#then boost their offensive and speed stats to the max | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

prettycottonmouthlamia · 9 months ago

Text

My Thoughts on Santalla

lul bad just use Eyja instead

Are they gone? Did I bait them into trying to find the upvote button on tumblr? Good good.

Now I'm going to do a lot of work arguing Santalla from a position of general good faith and wanting to encourage others to experiment with her. That cannot be done without acknowledging that her class, the Splash or AoE Caster, is one of the worst in the entire game. They have very high DP costs, limited range, and pretty low attack speed. This results in a pretty poor DPS even for a class that's meant to manage crowds of enemies. I'm sure we can all post funny numbers about how Eyja does like 8 billion damage. Let's push past that for now. Splash Casters still have their perks. Santalla HP: 1,640 (+155 from Module) ATK: 770 (+90 from Trust) (+32 from Potential 4) (+70 from Module) DEF: 123 RES: 20 Redeployment Time: 70 seconds (-4 sec from Potential 3) DP Cost: 33 (-1 from Potentials 2 and 6) (-8 from Module) Attack Interval: 2.9 seconds Talent: After being deployed for 20 seconds, this unit gains ATK +15% and Status Resistance (+3% ATK from Potential 5) (-5 seconds and +5% ATK from Module)

Let's start with a discussion of the basics. The stats. While not super notable, she is the bulkiest of the 5-star Splash Casters, having better HP and DEF than all of them. She's a little less bulky than either Mostima or Dusk (and considerably less if its Module X Dusk, which it won't be), but this isn't a tanking class so its not a major deal.

Her offense is the key part of the show here. Her ATK with just her trust bonus is 860, which doesn't stack well against Lava's 888, Leonhardt's 863, or Skyfire's 874. Mostima's 939 and Dusk's 1,028 ATK seem to have pigeonholed Santalla into a bulky, unoffensive position.

Santalla's talent is an incredible saving grace here. It's easy to activate and will always be active when her skill is up, and the resulting 15% ATK boost puts her effective ATK at 989, making her more comparable with the 6-stars. The key here, when compared with Leonhardt's, Skyfire's, or Dusk's talents is the general ease of this talent. 20 seconds sounds like a lot, but at Mastery Level 3, her S2 has a 20 second charge time on deployment, so its downtime that's already covered.

If you were to push Santalla to her peak performance, here is how her ATK would compare to the others:

Santalla: 1,183 Lava the Purgatory: 950 Leonhardt: 1,013 (He will always have one stack of his talent due to how video games work: with 8 enemies in range his ATK is 1,351) Skyfire: 977 Mostima: 1,055 Dusk Module Y: 1,144 (Potential max of 1,556 with 18 kills) Dusk Module X: 1,142 (Potential max of 1,690 with 24 kills)

Truthfully, the raw attack stat isn't the most relevant thing on the block. But it does give a decent indicator of what exactly Santalla is working with, and the fact that she can hang with the 6-stars while off-skill is genuinely really impressive, although Leonhardt is probably a little bit better than her at that.

Also worth noting that she gets Status Resistance from her talent. This is cool. Not like, the most insane thing in the world but getting less owned by status occasionally comes up.

From this point forward, I will be discussing what I consider Santalla's base (Max Level and 100% Trust) and near max power (all the goodies, except for potential BUT you get whipped cream to use as you like), and that her talent is always active. This is to give players who maybe are a bit worried about investing her module some idea of how much it impacts her. For the latter, keep in your head that her ATK with her talent up is 1,116.

Her base DPS, assuming she is attacking an enemy with 0 RES, is 341 damage per second. With her module, this increases to 384.

Skill 1

I'm not going to go over this one in detail. No one is wowed by Swift Strike gamma. But to go over what it does to her DPS briefly: +45 ASPD is enough to reduce her attack interval to 2 seconds flat. At base, Santalla's ATK will go up to 1,376, giving her a DPS of 688, about a 102% increase. With her module, she will have an ATK of 1,534, resulting in a DPS of 767, or a 100% increase.

This makes sense. Since Santalla's talent already gives her a decent ATK buff, the improved ATK buff from her module will create a little bit more diminishing returns, and on the whole, the DPS increase is than the expected amount at 210%. On a whole, if you raise this all the way up, Santalla does double damage over 35 seconds. Probably not jumping out of your seats on that one.

Skill 2

Oh boy, this skill. This skill has a lot to cover, let's start with the description.

[Attack Range expands, Attack Interval shortens massively, and attacks now summon icicles over random areas within range. When the icicles fall, all enemies in the area are inflicted with Cold for 1 seconds and dealt 90% of Santalla's ATK as Arts damage.]

Going over it in detail: -Santalla's range expands to include the 4th row, identical to Marksmen snipers -Her attack interval is reduced by 2.4 seconds, all the way down to 0.5 seconds. This means she will attack twice a second, getting in 30 attacks over her skill duration. -Randomly is both correct and not correct. It's time to bring in diagrams.

Icicle falling is semi-random. One icicle will fall in column B (the left column), followed by an icicle in column D (the right column), and finally by an icicle in column C (the middle column). Using the diagram as a metric, you can consider it like this:

Random(B1, B2, B3, B4) THEN Random (D1, D2, D3, D4) THEN Random (C1, C2, C3, C4). (Yes, she can target her own square, this is a reminder to always double check your thinking lol) -Her icicles explode with a radius of 1.5 tiles. To explain what this looks like:

Here is an Attack on "C2". Fortunately, Santalla's effects make it really easy to visually confirm this. Even as she is slaughtering Originium Slugs.

-Cold for 1 second might initially give the impression that Santalla needs to chain together back to back hits with her skill in order to inflict and sustain freeze. This isn't true: she does however need to score a hit within the next two hits.

youtube

I would watch the first six seconds or so on 0.5x speed and count. Santalla is allowed to miss one of her hits and still keep her cold and freeze going. This is going to be really important once we talk about how her probabilities work.

-Each attack will deals damage equal to 90% of Santalla's ATK. This is a modifier applied after her attack buff from her talent, but BEFORE Res is applied. We'll be talking about her damage primarily in 0 RES situations, but this will be important later on for an example. For now, at base, Santalla's icicles will do 890 damage, and with her module they will do 1,004 damage. This is an 11.1% decrease in damage.

With all of that out of the way, phew, let's talk about the skill as a whole. This is a crowd control skill that looks to freeze enemies with multiple icicle hits. This is a pretty nice idea actually. Freeze is a really powerful source of crowd control and an enemy could theoretically be pinned down for the entire 15 second duration. Critically also, being Frozen reduces enemy RES by 15, giving Santalla some sneaky extra damage. This naturally relies on quite a bit of luck though, and enemy position is really, really important.

In particular, you might have been clever and noticed a connection between her attack pattern and how many hits she needs to land to Freeze an enemy and sustain the Frozen condition. The initial hit needs to land, and then one of the two next hits also needs to land. This means that, for any given enemy in her attack range, they need to be hit by an icicle from a different column in order to be frozen.

This also plays very weirdly with enemies outside of her attack range. Since the icicles have an explosion range of 1.5 tiles, she can hit enemies outside of her attack range, but whether she can freeze them or not is actually dependent on where exactly they are outside of her attack frame.

Geometry is fucking sick y'all.

Due to the rules of how this works, Santalla cannot actually freeze enemies outside of her attack range if they are on either side of her attack range. The only icicles that can hit those areas are all from the same column, so it's not viable. Only at the very front and directly behind her attack range are viable options, and its pretty specific both in location and which icicles have to fall. But it is technically possible.

Since we know the rules and can properly map out how each icicle will impact the map, we can do something really interesting: we can calculate a general probability as a guideline for how likely an enemy is to be frozen when in any specific tile. Do note for this I am assuming the enemy is in the center of the tile and not moving. This is a guideline, I am not smart enough to brain out every possible solution and factoring in movement is about my brain grade.

We can discount the middle tile of icicles because those won't factor in here. Assuming out helpful little enemy in C3 was hit, what are the chances that Santalla will freeze him with her next two attacks? Well the left column and the right column have three viable options out of four, so this is pretty simple to figure out. We only need one to hit, so we can include all solutions that include a positive left and right hit (56.25%), all solutions that include a positive left and negative right (18.75%), and vice versa (18.75%). The only solutions left are two negative hits (6.25%) which is out failure rate, giving us a success rate of: 93.75%!

(This is assuming all squares are weighted equally.)

Since the spread is symmetrical, we only have to test for 8 different locations. B1 and D1 are essentially the same but flipped after all.

B1/D1: Only hits in C1 and C2 are positive. This gives us a 50% chance. B2/D2: C1, C2, and C3 are positive. 75% chance. B3/B4: C2, C3, and C4 are positive. 75% chance. B4/D4: C3 and C4 are positive. 50% chance. C1: B1, B2, D1, and D2 are positive. 75% chance. C2: B1, B2, B3, D1, D2, and D3 are positive. 93.75% chance. C3: B2, B3, B4, D2, D3, and D4 are positive. 93.75% chance. C4: B3, B4, D3, and D4 are positive. 75% chance.

The cool thing about rectangles is they are symmetric both ways, which makes the actual math part of this a lot easier. In general:

The closer to the center of the attack range an enemy is, the more likely they will be frozen and remain frozen.

There's one little quirk though I forgot to mention. While icicles will fall randomly in her attack range, they will not fall in squares that are considered out of bounds such as squares occupied by a wall. I mean come on, there couldn't be a map that could be abused with, could there?

Let's say we are sick and tired of that bastard Sarkaz Guerilla Fighter, and he's parked in the center of the first row, and we park Santalla right below him.

Suddenly the top two rows are out of bounds, so when Santalla uses her skill, she will only attack six squares. What happens to the poor Sarkaz Guerilla Fighter who is sitting in C2?

Well C2's positive hits are B1, B2, D1, and D2. Those are the only squares Santalla can hit. So Santalla will perma-freeze the Sarkaz Guerilla Fighter and hit him with all 30 of her attacks of her skill!

(2 * (Damage * 0.5)) + (28 * (Damage *0.65)) is the formula that will tell us how much damage the fighter will take.

At base, the Sarkaz Guerilla Fighter will take: 17,074 damage. With module, the Sarkaz Guerilla Fighter will take: 19,288 damage.

We did it gang. We killed the 10,000 HP Sarkaz Guerilla Fighter because this stage gives him a hidden HP buff. Santalla is the greatest.

Well...no. Even if you can guarantee all 30 hits will lands on an enemy with 0 RES, your total skill damage comes out to 26,700 and 30,120 damage respectively. It is a genuinely pretty impressive DPS, sitting at 1,780 and 2008 respectively, but this requires not only good positioning but also very intentional knowledge of the map. There will be maps where it is simply impossible for Santalla to do this.

You might be wondering what the chances of an enemy in tiles C2 or C3 are of getting hit with all 30 attacks from Santalla's skill. Fortunately, that's very easy. We take the success rate on any attack (75%) and multiply it by itself the number of times we need. 0.75 ^ 30. That can't be that bad right?

0.018%. It's pretty low. Comparatively, you might ask, what are the chances a corner tile enemy is never hit? Well we thankfully can avoid all right-side hits, as those will never hit an enemy on the left side. 10 are automatic misses. The remaining 20 are 50/50s. 0.5 ^ 20.

0.000095%. So okay, to be entirely fair, its really unlikely you will just never hit an enemy. Santalla will generally do _some_ damage and inflict Cold. If you can deploy blockers to keep enemies from leaving her attack range, chances are she's going to do decent work.

The big problem with this skill, the reason I made all the graphics and did the probabilities and what not, is that Santalla is inconsistent. Unless you're smart and use her wisely, there's a good chance that she can not perform to what you need her to do. Figuring how much of an impact she'll have on average is frankly a level of math I'm not qualified to do, but you have to construct her greatest scenarios deliberately. She's not quite plug and play.

Conclusions

There's probably an argument that whatever you want Santalla to do, Gnosis can do better. That's likely true. He's way more consistent at locking down large crowds of enemies with freeze and maintains a pretty good sum of damage on them too. But I think Santalla is the kind of operator who while inconsistent, is going to be fun to optimize and make work. Getting Santalla to work is rather rewarding thanks to the combination of her good DPS and a powerful 14.5 second permafreeze. But you won't always be able to make that happen, and I think planning around her inconsistency will also be an important part in managing her viability.

I think its actually a really good idea to pair her with Gnosis. The massive Fragile debuff Gnosis provides happens at the very end of the damage calculation, which is quite impactful. Santalla can be comboed with other strong crowd control operators too, such as Magallan (lesbians for life), and Saria.

Plus I'm sure if you do the dumbshit buffing set-ups she can take out Patriot. Chop chop. Make it happen.

#arknights #santalla #if you ask why this is so long fuck you i figured out how to make good looking diagrams for arknights shit i deserve this

39 notes · View notes

goosetrainer · 5 months ago

Text

Mari's Tera Raid Guides #18 - Sceptile

It's croc time

(edit: added ice tera option) (it doesn't change much from fairy, it's just more likely that people have more shards available. Tera fairy is very popular)

Skeledirge lv.100

Tera type: Ice / Fairy

Ability: Unaware

Nature: Modest

Item: Covert Cloak

IVs: max HP, defense, special attack (maybe speed?)

EVs: 252 defense, 252 special attack, 4 HP

Moves:

-Torch Song (level up)

-Tera Blast (TM)

-Slack Off (egg move)

-Curse (egg move)

Usage:

Best to use 3 Torch Songs first (but NOT ONE MORE! Save those PP!) so you're ready to terastallize, but after those just stay still until the player stat reset (at 85% time left).

Once you see it go off, terastallize immediately while using Curse (note: DO NOT use Curse before you terastallize). After that, spend some turns setting up: I would do 1 more Curse first, then if you see you're losing health too fast throw one or two more in. Then 6x Torch Songs to maximize your sp.atk. Whenever you find yourself in yellow or red HP, use a Slack Off.

When you're satisfied with your boosts, use 1 Go All Out! cheer - Sceptile's shield is long and he has somewhat decent defenses, while we only have a 1.5x STAB modifier from the tera type... we're gonna need the help.

