Master Blast #4: Gentlemanliness

I didn't intentionally make Dudley's skin tone similar to the wood ground, I swear. Also, this comic does not reflect my opinion on tea.

For those who are unaware, you can follow me on twitter @Pete278 and get updates on my blog when I post stuff, so you don't have to come here every day thinking 'gee, I wonder if Pete's posted'.

Length is Important

So by now, I'm sure most of you have seen the THC trick with Frank to get to level 5 in one combo. The Frank boards kinda already knew this worked after PiKiE said it probably did and everyone knew that Million Dollars goes for a million years. Anyone he'd seen the tricks you could do with Jill/Dante THCs probably would guess it'd work, but I guess it helps that Machinegun Spray is the shortest hyper in the game. Nonetheless, Million Dollars isn't alone in this category. Any other long hypers can work. So, without further adue, I'll get right into the list of hypers that'll probably work with Frank:

Dante: Million Dollars (of course)

Nemesis: whatever that rocket hyper's called (this might actually be even longer than Million Dollars)

Shuma-Gorath: Hyper Mystic Smash (also near Million Dollars in length, but you do have to use Mystic Smash assist, which probably isn't what you want)

Amaterasu: Okami Shuffle (this one is more inconvenient to use since I doubt you'd be able to get two camera shots off it, but because of the hard knockdown at the end, it definitely could be possible)

Hulk: Gamma Quake (this one probably won't work out of the corner because Frank moves from where the rocks would fall, but still looks good in the corner)

Morrigan: Finishing Shower (goes for aaaages, but you get so little extra damage off it)

Rocket Raccoon: Rock and Roll (bit shorter than Million Dollars, but looks like it'll still work)

From here onwards, its more guesswork than the above in that I'm less sure if these'll work. This is more of a 'to test' pile of characters than the above list:

Wesker: MAXIMUM WESKER/Phantom Dance (the problem with this one is that it carries them up so far that I don't know if you'll be able to get the two camera shots needed for 5 off in time after a super jump)

Tron: King Servbot (I'm not sure if this one moves far enough along to keep up with Frank's shopping cart but it should be good in the corner)

Zero: Rekkoha (Same problem as Wesker, but also not sure if it'll actually last long enough in the first place)

Modok: Hyper Psionic Blaster (I'm certain this would work with 9 Levels of Understanding, but it might be a bit on the short side otherwise.)

Trish: Round Harvest (same problem as Wesker again)

Spider-man: Crawler Assault (it causes a hard knockdown now which should be usable, but it might finish before Frank)

Storm: Ice Storm (might be a bit too short, we'll see)

Magneto: Magnetic Tempest (I'm even sure if this one starts up in time for enough of the chunks to hit, really.)

Sentinel: Hyper Sentinel Force (this one should work, but again, the last wave might hit before Frank finishes)

Arthur: Goddess Bracelet (I'm fairly confident in this one, but time issues again)

Ghost Rider: any of his hypers (they both seem to go for a while, should work fine. I doubt he even has the bike has a THC, really)

There's a few other hypers I'm really doubtful might work, so I'm not going to bother putting them here. If only Inferno and Power of the Nova Force went for a bit longer, they get so many hits.

Reposting it here because its so good as usual, not that anyone here won't have seen it anyway

Rocket Raccoon is looking really annoying and Frank's looking pretty good, didn't realise how far Giant Swing moved him forward. Certainly hope its safe on block, since that'll be really useful at level 1 without a roll.

And yes, its called a Paddlesaw.

How to Cover Wars

Perhaps one day I'll make a comic that's actually funny. :( Also shoutouts to 8-bit sprites for being really hard to make look sexy.

Keeping it Classy

So I've decided to just 'suck it up, princess' and put effort into an SF4 character. I like Oni and all, but I only really played him because he was a super saiyan that didn't require much tech skill for cr.lp cr.lp cr.mp xx tatsu combos. But, with Ultimate so close yet so far away, I'm hardly going to be putting time into MvC3, so I figured I might as well try and learn something for OHR. So, assuming I don't bitch out, I'll be playing Dudley at OHR (like I've been wanting to since Super came out in the first place, such a failure). I obviously won't be doing combo video-style links with him, but I'm sure I can get the basic bnbs (i.e. cr.lk cr.lp st.hp xx machine gun blow into jugglesss) down in time. Plus, Dudley is a nice character for me to be putting effort into, since getting better with a character like him will help me get better at any game I try to play, since he needs fundamentals, tech skill and mixups to work well. So, when I put it like that, its hard to decide to not play him. 

Also, if I can't get Frank West gimmicks down in time for OHR (i.e. levelling shenanigans, but I'm sure I'll be able to) I'll just play the cheapest thing I can find, since I'd be letting down AsG otherwise. I'll try and record videos of whatever shenanigans I can find (from any character, really, not just Frank) but they definitely won't be uploaded until after OHR, since I'm a stingy bastard like that. By that time, I imagine everything I find will have been found, but oh well. You never know, Vlade might find something useful. :P

Type-Wild Bitches

So, I think most people reading this will be aware of the fan-made 2d fighting game, Pokemon Type-Wild. Some guy in SoCal made it pretty well known after discovering a version of the game online, and everyone was sad to discover the guy making it stopped work in 2009, since it was pretty damn fun. Sprites were well drawn, the cast was a bit diverse (Blaziken, Lucario, Snorlax, Combusken, Gardevoir, Gengar, Breloom, and Swalot is a pretty good roster, except Combusken was a bit of an...odd choice, and I still find the lack of Scizor odd. Who doesn't like Scizor?), and the mechanics were fairly well done, including, beyond all the usual stuff, a Guilty Gear-style barrier, and assists. 

