RBY Violet Version (Gen 1 mod)

[Lilyhollow]

Violet Version​

I've been working on this for a while. Violet Version is a gen 1 balance mod with a focus on reducing dead weight. There are also a couple weird fun changes, because weird fun changes are weird and fun!

It's playable at this server: Showdown!


Clauses/Misc

Spoiler

Team Preview on
Sleep clause
Freeze clause
Species clause

The type chart is modernized.
(Ghost is super-effective against Psychic; Ice is not very effective against Fire; Bug is NVE against Poison; and Poison is neutral against Bug)

1/256 is gone. All rejoice.

Recover and Softboiled also don't fail like they do in RBY.

Paralysis as a secondary status works as it does in modern gens.
(Body Slam can paralyze normals, etc)

Roster
I actually didn't go in the 'make all 81 full evos viable' direction. Instead I wanted the design to be as compact and accessible as possible, so I handpicked a roster of Pokemon that I felt would most effectively contribute to a 'healthy,' interesting game with unique options between each Pokemon. The plan is for each Pokemon on the roster to be viable and for the overlap between them to be pretty minimal.

Spoiler

Aerodactyl
Alakazam
Arbok
Articuno
Beedrill
Butterfree
Chansey
Charizard
Cloyster
Dragonite
Dugtrio
Electabuzz
Electrode
Exeggutor
Flareon
Gengar
Golbat
Golduck
Golem
Gyarados
Hypno
Jynx
Kabutops
Machamp
Magmar
Magneton
Moltres
Muk
Nidoqueen
Ninetales
Parasect
Pidgeot
Pinsir
Poliwrath
Primeape
Slowbro
Snorlax
Starmie
Tangela
Tauros
Vileplume
Zapdos

Typings
Only a few changes, once again to keep things about as simple as they can be.

Spoiler

- Bug/Psychic

- Fire/Dragon

- Electric/Fighting

- Water/Ghost

- Fire/Fighting

- Electric/Rock

- Fire/Psychic

Move changes
The meat of this mod. Every type now has at least one reasonable attacking move. Otherwise I'll just let the changes speak for themselves.

Spoiler

Acid: 70 BP, 50% chance to lower defense
Bind: Bug type, 40 BP, 8 PP, partial trapping for 2-3 turns (accuracy remains 75)
Wrap: 40 BP, 8 PP, partial trapping for 2-3 turns (accuracy remains 85)
Clamp: 70 BP, 5 PP, partial trapping for 2-3 turns (accuracy remains 75)
Fire Spin: 30 BP, 8 PP, partial trapping for 2-3 turns (accuracy remains 70)
Karate Chop: Fighting type, high crit rate
Gust: 80 BP, Flying type, 30% chance to lower attack
Poison Sting: 95 BP, 30% chance to poison, 15 PP
Tri Attack: Ghost, 20% chance to burn, freeze, or paralyze
Dream Eater: 200 BP, Ghost type, works against sleeping, poisoned, or badly poisoned targets, heals 100% of damage dealt.
Leech Life: 60 BP, heals 100% of damage dealt
Mega Drain: heals 100% of damage dealt
Submission: 100 accuracy, 100 BP
Petal Dance: 120 BP, repeats 2-3 turns, confuses user
Thrash: 100 BP, Dragon type, repeats 2-3 turns, confuses user
Toxic: 100 accuracy
Twineedle: 40 BP per hit (still 20% poison chance per hit)
Vice Grip: Bug type, high critical hit ratio
Mimic: Mimicked moves remain on the user’s moveset even if the user switches out. Jynx, Flareon, Articuno, Magneton, Dugtrio, and Pidgeot are now the only users of Mimic.
Disable: 100 accuracy, 3 PP, permanently disables an opponent's attack. You can disable a second move, but then the first move will no longer be disabled. Ninetales, Tangela, and Muk are now the only users of Disable.
Solar Beam: 100 BP, +1 Special during charge turn
Sky Attack: +1 Defense during charge turn
Rock Slide: 85 BP

Stats/Movepools
Anything unlisted is unchanged. Stats listed as hp/attack/defense/special/speed.

Spoiler

- Learns Thrash

- 70/55/60/95/80, learns Leech Life, Solar Beam

- 65/80/40/45/130, learns Dream Eater, does not learn Swords Dance

- 83/110/75/100/100

- 60/105/69/65/100

- 90/92/87/75/85, learns Softboiled

- Learns Psychic, Disable

- 85/90/80/80/90, Learns Acid, Gust, Super Fang

- 80/105/85/100/80, Learns Razor Leaf

- 90/115/130/80/30, learns Twineedle, Vice Grip

- Learns Tri Attack, does not learn Submission

- 65/105/60/60/125

- 115/130/90/110/65

- 90/115/95/70/70, Learns Dream Eater

- 100/130/100/65/55

- 120/60/95/120/70

- 145/105/85/75/50, learns Acid, Disable

- 85/113/70/115/67

- 65/65/70/110/140

- Learns Sky Attack, Tri Attack

- Learns Rock Slide, Softboiled

- Learns Thrash

- 65/95/57/85/120, learns Vice Grip

- learns Solar Beam

- 85/55/115/100/60 learns Disable, does not learn Sleep Powder

- Does not learn Tri Attack

- 35/110/50/70/120, Learns Tri Attack

- Learns Rock Slide

Replays:
Violet Version replay: Blizzardbuffalo123 vs. KristophV - Pokmon Showdown
Violet Version replay: Disaster Area vs. KristophV - Pokmon Showdown
Violet Version replay: KristophV vs. Disaster Area - Pokmon Showdown

 

[Disaster Area]

Once this is more or less completed (i.e. down to a 'fine tuning' stage) you should hold a tour ^.^

Whilst there's no lead meta since there's preview, I'll still do a quick analysis of the available sleepers, and mons that generally can make good sleep bait. Jynx, Gengar, Alakazam, and Starmie all still exist as they are in regular RBY OU, although Starmie becomes more threatening a sweeper and less of a utility mon, abusing its great coverage, so it's less of a sleep absorber from what I've gathered. Your sleepers are: Hypnosis users: Gengar, Poliwrath, Hypno; Sleep Powder users: Vileplume, Butterfree, Exeggutor; Spore users: Parasect; Sing user: Chansey, Lovely Kiss user: Jynx. In terms of base speeds, you have Gengar [110], Jynx [95], Butterfree [80], Vileplume [80], Poliwrath [70], Hypno [67], Exeggutor [65], Chansey [55], Parasect [30]. It's worth noting, Ninetales is a fantastic addition to the pool of sleep absorbers and possible leads; it has super-effective coverage on every sleeper barring Hypno and Chansey, whilst only Gengar outspeeds it. Sing Chansey will probably not be used as a frequent lead or as the team's only sleeper. Hypno is a great pokemon as it stands since it threatens so many Psychic and Poison types, as well as answering Psychic types easily, and having good utility with its access to Thunder Wave alongside Hypnosis, and could even throw out a counter here and there. It gains access to the ghost-type Tri Attack which helps it answer opposing Pyschic types formidably. Poliwrath's typing leaves it really weak to all other sleepers, and is walled in particular by Vileplume and Exeggutor. Bug, Fire, Ice, Rock, Water gives it 5 resistances, but none of them are particularly helpful, apart from walling a handful of mono-attacking threats, so it has to rely more on being threatening with its high Attack with STAB Submission, combined with Amnesia an average Special Movepool (that leaves it a lot of issues with water types). Butterfree is probably the best answer to machamp, and at least with a bug/Psychic typing it has a few useful resists and should safely get sleep off. Access to Gust, Psychic, Leech Life, Mega Drain [It gets some but I'm not sure if it gets all of those moves] alongside double Powder lets it be reasonably effective.

Nerf clamp please.

 

[Lilyhollow]

With regard to partial trapping: yes partial trapping is very contentious in the community. In RBY there are lots of issues with softbans or the moves being 'frowned upon,' underused in tournaments for social reasons, etc.. So I expect a lot of pushback to the way they'll be handled in Violet Version, which is fine.

At this exact moment, partial trapping moves across the board are probably stronger than they are in RBY. That's because I'm actually not worried about partial trapping in RBY from a strength perspective. Few people seem to believe that they're actually broken, and the evidence isn't in favor of the people who do. I think the real problem is that RBY partial trapping is just really annoying, so I tried to ameliorate that by reducing the number of hits and the amount of PP. Now if you want to stall out Wrap by switching, it takes 16 turns instead of 32. If you want to or have to stay in, the difference is also really really really big. So now the focus is much more on the 'free switching' mechanic which I think is the appropriate role for the moves.

I think it is important to also recognize that partial trapping isn't entirely better in VV than it was in RBY. That includes Clamp; I think Cloyster hates hitting Starmie with Clamp, for example, because you're wasting 1/8th of your total PP just doing negligible damage to something that can heal it off later. It would be way happier in RBY, where it's still doing negligible damage, but at least only uses up 1/16th of its PP.


Okay, so with all that being said, there will be some partial trapping changes in the next update. I'm... guessing you won't be a fan, but we'll see how things go:

Partial trapping moves hit 2-3 times.
There is too much weirdness when they hit 1-3 times. If a partial trapping move hits only once, what's going on there? Does it just end completely, and you get no free switch or anything? Or maybe it ends, but you still get the free switch for some reason, which would be inconsistent with the situations where it ends after 2 or 3 hits. The first option is kind of complicated, possibly not even the dynamic I want partial trapping to have in this game, and functionally it's not the way the code currently works. The code currently yields the second result, and, predictably, it's very confusing. The simpler option of just moving it up to 2-3 hits seems best here.

