is mostly just for bragging rights.
Cassandra's Zen Headbutt will be replaced by Psycho Cut when she learns it, but that won't be until level 60 or so.
I think the biggest surprise of this list is Nimbly, who... actually has around the same Attack stat as Priscilla, whom we just saw wrecking everything?? I did not think of those two as being on the same tier, power-wise, which is why Nimbly has settled into being a second-stringer at this point. However, it turns out that Nimbly is one point behind Priscilla, and that's after Priscilla has been fairly extensively EV trained and Nimbly very definitely has not. Some quick calculations tell us that if she had max Attack EVs, Nimbly could get her Attack up to a max of 176. That'd be enough to put her over Falkor. On the other hand, she is currently a Mixed Attacker, so any EV training would have to be split evenly between Atk and SpA unless we went all in on one side or the other, which would require redoing her moveset again.
The point is that Nimbly's stats are surprisingly awesome, and the fact that she's not kicking as much ass as Priscilla was in the above clip has to be due to Gen IV not being kind to Honchkrow's movepool. Nimbly doesn't have anything on the level of Earthquake, after all. Her strongest Flying STAB is Air Cutter. (Night Slash on the Dark end isn't bad, though, I suppose?) This is why I was musing about whether it would be an allowable level of cheating (you know, that kind of "in response to the game's bullshit" threshold, about on the level of giving ourselves unlimited BP because seriously fuck the Battle Frontier though) to give her Brave Bird, which Honchkrows can legitimately learn but only via breeding. I'm sufficiently torn about whether that's allowable that I'll leave it up to you all, but JSYK these figures imply that if she had it, she'd rocket right back up to the first tier of offensive juggernauts with it.
Speaking of surprise stats, another one is that Atreyu's is so low for someone who, by lore/flavor (just look at a picture of Machamp) should be the premier physical powerhouse of the team. Machamp's base Attack stat as a species (130) is the same as Breloom's, even. I guess I'm not surprised that Atreyu is no Badgertwo; Atreyu has just about the worst possible nature for a Machamp (Modest, -Atk/+SpA) and hasn't been EV trained, whereas Badgertwo is Adamant (+Atk/-SpA) and almost-fully EV trained. Still, for two species with the same base power before those factor in, I wasn't expecting them to make that much of a difference. That said, Atreyu could go as high as 164 with full EVs, which would be enough to beat Priscilla. I'm using Priscilla as an unofficial "anything above this line just gets capped at 9999 anyway" metric, so Atreyu definitely has the stats (and the movepool!) to rocket right back into relevance with some training.
Moonchild tries her best but that's not really her job at this point. That said, even she has had her moments.
So, how about those held items? Omnihunter and Falkor, being above the Priscilla threshold, might not need their respective Muscle Bands if that's just overkill and if something else could help in other ways (Quick Claw, Leftovers, etc.) Not sure what the other options would be in their case, though. Other than that, I think I'm more or less happy with the held item selection.
SPECIAL ATTACKERS (PLUS MIXED ATTACKERS, AGAIN)
Okay, first off, holy shit Rock Biter, calm down. Remember when I said that Magnezone as a species has basically almost the same stats across the board as Glaceon (including an identical 130 base SpA?) That's what a beneficial nature and EV training will do for you, I guess. Damn.
Again, I do still think Badgertwo can boast the highest-damaging single move on the entire squad even with a bit less of an offensive stat to back it up, because Thunderbolt is no Focus Punch. We are absolutely in the theoreticals at this point, though; much like with Priscilla, I'm thinking Oracle is probably around the ceiling of how much power anyone actually needs in this game and that any more than that is just showing off.
Anyway, this is why Rock Biter's Hidden Power [Grass] just obliterated every Graveler and Onix and whatnot we've come across so hard that "Rock Biter" ended up proving to be a very apt name, especially for a mon to whose primary STAB they're normally immune. Being at the mercy of Hidden Power's randomness, Rock Biter's version boasts 62 power (putting it on the same level as things like Wing Attack or Swift) with no STAB. With such a monstrous SpA, though, clearly that is all the power that move needs.