Well, last month, after a long hiatus, the developer must've seen the videos and thought 'wow, people all over the world like my game!' because a new version came out, with new stages and playable Lopunny added to the cast. I'd hoped he'd add the Charizard he sprited up before Lopunny but oh well, game needs more fanservice, right? There's even a full website back up for the game, here: http://www.pokesho.com/typewild/mein.php (incidentally, that's also where you download the game, free of charge (get it? Its because Pikachu isn't in the game. My puns are so re-volt-ing.) The thing's in Japanese, but there's enough that you can gleam from screenshots, really. 

Insert 'Dramatic Entry' joke here (actually, he may have been going for that)

So, if the developer is willing to continue work on the game if people show interest (which is what the new version seems to convey), then I'd be willing to run tournaments for people in the Perth area. I mean, come on, who doesn't like Pokemon? Its not as easy to get setups for a PC-based game, mind you, but I have a few ideas on how I could get tournaments to work. I doubt its ever going to get to Evo (then again, Melty did, and that's certainly higher risk than this), but its still an enjoyable game that I think would be great if we could all put a little bit of effort on the side into it. 

So, leave your comments below or post them on Facebook or something else. I mean, I doubt anyone will even read this, but still, 7 man tournaments haven't killed BlazBlue off yet.

Burned: Its what you'll be if you slander this game

New banner

Yeah, new banner up like I said in Facebook and twitter. There'll be a different EVUL GRIMDARKKKK one when Relius' sprite gets ripped, with, I dunno, Akuma and MANLINESS and such on it. You'll randomly get one from the two whenever you load a page on the site. 

Original Joke Do Not Steal

And now, just as bad as the first, Master Blast #2

I can control it because she's totally getting nerfed

So, it'd seem like having blogs is the cool thing to do at the moment, and by 'cool', I mean Weng's doing it again and I refuse to be bested by him. Plus I've still got this url until the end of January, so it feels bad to waste it. The blog's name isn't all too relevant anymore since I haven't played Pokemon in a while, but Scizor's still OU because Bullet Punch is still an amazing move, so whatever, works fine. Plus, most of what I do now is fighting games, and Pokemon fight, right? Anyway, getting on with the post.

So, for those of you who don't know, I'm a pretty big Dead Rising fan. As someone who's a little bitch, its a bit funny for me to be a fan of zombie games, since even the newer Resident Evils scare me. Luckily, Dead Rising wasn't scary in the slightest, due to its highly comedic undertones, but the drama it managed to maintain with the fact that thousands of people are dead, some to psychopaths, was impressive. Frank's one liners manage to match even Horatio Caine at points. 'I always knew you had a crush on me, but I don't go for flat girls' is probably my favourite, and its not hard to work out the context of it from the obviousness of the puns.

Getting back to the point, Frank West is now in my mainstay fighting game, Marvel vs Capcom 3. I'm probably a bigger Spidey fan than Dead Rising fan, but with the web-slinger being nerfed in a most painful way (movement options and damage going down for a character that was about B tier is never a good sign) I'm going to try to move onto Frank in Ultimate so I can at least try and stay in mid-tier. I have no qualms against playing low tier characters, but I do like being able to win, so if he's B-tier or higher (obvious just in terms of feel, since we all know early tier lists exist only so we can laugh about how wrong we were later on), I'll try to commit. So, with that in mind, I was quite hype for Frank. I thought for sure he'd be revealed at NYCC, since Capcom was convinced that people in the West loved Frank, but evidently they realised that Phoenix Wright might be a bit more of an important reveal. I thought Frank was going to be revealed early on, to be honest, given he was meant for vanilla and thus should've been completed soon, especially since he was probably going to be a clone of TvC. Thankfully, since TvC Frank was neither good, nor felt like Frank, I was completely wrong.

Assuming everyone here has seen the trailer and gameplay videos, its fairly easy to tell straight away Frank is nothing like his TvC version. Not only are his moves quite different, including being able to use his camera on point, he has something almost unknown to fighting games: a level up mechanic. The way this works is by taking pictures, Frank can build up photography points, or PP. Starting off at 0, it takes roughly 5, then 20, then 50, and finally 100, to get to each level. Each level either improves his existing moves or gives him new moves, such as the amazing Cap-esque cartwheel and otg sweep at level 2, the ground bounce on his otg axe increasing in size, and at level 4, all his normals gain access to the famous Paddlesaw, a chainsaw connected to an oar. This obviously increases his range greatly, and also gives his normals chip damage. At level 5, his damage goes up even higher, so I can't really fathom him not being powerful at that level. The trouble, of course, is getting there.

Each photograph he takes is worth one PP, but gains an additional PP for each hit in the combo before it. Since the camera otgs, this makes it quite easy to get a few points in one shot even with Frank by himself. A basic LMHS MMHS chain gives you 9 points, so if you can work in one more hit, it'll only take two combos to get level 3. Of course, this opens wide up with assists. Using Dormammu's Dark Hole as a good example, since it deals 10 hits, you can do an impressive LMHS MMHS camera, call Dormammu, relaunch MMHS, camera, to gain 33 points in one combo. If you add in another assist, which must presumably be a wall or ground bounce or hitstun decay will make them drop out, you get, with Nemesis assist as an example, LMHS MMHS camera, call Dormammu, relaunch, MHS, camera, Nemesis, S, j.S, camera, for a ridiculous amount of points in one combo off the most basic chain possible. If you can add in his lightning legs-esque stab move, who knows if you can get even more hits? Furthermore, camera is super-cancellable, so you can go camera xx cart hyper and not sacrifice any damage while getting these levels. If you wanted to burn x-factor or risk the vomit of the alcohol, I have no doubt you could get level 5 in only one combo. So, then you have to wonder, how easy is it for Frank to get in at level 1?

