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crystalelemental · 2 years ago

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Sync Pair Retrospective - Sinnoh VA

Fun fact: I stopped doing these because of Renegade Cynthia. I started to work on it, but had almost nothing interesting to say, so I stopped saying things, and fell off of these retrospectives for months. But, since she’s rerunning this month, and the VA seems to be rerunning as well from what I understand, it’s as good a time as any to talk about them.

RENEGADE CYNTHIA Renegade Cynthia, one of the coolest costumes the game has produced. I do feel like they went with the wrong Giratina, sorry I like Origin form better, but this isn't a problem. Upon arrival, people lost their minds. This alt came quite some time after SS Cynthia, and people were dying for a legitimately good Cynthia alt, after both Garchomp and Kommo-o fell off. Can you imagine not getting a Cynthia alt an average of every 6 months? Simpler times, my friends.

Cynthia came in as the first ever Zone setter, revitalizing the Ghost type. See, prior to this? Off-type in Champion Stadium was the norm. Because field effects are wildly overpowered, and having SS Red/Leon with Sun support means you're probably stronger than most on-type options anyway. Cynthia was a beacon of hope for every type to come after. And was considered second fiddle to Lucas, who was right after her.

No really. People argued, still argue, that Lucas is better. And I do get where they're coming from but I hate it. See, Cynthia provides Ghost Zone and some debuffing effects in Sundering and On a Roll 2 for Shadow Ball, which aligns well with the type's needs. But it's inconsistent and random, so it's not as valued compared to Lucas. The next month coming into SS Cyrus and P!Marnie means Cynthia was, for a while, considered a fairly poor Zone setter. She had gauge issues, she wasn't that good at DPS, and she didn't offer the same depth of support that Cyrus and Marnie had.

But oh man that sync nuke. Cynthia coincided with the advent of Gauntlet, and was the first of many, many Tech pairs that emphasized Zone and an absurd sync nuke. Cynthia felt particularly effortless, having admittedly far less to do to set up what she needed. Moreover, I feel like the combination she had with Halloween Caitlin removed all of her concerns. Caps attack, salvages speed and defenses, and Caitlin allowed for massive shenanigans with a Ghost strike partner that emphasized DPS like Anni Lillie.

If there was anything that held Cynthia back, it's that ghosts broadly kinda sucked before Lillie. There weren't good ones. But with the common grid war, I'd argue Ghost is one of the best types out there. Shauntal and Fantina got absurdly strong grid improvements, Helena was a strong free unit, and even Agatha has some respectable damage output when desired. Ghost stepped up its game, and Cynthia benefits massively.

The only real competitors she faced were SC Lillie and H!Allister. In the case of Lillie, Lillie's trainer move could call Ghost Zone...5% of the time. This wasn't actually a competition unless you're unhinged. Allister, by comparison, had Rebuff, a new Zone alternative that gave a 30% multiplier for one rebuff stack, or 50% for two. It was permanent in CS, and was at least a status change for Uxie purposes in Gauntlet. But. Gauges continue to haunt Cynthia. While the combination of Cynthia with Allister sounds divine, they're both so slow and bad on gauge, that getting things to work is a nightmare. So as a full type, Cynthia helps, but isn't really cranking out some of the best comps in the meta, you know?

Basically, she's in a spot where she's top dog, but only because there's no one else competing with her. An alternative that packed more consistent support or gauge control would likely put her out of a job. She's just hanging on the precipice of failure, and it's weird, because she does have some nice use, it’s just too inconsistent and too limited to really shine. I hate to say it, because people hate hearing it, but Master Fairs really should be getting grid expansions. The older ones need it real bad.

LUCAS Lucas came in with Dragon Zone, and my initial stance on Lucas was "Kinda sucks." Because most Dragons at the time...didn't need him. Iris needed debuffs, she worked better with C!Elesa. Clair needed other effects or she just wasn't getting anything done. Zinnia needed weather. Lance needed so much support that it was rough getting him to work at all, despite being one of the best recipients. SS Cynthia could also work, but pretty much needed SC Jasmine. His comps were just a rough time. You pretty much just had Cyrus, whose Dragon damage was improved, but far from like...the best.

Then SS Serena dropped, and that was the end of that. Lucas/SS Serena is an unchallenged core, barely even needing support thanks to their extremely strong self-setup. Lucas had the issue of not really offering anything as support, but the tradeoff was having no impact on gauges thanks to Free Moves Next, allowing for potent dual strike cores. This is where Lucas shined. This comp.

And then, SS Kris came, and now Clair had access to Rain and Zone, achieving maximum potential. And then SS Brendan showed up, and suddenly these comps had special defense debuffs. Later, we'd even get Anni Raihan's grid expansion throwing out Disarm to lower offenses for C!Iris. And Lance got his grid expansions, and now he's much, much easier to manage.

