"The Axe"

[Chase]

It's -not- bad against Shade. It get's Knock-Off by level up. GUTS Hariyama is -most definitely- not afraid of Shade.

I'm not saying Makuhita needs the axe, but being able to be a fully evolved Pokemon that eliminates Florinia's main threat clearing the way for Litleo, Kricketune, etc, completely compromises her difficulty. That's where the issue stems. Pancham is a suitable replacement, and Makuhita, if need be, be found in the Beryl Ward or Jasper Ward immediately afterwards.

Hariyama is a very underrated Pokemon and if found in -just- the right place, it can be the front-runner against later fighting types. With Fake-Out, Knock-Off and as of ORAS BELLY DRUM by level up, this thing's not a waste of a team slot at all. It's areas of hope are spread out so that it -can- be used as a viable option.

Team Meteor consists of Rock type Pokemon, so Hariyama can assist with evil organization clean up during the story. Dr. Connal and his goons like Steel types.

If Ame is going to throw up other trainers as psuedo story bosses, I will too. Boppoyama demands some respect.

[Felicity]

Note: Sigs goons like psychic types too, but not the point.

I'm for the Makuhita move to an extent, but what about Mankey? I know you can get wild Primeapes and mankeys at route 1 having caught a shiny myself, but why not in the slums too? There's a reason it's an early mon in 1st gen aside from brock. : p

[Deleted User]

Note: Sigs goons like psychic types too, but not the point.

I'm for the Makuhita move to an extent, but what about Mankey? I know you can get wild Primeapes and mankeys at route 1 having caught a shiny myself, but why not in the slums too? There's a reason it's an early mon in 1st gen aside from brock. : p

For one Mankey doesn't evolve until level 28, so if you want to train it that hard before Florinia, then you've earned it. And it's only decent fighting moves are Karate Chop (BP 50) and Low Kick (BP 80).

Even as a Primape it's not NEARLY as bulky with Hariyama at Base 144 HP and Primape at base 65.

[Timber Dragon]

All this talk about Talonflame and electric eels or whatever, and I'm just like, dude where's Pikachu? That's not a bad early-game choice. There aren't any electric-types early in the game (correct me if I'm wrong), and you won't be sweeping anything with Raichu since you don't find Thunder Stones until much later. It's not necessarily safe from Julia -- in fact, it's probably less safe compared to other Pokemon since with Pikachu's type similarities, Julia's team would be more inclined to spam their neutral, more dangerous moves like Sonic Boom or Explosion. Pikachu would give players more type variety without having a particular advantage or disadvantage against anyone at that point in the game (except for Cain's Oshawott, which is only one Pokemon out of many), or without being overpowered or underpowered. C'mon, it's the series mascot. You can't not have Pikachu early on.

I also support Deino as an early addition. I know it's a pseudo-legendary and Ame already has plans to include it for much later, but here's the thing: Deino is complete deadweight until it fully evolves. But the time between level 1 and level 60+ is a huge gap between something usable and something totally useless. By the time you fully evolve it, wouldn't you be at a point in the game where such power isn't totally unreasonable?

[Commander]

I kind of want to kill this pseudo stuff before it keeps going on. It's not going to really matter when you get a pseudo. If you really want it, you'd be willing to spend time to grind it up no matter where it is in the game. If you don't want to use it, it'd just be a pretty trophy in the box. There's not much else to discuss as all of them have fantastic uses and getting them early would mean easier exploit that level gap like shoving them into the daycare and picking them back up when they're almost ready to fully evolve. Power grinding is actually pretty fast as I was able to knock out half the Pokedex in like 4 hours so I don't know what the big deal is.

As for Pikachu, it's kind of like Manectric. Julia's AI is kind of weird and would make Pikachu able to sweep her with Lightning Rod which is why Electrike needs to be moved backed a tiny bit (not replaced). Pikachu is a pretty nice Pokemon and not OP without the Light Ball. I don't actually know why people don't use it because T-wave and Static would be helpful against Florinia's Cradily (probably because it's a Pichu). I kind of like it's current location because it's fun seeing Pichu run on the roof.