Of course, with his huge range at level 4 and hype, coupled with the roll through projectiles from level 2 and up, Frank should have no real problems with any keepaway less hardcore than Hawkeye and Arthur. But with only one point each from camera shots, it'll take a bit to get to that level 4. Frank's zombie summoning ability returns from TvC to remind everyone that Dead Rising is, in fact, a zombie franchise, but its done different this time. Rather than focusing him around zombies like the TvC version did (rather incorrectly, really, given how much Frank has access to), we've only seen two zombie moves so far, rather than the ability to summon zombies at any of three points on the screen, plus the zombie shopping cart, plus the ability to giant swing zombies. The first is a zombie toss, which works much akin to the few bubble projectiles you see in fighting games. The zombie, if it hits, grabs the opponent, holding them in hitstun for long enough for Frank to down a bottle of alcohol, then decide if he wants to hit them. This should be a perfectly fine pressure tool, since you can't really risk the hit from the zombie. The second is the zombie giant swing, where Frank spins a zombie around and then tosses them. This looks a bit too slow to be useful, but it may have super armour or some other property we haven't seen yet. The move had hyper armour in TvC if I remember right, so let's hope for that. He also has a pie projectile that does pretty pathetic damage, but travels in a nice arc, and apparently gets better as he goes up in levels, so that should be useful for closing the distance at early levels too. 

Once in, Frank has two supers in addition to his basic combo hyper, the shopping cart. The first is an invincible startup level 1, which, as everyone knows thanks to Bionic Arm, can be dangerous. So if the opponent tries to throw a projectile too close to you, you can always just throw this out if you have the meter to get in on them in the knockdown time. The second is an anti-air grab somewhat reminiscent of his level 3 from TvC, but except for the animation, is more similar to She-Hulk's anti-air super. Since we're assuming here you're building around Frank and thus have good assists for him to use with the camera otg, you can also get a full combo off this with a camera otg into combo afterwards. Failing that, you can still just throw out camera xx shopping cart for a bit of extra damage. This should be good, ignoring potential start-up and invulnerability issues, for preventing the opponent for simply jumping and air dashing straight out of the corner, which is where any rushdown character not named Captain America wants you to be. Frank also has, in addition to the camera, a self-otg should you want to just get more damage and use on of your assists to get in. Doctor Doom's Plasma Beam is probably the one I'd go for, since that also gives you a way to mixup with roll and Doom is looking pretty great in Ultimate. And, of course, he has his knee drop that cancels all momentum and drops him, which should be greatly useful for surprise crossups.

Let's say, though, that you want to run Frank but have someone else you want on point. Thankfully, we already know Frank's assists. His first makes him run forward with a shopping cart. This one got used a lot in the gameplay footage but we didn't see it hit much, so I don't know whether its a hard/soft knockdown or air techable, which makes it hard to determine its value. It could be as good as Akuma's old tatsu, but its hard to say yet. His second does his on point mini-lightning legs repeated stab move, which also increases in power with level in the same way the point version does. Given this one gets better, its probably the assist you'll want as point Frank for when you tag Frank out to heal. His last one is Morrigan and Ammy's meter building assist, though we don't know the timing on it yet. It may as fast and amazing as Morrigan's or as slow and useless as Ammy's, but here's hoping its the first. A lot of people expected him to have his camera as an assist, like TvC, but I guess they decided an otg assist that let's him level up off-screen was a bit too good. I agree with them here, as it'd greatly diminish the impact of the level up ability, and make him into a straight 'run this guy as anchor because he'll always be better there' character. 

So, with all this in mind, I'm really happy with how Frank looks in UMvC3, and glad they tried harder to represent him as him than TvC did. Also, even after seeing how awesome Rocket Raccoon looks, I'm still happy with my decision to be more hype for Frank, though I, like everyone else, thought Frank would be revealed with Nova. I think, if that were the case, people would be a lot more happy with Frank than him standing in RR's hype shadow at the moment (based on impression's from SRK's opinion at the moment).

So, how was this for a first post back? Leave your comments either here or on the Facebook status I'll inevitably make for it. Or just tell me on msn, I guess.

Also, looking at the tags tells me I have posted very, very little since Marvel came out. I'll have to change that.

EDIT: Now with movelist confirmation!
236L for the stabby move
236M for the baseball bat
236H for the otg ground bounce hammer
623A gives you the roundhouse kick, L for middle, M for low, H for feint
63214+A gives you the zombie giant swing projectile
Charge back forward gives you the zombie bubble projectile (profound sadness)
6H is the pie projectile
22H for the wine chug that boosts camera
236S gives you the camera itself
And lastly, A+S gives you the roll

oh god what have i done

When most people stay up late, they make bad decisions. Saying dumb things to the girl they fancy, buying shit they don't need, whatever. Me, though? I make bad sprite comics.

Arakune is saying 'Well, is it?', if you can't interpret Arakune's fractured English, by the way.

Woahohohohoh~

*insert picture of dizzy Tron here*

Quite frankly, that should be all I need to make for this blog post, but I'm going to a bit nicer and elaborate: as some of you may know, I'm a big Tron Bonne fan. 14 year old dominatrices are hot, just saying. Well, they're not hot yet, since they're illegal in most of the world, but they'll grow up to be hot. And so, Tron being usable in MvC3 both as her old assist whore form with a new face, Gustaff Flame (more usable than it was in MvC2!) and on point with j.C shenanigans (hence the post) makes me feel good. Her needing an OTG assist to increase her damage output to stupid levels made me less so, but then I remembered Wesker's Samurai Edge serves that purpose and Wesker does, indeed, frighten me. Finally, I'd already decided on Spidey because the wall-crawler is one of my favourite Marvel heroes because I'm also a socially poor nerd who got bitten by a spider while on a science field trip once. Also because he's pretty fast, his comboes are semi-easy when you have an OTG assist and mixups galore with Gustaff Flame assist. 