On the subject of Oracle,penguinmayhem made a very good point about his moveset last time we brought it up: Between Ice Beam having been enough to take out Lance's Dragonites back in the championship bout, Glaceon not really having the bulk or speed to afford a setup move, and no one else on the team appreciating Hail, he might just be better off with some kind of coverage moves instead of the Hail/Blizzard combo. It may be possible to keep Blizzard and just cast it unaided if we give him some kind of accuracy-boosting held item--Penguin suggested a Zoom Lens, but counting on the "if you go second" part after we specifically EV trained Oracle for Speed seems like a bit of a mixed message. A Wide Lens is more consistent, but Blizzard would still only be 77% accurate even with that, which is kind of oof. Other than that, he doesn't really have a ton of options aside from loading up on non-STAB attacks for type coverage (Shadow Ball? Signal Beam? Water Pulse?)
As far as surprises on this side of the team, I was not expecting Auryn to rank as low as it did. Auryn does have a tremendous movepool (Psychic and Surf) to cover that up, I suppose, but Auryn always felt like one of the more potent forces on our team (I seem to recall several "Starmie is a beast" comments from Penguin backing this up, too,) so this definitely stood out to me. Either the threshold for how much power you need in this game to OHKO everything is even lower than I thought it was, or that movepool does even more of the heavy lifting than I thought it did...?
Conversely, I was also not expecting Kracko to come in that high. Kracko is above Auryn! Our current team lineup has Kracko relegated to the second string while Auryn is still in the primary starter pile. I'm not saying this means Auryn is bad actually, but I am saying I might have underestimated Kracko... like... a lot.
Meanwhile, the held items... well. Held items on the Special Attacker side are all over the place compared to physical. This is because there is only one set of Wise Glasses available in the entire game, as opposed to Muscle Bands of which one can buy as many as desired from the Battle Frontier. The question of who gets them is thus more strategic. Looking at this list, I'm fairly happy with them going to Auryn; Nimbly and Moonchild have something else already that suits their builds better, and Kracko and above are powerful enough not to need them. Rock Biter in particular clearly does not need any more help with anything offensively (even a Miracle Seed or something for the Hidden Power,) hence the Shell Bell just to help with general tankiness--that will probably become Leftovers once we acquire some. As for everyone else... uh. I dunno.
And with all that musing put down, I guess we'll see where any of it goes next time!
* Awkward conversations about Pokemon exhumation!
* The standards held by Younger Celine might not have been realistic, it turns out!
* Team Rocket gets forcibly disbanded for a THIRD time??
* A genetically enhanced super-soldier learns how to be a person. Aww....
* We finally address this whole power outage situation!
* Return of the Roaming Legendary mechanic!
* The Magnet Train looks really cool now!
Follow us on Twitch
Some notable clips and highlights from this session:
CASSANDRA NOOOOO
It is kind of messed up though
When the House of Memories is kind of growing on you in real time in the middle of your rant
Badgertwo may be a bit TOO strong
Badgertwo may in fact actually be Supermon
Even Badgertwo's weakest move is OP
(The quote was from Winston Churchill, by the way)
The safeword is "Yarah?"
Badgertwo Steals Our Hearts (Thanks to
xaq_the_aereon for this clip)Maybe not the ideal location for this, but still adorable
What an incredible likeness
Steven Stone's true form revealed!?!?
Anyway, here, have the strongest magic word in the world. (Note: If you don't get the reference in the title, it's from
xyzzysqrl's Willow stream. Here's the clip in question.)After this stream concluded, we've been spending the time in between leveling and catching everyone up, as per usual. I think we're just about good to go for next time; everyone (including every second-stringer) now is at least level 53 at the lowest, ranging up to 57 at the highest.
Also, since everyone is more or less on equal footing level-wise, I figured now would be a good time to check out their stats again. We do have quite a few absurdly heavy hitters on the team, now. Where do they stack up? A ranked list behind the cut, plus the latest thoughts on their movesets and held items and whatnot.