Adjusting for this general change, I made the following changes to the individual partial trapping moves:

Clamp
- Still 70 bp per hit. Yes I know everyone will think this is ridiculous etc. Even I did, at first
- 5 PP (not 8; actually 5 PP).

Okay so I'm going to stop right here and talk about this before moving on to the other ones. Yes I factually know that the average BP of Clamp is now 175, assuming that it always hits and that the opponent never switches out. Even if you account for misses, the average is still 131.25. In other words, it's a very strong, very good move. I'm still going to point at the fact that it has 5 PP though. For reference, in RBY if you kept using Wrap and your opponent kept switching until they stalled it out entirely, assuming it never misses, they're taking some rough equivalent of 480 BP in damage (32 x 15). With RBY Clamp, it was even higher (16 x 35 = 560). With this new version of Clamp, it's way way way less than either of those, at 350. So I'll definitely challenge any claims that Clamp is too strong once these changes roll in, at least until there's a whole lot more experience with the game. The best part is, it'll never be some 16-turn or 32-turn marathon. I'm pretty sure having such low PP will make people really think about how they use their Clamps, too, which sounds great.

Wrap
- 40 BP now (up from 30)
- 8 PP (down from 16)

One of the matches I had with DA involved Agility Dragonite, and it was just sort of a pain. It was nowhere near the horrendous nightmare that was 32 PP Wrap, but I think it's definitely just better to keep things down to 8 PP. In return it gets another boost in BP. I'm not sure if that's even necessary but it seems pretty easy to stall out 8 40 BP non-stab normal attacks. I'm not sure Agility Dragonite will be able to function the way it used to even with the extra damage there.

Fire Spin
No changes from previous versions of VV.

Bind
- Bug type
- 8 PP

The only thing in Violet Version that gets Bind is... Pinsir, for some reason. So I figured making it a bug type move might be a cute idea. Maybe it's not worth doing but whatever, I'm just throwing it in there and if people like it, it'll stay. One idea could be to give it to Tentacruel, so Tentacruel could have a choice between that and Wrap. It's still less accurate and now weaker than Wrap, but it has some cool properties, like being SE against Psychics, and hitting ghosts at all. Pinsir might really be a fan of it since its only other Bug move, Vice Grip, doesn't really benefit from Swords Dance. Shrug!


In the end the most important thing to remember is that none of these changes are permanent! A big part of these early stages of Violet Version is going to be figuring out just how to handle partial trapping. If one or more of these moves are considered too strong, I'm actually okay with that because it means more incentive for people to take advantage of them, which means more data, which means I can be smarter in how I approach fine-tuning later on. I do want to get these things right though, so please criticize away.

 

[Disaster Area]

Some more Analysis by me; a view by typing.

Rock - resists fire flying normal and poison, weak to water grass ground and fighting.
Aerodactyl - Gains rock slide and softboiled. Aero becomes a bit of a tank. Unlike Golem/Magneton it completely cannot handle electrics whatsoever. It has a suprisingly handy number of resistances though, letting it handle a suprisingly large portion of the metagame in spite of its weaknesses to rock, ice, electric, and water. Rock Slide is an offensive blessing, but without Earthquake it's not sweeping as opposing rock and ground types can stop it cold, and electric and water types scare is very easily. Still, fast and tanky, and a cool potential lax answer too.
Golem - Explosion is neat as always. Basically, a hard counter to any birds/electrics lacking coverage, an explosion absorber, and wishes it was rhydon perhaps for the ability to break chansey more consistently.
Kabutops - Rock typing lets it check flareon and pidgeot, and maybe a couple of poison types, but it still suffers from a lack of movepool. Really needs rock slide :x
Magneton - Walls electrics and birds, as usual. Has a horrible ground weakness. Mimic is interesting, but it faces a lot of competition with other electrics.

Psychic - resisting psychic and fighting is great, but weakness to bug and ghost is more important here. Still a good type
Alakazam - walled by a lot of mons and scared by the common tri-attack, it's not as good as it was in regular RBY.. which was excellent. Still a solid choice as a mon that can absorb sleep, and force nearly any pokemon to switch, it's also devastatingly fast.
Butterfree - weird mon. Medium-speed sleeper as they go, great fighting resist, and the ability to frustrate other psychics [only hypno and ninetales can hit it SE, whilst it hits all bar Ninetales SE in return], and has a good selection of utility moves. It might just be not quite fast or bulky enough to be good enough though; that low attack hurts its ability to frustrate fellow psychics with Leech Life.
Exeggutor - huge bug weakness, but the games best ground resist, due to outspeeding a bunch of stuff and not being rock weak unlike bugs, it's still a great pick and can guarantee Sleep at almost any point in the game still. Consistent mon.
Hypno - Great movepool, good stats, really good mon in violet. Psychic typing doesn't really cause it any problems since it's there to bully opposing psychics.
Jynx - it's still jynx; everything else got better sure, but it's still good. The lack of lapras really helps it threaten with blizzard.
Ninetales - the shift for this is impressive; being a fire type's not so bad in this metagame, where it allows it to beat bug, grass, and ice types. It's fast, and a natural choice for a sleep absorber in a similar vein to Alakazam and Starmie. The main thing it lacks compared to those two is recovery, but it has access to fire spin and blast, neutrality to bug, but alas is slower than gengar. Would really appreciate recover to make it one of the best mons in the game, and check fire types brilliantly too should that happen.
Slowbro - Electrics being common doesn't help it, nor does the solarbeam buff, but there's no users of razor leaf so that's a plus. KristophV maybe you should try and add R-leaf somewhere? Maybe on vileplume [maybe turn it into venusaur tbh?]? Still a fantastic para-spreader, and not really lost much in terms of being a sweeper. Vice Grip pinsir is currently possibly the single best answer.
Starmie - the vastly reduced prominence of tauros, the lack of dedicated leading, and its good typing, high speed, and great coverage, it is a fantastic pokemon in this metagame, that tends to opt for 3 attacks+recover, or occasionally thunder wave, only chansey can really answer it fully. Increased prominence of fire types really helps its cause. Not sure how to nerf it, frankly it's only gotten better in this meta [which in turn makes chansey a lot more common] o.o

Poison - a cool typing when considering the utility of dream eater too, it still finds itself a little inferior, but the added availability of fighting types must help it somewhat. It's a mediocre type now, still one of the worst, but not as dire as in regular RBY.
Arbok - increased speed and attack power, with access to wrap, combined with earthquake letting it hit gengar, and mega drain letting it hit rock types and golduck, glare letting it spread paralysis, and rock slide letting it hit aerodactyl, it's finally threatening in this metagame. Its lack of useful resists hurts it though.
Beedrill - Fast sweeper, dream eater+twineedle is a fun combination, has issues with chansey though, and the lack of its defensive typing really adding anything.
Gengar - Poison typing still hurts it, but Psychic is a better move with more poison types around at least. Hypnosis and chain switching are still its main draws, as well as checking raticate.
Golbat - Struggles to find a niche compared with other mons, but it has a usable offensive movepool, usable bulk, and usable typing. Demolishes bug, fighting and grass defensively, as well as resisting poison, it's still a poor choice at the moment, but it is no longer useless.
Muk - insane 145/85/75 bulk, gerat base 105 attack, but dire base 50 speed. I guess it's a poison type lapras? It can beat Golem 1v1 and duggy dislikes switching in, but it's still mediocre, if insanely fat, since it can be worn down and walled quite easily.
Nidoqueen - its typing is a double-edged sword, turning it into quite an aggressive wall, without any real status move, often it just runs softboiled and 3 attacks, letting it check threats in spite of its average bulk power and speed.
Tentacruel - Honestly not fantastically useful, Poison and Water are two of the most common types, and whilst it's a fast wrapping pivot, it doesn't really offer much more over Dragonite or Arbok. Jack of all trades, master of none.
Vileplume - Its main issue is it doesn't really wall much, but its speed is good. Maybe replacing it with Venusaur to give it razor leaf. Dunno quite why I'd use this mon yet, but rleaf would be a big reason to.

Flying - horrible weaknesses, and ground is usually accompanied by rock. These pokemon are usually defined more by their other typing, except maybe in the case of Pidgeot, but it often lends it distinction of adding a difference to the type of mon it's added to. Flying is present on 8 different pokemon, each of which has a different typing!
Aerodactyl
Articuno - defined more by its freezing and powerful ice type and moves, it's your go to tanky but fast and powerful ice type attacker. Lack of coverage hurts it, but freeze mechanics let it be deadly. Mimic could be gamechanging for it, but might not help it enough at the highest level.
Dragonite - interesting choice of moves; agility, wrap, thunder(bolt), blizzard, surf, thrash, bslam, hb, thunder wave. It can run a lot of viable things, being a scary mixed attacker with a solid option of partial trapping. Its huge weaknesses, dislike of status in general, and mediocre speed don't let it get anywhere out of hand.
Golbat
Gyarados - basically it's powerful with huge coverage.. maybe the dpp electivire of violet [haha who woulda thunk it on the other side of gyaravire eh..], powerful mixed sweeper but a weak choice.
Moltres - probably one of the few mons to adore the flying addition. It is ice-neutral, burns scare the rock types, and it has solarbeam too. great stats and power. probably b rank level choice? It needs serious help with starmie [get it para'd >] but otherwise it should be pretty impressive.
Pidgeot - suprising bulk but poor defensive typing, its speed is good, but it's outsped by a lot of relevant pokemon, and it's hard-walled by magneton and golem. Could do with a movepool buff but the gust buff is nice for it. Average choice, but has a few dire matchups. Mimic could be a lifesaver, but it might make it a rare sight at high level due to over-reliance on it.
Zapdos - more mediocre in this meta maybe; there exist more mons that are more viable that can answer it more easily, electric/flying is walled by electric and rock/ground. Its speed feels much more average now, as does its power.

