[SPOILERS] Alola Pokemon and Alola Variant Competitive Viability (Story Free Spoilers)

[Master Cyrus]

Kommo-o is pretty bad for competitive.

 

[TwistedxMind]

Why is Kommo-o bad?

 

[Envoy]

Why is Kommo-o bad?

It's a pseudo legendary lacking a good fighting STAB, middling speed, and a 4x weakness to the ever popular Fairy. It's signature move is special while it's better attacking stat is physical, and it's highest stat is defense, but it lacks any good moves required to be a tank.

To say it's bad is actually an exaggeration. It still has DD, workable speed, dragon STAB, and base 100 or above in all stats but speed. So it's not bad. Just underwhelming.

Doesn't help that it has to compete with other pseudos. Nite is bulkier, Chomp is faster, Mence hits harder, etc.

 

[Alola]

It's a pseudo legendary lacking a good fighting STAB, middling speed, and a 4x weakness to the ever popular Fairy. It's signature move is special while it's better attacking stat is physical, and it's highest stat is defense, but it lacks any good moves required to be a tank.

To say it's bad is actually an exaggeration. It still has DD, workable speed, dragon STAB, and base 100 or above in all stats but speed. So it's not bad. Just underwhelming.

Doesn't help that it has to compete with other pseudos. Nite is bulkier, Chomp is faster, Mence hits harder, etc.

Hopefully that will change a bit with move tutors/altered movesets in the next games.

 

[GhostLucario]

I am really baffled that all Alola mons are so terribly slow. Like terribly. When Vileplume outspeeds most pokemon in this gen you know it's bad.
I am especially baffled with the starters low base speed. Very disappointed. They are a hassle to use in-game, they will absolutely suck for competitive (I'm not a competitive player, but it's common sense that if something sucks in game, it will also suck competitively).
I wonder why GF decided that everything except Tapu Koko, Ribombee, Salazzle and Lycanrock MD being SO terribly slow was a good idea.

 

[Spectre Of The Departed]

Not everything needs to revolve around hyperoffense. With that said and while I do agree the majority of pokemon introduced this gen are rather underwhelming, some of them are actually able to fill some interesting niches

 

[Matleo]

Wait maybe they will change some things later.
In double and royal battles they have all a good niche.
Speed, time to use strategies and not only base game around fast and faster pokemon.
All Alolans would need acces to good priority and speed boosting moves.

Trick Room and Tailwind also may come in handy.

Maybe they want to slow down this generation to crate and add to their movesets more priority moves in future, taking that Psychic terrain and priority stoping abilities now are a real deal? Remember we had 6 vey fast generations and nothing great to counter that in the past.

Take Kommo-o, if it would learn Bullet Punch, Mach Punch, Sucker Punch it would be a real beast.

 

[Falconwing]

I think GF was trying to undo some of their power creep from Gens 5 and 6. Trying to influence the game to be less hyper offense and be less reliant on speed seems like a good idea to me. They've also gone to great lengths to try to combat priority moves as well.

I'm really happy that bulky walls and tanks might actually be more viable again.

 

[Master Cyrus]

I think GF was trying to undo some of their power creep from Gens 5 and 6. Trying to influence the game to be less hyper offense and be less reliant on speed seems like a good idea to me. They've also gone to great lengths to try to combat priority moves as well.

I'm really happy that bulky walls and tanks might actually be more viable again.

3 of the Tapus have unprecedented levels of offense previously only seen on the likes of Kyogre.
Pheromosa, Xurkitree, and Kartana all have obscene sweeping potential.

That's gamefreak pushing the hyper offense even further, and since all of them are legal in competitive play the slower and weaker mons designed to provide some balance will be pushed aside.

 

[Falconwing]

3 of the Tapus have unprecedented levels of offense previously only seen on the likes of Kyogre.
Pheromosa, Xurkitree, and Kartana all have obscene sweeping potential.

That's gamefreak pushing the hyper offense even further, and since all of them are legal in competitive play the slower and weaker mons designed to provide some balance will be pushed aside.

Hmmm, I wasn't aware of the specifics of the Tapu stats. That's unfortunate. I was hoping VGC next year wouldn't be super boring again.

