Speculation What if there would exist 2 new Move Immunity Abilities for whole Categories?

[Matleo]

Move Immunity Abilities for whole Damage Category(Physical?Special?)?

-What if a pokemon could immune to all Special attaks
and a other pokemon could be immune to all physical hits not depending on the attacks type?

- could/should they be weak 2x to the oposite category?(should they or should they not?)

- could/should they take recoil damage for having the ability during battle?(1/6 every turn???) Or maybe they could be 6 turns on field and then take the consequence of their strong ability and faint like it is after Perish Song.

-What are your opinions?

-How would it affect the meta game?

-What types should those pokemon be? (dual or mono?)

-What type combos?


- My propositions:

immune to all special attacks moves:

dragon/ghost (skeleton, on 2 legs, winged one, with aura, smaller then Charizard bigger then Granbull) ,
ground/flying (sandman, sand monster),
electric/psychic (plazma),
ice/bug,


immune to all physical moves:

fairy/ghost(Headless Centaur) ,
grass/water(swamp creature, Crocodile),
poison/electric(gas cloud or golden cobra),
dark/psychic (panther)



What Stats?
(for non legendaries the stat that is immune(def or sp. deff) could have 1 point,
high hp and high stat(def or sp.def ) that's not immune)


For non legendary or pseudolegendary:
immune to physical moves: hp xxx ; def 1 ; attack xx, sp. attack xx ; sp. def xxx ; speed xx
immune to special moves: hp xxx ; def xxx ; attack xx, sp. attack xx ; sp. def 1 ; speed xx

for legendaries it could be without 1, a normal legendary stat.

Or should only legendary get this treatment?

I would want more non-legandary pokemon with this treatment ( something more than Levitate )

This pokemons would not need mega-evolutions and would be a good counter to many pokemon but would also have natural enemies, pokemon with Moldbreaker ability.

-How would you react with your current or past teams if you would need to fight against one of this kind or with both in a full battle or in a double battle?

- they would not be immune to entry hazards(all hazards are Status category) and could not learn Protect, Detect or variations of those moves.

 

[PaulTheProtist]

Sounds a bit broken to me. It'd be an insta-ban on Smogon. Walls are already annoying enough, do we really need to kick them up to 11?

 

[Matleo]

Was Shedinja broken?

We got many wall breakers and wall destroyers now.
It would be good to counter mega pokemon, and it could make mold breaker more usefull.
We have now a lot more pokemon, moves and abilities to counter this.

This would allow to make more pokemon and more strategies, that means longer game play.

It would make the Physical/Special split more usefull and more varieties of teams posibble.

Types where in the centre allot, now it would be good to show and use damage categories more.

Do you have fear of some little difficulties and changes?

 

[The Outrage]

Was Shedinja broken?

Shedinja had 1 HP, and could be affected by weather, status, and entry hazards--all of which were prominent in the generation it was introduced.

This Pokemon would have no counters once you beat your opponent's physical/special attackers--all you'd have to do is delay the inevitable.

This would allow to make more pokemon and more strategies, that means longer game play.

How so? Its easy to say that "X will create more strategies" without having to back up your reasoning. If anything, this would centralize the metagame towards that Pokemon. If only one Pokemon (i.e., a physical immune or special immune only) existed then it would shift the metagame towards them.

Unless they were to have 1 HP like Shedinja (or similar drawbacks) they'll dominate the competitive scene, and would centralize the game around them. If you were after creating more strategies, then simply creating new Pokemon and updating movesets (as they do with every generation/release) achieves the same thing.

It would make the Physical/Special split more usefull and more varieties of teams posibble.

This presupposes that the split isn't already incredibly useful. Before Gen IV, if you were a Pokemon like Flareon or Arcanine, who excelled more in the physical attack stat, you lose out on STAB. The split also already allows Pokemon to run mixed sets more effectively. For instance, if you are walled by a specially defensive wall, knowing Thunder Punch would be much more beneficial than Thunderbolt.

Types where in the centre allot, now it would be good to show and use damage categories more.

