Ironbound

In truth, I do hope that more pseudo-legends are given to us. Some of them aren't even good(ra) enough to withhold for this long, especially since as fearsome a Pokémon as Metagross itself was made available to us at an earlier stage.

Give Delcatty an evolution. It's so lame and useless. Maybe an evolution into Deliarcatty or something would make it less lame. A Base stat distribution of 90/105/85/55/75/105 could make it not-that-terrible.

While we're at it, how about an actual Chili Pokémon that's Grass/Fire? It could go from a mild little jalapeño into a scorching Bhut Jolokia with a searing 1.4 million SHUs. We could also have a Parrotfish Pokémon that eats Corsola, and some kind of Wrasse or something which could be water/fighting.

Mega Altaria is a Peacock. So we at least have that one covered. I'm rather glad that it's actually a powerful and awesome Pokémon as well, unlike poor Noctowl, which took another of my favourite birds and made a very lame Pokemon out of it. Also Why, that's exactly what I drew! Narvalor, as I dub it, is my personal representation of a Dolphin+Narwhal hybrid that's Steel/Water. I kinda think of it as a male-only counterpart to another creation called Belugoise, which is a female-only Water/Fairy Beluga.

Happy birthday, Honchy! Wish you a great year ahead.

Happy birthday, Zephy! Wish you a great year ahead.

Fairly sure we have a large number of slugs already. Gastrodon, Manaphy and Goodra are all based on oceanic slugs, and all except Manaphy are fairly accurate too. However, GF hasn't shied away from making multiple based on the same concept, so why not? Mega Goodra as a Water/Dragon type with wavy tendrils and multi coloured flaps, like an actual nudibranch, would not be half bad though.

I must explore Se7en in detail, then. Come mid-May and I shall have lots of questions. For now, Crane and Flamingo Pokemon would be appreciated as well. Gen5 finally gave us an actual swan, yes, but we still do not have a single wading bird! No stork, crane, heron, bittern, egret, curlew, ibis, flamingo or rail. What is this, GF? Make more Water/Flying birds!

TFW the whole chat becomes a fetid mess of lolified balderdash and other assorted unintelligible Japanese gibberish.

I actually have an idea for a Grass/Electric Pokemon based on an electric bulb (heh, since 'bulb' is both an electrical term and a botanical term) which would go like this: Tubulb, which evolves into Plantern. Slow, specially bulky, and an able pivot with Volt Switch and supporter with powder moves and T-Wave. It'll use grass and electric moves, of course, but it will also have access to Tail Glow and Overheat.

WE NEED A DOLPHIN POKEMON! I swear, having Kyogre as the closest thing available to a dolphin is ludicrous. It's not as if dolphins are even remotely unknown or abstract. Instead of giving us one of the most recognizable animal concepts, we get weird newts and a truckload of recycled fogs, cats, snakes, bats, even multiple jellyfish. Do it, GF! Give us a dolphin! I had a concept for this some while ago, I'm gonna share it here again, since it is pertinent:

Oh. I never played any gen6 games, only watched. And I didn't keep track of how many times Diantha made a cameo. I only remember her as being a washed out character who did nothing noteworthy at all whilst Mr.FlareBlitz-face went about building giant secret labs and levelling towns with the aim of wiping out the whole region/world.

I like the idea of something other than Heatran being Fire/Steel for once. That's an excellent typing. So is Water/Poison. (Grass/Dragon is meh really; it's probably gonna have EQ to hit the other two, though). I can already imagine a robotic rocket-jet powered Pokémon and a noxious swamp-snake oozing venom. (And some forest lizard, I guess. Oh wait, we have that one already.) Fire/Fairy is neat too, like some burning seraph or something. Man, you've just given me do many ideas to draw! I'll be sure to remember this when I get back to the drawing board in mid-May. And yeah, I agree that it'd be a good idea to have an E4 or champion be more competitive. Maybe face them all at a level cap of 50, and they'd use an actual team of six competitive Pokémon. Or, more realistically, I'd want to see a shift in the E4. Instead of being type based, they could be theme-based. I think I suggested earlier the idea of the E4 being based on the four Weathers, with them using a Hail, Sun, Sand and Rain team, respectively. Naturally, the focus would be on particular types, but not just one. For instance, the sand guy could use Rock, ground and steel types (throw in a Gliscor for anti-Grass and a Cradily for anti-Water and stuff) while the fire guy can use Grass types, and so on. Maybe some of them can use random Mguard Pokémon too under hostile weather to mix things up a bit. The champion should totally just be a pink-clad Grandpa with the most fabulous all-pink squad, js.