Bug - defensively it offers little, fighting and grass resists do more to nerf fighting as an offensive typing to the point it's a poor choice, and grass is more often coverage on stuff thses mons fear. The ground resist is okay, but Beedrill loses it, and parasect is slow. Offensive, it's good, but it's resisted by fire, poison, fighting, ghost, and flying, all (apart from ghost and fighting I guess?) reasonably common types. Nevertheless, beating up psychics is always good.
Beedrill
Butterfree
Parasect - whilst it's bulky, being slow is just awful for a sleeper, especially one with 4x weaknesses to fire and flying, as well as regular weaknesses to ice, rock, bug, and poison. Not unviable, but tricky to make use of, or figure out how to buff sensibly. 4x resists ground but it's unhelpful on something so slow really.
Pinsir - incredibly anti-psychic, reasonably fast, very powerful [125 attack is insane ], but only receiving a vice grip buff and bind change, it is good but not amazing.

Normal
Chansey - it's stil chansey; fighting types existing and more relevant physical attackers makes life harder for it, as well as all status causing it different problems. A key mon to prepare for, but its ability to defeat starmie is truly invaluable. We need more mons that do that tbh.
Pidgeot
Raticate - struggles with being fairly walled by ghosts, although they get softened up. Outside of that, a scary mon.
Snorlax - It's slow, hates aero's buff, and struggles with the faster pace of the metagame not letting para be spread so easy. Tricky to use perhaps, probably still a strong pick though.
Tauros - well it's not RBY any more for it, but it's still good. Golduck's existance is somewhat frustrating for it though.

Fire - beating up bugs and grasses is nice; it's an okay type now. Burns are solid in a fairly physical meta, but starmie is a pain. Electrics being good helps their cause.
Charizard - good movepool and stats, and typing leaves it with only weaknesses to slidequake and the very rare dragon. SD, fire moves, fire spin, bslam, HB, eq, thrash, it's a potent and varied mon.
Flareon - Truly fat. Cute too. Doesn't really do so much and is more easily walled, but it can also stick around for a while.
Magmar - useful typing but is somewhat walled by starmie, slowbro, etc. which doesn't help its cause.
Moltres
Ninetales

Dragon - resistances to fire water grass and electric are all neat enough, but only charizard really makes use of it. Still a rare offensive type.
Charizard
Dragonite

Water - a common type, with a useful ice resist. Still a great typing.
Cloyster - Clamp is potent, Explosion on starmie is beautiful. Great choice in the meta.
Golduck - Wishes it were bulkier, and had slightly more interesting a movepool, but is a good mon just out of how good water/ghost is as a typing.
Gyarados
Kabutops
Poliwrath - a weird mon. Amnesia, Fighting STAB, Hypnosis, water/ice coverage. It has some issues [starmie/slowbro in particular] but it is viable now.
Slowbro
Starmie
Tentacruel

Ice - Freeze immunity is still amazing. Ice is still amazing offensively.
Articuno
Cloyster
Jynx

Ground- an important but dreadfully under-represented type. Electric immunity is great in this metagame. Great offensive typing, and anything lacking it as a coverage options is very much missing out.
Dugtrio - Despises how frail it is, but its speed and power let it be useful. Mimic is peculiar and could be entertaining, but might not be enough for it at top level play.
Golem
Nidoqueen

Electric - Cool offensive and defensive typing; hurting starmie makes it very important lol
Electabuzz - Cool typing; eggy walls it, but otherwise it's a great threat.
Electrode - the power boost is nice for it, and it still walls a lot of stuff, as well as being a free chunk of damage when no longer needed. Walled to hell and back by Golem though. All grounds are in fact an issue.
Magneton
Zapdos

Fighting - It suffers in this meta. It is offensively more useful since it got better moves, but normals are much rarer, and poison/bug have risen, flying is still common, and psychic is both common and great. Ultimately it kinda has too many issues, but can fill specific niches if need be.
Electabuzz
Machamp - bulky. good movepool
Magmar
Poliwrath
Primeape - fast. that's all u need to know bout the differences between champ and ape

Grass-wishes tangela existed. Cool type in this meta actually, checking water and electric, ice weak sucks though. Underrepresented
Exeggutor
Parasect
Vileplume

Ghost - cool type, great type, mons wish they were bulkier and maybe better typed tho.
Gengar
Golduck

----
Thoughts on Pokemon not included [Full FE List: Venusaur, Blastoise, Fearow, Raichu, Sandslash, Nidoking, Clefable, Wigglytuff, Venomoth, Persian, Arcanine, Victreebel, Rapidash, Farfetch'd, Dodrio, Dewgong, Onix, Kingler, Hitmonlee, Hitmonchan, Lickitung, Weezing, Rhydon, Tangela, Marowak, Kangaskhan, Seadra, Seaking, Mr. Mime, Scyther, Ditto, Vaporeon, Jolteon, Porygon]
Those which I think could reasonably fill a niche not included in Violet at the moment: Raichu, Dewgong/Lapras, Victreebel/Tangela, Articuno, Onix, Kingler.
I appreciate the idea is for it to be less cluttery, but in my opinion these mons are worth adding, with these sorts of changes: Raichu [Improve stat spread to something like [50/110/65/120/110] - its niche is an electric that beats Golem and Magneton. Overall the change is small and is a relatively small piece of additional information, and whilst type-wise there is a lot of overlap sure, it clearly fulfills a slightly different offensive role. Not tooooo fussed if it's not added since it has small similarities in a lot of ways to the other electrics I guess. Tangela - with this added, you needn't have bel; as a pure grass type, it resists ground [unlike vileplume] and has no 4x weakness [unlike eggy/parasect]. Furthermore, it's bulky. It has access to bind, both powders, mega drain, Solarbeam, and leech seed. Overall it would make a very good bulky pivot and general anti-ground/electric. It's slow but it's bulky enough that it really doesn't mind the inevitable paralysis too badly. I'd just give it a small stat buff to make it bulkier overall, so like [85/55/115/100/60] or so. I don't know about the ices, I feel dewgong would be a good addition just to help with cuno though. Not too fussed if it's not added I guess. Onix is just an Electric/Flying wall and pivot. Access to bind is what's so significant about it really, as well as its bizarrely high base 70 speed. [75/75/160/30/70] would work if you decided to add it. There's not all that many rocks and such anyway. I guess Kingler overlaps a bit with kabutops and tentacruel? What was your logic for not adding it?
Anyway of all of those, i'd most love to see Tangela added as it fulfills a totally new niche, one that is interesting, and makes use of the move selection. Onix and Raichu would also be interesting additions, without being too cluttery Dewgong would also probably make a nice addition as another freeze immunity, since there's only 3 of those as it currently stands

e: I <3 Butterfree, sooooo good

 

[Lilyhollow]

re: Butterfree, yeah haha I definitely underestimated what Butterfree can do with the new Leech Life. With just some mild stat boosts, Psychic typing and Leech Life, it's looking like a super real option out of nowhere. I know we talked about this in chat, but what Butterfree can do with base 55 attack makes Parasect look like a potential beast.

re: Kabutops rock slide. Yes that will be happening, thanks for pointing it out. Also I'm probably going to poke Rock Slide a bit, make it 85 BP instead of 75.

re: Starmie, it does seem even better now yeah. It's very early of course, but I wouldn't be surprised if this ended up being the number one Pokemon in this version. Fire/Fighting types popping up is big. In fairness that's been mitigated at least a little bit; Moltres, Magmar and Flareon all have something to make Starmie pretty hesitant to just switch in willy-nilly. I'm not sure how much damage Starmie can take before it is no longer a valid switch into Magmar (which outspeeds and has Vice Grip). Same with Moltres, really. Even if it switches in on a Fire Blast, 3-attack Starmie can't do enough damage to avoid getting blown up by Solar Beam (which, granted, isn't functioning properly atm for whatever reason).

re: Tentacruel, I'm with you on this one. I'm sort of struggling with Tentacruel right now. There are a lot of water types and this one doesn't seem terribly interesting, maybe it should be cut actually? I'm leaning that way right now.

re: Vileplume, I think you're the third person to suggest switching Vileplume out for Venusaur. I kind of wanted to see what I could do with Petal Dance, since the downside is interesting to me, but maybe that's just not even worth caring about. Hmmmmmm... another part of my hesitation is that it would feel pretty weird to have just two of the three original starters. Having just Charizard is already a bit weird, but somehow it feels even weirder to have two. At the same time, Blastoise is super boring. I'll have to think about this more I guess.

re: Flareon, the one thing about Flareon is that I feel like its stats scream "Arcanine," hahaha. Actually the main reason I went with Flareon was that I wanted a slower Pokemon, and nerfing Arcanine's speed felt silly. Maybe should have done that anyway, but I love both of their sprites/designs so hey whatever.

re: Dugtrio, I feel like Tri Attack is... almost criminal not to have on Dugtrio of all Pokemon. I'll probably be adding that soon, but then what would it even need Mimic for, really? So probably it won't get Mimic anymore, which is fine, since it didn't really seem all that interesting on Dugtrio anyway.



re: Pokemon that aren't included, it's tough. If the plan were to do 'all 81 full evos,' then I'd probably be cool with most of your suggested inclusions. As it stands I basically want to be as stringent as possible. Hence the fact that Tentacruel is probably on the chopping block right now.

