Yes give this grass dragon.... lightning rod
>>59042509Its tail is a tree. It makes sense flavor wise>but lightning rod doesn't help a mon with a double electric resistancecomp singles has poisoned the brains of two generations of players I swear to god. Lighting rod is a free redirector that protects your ally from SE electric moves. Sceptile being on the field means whatever is next to it gets a free electric immunity. It also lets it get a free SpAtk up on a switch in (or opponent stupidity) to an electric move, and SpAtk is its primary offensive stat.It's not a bad ability at all. Sorry it didn't get Thick Fat or whatever you wanted to make it have no weaknesses.
>>59042589This thing isn’t even good in doubles
>>59042589Even with Thick Fat it dies to Ice Shard.
>>59042598Lightning Rod is not the reason why. The reason why is because you only get one Mega and you aren't using your one Mega on Sceptile when there are all around better mons you could pick instead. I defy you to pick an ability that would have made Mega Sceptile more viable than Mence, Gengar or Khan.
>>59042589Regenerator would've made sense flavor-wise, since it regrows its tail.
>>59042684Not a bad choice either. I still don’t think it would do anything to make it viable.Mons like Mega Sceptile are why mega evo needs to be reworked to function more like tera. It could be situationally good but it’s never worth picking over a better option and you can’t afford to build a mon to be mega-capable and NOT mega it, the cost of losing your held item is too high
>>59042589No one’s asking for an offensive Mega to have an ability that neutralizes its weaknesses. Why are you making up arguments?
>>59042598I guarantee you Mega-Sceptile would have seen play in Regulation G on Kyogre teamsit's a blatant Raging Bolt and Miraidon counter
>>59042707So what ability would you give it? Keeping in mind it can’t just be>lol huge power lmaoIt has to actually make sense
>>59042598That's because there's a handful of megas that are leaps and bounds better than everything else
>>59042509really retarded how they kept playing fast and loose with the starter typings>noo we can't have grass dragon even thought it would make perfect sense
>>59042925Nothing about it is dragon-like and the only reason the mega is is so that dragonfags would shill the new megas.
>>59042509Now allowed to overshadow mega CHARIZARD X from KANTOOOOOOOOOOOOO with a better ability
>>59042684Even more now that he learns Shed Tail
>>59043072>it’s the kanto bourgeoisie keeping the hoenn starters down!Meanwhile Blaziken
>>59043069it's literally skinny tyranitar also ignorign other genscharizard should've been dragon fireserperior should've been grass dragon
Your ass shouldn't be picking Sceptile anyway. Game is basically Dante Must Die mode with how little variety Sceptile's movepool and mono-Grass type holds it back. Even being Grass/Dragon doesn't help since it's not like Gen VI was particularly kind to the Dragon type
>>59043091>average dragonfag>>59043114Stop being bad.
>>59043114>Your ass shouldn't be picking Sceptile anyway.B-but it's le coolerino and badassarino!!1 Ot should be ZU trash unmons like Meganium you should be talking shit about!!1wahh!!1
>>59042589This would have a point if doubles was the norm in campaign battles.
>>59042718If Megas are allowed in Reg G, Sceptile would still have 0% usage since there are much better Megas.
>>59043131If you need your mega to steamroll singleplayer pokemon with your starter, you’re playing wrong.That said, I think it’d be cool for a mainline game to have all gyms (trainers and leaders) and the E4 use VGC doubles rules, and canonize that as the in-universe “official competitive ruleset”. It might give you at least some reason to actually think about double battles enough to want to plan for them.
>>59043157Your entire scenario only makes sense if the game is in double battle mode. The obvious issue is that there are a single digit number of double battles in most games. Any ability that only works in doubles is therefore almost useless and could be replaced with some random filler ability as a strict improvement. I like doubles and think it should be the norm, but making a post about how an ability is good in competitive doubles, when basically no one plays competitive in general, is brainless.
>>59043132Maybe but it’s probably the best lightning rod user in the game, so any team that really appreciated lightning rod would like it I bet. Especially rain teams, which are mostly afraid of electric type moves that rain buffs into their water types like charge beam and thunder.Pachirisu won a VGC just off being able to eat electric moves for free and use follow me. I don’t think Mega Sceptile would see zero use.
>>59043167>Any ability that only works in doublesYou make things up to cry about.
>>59043181What use is lightning rod in singles?
>>59043132spoken like a true campaignshitter, not understanding team archetypes and techs>>59043186switch-ins, campaignshitter
>>59043167It’s not ONLY good in doubles, lightning rod still lets it switch in for free on an electric type attack for a SpA setup. The enemy AI is super easy to bait into that kind of play. It’s an ability that’s BETTER in doubles due to redirection shenanigans, but so what? Should Helping Hand be removed from every mon’s level up pool just because the single-player game hates doubles? Mons are balanced for both. Really, mons should only be balanced for doubles, because the single player campaign isn’t actually balanced at ALL, you can just steamroll everything with your starter in like 100% of circumstances. Any “balance” for the single player game is worthless. Your mon doesn’t need ANY ability to oneshot everything in the game when you’re 8 levels above it and can use items on your turns.
>>59042589truth, compniggers poisoned their minds and want everything to be a constant powercreep spiralunfortunately the mindset seems to have infected gamefreak itself
>>59043189
>>59043189Mega Sceptile already 4x resists electric. The SpAtt boost is fine, but it isn't why the ability was created, and many monsters that have Lightning Rod as an ability don't have good SpAtt stats. Neither Rypherior nor A Marowak are using special attacks. Literally one monster in the series actually benefits from Lightning Rod in the campaign or competitive singles in terms of letting it do something ot otherwise couldn't - Seaking. >>59043191I do think that attacks or abilities that only have a use in Doubles should be axed from the games if they don't support doubles. Leave them in as tutor moves or hidden abilities because everyone just cheats those in anyhow, for VGC. Otherwise, those are just wastes of slots that could be given to better attacks or abilities. Being able to steam roll with your starter is something that should be solved with a harsher EXP gain curve, but it wouldn't change that doubles still aren't supported in the primary form of play, so anything designed around the format ends up being basically useless.