I don't think that GF will ever do that, in all honesty. They mollycoddle the player too much; look at XY. Just look at it. It was ridiculously easy, even if it was aimed at the average ten year old.Even assuming they actually care about feedback and learn to implement an increased difficulty curve, or even difficulty levels like BW2, (hopefully not unlockable merely at the end of the game though) I doubt they'd ever go all the way to level 100, even post-game during a rematch. Level 88 is the highest they've ever gone, and that's with Red's dumb electric rat on Mt.Silver in HGSS. ORAS only let Steven up to lv.79 on his Metagross. I just hope it'll be an interesting one. We've had a jerky Rival, a supposed Dragon master who really uses mono-flying, a pebble-collecting Richie Rich, a researcher of Pokémon mythology (Cynthia is easily the best Champion IMO, just because of all the interactions and the level of character involvement--not to mention a decent team), an old guy who loses to a brainwashed kid with a Legendary Dragon, a ditzy girl who plays next to no part in the plot, and some actress who made just one, rather lame appearance prior to battling her at tha E4. Here's to hoping for another champion who plays a deep role in the game's plot, like Platinum Cynthia or ORAS Steven to an extent. What if the champion is actually a part of the villainous team, like N, but only more so? Or what if it just turns out to be an unremarkable old chap who likes to collect bottle caps and wear pink clothes.

So much for speculation. I only guess time will tell, so we just draw a pentagram on the floor, summon Giratina, and have it kidnap Dialga for us again and force a confession out of it. Leaving the starters aside, we have speculated about the legends, protagonists, villainous teams, professors, and just about everything else. Let's wonder what kind of champion we'll have this time. I hope it won't be as lame as Diantha. Do you think it'll be a type survivalist, like Lance, who specialized in the Flying (harhar) type? We might also wonder what the new generation's pseudo-legends will be. Goodra was easily the most underwhelming one, being the first pseudo-legend to be UU even in the generation it was introduced in, I think. In any case, I don't want another Dragon type. Perhaps it could be a Water type?

Yes. Though, of course, there's nothing that prevents it from stop being used in OU. It's only poparity of usage; mons that are more uncommon, like Dragalge, Yanmega or Entei can still be played to great effect. As stated, it's just that Conkeldurr has a hard time dealing with fat Ground, Fairy, Flying and Psychic types, which litter OU. I also agree that Mega Altaria is losing its original lustre, but I still somewhat doubt it's dropping to BL dining because people seem to forget that it isn't limited to a bulky DD set. The DD set makes it easy in the extreme to sweep once its checks have been removed, but the metagame has adapted to it, and all the stuff it dislikes is now omnipresent. Every team carries a natural M-Altaria check/counter or two, so it being a pain is no longer a thing. Weavile is still going strong, as is sand offense with Exadrill, plus Scizor and Clefable put a cold stop to it. Also, teams have been getting fatter and fatter, with the rise of Volcanion making Balance more viable again, and Mega Altaria really does not like having to go through bulkier teams. It needs to set up to have a chance, and these bulky offense/balanced teams rarely give it the chance to do so. It's still a threat, but not what it was early on in ORAS. There's more powerful and useful DD users like Bulky Xard or Dnite, and for most anything else, Clefable outclasses it as a cleric while also not taking up a mega spot. It's just gotten old. Bulky DD is still decent but it will struggle to sweep most of the time, and its usefulness in most battles is usually minimal aside from its ability to switch into Keldeos, Zards, Chompers, and Thundys, which Special Mega Altaria can still do decently. I like how Special Mega Altaria is able to actually do something throughout the match instead of just sit there and sponge hits; While it may not be as potent as a fully set-up DD, its ability to hit hard right off the bat with Hyper Voice is its most optimal use at the moment, and it can roast Steel-types that normally wall it with Fire Blast as well as deal with Heatran and Volcanion with EQ. It can also still afford to run Roost to increase its longevity and allowing it to pivot into attacks consistently throughout the match without missing out on valuable coverage. I personally like this set the most as of now because it takes advantage of Mega Altaria's ability to check lots of threats whilst still being able to threaten fat teams that depend heavily on shaky checks such as Jirachi, Heatran, and Ferrothorn to beat it, all of which lack reliable recovery and suffer greatly from its coverage. It works very well with Volcanion itself because it can smack bulky Water-types like Slowbro and Rotom-W very hard and checks Latios, Latias and non-CB Terrakion (though this is a bit shaky). Volcanion heavily pressures fat teams and weakens everything to the point where Mega Alt can just start spamming Hyper Voice late game and 2HKO everything. Given that, I suspect that Altaria will continue to exist in OU, even if it isn't top tier. It will shift from the by-now-exhausted DDD set to a special/mixed one, but I don't rightly know of it'll actually end up BL. I may have to eat my words, but at least they'll be soft and cotton-candied Bird words!