Lapras is something I've gone back to a few times and it just seems like a bad idea every time. I super love Lapras actually, but I don't like that it fights for Articuno's niche while also beating Articuno horribly 1v1, and also sooort of stepping on the toes of some of the other water types (which there are a lot of to begin with).

The Onix/Raichu things are basically perfect examples of the "if I were trying for all 81, I'd totally do this" thing I mentioned before. I'd probably do something a bit different with Raichu though. Not sure how I'd tweak it, but as it stands it feels like it'd be stepping on Electabuzz's toes too much maybe?

Tangela being my favorite Pokemon I almost want to be convinced to add it! but yeah I dunno. Of course I've considered it a lot purely because I love Tangela, but it never seems to make sense. Your suggested example is too close to Parasect for my comfort, and so on. The two Pokemon have differences of course, but Parasect has basically all of the same options (just some awesome bug type moves instead of Bind) and a fairly similar build overall (nice defense, decent special, slow. The main difference is the big attack stat and the weaknesses you mentioned, but I'm not sure how much it even matters that it's 4x weak to fire or flying).

Lack of Kingler is basically because of Tentacruel and Kabutops. There are just a lot of water types in general really.


I think if there's one Pokemon I'm considering adding to the roster at this point, it's... Blastoise... but that's only because I'm starting to feel like Venusaur over Vileplume could be good. The problem is, Blastoise is super boring. I think it would need some sort of type change, and the only type change that would make any amount of sense is Water/Ground. Even that doesn't pop out to me as particularly exciting or necessary though. Yeah it's another anti-electric but I'm not sure the game really wants another one of those anyway? And ground is a little underrepresented, but I'm not really bothered by that, I think the ones that are there hit all the proper notes as it is. It would also make life that much harder for most of the poison types which is a pain.

So in the end I'm still leaning very heavily against including Blastoise. I think the current plan is: Just give Vileplume Razor Leaf. In a vacuum it does make more sense to swap Vileplume out for Venusaur (or Victreebel, but I'd rather not have wrap in this case), but it just seems so silly to have 2, but not 3, of the original starters. haha maybe it's silly to even fuss about that in the first place but whatever!

And also yeah, Tentacruel is probably being ditched within the next couple updates. There are tons of water and poison types as it is!

 

[Disaster Area]

Lemme give you a greater low-down comparison of Tangela vs Parasect

Stat Spread: Tangela - Bulk-oriented, underpowered, fast enough to outspeed a few things; Parasect - Bulky too, but very high-power, and awfully low speed.
Movepool options: Tangela - Bind is a huge selling point; Parasect- raw power of leech life
Type difference: Tangela resists ground, water, grass, electric. Has no 4x weakness. Parasect has a huge 4x weakness in fire - fire types need to be out or paralyzed+weakened/slept before it can do anything other than spread status effectively, zapdos and pidgeot too.

Overall, how they function differently: Both would have these similarities - status spreading grass types [which notably means ground/water/electric resistance]. HOW they do it and what else they do is very different though, and the way their support interacts with their team is different too. Tangela can act as a pivot even very early game, spreading status, and reducing damage taken with the help of bind - it massively enjoys the move's lack of an immunity - allowing it to get in frailer threats/ones that have a harder time switching in [Dnite comes to mind]. A speed boost would actually be kinda nice to it to help it act as a pivot, but I think nothing faster than like base 70; either way, there's a lot of fast pokemon that outspeed it; it already outspeeds golem and slowbro, but magneton would be something to add to its wish-list. And eggy, it's scared of bind ;D or even base 71 - tailoring it to outspeed cloyster/poliwrath would be pretty huge. Chansey, Flareon, Parasect, and Lax I think completes the list of what it would outspeed [this meta is very fast atm o.o]. Parasect struggles more with acting as a pivot - nothing has ground coverage that can't hit it super effectively, or fighting coverage, etc. Its best role is coming in vs Psychics and leech life-ing and spreading status. Butterfree does the switching-in part better [afraid of leech life in mirrors, and tri attack from hypnos, and fire blast from ninetales which neither is coming in on anyway] but it does the scaring whatever comes in after part really well. 100% accurate sleep means ur not bein clutch against it. Leech Life will help it out vs anything not a 4x resist [moltres/magmar I think?], and it has stun spore for crippling those too. In essence, it's a slow sweeper that spreads status and scares psychics, pretty much exclusively, and generally in the early game. In the late game it turns into a sweeper, once fire types are removed, being difficult to take down due to huge bulk + huge attack + huge recovery from its main attack + it has swords dance. Its massive set of weaknesses makes it a little more fair actually, but upon team preview you know you need to be very careful with your fire type/zapdos to handle it. Suprisingly huge threat. Desperately slow however.

 

[Disaster Area]

List by Base Speed, * = Sleeper.

140 - Electrode
130 - Aerodactyl, Beedrill
120 - Alakazam, Dugtrio, Magmar
115 - Primeape, Raticate, Starmie
110 - Gengar*, Tauros
105 - Electabuzz
100 - Arbok, Charizard, Ninetales, Pidgeot, Zapdos
95 - Jynx*
90 - Golbat, Moltres
85 - Articuno, Golduck, Nidoqueen, Pinsir
81 - Gyarados
80 - Butterfree*, Dragonite, Kabutops, Vileplume*
70 - Cloyster, Magneton, Poliwrath*
67 - Hypno*
65 - Flareon
60 - Tangela* (Not yet included, will be - may be buffed at a later stage)
55 - Exeggutor*, Machamp
50 - Chansey*, Muk
45 - Golem
30 - Parasect*, Slowbro, Snorlax

Tentacruel was not included since it was removed from the version.

e: for fun, using uni software, did this with my nice mathematical software..
mean = base 86

 

[Disaster Area]

Sets for Every mon + a viability rank

Aerodactyl

Aerodactyl
- Rock Slide
- Sky Attack
- Soft-Boiled
- Hyper Beam

Standard offensive tank aerodactyl. Maybe a set with Rest, Reflect, or Toxic somewhere could work too. Fire Blast often is used too.

Viability Rank: high B

Alakazam

Alakazam
- Psychic
- Thunder Wave
- Recover
- Seismic Toss / Reflect

RBY Zam sets still function fine. Counter is probably still nearly never seen, but Toxic could potentially make an appearance. Lots more competition/

Viability Rank: High B

Arbok

Arbok
- Earthquake
- Wrap / Bind
- Glare
- Bind / Hyper Beam / Poison Sting

Arbok's a fast and fairly powerful partial trapper, with a fairly diverse movepool. Earthquake is the only truly mandatory move, since hitting Gengar very powerfully is its biggest niche over other wrappers, apart from its fantastic speed. Glare lets it spread Paralysis when things switch away from threatening attacks, but since Arbok can't do this easily, another move could work in its slot. Hyper Beam acts as a finishing move, but Arbok's set is very flexible. Poison Sting gets mention for being a great STAB, and can probably afford to considering how its Ground Coverage hits so many things Poison Sting misses out on. Mega Drain gets a mention for bothering water types, and destroying Golem and Kabutops.

Viability Rank: High C

Articuno

Articuno
- Blizzard
- Sky Attack / Rest
- Mimic
- Hyper Beam / Rest

Incredibly powerful and difficult to stop Blizzard is effective, even if Starmie is the best Pokemon in the tier. Flying's coverage alongside Ice isn't spectacular, but Sky Attack is viable. Mimic is a great option in its barren movepool for this metagame. Reflect could be used alongside Rest even too.

Viability Rank: Low A

Beedrill

Beedrill
- Twineedle
- Dream Eater
- Poison Sting
- Mega Drain / Toxic / Rest

It doesn't have any other good moves, but Dream Eater is effective alongside its massive onslaught of toxicity, but it has huge issues with Poison types - Gengar is less so, but it has to be slept if you're to hit it with Dream Eater, whilst it 4x resists both STABs and can hurt you back with Psychic. Maybe a bit underpowered too.

Viability Rank: High C

Butterfree

Butterfree
- Leech Life
- Sleep Powder
- Stun Spore
- Psychic

Bug and Psychic is fantastic coverage, its typing and bulk is good enough [but it MUST not take super-effective attacks]. It's a great Starmie check, and great status spreader. The power and recovery of Leech Life is phenomenal, in spite of how it looks on paper. It's a reasonable ground resist, but its typing might give it troubles being a great Ground resist for really long matches; any Psychic other than mirrors, Ninetales, and Hypno, and it's an effective Psychic resist. Great mon ^.^ Solarbeam/Mega Drain are viable too, but not fantastically nessecary.

Viability Rank: High A

Chansey

Chansey (F)
- Soft-Boiled
- Thunder Wave
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam

Chansey
- Softboiled
- Reflect
- Thunder Wave
- Seismic Toss

These are its 2 best sets, but running Counter/Sing somewhere is viable, although much less so than in standard RBY. It's still super-common as an immense special wall, and answering Starmie has if anything gotten more important in this metagame. A lot more threats are nasty to it, but it's still near omnipresent.