And NOW you can start Tera Blasting :) only stop for a Slack Off if you need to.

TL;DR: 3x Torch Song, wait for Sceptile to reset your stats, terastallize, Curse x2-4 (depends on passive healing from NPCs), Torch Song x6, Slack Off if needed (half HP or less); 1x offensive cheer (the Go All Out! one), Tera Blast spam (+ eventual Slack Off)

Other options:

If you have a fairy tera and the DLC (or otherwise access to the TMs in it), you can teach your Skeledirge Alluring Voice instead of Tera Blast. Same power, but will confuse the opponent on turns in which it raised its stats (it won't happen all that often, since you're probably gonna use it only towards the end of the battle when Sceptile's stats are all raised to the max, but still...)

Pros:

-easy to use

-easy to get (there was a free one in Pokémon Home)

-Covert Cloak protects from paralysis (and maybe even from the extra crit ratio on Leaf Blade, not sure)

Cons:

-needs tera shards

-yeah, you need Pokémon Home. Unless you have other means to get an Unaware 'dirge

#pkmn #pokemon #pokemon sv #tera raids #guides #gen 9 #sceptile #skeledirge #manifesting the other croc for next raid (feraligatr come home)

4 notes · View notes

crystalelemental · 16 days ago

Text

Unit Teambuilding - Sygna Suit Ingo

Train Bros get their Sygna Suits, cannot say this is overly surprising given their popularity. Not to be a stick in the mud but I still don't get it.

General Overview Ingo comes in as a Sprint/Tech Ghost type, with a...hmm. Okay, this kit is weird.

Will-o-Wisp and Confuse Ray already raise questions on a Fair pair. This isn't exactly setting records for effectiveness, but then again, spamming status is a good way to burn turns in Damage Challenge so the hell do I know? He has Honing Hit but for Sp Atk so its name is stupid, and gains +1 SMUN for the team every action he takes, which is...honestly where the big Damage Challenge money is at. That's some nonsense.

Offensively, his Buddy move is a two-gauge spam that's really weak but doubles in power if the foe is under and status condition or change, with various effects for each. His personal applications are burn lowering Sp Def by 2, and increasing only his own SMUN by 1 if the foe is confused. He has Max Moves, with a natural passive to cut two turns off sync with it, and his TM also hits -2 cooldown, then raises...fuck. Raises speed of all allies by 4. Goddamn you.

His grid offers some pretty good options as well, including boosting all team attacks 20% if foe is afflicted with a status condition, Stop Hitting Yourself to prevent damage, Befuddle 2 for an entry debuff to Sp Def, spread effect on his status change, and Go Viral for burn spread. These are, by all accounts, some pretty good tools.

If, and by god do I mean if, you get him to 10/10, he can also set Ghost Zone with extension effect. If that's your thing.

Now for the negatives. As a partner, his Buddy move is regrettably single-target. So the debuffs are not really spreading fast enough to support Brainteaser/Smarty-Pants sets, sorry Renegade Cynthia. His own damage output, despite the boosts, is also not exactly set to be extreme. His base stats are surprisingly low, and his base power is...well, Anni Lillie 21 tier. He's not exactly accomplishing much. It's worth noting that his debuffs also only apply when attacking with his Buddy move, while his focus is potentially spamming status. Perfectly serviceable, arguably excellent for Anni Lillie 21 as a partner, but I find myself solidly whelmed. He's got the gauge management Ghosts needed, but it's not...quite saving Lillie. You know? And that's what I'm looking at Ghosts to do.

EX, Role, and 10/10 EX is always wise, but especially for Sprint. Sync cooldown acceleration is divine, and kinda the whole meta right now. By role, Strike is fine, but ultimately unimportant. I kinda wish it were Field for Lillie's sake, but god forbid I get anything nice. Instead that's now gated behind this 10/10 function, which is miserable. I highly doubt any non-paying player will see a 10/10 before 4.5 anniversary, given the need for five fucking candy, when the base candy is already so rare F2P players get like one (1) move candy every six months.

Champion Stadium I'm changing the formula of these posts to get with the times, and instead of writing specific teams, writing general trends and functions in each mode.

In CS, Ingo will be excellent but extremely frustrated. Low gauge cost and speed boosting means he's great on the most critical element of DPS, but the conflict in "no status/interference immunity" is severe for him. Not unworkable, but annoying. His single-target DPS and potential spread sync with Strike role will clear stages well independently, but outside of that, he'll do well as a partner to secondary Ghost-type strikers, or any pairs that need Sp Def debuffing or burn, especially both like SS Lys. While Ingo needs nothing from a support, there are two considerations. First, flexibility to his partner, who may be more demanding. Second, if using his sync acceleration, you'll want some Sp Atk/crit to supplement that he's not there in time.

Legendary Gauntlet On the one hand, he independently checks a metric ton of gimmicks with burn and confuse. On the other, he lacks staying power. I don't think he'll excel in the sense of a solo, but I do think he'll be good for duo clears, if that's your thing.

Damage Challenge This is his best mode by far, if I'm understanding it correctly. "When the move is successful" may mean if he doesn't burn, it doesn't proc, which would devastate, but even in that instance, spamming status is a sure-fire way to succeed in Damage Challenge. Ingo brings a lot of tools to the table for this exact aspect. His one and only hiccup is that his status creates effects that consume time, and even if you get Brain Gain, that's another animation. I believe he'll be dominant for Ghost here, but I'm not entirely certain of that either. In the case of single-target, pair with Classic Red and SS Korrina. Ingo can shred Def on a paralyzed target, which Red can produce, then use their sync cooldown stacking to rapidly fire off Korrina's nuke with SEUN applied via Red. For 3v3, same deal but Renegade Cynthia. Ingo really wants to be 3/5 for this, though, to spread burn and get his debuffs moving more easily.

Battle Rally Sprint is a fairly rare move type, particularly for damage. I don't know about you all, but I use my Sprint cakes on Supports like god intended. So I have like no damage dealers in the type. This makes Ingo fairly valuable just by existing, and a potential combination with Victrier on the trickier Field/Sprint combo stages does respond to a lot.

Ultimate Battle Potential On the one hand, Ingo checks many gimmicks. The status and status change are both excellent, as many things use passives that block damage without those skills. What he lacks is something against Clear Advantage or foes that apply weather, so he's falling somewhere around solidly decent but not exceptional, especially given that his own DPS does not feel especially tailored to high numbers. He's acceleration and gimmick checking but not your support, so your offensive partner would need to hard carry. Currently, no other ghost barring R!Cynthia is going to hard carry, and even then only with full investment of EX Role and 3/5.

Final Thoughts I actually really want to like this Ingo. I had hoped to see someone who could really salvage Anni Lillie. But...well, at present, he doesn't. He's not a terrible addition, but what we're still missing is Ghost Zone. No, 10/10 doesn't count, it feels completely inaccessible. I imagine that, pending a support that really hammers in the Ghost Zone and general improvements, this Ingo and Lillie will likely become meta dominant again. But also, Renegade Cynthia is right there doing everything Lillie wants to but better. Especially if Ingo can check all the gimmicks Lillie is supposed to bypass anyway. It's not the pair I wanted. I do think he's strong, though, and worth the consideration. Just...not for me.

#unit teambuilding #sygna suit ingo

2 notes · View notes

all-things-skylanders · 10 months ago

Note

How about Luz Noceda?

Luz Noceda as a Skylander!

Luz would be a Magic element skylander who uses Glyphs to fight her enemies. She'd be a glass cannon, with lots of power behind her attacks, but very little in the way of defense.

Luz is a very versatile character in The Owl House, so to make a cohesive Skylander, I'm going to approach this like my favorite Skylander: Pop Fizz. Where she's designed around maxing out the versatility of one feature: the Glyphs.

Stats:

Health: 200 (Level 1) 600 (Level 20)

Power: 45

Speed: 50

Armor: 20

Critical Hit: 60

Elemental Power: 25

Core Abilities:

Main attack - Glyphs: Luz throws a Light Glyph. The Light Glyph has a fast fire rate and deals low damage.

Starting Special - Defensive Glyph: Luz creates a flash of light in front of herself with the Light Glyph, dealing no damage but stunning all medium or small enemies.

Upgrades:

500 - Glyph Change: Luz unlocks the ability to change Glyphs by pressing the Special 2 button. Each unlocked glyph will change the functions of her Glyphs attack and her Defensive Glyph. Luz also learns the Ice Glyph. The Ice Glyph has a slow fire rate and deals medium damage, but it slows down any enemy hit by it for two seconds. When used in a Defensive Glyph, the Ice Glyph creates an ice wall that can block up to 250 damage before breaking.

700 - Plant Glyph: Luz learns the Plant Glyph. The Plant Glyph has a medium fire rate and deals medium damage. What makes the Plant Glyph unique is that instead of firing a projectile, the glyph instead creates a thorny vine that pierces through multiple enemies. When used in a Defensive Glyph, it creates two large vines that will attack any enemy that gets close and can sustain 100 damage each before breaking.

900 - Fire Glyph: Luz learns the Fire Glyph. The Fire Glyph has a slow fire rate and deals high damage, knocking back any medium or small enemies in the process. When used in a Defensive Glyph, it creates a large explosion of flame that knocks medium or small enemies back a large distance.

1200 - Quick Change: The speed at which Luz changes between her Glyphs is increased.

Upgrade Paths:

Glyph Master: Focus on the power of using Glyphs offensively!

1700 - Magic Boost: Luz's Speed and attack speed are increased by 30% while in Magic boosting zones.

2200 - First Use Boost: Whenever Luz switches Glyphs, the first shot she fires after that will deal double damage.

3000 - Glyph Combo: Hold the attack button for eight seconds and Luz will perform a four-way Glyph Combo! The combo creates a massive explosion of Light, Ice, Plant and Fire Glyphs, dealing huge damage while knocking back, slowing and stunning any enemy hit by it. If the button is not held for the full eight seconds, or if Luz is interrupted, the Combo will backfire and deal 30 damage to Luz.

Defender of the Isles: Build up Luz's abilities to go on defense with her glyphs!

1700 - Witch's Cloak: Luz gets a Witch's Cloak, increasing her Defense by 15. Her Defense will also raise by 30% while in a Magic boosting zone.

2200 - Defender Boost: The ice wall and attacking vines summoned by Luz's Ice and Plant Glyphs each gain 150 more health. The Fire Glyph's knockback is increased.

3000 - Light Dash: the light flash of using the Light Glyph's Defensive Glyph is replaced with a light dash. Luz becomes temporarily invulnerable and dashes a good distance forward, dealing very small damage.

Soul Gem:

4000 - Elementalist: Luz's Glyphs will deal 50% more damage if used in zones that boost their matching area. (Light Glyph = Light zones, Ice Glyph = Water zones, Plant Glyph = Life zones, Fire Glyph = Fire Zones)

#skylanders #toh #the owl house #luz noceda #luz toh

2 notes · View notes

ohthehypocrisy · 11 months ago

Text

Tropius for Pokemon Unite!

Season 1

Season 2

Prev: Cradily - Hatterene

Now, when I say that Gen 3 had a lot of great and unique designs, Tropius is included among them. I mean, a flying fruit bearing tree sauropod? Who else would’ve come up with this design if not for the directors at the helm of Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire? If this pokemon was revealed nowadays, it would probably be ridiculed for how outlandish the concept is. And yet, for what it is, it’s probably what’s remembered the most about it. I mean, after three headed ostriches and piles of literal sludge, the bar has arguably been set very low for quite some time now. How can Tropius be any worse than that as a design?

Wait, we’re supposed to be talking about how great Tropius is. Uhh, dinosaurs are cool, especially flying trees. Imagine having one of these as your friend and it gives you free bananas every day. Yeah, that’d be great. I wish dinosaurs were real.

Too bad Tropius isn’t real in Pokemon Unite, yet.

Now, these stats aren’t all that bad, it’s just that a Grass/Flying typing doesn’t do these numbers any justice. High HP and decent bulk makes for a bulky pokemon, in lower tiers of play. Yeah, Tropius hasn’t had the best life all these years. I mean, with poor offensive stats and super low speed (seriously, it’s faster than the Regi Trio by 1 point!) this pokemon hardly has an impact on any facet of any situation it’s been in.

It’s better known for being a fruit bearing tree dino, and not even the ferocious kind. With nothing else going for it, I designate Tropius with the role of a...

Supporter

Basic Attack - Ranged/Sp. Attack

Becomes a boosted attack after three hits. When boosted, multiple leaves are scattered in a fan formation, reducing the movement speed of the enemy and Stunning them for a bit. Each time a berry is eaten, this boosted basic attack expands and increases its effect on the opposing pokemon. This number resets when the pokemon is KO’d.

At the start of each spawn, your boosted basic attack is a wide ranged leaf attack that reduces movement speed by 5% and Stuns for 0.2 seconds. The speed reduction effect lasts for 2 seconds. After a berry is eaten, the movement speed reduction effect increases by 5% more and enemies are Stunned for an additional 0.16 seconds. Oran Berries are included.

The boosted basic attack count increases to a maximum of 5. When maxed out, the maximum effect becomes; Movement Speed reduced by 30% and Stun for 1 second.

After eating berries and increasing the effect of the boosted basic attack, the increased effect is retained for the next boosted hit. The effect resets after being KO’d and respawned.

The boosted basic attack displays the level of effect gained next to your basic attack icon.

Now, you have to understand that Tropius is defined by its great love for fruits and berries, and that compels all aspects of its gameplay to lean into that. For instance, eating a berry improves how much stronger its boosted basic attack becomes, slowing down the enemy some more, on top of an annoying Stun effect. By itself, the boosted basic attack makes it very annoying to try and chase down Tropius, as the combined effects greatly hinder the enemy’s ability to move forward. So making it stronger by eating berries is sure to give the opposing team a stomachache.

Every time you eat a berry, your boosted basic attack ‘levels up’ and stays that way until you get KO’d, which incentivizes you to eat healthy. It’s also because berries are pretty rare in the late game, so it’s important to stay in tip top shape.

