Was wondering about the various Pokemon battle gimmicks they’ve had over the course of the series, and was thinking about all their pros and cons, and what sort of gimmick you could make by taking what worked from Mega’s, Z Moves and Gmax while leaving out the negatives
Megas for instance had that Cool Factor, everyone loves a visual change and a new form, but they were permanent until the pokemon fainted, didnt have enough limits, (taking the item slot isnt enough of a balancing factor imo) and the direct stat changes given were WAY overpowered, not to mention they were limited to certain pokemon, which stagnated the Meta a Lot, because it became instantly predictable who the mega was on the opponents team was, and only other Mega’s could counter them
Z-Moves were very alright overall, they were a much better balanced meta, having a cool powerful effect, but being very limited and one use while still taking up the item slot of the pokemon, but the lack of new forms, new types for pokemon, new visual anything really made it feel very lackluster, but the meta was alright overall
Dyna/Gmax tried taking the best of both worlds and tried to balance it, all pokemon could use it and get Huge, some pokemon got special formes and typings and it kept the idea of moves changing into max moves and having special secondary effects, and had a good idea in the 3 turn limit usage.
But in return, no pokemon got any direct actual stat boosts besides an increase in HP, instead moves gave stat boost to the teams as whole, and all the moves of a same type were homogenized into generic max moves, so it didnt spice up gameplay and the meta much besides giving everyone a one use Instant Wall +Weather effects. Instead of branching out and making new and unique situations to react to, it sort of made everything a bit too generic overall in its attempts to include every pokemon (plus, being That Huge is arena changing and may be just a bit too Stupid overall, which affects the cool factor a bit)
So, here’s my very rough idea of how you might incorporate all that was Cool and Good while keeping up a robust and interesting gameplay Meta:
In this new and exciting unnamed pokemon gimmick, the rules are as such:
1) Every Pokemon can use it.
The major failing of Mega’s and the Major Pro of Z and Dyna was that Every Pokemon could use it, removing predictability and allowing every pokemon a chance to shine under the mechanic, this was good and should be kept
2) Some Pokemon get new visual formes, but some might not.
This is understandable, you can’t expect New Designs for every single pokemon for a single gimmick, it’s unrealistic. Instead, every pokemon gets a visual indicator that the Boost is happening, Dyna made everything just fuck off Huge, but this was kind of Dumb and changed the arena too much and takes WAY too long of a cutscene to activate every single time if I’m being honest, it slows things down too much.
Instead, something more akin to Alola’s Totem pokemon makes a lot more sense, a Slight Increase in Size +Colorful Visual Aura surrounding them is plenty enough for any Pokemon without a new visual forme to indicate a cool boost is happening. (Though absolutely any pokemon that got a new visual form from either Megas or Gmax can absolutely still use it here, the GMaxers just be lil itty bitty versions)
and the major thing, keep visual changes visual, they CAN be associated with other changes like changing types and abilities, but Pokemon without a direct visual update or new design can also get new types or abilities as well, so long as it’s consistent with their original design intentions and the the idea of them being Boosted
going with that:
3) DO Adjust and give new temporary types or abilities!
Now not EVERY boosted Pokemon needs a type/ability adjustment, and it’s reasonable to limit new types/abilities to only fully evolved Pokémon, but it can be a fun new thing to sprinkle out and spice up the meta when doled out generously, some ideas are a Boosted Sunflora that doesn’t change visually but does become Grass/Fire and gets Dry Skin as a temp ability, Boosted Blastoise might become Water/Steel etc etc
The meta lately has been playing with Type adjustments for Pokemon already with the effects of certain moves, like Burn Up removing a Fire Type, Soak that gives a water type, Forest’s Curse adding Grass etc etc and having to mentally adjust what pokemon is able to Stab Boost what move or gains new resistances or weakness on the fly is a great way to adjust to new and unique circumstances in battles, but keeping it consistent to the species, keeps it predictable enough to form a strong meta of it’s own.
2) Do NOT directly adjust base stats, but instead give the Boosted Pokemon a total of +3 stages of stat boosts upon activation.
So they increase 1 Stat by 3 stages, OR 2 stats by one or two stages, OR 3 stats by one stage each. Which stats and what spread gets boosted depends on the species of Pokemon, and is the same every time for that species of Pokemon.