>>59043225>The SpAtt boost is fine, but it isn't why the ability was createdDo you have any other stories of what you helped with during development?
>>59043240Guess what the ability didn't do in Gen 3 and 4?
>>59043243I'm just wondering why the ability was created and since you were there I thought I'd ask.
>>59043225>Literally one monster in the series actually benefits from Lightning Rod in the campaignOnly in terms of negating SE damage. More than a few electric type special attackers get it like Manectric, or mixed attackers like Zebstrika. Those mons can use it as a way of setting up on switch-in.> Being able to steam roll with your starter is something that should be solved with a harsher EXP gain curve, but it wouldn't change that doubles still aren't supported in the primary form of play, so anything designed around the format ends up being basically useless.I guess, but it’s kind of dumb to be like>here’s the shit they have to do to fix singles balance, but never mind the shit they’d have to do to make doubles relevantAre we playing imagine-a-different-game or not? Current pokemon sp under-utilizes double battles, and is also balanced to be braindead easy. Why are we fixing one of those issues in your hypothetical but not the other? Doubles is a more interesting format overall, even if I think the game should use both.IMO I’d like to see>all wild encounters are singles>trainer battles are a 60/40 mix of singles to doubles, with evil team shit and other plot shit leaning toward singles almost exclusively>all gym trainers, leaders, and the E4 are VGC doubles rules, down to species + item clause, bring 4, and level 50 auto-setting, with your team having to satisfy the species and item clause to open the doors to the gym
>>59043255It was created for doubles as a way of making use of Ground type's immunity to electric to boost Water/Flying types. Hence why most Pokemon that had it were Ground types. But you don't actually play Pokemon games, do you?
>>59043243>abilities sucked in Gen IIIokay, but so what? Are we calling sturdy a shit ability in 2026 just because it USED to only negate fissure and sheer cold? No, we’re not. Why judge lightning rod by how it USED to work in Gen III when talking about a mon that didn’t exist until Gen VI?
>>59043262>gets btfo>you don't play the gamesEvery time with you retards.
>>59042684That would be fantastic.
>>59043260You don't need any of that no-items, fox-only, final destination, type shit. Just make the exp gain curve tighter on overleveled monsters, and make doubles the norm for most battles past the early game, gym 3 or so. If say the champion is at level 60, then if you just use your starter, the XP gain curve should only let them reach around 70. You can still steamroll if you're good, but if you just have Blaziken use Skyuppercut over and over again, you'll lose.
>>59043075>>59043270Shed Tail Regenerator is nasty as shit, straight to AG.
>>59043262>Hence why most Pokemon that had it were Ground types.If by most you mean less than half I guess.
>>59043265>i-i-i b-b-btfo youYou didn't know that Lightning Rod didn't boost SpA when it first came out. You didn't know that Lightning Rod was given primarily to Ground types when it first came out (only Manectric as an exception). You didn't know anything, in general. The ability wasn't created for the stat boost. That game many years afterwards.
>>59043282>You don't need any of that no-items, fox-only, final destination, type shitYeah but I think it’d be fun if the official PVP format was something more closely tied to at least some part of the main gameplay. There are RPG-type ways of balancing Pokemon’s SP campaign, sure, but Pokemon is best as a tactical turn-based game not an RPG, it’d be more fun if the game leaned into that aspect more deliberately. I think not enough people really get comfortable with the way VGC doubles works just because it’s so contrary to the “core game”. Doubles is such a better format than singles overall but singles is still extremely popular, not because it’s got better balance but just because that’s how people expect pokemon battling to work.
>>590432915/7 monsters that have the ability in DPPt are ground types.
>>59043296I knew all of that. None of it is relevant to how retarded you are. You're also an actual fag if you managed to type that greentext without killing yourself.
>>59043312You're an actual mongoloid if you used "BTFO" unironically. Explain to me what you think the purpose of giving Lighting Rod to a Ground type was in Gen 3 regarding its utility for switch-ins in singles.
>>59043319Mega sceptile isn't from gen 3, hope this helps you.
>>59043328>but it isn't why the ability was createdWhat time period did I refer to when I made this post above?
>>59043336>still pretending he developed the gamePlease stop
it's pretty clearly meant to be a physical attacker and even you know it
>>59043285
>>59043450What was the purpose of this thing again?
>>59043355>other people's actions are completely unknowableWhy was Fairy type introduced in your mind?
>>59042836Nah, even Mega Manectric won somewhere. Mega Sceptile is just that worthless.
IMO the biggest problem of Mega Sceptile is that it can't spam its STAB moves effectively. Leaf Storm punishes it and it has no acces to Draco Meteor. Giga Drain, Energy Ball or Dragon Pulse is not going to cut it. Easiest solution would be switching ATK and SpATK up. Ability: Sharpness. One DD or SD, then spam Leaf Blade.
>>59043240If it wasn't created with the boost originally then the boost isn't why it was created.
>>59043450Yeah, exactly my point
>>59043450It's really fucking funny that singles are such an unbalanced mess that they have to fucking nuke a giant chunk of pokemon for their fanfiction meta
>>59043131Wtf uses mega in campaign?And even if you do, an optimal ability is completely unnecessary in that scenario wjere you are already basically cheating already