Viability Ranking: S

Charizard

Charizard
- Swords Dance
- Body Slam
- Earthquake
- Fire Blast
(or Hyper Beam in any slot other than that of Swords Dance)

Charizard
- Fire Blast
- Rest
- Body Slam / Reflect
- Toxic

2 differently-functioning Charizard sets. The first is a fairly standard-looking Swords Dance Charizard, abusing its high speed, reasonable coverage, and solid typing, to clean the opposing team. The fact it can counter opposing Moltres and generally frustrate opposing Fire types leads to the merit of the defensive set too, as its 4x resists to Fire and Grass are massively helpful. It's a good answer to bug types too, but unlike other Fire types struggles more with Ice types - Ninetales is a much better answer to Jynx/Articuno, although Charizard arguably faces off better versus Cloyster. Flareon provides the second set a lot of competition, whilst other sweepers and cleaners face competition but also provide teammates for the former set. It's not a top top mon but it's definitely viable. Walling Moltres the best of anything is fantastic though.

Viability Rank: Low A

Cloyster

Cloyster
- Clamp
- Blizzard
- Explosion
- Tri Attack

Clamp's usage changes, but otherwise it's the same mon as in RBY, in a different environment. Tri Attack lets it thoroughly hurt Starmie and Golduck - Tri Attack's 20% chance for added effects is okay - but you do risk about 1 in 15 of burning a Starmie. Nothing really hard counters it any more, but clamp's limited PP means it's certainly still manageable. Its mediocre speed and inability to properly punish Starmie are its main weak points.

Viability Rank: Low A

Dragonite

Dragonite
- Wrap
- Agility
- Hyper Beam
- Surf/Blizzard

Standard Wrapnite still works, but now Thunderbolt is pretty viable due to Starmie's prominence, and Thrash makes an entrance. Fire Blast is also less shunned in this meta. A set with four attacks could work though, since it has the coverage for it, but its typing leaves a bit to be desired, and Gyarados provides some competition. Consistency looks to become an issue for it to be honest.

Viability Rank: High C

Dugtrio

Dugtrio
- Earthquake
- Tri Attack
- Slash / Substitute
- Rock Slide

Earthquake for STAB, Tri Attack hits a lot of useful stuff super-effectively. Slash and Rock Slide don't do too much to anything, but the coverage of Rock Slide isn't unhelpful. Probably could do with a buff.

Viability Rank: Low C

Electabuzz

Electabuzz
- Thunderbolt
- Psychic
- Thunder Wave
- Submission

An effective pokemon, but walled by Exeggutor. Otherwise, very threatening. High speed and good coverage make it difficult to handle, particularly if you lack Exeggutor. Its high speed really helps it be challenging to play around.

Viability Rank: High B

Electrode

Electrode
- Thunderbolt
- Explosion
- Screech / Toxic
- Thunder Wave / Rest

Electrode
- Thunderbolt
- Rest
- Toxic / Thunder Wave
- Light Screen / Thunder Wave

There's not really one totally standard set for Electrode, or even 2; there's somewhat of a sliding scale from offensive to defensive, and offering a couple of different types of support etc. Offensively it's alright; whilst Ground types and Electric types wall it, the only one that resists its Explosion is Golem, which can be worn down with Toxic or unable to absorb an Explosion due to Screech. It's very rare for 2 Explosion absorbers that can take on Electrode be paired together [Aerodactyl, Starmie, etc. can't take its thunderbolt for example).

Hyper Beam and Take Down deserve a mention as being options to hurt Ground and Electric types (but only Dugtrio really feels the hurt). Thunder is probably an option too but as of yet noone's found any notable KOs it achieves.

Viability Rank: Low A

Exeggutor

Exeggutor
- Psychic
- Explosion
- Sleep Powder
- Stun Spore / Mega Drain

Exeggutor
- Leech Seed
- Rest
- Psychic
- Toxic / Stun Spore

Exeggutor is less mandatory but still somewhat versatile - the Psychic and Ground resists are always handy, but its great Bug weakness leaves it vulnerable to some pokemon (Butterfree and Pinsir for example), and it faces competition with Tangela, which is a better pivot, albeit lacking a Psychic resistance (or huge Bug weakness or anything like that). Toxic Leech Egg is much improved with the buffs to Toxic (i.e. Dream Eater), and acts as a bulky pivot and all-round quality wall for defensively oriented teams. The standard offensive one I've yet to really try out in all honesty (it actually faces a lot of competition with my baby Butterfree), but it should definitely still be functional, even if it feels somewhat slow. It does hard-wall Electabuzz which is cool. Electric resistance helps it with basically every Electric type other than Zapdos.

Viability Rank: High A

Flareon

Flareon
- Fire Blast
- Rest
- Body Slam
- Mimic

Flareon is very tanky and can be challenging to handle if it gets a good Mimic. It answers fire types, as well as bugs, grasses, and ices to varying degrees, and is very bulky so it can take neutral hits fairly easily. The main issues are it's rather do-nothing and predictable, and faces a lot of competition from, Ninetales and Charizard, which have similar defensive prowess. Ninetales has its added Psychic resistance, but Bug neutrality, and Ghost weakness (meaning it's vulnerable to Dream Eater whilst resting; it's an okay sleep absorber thoug), and Charizard which has an ice neutrality but also water neutrality, electric resistance (making it a possible alternative to Electrode, Golem, etc.) and 4x fire/grass resistances making it a great answer to Moltres, whilst Flareon is slower than both of these and Moltres, without really any advantage other than a vanilla typing and Mimic which is a fairly intangible benefit. Worth using but always fairly replaceable.

Viability Rank: High C - good mon but with a lot of similar competition.

Gengar

Gengar
- Hypnosis
- Toxic
- Dream Eater
- Psychic / Thunderbolt

Gengar
- Hypnosis
- Explosion
- Night Shade
- Thunderbolt / Psychic

Gengar varies a lot in this meta, but offensively and defensively it's vital and versatile. Defensively, its typing lends it 4x resistances to bug and poison, resistance to grass, and immunity to normal and fighting. Other than normal, these types have improved substantially in an offensive sense in Violet. Weaknesses to Ground, Ghost, and Psychic all cripple it somewhat but its resistances are more than enough to be of great help on an offensive team. Its toxic immunity is neat too. Offensively, it is somewhat versatile too. No one pokemon totally walls it but it does depend on the set. Night Shade or Toxic/Hypnosis + Dream Eater let it get around Exeggutor and other Psychic types. Psychic destroys Poison types that is answers so easily, whilst Thunderbolt brings the pain to Starmie and others. Mega Drain is an option for Golem and Kabutops, but generally they're hit hard enough already by other moves. Explosion is Explosion, and indeed its attacking stat is pretty low, but it can still make use of it. Altogether, Violet brings it more defensive value, and much greater versatility, with Dream Eater and Toxic being increasingly viable options, Psychic hitting a lot of Pokemon, and defensively answering a host of Pokemon. Combine it with a solid selection of utility moves and you have yourself a phenomenal pokemon, much more consistent than in RBY.

Viability Ranking: S

Golbat

Golbat
- Acid
- Gust
- Leech Life
- Mega Drain

Other moves: Hyper Beam

Golbat is still a poor choice in violet, but it is viable. It beats up parasect better than Gengar, and has a ground immunity. The trouble is its movepool offers very little and its stats are lackluster.

Viability Ranking: Low C

Golduck

Golduck
- Amnesia
- Rest
- Surf / Ice Beam
- Tri Attack / Disable [once Disable functions]

Golduck
- Tri Attack
- Dsiable
- Rest
- Body Slam / Toxic
[once Disable functions]

A more offensive or defensive route is viable for it. It suffers from a dream eater weakness whilst asleep however. A Disabling basic pivot or an Amnesia-Sweeper are the main routes you can take with it. Its typing is cool but its stats a little underwhelming; it warps the metagame very slightly. Overall, its typing is great but its stats and movepool let it down, as well as Disable yet to function.

Viability Ranking: High B

Golem

Golem
- Rock Slide
- Earthquake
- Body Slam / Substitute
- Explosion

Golem functions as before, and is still the premier zapdos answer, and indeed answers all electrics other than Electabuzz easily. Its niches are still valuable and sought-after, and it's a potent enough sweeper and exploder.

Viability Ranking: High B

Gyarados

Gyarados
- Tri-Attack
- Thunderbolt
- Surf
- Sky Attack

Other Options: Thrash, Hyper Beam, Blizzard

Basically Gyarados offers very little synergy, but lots of power and coverage, and an okay speed tier. Its movepool is pretty grand but it can't really hit everything too well all at once. If it had Dragon typing maybe Thrash would be worth considering, but locking, no STAB, and a negative effect on top of that make it not really worthwhile. Overall, it can be a scary sweeper end-game and check a couple of things during the match.

Viability Ranking: Low B

Hypno

Hypno
- Psychic
- Hypnosis / Thunder Wave
- Tri Attack / Thunder Wave
- Thunder Wave / Submission / Rest / Counter

Hypno is versatile, and the only Psychic to beat up other Psychic types other than Butterfree, which unfortunately gives it a huge amount of competition. Hypno also faces competition from Alakazam but has clear niches. The lack of Fire/Flying/Rock weaknesses added by Bug overall gives it an okay niche, but it has large opportunity cost, moveslot issues, and competition.