I just looked at Hariyama and holy cow that's a lot of attack power and hp. I see why everybody is saying to axe it now. I don't think Shade is the best example of a gym leader to base off of because you can get a ton of dark types way before his gym (including Houndoom and Sharpedo) so I doubt Hariyama would make a difference there. I wouldn't push the Magam/Aqua boss fight back though because if you're able to beat them at that low of a level, you earned being able to sweep Shade.

[Deleted User]

Pokemon that could definitely be available earlier:

Weedle

Sandshrew

Psyduck

Geodude

Farfetch'd

Krabby

Drowzee

Exeggcute

Wingull

Spinda

Kecleon

Wynaut

Mantyke

Blitzle

Deerling

Tynamo

Rufflet

Skiddo

Helioptile

Dedenne

[Chase]

Exeggcute in Mr. Seacret's Garden please.

I love you Cherubi....but man are you annoying to deal with for a short while.

[Kithros]

All this talk about Talonflame and electric eels or whatever, and I'm just like, dude where's Pikachu? That's not a bad early-game choice. There aren't any electric-types early in the game (correct me if I'm wrong), and you won't be sweeping anything with Raichu since you don't find Thunder Stones until much later. It's not necessarily safe from Julia -- in fact, it's probably less safe compared to other Pokemon since with Pikachu's type similarities, Julia's team would be more inclined to spam their neutral, more dangerous moves like Sonic Boom or Explosion. Pikachu would give players more type variety without having a particular advantage or disadvantage against anyone at that point in the game (except for Cain's Oshawott, which is only one Pokemon out of many), or without being overpowered or underpowered. C'mon, it's the series mascot. You can't not have Pikachu early on.

I also support Deino as an early addition. I know it's a pseudo-legendary and Ame already has plans to include it for much later, but here's the thing: Deino is complete deadweight until it fully evolves. But the time between level 1 and level 60+ is a huge gap between something usable and something totally useless. By the time you fully evolve it, wouldn't you be at a point in the game where such power isn't totally unreasonable?

Pichu is already available in the game (and as such you can evolve to pikachu/raichu too), and it's possible to get it pretty early in the game too.

As far as deino goes - yeah for most of the game right now it would be deadweight, but it's still too strong for late in the game right now anyway. There might not be much for hydreigon to do right now since it can only really be used against charlotte/terra - but a few episodes down the road and it'll have plenty of playtime for it (this looks like it's going to be going all the way to level 100 by the last episode, and level 64 to 100 is still a lot of playtime) - there's still going to be 6 more gym leaders and the elite 4 + champion, and Hydreigon is going to be too strong for that portion of the game still I think.

Additionally, access to Deino really early would be gamebreaking for early gyms because dragon rage is a stupid ability (and Deino starts with it).

[ArthurZH]

Pokemon that could definitely be available earlier:

Weedle

Sandshrew

Psyduck

Geodude

Farfetch'd

Krabby

Drowzee

Exeggcute

Wingull

Spinda

Kecleon

Wynaut

Mantyke

Blitzle

Deerling

Tynamo

Rufflet

Skiddo

Helioptile

Dedenne

Bringing this thing in for the third time I think.

Add Tentacool to the list ;-;

[Shing]

Woah so much talk here.

I'm gonna love when game freak gonna make more new pokemon(and new mega evolution Amethyst). That time will be much discussion of moving and such(and making the mega evolution sprites).

[dondon151]

- Yes, 'X Mon breaks leader' is an absolutely valid reason to axe a Pokemon. This is because one of the premises of the game is to encourage using Pokemon that you normally would not throughout to the point where creativity and and cunning is made a near-need.

So, what, is Gigalith going to be axed now because it trivializes Charlotte? Or Flygon because it trivializes Aya and Radomus? Or Eevee/Glaceon because it trivializes Terra? Shouldn't we also push the Rain Dance TM to after Charlotte because it makes her battle too easy?