 

[Matleo]

Ultra Beasts also have existing counters or not?
Hyper defense like Disquise also exist.
Plus we got 2 new abilities that double speed on Hail and Electric terrain.
We only need now non Tapu pokemon with those abilities to summon terrains.

Now that we have posibilities to counter priority moves there could be more in future for other types.

(What if Stealth Rock would become a priority move? Would Psychic Terrain remove it from play?)

 

[Spectre Of The Departed]

Most Ultra Beasts stat spreads seem to follow the principle of 'feast and famine' due to how lopsided they are. As for Xurkitree's sweeping potential, I don't really think it is that obscene (it's definitely not on par with either Pheromosa or Kartana if you ask me) unless you either give it a Choice Scarf or run a team focused on giving it Tailwind support in order to patch up its mediocre speed stat. Personally, I think Xurkitree shapes up to be more of a Wall/Stallbreaker that hits obscenely hard

 

[Blockhead Pippi]

Am I the only one here who isn't that bothered by the slow Speed stat across the Alolan board?

I mean yes, it is disappointing and a bit baffling. But Alola is also host to a number of other Pokemon from other generations that have superior speed, so it's not like anyone playing S/M is without options.

 

[Gengarzilla]

Am I the only one here who isn't that bothered by the slow Speed stat across the Alolan board?

I mean yes, it is disappointing and a bit baffling. But Alola is also host to a number of other Pokemon from other generations that have superior speed, so it's not like anyone playing S/M is without options.

That's fair. It's just a pain to someone like me who values this stat about 80% of the time, it makes theoretically planning a team of only Gen VII mons such a pain. The part that baffles me most is that many pre-evolutions are faster than their fully evolved forms. It's happened plenty of times before but never to this magnitude.

Anyway. On another topic, I've heard a lot of things about Porygon-Z and Z-Conversion lately.

 

[winstein]

I've wanted to talk about Porygon-Z, but the problem is, this thread is about the new Pokemon and not about the old Pokemon with new tricks.

Count me in as another person who's not bothered by the overall lower Speed among the new Pokemon. Certainly there are some outliers, such as Ribombee, Salazzle, Kartana and Pheromosa, but the lower Speed is perhaps what is needed to allow the other Pokemon's traits to stand out. Besides, I think the best thing about this new set of Pokemon is that every Pokemon have something that makes them stand out.

Thanks for reading.

 

[Gengarzilla]

I've wanted to talk about Porygon-Z, but the problem is, this thread is about the new Pokemon and not about the old Pokemon with new tricks.

I sorta forgot since it owes that newfound fame to a Gen VII mechanic. Someone should make a thread for discussion about all the older Pokémon.

Instead, how about Araquanid? I love its ability and I honestly had to double check its movepool to make sure I wasn't seeing things. It learns Entrainment. On paper, that opens so much possibilities.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Wait maybe they will change some things later.
In double and royal battles they have all a good niche.
Speed, time to use strategies and not only base game around fast and faster pokemon.
All Alolans would need acces to good priority and speed boosting moves.

Trick Room and Tailwind also may come in handy.

The problem is- Dazzling, Queenly Majesty.
And, I agree with [user]@Gengarzilla[/user] that even I focus on the speed stats. And I DON'T know how to use a defensive mon. It just drags a battle horribly. Every time I see a blissey or a defensive mon, I just try to one-shot it with a Z move in anger.

 

[PaulTheProtist]

I'm okay with the low speed in general on Alolan Pokémon... Except on the starters. At least one of them should be fast, since you're required to use ones. I always prefer offensive Pokémon, since they keep things quick.

 

[Almonds]

How do you think about pairing up an Oricorio with Lilligant in a double battle? Since Oricorio can copy dance moves, I think it would work well since Lilligant can also use dance moves. Boosting along with Quiver Dance at the same turn AND also being able to attack separately. It should also make up for the poor movepool.

Also, Oricorio with Volcarona. Yeah... double weakness to Rock Slide, but still.

 

[Matleo]

The problem is- Dazzling, Queenly Majesty.

maybe in future now we have only 2 pokes with them and its not a problem its a solution for more diversity and options to choose. You would need a full team with them and 2 psychic terrain casters to block priority completly.