Viability Ranking: High C

Jynx

Jynx
- Blizzard
- Psychic
- Lovely Kiss
- Rest / Mimic

Other Options: Counter / Thrash / Body Slam

Honourable mention to Counter, but Mimic's buff and Rest's overall utility makes Jynx not usually able to fit it. Overall, being Ice is a nice rarity in this tier, and whilst it has certain vulnerabilities, it'll be useful every match. One of the fastest and most consistent sleepers, but with an increaing number of weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

Viability Ranking: Low A

Kabutops

Kabutops
- Rock Slide
- Swords Dance
- Body Slam / Hyper Beam
- Surf / Hydro Pump / Hyper Beam / Submission

Fills a lot of small niches, has a lot of larger flaws and its speed tier is not exactly spectacular. However, overall its stats are nice enough, and it has plenty enough of resistances [Ice, Normal, Water, Flying, Fire, Poison is an usable decent set] even if its weaknesses probably set it back a bit. Viable choice I guess.

Viability Rank: High C

Machamp

Machamp
- Body Slam
- Submission
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide / Hyper Beam / Fire Blast

Bulky fighting type, it's generally functional but unexceptional, with a couple of useful enough resistances to Rock and Bug to at least provide it opportunities to switch in.

Viability Rank: High C

Magmar

Magmar
- Fire Blast
- Submission
- Vice Grip
- Psychic

Other Options: Hyper Beam / Body Slam / Fire Spin

It's a scarily fast and difficult to wall [Golduck achieves though, and Moltres is challenging], but mediocre power offensive pokemon. Coverage is pretty solid.

Viability Rank: Low B

Magneton

Magneton
- Thunderbolt
- Mimic
-Thunder Wave / Toxic / Rest
- Tri Attack

Slower but bulkier than other Electrics, and great Zapdos answer. Faces competition with Golem and Electrode.

Viability Rank: Low C

Moltres

Moltres
- Solarbeam
- Fire Blast
- Agility
- Hyper Beam / Fire Spin

Fireburd gets an upgrade, the Solarbeam buff proves exceptional for it, making it difficult to break and very powerful. Its good speed tier does it many favours as well.

Viability Rank: S

Muk

Muk
- Explosion
- Acid
- Rest
- Thunderbolt

Other Moves: Fire Blast, Mega Drain, Body Slam, Hyper Beam, Toxic, Screech.

Honestly I don't know what to run on this. It's very bulky but not at all purpose-built and its typing is common and it only stands out as being very bulky and exploding (2 traits that don't completement eachother especially). It is pretty walled by Gengar [and hates Psychic from it] meaning versus a lot of teams it cannot even explode safely. If it gains access to Disable that would help it out a lot however.

Viability Ranking: Low C

Nidoqueen

Nidoqueen
- Softboiled
- Earthquake
- Blizzard / Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt / Fire Blast

Other Moves: Thunder / Body Slam / Poison Sting / Toxic / Submission / Surf

Nidoqueen's movepool and stats are fairly balanced and broad. Defensively although it wishes it could answer certain threats better, its Electric immunity, and resistances to Poison, Rock, Fighting, and Bug, means that it can safely check and answer a lot of threats, but its weaknesses to Ground on the physical side, and Water, Ice, and Psychic on the special side mean that a majority of threats can abuse it. Ground STAB is a blessing in this metagame, one that only Golem and Dugtrio share, and its movepool is wide giving it a variety of options above and beyond Softboiled and Earthquake, allowing it to act as a team player spreading status (with Toxic aned Body Slam), to picking off niche threats with Fire Blast, Submission, etc.

Viability Rank: Low A

Ninetales

Ninetales
- Fire Blast / Flamethrower
- Psychic
- Disable
- Rest / Body Slam / Fire Spin / Confuse Ray

Other Options: Toxic / Double Edge / Hyper Beam / Dig

A decent sleep absorber, generally the fact that it has a decent enough STAB combo, Disable as a cool utility move, and some other viable options, it's a cool mon you should consider when selecting a fire type for a defensive team. Compared to Zard and Flareon it gains a Psychic resistance and has that offensively as an option too, hits base 100 speed tier, like zard, has good bulk, but can't break anything especially. Fits nicely on stallier teams.

Viability Rank: High B

Parasect

Parasect
- Leech Life
- Spore
- Stun Spore
- Mega Drain

Other Options: Swords Dance / Hyper Beam / Solarbeam / Dig

Parasect is versatile, quite bulky (with a couple of handy enough resistances) but with larger flaws [4x weakness to flying and more importantly fire] however in spite of its low speed, its threateningness, and powerful Bug STAB backed up by Base 115 attack! Mega Drain complements it, but it has the capacity even if the movepool is a little lacking to develop a full Swords Dance set that could potentially try and sweep later on in the match. Very powerful, incredibly useful status moves, but godawfully slow, with an otherwise lacking movepool and some key vulnerabilities.

Viability Rank: Low B

Pidgeot

Pidgeot
- Mimic
- Gust
- Agility / Sky Attack
- Double Edge / Sky Attack / Hyper Beam

Other Options: Rest / Reflect / Toxic / Quick Attack / Swift

Pidgeot suffers a lot from the lack of a good Normal move to abuse its STAB on - Double Edge, Hyper Beam, and Swift are its most stand-out options, whilst maybe it can nab something useful with Mimic. Electric types as a consequence cause it major problems, as do Rock types, whilst it doesn't offer much to a team (ground immunity is not super duper useful when paired with a rock/electric/ice weakness and a mediocre secondary typing) but it's reasonably bulky and powerful, and usefully quick too. Getting good mileage out of Mimic is key to its success.

Viability Ranking: High C

Pinsir

Pinsir
- Vice Grip
- Body Slam
- Seismic Toss
- Bind / Swords Dance

Other Options: Toxic / Rest / Hyper Beam / Submission

Vice Grip is the only really mandatory move. It Has no way of getting past Gengar other than Seismic Toss (which hits Ghost types) as well as Golduck too. The Fire, Fighting, and Poison types which resist its main STAB at least dislike taking a Body Slam too. The last slot very much varies, Bind lets it act as a fast pivot with its helpful high powered attacks, Ground/Fighting/Grass resistance, whilst acting as a para and damage spreader with Stoss. Swords Dance lets it become a sweeper instead (Hyper Beam somewhere on the set could function nicely with that), and (like Toxic might) lets it punish Fighting types (for which both types resist eachother's STABs) - although most of them have other ways of hitting Pinsir.

Viability Rank: Low B

Poliwrath

Poliwrath
- Submission
- Earthquake
- Body Slam
- Dream Eater / Hypnosis

Poliwrath
- Amnesia
- Rest
- Surf / Ice Beam
- Submission / Body Slam / Hypnosis

Other Options: Psychic / Blizzard / Hydro Pump / Seismic Toss / Toxic / Counter / Hyper Beam

Poliwrath does a lot of things, but none of them very well. Its typing leaves it prey to the Psychic, Grass, Electric, and Flying types in the tier, which make it fairly poor as an Amnesia/Rest user - its main advantage over its competition is Ghost neutrality (meaning it can take Dream Eaters better) and is Bug and Rock resistant. As a sleeper with its access to Hypnosis, its base speed is a poor base 70 - it's functional though. Physically it has a wide variety of options (although its Fighting STAB's main attack does horrific damage - in recoil to itself - when it takes on Chansey - a typical key target for an Amnesia user), and specially, Water/Ice/Psychic coverage is definitely not unpleasent. Counter, Toxic, and Seismic Toss rounds off its wide but unexceptional movepool - it's a jack of all trades, yet a master of none. I'll wait till someone shows me what this can do before I could even suggest how to improve it - it has to be said, being an Amnesia user is pretty poor in this metagame when Resting is feasted on by Dream Eating opponents, whilst Fighting types are still below-average in this metagame, with so many answers being easily included, and many Pokemon preying on them. The clefable of Violet, it's a master of suprise.

Viability Rank: Low C

Primeape

Primeape
- Karate Chop
- Body Slam / Hyper Beam
- Rock Slide / Thunderbolt
- Seismic Toss / Toxic

Other Options: Counter / Thrash

Primeape is more interesting than at first glance.. its variety of coverage options is greater than first meets the eye. Karate Chop is all it really needs in terms of a STAB, and then.. you have a lot of choice. Thunderbolt annihilates Gyarados and hurts Aerodactyl, but probably achieves little more than Body Slam against a lot of targets otherwise. Rock Slide is a physical attack hitting a lot of flying targets, although perhaps not as hard for Aerodactyl and Gyarados, but it destroys Moltres and Articuno, as well as getting some decent damage on Ninetales. Seismic Toss blanket hits literally anything and is probably your best option for Gengar (maybe Rock Slide is stronger though? I've not calced or tested - Dig works too but is not recommended for fairly obvious reasons) although Thunderbolt hurts the duck. Body Slam is a great choice on paper but not especially powerful either, whilst Hyper Beam is what it is, and is a viable choice if you can fit it. Toxic (and maybe Thrash!) hit Dragonite and stop you being Agiliwrap bait, so if you can fit those and can't fit Golduck, may well be worth considering.

Viability Rank: Low C

Raticate

Raticate
- Slash
- Super Fang
- Thunderbolt / Hyper Beam
- Blizzard

Basically a Tauros without Earthquake or Body Slam, but with Slash and Super Fang, lower bulk, and higher Speed.

Viability Rank: High C

Slowbro

Slowbro
- Amnesia
- Rest
- Thunder Wave / Withdraw
- Surf / Psychic
M9m bro arguablly sees some improvement since being guarded against boosted Dream Eaters sounds wonderful, but Gengar and Beedrill's insane crit rates make it sound less interesting. Pinsir can always critical hit Vice Grip versus it (as can Magmar, without the STAB). Solarbeaming Moltres and others potentially are problematic, whilst Chansey still exists. Leech Life from Butterfree and Parasect destroy it too. Vileplume can hurt it as well. Starmie is still amazing too.

