The future may be bright.

Let’s be honest here. Pokémon is definitely not perfect. Game Freak knows this and they are constantly trying to change things up. The addition of dream world abilities helped, but the execution on that one was pretty bad. We are about to hit generation six and we still haven’t gotten all of the dream world abilities yet. Other things have changed. Magic Bounce has made it so that one can no longer safely set up their hazards and permanent weather outside of Ubers has basically taken over competitive play. Well, in honor of our blog’s Pokémon Week, I will be going over five things that I want to see from the new meta game. Hopefully some of you want to see these changes made as well.

5). Hail Buff

One of my favorite presidents right here.

I will not lie. Hail is definitely my favorite weather. The problem is that it is simply much harder to use effectively than the other weathers are. Rain gives your water moves a buff, fire moves a nerf, it makes two great moves fully accurate, and it activates multiple abilities. Sun buff you fire moves, nerfs water moves, makes it so that solarbeam does not need a turn to charge, and it activates multiple abilities. Sand gives rock-type pokémon a special defense boost and it will passively damage all pokémon that are not ground, rock, or steel pending abilities that activate with the weather. Hail simply makes blizzard fully accurate and it damages all things besides ice-types pending abilities activated by the weather. It just isn’t as useful as the other weathers. Honestly, rain and sun do a little too much, but sand is in a pretty good place. What kind of buffs am I looking for when it comes to hail? Either more pokémon that can abuse hail abilities like ice body, non ice-types would be preferable, or something like a stat increase. Sand gets one.

4). More Specially Offensive Priority Moves

One of the few viable sets out there.

Priority is a pretty big deal in Pokémon. Why is that? Well, because speed is a pretty big deal in the meta game. People are constantly being saved by mach punch, sucker punch, and other such moves. Unfortunately, special attackers can’t really save you in these situations. Unless you have something like a nasty plot Lucario with vacuum wave, then you are shit out of luck. With all of the physical priority moves running around, I would think that we would have more special ones. Vacuum wave is the only one that comes to mind for me and it is really only available to physical attackers like Scizor, Infernape, and Lucario. Sure, some of them could be special or mixed, but those sets are seen far less often than their physical counterparts. It would be nice to see something like a priority fire move or something like that with a special orientation. It could really help out some of the special attackers that aren’t ridiculously fast. Roserade could definitely benefit from something like this.

3). Dragon Dance on Flygon

Bryan’s favorite Pokémon as of fifth gen.

I know that Bryan would appreciate this one. Flygon is an unfortunate little guy. He is a great pokémon in theory. Dragon and ground STAB mixed with a good attack stat and a fun design. Unfortunately, it has a sub par speed stat at ninety and its only setup move is hone claws. You don’t even mess with lower accuracy moves on Flygon for the most part. It is a dragon and it should get dragon dance. If Scrafty, Crawdaunt, and Lapras get dragon dance, then Flygon is basically entitled to it. How would it help? Well, I am going to boldly say that it would shoot the little guy back up into the OU tier. With an ability like levitate, you can switch Flygon into a ground move or at least something that is threatened out by it and start setting up. One dragon dance should be enough to get some decent speed going and you could really mess things up. You would have to watch out for scarfers, but that is true of most pokémon without a scarf. Well, except for Accelgor.

2). Motor Drive for the Rotoms

This is my least favorite Rotom form.

Here is something that GameFreak missed when it was changing the Rotoms. Sure, giving them different typing was great and it really benefitted things like Rotom-W. However, it kind of made Rotom-F stupid. What am I talking about? Well, all of the Rotoms carry the ability levitate. That is great because they are all part electric-type and that will stop things like earthquake from ruining your day. Unfortunately, Rotom-F is part flying-type and that gives it a natural levitate. The ability is officially redundant. That is why dream world needs to give Rotom-F a new ability. I assume that all of the Rotoms may be given the same ability and that is why I chose motor drive as a suggestion. Why does this make sense? They are all related to some sort of machine. Machines have motors and they are all electric-types. It would make things pretty scary in a world where thunder wave and volt switch are far too common. Rotom-F wouldn’t even be the only one to benefit from this one. I may not use motor drive on Rotom-H, but I definitely think that Rotom-C would appreciate it.

1). More Rapid Spinners and/or More ways to Eliminate Entry Hazards

I like this guy better than Ferrothorn.

Entry hazards are a huge part of the meta game. Stealth rocks is revered as the most important move in the game for good reason. It damages everything without a special ability and it hits things for super effective damage. Stacked spikes are really annoying, toxic spikes are destructive, and new hazards are being introduced. In a world where it feels like a quarter of the pokémon can learn stealth rock, it feels like the same handful of pokémon get rapid spin. There are too many pokémon that get hurt by hazards and that is why things like Moltres, Articuno, and Charizard will be stuck in the lowers tiers. Heck, it is rough running a focus sash pokémon that isn’t a lead because they will get messed up. Either give more pokémon rapid spin or make it easier to get rid of hazards. Another move or a rapid spin buff would be nice. People have talked about making rapid spin a non damaging move to stop things like spin blocking. Magic bounce helped, but it definitely wasn’t enough to stop this stealth rock oppression. Free times four stealth rock weak pokémon 2013.

Honorable Mention

Give Flareon Flare Blitz

The little Eeveelution that couldn’t kill anything.

I would have put this on my list if it wasn’t for the fact that everyone already knows about this one. The Eevee forms have always been popular and most of them are fairly good at what they do. Generation four kind of dropped the ball by giving us two that rarely see the light of day, but Flareon is definitely a fan favorite. What is wrong with it? Not a lot really. It has an excellent attacking stat and guts makes it very potent. Facade, quick attack, and flame charge are nice moves to put on it. What is missing here? A good STAB move. Running fire fang would be your most potent option as of now. We all see what lack of power in STAB moves has done to Electivire. Why can’t we give the little guy Flare Blitz? All of the other Eeveelutions get powerful moves. Thunder, hydro pump, leaf blade, blizzard, psychic, and foul play are just some of the examples of moves that the others get. Umbreon may not get the greatest dark move, but it honestly doesn’t need anything besides foul play and dark STAB is pretty weak in general. Ghost knows that pain. Just give Flareon flare blitz. They both have “flare” in the name dammit.

I can’t wait for Saturday.

Overall, every new games brings new things to the table. Generation five brought more than usual and that got us thinking. If you can completely overhaul the meta game with new moves, new abilities, changed base power and accuracy of old moves, and over one hundred new pokémon, then why can’t we get some of these changes? Are a few of my requests s bit selfish. You know they are. I don’t know if a hail buff is as high on your list as it is on mine, but I definitely think that all of these changes holds a competitive significance that can’t be ignored. Well, I have had my time to talk. What do you think? I would love to know about some of the changes that you want to see in the new game.