Types are in the center a lot, and the sky is blue, and fish live in the ocean. Type match up is the essence of Pokemon battling. Your statement again, presupposes that the damage categories aren't used. Maybe you simply don't pay attention to them? Every move has a damage category, and everyone who plays competitively pays attention to whether they are using a physical or special move. Some will even use special moves despite having a lower stat because of the bigger damage output from the attack (vs the typical counter's defenses). For instance, the infamous chain-chomp (mixed attacker) would forgo a physical Dragon STAB to surprise opponents with a Draco Meteor. In Gen IV, Aura Sphere Lucario used to be the norm because it could boast KOing Blissey with a special attack until Swords Dance/Close Combat suddenly came in and surprised everyone.

The metagame is ever changing, and the physical/special split has played a crucial role in how strategies develop, so there's no reason to say that they "need to be more useful" by introducing a game-breaking ability.

Do you have fear of some little difficulties and changes?

Not really sure what the point of this personal attack is against the above user, but you haven't really provided any support to your claims so I'd cool down on the backhanded comments.

 

[Jersey Jimmy]

I came into this topic expecting Abilities that make Pokemon immune to things like entry hazards and damaging weather. This is not what I expected, and this would be fucking broken. For example, there's a reason practically every TF2 weapon ever has been nerfed.

 

[ocelotlrama jaguar]

I'm sorry, but in terms of competitive play, that's an awful idea and the only way I can see this sort of thing being done is if it were to be the ability of a legendary Pokemon that would be banned even from the likes of Ubers as well as banned from Play! events.

Not going to lie. It would make for an interesting in-game experience, but not when playing against another human being who can exploit that ability even further.

 

[The Outrage]

I came into this topic expecting Abilities that make Pokemon immune to things like entry hazards and damaging weather. This is not what I expected, and this would be fucking broken. For example, there's a reason practically every TF2 weapon ever has been nerfed.

That would be underwhelming since we have Magic Guard that grants immunity to all passive damage.

 

[Missingno. Master]

Yeah, I saw the topic title, my first thought was certain categories of moves, like punching moves, biting moves, that sort of thing.

 

[Matleo]

Shedinja had 1 HP, and could be affected by weather, status, and entry hazards--all of which were prominent in the generation it was introduced.

This Pokemon would have no counters once you beat your opponent's physical/special attackers--all you'd have to do is delay the inevitable.

This would allow to make more pokemon and more strategies, that means longer game play.

How so? Its easy to say that "X will create more strategies" without having to back up your reasoning. If anything, this would centralize the metagame towards that Pokemon. If only one Pokemon (i.e., a physical immune or special immune only) existed then it would shift the metagame towards them.

Unless they were to have 1 HP like Shedinja (or similar drawbacks) they'll dominate the competitive scene, and would centralize the game around them. If you were after creating more strategies, then simply creating new Pokemon and updating movesets (as they do with every generation/release) achieves the same thing.

It would make the Physical/Special split more usefull and more varieties of teams posibble.

This presupposes that the split isn't already incredibly useful. Before Gen IV, if you were a Pokemon like Flareon or Arcanine, who excelled more in the physical attack stat, you lose out on STAB. The split also already allows Pokemon to run mixed sets more effectively. For instance, if you are walled by a specially defensive wall, knowing Thunder Punch would be much more beneficial than Thunderbolt.

Types where in the centre allot, now it would be good to show and use damage categories more.

Types are in the center a lot, and the sky is blue, and fish live in the ocean. Type match up is the essence of Pokemon battling. Your statement again, presupposes that the damage categories aren't used. Maybe you simply don't pay attention to them? Every move has a damage category, and everyone who plays competitively pays attention to whether they are using a physical or special move. Some will even use special moves despite having a lower stat because of the bigger damage output from the attack (vs the typical counter's defenses). For instance, the infamous chain-chomp (mixed attacker) would forgo a physical Dragon STAB to surprise opponents with a Draco Meteor. In Gen IV, Aura Sphere Lucario used to be the norm because it could boast KOing Blissey with a special attack until Swords Dance/Close Combat suddenly came in and surprised everyone.

The metagame is ever changing, and the physical/special split has played a crucial role in how strategies develop, so there's no reason to say that they "need to be more useful" by introducing a game-breaking ability.

Do you have fear of some little difficulties and changes?

Not really sure what the point of this personal attack is against the above user, but you haven't really provided any support to your claims so I'd cool down on the backhanded comments.