Over time, the concerns around Lucas' team comps have largely evaporated as dragons received better self setup, and better support options. Lucas himself has remained kind of the same since forever. He's a good tech nuker who supports Dragons through the Zone and DPS. But because he has no other support effects, he can't step outside of that role. So he's very good, but restrictive.

SYGNA SUIT CYRUS Friends. Let me tell you about one of the best sync pairs to ever do it. SS Cyrus was insane. Packing Dark Zone, Cyrus came in with something even better than that: Dark Void. Turns out, DeNA agrees with me that Dark Void's nerf in Gen 7 was unjustified, and kept it at 80 accuracy. Now we are in business. Cyrus had AoE sleep with high accuracy, and was a hard lockdown that debuffed and dealt a bit of damage on every use. His sync was destructive, and slapped people asleep when used, continuing the lockdown. Even when focusing on DPS, Dark Pulse has a flinch rate. Cyrus disrupted with the best of them. Even outside of his Zone, which was a tremendous benefit, this set a standard for supportive effects on field effect units. The man was unparalleled.

Until SS Lyra kicked his knees backward. Sure, it wasn't AoE, but that's almost to her benefit. Lyra has guaranteed flinch, and because it's a passive entirely, she can queue up an extra move before the foe adjusts their attack. A major flaw in sleep and flinch stalling tactics is that the one using sleep or flinch gets outpaced when the foe switches moves. Lyra removes this problem entirely. Then has stronger debuffing game than him. And can buff team crit and an ally's offenses. And had Grassy Terrain, and pulled a Lucas by removing her gauge costs. When it came to generalized disruption, Cyrus lost to Lyra pretty hard. Especially in the Gauntlet meta, flinch just has greater utility than sleep.

On the plus side, his Dark Zone competitor, Champion Calem, came with hilarious restrictions. Only ever 2MP, locked behind needing 10 hits from Buddy move, buffing kit as a support was skewed for physical DPS in a type where special is the way to go. Karen getting her grid expansion, Summer N dropping in with pretty impressive numbers, and then landing wholly on Champion Marnie? Calem meshes okay with them, but is mostly redundant. Meanwhile, Cyrus had the Zone and disruption, which worked out great for them, considering Marnie and Karen also have high flinch rates. Basically, this is a rare moment where the support role compression did not outperform the Tech. The only time Calem outperforms is frankly Masked Royal, who helps unlock his buddy move quickly and loves the physical moves up next.

The thing is, some tools are just good, and will always be good. Sleep is one of them. AoE disruption is fantastic, and Cyrus will never actually lose that effect. As a result, unlike Lucas and Cynthia who are potentially facing competition one day, Cyrus can just shift into being one of the most effective sleep bots the game has to offer. How terrible for him.

SYGNA SUIT DAWN Dawn was...odd. Obviously I loved her, I love when units are weird, but she was not particularly well received. A defense buffing sync pair that cut its own defense and has limited heals? That's weird. Her sync was a nice heal, but only for allies, not for herself. I know why they did it that way, but I also don't wholly agree with it. Her expansion should have Synchro Healing, just saying. All Ramped Up was nice, because it allowed her to combo perfectly with Caitlin, who just needed some Terrain support. In fact, capping crit and giving a little special attack was something a ton of sync pairs appreciated, especially while being bulked up as much as Dawn provided. She also had some unusual tools like Critical Countdown 9 twice for fast ramping, gauge acceleration, Sync Regen, Danger Damage Guard; all sorts of neat tools she could not access all at once.

The thing is, the excitement of Dawn feels very short lived. I still like her, but she's far from what she felt like. Sygna Suit Morty came in not long after, offering much better healing and comparable buffs, while also being good on gauge and compressing Sun. She lost that one instantly. Summer Hilda may not have crit, but the inversion of foe's buffs was fantastic for Gauntlet, while Dawn didn't have much unique for the mode. And then of course, if you're losing to Morty, you're getting bodied by Aura Cynthia. And if you were looking for a good Psychic support that can help with stacks of moves up next, C!Bede is right there, bro.

Dawn is a bit of a relic, in desperate need of an update. At the time, I think they were concerned about the combination of defenses and crit. I don't think that combination had existed on a single button before, and there was likely concern about how strong it would be. And adding in the moves up next effect? Dawn was the second unit ever to provide it as a support; they didn't know what it would do. So they limited it. They gave her a severe limitation, just like they did with Anni Steven and Anni Lillie, and shortly thereafter we find out oops, overshot that one a bit, now they're not that good. The blessing is, PokeFair grid expansions are happening, and they gave one to Bede so they're willing to go modern. Dawn could cut the queue. And I hope she does. This was such a cool alt, and it hurts a bit to see it languish in comparison to the better options that dropped along the way.

#sync pair retrospective #renegade cynthia #lucas #sygna suit cyrus #sygna suit dawn

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