But, yeah, back to Mahvel, posting is interrupting precious training time.

May our blessings sever the tongues of the forsaken

Not much has really happened so far. Still can't decide on my main in AH3, cleaned my desk, applied for a tax file number (which means, shock horror, Pete will actually apply for a job soon) and started learning some of the stock phrases from All Will Be One (only in text at the moment, I can't get the accent right..), particularly 'We are perfection made flesh', which will be written down the left hand side of the custom gamemat I'm working on making at the moment. Note that my drawing capabilities leave something to be desired, so the gamemat will be terribly ugly, but whatever.

Also started digitally working on modifying card faces, so that I can make that Elesh Norn deck with cards printed entirely in Phyrexian. And, best of all, as long as the art is sufficiently recognizable, they'll be tournament legal! I'll be able to win FNM for the glory of the Father of Machines! 

But yeah, for the moment, nothing really going on. Word on the street is Pot Black has AE, so I'll have to test that out, and will post on it once I find out.

More on Pete's AH3 Experience

So, yeah, I've tried out pretty much the whole cast now, though I'll admit I haven't tried every arcana yet (particularly Mirror, I haven't even considered it yet because I'm not nearly librarian enough yet), and, although I'm still liking Lilica, Kira and Lieselotte are really sticking with me (as they did in AH2, so, yeah, don't know what I was expecting to happen). I probably don't have the tech skill necessary for Lieselotte, or the dedication (since MvC3 will inevitably consume me, no matter how much I want to play AH3), so that brings it down to Kira and Lilica. Based entirely on appearance, as well, they're both awesome (demons <3 and sukumizu <3), so yeah, I'll feel good regardless of which I go with. More updates for the few of you that actually care tomorrow, though tomorrow will probably be a Magic update day.

Pete's Amazing Room

Pictures should explain it all, really:

Easily the largest post I've ever made, in terms of megabytes.

I can't control it!

If you don't get the post name, its what Phoenix says when she onmnomnoms your 5 bars of meters and comes back as Dark Phoenix, i.e. her Resurrection. Get it? Man, I'm so funny.

Anyway, WACE ended, I didn't have much to post about while fear I may have screwed up consumed me, until results came back. I got an 88 ATAR, but mucked up English, so I had to sit the STAT. Again, nothing to post while fear consumed me, until I got in the top 1% of the state. So, then I had little time between that and uni offers, so I had to set up my uni application. I got into my Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science double degree course, and I'll be majoring in Japanese and Physics, as I wanted to. So, after setting up my units, getting my student card, and officially enrolling, I'm finally done setting myself up for uni, and ready to waste time posting on here again.

I haven't actually played Pokemon much at all for a while, so the name isn't really all too appropriate anymore, but eh, I've already paid for another year on it, so screw it, its staying. I'm back into Magic, which will give me something to post about and something to make more people read, which are -both- things I enjoy (supposedly) doing. I went 4-1 at the MBS prerelease and scored myself a Blightsteel Colossus, for those that care. He'll be staying in my possession, but the Skithyrix and Green Sun's Zenith I opened will both be sold to feed my need for money, and to pay Azli off. On that note, anyone who's got any Sliver legends they wish to sell me for my Sliver EDH deck, please throw me a message. Particularly Sliver Overlord, since we all know he's the best commander for Slivers, since he tutors up the other two, but I don't have any at the moment, which makes running the deck completely impossible. I'm also missing a few other important Slivers, but I'm okay with proxying them. Proxying the general is a no go, though. Oh, Sliver MPR tokens are good too, so if you've got any of them, cheers. They'd be nice alongside my Brood Sliver, nice and official.

In terms of fighting games this weekend, I got 5th at Waicon and inspired a bunch of salt in one Klayton. Unfortunately, I'm too broke to do a hype made money match, but whatever. Next tournament, maybe.  Andrew Salanki's SSF4 tournament featuring Pete vs Klayton $50 money match. I'd like to do a Gief/Haggar cosplay next year at waicon, but it'd be hard to do EXTREME MANLINESS and a crossplay in the same weekend, so I'll have to get a chest wig or something. We'll see how it goes. In addition, I've pretty much settled on Lilica as my main for AH3 at the moment, and I'm liking Luck Arcana, partially because I like leaving it to chance, partially because I doubt people can take advantage of the random CHs on me, and partially because of the mad oki that dice gives you. But, yeah, arcana's likely to change, I'll give Wind a shot next.

Obviously, like everyone else ever, I'm incredibly hyped for Marvel vs Capcom 3, and I'm looking forward to trying a starting team of Haggar/:Lei-Lei/Morrigan, though Weng has been pushing me to actually stick to a theme and go Team Darkstalkers, which I'll probably give a shot anyway. I'll also probably give MSS a shot, mind you, since scrubs be mad salty about the 'fucking god tier team that all the f*g scrubs will play and win with no skill', despite the game not being out yet and, just a guess, they probably got nerfed. Plus, who knows, maybe it'll be fun.

Lastly, on the anime side of things, I picked up a ton of Tsukihime stuff at Waicon, including a deliciously cute Phantasmoon figure, and pictures will be up of all my new stuff and my entire room put together as it is (in case you missed something new being added). In addition, work on my cosplay for Supanova (and probably being reused at Waicon next year) will be posted here as it gets done (i.e. very, very slowly).

On one last final note, does anyone know of any manga about traps that I probably don't know about? Please send me any names, cheers.

Until next time, for the Sliver Hive and for the Queen.

