Pokemon Umbral Theatre 12: On a Very Special Episode of Pokemon Umbral...

[Astral Harmony]

And when Geminex gathers enough dicks, he'll finally complete his Dickship and return to Dick Planet.

I'd continue on with this reference, but I think I'm the only one out of us who watches Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

[Bard The 5th LW]

I watch it when I can.

[Geminex]

You are the only one who thinks it needs editing.

True. But none of your counter-arguments have seemed all that valid.

My point is, once again, this: Weather moves, as they are now, are extremely strong. The existence of them, as they are now, benefits us greatly. Makes us a lot more powerful in combat. Don't even question this. It's situational, but come on. It has a massive effect, 50% damage bonuses to 2-4 allies at least, plus the morale effects, plus we weaken the enemy's counter-attacks, and it lasts for a while! Seriously. It's really strong.

This can be cancelled out in two ways:

We could weaken weather moves

Our opponents start exploiting weather moves as much as us

In the first case:
Depending on how we balance it, sure, some pokemon are gonna be hit harder than others. What you said about variety didn't really make very much sense, but whatever you meant, we can compensate for that. And 'some things aren't as strong as they used to be' is a small price to pay for 'this shit is no longer massively overpowered'. Which it currently is. I'm not even insisting on a specific way of nerfing them! Just bring them down to the strength they'd have in 1 v 1. Or 2v2, at the least. That was fair.

Second case...
Well, you all remember the BR? Yep...

abusing the existing ruleset to a degree that changes the face of Combat As We Know It, also out

If we continue using weather the way we are, and our opponents do too, that's gonna mean quite a struggle over who gets to decide what's coming from the sky. I mean, it's a really important. And it'd be worth it for a team to devote a lot of its resources to gaining control over said factor. I think if both teams started trying to use the weather, that'd mean quite a strong change in combat. So yeah. That's sorta out.

And I mean, yeah, our enemies could start organizing and getting deploying in a way that makes them less vulnerable to the weather, but come on. That'd limit them massively.

And finally, before any of you say 'OR! we could just leave it as it is!'.
Yes.
We could, I guess.
But honestly. Are you really saying that weather moves, as used by pokemon or pokebrids, are balanced? Really? They're not stronger than other moves?

As for the plan...
Okay. Menarker, I really don't think your way uses resources effectively. But I have to pack and to clean up some dishes, I really don't have the time to discuss it some more. Let's do this your way. Just have Renny join up to us ASAP.

Cause see, I prolly won't be posting a lot in the next 5 days. This is fairly short-term, which is why you guys don't know about it yet. Though I guess I could have mentioned it on Friday or something. Sorry.

Anyway, gonna be gone. Renny can give orders, we can resume the weather discussion when I get back, try not to post too much.

Bye.

[Dracorion]

Originally Posted by Geminex

My point is, once again, this: Weather moves, as they are now, are extremely strong. The existence of them, as they are now, benefits us greatly. Makes us a lot more powerful in combat. Don't even question this. It's situational, but come on. It has a massive effect, 50% damage bonuses to 2-4 allies at least, plus the morale effects, plus we weaken the enemy's counter-attacks, and it lasts for a while! Seriously. It's really strong.

Actually, if I remember correctly we're not taking morale effects from weather into account anymore.

Originally Posted by Geminex

This can be cancelled out in two ways:

We could weaken weather moves

Our opponents start exploiting weather moves as much as us

In the first case:
Depending on how we balance it, sure, some pokemon are gonna be hit harder than others. What you said about variety didn't really make very much sense, but whatever you meant, we can compensate for that. And 'some things aren't as strong as they used to be' is a small price to pay for 'this shit is no longer massively overpowered'. Which it currently is. I'm not even insisting on a specific way of nerfing them! Just bring them down to the strength they'd have in 1 v 1. Or 2v2, at the least. That was fair.

The strength they had in 1v1 or 2v2 was bullshit.

The only people that used weather moves were min-maxers like, y'know, Menarker, in competitive play.

And no one should ever have to take competitive pokemon play into account. After all, aren't you the one who was berating Menarker for being competitive with the rest of us?

So yes. Weather moves are stronger than in the games. I've already said I'm of the belief that that's good, that they're fine as is. They were fucking useless in the games. Unless, again, you were a competitive player.

Originally Posted by Geminex

Second case...
Well, you all remember the BR? Yep...