Overall, its sweeping days were not meant to be in violet, but it's still a top Thunder Wave spreader.

Weird stuff like Fire Blast, Earthquake, Counter, Submission, and Tri Attack (KristophV may remove that though) could totally see use just since the Amnesia set has so many problems that one that does something else might well be welcomed, but apart from Amnesia, Fire Blast, Counter, and some other peculiar stuff I guess, Starmie somewhat outclasses it. Fun Pokemon for sure though .

Viability Rank: High C

Snorlax

Snorlax
- Body Slam
- Blizzard
- Reflect
- Rest

Personally this is the set I am currently testing out. Snorlax's movepool is immense and fantastic, but the metagame is much more speed-focussed now, and whilst I'm sure Snorlax will eventually become a high ranking pokemon, in early development it's challenging to abuse thoroughly in my opinion.

Anything used on regular RBYlax could potentially work. Aerodactyl is definitely a thorn in its side too.

Viability Rank: Low B

Starmie

Starmie
- Recover
- Thunder Wave
- Hydro Pump
- Thunderbolt
This is a sample set and really you customise it for your team, but Psychic/Hpump/HBeam/Tbolt/Blizzard are your main offensive options, Twave and Recover find themselves pretty mandatory, whilst its fantastic speed, great typing, and perfectly catered movepool (pretty much) means that all it could wish to be a better pokemon in this metagame is more moveslots! (And maybe regaining access to Tri Attack, and learning Fire Blast - DON'T DO THIS XD) Pokemon like Chansey and Butterfree keep it in check but its damage output is often impressive and its utility versus such huge swathes of the metagame makes it a fantastic choice.

Viability Rank: S

Tangela

Tangela
- Bind
- Stun Spore
- Mega Drain / Solarbeam
- Disable [Sleep Powder permitted before Disable is implemented]
Overall Tangela is a solid anti-Electric/Ground type status/partial-trapping pivot, with utility moves and partial trapping moves that do the enough damage to enough of the metagame to make it worthwhile. The ability to guarantee Paralysis on SOMETHING useful or at least allow aggressive play-around versus pokemon such as Chansey lets it be a valuable defensive option for offensive teams in need of a pivot. Exeggutor and Pinsir give it competition but it finds itself a safe middle ground [access to Stun Spore, no Rock weakness, no 4x Bug weakness, faster than Eggy]. Its only problem is it's fairly low-powered and pretty niche (and not guaranteed to be useful every match, but you can usually assure it'll achieve Paralysis if nothing else) which is its main flaw, but it's a good Pokemon to do what you'd want out of it.

Viability Ranking: Low B

Tauros

Tauros
- Body Slam
- Hyper Beam
- Earthquake
- Blizzard

Other Options: Thunderbolt / Fire Blast

Worth considering but now much less than mandatory, it's still highly threatening, but requiring being babied and offering no synergy is a harder thing to fit in this metagame, whilst Starmie's incredible presence gives it a harder time. Moltres and Fire types in general making an appearance is uncomfortable for it too. Still a threat to prepare for, but ultimately less scary than it is in RBY OU by a long way. Tauros

Viability Ranking:

Vileplume

Vileplume
- Sleep Powder
- Razor Leaf / Solarbeam
- Body Slam / Acid / Hyper Beam
- Swords Dance / Acid / Stun Spore

Vileplume is not a bad mon. It's just not a good one either. Its speed, attack, etc. are pretty average. Poison is a relatively unthreatening offensive type - since most teams will have more than one answer, what you get to put to sleep won't be quite so restricted as it might be for a more threatening pokemon. Being one of the most offensively threatening (and fast) Grass type attackers is pretty cool, but it's still slow-ish, and it lacks other Special coverage - SD+Body Slam is fairly effective in tandem perhaps, but like so many Poison types and such in this metagame, Gengar just blocks it. Stun Spore is a helpful option, but it relegates it to a supportive role [like Parasect, Butterfree, Exeggutor and Hypno can also do in a similar fashion] but it is less specific with which pokemon it lures, and less suprising, than any of the other utility Pokemon. Its closest competition is probably Parasect - both lure Gengar easily, and other Poison types, and have little way around them, but Vileplume beats Parasect 1v1 and has Body Slam and some base speed to make offensive use of. Being much less threatening to Psychics though [the main choice of sleep bait in RBY and probably in Violet] really is desperately underwhelming for it though. The trouble with Vileplume is it's too easily walled and even more easily checked, and is an undesirable sleeper and an ineffective sweeper.

Viability Rank: Low C

Zapdos

Zapdos
- Thunderbolt
- Drill Peck
- Thunder Wave
- Light Screen / Agility / Thunder

Electrode and Golem are common counters, Chansey is very common, Charizard is a good-quality check, as is Nidoqueen, Dugtrio is immune to its attacks, and Tauros matters less. It's not a bad Pokemon per say, just it has a few counters that are pretty common, it's just a step down from RBY.

Viability Rank: Low B

Rankings Summary

S
Chansey
Gengar
Moltres
Starmie

High A
Butterfree
Exeggutor

Low A
Articuno
Charizard
Cloyster
Electrode
Jynx
Nidoqueen
Tauros

High B
Aerodactyl
Alakazam
Electabuzz
Golduck
Golem
Ninetales

Low B
Gyarados
Magmar
Parasect
Pinsir
Snorlax
Tangela
Zapdos

High C
Arbok
Beedrill
Dragonite
Flareon
Hypno
Kabutops
Machamp
Pidgeot
Raticate
Slowbro

Low C
Dugtrio
Golbat
Magneton
Muk
Poliwrath
Primeape
Vileplume

 

[Disaster Area]

HP
250 - Chansey
160 - Snorlax
145 - Muk
120 - Magneton
115 - Flareon
100 - Machamp
95 - Exeggutor, Gyarados, Slowbro
91 - Dragonite
90 - Articuno, Moltres, Nidoqueen, Parasect, Poliwrath, Zapdos
85 - Golbat, Hypno, Tangela
83 - Pidgeot
80 - Aerodactyl, Golduck, Golem, Vileplume
78 - Charizard
75 - Tauros
73 - Ninetales
70 - Butterfree
65 - Beedrill, Electabuzz, Electrode, Jynx, Magmar, Pinsir, Primeape, Raticate
60 - Arbok, Gengar, Kabutops, Starmie
55 - Alakazam
50 - Cloyster
35 - Dugtrio


Attack
134 - Dragonite
130 - Flareon, Machamp
125 - Gyarados, Pinsir
115 - Kabutops, Parasect, Poliwrath
110 - Golem, Pidgeot, Snorlax, Dugtrio
105 - Aerodactyl, Arbok, Muk, Primeape, Vileplume
100 - Moltres, Tauros
97 - Magmar
95 - Cloyster, Exeggutor
93 - Hypno
90 - Golbat, Zapdos
87 - Nidoqueen
85 - Articuno
84 - Charizard
83 - Electabuzz
82 - Golduck
80 - Beedrill
76 - Ninetales
75 - Slowbro, Starmie
70 - Raticate
65 - Electrode, Gengar
60 - Magneton
55 - Butterfree, Tangela
50 - Alakazam, Jynx
5 - Chansey

*The graph is slightly incorrect since Dugtrio has base 110 attack in Violet, rather than base 80.

Defense
180 - Cloyster
130 - Golem, Parasect
115 - Tangela
110 - Slowbro
105 - Kabutops
100 - Articuno, Machamp, Pinsir
95 - Dragonite, Magneton, Poliwrath, Tauros
90 - Flareon, Moltres
87 - Nidoqueen
85 - Exeggutor, Muk, Starmie, Vileplume, Zapdos
80 - Golbat
79 - Gyarados
78 - Charizard, Golduck
75 - Ninetales, Pidgeot
70 - Electrode, Hypno
69 - Arbok
65 - Aerodactyl, Snorlax
60 - Butterfree, Gengar, Primeape, Raticate
57 - Electabuzz, Magmar
50 - Dugtrio
45 - Alakazam
40 - Beedrill
35 - Jynx
5 - Chansey


Special
135 - Alakazam
130 - Gengar
125 - Articuno, Exeggutor, Moltres, Zapdos
120 - Magneton
115 - Hypno
110 - Electrode, Flareon
105 - Chansey
100 - Dragonite, Gyarados, Ninetales, Starmie, Tangela, Vileplume
95 - Jynx
85 - Charizard, Cloyster, Electabuzz, Magmar
80 - Golbat, Golduck, Parasect, Slowbro
75 - Muk, Nidoqueen
70 - Kabutops, Pidgeot, Poliwrath, Tauros, Dugtrio
65 - Arbok, Machamp, Raticate, Snorlax
60 - Aerodactyl, Butterfree, Primeape
55 - Golem, Pinsir
45 - Beedrill

 

[Disaster Area]

Violet Version replay: SunnyORAS vs. Disaster Area - Pokmon Showdown
think I found a bug with Slash?

 

[Lilyhollow]

that's some weird shit that happened somehow when my host updated the server, i'll get that fixed asap

edit: it's now fixed

 

[WreckDra]

Violet Version replay: Disaster Area vs. WreckDra - Pokmon Showdown

Fun game vs Piex, it showcases how savage aero can be if a team is weak enough.

 

[Lilyhollow]

Yeah I was thinking about Aero a couple days ago. It's a good thing I didn't give it Earthquake!