Generation 5 Discussion: Part 1

So, if you haven't seen it yet, the full pokedex for Black and White has been leaked here. Obviously, since we're still early, without held items, no idea where the metagame will go, abilities still unknown, etc., it's impossible to fully predict what will happen. Plus, with everything that isn't blatantly uber starting off in OU (sorry guys, no Mewtwo), this generation is going to be hectic, and Garchomp is going to want it's bitches back. But, yeah, let's go for an analysis anyway, because I have nothing better to do with my time. This'll probably end up posted a while from when I first started writing it, because there's a lot I have to go through, so feel proud you're so worthy of my time, blog reader. Course, if it's up earlier, there'll probably be a part 2, since there's no way I can finish it so quickly.

So, anyway, from the top:

Victini

Psychic/Fire

Ability: Victory Heart

BST: 600

HP: 100

Attack: 100

Defense: 100

Sp. Attack: 100

Sp. Defense: 100

Speed: 100

Since this gen wants to be different, the first pokemon in the pokedex is the base 100 in everything fairy, Victini. Obviously it's stats are effective, as proven by all the others before it, but the typing is quite interesting. It doesn't really provide many useful resistances, and gives it weakness to dark, water, rock, ground and ghost, since fire and psychic don't really cover each other at all. It does give a neutrality to Bug that Psychic otherwise wouldn't have, but I can't see the typing being fantastic. Offensively, psychic also isn't too useful, due to not hitting much at all for super-effective and hitting dark for nothing, but fire is at least somewhat useful. It'll probably all come down to a) how many steels there are, and the importance of SR in the metagame and b) what Victory Star does, since, for all I know, it could double it's stats in everything. Nonetheless, not too much to say, since you've all seen this spread before.

Jaroda

Grass

Ability: Overgrow

BST: 528

HP: 75

Attack: 75

Defense: 95

Sp. Attack: 75

Sp. Defense: 95

Speed: 113

Onto the starters, we get to start with the final, suitably royal evolution of Smugleaf. Unfortunately, though it looks like it should be, it's not the Grass/Dragon everyone wanted, and is just pure grass. At least it's not grass/poison, though, blech. Base 75 offensive, while terrible, isn't exactly fantastic, so you're probably going to want to slap a Choice Band/Specs on it if you want to sweep with this thing. It's speed is fairly nice, at 113, allowing it to outspeed non-Scarfed Gengars, Latias (since she'll start off OU) and Infernapes, though without a good movepool I can't really see what you'd do to Infernape. All in all, it's a slightly more bulky, for a less damaging Sceptile, so I can't really see it doing much without a good defensive movepool, and even then, Venusaur probably will do it better. It all depends on how important speed is this generation.

Enbuoo

Fire/Fighting

Ability: Blaze

BST: 528

HP: 110

Attack: 123

Defense: 65

Sp. Attack: 100

Sp. Defense: 65

Speed: 65

Don't you just hate it when there's a wall up in your grill, blocking your shit? Fear not, Enbuoo is here to punch a hole in them all. While those defenses are fairly flimsy, 110 HP is probably enough to make up for it, and those two attack stats are phenomenal on a starter. Slap a choice scarf on it, let it hit Blaze activation and your Fire Blast will be making chumps out of anything. Obviously, fire/fighting has been done a bit in the starters before, but this creates a nice little continuum to pick from. Stupidly fast, but fragile and not as strong (Inferape, probably still better), stupidly strong, but slow (Ganondorf in fire form) and the middle ground (lolBlaziken). In the end, Infernape will still probably be most used, but I can't see this thing not being used while Choice Scarf exists, especially if it gets Fire Blast and Close Combat.

                                                    

Daikenki

Water

Ability: Torrent

BST: 528

HP: 95

Attack: 100

Defense: 85

Sp. Attack: 108

Sp. Defense: 70

Speed: 70

So, last of the starters is Wotter's final evolution, and it's got a rather well-rounded stat base. Water has never really had a good mixed sweeper (except Kingdra) before, so, depending on movepool, this guy could do it. Torrent is a fairly boring ability to talk about, since it's not really something you can abuse on most pokemon, but a mixed water sweeper with Waterfall and Surf, hiding behind subs and nomnoming a Liechi Berry, could be something that can properly abuse it. It doesn't really outrun much, though, and I'm not sure if it's other stats are good enough to get over that. After all, with Swampert and Gyarados out there, water isn't exactly lacking good Pokemon. 

Muraando

Normal

Ability: Sand Throw/Intimidate

HP: 85

Attack: 100

Defense: 90

Sp. Attack: 45

Sp. Defense: 90

Speed: 80

Even though he looks awesome, the main reason I've got him here is because he has Sand Throw (doubles speed in a Sandstorm), which could give him a spot on Sandstorm teams down the track. His stats aren't too bad, but Normal isn't really the best offensive or defensive type, so they generally need better than average stats (i.e. Snorlax and Blissey) combined with a good movepool to be useful, so, we'll see how life ends up going for him later. 

Yanakki

Grass

Ability: Gluttony

HP: 75

Attack: 98

Defense: 63

Sp. Attack: 98

Sp. Defense: 63

Speed: 101

First of the monkey trio is Yanakki, and really, I only need to talk about him because the other three are exactly the same except for the typing. Being grass, he's probably inferior to Hiyakki, since Water is the best type (as we all know), but better than Baokki because he's not weak to Stealth Rock (and realistically, SR isn't going anywhere). The stat distribution is fairly frail, so he will probably die to most sweepers from a neutral hit, but it's quite fast with a good offensive distribution, so he can pretty easily wallbreak, movepool pending. Gluttony isn't doing him any favours as an ability, though, being one of the few things always worse than starter abilities. Dream World gets him Overgrow, but then he loses access to egg moves. So, he has a lot of potential, like the other two, but we'll have to see where it takes him.