If we continue using weather the way we are, and our opponents do too, that's gonna mean quite a struggle over who gets to decide what's coming from the sky. I mean, it's a really important. And it'd be worth it for a team to devote a lot of its resources to gaining control over said factor. I think if both teams started trying to use the weather, that'd mean quite a strong change in combat. So yeah. That's sorta out.

And I mean, yeah, our enemies could start organizing and getting deploying in a way that makes them less vulnerable to the weather, but come on. That'd limit them massively.

Oh now that's just...

I wouldn't really qualify the enemies getting to use weather moves as well as abusing.

Can I propose an addendum to that particular rule?

"Not every change is an improvement, but every improvement is a change."

I don't know how it would turn out, but we certainly don't know it would go bad. We should certainly be wary of radical changes like that, but we shouldn't dismiss them right off the bat.

This could change "the face of Combat As We Know It" for the better, and you wanna throw it out? We have nothing to lose by trying.

Originally Posted by Geminex

And finally, before any of you say 'OR! we could just leave it as it is!'.
Yes.
We could, I guess.
But honestly. Are you really saying that weather moves, as used by pokemon or pokebrids, are balanced? Really? They're not stronger than other moves?

Yes. They are.

And that's okay.

If we have to nerf weather moves, go with Menarker's suggestion to reduce their duration, or go with mine to reduce the number of pokemon that have access to them.

Here's my proposal:

A) Weather moves are available to every pokemon of their corresponding type, so long as they are in that pokemon's moveset.
B) Specific weather moves are available to any pokemon that learns them by leveling up, regardless of type.
C) Castform has access to all the weather moves, including Sandstorm.

B is there pretty much to ensure that some Grass-types have access to Sunny Day and Electric-types have access to Rain Dance and so on.

Thoughts?

[Menarker]

Drac, I already strongly objected to reducing the number of pokemons that have them because of several of the reasons I listed before and will only sum up a bit now.

Several pokemons have benefits that fall outside the norm despite not sharing the typing like Toxicroak with Dry Skin (which makes that Rain dance is a benefit to him despite not being water type or lightning type).
And what about weathers like Gravity that doesn't have a set typing?

Pokemons were created under the implication that they would act as a team under the lead of the trainer.
For that matter, why stop at weather? Why not remove moves that don't belong to a pokemon's type? No more Solarbeam for fire types, no more ice moves for pure water types, no more psychic moves for bug/poison types. More than half the moves that don't belong to a pokemon's type come from TMs, let's remove them all! Weather is such a small part compared to those! (Note my immense sarcasm and that I would be most ticked off if you take it seriously.).


Look, I don't know about the rest of you guys, I chose the pokemons I did with a great deal of care assuming the information that was given at the start, especially because they not only work effectively by themselves, but I felt they would work great as a team, including with weather if I wanted to. It's not fair to make such changes after all of us have invested several levels in the characters and do not get anything to make up for that.

My point is, once again, this: Weather moves, as they are now, are extremely strong. The existence of them, as they are now, benefits us greatly. Makes us a lot more powerful in combat. Don't even question this. It's situational, but come on. It has a massive effect, 50% damage bonuses to 2-4 allies at least, plus the morale effects, plus we weaken the enemy's counter-attacks, and it lasts for a while! Seriously. It's really strong.

See the underlined part? Your argument died a little there. The foes COULD be weakened, but only if they attacked with that specific element, and most foes have several types. And only ONE element for either Rain Dance (Fire) or Sunny Day (Water) is effected. This does NOT effect any of the other attacks. You're painting weathers being MUCH stronger than it actually is, since in none of the situations we been in, has the foe attacked the entire group with the same attack types or close to that.

And once again and again, you're only looking at two specific weathers! Seriously, I'm going to show how ignorant the argument sounds in its attempt to treat them as if they were all the same!

Rain Dance
Rain Dance:
* The power of Water-type moves is boosted by 50%.
* The power of Fire-type moves is reduced by 50%.
* The move Thunder has 100% accuracy and can hit through Protect and Detect 30% of the time. Note that this only occurs in Diamond and Pearl versions - Protect always blocks Thunder even in the rain in Pokémon Platinum, Pokémon Battle Revolution, and Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver.
* The move SolarBeam has a base power of 60.
* The move Weather Ball becomes the Water-type and has a base power of 100.
* The moves Moonlight, Morning Sun, and Synthesis heal only 25% of the users full health.
* Pokémon with the ability Dry Skin heal 12.5% of their max HP every turn.
* Pokémon with the Forecast ability change their type to Water.
* Pokémon with the Hydration ability heal themselves of status effects at the end of every turn.
* Pokémon with the Rain Dish ability heal 6.25% of their max HP every turn.
* Pokémon with the Swift Swim ability double their Speed.