 

[WreckDra]

If its no longer in the roster, you should probably delete Tentacruel from this thread. I tried using it today and it said it was banned. I did find a cool use for the mon, however.

 

[Lilyhollow]

It's no longer on the roster, thanks for the heads up. There might be one or two things in this thread that are out-of-date. I'll fix things up in an hour or two I think.

edit: okay so that took me a lot longer to actually do, but it's fully up-to-date now.

 

[Enigami]

Here's a little something I put together over the past few days:

Pokemon Violet Version on the Nintendo Gameboy!

Its not complete yet, but I hope to have it finished by the Inaugural Tournament finals.

Obtainable Pokemon (when finished)

Spoiler

TOTAL: 87 (Uber: 2, OU: 43, NFE: 12, LC: 30)
Abra
Aerodactyl
Alakazam
Arbok
Articuno
Beedrill
Butterfree
Caterpie
Chansey
Charizard
Charmander
Charmeleon
Cloyster
Diglett
Dragonair
Dragonite
Dratini
Drowzee
Dugtrio
Ekans
Electabuzz
Electrode
Exeggcute
Exeggutor
Flareon (obtained through trade, so no Eevee)
Gastly
Gengar
Geodude
Gloom
Golbat
Golduck
Golem
Graveler
Grimer
Gyarados
Haunter
Hypno
Jynx
Kabuto
Kabutops
Kadabra
Kakuna
Machamp
Machoke
Machop
Magikarp
Magmar
Magnemite
Magneton
Mankey
Metapod
Mew
Mewtwo
Moltres
Muk
Nidoqueen
Nidorina
Nidoran-F
Ninetales
Oddish
Paras
Parasect
Pidgey
Pidgeot
Pidgeotto
Pinsir
Poliwag
Poliwhirl
Poliwrath
Primeape
Psyduck
Raticate
Rattata
Shellder
Slowbro
Slowpoke
Snorlax
Starmie
Staryu
Tangela
Tauros
Vileplume
Voltorb
Vulpix
Weedle
Zapdos
Zubat

Game Changes

Spoiler

No 1/256 chance of missing.

512+ Def/SpD & Reflect/Light Screen glitch fixed.

Badge boosts removed.

Pokemon DVs fixed to 15.

TM07 contains Acid instead of Horn Drill, and is used by Oddish, Gloom, Vileplume, Ekans, Arbok, Zubat, Golbat, Grimer, Muk, and Mew.
TM27 contains Vicegrip instead of Fissure, and is used by Paras, Parasect, Magmar, Pinsir, and Mew.

Oddish and Poliwag replace Bulbasaur and Squirtle as starters.
Oddish starts with Tackle and Growl instead of Absorb, and now learns Absorb from level up.
Poliwag starts with Tackle and Leer instead of Bubble, and now learns Bubble from level up.

Wild Pokemon and Trainers up to Cerulean City have been updated.

Pokedex reordered, with Violet-available mons taking up the first 87 indexes.

Type Chart updated. Fire resists Ice, Psychic is weak to Ghost, Poison resists Bug, Bug is neutral to Poison.

Pokemon Changes

Spoiler

Butterfree is Bug / Psychic
Charizard is Fire / Dragon
Electabuzz is Electric / Fighting
Golduck is Water / Ghost
Magmar is Fire / Fighting
Magnemite is Electric / Rock
Magneton is Electic / Rock
Ninetales is Fire / Psychic
Psyduck is Water / Ghost
Vulpix is Fire / Psychic

All Pokemon no longer learn Horn Drill or Fissure.
All Pokemon with the exception of Jynx, Flareon, Magnemite, Magneton, Diglett, Dugtrio, Pidgey, Pidgeotto and Pidgeot no longer learn Mimic.

Oddish starts with Tackle and Growl instead of Absorb, and now learns Absorb from level up.
Poliwag starts with Tackle and Leer instead of Bubble, and now learns Bubble from level up.

Beedrill no longer learns Swords Dance from TM03.
Raticate no longer learns Body Slam from TM08.
Rattata no longer learns Body Slam from TM08.

Aerodactyl learns Softboiled from TM41.
Aerodactyl learns Rock Slide from TM48.
Arbok now also learns Acid from TM07.
Beedrill learns Dream Eater from TM42.
Charizard learns Thrash from level up.
Charmander learns Thrash from level up.
Charmaneleon learns Thrash from level up.
Dragonair learns Thrash from level up.
Dragonite learns Thrash from level up.
Dratini learns Thrash from level up.
Ekans now also learns Acid from TM07.
Gloom now also learns Acid from TM07.
Golbat learns Acid from TM07.
Golbat learns Gust from level up.
Golduck learns Tri Attack from TM49.
Grimer learns Acid from TM07.
Gyarados learns Tri Attack from TM49.
Oddish now also learns Acid from TM07.
Magmar learns Vicegrip from TM27.
Mew learns Acid from TM07.
Mew learns Vice Grip from TM27.
Moltres learns SolarBeam from TM22.
Muk learns Acid from TM07.
Nidoqueen learns Softboiled from TM41.
Ninetales learns Psychic from TM49.
Paras learns Vicegrip from TM27.
Paras learns Leech Life from level up
Parasect learns Vicegrip from TM27.
Parasect learns Leech Life from level up.
Pinsir now also learns Vicegrip from TM27.
Poliwag learns Dream Eater from TM42.
Poliwhirl learns Dream Eater from TM42.
Poliwhrath learns Dream Eater from TM42.
Psyduck learns Tri Attack from TM49.
Raticate learns Slash from level up.
Rattata learns Slash from level up.
Vileplume now also learns Acid from TM07.
Vulpix learns Psychic from TM49.
Zubat learns Acid from TM07.
Zubat learns Gust from level up.

Move Changes

Spoiler

Acid: 70 BP, and has a 10% chance to lower the target's defense.
Bind: 30 BP with 10 base PP.
Wrap: 30 BP with 10 base PP.
Clamp: 70 BP with 5 base PP.
Fire Spin: 30 BP with 5 base PP.
Karate Chop: Fighting Type.
Gust: 80 BP and Flying Type, it has a 10% chance to lower attack.
Poison Sting: 95 BP with 30% chance to poison.
Tri Attack: Ghost Type.
Dream Eater: 200 BP, Ghost Type, heals 100% of damage dealt, and affects poisoned opponents in addition to sleep.
Leech Life: 60 BP and heals 100% of damage dealt.
Mega Drain: Heals 100% of damage dealt.
Submission: 100 BP, 100% Accuracy.
Petal Dance: 120 BP.
Thrash: 90 BP, Dragon Type.
Toxic: 100% Accuracy.
Twineedle: 40 BP.
Vice Grip: Bug Type, high critical hit ratio.
Disable: 100% Accuracy.
Solar Beam: 100 BP.
Body Slam: Can now paralyze Normal types.
Thunder Shock: Can now paralyze Electric types.
Thunderbolt: Can now paralyze Electric types.
Thunder: Can now paralyze Electric types.
Lick: Can now paralyze Ghost types.

Changes Not Yet Implemented

Spoiler

Finish Wild Pokemon / Trainer / Trade changes.
Change "Red Version" references to "Violet Version".
Can rename traded pokemon. (done, will be in next release)
The nerd at Mt. Moon always takes the Helix Fossil.
Nidorino swapped with Nidorina in intro.
Team Preview in Linked Battles.

Acid: 70 BP, and has a 50% chance to lower the target's defense. (in progress)
Gust: 80 BP and Flying Type, it has a 30% chance to lower attack. (in progress)
Tri Attack: Ghost Type, with 20% chance to burn, freeze or paralyze. (in progress)
Rock Slide: 85 BP. (done, will be in next release)
Disable: 100% Accuracy. The disabled move remains disabled even if switched out until Disable is used again. (in progress)
Mimic: Mimicked moves are retained after switching out. (in progress)
Solar Beam: Special is increased by one stage while charging. (in progress)
Sky Attack: Defense is increased by one stage while charging. (in progress)

Might maybe do:
Integrate Sleep Clause & Freeze Clause in Linked Battles.
Change SGB border.
Fix Linked Battle desyncs.

How To Play

Spoiler

Download and unzip Pokemon Violet Patch.
Find a Pokemon Red rom.
Find a Gameboy Emulator. (No$GMB, VisualBoyAdvance)
Download xdelta patcher.
Run xdeltaUI.
Set Patch to [path]\Pokemon Violet Patch.xdelta.
Set Source File to [path]\Pokemon Red.gb.
Set Output File to [path]\Pokemon Violet.gb.
Click the Patch button.
Close xdeltaUI.
Open your Gameboy Emulator.
Open Pokemon Violet.gb.
Have fun.

Let me know about any bugs you find.

Enjoy!

 

[Disaster Area]

that's crazy cool!

 

[Lilyhollow]

holy fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuccccccck

 

[WreckDra]

@Disaster Area and I found a bug with Solar Beam (and very possibly all charge moves) in that if you SpC is less than +o, then you won't get the SpC boost like you should on the charge turn. It might just be Solar Beam though due to showdown treating it as SpA and SpD instead of just one stat like it is. I will test this with Sky Attack and Skull Bash. Also, is there a git of this project?

 

[Lilyhollow]

yes.

note that due to inexperience I (extremely lazily) directly edited gen 1 code to make violet, instead of making a separate folder. oh well, live and learn

Thanks for pointing out the Solar Beam thing, I'll try and look into it at some point.