What do you think gen IV will start on
I think theres 3 ways it could, at least in terms of raids, but 2 seems more likely
1, Regigias; I think it'd be somewhat fitting to have the legendaries that links gens 3 and 4 to be the Segway into gen IV. Gigas wont be the most difficult legendary, given machamp/haryama's likely to be the best counter to Regirock (and most already have those in spades) so it'd be a good bit of a buffer to allow players a month to build up their gen IV pokemon as they wont need to spend time preparing new counters for Gigas and being, possibly, a good pokemon itself
or 2, and this is the one I hope they dont do, start us off on the creation trio. Giratina would be the easiest one to beat given its numerous weaknesses that most players have prepped already because of mewtwo, but unless it origin forme, people likely wont want to go for it (and I think Niantic's well aware of players dislike to defensive legendaries) Palkia's got 2 weaknesses and both likely will only be usable against specific sets (fairy agaisnt dragon sets and dragon against nondragon sets, as well as there only being 1, possibly 2 viable fairy attackers) YEs against dragon legendaries with dragon sets, Dragonite salemence and Rayquaza all did well, but palkia will have higher stats than the lati's and rayquaza (all for the lati's, and defense for rayqyaza) as well as lacking a double weakness it would be a harder fight. Dialga, lets all be honest here, niantic wont be that nice, they wont give us the best way to deal with palkia and giratina first, they didnt do that with Kyogre and groudon, and likely wont do the same here.
3, this is the lease likely, I think the lake trio. If they do this, it would be half a year of raid fatigue, all three are pure psychic, will have the same counters, and all be inferior mewtwo, with the only one that will possibly be good is Azelf being an alternative to Mewtwo (albeit an inferior one) with more candy/general availability and possibly access to future sight and extrasensory or confusion
What do you guys think the legendary raids of gen IV will start on, or do you hope it starts on?
Answers
Hopes:
Lead off with mah boi Giratina. Depending on when he comes in the rotation he could see use against a large number of the rest of the Gen 4 legends, hitting Palkia, the lake trio, and Cresselia for SE damage. Plus it would give us some insight on how they plan to handle Pokemon with selectable formes (Deoxys, Rotom, Shaymin, etc.).
Potential option 1:
Start off with any of the creation trio. They started Gen 3 with the weather trio, what's stopping them from starting Gen 4 with the creation trio? They likely need to pick up T5 traffic and the creation trio will yield the biggest spike in traffic across the entire generation.
Potential option 2:
Regigigas could be the first, following the theme of the 3 Regi buildup. While it would be a nice nod to the main series titles, the lack of Glaceon and Leafeon on Eevee days kinda ruined my confidence in them following main series themes. Plus I don't know if it will have the same excitement factor the creation trio would have. If anything it could have the opposite effect on people unfamiliar with Gen 4 seeing YET ANOTHER Regi raid boss. There's also its Slow Start gimmick, which actually points to them holding off on Gigas for a while. Niantic tends to take their time with gimmick mons; see Smeargle.
Potential option 3:
Lead off with Heatran. A lot of people who favor fire types are ready to cream themselves when he shows up, and for good reason. With stats and typing that are a direct upgrade from Moltres it stands to be an absolute behemoth should it get FS/OH. While no immediate T5 use this gen he could be a risky/glassy option against some of the Gen 5 legends, namely Cobalion and Virizion. With useful steel moves it's a solid check against Kyurem in Gen 5 and Xerneas in Gen 6.
ISHYGDDT Tier:
Start off with the lake trio or Cresselia. They bring nothing to the table other psychic types don't already do better; At best Azelf is a more expensive Alakazam and the other two don't even get an honorable mention. Cresselia doesn't have nearly the same amount of bulk or attack as Lugia and the lack of a second typing only hurts it more as a bulky fighting counter.
Truth is no one knows who they'll lead with. Best we just wait and see.
I hope they lead with giratina too, I just hope they give it origin form. The creation trio is the most sensible option to go with, and I think they will do them first
Heatran will be interesting if they lead it, but I think it would kill all joy from a future moltres Raid day and Entei research, given just how good heatran is going to be. I hope if they do thet give it a good steel set, this game really needs good steel types
The others I agree would be very, very joykilling, as with tha lake trio, half a year of not good raids, Azelf's realy the only that does have potential, but at best could be a discount mewtwo (which might make it more appealing for players not by EX gyms) and if given Confusion/Psyshock, will have about .8 dps less than mewtwo and .9 more dps and ~40 TDO than alakazam against machamp, but i think more so will allow people to repurpose their psychic mewtwo to the more useful shadowball/focus blast as an alternative assuming it gets that set of course. the others, yeah, they're trash
They'll likely introduce both formes, hopefully with some means of switching between the two. That said, for this reason they may delay Giratina because - again - gimmicks.