Mushana

Psychic

Ability: Forewarn/Synchronize

HP: 116

Attack: 55

Defense: 85

Sp. Attack: 107

Sp. Defence: 95

Speed: 29

Mushana, everyone's favourite pink blob, is here pretty much because I love Synchronize. It's such a fun ability. You can cause so much havoc with it in the right situation. Nonetheless, Mushana isn't really a pokemon you want status to hit. With it's better than average HP, defense and special defense combination, it's suited to wall, but Psychic is a rather mediocre defensive type. With the right movepool, of course, with it's great special attack it could be a nice RestTalker, but I can't see it being very useful otherwise. Synchronize could be hilarious fun on a status absorber like a resttalker, though, so fingers crossed for the little blob.

Kenhorou

Normal/Flying

Ability: Pigeon Heart/Super Luck

HP: 80

Attack: 105

Defense: 80

Sp. Attack: 65

Sp. Defense: 55

Speed: 93

Yeah, you've all seen this stat distribution before, and it's still nothing special, but I couldn't resist uploading the sprite because it looked so silly. So, yeah, nothing special, there's probably better, but if there isn't, it's not so much better that no one's going to notice.

Zeburaika

Electric

Ability: Lightningrod/Motor Drive

HP: 75

Attack: 100

Defense: 63

Sp. Attack: 80

Sp. Defence: 63

Speed: 116

With the changes to Lightningrod, this zebra will now be absorbing electric attacks regardless of what you do, it just depends what stat gets buffed. Given it's already good speed, it probably doesn't need the Motor Drive boost, but given it's Sp. Attack is inferior to attack, the Lightningrod boost probably won't be relevant all the time, so you'll run Motor Drive anyway. Also, this will, as always, be paired with Gyarados, without question, at least by scrubs. This thing could have the worst movepool in the world, and they'd still do it. Anyway, this isn't really anything new, it's specially inferior to Jolteon, probably mixed inferior to Electivire unless it has a great movepool, moving on.

Gigaisu

Rock

Ability: Sturdy (!)

HP: 85

Attack: 135

Defense: 105

Sp. Attack: 60

Sp. Defence: 70

Speed: 25

Just to make sure everyone is on the same level here, Sturdy is now a free Focus Sash. That's right, free. You get to have a Sash and Leftovers. This guy, in addition, learns Stealth Rock, Stone Edge and Explosion all via leveling up. If he doesn't herald the return of the bulky lead, then they're never coming back. Really, though, even if he doesn't find a spot as a bulky lead (which he will, unless Metagross is the undisputed best lead ever now for whatever reason), then he'll find a spot on Sandstorm teams, where his Sp. Defense is buffed into 'I'm pretty amazing' tier. I'll definitely be giving this guy a try after Pokemon Online/Shoddy gets updated.

Doryuuza

Ground/Steel

Ability: Sand Throw/Sand Strength

HP: 110

Attack: 135

Defense: 60

Sp. Attack: 50

Sp. Defense: 65

Speed: 88

Really, that typing and those abilities should be a pretty large yell: this guy's meant to go with Sandstorm. You can either run him regularly, with the Swords Dance he learns via leveling, and have Sand Throw let him outrun anything of his choice, or Scarf him and Sand Strength (buffs the strength of rock, ground and steel moves in a Sandstorm) his Earthquake to stupid levels. He probably won't be too intricate of a pokemon, since his purpose is obvious: point him at the opponent during a sandstorm, and run. 

Roopushin

Fighting

Ability: Guts/Encourage

HP: 105

Attack: 140

Defense: 95

Sp. Attack: 55

Sp. Defense: 65

Speed: 45

This guy is one of those guys in the horrible range of 'even if you pass me speed, I'm still slow'. While this has been done before with Rhyperior, it hasn't really been done with a fighting type, nor a Pokemon with actually useful abilities before: Guts to ward off status, Encourage to just buff your damage output. Like the above pokemon, Roopushin is probably going to end up straight forward: you haven't got time to do anything tricky, so just punch a hole in the opponent. Unfortunately, however, he'll probably end up like Rhyperior: relegated to UU since he's not fast enough to compete in OU. He isn't weak to Bullet Punch, EQ or Close Combat, though, so he could make his way into the edge of OU, but I doubt it.

Gamageroge

Water/Ground

Ability: Swift Swim/Poison Touch

HP: 105

Attack: 85

Defense: 75

Sp. Attack: 85

Defense: 75

Speed: 74

The main thing this guy has going for him is Swift Swim, as it allows to him to do different things to Swampert, who causes every other water/ground pokemon to die. His attack stats, while kinda medicore, allow him to be a mixed and semi-bulky sweeper for rain teams, though, really, I'm not too sure they need another one when they've already got Kingdra. So, he's probably redundant, but he does look pretty cool.

Nageki

Fighting

Ability: Guts/Inner Focus

HP: 120

Attack: 100

Defense: 85

Sp. Attack: 30

Sp. Defense: 85

Speed: 45

The more bulky and slower of the new fighting pair, Nageki is clearly meant to absorb attacks and then dish back damage. Guts probably limits his lifespan too much while active to be useful, so I'd probably use Inner Focus on him, assuming Togekiss and Jirachi remain used. While I don't like him as much as his brother, Dageki, I can still see how'd he have a place on a team, but really, he seems inferior to both Roopushin and Dageki in various ways, so let's move on.

Dageki

Fighting

Ability: Sturdy/Inner Focus

HP: 75

Attack: 125

Defense: 75

Sp. Attack: 30

Sp. Defense: 75

Speed: 85

Given that he has better attack and speed, I prefer Dageki to Nageki. In addition, his lessened bulk is covered by Sturdy, giving him a Focus Sash even if he's got a Choice. Once again, movepool pending, but given his free Sash and/or Inner Focus, he could make quite the anti-lead. While, out of the current leads, he'd lose to Azelf, he would quite decisively beat all the other regular leads, and has a good shot against most of the anti-leads. If he's got Fake Out, or a good dark priority move, I'm definitely giving him a shot on my team as an anti-lead. 