Of course, as a fruit producing tree dinosaur, Tropius actually has an easy time producing its own product to help itself out, as well as its teammates.

Ability: Harvest

Activate to spawn a Nanab berry that heals a little HP and reduces damage taken for a short while. Afterwards, the ability goes on cooldown for 30 seconds. Dealing damage to pokemon on the opposing team with your boosted basic attack and eating berries reduces the cooldown of this ability. When Harvest is active and you eat a field berry, the Nanab berry is replaced by the type of berry eaten. The replaced berry gains extra effects when consumed by you or an ally.

The Nanab Berry restores 15% of the HP of any ally who eats it. It will also reduce damage taken by 30% for 7.5 seconds. When activated, it drops directly in front of Tropius.

The ability goes on cooldown for 30 seconds. Damaging an enemy with your boosted basic attack reduces the cooldown by 1 second. Your moves will also reduce the cooldown by a set amount of time, which will be explained as the move is detailed.

Harvest’s cooldown is reduced by 5 seconds each time a berry is eaten, excluding Oran Berries.

When Harvest is ready to use, eating a field berry changes the Nanab Berry to the eaten berry instead. The eaten berry will then be spawned by you when Harvest is activated, and grants the same effects as the copied berry plus restore an additional 15% HP. Oran Berries are exempt.

The type of berry Harvest will spawn will be displayed on your HUD. It will be a Nanab Berry if no additional effects are in play. Otherwise, it can be changed to a Sitrus Berry or a Salac Berry when affected.

Isn’t there a saying that perfectly describes Tropius’ love for fruit? ‘You are what you have eaten’ or something to that effect? Actually I think it better describes Applin or Trubbish. Anyway, the ability to produce your own food is something very few animals have, like chickens. Am I comparing Tropius’ delicious berries to a chicken’s delicious egg? This is getting out of hand. Moving on.

So, when Harvest is used, a Nanab berry is dropped, as it’s the berry that closest resembles the bananas hanging off of Tropius’ neck. Why is it yellow anyway? Forget about that, being able to make berries from nothing makes you a walking vending machine for your teammates, as its hearty 15% HP recovery and defense boost is a savory snack at any time during battle. Side note, since the Nanab berry is a consumable berry, it can be stolen by Hoopa, the only other pokemon that can ‘make’ berries, so watch out for that crafty little thief.

Tropius is a real cultivar extraordinaire, as it can crossbreed the berry it produces with the ones it eats. And it’s not without difference, as the produced berry gains the effect of both the eaten berry and the Nanab Berry. For example, Sitrus Berries heal a flat 1500 HP when eaten, which is a lot or a little, depending on how much HP the pokemon eating them has. But when Tropius eats it while Harvest is ready, the resulting Berry spawned is a Sitrus Berry that heals 1500 HP plus an additional 15%, along with a very helpful damage reduction buff, same as the Nanab berry. This will also work with Salac Berries, granting a major movement speed buff along with all the extra healing and defense boost the Nanab berry would’ve provided.

This means that Tropius eating berries not only benefits you, but also your teammates when you use Harvest afterwards. You’re basically doubling a berry and increasing its effect for your team. Provided you’re diligently keeping your team healthy with your spawned berries.

Being able to reliably heal your allies provides the team with a valuable crutch later on in the game, as Sitrus Berries become rare or disappear altogether in the late game. Even so, there are other ways to actually make more berries than through just the Harvest Ability alone, as you’ll soon see.

At the start of the game, you can choose between Growth and Leaf Tornado as your first move. By Level 3, you’ll have learned both.

Move 1: Growth (Recovery)

Restores a little bit of HP and boosts your Attack and Sp. Attack by a little bit. Reduces the cooldown of Harvest by 5 seconds. If Harvest is used during Growth, the dropped berry gains the Attack and Sp. Attack boost and additional recovery when the berry is eaten. 10s cooldown.

Growth restores your HP by 10% and boosts your Attack and Sp. Attack by 25% for 5 seconds. It also reduces the cooldown of Harvest by 3 seconds.

If Harvest is activated while the Growth boost is active, the dropped Berry gains Growth’s boosting and recovery effects as well.

Tropius can eat the Growth boosted berry to reset Growth’s boosting effect on itself.

Harvest can spawn a Sitrus Berry or a Salac Berry while Growth is active, combining the eaten berries effect with the Growth boost. The combined effects total an additional 25% healing and an Attack and Sp. Attack boost to either the Sitrus Berry or Salac Berry when spawned.

Berries enhanced by Growth will ‘shine’ while on the field.

The fruits of one’s labor is flavored with the blood, sweat, and tears of the laborer, which makes it all the sweeter when you take that first bite. Yeah, this sounds gross, but we’re talking about a Grass Type pokemon so it’s tasteful, I think.

Growth gives you a simple bit of HP recovery along with an Attack and Sp. Attack boost. It also reduces the cooldown of Harvest a little bit when used, so using it at every opportunity is beneficial to your role as a Supporter. If you pop a Nanab Berry while Growth is powering you up, however, the dropped berry gains extra effects.

Because Tropius is growing these berries for the team, changes to its health and mood affect the flavor of the fruit it produces, and Harvest Berries are no different. If you drop a Nanab Berry while Growth is active, the berry gains extra healing and even an Attack and Sp. Attack boost to whoever eats it. The extra effects total to 25% healing and a 25% Attack and Sp. Attack buff for 5 seconds, which can help an ally turn the tide of a fight very easily.

If you switch the berry out with a Sitrus or Salac Berry, Growth will also add to the berry’s total effects, granting another 1500 HP recovery or a big speed boost, depending on which fruit drops.

Just be careful that these berries don’t get stolen by the enemy team. That’d be...rotten.

Move 2: Leaf Tornado (Area)

Creates a whirling vortex of sharp leaves, dealing damage continuously. Enemies will have their vision reduced while within Leaf Tornado. 7s cooldown.

Leaf Tornado affects the designated area for 4 seconds, dealing weak continuous damage over time to enemies and also obscures their vision while within the area of effect.

The vision obscuring effect is an effect of the move itself and not a hindrance inflicted on the enemy through the move. Hindrance protection and clearing will not prevent Leaf Tornado from obscuring the vision of affected enemies.

A simple whirlwind of leaves thick enough to obscure the vision of all enemies within, Leaf Tornado is admittedly a simple move. Being able to set down a short-lived attack is handy in some situations, but it’s not the most impressive attack, especially since it doesn’t hinder the enemy in any other significant way. I mean, the enemy can easily just walk out of the attack, as the move doesn’t deal enough damage to threaten even frail Attackers.

It is what it is, and it’s best not to overcomplicate things here. Tropius is trying their best, ok?

At Level 5, Growth becomes either Synthesis or Dragon Dance.

Move 1a: Synthesis (Recovery)

You and all nearby allies recover HP, and the cooldown of Harvest is reduced. The more pokemon healed, the more the cooldown is reduced. When Synthesis is used while at full HP, the cooldown of Harvest is reduced even more. While Synthesis is on cooldown, press the button again to switch the type of berry that Harvest will spawn. 9.5s cooldown.

At Level 10, Synthesis becomes Synthesis+.

Increases the area of effect. Also reduces damage taken while the move is on cooldown.

All allies within range restore 20% HP, including Tropius.

The cooldown of Harvest is reduced by 6 seconds. For each Ally that had their HP restored, an additional 2 seconds is reduced. If your HP was full when Synthesis is used, Harvest has its cooldown reduced by 9 seconds instead.

If Synthesis is used again while the move is on cooldown, the next berry made by Harvest will change into a Sitrus Berry. These berries are the same as Sitrus Berries crossed with the Nanab Berries you normally make with Harvest. This effect is reset after Harvest is used.

Synthesis+ expands the area of effect and reduces damage taken by 30% while the move is on cooldown.

A full range healing move is admittedly pretty rare in Pokemon Unite, with the closest example being Clefable’s Moonlight. 20% HP recovery is comparable to a free Potion for all teammates in range, and it also drastically reduces the cooldown of Harvest when used. The more teammates you heal, the bigger the cooldown reduction, which makes you much more dependable as a dispenser of delicious fruits.

Synthesis also has an extra effect where, if you use the move again while it’s on cooldown, you’ll change the Harvest Berry from a Nanab to a Sitrus Berry. Now, that would normally be a downgrade, but this berry is dropped with the same effect as a Nanab boosted crossbreed with the Sitrus Berry. As in, it’ll restore 15% HP, boosts your defenses, and heal an extra 1500 HP. On top of the healing of Synthesis, you can heal yourself or an ally a grand total of 35% HP plus 1500 HP. That’s some very healthy eating!

The upgrade, Synthesis+, expands the range of healing, making it easier to keep the whole team healthy. But it also comes with extra damage reduction while the move is on cooldown, effectively buffing your defenses in the late game. Combined with eating the super Sitrus Berry you can spawn, you’ll have defenses comparable to a Defender.

Of course, you have to keep in mind that your base stats are very low as a Supporter, so don’t get overconfident just because you have a vegan diet (is it still vegan food if it’s made by a Tropius? I’m genuinely asking).

Move 1b: Dragon Dance (Buff)

Boosts your Attack, Sp. Attack, and movement speed greatly for 7 seconds. Press the button again during the cooldown to switch the type of berry that Harvest will spawn. Also, if Harvest is activated while the boost is active, the dropped berry grants the same boost to whichever ally eats it. 10s cooldown.

At Level 10, Dragon Dance becomes Dragon Dance+.

Increases the boosts gained and the cooldown of Harvest is reduced for each KO you or an ally get while under the effects of the boost.

Your Attack, Sp. Attack, and Movement Speed are increased by 30% for 7 seconds while Dragon Dance is active. Dragon Dance+ increases all of these boosts to 50% instead.

If Dragon Dance is used while the move is on cooldown, the Nanab Berry spawned through Harvest will become a Salac Berry instead. The spawned berry grants the same movement speed boost as the field berry, plus the Nanab Berry healing and boosts.

If Harvest is used while the Dragon Dance boost is in effect, the boosts are imparted onto the Berry dropped, granting you or the ally the same boost.

Eating the Dragon Dance boosted berry resets the duration of the boost on yourself.

While Dragon Dance+ is active, each KO reduces the cooldown of Harvest by 6 seconds, whether you or an ally scored the KO with the boost.

While Tropius may not look like it, everything about its physiology suggests that it is a dragon. Four legs, long neck, and a set of wings define a dragon, even though it’s lacking a big tail for the most part. Yet, that doesn’t stop it from learning Dragon Dance, which grants it a pretty sizable buff to its Attack, Sp. Attack, and Movement Speed.

However, Tropius is too weak to use these boosts effectively, especially since it’s supposed to be a Supporter. The idea is to instead impart these effects into the berry you drop through Harvest, which grants your allies the same buff to their stats, along with a 15% heal and slight boost to their defenses. If you feed the Dragon Dance boosted berry to a reliable ally, you and that player can certainly tear things apart together and spread ruin, like actual dragons from mythology.

Just like Synthesis, Dragon Dance changes the berry you can make from a Nanab Berry into a Salac Berry. The newly formed berry grants the same boost to your Movement Speed, but also adds in the healing and defense boost of the Nanab Berry. But if you were to do this and then spawn the berry while Dragon Dance is active, you’ll spawn a Salac Berry that combines the movement speed boost, the healing, the defense boost, and the attack boost of all three abilities and berries. Who needs a laboratory to make a super serum when you’ve got Tropius cooking in the kitchen?

Just make sure the berry doesn’t get stolen.

I should also quickly mention that Dragon Dance+ increases all the boosts as an upgrade but also makes it easier to reduce the cooldown of Harvest. With each KO you or an ally get while under the effects of Dragon Dance+, the cooldown of Harvest is reduced by 6 seconds. In a standard battle, landing a full team wipe is enough to completely reset the cooldown of Harvest, so go crazy with that hearty superfood you’ve grown all by yourself.

At Level 7, Leaf Tornado becomes either Leaf Storm or Air Slash.

Move 2a: Leaf Storm (Area)

Summon a hurricane of leaves at the designated area, dealing damage constantly for 5 seconds. Reduces the enemy’s vision while they are within Leaf Storm. 8.5s cooldown.

At Level 12, Leaf Storm becomes Leaf Storm+.

Expands the area of effect.

Leaf Storm deals moderate continuous damage over time within an area of effect. Enemies within also have their vision obscured while the move is active.

Just like Leaf Tornado, Leaf Storm’s vision obscuring effect is caused by the move itself and not as a hindrance inflicted on the enemy. This means that Full Heal and other hindrance protection will not stop the vision obscuring effect of Leaf Storm. Umbreon’s Mean Look works in the exact same way.

Leaf Storm+ slightly increases the area of effect.

While Leaf Tornado was just kind of plain in its damage and effect, Leaf Storm is a pretty beefy upgrade as it more than doubles in size and damage. A massive whirlwind of leaves obscures the vision of all enemies within, which cannot be cleared by hindrance protection as it is an effect of the move itself and not a hindrance inflicted on them.

While the move is pretty big, it can still be walked out of as it doesn’t apply any other effect to enemies caught in the attack. However, Leaf Storm is a secret counter to sure hit moves, as they require visible enemies to be in range, but Leaf Storm prevents such moves from being used. This is why things like Absol’s Sucker Punch and Dragonite’s Hyper Beam cannot hit invisible enemies like Inteleon or Phantom Force Dragapult as they cannot see the enemy and cannot lock on. If you get the feeling that the enemy will run similar sure hit moves like that, Leaf Storm can be a bigger boon than it may seem, helping your team out.

Plus, the ability to deal continuous damage in a wide area is very useful for securing objectives like Regieleki, especially when boosted by Dragon Dance. Just, remember that Tropius still has pretty low stats, so don’t go thinking you’ll be scaring any Defenders or All-Rounders away with your whirligig lawn trimmings.

Move 2b: Air Slash (Ranged/Hindrance)

Unleashes a projectile blade made of air in the designated direction, Stunning an enemy briefly. 5.5s cooldown.

At Level 12, Air Slash becomes Air Slash+.

The size of the explosion effect increases, making it possible to stun multiple enemies.