Azelf will be to Mewtwo what Zapdos pre-TS is to Raikou. It will be hard to justify spending dust and rare candy on one when Mewtwo is objectively better. Despite having similar DPS, Mewtwo still crushes it in TDO. I'm still unconvinced Azelf will warrant the rare candy investment when in practice it's only *slightly* better than Alakazam, whether it gets Psyshock or Future Sight.
I was trying to say Azelf will be good for those who dont have access to mewtwo, for players who have a mewtwo it will be worthless, but not everyone has a mewtwo or is close to an EX gym, that or it could be use as a replacement for mewtwo on the psychic front as mewtwo's better with Focusblast or shadow ball. so it will give it a niche, just a very small one (Though I wont be using an RC on one, or even stardust with Azelf candy because psychic isnt good for much other than machamp raids)
I agree it is strictly inferior, but the comparision with zapdos and raikou isnt the same as those can only be one thing, electric attackers, Azelf could let people move their mewtwo over to the more useful generalist sets given how limited its psychic set, and mewtwo itself to obtain, can be
Mewtwo still excels in the psychic role though. If someone had a Mewtwo they relied on in their psychic line-up they likely wouldn't surrender it for something objectively worse. Azelf is still only *slightly* better than the less expensive Alakazam and actually has a lower DPS*TDO ranking than Espeon, who after Eevee days nobody should have trouble getting.
I agree that it's a nice little psychic legendary for those struggling to obtain Mewtwo, but on the legendary spectrum as a whole there are much better rare candy sinks.
There's absolutely no telling what they'll lead with for Gen 4, though leading with Regigigas is entirely possible as a link to the prior 3 Regi Titans.
That said, I personally hope they lead with the creation trio. As was mentioned, people are raid-fatigued already, so it would be nice to kick off Gen 4 with mons people are actually excited about chasing after.
I agree, i'd like to see the creation trio start it, but I think they would be a big difficulty spike. They've got a lot less weaknesses (at least dialga and palkia do) and most of them will all come with drawbacks/not viable against certain moves if they get them. The only real one that would be 'easy' (easy with quotes, given theres are legendaries with both bulk and offense) would be dialga Vs machamp because of already powered up, but agaisnt palkia, theres fairy or dragons, that are only going to have an easy time against dragon/water sets respectively, given it doesnt have that crippling double weakness Rayquaza had. though the challenge of that happening would be nice and inject a lot of life back into tier 5 raids.
Honestly? Good, the game needs a little challenge injected into it. Also I think you got that backwards; Dialga and Palkia have very few weaknesses, Dialga's being supremely unconventional for a legendary (even if armies of 4-armed fisters lie in wait) and Palkia's dragon weakness being something of a double-edged sword.
I must have mixed up somewhere
I agree, itd be good to have some challenge, but some might not like it as much. Dialga, even being weak to fighting will still be a tough battle for machamp/haryama, this will be the first legendary with an actual attack stat thats weak to fighting.
Palkia's dragon weakness I agree is a double edged sword, its weak to dragons itself, but if it has a dragon move, dragons will suffer greatly (especially Salamence and Rayquaza given their lower defenses) meanwhile fairies (cough cough Gardevoir) will really only be able to stand up to its dragon moves, Togekiss really is the only hope against other match ups because of its bulk (assuming it gets a double fairy set). It will be interesting, the (good) legendaries of gen IV wont be as easy to deal with as previous legendaries.
This is why we tell you to proofread your posts before hitting "Save" :^) Honestly, your shit's nearly impossible to read sometimes.
Even with dual dragon moves, you'll want a majority of dragons in your Palkia hit squad to deal the most damage as fast as possible. Save the fairies for the last slot or two to tank some hits. Against a theoretical Dragon Tail/Hydro Pump Palkia the main dragons stand taller than anything else you can throw at it. My Rays, Nites, and Salamence have their work cut out for them.