Doreida

Grass

Ability: Chlorophyll/Own Tempo

HP: 70

Attack: 60

Defense: 75

Sp. Attack: 110

Sp. Defense: 75

Speed: 90

I didn't really like the other grass one at all, and cbf'd doing it, so I skipped to this much more useful one. Base speed 90 and Sp. Attack 110 is really not too shabby, especially on a grass type, which hasn't really seen such usefulness before, but combined with Chlorophyll, it's a pretty amazing special sweeper during Sunny Day. Firing off Solar Beams in one turn buffed by that defense is really quite good, and, if I decide to run a Sunny Day team (which I inevitably will), this'll definitely have a shot on my team. The only downside is the whole 'it's weak to fire which is buffed in Sun' thing, which is really the weakness of all Sun teams, but I'm sure HP-Water or something can help there.

Warubiru

Ground/Dark

Ability: Overconfidence (formerly known as Earthquake Spiral)/Intimidate

HP: 95

Attack: 117

Defense: 70

Sp. Attack: 65

Sp. Defense: 70

Speed: 92

The awesome crocodile's full form is way more awesome than most people were expecting, really. Overconfidence/Earthquake Spiral (I'll keep calling it that, even though it's apparently not it's name) can be quite the ability if the user is right, and I think this guy is the right user. Ground/Dark is a good offensive combination, hitting lots for at least neutral, and if it lands even one kill, Earthquake Spiral can push it's attack into stupid regions. If you don't want to risk it, though, it's other ability is Intimidate. Yeah, you're not really pressed for choice with this guy. Oh, and he learns both Earthquake and Crunch via leveling up, in case you were worried he'd have a mediocre option for STAB.

Hihidaruma

Fire

Ability: Encourage

HP: 105

Attack: 140

Defense: 55

Sp. Attack: 30

Sp. Defense: 55

Speed: 90

Kinda what Flareon wants to be, Hihidaruma is a pretty good physical fire sweeper. It's low defences are kinda counteracted by it's high HP, but dayum, that attack and that speed isn't something you often seen outside of a psuedo-legendary, as proven by the two big slow fighting guys above. Encourage combines with the attack stat to make it into a destructive engine that I really can't fathom not being used. Course, SR weakness is bad on something so kinda-fragile, but it's not a huge thing unless you're 4x weak to Rock. 

Pokemon Through the Generations

The opening sprites are appropriate for several reasons. First of all, Snorlax is omnipresent in the Pokemon generations: he was there in gen 1 and has been constantly blocking paths at least once a generation (admittedly, only thanks to the remakes). Further, Snorlax is my favourite pokemon, because he's so big and cute and daww :3, and also a total engine of destruction. The fact he's so incredibly powerful has led to him being commonly used by top players in every generation so far, which leads into this article quite well: a quick history of competitive Pokemon trends.

Generation 1 is by far the most signature generation of Pokemon, and is known by people who don't play Pokemon to be 'the best generation and all other generations suck shit'. While it probably is the best in terms of actual pokemon, it was really rather bad as a game in hindsight, comparatively to the other games. It had quite a few flaws that made it really interesting competitively, though, if a bit stale and slow. First of all, there was no Special Attack or Special Defense: just Special. This led to Alakazam being a bit less frail than he is today, and more of an unstoppable special tank of death. Amnesia was also an amazing ability, causing Slowbro to steam roll teams by becoming both a tank and sweeper at the same rate as Swords Dance does only sweeping. In the end, this ended up rather silly, and made Alakazam and Slowbro infinitely more effective than they are today. How the mighty fall.

Of course, while this was a flaw with every generation up until 4th, special and physical were defined by types rather than moves, i.e. normal was always physical. This really isn't too bad, but combined with the infamous Hyper Beam glitch (if a pokemon is fainted by Hyper Beam, the pokemon that used it doesn't need to recharge), this made Snorlax and Tauros both insane physical sweepers. An amazingly strong STAB physical move, even if it has to be the last hit? Yes, please. You basically had to pick between speed or health, which isn't too bad of a choice, really. 

My most favourite thing ever, though, is the ultimate stall machine this engine introduced, and it really wouldn't be what you'd expect: Dragonite with Agility. Once it gets an agility off, it outruns everything legal that hasn't also been boosted. From there, it paralyzes you and then Wraps you. In Gen 1, if the opposing pokemon uses Wrap and outruns you, you can't move, leading Dragonite to agonizingly slowly kill anything short of Gengar. Which, incidentally, leads to Gengar being OU, despite being hit by Earthquake from Tauros and Snorlax for excessive amounts of damage on its pitiful health and defence.

Alot changed from Gen 1 to Gen 2 with the special split to special attack and special defence, as this ruined Amnesia. Really, nobody cares too much about buffing your special defence, it's kinda pointless. Slowbro's usefulness was also lowered due to not being an engine of special destruction. Mewtwo and Mew were joined by Ho-oh and Lugia in their beloved Ubers tier, and the Hyper Beam glitch went away, putting the move we all know and love in its current place of useless. Course, held items were also invented, and Leftovers found its way on pretty much every pokemon ever, doing its little bit to keep you alive.

The most famous local change to come out of Gen 2 in the long run is the amazing move, Curse. On most pokemon, Curse is rather mediocre, since most sweepers aren't bulky enough in both defences to waste their speed. However, one pokemon is amazing enough in both defences and physical attack, yet with such terrible speed that it's worth spending on attack and defence: Snorlax. Snorlax, armed with Curse, quickly devoured the Gen 2 metagame, becoming more than just a good physical sweeper like it was in Gen 1, and became an infamous set up sweeper that would quickly win the game if you let it get away from you without a phazer, and so, late game, Curselax would devour teams. This, incidentally, was when I got into Pokemon competitively, and was amazed my favourite pokemon could be so good. This was also the only period of time where Wobbuffet was actively rediculed as being bad, so, keep that in mind: there actually was time when it was bad. 