PHYSICAL ATTACKERS (PLUS MIXED ATTACKERS)
- Badgertwo (Breloom, Seed Bomb/Focus Punch/Facade/Spore @ Toxic Orb): 194 Atk, 71 SpA
- Cassandra (Absol, Sucker Punch/Zen Headbutt/Night Slash/Superpower @ Scope Lens): 188 Atk, 87 SpA
- Falkor (Dragonite, Dragon Claw/Earthquake/Fire Punch/Dragon Dance @ Muscle Band): 172 Atk, 128 SpA
- Omnihunter (Scizor, Bug Bite/Bullet Punch/Swords Dance/False Swipe @ Muscle Band): 166 Atk, 74 SpA
- Priscilla (Flygon, Dragon Claw/Earthquake/Fire Punch/Outrage @ Muscle Band): 146 Atk, 100 SpA
- Nimbly (Honchkrow, Night Slash/Air Cutter/Heat Wave/Superpower @ Scope Lens):145 Atk, 138 SpA
- Atreyu (Machamp, DynamicPunch/Stone Edge/Payback/Earthquake @ Muscle Band): 141 Atk, 91 SpA
- Moonchild (Meganium, Energy Ball/Safeguard/Reflect/Lightscreen @ Light Clay): 116 Atk, 107 SpA
No surprise that Badgertwo has the strongest Attack stat of all the physical hitters, though he actually doesn't have the highest primary offensive stat overall (see below.) That said, he probably remains the most potent damage dealer due to pairing said Attack stat with some downright gruesome high-power moves. In fact, we're pretty sure that Badgertwo's Focus Punch (150 base power just for the move itself, plus STAB, coming off a current Attack stat of 194) is the single most damaging move known to any mon in the entire squad, even after accounting for a certain Special Attacker having a higher SpA and a damage-increasing held item.
Just how overkill is a good solid Badger Punch? Well, bear in mind that Priscilla comes in a solid 4th place in this list with over 50 points fewer in her Attack, and Earthquake "only" has a base power of 100 before STAB (50 points behind Focus Punch,) and she was still doing this. Honestly, any amount of power over that is mostly just for bragging rights.
Cassandra's Zen Headbutt will be replaced by Psycho Cut when she learns it, but that won't be until level 60 or so.
I think the biggest surprise of this list is Nimbly, who... actually has around the same Attack stat as Priscilla, whom we just saw wrecking everything?? I did not think of those two as being on the same tier, power-wise, which is why Nimbly has settled into being a second-stringer at this point. However, it turns out that Nimbly is one point behind Priscilla, and that's after Priscilla has been fairly extensively EV trained and Nimbly very definitely has not. Some quick calculations tell us that if she had max Attack EVs, Nimbly could get her Attack up to a max of 176. That'd be enough to put her over Falkor. On the other hand, she is currently a Mixed Attacker, so any EV training would have to be split evenly between Atk and SpA unless we went all in on one side or the other, which would require redoing her moveset again.
The point is that Nimbly's stats are surprisingly awesome, and the fact that she's not kicking as much ass as Priscilla was in the above clip has to be due to Gen IV not being kind to Honchkrow's movepool. Nimbly doesn't have anything on the level of Earthquake, after all. Her strongest Flying STAB is Air Cutter. (Night Slash on the Dark end isn't bad, though, I suppose?) This is why I was musing about whether it would be an allowable level of cheating (you know, that kind of "in response to the game's bullshit" threshold, about on the level of giving ourselves unlimited BP because seriously fuck the Battle Frontier though) to give her Brave Bird, which Honchkrows can legitimately learn but only via breeding. I'm sufficiently torn about whether that's allowable that I'll leave it up to you all, but JSYK these figures imply that if she had it, she'd rocket right back up to the first tier of offensive juggernauts with it.
Speaking of surprise stats, another one is that Atreyu's is so low for someone who, by lore/flavor (just look at a picture of Machamp) should be the premier physical powerhouse of the team. Machamp's base Attack stat as a species (130) is the same as Breloom's, even. I guess I'm not surprised that Atreyu is no Badgertwo; Atreyu has just about the worst possible nature for a Machamp (Modest, -Atk/+SpA) and hasn't been EV trained, whereas Badgertwo is Adamant (+Atk/-SpA) and almost-fully EV trained. Still, for two species with the same base power before those factor in, I wasn't expecting them to make that much of a difference. That said, Atreyu could go as high as 164 with full EVs, which would be enough to beat Priscilla. I'm using Priscilla as an unofficial "anything above this line just gets capped at 9999 anyway" metric, so Atreyu definitely has the stats (and the movepool!) to rocket right back into relevance with some training.
Moonchild tries her best but that's not really her job at this point. That said, even she has had her moments.
So, how about those held items? Omnihunter and Falkor, being above the Priscilla threshold, might not need their respective Muscle Bands if that's just overkill and if something else could help in other ways (Quick Claw, Leftovers, etc.) Not sure what the other options would be in their case, though. Other than that, I think I'm more or less happy with the held item selection.