Quite good, I appreciate your style of writing. I like the topic you addressed here; the personification of flowers and the metaphorical association of colours to emotions might not be original, bit it is timeless, and your style of writing brings out the best of it. I'll have to read all your stuff. Just after May 11.

Like I said yesterday, both are quite good. I hope your presentation went well. And as for what inspires people to write poetry, or prose, or draw, or sculpt, or compose music... It all leads to a larger question about what inspires people to create anything at all. I would say it is our inherent nature to create, to grow and to appreciate the world around us and conceive how it should be to suit our liking. This normative mentality is what grants us mastery over the world, for we have the will to do things for a larger motive than the basic urges to eat, sleep, hunt, mate, escape. It's indeed fascinating to step back and contemplate the things we are capable of doing, which we often take for granted.

You all need to appreciate the Empoleon family. The true Birds of Honour. Anyways, with regard to the speculated Grass/Flying starter, what do you think it'll be based off? We already have a lizard line in Sceptile, so it'll be a rip-off if they make it one of those Flying Lizard things. Likewise, the Chesnaught line is kinda squirrel-ish? And anyways, Emolga exists. So no flying squirrels either. And we have too many bats. Which leads me to believe that it might be a bird of some sort, if the trend of keeping starters reptilian/avian/mammalian continues, and if it ever comes to be. The reason we don't usually get a Flying-type Bird as a starter is because the early-route Bird is its own thing. But what do you guys think?

WHAT? What is this sorcery? We may as well use a Watchog or an Unown in OU, then, at this rate! I wonder if M-Altaria will really drop to BL, though. Granted, steel types (mainly M-Metagross and Heatran) and other fat stuff are everywhere, but it has such a great deal of diversity. Then again, it all just depends on how much it is used now. (And besides, it's not as if dropping to BL will make it any less useable in OU.)