Sunny DaySunny Day:
Sunny Day raises Fire-type moves' damage by 50% and causes Water-type moves to do half of their original damage.
The healing moves Synthesis, Moonlight, and Morning Sun heal 2/3 of the user's maximum HP.
Sunny Day also decreases Thunder's accuracy from 70% to 50%, making Thunder a very poor option to utilize while Sunny Day is in play.
It lasts 5 turns (8 with the use of a Heat Rock).
No Pokémon can be frozen while Sunny Day is in effect, meaning Ice-type moves like Ice Beam cannot induce a freeze.
Sunny Day's most important effect is probably the aptitude to double the Speed of Pokémon with the ability Chlorophyll, which can make them potential sweepers.
While you will generally find them lacking in Speed, Pokémon with the ability Solar Power can become much more powerful sweepers, gaining a 50% power boost in their Special Attack in return for being sapped 10% of their HP every turn when the sun is shining.

HailHail:
First is the sandstorm-like residual damage effect. Like sandstorm, hail takes away 6.25% of both Pokémon's health each turn. This means that if the opponent's Pokémon is not an Ice-type, it takes only 16 to 17 turns for them to die due to hail and hail alone. From this fact comes the first primary strategy of hail teams: stalling. It should be noted that while Leftovers cancels out hail in the long run, it is applied after hail damage, meaning that even if the opponent carries it, you essentially only have to deal 93.75% damage to them to KO.

The second advantage is a 100% accurate Blizzard with a small chance (30%) to hit through Protect. Blizzard is a flexible attack with no immunities and few 4x resists. Over the standard Ice Beam, you will be doing about 26% extra damage. The disadvantage of Blizzard is, of course, its inaccuracy if and when hail goes away and the little PP it has. Beware of Pressure Pokémon.

SandstormSandstorm:
As with most other weather variations, sandstorm can be brought to the field via two methods. The first way is through use of the move Sandstorm, which will summon a sandstorm for five turns, unless the user holds a Smooth Rock, which extends the duration to eight turns. The other way is through the ability Sand Stream, which summons a sandstorm permanently unless the weather is changed again through a move or an ability.

The following effects occur in a sandstorm:

* Rock-type Pokémon's Special Defense is boosted by 50%
* All non-Rock-, Steel-, and Ground-type Pokémon and Pokémon without the ability Magic Guard or Sand Veil take 1/16 damage at the end of every turn.
* The evasion of a Pokémon with the Sand Veil ability is increased by 20%.
* SolarBeam's Base Power is reduced from 120 to 60.
* Synthesis, Moonlight, and Morning Sun only recover 25% of the user's HP, as opposed to 50%.
* Weather Ball's Base Power is doubled to 100, and becomes a Rock-type move.


Gravity
Gravity:
All Pokemon become vulnerable to Ground-type moves.
Flying-types and Pokemon with the Levitate ability, who usually enjoy an immunity to Ground attacks, suddenly find themselves being damaged by them. This effect is not only limited to attacks, i.e. moves with a Base Power. Spikes, a Ground-type entry hazard, will do damage to Flying-type and Levitating Pokemon under Gravity. Also, Toxic Spikes will poison all bar Steel- and Poison-type Pokemon while Gravity is in effect, even if they are Flying-type or have Levitate. This also means that Poison-type Pokemon who normally have an immunity to Ground-type moves, such as Gengar and Crobat, will absorb and remove Toxic Spikes from the field upon entry while Gravity is active. Finally, the ability Arena Trap will prevent Flying-type and Levitating Pokemon from switching for Gravity's duration. There is a common misconception that the Flying-type is removed while Gravity is in effect, somewhat like the effects that the move Roost has on a Pokemon's type. This is not strictly true. Even under Gravity, Skarmory is still neutral to Fighting-type moves and weak to Electric-type moves. The only difference that occurs in terms of type effectiveness is that it is now 2x weak to Ground-type attacks (because of its Steel typing), and is damaged by Spikes upon entry. Similarly, a Bug / Flying Pokemon such as Yanmega, while normally immune to Ground-type attacks, will take 0.5x damage from them under Gravity (because of its Bug typing, which resists Ground-type moves), but will retain a 4x resistance to Fighting-type attacks.