SPECIAL ATTACKERS (PLUS MIXED ATTACKERS, AGAIN)
- Rock Biter (Magnezone, Charge Beam/Thunderbolt/Hidden Power [Grass]/Magnet Rise @ Shell Bell): 211 SpA, 83 Atk
- Gmork (Houndoom, Fire Blast/Dark Pulse/Flamethrower/Nasty Plot @ Focus Sash): 170 SpA, 105 Atk
- Oracle (Glaceon, Ice Beam/Hidden Power [Fighting]/Hail/Blizzard @ NeverMeltIce): 152 SpA, 76 Atk
- Kracko (Ampharos, Discharge/Signal Beam/Magnet Rise/Thunder Wave @ Quick Claw): 150 SpA, 95 Atk
- Auryn (Starmie, Surf/Psychic/Signal Beam/Thunder Wave @ Wise Glasses): 138 SpA, 100 Atk
- Nimbly (Honchkrow, Night Slash/Air Cutter/Heat Wave/Superpower @ Scope Lens):138 SpA, 145 Atk
- Moonchild (Meganium, Energy Ball/Safeguard/Reflect/Lightscreen @ Light Clay): 107 SpA, 116 Atk
Okay, first off, holy shit Rock Biter, calm down. Remember when I said that Magnezone as a species has basically almost the same stats across the board as Glaceon (including an identical 130 base SpA?) That's what a beneficial nature and EV training will do for you, I guess. Damn.
Again, I do still think Badgertwo can boast the highest-damaging single move on the entire squad even with a bit less of an offensive stat to back it up, because Thunderbolt is no Focus Punch. We are absolutely in the theoreticals at this point, though; much like with Priscilla, I'm thinking Oracle is probably around the ceiling of how much power anyone actually needs in this game and that any more than that is just showing off.
Anyway, this is why Rock Biter's Hidden Power [Grass] just obliterated every Graveler and Onix and whatnot we've come across so hard that "Rock Biter" ended up proving to be a very apt name, especially for a mon to whose primary STAB they're normally immune. Being at the mercy of Hidden Power's randomness, Rock Biter's version boasts 62 power (putting it on the same level as things like Wing Attack or Swift) with no STAB. With such a monstrous SpA, though, clearly that is all the power that move needs.
On the subject of Oracle,
penguinmayhem made a very good point about his moveset last time we brought it up: Between Ice Beam having been enough to take out Lance's Dragonites back in the championship bout, Glaceon not really having the bulk or speed to afford a setup move, and no one else on the team appreciating Hail, he might just be better off with some kind of coverage moves instead of the Hail/Blizzard combo. It may be possible to keep Blizzard and just cast it unaided if we give him some kind of accuracy-boosting held item--Penguin suggested a Zoom Lens, but counting on the "if you go second" part after we specifically EV trained Oracle for Speed seems like a bit of a mixed message. A Wide Lens is more consistent, but Blizzard would still only be 77% accurate even with that, which is kind of oof. Other than that, he doesn't really have a ton of options aside from loading up on non-STAB attacks for type coverage (Shadow Ball? Signal Beam? Water Pulse?)As far as surprises on this side of the team, I was not expecting Auryn to rank as low as it did. Auryn does have a tremendous movepool (Psychic and Surf) to cover that up, I suppose, but Auryn always felt like one of the more potent forces on our team (I seem to recall several "Starmie is a beast" comments from Penguin backing this up, too,) so this definitely stood out to me. Either the threshold for how much power you need in this game to OHKO everything is even lower than I thought it was, or that movepool does even more of the heavy lifting than I thought it did...?
Conversely, I was also not expecting Kracko to come in that high. Kracko is above Auryn! Our current team lineup has Kracko relegated to the second string while Auryn is still in the primary starter pile. I'm not saying this means Auryn is bad actually, but I am saying I might have underestimated Kracko... like... a lot.
Meanwhile, the held items... well. Held items on the Special Attacker side are all over the place compared to physical. This is because there is only one set of Wise Glasses available in the entire game, as opposed to Muscle Bands of which one can buy as many as desired from the Battle Frontier. The question of who gets them is thus more strategic. Looking at this list, I'm fairly happy with them going to Auryn; Nimbly and Moonchild have something else already that suits their builds better, and Kracko and above are powerful enough not to need them. Rock Biter in particular clearly does not need any more help with anything offensively (even a Miracle Seed or something for the Hidden Power,) hence the Shell Bell just to help with general tankiness--that will probably become Leftovers once we acquire some. As for everyone else... uh. I dunno.