I would even be fine with a similar boost in HP that Dynamax did, but less so, maybe something like a flat 50% increase in HP across the board OR if the Pokemon is hurt when it Boosts, it gains back 50% of it’s health back instead, that would have fun interplay with things like certain moves and abilities relying and calculating from percentages of health instead of max overall health.
4) Let Boosted Moves have a chance to throw out type related field/weather/status effects, but NOT direct stat boosts.
Every move that a boosted pokemon uses when boosted has a 25% chance of activating it’s Type Based secondary effect depending on type when used, but it doesn’t change into a generic max move or z-move by itself.
So a Boosted Sunflora uses Solarbeam, in every way, it’s just Solarbeam with the same base damage, but when boosted Sunflora uses it, it now has a 25% chance of activating a Grassy Terrain effect as well.
-Grass moves can cause Grassy terrain
-Psychic moves can cause Psychic terrain
-Fairy moves can cause Misty terrain
-Electric moves can cause Electric terrain
- NEW! Poison moves can cause Sticky terrain (changes terrain to be sludgy and sticky, No Pokemon from either side can be switched out for 5 turns)
-Ground moves can cause Sandstorms
-Water moves can cause Rain
-Ice moves can cause Hail
-Fire moves can cause Sunny weather
- NEW! Flying moves can cause Windy weather (changes the weather to be Windy, gives priority to Flying type Moves/Makes Weather Ball Flying Type)
(and then since I gave Ground Sandstorm instead of Rock, this is because Rock makes sense as being able to have a chance to throw out an Entry Hazard instead, like Spikes or Pointed stones, as it’s Type Related Field Affect.)
-so Boosted Rock Moves have a chance to cause Spikes or Pointed Stones as an entry hazard as a secondary effect
(and then finally the ones that used to cause Stat Boosts, now have a chance of afflicting a semi-type related status effect instead, giving some variation and change to what one might expect from a boosted move of a certain type, while still making sense as being related:)
-Boosted Dragon moves have a chance to cause Burn as a secondary effect.
-Boosted Bug moves have a chance to cause Poison as a secondary effect.
-Boosted Steel moves have a chance to cause Paralysis as a secondary effect.
-Boosted Ghost moves have a chance to cause Frozen as a secondary effect.
-Boosted Normal moves have a chance to cause Sleep as a secondary effect.
-Boosted Dark moves have a chance to cause Confusion as a secondary effect.
-Boosted Fighting moves have a chance to cause Flinching as a secondary effect.
5) Following that, Making Certain Signature Moves of Certain Pokemon have Special Boosted Variations is Okay Too, but Sparingly and not extremely overpowered!
Think your G-Max signature moves, but more like your specific Pokemon Z-Moves like Catastropika
When a Pokemon is Boosted, and it has a special singular signature move on it’s moveset, that specific move may turn into a Special Boosted Variation of that move for the duration of the Boost, but once the boosted version is used once or the boost itself ends, the move reverts back to the normal move
to use Catastropika as an example:
You have a PIkachu that knows Volt Tackle, it’s signature move. It has to be Pikachu, because Volt Tackle is Pikachu’s signature move, and it has to be Volt Tackle, not any electric move that Pikachu knows.
You Boost Pikachu, and now, while Boosted, Volt Tackle on the movelist changes to Catastropika. You use Catastropika, and the move reverts back to Volt Tackle after the single use.
As well, this version of Catastropika is not quite as powerful, the z-move version has a power of 210, Base Volt Tackle has a power of 120, I would say Boosted Catastropika version of Volt Tackle in my mind has something closer to a boost of 30, to make it 150, nothing too crazy, still within normal move limits, but definitely a nice little Boost.
Remember, with the combination of a Boosted Pokemon’s move potentially having a secondary effect, in this case having a chance to cause electric terrain, there are other things involved still as well, and you don’t want to overpower things too much.
and to use a G-Max move as a similar example, Let’s Say Boosted Venusaur wants to use Specifically Power Whip.