Air Slash creates an explosion of turbulence at the point of impact, stunning an enemy for 0.5 seconds.

Air Slash+ increases the size of this explosion, making it possible to stun multiple enemies. However, the size is not that great and enemies would have to be huddled together in order to stun multiple at once.

The projectile explodes on contact with the first target it hits.

A long range Stun attack is not an uncommon attack in Pokemon Unite. Mr. Mime’s Confusion, Pikachu’s Thunderbolt, and Espeon’s Psyshock all have similar effects, but unfortunately, this is really all Tropius can muster as a move.

It’s not a bad move, per se, it’s just a bit on the underwhelming side. I mean, Supporters aren’t expected to deal big damage, right? It’s ok if a Supporter can do enough by stunning enemies from far away, even if it’s not a unique effect. After all, the surprisingly low cooldown makes it easy to use repeatedly, and the long range means it can be used safely from a distance.

It also creates a lot of turbulence when combined with your boosted basic attack after a few berries. 5.5 seconds of cooldown may seem like so little time, but in the heat of battle, you’re going to be fending off Speedsters and All-Rounders wishing you had just a microsecond of more time to fire off another Air Slash. That’s why, on top of either Synthesis or Dragon Dance, you utilize your boosted basic attack to calm down the entire crowd of enemies in front of you and run off to create some space.

Causing mass stuns and debuffs is one of two sides to the coin that is playing as a Supporter, with providing great boons and healing being the other half. However you play as Tropius, you are playing as a fully realized team player.

Unite Move: An Apple A Day (Buff/Recovery)

The user eats a Big Apple, restoring HP and resetting the cooldown of your moves and Harvest. After a while, an Apple is dropped to the ground where the user is. When an ally eats this Apple, their HP is restored by 25% and the cooldown of their moves is reset and is prevented from going on cooldown for 4.5 seconds.

An Apple A Day restores Tropius’s HP by 40% and fully resets the cooldown of all of your moves as well as Harvest.

After 10 seconds, a regular sized Apple drops where Tropius is, which can then be eaten by one of your allies. This can be seen as an Apple Icon displayed over your head and slowly fills in like a clock. Tropius itself cannot eat this Apple, as it is too full from eating a Big Apple.

When an ally eats the Apple, the cooldown of their moves is reset and prevented from going on cooldown for 4.5 seconds. Enemies and allies will see this effect active with an Apple Icon over their head.

Enemies cannot eat the dropped Apple. The Apple lingers on the ground for 15 seconds before disappearing.

If you’re wondering why ‘Big’ and ‘Apple’ is capitalized, that’s because this Unite Move is a reference to the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games. While the items in those games didn’t really restore your HP, they granted a major boost to your stamina, fighting off hunger and helping you stay in the adventure for longer.

However, in Pokemon Unite, An Apple A Day does two different things for Tropius and the team. First, it restores a huge chunk of your HP immediately, as the apple is big enough to completely fill up your belly. Not only that, it resets the cooldown of all of your moves and your Harvest ability, allowing you to get some extra healing if required. However, it’s not a Berry, so it doesn’t affect your basic attack and level it up or anything.

Speaking of Harvest, since Tropius just ate a huge fruit, it’ll make one of its own and drop off a regular sized Apple in front of itself soon after. However, Tropius’ belly is way too full for it to eat again, so it’ll stay there for your allies to take instead. And when they take it, they’ll find that not only does it restore their HP, it’ll also reset the cooldown of all of their moves and even keep those moves from going on cooldown for 4.5 seconds!

Four and a half seconds is a very small amount of time to work with, but it’s just long enough for a teammate to do some serious damage, especially if an Attacker or Speedster ate the Apple. It could also really help out a Defender or an All-Rounder single-handedly win a fight against the entire enemy team, provided you give back up with either Leaf Storm or Air Slash. And don’t worry about dine and dashers, as the Apple can only be eaten by your teammates.

Speaking of which, for such a powerful effect, 10 seconds is a long time to wait for the apple to drop to the ground. It’s not like you can just pop the Big Apple and immediately grants your teammates a 4.5 second round of Fully Fury Mode. The Unite Move has to be premeditated, especially as part of a plan of attack. Depending on who you’ve coordinated with, An Apple A Day can either win the battle, or lose the war.

Nature provides a bounty for those who take care of it, but it cannot be rushed. Protect Tropius, and Tropius will provide for you.

Achievements

Heal over 5000 HP to your teammates in a single battle.

As a Supporter, Tropius employs healing or self boosting moves along with some disruptive attacks, but that’s all it has. At least, that’s all it would have without Harvest. The ability to create and mix berries together with Harvest is what grants Tropius a unique role in Pokemon Unite, separate from other Supporters.

By dutifully providing berries to your allies and healing them, you are not only fulfilling the role of a Supporter, but also able to sustain yourself. Now, in order to use Harvest liberally throughout the match, you need to reduce the cooldown of the ability as much as you can, as often as you can. And you can do that by eating berries yourself and slinging your basic attack all over the place.

Mastering Synthesis or Dragon Dance+ is also helpful in reducing the cooldown of Harvest, so this Achievement covers a lot of bases in helping players learn how to play Tropius.

Holowear

Tropius really loves fruit, and thankfully, so do we humans. There’s a lot of career choices out there for the lovable tree dino, so let’s see what Tropius can pull off in a professional setting. First off, Farmer Style Holowear gives it a frayed straw hat and a checkered flannel shirt under a pair of overalls tailored to its body shape. To actually process the fruits of its labor, Cook Style Holowear dresses it up in a chef’s hat and overcoat, along with a dainty little red ascot. Maybe it can learn to relax a bit and go with Vacation Style Holowear, giving it an undiscerning cap and glasses and a cheeky Hawaiian tee. Perhaps with Waiter Style Holowear, it can serve juicy appetizers in a professional vest and tie, and a platter balanced delicately on its head. And lastly, Fruit Style Holowear makes Tropius resemble a Brazilian dancer with a bright red dress, along with one of those hats absolutely overflowing with fruit, but instead of fruit its berries, since actual fruits don’t exist. Nope, none, especially not bananas and apples. Nuh uh.

However Tropius brings you fruit, it’ll serve while serving up looks. Gotta look fancy and fresh while delivering fancy fresh fruits, you know?

Strategy

Supporters have one job, and that’s the support the team, either by healing or buffing their teammates or by disrupting the opposing team. Tropius is made by its Harvest ability, the ability to spawn a Nanab berry that can restore their HP and boost their defenses for a short while. These spawned Nanab berries can be crossbred and enhanced by eating other berries or by using them while under the effects of a boost. As such, diligent supporting requires that you master this ability, as I’ve explained before in the Achievements section.

The cooldown of the Harvest ability is a whopping 30 seconds, but it goes down a bit when you deal damage with your basic attack and each time you eat a berry, including the one Harvest spawns. However, those berries better serve your allies than yourself, so you need to be constantly in the fight and save the field berries for yourself to keep Harvest’s cooldown low. At the beginning of the game, Growth lowers the cooldown by a meager 3 seconds, but if the Harvest ability is ready to use, you can use it to power up the Nanab berry Harvest spawns. It’s very useful to power up yourself or a teammate for when the enemy Jungler shows up in your lane.

Because of your passive nature as a Supporter, Tropius reaches its full potential sooner than other pokemon. By that I mean that your movekit is fully loaded at level 7, and the moves are fully upgraded at level 12. But what moves to run will depend on what the team composition of both yours and your opponents looks like. A bulky crew of Defenders and All-Rounders can easily be saved with a well placed Synthesis, and diligent healing cuts down a lot of Harvest’s cooldown time. Dragon Dance, however, is very useful to power up ally ranged Attackers, allowing them to deal more damage from afar along with a mild defense boost for safety. Plus, Dragon Dance+ gives you the biggest cooldown reduction to Harvest when you or an ally KO an enemy while under the effect of the boost, rewarding hyper aggressive offense and pushes.

Leaf Storm and Air Slash aren’t the toughest choices to pick, as neither one is any more effective or ineffective than the other. Like mentioned before, Leaf Storm blinds the enemy team caught in the attack, rendering their sure hit moves useless until they can leave. Air Slash is a long range Stun attack, of which there are already a lot of those moves in the game, so it’s only useful when providing back-up for a melee attacker or Defender on your team. These disruptive moves work very well with your basic attack though, as it Stuns and slows enemies down with each boosted hit. It needs 3 hits to become boosted though, making it really slow, and requires a healthy diet of berries to become substantially boosted as well, but if you know how to stay alive, you can provide some valuable cover fire for your allies with it and Leaf Storm or Air Slash.

The Unite Move, An Apple A Day, is a different beast altogether, as it provides a unique effect of powering up your teammates to an insane level. Firstly, it heals a lot of HP, which can save your butt in the heat of battle, and it also resets the cooldown of all of your moves and Harvest. Combined with Synthesis and Harvest spawning a Nanab Berry, this Unite Move is the first ever instance of ‘burst healing’ (Goodra can also burst heal, but you’d need to deal direct damage to enemies with Dragon Pulse and has to hit enemies bogged down by Gooey, so it sort of doesn’t count, sort of). After finishing off the apple, Tropius will spawn another one meant for your teammates, which also heals and resets the cooldown of all of their moves as well. Not only that, the apple keeps their moves from going on cooldown for 4.5 seconds, allowing them to go absolutely insane with their moves. Speedsters will start zipping around like their hitting the peak of a sugar rush, Attackers will unload shot after shot of high powered attacks, Defenders will start shoving enemies around like a broom on a dusty floor, and All-Rounders will go buck wild with impunity. Of course, it requires proper coordination to pull it off, and you’re putting a lot of faith in your teammates to do what is necessary, but good supporting requires meeting your allies in the middle and expecting them to do their part after you’ve done yours.

All Tropius wants to do all day is eat fruit, but it can help its friends out by sharing its spoils with them. Keeping your friends happy and healthy and providing them with the bounty of nature is what an altruistic supporter aims to do. Take care of nature, and it will take care of you.

And that’s Tropius for Pokemon Unite! Hey so here’s a fun fact, there was a leak a long while ago about Tropius that might’ve shown that it was coming to Pokemon Unite, but we never got an update on that story. Supposedly, there was data for it to suggest that it might’ve been playable in a future update, but later updates removed it. It didn’t stop me from making and posting this, though I would’ve been very miffed if it turns out that Tropius was indeed coming to the game at a moment where this draft was almost done. Glad I held out.

That’s not to say that it can’t happen. I mean, someone has to like this fruit dinosaur enough that there were plans to put it into the game. Maybe we’ll be seeing playable Tropius next year, or the year after that, who knows.

Anyway, I’ve got other posts to finish. Hope you enjoyed the read. See ya!

#Tropius #Pokemon Unite

3 notes · View notes

fushigidane · 1 year ago

Note

You are now legally required to infodump about the gameplay mechanics that you think up for video games fanfics.

HELLO BELOVED MUTUAL I AM VERY HAPPY YOU ASKED

it involves a variety of things like sometimes when i am writing FE fic i'll think about hypothetical level designs, recruitment requirements for certain characters in the au, things like that

what's got me thinking about this NOW is i've been brainstorming a fe awakening/XC3 fic for the past couple weeks and considering what their classes would be

the ones i've got most for are lucina and severa, who with cynthia would be the kevesi trio here. i'm only including six characters bc i'd overload myself otherwise,,

lucina is an attacker with good all-round stats but particularly strong atk, dex, and agility. her class skills:

aether: chance to pierce/heal dealt damage

charm: party accuracy up

dual strike: grants art follow-up to party members within a fixed radius [lvl 5 inheritance]

awakening: increased crit/accuracy/avo at low health [lvl 15 inheritance]

for plot reasons, her blade (i.e. the one summoned through the iris) ISN'T falchion. her blade is a lance-staff combination that deals good damage while empowering allies, bc i feel that mix of offence and support is How Lucina Should Be. falchion, unlocked later, would come with its own set of arts (which are more strongly offensive) and probably be switched to via the talent art.

severa is a defender. she acts as a hybrid dodge/hp tank, having strong hp, agility, and def but lower dex and atk [stats based off her fates incarnation]. she also has high base crit. her class skills:

competitive: increases damage dealt to enemies targeting her

triumphant: boosts aggro when dealing a critical hit

strong riposte: increases damage dealt when hp is 50% or lower [lvl 5 inheritance]

fierce rival: increases crit rate for every critical hit performed by an ally [lvl 15 inheritance]

she uses a sword, generating aggro via swift attacks and high aggro arts. some of her arts also have crit recharge, and her talent art has crit damage up. she has less focus on party defence than other defenders tend to, which is complemented by lucina and cynthia’s ability to more or less handle themselves. this is a fun class to put in the context of xc2 bc it'd one where you'd equip an avant-garde medal (crit healing) and win

the last of this trio is cynthia, a healer, and i've got less ideas for her right now? she's similar to lucina but has more focus on support than offence. i'm considering making her fairly buff-focused though not as broken as signifier is. her provisional skills:

rally speed: increases ally evasion within a fixed radius

heroic spirit: boots party damage dealt by 5-10% for each active buff (max: 200%)

luna: when landing a hit, deals damage as though enemy ether defence was 30-50% lower [lvl 5 inheritance]

[unnamed]: increases healing power with number of party buffs

luna would be the inheritable ether counterpart to ultimate qigong (same skill but physical def), which is REALLY needed in the xc3 meta. i don't know much about her arts yet either but they'll probs be ether-based.

i've planned much less for this au's agnian trio (owain, inigo, brady) BUT vague outlines:

owain is the defender purely because the way he acts and stuff he says can't NOT draw attention. he also has good crit, like severa, and basically all his arts are ether + AOE to some extent. he's more the hp sponge type of tank, being very good at handling crowds of enemies (and probs has a skill that reduces damage taken per no. enemies in battle)

inigo is the attacker with good combo access (topple + smash) and strong offence. he can find himself taking aggro from owain at times. to counter this he has a skill called "stop staring at me!" that increases damage dealt to enemies targeting him (he makes them stop targeting him by killing them, which is exactly how i play the attacker role in-game) and his talent art both has increased damage when aggroed AND eliminates aggro.

brady is the healer, and a very traditional one at that, dealing in strong healing, reducing party damage, and increasing party debuff resistance. his blade is a staff. one of his skills, which is inheritable, is:

miracle: 50-70% chance to survive a KO with 1hp and five seconds of invincibility (once per battle, does not stack) [lvl 5 inheritance]

bc i don't actually think any other class gives you that aside from soulhacker.

anyway, if you got this far you have my congratulations and eternal respect. this was fun to ramble about :DDD ty for the ask!