Nice, but it's a little in competition with Zard-X, isn't it? Of course, it boasts greater initial power (on some moves) and speed, and has boosted priority, better coverage and even Wow + recovery, but Zard-X can boost its stats and is bulkier has and more reliable recovery. Anyways, aside from Mega Magnezone, I have this: MEGA MILOTIC (Still no drawing sorry :/) Type: Water/Fairy (fabulous!) Ability: Serene Grace (does this look like the face of mercy?) HP: 95 Atk: 70 (+10) Def: 109 (+30) SpAtk: 130 (+30) Spdef: 155 (+30) Speed: 81 The stats mirror (heh, pun intended) those of Mega Gyarados. Which is fitting, since their base forms' stats are also exactly the same, just different in allocation, and they are counterparts in every way anyhow. Since one has already received a brutal, Dark Mega, the other ought to receive a kind, Fairy one! Milotic is a good Pokemon in UU, being the standard bulky water type with a few perks like an acceptable speed and special attack, access to Recover and Calm Mind, and a cool (heh) ability range with Competitive and the RestTalk Marvel Scale phasing set. It is, however, rather unremarkable, and faces some competition from Vaporeon and other bulky waters. This Mega makes it OU material, and will see excellent usage alongside a Ferrothorn or a Heatran on Balance teams as part of a FDS or FWG core. The Fairy typing makes aesthetic sense on a pretty Pokemon like milotic, but Competitively (heh, I'm making so many puns) it grants it a great offensive and defensive typing. Its greatly improved defenses augment this; in fact, it's special bulk is quite astronomical, especially factoring in its access to Recover. It also has a good SpAtk stat boost, that while rather underwhelming on its own, can easily accumulate Calm Mind boosts to turn fearsome very quickly. The most significant change is in granting it Serene Grace. It makes great conceptual and aesthetic sense on it, and turns it into the worst kind of bulky water to take down; if you thought a 30% burn rate on Scald was bad, how about a 60% burn rate? Makes Volcanion's burning shenanigans loomk pathetic! But it doesn't stop there. Serene Grace Moonblast (which of course it will receive) means a huge chance to drop the foes' special attack, combining with the burn rate from Scald to make it progressively difficult to even touch Milotoc, from both special and physical spectra. It can even abuse Ice Beam to fish (heh) for Freeze hax, and can utilize a max defense RestTalk set to thwart Toxic and become a nightmare to break through. However, Milotic still has trouble with statuses if it doesn't run Rest, and it struggles to take down fat Grass types like M-Venusaur, Ferrothorn, Tangrowth and Celebi (although all but the last hate burns) and it can't touch Volcanion or any such. It also falls to powerful wallbreaker, especially physical ones, like Kyurem-B, and it can't handle powerful moves from the likes of Thundurus, Serperior, and many other offensive threats that can boost. Pink blobs also don't have much to fear from it.

Seems very specific, but I guess it boils down (heh, pun intended) to a modified variant of Bulldoze and Rock Tomb combined with idk, Smelling Salts? with its own quirk. Anyhow; more steel: Superconduct Type: Steel Category: Special Power: 65 PP: 15 (max 24) Accuracy: 100% The user attacks the foe with a metallic beam. It makes contact, despite being a special move (similar in nature to Grass Knot.) It doubles the power of any electric type move used directly after it (be it later in the same turn or at the start of the next turn, before any other damaging move is used). The power of any electric move involving the target is doubled, be it a move used against it by the user or an ally, or a move used by the target itself. For instance, if a Magnezone uses Superconduct on a Porygon-Z, Magnezone's subsequent Thunderbolt will deal double damage. If, however, Porygon-Z moves first and uses Shock Wave (on any target), then Shock Wave's power is doubled, but not Magnezone's subsequent electric move. Likewise, if in a double or triple battle, Discharge is used by any other Pokemon immediately after Superconduct is used on Porygon-Z, Discharge will deal double damage to Porygon-Z only, and deal normal damage to everything else. If the targeted Porygon-Z moved first and used Discharge, though, it would deal double damage to every other Pokemon. Of course, standard abilities and type immunities apply. This doesn't affect the way they work.

I had been expressing precisely that same opinion. And I don't quite agree with the design turn Samurott took. Dewott is awesome, probably the best middle-stage evolution of any starter family, but why it suddenly went from bipedal warrior to quadruped battering-ram-like beast is beyond me. Granted, it can wield Swords, but it should have stayed upright and more...otterlike.

I'm not sure if a Pokemon dropping is decided upon how it affects other Pokemon there. It simply drops if it falls below a certain percentage in usage, as far as I recall. So, in short, if Sylveon drops to UU (which is what is inevitable sooner or later), it'll be decided based on how Sylveon is undeserving in OU (being outclassed as a cleric and CM user by Clefable and as a Pixilate Screamer by Mega Gardevoir and Altaria) and not based on whether or not it'll mess up Florges (which can always again drop to RU, and ad infinitum). If UU doesn't like Sylveon, it can always ban it to the limbo known as BL. I doubt it though.

FLASH CANNON! My Empoleon needs it... Anyways, as of ep15 we are quite advanced into the game. We can logically expect some better TMs or tutor moves...though we should also expect them to be hard to get/purchase.