- It would'nt be immune to both categories ,that would really be broken, one kind would be immune to one kind of only damage category(Special;Physical).(entry hazards and weather are in the Status category)
(ability: Hollow Body: pokemon immune to special moves, ability: Spetre: immune to physicall moves)

-Let me say so You have a team of 6 pokemon and evey one of them will have 4 moves, that means you have 24 moves to choose from.

-Even if your oponent would have a full team of both kinds with this abilities, he would have trouble, because you could have a pokemon with Mold Breaker, it would have it's stat thats immune only 1 point, thats an instant KO.

- This new pokemon with one of this two abilities would be weak 2x to the category it is not immune too, that means if it would have 5 type weakness that are 2x, then it would havel all 5 to be 4x.

lets say dragon/ghost, skeleton
thats only immune to special moves, this combination has so many weakness as above.
A Dark type move like Bite would hurt it very badly. This would even it out.
Fairies would have a problem with it.
Ice, Dragon, Ghost are physical, thats a fact.

-There are already moves like psyshock that attack the oposite stat.

- Weather, entry hazards and other things would work normmally on them. (weather and entry hazards damage is Status category)

-they cannot have 1Hp like shedinja, if they would , they would be in a more bad situation then Shedinja who has 13 type immunties and it's immune to 340 moves from all 600 existing ones.
- there are only 160 physical damaging moves and 240 special ones.

 

[Krash]

I vote "no" for this. It's not really allowing for more creative strategy, as it is creating a slightly stagnant environment. Imagine this DOES come in to effect. You will have people running teams of half physical, half special, SPECIFICALLY because their opponent is doing the same, trying to capitalize on these immunities. You bring a physical attacker? It's useless against your opponent's special. And vice-versa. You're stuck in a stalemate unless you carry moves opposite to your attacking strategy. This would cause seriously unbalanced gameplay as some Pokemon have wonderful Special attack stats, but terrible physical attack stats.

It WOULD be insta-banned on Smogon, for sure. I'm just afraid that if this ever were to happen, the exact opposite of what you want to accomplish would be the outcome: EVERYBODY would play the exact same Pokemon against each other, because that's simply what works the best.

My opinion on this will not be swayed by stipulation, or arguments of "but new Pokemon would balance it out". I'm talking about the game in its present incarnation. It would break it. Not that it's perfect now, but it would break it more.

You're on the right track in trying to find clever new ways to make the game interesting, so I will say THIS: While I don't think this would be a good mechanic to instill in regular gameplay, I think it would be interesting to see it unfold as a different battle style, similar to Inverse Battles. That way it can be handled in a controlled manner. Also, like the Inverse Battle Ratings Tournament that was held, they could make something out of this.

 

[Matleo]

I forgot we have Mummy, gastro acid(could create more of this kind), Aftermath.

It depends only on the new pokemons stats and choice of type combos for them, they don't need to be very strong, that's why they would have their abilities, to compensate that.
(only regulate it properly)

(- what if this kind of pokemon would lose 1/16 hp every turn because of it's powerfull ability?)

It would not break the meta game, only change it like fairy type did, you fear more about growing competition, and change of battle tiers(OU; UU) like all dragon users fear fairy type.

Did we had Shedinja only teams? even if someone would use a full team of this kind of pokemon, you would always have more options to win.

If this kind of pokemons would even have 1HP or would have low HP I would be happy if they would exist(not only in Inverse battle style).


If You base your teams only on pokemon with wounderfull stats it will make the game nostalgic, thats why newer generations are lacking pokemon and fans of old generations get faster bored.

 

[Lufenium]

I can imagine this going two ways:

A - it/they are carefully designed Pokemon, who have respective drawbacks and weaknesses so that its ability based imunnity isn't completely broken.

Or B - Game Freak will give a̶̶̶b̶̶̶s̶̶̶o̶̶̶l̶̶̶u̶̶̶t̶̶̶e̶̶̶l̶̶̶y̶̶̶ ̶̶̶n̶̶̶o̶̶̶ ̶̶̶f̶̶̶u̶̶̶c̶̶̶k̶̶̶s̶̶̶ ̶̶̶w̶̶̶h̶̶̶a̶̶̶t̶̶̶s̶̶̶o̶̶̶e̶̶̶v̶̶̶e̶̶̶r̶̶̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶g̶i̶v̶e̶ this ability/ies to a set of mega/new paired legendaries and will laugh as the entire fanbase melts down and Smogon just self implodes.