The use of the moves Bounce, Fly, Hi Jump Kick, Jump Kick, Magnet Rise, and Splash is prevented.
This isn't of much significance as the only moves in the list that really see any use at all are Bounce, Hi Jump Kick, and Magnet Rise, and those only see use sporadically. If Fly or Bounce are on their 'charge turn' when Gravity is used, then these moves are instantly cancelled and the users drop to the ground.

The Evasion of all Pokemon is lowered to 3/5.
This is quite a significant component of Gravity's effect. Essentially, all move accuracies are boosted by 1.67x while Gravity is in play. This makes all moves with 60% or more accuracy always hit during Gravity (60 x 1.67 = 100), and is quite a large factor in offensive Gravity teams' success, as they can now use moves such as Hydro Pump and Blizzard (high power but poor accuracy) to devastating effect. Although irrelevant for most matches as they are played with the OHKO clause, Gravity's accuracy boost does not affect the accuracy of OHKO moves.

And of course, Trick Room which only switches speeds (and thus who gets Crit bonus for speed in this RP).

So, you can see how the weathers should be be treated with so broad a stroke because their powers are not equal and you treat them as if all of them have the effects of nukes! The only two weathers you seem willing to talk about is Rain Dance and Sunny Day while insisting the other weathers are just as bad and having the same abilities. In reality? THEY DO NOT.



The way I see best for weather is not to change it directly(or at least just the duration) or alter any of our characters but allow foes to prepare beforehand. I mean, we're invading the enemy stronghold for one and many times the foes are going to know we are coming. Surely they have time to prep up.

A simple way to do that is for AB to create the teams assuming that foes can buff themselves up before with moves like Sword Dance, Belly Drum, Agility, Substitute, Iron Defense, Stealth Rock, Toxic Spikes, weather moves and that sort of thing.

Let's use a weather one for an example: An enemy team several floors down has received the alarm that enemy forces (The Watchmen) are approaching. The foes consist of the following...

2 Medics.
1 Engineer. One of their machines is to create a Fire Evolith.
2 Slayers, both with fire type weapons to take advantage of Sunny Day.
2 Trainer. One trainer sends out a Charizard with Belly Drum and a Cherim with Flower Gift ability and SolarBeam (Gives attack boost defense boost to allies when Sunny). The other sends out a Rhyperior with Stealth Rock (Being a rock type helps against fighting any of our fire pokemons that tries to use their Sunny Day) and send out a Fearow with Tailwind to boost some allies Speed (also taking advantage of any grass types on our side that tries to use their sunny day).

The Charizard uses Belly Drum, a medic heals it up, the other medic buffs a party member with an X attack or something, the engineer builds a fire evolith that casts Sunny Day in advance thus boosting Charizard and the Slayers with fire weapons, while the other pokemons use their moves that can be used ahead of time like Tailwind to buff, Stealth Rock to lay traps, and that sort of thing. Maybe have a custom merc pokemon or device that prevents any of us from changing the weather.



Basically, since frequently our foes don't live long enough to use all their moves before hand, AB can just decide that some of the moves can be dedicated to buff/debuff moves that those pokemons have accessible and have them use them in preperation before our group even encounters them or at the very start of combat. (IE: The foes get the ambush phase meaning they get a round to prepare status moves or use items/construct)

Rayleen: Oh shoot. Watchmen, it seems they ambushed us. Sunny Day is already active, Stealth Rocks ready to lay the hurting, and they are pre-powered up already. Be careful!

Of course, the "upside" about this is that they have less offensive moves since they only have 4 moves (6 with leader pokemons) and for every buff move they have, they have one less attack. However, since precious few of our foes live that long, that is more of a unseen benefit especially since their remaining moves would be pumped to a dangerous degree. Example would be something like...

Charizard: Fire Fang / Belly Drum/ Rock Slide / Earthquake

Charizard gets Belly Drumed, healed by medic so it's at full health before actual combat, and a boost to his physical Fire type move in addition to STAB. Any foe could be more dangerous just by allowing this option of giving them the free round of buffing.

Plus, the theme can be just about anything. One team can be tons of traps like Toxic Spikes, Stealth Rock. Another can be a huge baton pass team giving a whole group a shit load of benefits that can't normally be gained otherwise. Other weathers like Gravity, Trick Room, Rain Dance. Maybe the Watchmen arrive but they all get ambushed by moves like Screech, Tickle or other debuffs.

This is a simple way to change combat but make things immensely more balance without removing components from any of our pokemons or pokebrid forms. It might also encourage us to choose moves that help deal with statuses like Roar, Haze, Rapid Spin and other such tactics.