All in all, Gen 2 was much like Gen 1 without special sweepers also being special tanks. A few pokemon that had their special stats become worthless with the split (Lapras comes to mind) become quickly useless, and wished Gen 1 would come back. Tyranitar, Suicune and Umbreon made an impact as generally useful pokemon, and Misdreavus became a gimmick, with its Mean Look/Perish Song laughing at teams not designed to handle it. As gimmicky as it was, it was really quite effective. Shadow Ball also came into existance, giving Gengar something to hit Psychic types with for stupid damage now that Alakazam wasn't a tank, and everything was right in the world.

Course, then Gen 3 came along, introducing abilities to shake things up. Tyranitar, Gengar, Dugtrio, Weezing and Vaporeon instantly gained a ton, suddenly becoming much better at what they wanted to do. Weezing and Gengar finally got to laugh at Earthquake destroying them, letting Gengar sweep more effectively and Weezing actually act as a physical wall. Seriously, nobody wants a physical wall weak to EQ that isn't Steel, it's just stupid. Sand Stream made Tyranitar more of a special wall by accidentally buffing its special defence stat due to it being a rock-type, Dugtrio became an awesome revenge killer via Arena Trap and Vaporeon's Water Absorb made it into a great switch in.

Of course, this new generation offered up a ton of powerhouses. Swampert, who still stands up today due to it having higher base stats than every other starter for no good reason in addition to great typing, and Blaziken overshadowed their poor grass-starter brother, while the psuedo-legendaries, Salamence and Metagross made a large impression as well, due to their amazing physical sweeping ability. The metagame, by this point, had evolved into slow tanks denting the others as much as possible, as shown by (a fact most people forget) Slaking actually being used a lot. Spikes were rampant, and SkarmBliss reigned the defensive combination world. Heracross took over Snorlax's spot as most used physical sweeper (though Snorlax was still no slouch), and the mighty Reversalcross, a set that aimed to use STAB Reversal and Heracross' amazing base attack to destroy the opposing teams ended up with Heracross banned in Japan. Unfortunately, it was beaten the post as the first non-legendary banned, as Wobbuffet and Wynaut had already gained Shadow Tag and Encore, laughing its uncounterable way to banned tier by annihilating teams by itself. 

Choice Band was responsible for most of this, as it pivoted the metagame towards physical (due to a lack of Choice Specs at this point), and it presented a metagame run by sheer power (due to a lack of Choice Scarf at this point). Heracross' absurd damage was made possible by this, and there wasn't really much that could counter it at higher speeds without having to use Agility to get it up to those high speeds first. 

Though there's not much to say about it, and it was down the low end of OU, Ludicolo gets an honourable mention here as an awesome pokemon introduced here. Rain Dance was more prevalent due to lack of abuse for Sandstorm (i.e. no Gliscor or Garchomp to Sand Hax it up), and Ludicolo/Kingdra made for a great sweeping base, due to Ludicolo's good base stats and typing, combined with Swift Swim. Course, that's what it does these days. Back then, it did its infamous stalling set much more effectively due to the slow pace of the metagame, and Rain Dish + Toxic + Leech Seed made it pretty much a repeat of Gen 1 Dragonite in terms of killing pace, and denying moves. 

And now we make it to Gen 4. When the Generation first came out, I can still remember the cries of overpowered for Rampardos due to its high attack. It turned out to be near useless due to its low speed and defence. Tangrowth held its own in OU for awhile as a solid counter to Gyarados, before eventually falling (though it still does counter Gyarados pretty well). Azelf lead the way for the pixies, Garchomp became God, and slowly but surely, the metagame was completely redefined from what it was in Gen 3. While strength was more important than speed before, speed became so much more important. Fast sweepers like Azelf and Infernape were able to do damage to the slower ones (like Heracross) more so than before, and priority became more apparent (thanks mainly to Extremespeed on Lucario, really). Garchomp slowly but surely took over the metagame, ending up in a whopping 81% of all ladder battles in the month it was banned, with only really Gengar to rival it (thanks, in part, to it being able to outrun Garchomp and also thanks to Hypnosis for lead Gengar). Platinum hammered this home, granting the most used pokemon in current standard the move that would eventually become this blog's name: Bullet Punch. Scizor, armed with Bullet Punch and Choice Band, redefined what priority could do, and the metagame ended up looking nothing like the last. Champions like Heracross and Snorlax cling on barely at the bottom of usage, while Scizor, as a relative newcomer to usefulness, having only just found Technician as well, reigned supreme. 

While it was the death of some old titans, like Alakazam, Dugtrio and Rhydon (newly evolved into Rhyperior), some old battleaxes still remain at the top, like Gyarados, Tyranitar and Gengar. Skarmory still holds its title as the entry hazard go-to guy, and Blissey still absorbs special like its nobody's business. In the same boat as Scizor, Tentacruel also found its way in competitive use, due to its neutrality to common water counter move, Grass Knot, and ability to set up the new Toxic Spikes, which could quickly derail a Stall team's capabilities.

All in all, my favourite generation for competition has to be the current one. But, I've always really thought that about the current generation at any one time, so I'm really looking forward to what Gen 5 has to offer. Hopefully, the starters will be useful, and the changes to Sturdy (making it act like a Focus Sash in addition to disabling OHKO moves), adding abilities to the old starters/eeveelutions/etc. will shake up the metagame in a way that makes it much more interesting. And yeah, I know I skimmed over some points, there'd be way too much to talk about if I talked in full about every generation. 

Mata ne,

Pete278