When Boosted, this becomes Max Vine Lash, and instead of doing Power Whip’s base 120, it also gets a 30 point boost to do 150 damage (plus, the chance of grassy terrain to occur as a secondary effect, also from being boosted)
As well as, think not of using this as a way to give Charizard yet another unneeded cool thing to choose from in battle, but instead as a way to give an underpowered Pokémon a sorely needed little boost to make it catch up to the competition and see more use. This can be an overpowered thing to do on a powerful Pokémon, but if you’re smart and a good designer, you’ll give this to the ones who really need it.
Like turning Sunflora’s Sunny Day into a Special Fire Move that causes some damage (like base 30 or 40 ish) to every Pokémon on the field except Fire types, call that Global Warming or something lol
6) Give the Boost reasonable Limitations
Something I thought Dynamaxing did very well as a limitation was the 3 Turn Limit, and something that stagnated Mega’s a lot was their only limits being one Mega per Team and locked the item slot, and otherwise just being mega’d forever. Z-Moves limit was literally only one once per battle, and item locking, was overly limiting and led to it being used less often as a mechanic.
So, New Unnamed Boost will have a turn limit, I think something reasonable that’s already balanced in the Meta is the classic 5 Turn Limit that the various weather and field effects already have.
I’m also okay with once you’ve chosen which Pokémon to boost, you’re locked into that choice for the rest of the battle and can’t boost another Pokémon. Every other gimmick also limited it to one Pokemon in this way
But im ALSO okay with: if your boosted Pokemon faints, only then you can choose another one to boost, but you can’t boost the same Pokemon twice, even if revived, leading to a maximum of 6 potential boost per battle assuming a full team. This may lead to battles being overly complicated or getting too long, but that is both a pro and a con to different Pokemon battling styles. This is mostly because I’m a fan of things that make you have to adjust and re-think your strategy on the fly, if your first choice of boost got outmatched, you might rethink who you’d boost second, depending on what got you.
I’m also okay with not locking the Item slot of the boosted Pokemon, if only because I’m a believer in Min-Maxing and Variety. Items are often such an important part of a Pokemon’s setup that removing them completely I think is going too far, but it is true that inevitably someone will figure out a boosted Pokemon’s Optimum Item to use Smogon-Style and things can end up overpowered, but to be honest, this happens already even without boosts.
There is a scare that a Pokemon getting Boosted and having a Held item might over power them too much, but the idea of the Boost having a Turn Limit before it expires, plus not permanently changing their base stats to huge degrees, but instead giving them 3 free stage boosts to their stats (which can still be affected and lowered by the opposing team if needed) helps a LOT to balance that out
And, the point cannot be made strongly enough for both Variety and Ingenuity when it comes to picking a Pokemon to Boosted, choosing their moveset based on the potential secondary effects their different type moves might give them, plus an effect from a new ability, new typing, and held item will give the meta, the more small things you can tweak, the more interesting different setups could be.
7) So What Have We Got
So, at the end of the day, what I’ve done is essentially made Mini-Dynas look a bit more like Mega’s and Totem Pokemon mixed, gave automatic stat stage boosts upon activation instead of straight stat changes, a minor boost of HP to reflect the slight bigness increase, allowed for Type, Ability and Held Item variations, with or without visual art changes, and let them have access to muted less powerful versions of specific one use only signature Z-Moves, but then all moves while boosted have Max Move-esque secondary effects, without also getting the boost in base move power that max moves do, all with a nice lovely, wrapped up in a bow 5 turn limit for the Boost.
It is absolutely less powerful in each individual area than the things it takes inspiration from, but in allowing it to take pieces from each of the three and allowing a team to potential boost another pokemon once the first boost is over, I think overall this does make the effect more powerful on the Meta, while still retaining that sweet sweet Variety and avoiding stagnation, as much as it can be avoidd anyway, since for sure people would find optimal setups for each pokemon and theyd still be in tiers
but I was just hoping that potential type switchups, abilities switchups, access to a held item for those that need it, and what exact stats are boosted for each pokemon and how much would be the thing that helps balance that out a tad, giving underpowered pokemon very nice boosts, while also making sure already powerful pokemon don’t get hugely crazy and out of proportion to the rest, maybe even getting unconvential stat boost setups that dont just give the max attack pokemon more attack cuz that would be lazy, but do other things like give an already good attacker a single boost to speed, spdef and def
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