This is the territory that Ame has willingly entered by choosing to design a Pokemon game with gym leaders that specialize in a single type of Pokemon. Obvious weaknesses are usually negated by the field effect, but you can't cover all possible bases. Superheated field beats water-types (sort of), but it does nothing to rock-types. You can try as hard as you can to design Charlotte's team to contain 6 fire-types and not be vulnerable to rock-types, but abusable AI in conjunction with the space of available strategies means that there's always going to be something that renders these battles trivial.

Let the player have his fun. I come from the Fire Emblem community, and we talk all the time about how units on horses are broken. I've seen all kinds of suggestions to address this imbalance by nerfing cavaliers to the point of unusability, and it's like people don't realize that broken things can be fun if they're not too broken.

[Personthing]

When it comes to preventing leaders from being trivialized/made easier the only true way would be to cut any and all pokemon who have a type advantage against any of them, and make them come later. Which would be horrible. For example, if we followed this mindset we would not get any fire types until after Titania, and the game would suffer as a whole from this.

EDIT: I'm not talking about things like Gyrados, I'm more talking about pokemon that are helpful but not overpowered like Makuhita.

Edited March 8, 2015 by Mighty Kamina

[Commander]

If Ame didn't axe Pokemon, a team consisting of the lines of Blaziken, Roserade, Alakazam, Scrafty, Manectric, and Gyarados would be available before Florinia. The game already went through this song and dance once when Gen VI was implemented and things aren't miserable or screwed up, in fact, I feel it's much better. The ones that are getting axe likely aren't the ones you can use to exploit a gym, but the ones that basically appear on 80% of teams due to majorly outclassing everything or there not being any other options.

[Azeria]

I think it should alsobe mentioned that Blitzle has Motor Drive essentially allowing him to switch into any electric move of Julai so i'm going team tynamo...

[Deleted User]

Bringing this thing in for the third time I think.

Add Tentacool to the list ;-;

Tentacreul is actually a good pokemon though....

I think it should alsobe mentioned that Blitzle has Motor Drive essentially allowing him to switch into any electric move of Julai so i'm going team tynamo...

Didn't say it needed to be THAT early. Just earlier.

[Chase]

Please. Gigalith -doesn't- trivialize Charlotte. She has Solarbeam on pokemon that most definitely outspeed it.

...That said. There are particular instances where I AGREE with you. Unfortunately, I'm not Ame.

Having done this axe 'em approach the last few episodes the game has only gotten more and more popular.

[Knight_Teutonic]

It doesn't matter how many pokémon you want ame to take out of the game. I won't use bidoof for the sake of this so-called "variety".

Edited March 8, 2015 by Knight_Teutonic

[Ikaru]

No one is expecting you to. I already said it once, indirectly, but please stop overreacting. Ame will dismiss ridiculous suggestions and even the more sound ones are only considered; at the end of all this the choice is hers alone. She's not going to destroy her own game's variety and balance.

Having done this axe 'em approach the last few episodes the game has only gotten more and more popular.

I would credit that more to tumblr (and 4chan, I guess?) than pokemon being removed...

[EonicEevee]

noibat is an extremely early pokemon. it was the first wild pokemon i found in reborn and i got a shiny one.

[Timber Dragon]

Okay, fine, maybe not Deino. I sorta forgot about the Daycare system (frankly I never use the Daycare to level the mons I know I'll use. I'm no EV trainer but even I know that weird EVs are better than no EVs). I was more thinking about the hassle of switch training a mon with an insanely late evolution coupled with a slow leveling rate. I hadn't realized that Pichu could be obtained early (how early are we talking? Julia early?), but my logic went that since Pi(ka)chu is Electric-type, Julia wouldn't bother with her Electric attacks and would spam things like Sonic Boom instead.