#xenoblade #xc3 #fire emblem #fe13

5 notes · View notes

marigoos · 2 years ago

Text

Time for pokémon guides again? Time for pokémon guides again. Maybe I should make a sideblog.

Sorry for always sharing these solo builds last minute. I didn't realize how many are still having trouble. Anyway, single pokémon that can beat both Walking Wake and Iron Leaves (not online tested, we play offline and completely solo in this house). I call this set Tadpole against The Time Traveling Tyrants, T5 for short (spoiler it's a Bellibolt)

Bellibolt lv.100

Tera type: Electric (duh)

Ability: Electromorphosis

Item: Magnet

Nature: Modest/Quiet

IVs: all max except speed and attack

EVs: these can be flexible. 252 sp. atk. mandatory, the rest can be all hp, all def, or half hp half def. I know all def and half/half work for sure, no data on all hp (will work with walking wake not sure with iron leaves)

Moveset:

- Reflect (TM)

- Light Screen (TM)

- Parabolic Charge (egg move, only Miraidon and Dedenne learn it rn)

- Acid Spray (TM)

Really, if you're not familiar with anything above or below ask for an explanation! Am here to help

Usage

Ok so this pokémon is actually a pretty common, standard raid build. It's pretty straightforward: good natural bulk that can be boosted even more with the screens, stat debuff that's not blocked by the tera shield, offensive move that's STAB with built-in healing. I recycled it from the Decidueye raid and I've been using it for normal 5-6* raids too, it's very good, recommended for everyday den farming. The only difference is that I didn't give it Electric Terrain (it's just one more turn on WW, actively detrimental on IL) and instead taught it both screens. When you've used a TM once you can always make the mon remember it at any time without consuming a new one, so you can freely experiment!

Most of the times you just gotta Acid Spray x3, terastallize, then spam Parabolic Charge. Obv it still has its issues (mainly ground types).

Walking Wake

This is. Pretty easy. I have to say that if you have a common raid-built Azumarill you can use that too, it's what I did the first time and it only took a couple of blind tries to win~

The first attack is probably gonna look pretty scary, especially if you have a build with less hp EVs (I used the 252def one), so start with Light Screen. You're also probably gonna need Parabolic Charge on turn 2 to recover from the damage. Honestly the type matchup is good enough that you can finish without using Acid Spray at all, unless WW used Noble Roar (but only do that if you're at full hp and with Light Screen on)(btw one Acid Spray is enough to neutralize the effects of two Noble Roars). Terastallize a.s.a.p. since you will get your tera charge stolen at some point, but it should be done in less than 10 turns and with minimal setting up. Congrats!

TL;DR: Light Screen, Parabolic Charge x3, terastallize, Parabolic Charge spam till dead. Only use Acid Spray every 2 Noble Roars to keep your offensive power up, possibly not needed

Iron Leaves

This one is more difficult. The Bellibolt used was a 128hp 128def one iirc. Less hp more def will work better against Iron Leaves, but you may want one with hp only to use as a generalist raider. It was a pretty comfortable fight anyway.

You may want to reset for good NPC allies. Those with Intimidate (like Staraptor and Arcanine) can help by lowering the enemy's attack right away, and Arboliva will overwrite the field basically on the first turn, lowering Iron Leaves' best stat much sooner than expected, and making Psyblade much weaker. Drifblim can burn it. Even just one of the above will help a lot!

Open with Reflect, after that the start of the battle is relatively safe. Giving you the time for some much needed Acid Spray. Only 3 to reduce its sp. def. to the minimum, then you can terastallize (IL also steals your tera charge so it's better done sooner than later), then start Parabolic Charging. It will reset its stat modifications sometime around half of its shield, but it happens pretty late and by then you should be fine with just one more Acid Spray before resuming Parabolic Charge. At that point you should be terastallized and the electric field should be gone, so unless it used more than one Sword Dance you won't even need to reapply Reflect.

TL;DR: Reflect, Acid Spray x3, terastallize, Parabolic Charge until Iron Leaves resets own stats, then Acid Spray x1-2 then Parabolic Charge till death. Be aware of Bellibolt's health and Iron Leaves' attack boosts

PROS:

- single typing so you will find the right tera type 100% on wild ones (as in not from dens, not wild tera)

- very very common pokémon (can be found already evolved and at high levels in Area Zero too)

- ability needed is one of the regular ones

- useful for high ranking tera raids in general

- stupidly cheap held item (can be bought in a Delibird Present)

- a single build can be used for both raids, so you can train just one and then trade it to a friend to help them even if they have the other version

CONS:

- uh, probably that you need to catch a Dedenne for the egg move (unless you have Violet)

- ehhh TMs

[I wanted to add images but it's late I will do it tomorrow]

#pokemon #pkmn #pokemon sv #tera raids #tera raid battles #walking wake #iron leaves #bellibolt #ofc the harder one is on the version I don't own directly so I need to exchange info with guinea pigs #btw first round I devised a forretress build of all things. it worked but was slow as all hell ahahah still pretty proud of it #it was my first personalized raid build bc even looking around the web we could only find multiplayer ones #and unlike scizor it can be caught any day with no trading

3 notes · View notes

sanriofighterdigit · 8 days ago

Text

#HelloKitty #SamuraiSkirtsBattleDoll

Here’s a potential set of stats and abilities for the Hello Kitty Battle Doll in the Samurai Skirts TCG and MOBA:

Hello Kitty Battle Doll Stats:

Health (HP): 850 Represents Hello Kitty's durability and resilience in battle. She’s not the strongest in pure defense but has high agility and healing potential.

Attack Power: 70 A balanced attack that allows her to deal moderate damage while focusing on support and healing abilities.

Defense: 60 Moderate defense, representing her ability to withstand attacks but not specialized in tanking.

Speed: 95 Hello Kitty’s agility lets her evade attacks and quickly reposition, giving her an edge as a swift support character.

Magic Power: 120 Her charm and magical energy are her strengths, used to support allies or enchant enemies.

Healing Factor: 80 A unique stat allowing her to heal herself and allies effectively over time, making her an essential support in teams.

Abilities:

Gift of Kindness (Ultimate Ability)

Description: Hello Kitty channels her energy into a large gift box, creating a shield around herself and nearby allies that absorbs damage for a short time.

Effect: Grants a shield equal to 20% of her max health to all nearby allies for 5 seconds. Also heals allies by 10 HP per second during the duration.

Cooldown: 45 seconds

Bow of Brilliance (Passive)

Description: Her iconic red bow grants her passive magic resistance and a slight healing effect whenever she takes damage.

Effect: Reduces magic damage taken by 15%. Each time she’s hit by magic attacks, she regenerates 5 HP over 2 seconds.

Charm Burst (Active Ability)

Description: Hello Kitty releases a burst of charming energy from her bow, stunning nearby enemies and lowering their attack speed.

Effect: Deals 50 magic damage and stuns enemies within a small radius for 1 second, reducing their attack speed by 20% for 3 seconds.

Cooldown: 20 seconds

Present Strike (Active Ability)

Description: Using her gift-like weapon, she strikes an enemy, dealing bonus magic damage and temporarily boosting her allies' attack power.

Effect: Deals 75 magic damage and increases all nearby allies’ attack power by 10% for 4 seconds.

Cooldown: 18 seconds

Healing Aura (Passive Ability)

Description: Hello Kitty’s gentle presence emits a soothing aura, slowly restoring health to herself and nearby allies.

Effect: Regenerates 5 HP per second to herself and allies within a small radius.

Role in Battle:

Hello Kitty is designed as a supportive, mid-range character in the Samurai Skirts universe. She excels at buffing allies, healing, and providing strategic crowd control. While she can deal moderate damage, her primary role is to keep her team alive and create openings for stronger offensive units.

These stats and abilities make her a versatile support character that complements other, more aggressive Battle Dolls on the field.

Let's create a cohesive strategy and define how each of these cards—the Item Card, Dressblade Card, and Artifact Card—work together in the Samurai Skirts Battle Doll TCG. The cards are designed to complement one another, forming a powerful combination for the Hello Kitty-inspired and My Melody-inspired battle dolls, focusing on synergy, tactics, and versatility in gameplay.

Card Descriptions and Effects

Item Card - "Hello Kitty Bow"

Type: Item

Effect: Increases the battle doll's agility and accuracy. Grants a small attack boost and enables additional combo moves.

Special Ability: "Ribbon Rush" – When equipped, the Hello Kitty Bow allows the user to draw an extra card when attacking with a Dressblade. This ability can be used once per turn.

Synergy: This card amplifies the effects of the Dressblade card by allowing more aggressive attacks while enhancing maneuverability. It's a flexible support card that boosts both offensive and defensive capabilities.

Dressblade Card - "Hello Kitty Dressblade"

Type: Weapon

Effect: A powerful blade that enhances the battle doll's base attack by 30%. Provides a critical strike chance that doubles the damage on a successful roll.

Special Ability: "Swift Strike" – If used in combination with the Hello Kitty Bow, the Dressblade gets an additional attack each turn, which allows for two consecutive hits.

Synergy: The Dressblade is central to offensive strategies, especially when paired with the Item Card, which enhances attack frequency. Using this card in tandem with the Artifact Card further increases its damage potential.

Artifact Card - "Hello Kitty Artifact"

Type: Artifact

Effect: Increases the battle doll's resilience and defense against magic-based attacks. Additionally, grants immunity to status effects for three turns.

Special Ability: "Guardian Aura" – When all three cards (Item, Dressblade, and Artifact) are equipped on the same battle doll, the artifact emits a protective aura that blocks 50% of all incoming damage for two turns.

Synergy: The Artifact Card serves as the foundation of a balanced defense, safeguarding the battle doll from debilitating effects. When combined with the other cards, it activates a powerful shield that reinforces the doll’s survival against strong opponents.

Strategy for the Combo

Setup:

Start by equipping the Hello Kitty Bow (Item Card) to gain agility and a small attack boost, which enhances initial attacks and prepares for a quicker offensive with the Dressblade.

Equip the Hello Kitty Dressblade next, which amplifies the attack strength and allows consecutive hits, particularly useful for eliminating smaller opponents or weakening tougher enemies.

Lastly, equip the Hello Kitty Artifact to bolster defenses, gain immunity from status effects, and activate the Guardian Aura when all three cards are present.

Tactics:

Offensive Tactic: The combo of the Hello Kitty Bow and Dressblade enables rapid strikes. Use the "Ribbon Rush" ability to draw an extra card and press the advantage, maximizing damage potential while maintaining a high rate of attack.

Defensive Tactic: Once the Artifact Card is activated, the Guardian Aura significantly reduces damage, making the battle doll resilient against strong enemy attacks. This creates a window to either launch additional attacks or regroup if health is low.

Sustained Combat: The immunity to status effects provided by the Artifact Card allows the battle doll to avoid debuffs or control effects from opponents, ensuring a steady offense without interruption. Combining this with the additional strike ability of the Dressblade provides relentless pressure on opponents.

Playstyle and Synergy:

The Hello Kitty-inspired battle doll excels in hybrid offensive-defense playstyles. By combining speed (from the Hello Kitty Bow), power (from the Dressblade), and resilience (from the Artifact), players can adapt to multiple scenarios, making this setup versatile against various types of opponents. The combination allows for powerful strikes, quick recovery from enemy abilities, and robust defenses, creating a balanced, formidable character.

This card setup can be tailored further by switching between offensive and defensive focuses, depending on the player's strategy or opponent type. This synergy of cards makes the Hello Kitty battle doll a well-rounded choice for both beginners and experienced players looking for balanced gameplay.

#sanrio #sega #bandai #tcg #battle strategy card game #Samuraiskirts x Sanrio #SanrioSEGA #Hello kitty BattleDoll #Samuraiskirts #SamuraiSkirtsBattleDolls #Sanrio Samuraiskirts

1 note · View note

ajentmm · 2 months ago

Text

Dancer & Singer Refines Part 1

Alright, I’m doing it. We have a bunch of dancers, singers, and overall refreshers that were passed up from getting refines, not even the 5 stars. This was likely because the refreshing ability is already so good, and it doesn’t even matter if the unit enters combat. Their total stats were reduced so you couldn’t rely on their combat ability. Of course, now a day, I.S. found it better to just sell us new refreshers, rather than upgrade the ones we have. We did get refines and remixes for Legendary Azura and all the Fairy Mythic units, but that was part of the deal they got. In fact, those are going to be templates for we are going to theorycraft these refines. So here’s the deal:

The base kit will be purely supportive abilities that benefit the unit and allies (Joint Buffs, Large Debuffs, Joint Drives, Reins, Refresher Exclusive B slots, etc.) They can have stats boosts during combat, but that’s all they can have to themselves.

The special refine will mostly benefit the unit themselves during combat. If there is any supportive effect to allies, it will need to be triggered by having this unit in combat. If this is a new perf weapon, refining at all should be unnecessary. Otherwise, oops, you will miss out on the upgraded base effect, cuz the stat increase effects are always worse

I’m going to give them 8 “effects” in total. Peony has 6 effects after refine, but she has that perf refresh. L!Azura has 5, but a better perf refresh. In both cases Stat+3 is there so it’s 1 useless effect, but thems’ the rules. None of the units we are discussing have unique a perf refresh and I am going under the assumption we won’t get an inheritable upgrade to these refreshes, just to increase their Arena Score. This will mean the aforementioned units won’t be as good as these theroycrafts, but would be on par with our newest Refreshers, scaled by rarity of course.