 

[The Outrage]

@Matleo;

- It would'nt be immune to both categories ,that would really be broken, one kind would be immune to one kind of only damage category(Special;Physical).(entry hazards and weather are in the Status category)
(ability: Hollow Body: pokemon immune to special moves, ability: Spetre: immune to physicall moves)

It would be broken if it was immune to only one. You misread my statement, I meant if there was only one Pokemon that was immune to one category, it would heavily centralize the game around the opposite offensive type. When Blissey was prominent, it centralized the metagame to the point that OU was physical-based, and that's just from its defensive prowess, not outright immunity.

You could say two would balance it out, but that basically means that having both on a single team shuts down any sort of offensive presence.

-Let me say so You have a team of 6 pokemon and evey one of them will have 4 moves, that means you have 24 moves to choose from.

Yes, you have 24 moves to choose from, but in terms of offensive moves you only have two types, so that reduces it to "Physical" and "Special" as far as hitting these Pokemon are concerned. Out of those 24 moves, you have 12 shut down by a single Pokemon (assuming equal distribution of Physical/Special). The other 12 shut down by another Pokemon.

SkarmBliss was the ire of competitive battlers in Gen II-III because they effectively shut down physical attackers and covered each other's weaknesses. What you're suggesting here is SkarmBliss, except immunity.

-Even if your oponent would have a full team of both kinds with this abilities, he would have trouble, because you could have a pokemon with Mold Breaker, it would have it's stat thats immune only 1 point, thats an instant KO.

So the metagame revolves around those two Pokemon and the eight usable (and I'm being incredibly liberal with that) Mold Breaker users. That achieves the opposite of what you intend (insert diversity into the game), and really, requiring "Mold Breaker users" on every team to beat two Pokemon is the definition of uber.

Not to mention that unless you load on Mold Breaker users (in which case, your team becomes open to a plethora of other weaknesses) a person would just have to use a common counter to the most used mold breakers.

- This new pokemon with one of this two abilities would be weak 2x to the category it is not immune too, that means if it would have 5 type weakness that are 2x, then it would havel all 5 to be 4x.

Being immune to half of the offensive moves out there still far outweighs having multiple x4 weaknesses, especially when this metagame has shown that being x4 weak to the most common attacking move (i.e., Dragons being weak to Ice) does not slow strong Pokemon down.

-There are already moves like psyshock that attack the oposite stat.

Yes and your point, I recall, was that the game didn't use the move categories more, yet here you are giving an example so....

And one move (because Psystrike is locked onto Mewtwo) doesn't really add much to the diversity of mix sweepers.

- Weather, entry hazards and other things would work normmally on them. (weather and entry hazards damage is not a damage category)

Its in the "Other" category, and damage-wise, its passive damage as things like Magic Guard can block them, but being weak to those things doesn't really make it less broken as the rest of the population are affected (more or less) by them.

-they cannot have 1Hp like shedinja, if they would , they would be in a more bad situation then Shedinja who has 13 type immunties and it's immune to 340 moves from all 600 existing ones.
- there are only 160 physical damaging moves and 240 special ones.

If they don't have Shedinja's drawback, then they have 16 turns in weather, and 8 switch-ins on average assuming neutral Stealth Rock damage. Easily survivable, especially with Wish support, Heal Wish, and Heal Bell for status conditions.

If your reasoning for them not being broken is "if they give it so many draw backs its fine!" then its the same reasoning as people wanting situational banning on Smogon's ladders. Because really, if we situationally ban enough, even Mega Rayquaza can be NU-playable!

How about this, actually come up with a Pokemon that these abilities will be attached to rather than just stating these abilities on its own so that we can assess whether the Pokemon is broken or not--because in some situations, the Pokemon, and not the ability is what makes things broken. For instance, Moody is outright banned because it can make a Bidoof good. Protean got Greninja banned, rather than getting itself banned because Protean Greninja* was too good, but Protean Keckleon wasn't.

*The reason Protean on Greninja wasn't banned was because of no situational bans (because again, if you make very tailored bans, anything can fit into any usage tier), but the point is that while good, Protean isn't across-the-board game breaking. So come up with types and a stat spread so we can access it properly if you're so adamant in defending this position because the abilities are just downright broken.