I respect and agree with Ame's decision to axe certain Pokemon for the sake of balance, but my personal feelings on the matter have always been conflicted. I miss Gyarados, but the naysayers had a point: with Gyarados a lot of fights were won with more brute force than stragegy. However! It wasn't a lot more. Even with Gyarados, I could still get my ass kicked, because Reborn is hard. Removing Pokemon like Gyarados is an extreme case of outclassing other mons. Gyarados I can agree with. I can even agree on Gardevoir and Magmar. Not for some of the others. Mr. Mime? Really? Just because it's useful against Julia? I can sweep most of Julia's team with a Mightyena with Howl and Moxie, and that turned Julia into a joke. Is Mightyena gonna be removed? How about Trubbish and its poison stall strategy? Prankster Purrloin?

Certain Pokemon will appear on most of our teams, because the rest of the Pokemon in the area suck. Of course we're going to pick the best mon available. Sometimes that mon severely outclasses others, like Gyarados or Gardevoir. But Hariyama? Fine. Let's say Hariyama and its high attack gets removed. You know what players will do? Move on to the next best thing. Then we see that players are relying on that instead. So you remove it too. Realisitcally I know Ame won't reduce us to Bidoofs, but it seems like the only way to truly balance Reborn is for the available Pokemon in the area to be on the same playing field... which won't be true. There will always be that one Pokemon with a trick slightly more useful than others that makes it just a liiiitle better than the other Pokemon on the same level. We'll gravitate towards that, Reborn won't like it, so it'll be removed. It just feels like any advantage perdiod is grounds to think "This will make [X] gym a joke."

Look, I don't know Pokeymanz down to its binary and I don't know how one mon stacks up against another. Maybe you're seeing something I'm not. Since I don't see it, I just have some concerns about taking the axing mindset too far.

[Kithros]

I hadn't realized that Pichu could be obtained early (how early are we talking? Julia early?)

I'm not sure exactly when it becomes available - it's somewhere around when you fight Fern in Florinia's Gym, sometime around then you can go to one of the apartment buildings in the Onyx Ward and talk to one of the trainers you beat and he'll let you up to the rooftop, where a Pichu can be found during some weathers (not sure off the top of my head)

As far as axing pokemon goes - I think it mostly has to do with making us actually work to build our team up, instead of having the team we plan to use from the beginning of the game and then never switching pokemon out afterwards. By forcing us to use weak pokemon early on and then giving us access to better pokemon as time goes on it lets us feel like our team is actually improving over time - the alternative would be we find the pokemon we're looking for by the 2nd-3rd gym and then we stick to the same team for pretty much the entire game. By doing it this way it encourages people to keep catching new pokemon throughout the game instead of only having wild pokemon for completionist purposes, and not so much about if a pokemon is the best pokemon at the time (it's only a problem if it stays the best pokemon to use for an extended period of time).

I don't think it's inherently a good/bad way of going about things - I enjoyed pokemon hacks like blaze black/volt white too where you could get access to practically all of the pseudolegendaries before the 3rd gym in the game, it's just a different style of gameplay whether it's aimed towards developing a single team or constantly trying to improve your team.

[LeMasterJP]

It doesn't matter how many pokémon you want ame to take out of the game. I won't use bidoof for the sake of this so-called "variety".

I see you haven't met the infamous moody Bidoof yet, you wouldn't be talking shit about bidoof then

I'm not sure if moody bidoof is in the game, I wouldn't be surprised if it's moody is excluded.

[Gaunt]

I see you haven't met the infamous moody Bidoof yet, you wouldn't be talking shit about bidoof then

I'm not sure if moody bidoof is in the game, I wouldn't be surprised if it's moody is excluded.

It's in, but Moody Bibarel doesn't work all that well in-game (in my experience)

[Jaromir]

It's in, but Moody Bibarel doesn't work all that well in-game (in my experience)

It does if you have luck.

That's why I don't use one. Screw RNG!

[dondon151]

Please. Gigalith -doesn't- trivialize Charlotte. She has Solarbeam on pokemon that most definitely outspeed it.

LittleDevilex defeated Charlotte in about a minute with Gigalith and a Trick Room user.