BTW I have been given to advice to summarize the refines, PheonixMaster1 style, so skip to the end if you don’t like reading.

Azura: Lady of the Lake

Lvl 40 5 Star 36/31/33/21/28

Max Invest + Resplendent 49/44/46/33/40

Sapphire Lance+: If unit has weapon-triangle advantage, boosts Atk by 20%. If unit has weapon-triangle disadvantage, reduces Atk by 20%.

Sing – Speed+3 – Fortify Res 3

Many players early on used Triangle Adapt to give the edge in combat. Azura was the one who demonstrated the trend before inheriting was a thing. Since then, Azura got six other alts, each more power-crept than the last. Of course, all we wanted was Azura with the Blessed Lance seen in her splash art but no~.

Blessed Lance: Inflict Atk/Spd -5 on foes within 3 spaces during combat. At start of turn, if unit is within 3 spaces of an ally, restores 7 HP to unit and allies within 3 spaces of unit. For allies within 3 spaces of unit, grant Atk/Spd+5 to those allies during combat and restores 7 HP to that ally after their combat. If unit is within 3 spaces of an ally, grant Atk/Spd+5 to unit during combat, and restores 7 HP after combat.

Instead of finding a way to make Monster Effective weapons work, I translated the Blessed Lances self healing, and passive skills that Azura gets in Fates. She has a Hold skill to lower foe’s offensive stats, and Joint Drive to give allies offensive stats. On top of that, she heals herself and allies at the start of turn and after combat. The range of the effects are 3 tiles, which is low compared to the new 3 rows & 3 columns, but it’s still worth while.

At the start of combat, if unit HP ≥ 25% grant Atk/Spd/Def/Res+4, neutralizes effects that guarantee foe's follow-up attacks and effects that prevent unit's follow-up attacks, and the following status to unit during combat: "If unit has weapon-triangle advantage, boosts Atk by 20%. If unit has weapon-triangle disadvantage, reduces Atk by 20%."

And here is where we put the Triangle Adapt that make-or-break Azura, but if you weren’t up to it, you don’t need the refine. There is also NFU, just to make sure the +14 effective Spd is used.

Azura: Lady of Ballads

Lvl 40 5 Star 35/32/34/20/28 Max Invest 46/43/45/30/38

Urðr: If Sing or Dance is used, grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+3 to target.

Sing – Triangle Adept – Drive Res 2

But then there is Nohrian outfit Azura. She is much rarer and can buff up the ally she refreshes. So, we can go hard with this.

Urðr: Enables [Canto (2)]. If unit is within 2 spaces of an ally, unit can move to a space adjacent to that ally. If Sing or Dance is used, granted Atk/Spd/Def/Res+6, [Null Panic], and "neutralizes penalties on unit during combat," to target ally for 1 turn. At the start of combat, If unit HP ≥ 25%, grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+5 to unit during combat.

This is a great dancer base effect, based on the tier 4 Dance skills. You got Canto, you got warping (not as good as Wings of Mercy 4), you got +6 to all stats and Bonuses that prevent the foe from lower their stats, that can work with any ally, and you get the basic stat boost.

At the start of combat, if unit is within 3 spaces of an ally, grant Atk/Spd/Def/Res+5, unit deal damage = X of unit’s Atk and reduce damage by X of foe’s Atk during combat (if unit has weapon triangle advantage, X = 20%, otherwise, X = 5%), and after combat, restore 7 HP to unit and allies within 3 tile radius.

To make it crazier, this Azura doesn’t get Triangle Adapt, but true damage and true damage reduction that effectively works like Triangle Adapt, but with out the downside, and the ability to stack it with Triangle Adapt, giving 60% increase in damage. Sure, you only get 5% of damage increase when it’s not a blue unit, which is like 2-4 extra damage, but that is also TDR. This only works if she is still near allies, so your opponent needs to attack them first. In the best case, she can survive without then need for a save tank.

Lvl 40 5 Star 36/28/33/27/26 Max Invest 47/39/44/37/36

Silver Sword+: —

Dance – Knock Back – Hone Atk 3

And now the free be dancer. Not only is she a 3-4 star, but she can also be obtained as a 1 star. Remember those maps? Like Azura, people would inherit the Ruby Sword. So, her weapon needs to be on pair with a new inheritable (not Arcane) weapon, something like the summer alt she just got this year.

Olivia's Blade: If Sing or Dance is used, grants Atk/Spd+6 to target ally for 1 turn and inflict Atk-6 to nearest foes within 4 tile radius of both unit and target. If unit is within 3 spaces of an ally, grant Atk/Spd/Def/Res + 4 to unit during combat, grant bonus to Atk/Spd/Def/Res = highest bonus on allies within 3 spaces during combat. Calculates each stat bonus independently.

Similar to Laslow, Olivia is getting a weapon that requires her to use her assist. It combines Firestorm Dance and Atk Cantrip into the weapon. She then also gets bonuses like Erika’s refine.

At the start of combat, if unit HP ≥ 25% grant Atk/Spd/Def/Res+4, and the following status to unit during combat: "If unit has weapon-triangle advantage, boosts Atk by 20%. If unit has weapon-triangle disadvantage, reduces Atk by 20%." and also, if unit is within 3 spaces of 2 or more allies who each have total bonuses ≥ 10, unit attacks twice.

So instead of just having Azura’s special refine effect, I swapped NFU with the conditional Brave effect of Laslow. A bit more powerful than Azura, but her lower Atk might be an issue.

Olivia: Sky-High Dancer

Lvl 40 5 Star 36/30/34/26/23 Max Invest 47/41/45/36/33

Skuld: If Sing or Dance is used, grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+3 to target.

Dance – Bracing Stance 2 – Chill Spd 3 – Guidance 3

Oh, it’s Performing Arts Azura, but she flies. Can I just copy paste, right?

Skuld: Enables [Canto (2)]. If unit is within 2 spaces of an ally, unit can move to a space adjacent to that ally. If Sing or Dance is used, granted Atk/Spd/Def/Res+6, [Null Panic], and "neutralizes penalties on unit during combat," to target ally for 1 turn. At the start of combat, If unit HP ≥ 25%, grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+5 to unit during combat.

At the start of combat, if unit is within 3 spaces of an ally, grant Atk/Spd/Def/Res+4, unit deal damage = X of unit’s Atk and reduce damage by X of foe’s Atk during combat (if unit has weapon triangle advantage, X = 20%, otherwise, X = 5%), and after combat, restore 7 HP to unit and allies within 3 tile radius.

Yeah, we can. This weapon would work likely better on Olivia since being she’s a flyer. The ability to warp can help line up Guidance and take tiles accessible only to fliers. The downside might be her being a sword. See, I have a theory: Red is the most common, making Blue more valuable, and Green less valuable, but Blue also have great hard-hitting heroes, making Green value to have, while Red is less favored. We have been getting more Green and Colorless meta units, but Blue still has hard hitters that are almost necessary to fight the most meta units right now, Emblem Ike and Brave Felix. Basically, Azura might be better in the long run to use in combat, being she is infantry, while Olivia might not run into Green units to take advantage of her adapt. I don’t know for sure, it’s more complicated than that. This is likely why we aren’t getting a Triangle Adapt 4.

And in case your wondering, yes, I am imagining Ballroom! Berkut having the same weapon. These three weapons have their name origins in the trio of Norns of Norse Mythology. It’s would be poetic. . . . You know, we might get Heroes original characters based on these three.

Ninian: Oracle of Destiny

Lvl 40 5 Star 42/24/33/23/27

Max Invest + Resplendent 55/36/46/35/40

Light Breath+: After combat, if unit attacked, grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+5 to unit and allies within 2 spaces of unit for 1 turn. If foe's Range = 2, calculates damage using the lower of foe's Def or Res

Dance – Wings of Mercy – Fortify Dragons

And for our last refine of the batch, Ninian. Oh look, she had Wings of Mercy, I wonder if that was intentional, being that this was before the meta began. Anyway, we have two Ninian alts (that are good) to pull from so . . . lets pull from them.

Weightless Breath: Grant HP +5. At start of turn, if any foe's HP < unit's HP, inflicts Atk-6 and [Guard] on that foe through its next action. At start of turn, if unit's HP ≥ 25%, grant Res+6 and “Special cooldown charge +1 per attack” to unit and allies within 2 tile radius for 1 turn. At start of combat, if unit's HP ≥ 25%, grant Atk/Spd/Def/Res + 5 to unit during combat. If foe's Range = 2, calculates damage using the lower of foe's Def or Res.

She came with Light Breath, what’s a synonym for light? Weightless? Okay, whatever.

This base effect stacks both a Ploy Pain like effect, and a joint hone effect, like Nah’s weapon doses. It only grants and inflicts 1 stat, but giving your whole team Special Fighter is incredible. This should be really good, so I’m just giving her the HP+5. I was planning on giving her Legendary Azura’s ability to copy bonuses from one stat to the other, but this is already great, especially since I’m putting that here.

If a skill like Sing or Dance is used, grants bonus to target's Atk/Spd/Def/Res = highest bonus on target ally for 1 turn. At start of combat, if unit initiates combat or is within 2 spaces of an ally, grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res + 5 during combat, and also, if unit initiates combat and has weapon-triangle advantage or a [Penalty] is active on foe, foe cannot counterattack. After combat, grants bonus to Atk/Spd/Def/Res to unit and allies within 2 spaces for 1 turn = highest bonus on active on unit and those allies within 2 spaces of unit.

And now the dragon is loose! In addition to her having Legendary Azura’s ability to copy bonuses from one stat to the other, Ninian is taking her Legendary version’s ability to attack without getting counter attacked. This requires her to attack a foe that has less HP than her and didn’t cleanse the [Guard] on them, or be Red. She then copies the +6 Res, and spread it to all stats, to all allies. So, you can have her make one unit powerful or make the whole team powerful for the upcoming enemy phase, or during enemy phase (if Ninian survives). Aside from the Special Fighter, bonuses and penalties, this weapon can easily be countered with skills that cleanse bonuses or penalties, Tempo, or Null C-Disrupt, but seeing as she is given to all players through Heroic Path (did you forget that?), this is going to great for newcomers.

TLDR

Azura – Blessed Lance:

Atk/Spd+9, Def/Res+4 to unit

Atk/Spd Hold

Restore 7 HP to unit and allies in 2 tile radiuses

At start of combat and after combat

NFU

Triangle Adapt

Olivia – Olivia’s Blade

Atk/Spd/Def/Res+8 + Bonuses on nearby Ally

When unit refreshes

Target get Atk/Spd+6

Nearest foe’s get Atk-6 (Cantrip)

Triangle Adapt

If unit in near an ally with >10 bonuses: Brave attack

Ninian – Weightless Breath

Atk/Spd/Def/Res+10 to unit

At start of turn

Inflict Atk-6 & [Guard] on foe’s w/ < HP than unit

Grant Res+6 & [Breath] to unit & allies in 2 tile radius

When unit Refresh, target gets

Atk/Spd/Def/Res = highest bonus on target

If Weapon Adv or [Penalty] on foe

Windsweep

After combat, grant unit and allies within 2 spaces

Atk/Spd/Def/Res = highest bonus on unit

PA! Azura – Urðr and Sky! Olivia - Skuld

Atk/Spd/Def/Res+10 to unit

Canto 2

2 tile radius Warp

When unit Refresh, target gets

Atk/Spd/Def/Res+6, Null Pain, Null Penalties

True Damage X% of unit’s Atk

True Damage Reduction X% of foe’s Atk

X = 20 if Weapon triangle Adv., 5 otherwise

Restore 7 HP to unit and allies after combat

Anyway, enjoy getting your Aide's Essences.

#fire emblem heroes #fire emblem #game design #theorycrafting #refines #special refines

1 note · View note

sacred-stanning · 7 months ago

Text

Chapter 13 Part 2: Battle Prep

Before starting this next map, I think it's about time to do some reclassing!

I've put it off for a while to get some extra levels in, but at this point I'm ready to upgrade a couple of characters.

First off is Franz, who is level 16. I could wait until 20 to squeeze out some extra stats or whatever, but it's not really worth it. There's not even that much game left, really.

Franz can become a Paladin or a Great Knight. They're both good choices. Since he's been getting all those defense level ups the whole game, I'm getting the feeling that he wants to be a Great Knight.

One advantage of reclassing him now, rather than waiting, is that he can start working on axe ranks right away. Though, looking at his weapon rank screen, I'm realizing that I've really neglected swords with him.

Next up is our favorite mage! Lute is also level 16, I believe. I could wait and try to raise stats more, maybe she could even max out her magic stat, but honestly, I'd rather just power her up and start working on staff ranks.

Lute can go with Sage or Mage Knight. Sage gives her access to light magic, and both classes give her access to staves.

Light magic is not super useful, so I'm more interested in what else the classes bring. Sage has a higher magic cap by 5 points, which is actually relevant for Lute given how fast her magic grows. Mage Knight has a much higher speed growth, which is nice given how useful speed is to Lute to help her dodge things.

But the most relevant and immediate differences are the movement and con stats. Mage Knight gives her more movement, which will not only let her more flexibly move to attack enemies, but will also make it easier for her to keep pace with Vanessa so they can keep building supports. :)

The con difference is pretty big too. Mage Knight gives her +3 con, while Sage only gives her +1. Given that she only has 3 con to begin with, this is a big difference. As a Sage, Fire is the only tome she can use without being slowed down. But as a Mage Knight, she also can use Thunder without losing speed.

Lute's fast enough that this is less about hitting doubling thresholds, and more about the fact that attack speed is a factor in avoid rates, and Lute generally doesn't want to get hit.

So here she is as a Mage Knight! While she won't be doing a lot of staff using since she's a powerful offensive unit and she usually will make best use of her time by attacking, I think it's still nice if I can get her staff rank to C for restore, since there are some annoying status effects later on, and the more C-rank staff users, the better. If she can get to B, then she can use physic, which would be nice for allowing her to heal people while staying in position to fight, but B might be hard to get to.

Moulder is also on the list. He's lower level than the last two, but that's because staff experience gain is so slow. I don't want to wait anymore. He's mostly just going to continue being a staff user, but if I reclass him now, he can start working on some weapon ranks.