It's not like we haven't had tough to deal with legendaries before. The very first wave of legendary raids was among the toughest since we were less organized than we are now - Lugia with Hydro Pump in particular was a real asshole since your best counters were either Golem who was OHKO'ed, RT Omastar that almost nobody had, or Tyranitar who most people hadn't amassed yet. Raikou wasn't a factor yet and Zapdos wasn't in play until near the end of R1. This is before going into how SB Ho-Oh and Blizzard Kyogre are STILL headaches to deal with, even with all our new toys.
Againt they hydropump set, yes dragon will be best, but against Outrage/draco meteor or if they add it, spatial rend, that could cut them short, especially since Ray and Salamence arent known for their defense. At the start of the battle, yes high DPS is good, but after that, how much does it really help if they cant get it out for long? (Bringing this up as its an example of my thinking for why dragons wont be as effective, this happened earlier today, I did a tyrantiar raid where it was more or less oneshot a 100 machamp with firebast, the High DPS was meaningless because how short it was in there)
I'm not saying all previous legendaries were pushovers, but most of that was due to factors like inexperience, people didnt organize themselves and the counters were less common (likely the reason tyranitar and some tier 5 counters are in the raid rotation these days) , but when you break down the stats, the pokemon isnt too hard. That kind of difficulty isnt really comparable some something like a difficult type combination and stats/moves, they are different kinds of difficulty. Yes theres some like Kyogre with blizzard that are still trouble, but things on par with the difficulty of blizzard kyogre could be the norm of the gen IV dragons and legendaries going forward (got a taste of that with regice and will with Zapcannon R-Rock, while they wont be hitting too hard, it still shows theyre giving counter coverage to legendaries) due to their types/moves
That's why you lead with them, get as much damage out as quickly as possible. Remember you're competing for damage balls, the guys burning through revives on dragons are more likely to score balls than the guys fighting with only tanks.
Focus Blast Regice and Zap Cannon Regirock don't even touch Blizzard Kyogre in terms of difficulty. My Tyranitar - with their double weakness - shrugged off Focus Blast from Regice. My Raikou with no weakness was OHKO by Kyogre's Blizzard until I powered it up beyond level 35. Not to mention a plethora of counters for the two Regis actively resist those moves - name a single counter worth using against Kyogre that resisted Blizzard. I'll wait, I'm hourly.
The only legendaries to not receive counter-coverage have been the birds and the beasts. Mewtwo has counter coverage, Lugia has it, Ho-Oh has it, every single Gen 3 legend has it. Legendaries with counter coverage isn't anything particularly new.
So glass counters first > Supreme > Tank counters is the typical/optimal order for how to structure a raid team, I would assume?
Most do have counter coverage, but most of the moves they have (baring Kyogre and mewtwo) really dont have the stats/moves to do it effectively (those fighting moves from Ice hardly tickle tyranitar), most it comes off as a mild inconvenience at most, but Kyogre and Mewtwo were really the only ones that seem they can do that counter coverage effectively (solar beam ho-oh as well, but double weakness offsets that).
Have you actually fought a Solar Beam Ho-Oh? It's still as much an asshole as Blizzard Kyogre, AND in both rounds of it as a raid boss we didn't have Smack Down Tyranitar. Its best counters were still Golem and Omastar, who got royally fucked by Solar Beam. Double weakness doesn't mean shit if it gets Solar Beam off before you can fire off a single Stone Edge.
YEs, I have fought solar beam ho-oh, it was how I got my shiny, It the reason I hate that set of ho-oh, thats why I was so f***ing happy my first ho-oh was a shiny so I didnt have to deal with it again. I fought it in partly cloudy because I heard how much of an ass it was, so glad I kept rock blast instead of stone edge on my golem squad
Its funny for how hard it is to kill, ho-oh's just kinda of a mediocre pokemon
A-Golem wasn't around during Kyogre's return. Even so, it gets shafted having Volt Switch as its only electric type fast move, which is much better suited for defense than offense. Between that and Waterfall chipping its health away faster than most you'd still be better off using TS Zapdos or FB Venusaur despite their weakness to Blizzard, as they have comparable TDO with notably higher DPS. If A-Golem had gotten Spark instead then we'd be talking.
I would love to hear your rationale for bringing Metagross to a Kyogre fight because I can't think of a single reason why someone would do that.
I don't miss the days of needing 12 for a Lugia.
The community as a whole has gotten stronger, better mon over the months, so raids aren't as much of an immediate challenge.