[Dracorion]

Well, I didn't say my proposal had to be set in stone.

But seriously, Toxicroak? You're bitching about the few pokemon that benefit from weather moves because of their abilities?

Are you even using any of those?

As for Gravity, it could easily be qualified as a Psychic-type weather effect.

Also, we're not removing moves other than weather moves because, according to Geminex, weather moves are the only ones that are overpowered.

I would like it on record for realz that I completely disagree with Geminex and I think weather moves are fine as is, no change is necessary. And I'm only proposing changes to get Gem to shut the fuck up.

No, seriously, three out of five players have already voted against you, Gem. Quit it.

I'll also agree that this reeks incredibly of Gem's penis envy about Trainers.

As for Gem's "we weaken the enemy's counter-attacks" argument, I sort of assumed that he meant that by having increased firepower thanks to weather moves we'd be taking out more of them than if we didn't have weather benefits, thereby weakening their counter-attacks because they have more men down.

But you're right. Geminex isn't that smart.

I will agree with Geminex, however, that suggesting more work for AB isn't exactly an ideal solution. You can do it, but you'd have to make sure he's not doing it just to make you happy. Because AB's a people-pleaser like that.

That said, it's really up to him. On one hand, pre-buffing enemies would make it so that he doesn't have to spring seventeen baddies on us just to make a fair fight.

AB, have you considered applying strategies like what Menarker said in red in the post above? (pre-buffed foes, weather effects already in place and so on.)

[Menarker]

It's not actually more work but different work. Instead of having to make so many foes each with their own moveset, he'd just have to choose a few that work together a tiny bit. And if he knows how he wants them buffed, then that makes it easier to choose which moves to give to them. Since if he decides that he wants said pokemon to have a buff, he just has to choose the move that said pokemon can use that can give the buff and make that one of the moves. Does he wants a pokemon to have higher attack than normal? Give them Sword Dance or Belly Drum. Does he want them to be speedy? Agility. A bit of both? Dragon Dance. Offense and Defense? Curse or Bulk Up. Does he want to put the group on a timer? Perish Song and Ghost type Curse.

Then AB has less moves to have to decide which ones to give because by choosing what sort of buffs he want them to have, he has in effect chosen some of their moves. And for slayers, just have the right weapon type to take advantage of the weather or have a medic buff them or something.

And if he wants to create a situation that is challenging, but doesn't want us to destroy the mooks before they can create the situation? Solve that by making them capable of setting up the trap or boosts in advance.

So really, it's less work on choosing moves that they might not end up using, but rather him choosing how he wants them boosted and then justifying it with having said boosting move in their move list and saying they had a turn or two to prepare. And by choosing said moves, he only has to think about the remaining slots for attacking moves, which can made easier by choosing one STAB move or something like that.


Also, I was going to say that just because none of us use Toxicroak or any of the other pokemons right now doesn't mean that someone won't in the future. Whether it be because of taking levels in snagger, pokebrid or what not. So I object on the basis that nerfing pokemons out of their rightful moves now will make them much less appealing later on for our characters and other characters if the choice comes to that. This might also make them less appealing for future players way down the line when the sequel start (if any)

[Astral Harmony]

AB, have you considered applying strategies like what Menarker said in red in the post above? (pre-buffed foes, weather effects already in place and so on.)

Yeah.

Anyways, here's the latest on me. Turns out that I'm leaving tonight. And at some point during my three-months of doing nothing on a different island, there's going to be a thirty day period of no Internet. Not sure when it happens but when it feels like I've fallen off the face of the earth, rest assured that I've only just fallen out of the range of any satellites.

It doesn't seem to sound as bad as it is, considering how slow the RP is going as is. Might not even miss me. Plus, that'd be a perfect time to do sprite comics since I won't be able to do anything else. Not even watch Youtube Poops. *sniff*

If need be, I'll type up some data and hopefully get it to one of you once I'm on the other island so you can GM yourselves and keep the RP going up to a certain point (post Pierce's sidequest, 'cause I'm definitely GMing the beach mission) without any supervision from me.

[Menarker]

Well, if you want, you can pass the data to me, but I'd personally wait a month for you to get back into things. Rather like your style of GMing and we handled the Forum disappearance before. We'll handle it this time too. Besides, there is a chance you might come back sooner than 30 days.

[Astral Harmony]

God willing, but the ship I'm going to is in far better physical condition than the one I'm coming from. In other words, it floats.