His choices are Sage and Bishop. Sage gives him anima magic in addition to light magic. But given how little he's going to attack, he doesn't really need two different weapon types.

Bishop also has a skill that makes its damage effective against monsters. And the end game has a lot of monsters. So he'll get more mileage out of effective D-rank light tomes than he would have out of non-effective D-rank light and C-rank anima tomes.

(I'm not saying he'll necessarily still be at D-rank by end game, but, well, he might be.)

So yeah, even after his promotion, his stats are still not amazing, especially when compared to Lute just above, but again, he's mostly going to be continuing his role of a healer.

Last up for now is Vanessa. She's at a decent level, and more importantly, she has been getting pretty bad level ups overall except for her speed stat, so she could use an immediate power boost. In contrast, the two other fliers, Cormag and Tana, are going to stay in base classes for a bit longer.

Like Moulder, Vanessa has a choice between a new weapon type and a skill. Falcon Knight gets swords, and Wyvern Knight gets the "pierce" skill, which is basically the Luna tome for wyverns. When the skill activates, Vanessa gets to just ignore the enemy's defense and damage them as if their defense were 0.

Given Vanessa's dire strength stat, I decide to go with Wyvern Knight since it means she'll sometimes be able to do more damage. It's not very reliable admittedly. It's a % chance based on the user's level, so it'll have only a 1% activation rate right after she reclasses.

(I think. Even though promoted classes are treated like level 1 = 21, level 2 = 22, etc. for how much experience they gain, I'm pretty sure that the activation rate for pierce goes off of the actual displayed level of the unit.)

Another nice thing about wyvern for Vanessa is that she gets more con, and since her con isn't that high to begin with, that will let her better utilize her speed. Like Lute, it's not so much about hitting doubling thresholds, which she can generally do regardless, but more about upping her avoid rate.

(Jesus, even after promoting she still has a single-digit strength stat...)

Lute found Vanessa at the temporary pegasus "stable" that had been set up in their camp a day's march east of Taizel.

"Vanessa, I thought Ephraim told you to ride a wyvern now? What are you doing here?"

"Oh, hi, Lute!" Vanessa's eyes looked slightly bloodshot. Lute wondered if maybe she hadn't gotten enough sleep. "I'm just here taking care of Titania. You're right I won't be riding her into battle anymore, but she's still my pegasus."

"Oh yes," Lute said closing her eyes and visiting her mind library, "I remember now that the book 'The Noble Pegasus: A Guide to Care and Breeding' said on page 23 that the bond between a rider and their pegasus was very strong, almost like a mother and her child. Is that true for you and Titania too?"

"Yes, I think that's a fair way to put it. I'm going to miss her, even if I still see her every day outside of battle, it's going to be a little strange to not be riding her in battle..." Vanessa sniffed.

"Hmm, maybe she has an allergy to the local plants," Lute thought.

Lute stood still and watched as Vanessa brushed Titania's hair. She couldn't quite place the feeling, which bothered her, but she wanted to stay here with Vanessa. But people had asked her not to stare of follow them around in the past, so what if her being here disturbed Vanessa and she asked her to go away? Lute tried to think of something to say.

"I got a horse. Ephraim got it for me. I think it's because I'm small and I can't run that fast."

"What did you name them?" Vanessa asked.

"Her name is Vanessa."

Vanessa's eyebrows scrunched up a bit. "You named your horse after me?"

Lute suddenly felt a flush on her cheeks and her throat felt tight. "Wait, did I say something wrong?" she thought. Maybe naming her horse after Vanessa wasn't such a good idea after all. Was Vanessa upset at her?

"Uh..." was all Lute managed to get out.

Then Vanessa laughed. "Oh, Lute, I've just had the funniest idea! I've been struggling to come up with a name for my new wyvern. I think I'll name her 'Lute'!"

Lute felt her throat relax, and she realized that her shoulders had been hunched. She relaxed them and breathed out.

"I would love to be a wyvern! Did you know that a wyvern can fly even higher than a Carcino Falcon?" Lute paused for a moment, remembering what Vanessa had said to her in the last battle. "Is this a good time? Can I tell you about wyverns?"

Vanessa smiled. "Sure, this is a good time! I'd love to learn all about wyverns. But knowing you, I'm guessing we might be here a while. How about I grab us a couple of stools to sit on first?"

Lute nodded. She suddenly realized, she was really happy that Vanessa wanted to hear what she had to say about wyverns. Why was she so happy? She closed her eyes and went to her mind library while Vanessa went to get stools.

Vanessa -> might have an allergy to local plants in Grado, investigate what allergy remedies are available, also, she likes to hear about wyverns, so collect more information on wyverns Vanessa's wyvern -> named "Lute", after me!

So let's check out the map:

There are two villages, both of which will be threatened pretty early on, so there's some pressure to move towards them. At the same time, the rivers restrict movement a lot, and since Selena is right in the center, her thunderstorm tome covers most of the map. It's pretty dangerous to anyone with bad res.

Notice too, in the first two photos, those archers there make it hard to immediately use fliers to plop people on the bottom of that river right below our starting location.

Also note, the last photo shows that there is a strangely empty area to the right of our starting position...

Here's Selena. Like I said, that thunderstorm tome is a little scary. 25 attack is quite a bit since some units literally only have like, 1 res.

There are also two enemies with stealable items, a red gem and a speed wing. Level 2 Colm has enough speed (12!) to steal from either of them since they only have 9 and 8 respectively.

...but deployment is limited, there are units I want to train, and I don't feel like having a guy out there who can be one-shot by Selena's thunderstorm, and who will even be one-shot by some other enemies too. (Like, check out the Great Knight's attack versus Colm's defense and HP. I think he might just survive thanks to the weapon triangle reducing the damage by 1, but it sure doesn't look great for him out there.)

So as much as it pains me, I am going to forgo the two items in favor of training (questionably useful) units. It's not a smart choice, but it's my choice.

Marisa is coming along. I will regret this, but she's coming to get some levels. The same goes for L'Arachel, though she at least has a unique role to fill and doesn't feel like as much of a struggle as Marisa does.

I'm leaving Ross behind, even though I want to train him more. And Duessel is staying behind because he's fine and won't be hurt by missing out on a map. Besides, I want to give Great Knight Franz a chance to shine!

Next time: Surprise! More units!

#fire emblem #sacred stones #fire emblem the sacred stones #fe8 #ファイアエンブレム #聖魔の光石 #fire emblem lute #vanessa fire emblem #lute x vanessa #fire emblem gameplay

1 note · View note

erisluna35ocblog · 8 months ago

Text

This is a little hard cause I do have a pokemon au but my gyms for them are less strict on elements and focuses more on tactics or stats.

Keagan: Specializes mostly in fire types with some grass and flying for coverage. Signature mon is either Arcanine or Houndoom. Takes advantage of sunny day tactics, overwhelming opponents with speed and offense. Very unstoppable force themed.

Fiona: Mainly specializes in ice and steel, but her gym is more themed for defense and uses every means to boost it. Snow to boost her ice types, steel types who are bulky in general, and all of them being some kind of dual type for coverage. Her signature mon however, is an Alolan Sandslash with Slush Rush, making use of its speed.

Natalia: Water and Poison type specialist. Between all the toxic, toxic spikes, aqua rings and hp steal moves like draining kiss and giga drain, her main tactic is passive hp draining while outliving opponents. Moves like mean look or whirlpool keep her opponents from switching out. Her signature mon is Mareanie, with the ability Merciless.

Shizuke: Grass and Fighting types are his specialty. Signature mon is Whimsicott, who keeps his team set up with Prankster. Much like Natalia, he takes advantage of status ailments, but his is more on sleep or paralysis to give himself more turns instead of poisoning away their health. He also makes use of moves like counter, reversal and retalliate, to keep ahead of his enemies despite losing HP.

Damien: Doesn't seem to have a real specialty as his pokemon ranges from Ground, Rock, Normal and Steel types. He focuses on big bulky pokemon like Fiona, but with sandstorm instead of snow as his favored weather. I see him as more of an early game gym leader who largley holds back to give newbies a learning experience.

Zephyr: Electric, Bug and Flying specialist. His team messes around with switch ins using baton pass and u-turn and volt switch. He has his pokemon sabotage their stats with moves like Charm, Screech, String Shot, or Superfang. All his pokemon have high speed stats. Works best in double battles. His signature mon is Pachirisu.

Blair: Psychic, Dark and Ghost specialist with Espeon as her signature mon. Fights dirty using moves and abilities to punish set ups. Status ailments? Her Espeon has synchronize. Lower her stats? Defiant or Competetive. Boost yourself? Psych up or Punishment. She's a pain in the butt to fight. Trying to gain an advantage against her is futile, best to fight her straight up.

Blake: Also a Psychic, Dark and Ghost specialist with Umbreon as his signature mon. Contrast to his sister, he fights to endure. He will Haze away your set ups. Will-o-wisp down your attacks and HP. Messes with you using Parting Shot. If his pokemon die, they get the last laugh with Grudge or Memento. And when he's down to his last mon, he has a Supreme Overlord Kingambit sitting in the back at max stats.

If your OC was a pokemon gym leader, what type would they specialize in?

192 notes · View notes

futchgunk · 10 months ago

Text

journaled my monochrome pokemon team and im putting it here

S/V Monochrome Black Team alcremie - hawlucha - espathra - haxorus - cetitan - camerupt ~~~~~~~~~~ Alcremie aka h.m.f.r. (Her Majesty Frosting Royale) Type: Fairy [Tera: Psy] Ability: Aroma Veil (Prot. Choice) (Loses to MoldBreaker) Item: Leftovers (+1/16% HP EOT) Role: Damage Enabler + 2nd Sweeper (Psy/Fairy) Ev: 250Hp 120Def 20SpA 120SpD

Moveset: -Decorate (A++,SpA++) -Draining Kiss (~)(Fairy)(+HP 50%) -Psyshock (-)*(Psy) (uses SpA@base) -Psych Up (copy stats) *(~) = special damage *(-) = physical damage Weak To: Poison/Steel

Poison Coverage: Espathra (psy) Weak To: Bug, Dark, Ghost

Steel Coverage: Hawlucha/Camerupt Weak To: Ice, Electric, Psy, Fair, Fly

Alcremie Notes: The most precious part. Alcremie unapposed means that the team should scale over most threats. Watch for the team unable to protect alcremie because of how the speed tiers

Espathra aka Type: Psychic [PSY] Ability: Speed Boost (Spe+ EoT (Max +6 (4x)) Role: Sweeper Special/Wall Break Item: Focus Sash (Live OHKO @ Item Use) Ev: 252 SpA 4Def 252 Spe

Moveset -Lumina Crash (~) (--Sp.D target ONHIT (true))(psy) -Energy Ball(~)(10% -Sp.D target ONHIT)(grass) -Roost (+50% HP) -Trick Room (Speed Tier Invert)

DARK IMMUNITY

Weak To: Dark/Bug/Ghost

Dark Coverage: Alcremie/Hawlucha Weak To: Poison/Steel//Ice, Electric, Psy, Fair, Fly Bug Coverage: Camerupt Weak To: Water (4x), Ground Ghost Coverage: --

Espathra Notes: Took out Calm Mind for Energy Ball (Camerupt Coverage)

Hawlucha aka junsie Type: Fighting/Flying [Flying] Ability: Unburden (Lose Item: Spe++) Item: Red Card (Live Hit: Use item -> Opp egress (true) EV: 252A 252Spe 4SpD Role: Disruption ++ Physical Sweeper (FLY)

Moveset: -Acrobatics(-)(2X DMG NO ITEM)(FLY) -Brick Break(-)(Breaks Screens)(Fighting) -Roost (+50% HP) -(Upper Hand)/(TailWind)

Weak To: Ice, Electric, Psy, Fair, Fly

Ice Coverage: Camerupt/Self Weak To: Ground, Fire Electric Coverage: Camerupt Weak To: Ground, Fire Psychic Coverage: -- Fairy Coverage: -- Flying Coverage: Cetitan Weak To: Fire, Rock, Fighting, Steel

Hawlucha Notes: +2A Unburden active acrobatics has mown through my rivals legendaries. Incredible wincon. Normally would have Swords Dance, but hopefully Alcremie can assist!!