(- what if this kind of pokemon would lose 1/16 hp every turn because of it's powerfull ability?)

1/16 is very trivial thanks to Leftovers, and Pokemon that get less of a boost in offensive strength through Life Orb lose 1/10th

It would not break the meta game, only change it like fairy type did, you fear more about growing competition, and change of battle tiers(OU; UU) like all dragon users fear fairy type.

This is just a statement. Where is your reasoning behind it? Just because you say "it will not break the metagame" doesn't actually mean it won't if you can't provide any sort of reasoning other than faulty parallels with Fairy types.

And again with attacking people by saying they fear change?

Did we had Shedinja only teams? even if someone would use a full team of this kind of pokemon, you would always have more options to win.

Shedinja was crafted with glaring weaknesses in mind, but standard and official Wifi battles enacts species clause. Here, you'd have one Pokemon immune to special attacks, one Pokemon immune to physical. You have SkarmBliss on Steroids (even Skarmory survived with subpar HP and low special defense just because of its amazing physical defense, what do you think an immunity would do to anyone that isn't auto-killed by entry hazards?)

If this kind of pokemons would even have 1HP or would have low HP I would be happy if they would exist(not only in Inverse battle style).

Yet in the previously quoted post, you said it can't have 1 HP.

If You base your teams only on pokemon with wounderfull stats it will make the game nostalgic, thats why newer generations are lacking pokemon and fans of old generations get faster bored.

Evidence to your statements? Making bold claims with confidence does not equate with truth. The amount of Pokemon each generation has fluctuated with odd numbers generally introducing more (Gen I: 150, Gen III: 135, Gen V = 156) and even numbers introducing less (Gen II = 100, Gen IV = 107, Gen VI = 70). Gen VI also seems to treat Mega Evolution on the same level as new Pokemon and there are 48 types of Mega Evolutions, so that brings Gen VI up to 118. Your statement that newer generations lack Pokemon are unfounded for Pokemon's entire history.

Proportionately, there seems to be less because the number of existing Pokemon will always grow. In Gen II, adding 100 new Pokemon was the equivalent of increasing the current population by 66%. Not counting Mega Evolutions, adding another 100 Pokemon in Gen VII only accounts for a 13% increase.

For your other statements--with younger players, Pokemon now has to contend with Yokai watch and mobile gaming, the former of which directly encroaches on its niche market, the latter satiating people's needs for quick rewarding fun.

For older players, being one, I can tell you there are a multitude of reasons why playing something so repetitive for the 6th time over is boring. No, making a game-breaking ability isn't going to change the fact that the "save the world from the evil team while getting 8 badges" plot gets tiring. The only reason you'd come back is the new Pokemon and characters.

 

[Matleo]

-Yes I understand all your arguments The Outrage.
How then would you do it to make it work with the game, to make it better?
(1/10hp lost would work? or better make them only low stats?)

-With Shedinja I always tried to rise it's HP level somehow.
I would rather say now that I would want to have a pokemon with some more HP to not be too easy to take down.

-Really a game "breaking" ability?
I would rather say it depends not on the ability but also on stats, types and how players create their teams and movepools.

-If those abilities would exist then Kangaskhan "Parental Bond", Greninja with Protean , Bidoof with Moody would not be a problem any longer
and we would get something to counter them and to counter other mega pokemon.

-Where is a strategy there is a counter to it.
-There will be more variety and choice.
-This would really boost some future regular pokes.

 

[dig]

I think it could work.

Let's take a random fakemon.

Alright. So it's, lets say, Water type. and it get's an interesting new ability Water Shield, which protects it from all non-SE special attacks. That could be okay, broken if applied to the wrong Pokemon.

Now we give it mediocre stats to balance out it's interesting ability.

HP 60
ATK 50
DEf 50
SP.A 70
SP.D 50
SPE 70

BST 350. Now would that be broken if it was immune to all Special Dragon, Ice, Fire, Water, Psychic, Dark & Ghost moves? I don't think so, it's very frail, it's stats are pretty poor all around, it can't do too much other absorb some special moves.

If we were then to grant it protection against Grass and Electric special moves, I think it would be teetering on broken, because now it blocks roughly half of all attacking moves. If we give it low stats and retain its weaknesses, i think it'd be fine.