And with all that musing put down, I guess we'll see where any of it goes next time!
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For example, Nimbly sure is a pretty beefy bird, but it's mostly a kind of lacklustre movepool and her odd type combination that ends up hampering her mostly in this PvE environment, as it did back in the day during Gen IV's PvP. And somewhat similarly, Starmie is a fucking monster with an absurd speed stat, a good movepool, a solid typing both defensive and offensively... and just isn't really as useful to your team in particular or to dealing with Soul Silver's PvE scene. Also shows just what a difference the personality variance, IVs, and the stat growth individual mons end up getting can really make.
Though, in my defense, I do keep forgetting that this glaceon in particular is freakishly fast. Overall I think the best thing for Oracle is just giving the kid Choice Specs or a Scarf and letting him blast things in the face. Limiting your poor boy to only using a single move whenever you switch him in can seem scary but +50% extra power is absolutely ludicrous. Just slap Shadow Ball and Signal Beam on him or something and then proceed to never use them anyway because a STAB Ice Beam off of a 228 Special Attack will fucking ruin just about anything.
Atreyu's fate to be catastrophically overshadowed seems comedic yet satisfying to me in an odd way because I can't help but think he'd be happy with it. Some heroes don't want fame or fortune at all, they just want to single-handedly beat incredible odds and then retire to a farm somewhere and give war historians conniptions.
I'm sure Priscilla is enjoying dating a cute shy goth girl who's also way stronger than she is because who doesn't wanna get bridal carried?
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I feel like Nimbly is this close to being top tier; even without Super Luck, Night Slash+Scope Lens is still a good amount of crits, and like... those stats, geez. And she can even put together backup moves like Heat Wave and such from the Special side due to being mixed (like, her Attack is better but her Special Attack is still definitely usable.)
She just... the poor thing needs a Flying STAB because if she doesn't have one then why is she a bird? She's not like Falkor who can just completely ignore that half of her dual-type; the Dark lane is already covered thanks to Cassandra and Gmork (who has that and Fire.) Flying is a unique and actually pretty useful offensive type to have, and would be a niche that she alone can fill... if I'd bred Brave Bird into her (or if I cheat and give it to her anyway.) Staraptor was a fucking beast in D/P/Pt; "what if Staraptor but now also with an extra-critty STAB Night Slash for coverage" would be unreal.
Meanwhile, without that, she can't even stand up to Bugsy even though birding his team up is supposed to be her job. Like, at this point, against him she's more like "what if Staraptor but without a good super effective move and also weaker to Bug."
By contrast, Atreyu is a comparatively easy fix; he's already got the base stats and the moveset to be at least somewhere in the top tier, even with mediocre IVs and the absolute worst nature. Just give him the Power Bracer to hold for the next couple levels and maybe some PP Ups, he'll be fine. He won't have the stat numbers of an Adamant Breloom with Focus Punch but he doesn't need them; he'd be around 164 Atk after EV training and that's more than enough to make a DynamicPunch and Stone Edge that literally can't miss a big deal.
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Nimbly's Special Attack is almost exactly average.
Rock Biter and Badgertwo are both ludicrously good, being 93rd(!!!) and 85th respectively.
But the mon with the highest physical attack for their species is surprisingly Priscilla at a whopping 87th. Priscilla is in the top 15% of strongest Flygons of all time. Way to go Priscilla.
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Contrary to Celine's concerns about exhuming pokémon, you don't generally bury people on the fifth floor and it's infinitely more likely that Pokémon Tower was actually a mausoleum full of sealed caskets, or possibly just burial urns full of cremated remains since cremation is the way more popular choice in Japan. There are in fact quite a few places around North America similar to this, above-ground buildings that serve as housings for small chambers wherein the remains of the deceased are sealed in a casket or in some decorative memorial, though I don't know of any that are giant towers. As I mentioned during the stream however, there WAS a plan to build a giant necropolis on Primrose Hill back in the 1800s which never came to fruition, and which also seemed an apt comparison to the weird creepy haunted high-rise tomb that is Pokémon Tower.
I don't think it really confirms anything in-game, and the logistics of the scaling and all that is up for debate, but going from a giant tower full of dead pokemon to the single tiny little room with like twelve coffins in it certainly... raises some questions. Questions I'm sure nobody wants to answer so let's just move on.
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