Team struggles vs steel

Haxorus aka sw¡tchb!ade Type: Dragon [POISON*>DARK] Ability: MoldBreaker (Moves are unaffected by abilities) Item: Assault Vest (SpD+, unable to use status moves) EV: 252attack 80Def 80 SpD 80Spd 20hp Role: Revenge Kill/Offensive Coverage (DMG + SpD

Moveset -Breaking Swipe (-)(Both)(-A ONHIT (true)) (dragon) -Assurance (-)(2X DMG IF HIT)(Dark) -Poison Jab(-)(30% Poison)(Poison)* -Rock Slide(-) (Both) (30%flinch)(10% Miss)(Rock)

*Still Deciding on Poison vs Dark

Weak To: Dragon/Fairy/Ice

Dragon Coverage: Alcremie/Self Weak To: Steel, Poison Fairy Coverage: -- / Self Ice Coverage: Camerupt Weak To: Water, Ground

Haxorus Notes: Worried about the damage coverage allowing too many holes to come thru in favor of getting a revenge kill

Looking at a Dragon Cheer Set (night slash/shadow claw/bswipe)

Cetitan aka yacht killer Type: Ice [Water] Ability: Sheer Force* (Moves w 2nd effect: increase 30%, lose 2nd effect Item: Life Orb* (+30% DMG @ 10%HP Cost) *Moves that activate Sheer Force's Ignores Life Orb's Health Cost) EV: 180HP 180 Atk 80Def 80SpD Role: Tank + DMG Coverage

Moveset: -icicle crash(-)()(15% Miss)(Ice) -liquidation(-)()(Water)/play rough(-)(*)(fairy) -heavy slam(-)(Outweigh = DMG) (STL) -ice shard(-)(prio +1)(ICE)

Weak To: Fire, Fighting, Rock, Steel, Fire Coverage: Camerupt/ Weak To: Water (4x), Ground Fighting Coverage: Hawlucha/Espathra/Alcremie Weak To: Ice, Electric, Psy, Fly//Dark, Bug//Poison, Steel Rock Coverage: Hawlucha/Camerupt Weak To: "" // Water (4x), Ground Steel Coverage: Hawlucha/Camerupt Weak To: ""

Cetitan Notes: Trading a big HP For Big Damage

EV stats should reflect a damage mitigation threshold to damage outhold ceiling

Camerupt aka gunk sootie Type: Fire/Ground [Grass] Ability: Solid Rock (Super Effective hits taken mitigated 25%) Item: Weakness Policy EV: 252HP 252Def Role: Defensive Tank ++ Coverage ++ Disruption

Moveset: -Yawn (100% sleep IF no opp egress) -Trailblaze (-) (+Spe ONHIT)(grass) -Heat Wave(~)(both)(10% burn)(10% miss)(fire)// Temper Flare (-) (2X DMG if prev Move Failed)(Fire) -Earth Power(~)(10% -SpD target)(ground)//Stomping Tantrum (-)(2X DMG if prev Move Failed)(Ground)

Weak To: Water (x4), Ground Water Coverage: Self Ground Coverage: Self

Canerupt Notes:

strong defensive pokemon

#your pokemon rival #pokemon research assistant #indigo disc #dyke chrome team #dichrome team 2024

0 notes

goosetrainer · 1 year ago

Text

Mari's NOT SO LAST MINUTE (wow) Tera Raid Guide #5 - Rillaboom

It's Bellibolt again. I wanted to be more creative but it works and it recycles an old pokémon, so why change? Also busy

It's a bit ~close~ (you need not lose time selecting your moves and it requires a bit of NPC hunting) so if I have time in the next days I'll see if there's something better. In the meantime, reminder that I'll let anyone borrow my own pokémon if you can't train your own (need Pokémon Home)

Bellibolt l.100

Tera type: Electric

Ability: Electromorphosis

Item: Magnet

Nature: Modest/Quiet

IVs: max HP, def, sp.atk, sp.def

EVs: 252 sp.atk, 252 def, 4 HP

Moveset:

-Acid Spray (TM)

-Parabolic Charge (egg move)

-Electric Terrain (level up) / Reflect (TM)

- ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

If it looks familiar, it's because it is the same Bellibolt from the Walking Wake/Iron Leaves guide, literally just took it out of the box and tried it and it worked. Just swapped Light Screen with Electric Terrain.

Usage:

Rillaboom has mostly physical attacks + one special move (Boomburst)(not so dangerous, low special attack). Wipes your stat modifications the turn after his shield went up, wipes his own the turn after the shield went down.

The biggest threat is the fact that he has TWO (2) attack-boosting moves, Growth and Bulk Up. By the end of the fight he'll have them used ~4 times... which brings us to the important part of the fight

RESET FOR THE RIGHT NPC ALLIES

-favour pokémon with the ability INTIMIDATE. One is necessary and technically sufficient, two is ideal, three is an unicorn but if it happens it's good! (They are: Tauros, Staraptor, Arcanine)

-optional: Dudunsparce, Umbreon and Drifblim can apply paralysis/burn status and it helps, either with the occasional free turn or the very welcome attack debuff. In theory Sylveon has Charm but I can't recall seeing it use it...? If you got an Intimidate mon but none of these, it should work just fine, try your luck.

-IMPORTANT if you get Arboliva RUN AWAY and retry. Rillaboom already generates Grassy Terrain on turn one making his grass type move the most dangerous, no need to prolong that suffering for the rest of the fight.

What you're gonna do is: Electric Terrain on turn one (gets rid of the Grassy Terrain, making Drum Beating weaker and helping with at least one Parabolic Charge's damage) OR Reflect (protects against all physical moves but no offensive boost for you). Only use one or the other, don't waste turns in my experience Electric Terrain worked better but maybe it's just me.

Then the usual 3x Acid Spray - you will die in the middle, after the first or second Acid Spray, don't panic. IMPORTANT if you manage to get all 3 done before dying, but end up with less than half life, DO NOT TERASTALLIZE. You'll just die the next turn and lose your terastal. Rillaboom is very fast, if your Bellibolt's nature is Quiet his speed is more than double yours, don't think you can heal at this point! Let yourself faint.

Terastallize when you're sure you'll survive, and go with the 2-3 Parabolic Charges that you need to break the shield.

Now, this point is a bit weird, there's a chance of the game bugging a bit with the order of action but use either Acid Spray or Parabolic Charge. [Technical rant here: in theory Acid Spray is the one you should select - Rillaboom will get rid of his own stat debuffs before you attack, meaning that his special defense goes back up to neutral again and you start getting it down on the same turn, but sometimes for some reason you attack first and he resets his stats after, and if he attacks on the same turn you find yourself with less HP on Bellibolt, and neutral special defense on Rillaboom, it's weird. Keep an eye on what happens during the previous turns and act accordingly I guess.]

In any case, the post-shield fight will have you alternating Acid Spray - Parabolic Charge - Acid Spray - Parabolic Charge, etc. Rillaboom's attack will likely be at +3 at this point, so you can only really spare one turn at a time to mess with stats before you need to heal. Two Acid Sprays should be enough, but if you have the time and the life you can use it a third time. Much more likely that you'll only have the time to do that only twice though, and then finish with 1-3 Parabolic Charges, it should hit hard enough by then.

TL;DR: Electric Terrain/Reflect on turn 1, Acid Spray x3, die and resurrect anytime during the Acid Sprays, terastallize, Parabolic Charge until end of the shield, Acid Spray > Parabolic Charge > Acid Spray > Parabolic Charge > Parabolic Charge spam

Pros:

-it's literally a returning build. Reduce Reuse Recycle!

-no transfer required from other games

-immune to the secondary effect of Body Slam (paralysis)

-idk check the last time's pros

Cons:

-bit slow, bit too close with the time limit

-heavily dependent on NPCs 😞 sorry

^this attempt was won, just took a screen before the last attack to show how close it was. Also notice that I have Light Screen instead of Reflect, lol! I used Electric Terrain that time, instead.

#guides #pokemon sv #bellibolt #pokemon scarlet violet #pokemon #pkmn #gen 9 #tera raids #rillaboom #again it's pretty subpar! I tried unaware skeledirge but I should train another one with all defense EVs and a ghost tera #I'd like to try something with other ghost steel and fire types. or a sap sipper with water tera... mmm #unfortunately fighting tera is not viable. blame Acrobatics

3 notes · View notes

crystalelemental · 5 months ago

Text

As of today, I have finished Pokemon Platinum. Which means the remaining writeups will be...a while from now. Hopefully not too long. I am kind of in a state of just wanting to blitz through now. Platinum has been a long standing favorite that, in recent years, is lagging in the polls compared to Emerald. But having replayed it, how do I now feel about this delightful game?

Still generally positive. My team was super goofy this time. Beautifly (Naive), Pachirisu (Impish), Flareon (Bashful), Lopunny (Bold), Gardevoir (Sassy), and Octillery (Quirky). Almost entirely stinkers.

Now okay, given my team, it may be odd to say "Platinum thrives on its difficulty," but it's true. I think the takeaway, though, is how different it is from Emerald.

Boss battles follow a less guided structure. By which I mean, you can see the arc of Emerald, teaching skills and then giving counterplay. Platinum has counterplay but less teaching. It kind of expects you to know how to play, then does things like applies Leech Seed in the grass gym to overcome a possible Bronzor, Vespiquen, or Drifloon. Stuff like that. However, by the League, it becomes apparent what Platinum is about.

Platinum aims to make itself balanced by being restrictive with tools. Boosting TMs do not exist in this game. They're behind the BP paywall of the Battle Frontier, and I would never recommend that given how expensive they are and how little BP you acquire for hours of work. It also removes Thunder Wave, which is wild. Taking away these tools is a questionable decision, because it limits the player's access to options, which is generally not a favorite move.

But, consider how Emerald went. The most effective strategy is the one everyone likes using: four attacks. So Platinum leans into that by taking away other tools, and saying "just hit each other with sticks." This creates interesting situations, where lack of easy paralysis means my Pachirisu actually had value with high-paralysis moves, or Gardevoir and Alakazam's access to natural Calm Mind making them extremely valuable. It's restrictive, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't work for it.

Talking about challenge in Platinum is impossible without discussing what makes Cynthia the boss fight she is. There's a lot to go over, but I am surprised they don't take this approach more often.

Cynthia's fight has max IVs on all her Pokemon. Your Pokemon do not have this, guaranteed. What you do have in your favor is EVs, which are generally allocated evenly, about 80 per stat. Essentially, the numbers game to work out with Cynthia is whether your +20 at level 100 is enough combined with your EV rolls to match +31 at level 100 that she has. These numbers are absolute, because this is the first game to not have a form of Badge Boosting for your stats. Usually achievable, but not by much. Cynthia is interesting because she has her own tools working in her favor that offset the benefits the player has been reaping the entire game. She's the first one to really turn that toggle off, and even without tracking numbers, you can feel how ridiculous it is from how hard Garchomp hits, to how bulky Milotic and Spiritomb are.

But this is where the aforementioned restrictions come into play. Cynthia is staggeringly weak to setup. Spiritomb lacks for direct offensive pressure, so any setup sweeper has an incredibly easy time with her fight. Try running a Dragon Dance Altaria some time, you'll see what I mean. Even with Alakazam and Gardevoir, their higher speed and Calm Mind's Sp Def boosts means they can start to outpace it, if you're willing to use some healing items to stay in the game. My personal solution was Agility + Charge Beam Lopunny Baton Passing to Octillery who took out everything in one shot. It could've worked with Beautifly too, with a bit better luck.

On the one hand, by removing the tools she's weak to, the game forces you to play its way and ups the challenge of this particular boss fight. On the other, for Pokemon that do have access to tools she doesn't counter well? They're ridiculous. And Altaria and Lopunny are not exactly powerhouses, yet they contribute more to Cynthia's fight than a lot of pure offensive Pokemon. It's especially important to note that the usual solution in box legends doesn't work here. Cynthia's Garchomp is super-effective against all three major legends, and is naturally much faster, with perfect IVs. She's the only final boss so far to not get bopped by the major legends you can acquire. But she can be easily counterplayed by Altaria. Which is really funny.

Now of course, all this comes at a tradeoff. Specifically, when your advantage tools are turned off, it is more essential to keep at their approximate level. Which, in many situations, means grinding.

I will not front, Platinum's level scaling is not bad, but it can be felt painfully in some situations. The main game is generally fine, with the segments where a partner will heal your team after each battle being great spots to catch up Pokemon lagging in the level department. But no, it's postgame that really struggles.

Finally, I deliver on what I've been talking about all these posts: Pokemon postgames have a problem, and I think I've finally figured it out. The streamer I've been watching talking about Gen 2, saying that a feature he liked was that even into Kanto, you were often still working on building up your Pokemon. This is true! I didn't finalize my Togetic build until very late into Kanto. But it's the feeling about that which I can finally describe.

In main game Platinum, I am familiar with EV training spots. Taking time to train in these spots never feels like a chore to me, because in my mind, it's solving multiple problems. (1) I need to level up a bit. (2) If I reach X level, I can learn Y move, which is better damage/specific utility. (3) I can specifically work on improving my stats in a way I find beneficial toward this Pokemon's main function. It takes time, but I'm solving multiple problems, and thus it feels very purposeful.

By postgame, my movesets are built, and my EVs are capped. And yet, my level 57 ass now contends with a postgame that feels long but still doesn't have enough EXP to close the gap to Cynthia's new level 78 Garchomp. It took three tries to win when she was less than 10 levels above us. Now she's more than 20. That is untenable, and the only solution really is Gym Leader rematches, which are locked by the day, or bashing my face into the League. These are solutions! But they are not great ones. And when the only thing you're looking to do is make your level bigger, it's no longer building something, it's just meeting an arbitrary goalpost.

This is a problem for a lot of postgames in Pokemon. You're usually done by the time postgame gets rolling, and by then all you really seek out is an isolated challenge. Big areas to travel through with a ton of random battles is no longer appealing, because you don't need anything like that. But the isolated challenge of a bigger league is, in all likelihood, out of your range. So you do the long extra areas, and they now feel long. It's unpleasant.

Mechanically, I have to mention the Physical/Special split. By and large, this was a wild positive. This decision is what make Beautifly actually fun to use here; absolutely great improvements with access to Bug Buzz and Shadow Ball. There were a few losers to this adjustment, but by and large it's all upside. The only thing that bears mentioning is that now EVs can feel wasted, given that you can stack all your moves to one offensive type. But, because of HMs, you're likely still using both in most situations.

The most important thing to talk about though is the mythology. I love Sinnoh mythology, I think this is the best region solely for that. The concepts it presents are fascinating. And you get some really good characters out of this with Cynthia and Cyrus and Barry and Rowan. But it does feel like a shift. None of the gym leaders (barring Gardenia) really stand out as having any personality. Compared to Gens 2 and 3, this region's overall cast feels less interesting, in exchange for what feels like a lot of refinement of its big players. As an additional quick note, while I love the legends, the dex itself is by and large one of my less favorites. I don't really like many of the new Sinnoh additions. I could not tell you why.

At this point in time, I am willing to say, I prefer Emerald to Platinum now. Emerald just feels stronger overall, with no particularly weak areas to speak of, while Platinum has a few issues that are harder for me to look past now. I still adore Platinum, that's never going to change. But it's no longer my golden child.

Diamond and Pearl Corner I do not own Diamond or Pearl, and haven't since Platinum came out. I lent it to my cousin and never saw it again. Sometimes I lament its loss.

BDSP being such a one-to-one remake, I can at least identify a lot of the differences, and they're all kinda worse. I don't mind that Fantina's gym 5, but I feel like all the teams are worse, the lack of all the evolution Pokemon until postgame is worse, etc. I don't have much to say here, but I also have no interest in getting Diamond or Pearl. They just don't feel nearly as significant to me.

#pokemon gen 4 #pokemon replays

2 notes · View notes