 

[The Outrage]

@Matleo;
I don't think I should be the one trying to make your idea work, you should. Based on the premise you gave, it seems broken.

@Baf's works, but that's because the ability also has an additional restriction to only being limited to non-SE special moves, rather than special moves across the board. Another reason why it works is because of the special type moves its immune to, three of those types are commonly physical moves as well. But I think what makes this example work the most is because it is presented in context.

I am responding to the thread topic at hand, which was a broad "immunity to an entire category" topic, which I don't like, so obviously I'm not going to go through the trouble of a fakemon for an idea I don't like, when the OP isn't putting in the same effort for an idea they do support.

 

[Matleo]

I gave you more effort but you even not try to see it, you want it to be broken becuse you fear game changes that would make you change your teams.

Shedinja has so many type immunities and that doesnt bother you?
This pokemons would still normal react to types, they only would be a problem for pokemon that have
one kind of category based movepools.
We could always get more moves or people would start to create diffrent strategies.

 

[Muur]

This like like YGO... just because something has counters doesn't mean it should exist.

They'd just be too powerful, instant Uber. Or that Anything Goes with Rayquaza.

Insta ban.

 

[Matleo]

they would be uber only if they would have stats like legendaries , if they would be like between above shedinja or weaker then Gengar , then there would be no problem.

The ones that would be immune to physical moves would need to be weaker then there counterparts and they would need to have the right type combination.

Wonder guard Shedinja is a counter to 13 types , that means it's nearly immune to 308 moves from a total of 396 damage dealing ones.

There are something like 621 moves, 159 special and 237 physical moves.

(Gengar with levitate is immune to 136 moves and has total base stat 500,
Aegislash is immune to 134 moves and has 520 total stat,
Chandelure (Total: 520) with flash fire is immune to 156 moves.
there are 19 pokemon with Mold Breaker to counter them+ the ones with scrappy, for the ghost type examples.)

I would take every solution that is the nearest to my favorite one , let it be weak stats and low speed, but maybe some priority moves.
The posibility of making them weak against all SE(Super Effective) category hits is possible, but it would ruin their base concept, as it is that even pokemon with SE should have a obstacle.

Every pokemon would have a special or physical attack to beat one of this,
and it would be weak 2x to the other category
that it is not immmune to not matter what type it would be.
Then even a normal type move would hit it 2x.

That means the other category of moves would be like a "type advantage" against each other depending on which of those two abilities(immunities) the pokemon has.

There are more then 100 pokemon that have equal "Attack=Special Attack", tham means they use both categories to attack, many are in the UU and + the 19 with mold breaker would be enough to handle them if they are under 450 base stat.
View attachment 98750

I think it could work.

Let's take a random fakemon.

Alright. So it's, lets say, Water type. and it get's an interesting new ability Water Shield, which protects it from all non-SE special attacks. That could be okay, broken if applied to the wrong Pokemon.

Now we give it mediocre stats to balance out it's interesting ability.

HP 60
ATK 50
DEf 50
SP.A 70
SP.D 50
SPE 70

BST 350. Now would that be broken if it was immune to all Special Dragon, Ice, Fire, Water, Psychic, Dark & Ghost moves? I don't think so, it's very frail, it's stats are pretty poor all around, it can't do too much other absorb some special moves.

If we were then to grant it protection against Grass and Electric special moves, I think it would be teetering on broken, because now it blocks roughly half of all attacking moves. If we give it low stats and retain its weaknesses, i think it'd be fine.

Yes but look at how many status moves we got that will work normally(Thunder Wave), it still will get poison stat, burned, flinching, sleeping, paralazed, frozen, effected by stealthrocks ,spikes, abilities like aftermath and mummy there are more posibilities to slow it down and take it down, not only by the use od damage moves, thats why I wanted it to work even by SE moves. Take that leech seed , Hypnosis , dream eater will work on them without any problems.

A water type is a nice idea, I'm thinking about 1 SP. D for the stats thats immune, to make them weak to pokemon with "Moldbreaker".

If the abilities themself would also make them lose 1/10or 1/8 hp every turn it will work for sure.

Would take the nearest solution low status and slow if it would happen, but some pokemon with it with diffrent dual typings.

 

[Rick]

Would make sence if all pure Ghost-types had the special trait of being imune to all contact moves (while all having really low HP). But I think it wouldn't be practical...