Certain persons who started playing after Gen 3 may not realize this, especially as they have a rich resource here.
Also, DPS as king means I will be bringing Dragons to a Dragon fight, not fairies.
"but palkia will have higher stats than the lati's and rayquaza (all for the lati's, and defense for rayqyaza) "
Palkia post-nerf: atk 280 def 224 hp 163
Latios: atk 268 def 228 hp 160
(Dialga post-nerf: atk 274 def 220 hp 182)
Latios has slightly more defense than either of them. Latias has MUCH more defense than either of them(268). I have showed you these numbers before so I'd honestly have assumed you to get your facts straight.
Neither will hit quite as hard as Rayquaza, meaning dragons are perfectly viable counters against Palkia's dragon movesets. Your attackers will go down fast, but the DPS is worth it, especially compared to the much lower fairy-type DPS. The raid bosses' defense plays literally zero part in the equation of what is the best counter.
I like Regigas as a tie-in right after Regirock leaves. Wouldn't be surprised if they start with that, I think the weather trio right off the bat was a big mistake with gen 3 and I hope they learned from that. Hard to keep up excitement when you get the best stuff first and everything that comes after is just bland by comparison.
So, the highest DPS makes the supreme counter? If so, then that means breloom's the supreme counter to everything machamp is the supreme counter, either defense doesnt matter as a counter or it does, ("Their defense plays literally zero part in the equation of what is the best counter.")
I mean defense as in Defense and HP total, not just defense (should probably have specified that) I did forget latias has higher defense (mostly as its so forgetable as a legendary) There is more value in slightly less DPS and more TDO, (houndoom/tyrantiar is an example)Rayquaza has only 4 and 10 more atk points, but much less defense and hp between the two of them
I think I speak for everyone when I say we don't want to get into this again. Despite Breloom having higher DPS it isn't *that* much higher (less than 0.02 in a vacuum), and it's much more frail (more than 100 less TDO in a vacuum). The difference against post-nerf Palkia is that Rayquaza for example has over six points of DPS on Gardevoir (~21.7 compared to ~15.5). That's an astronomical difference.
The tl;dr of it all is major with glass, minor in bulk (the last slot or two).
I brought it up as I was hearing bulks not important, DPS is, and there was something with Higher DPS, it was mostly because the conflicting statements about DPS being the only important factor (as defense was said to be irrelivent) I was looking for clarification on that. Perhaps a more apt comparison would have been houndoom and tyrantiar
Thats what I mean, perhaps using a comparison of tyranitar to houndoom would have been better when comparing rayquaza to the gen iv dragons (one having higher DPS, but the other(/s) having significantly more bulk) The breloom comparison may have been the wrong one
Edit: Thought that Tyranitar has lower DPS against mewtwo from a graph I saw once, and the best attacker by type page. now know otherwise
The DPS numbers on the DPS/TDO ranking shift ever so slightly depending on the enemy move combinations. Only against Psycho Cut/Psychic against Mewtwo did something manage to out-DPS Tyranitar: Absol. Still, you're comparing Absol's 19.994 DPS against Tyranitar's 19.942 in that situation. Realistically, that advantage is unnoticeable and Tyranitar still can dish out over twice the total damage Absol can.
Raid bosses have normalized HP, the HP base stat of the boss doesn't matter one bit.
"Their defense" part is about the raid boss. Should maybe have clarified that. The raid boss defense is a nonfactor when deciding what is the best counter since it's the same defense against every counter.
This has been told to you many times already, bulk matters, but it matters much less than DPS. Machamp is better than Breloom and Mewtwo is better than Gengar, because they're very close in DPS but one is much tankier. In Gardevoir's case, its DPS isn't anywhere near the top, even if it has great TDO against Dragon movesets. It's a tank counter, not a supreme one.
Dude you really need to calm down with the gen 4 obsession, Its NOT going to be some sort of mind blowing game changer. All it's going to be is we get to catch some different trash Pokémon and raid some different bosses, some of which will be better some of which will be worse than what we are raiding now. There is NO magical be all Pokémon in Gen 4. We all know you are obsessed with finding some sort of mythical Pokémon that has double resistance and deals super effective damage to everything, Trust me that Pokémon isn't in Gen 4.
I hope they start of with either of the box legendaries (Palkia makes the most sense then, as it deals neutral damage to Dialga) as I think that's a good link to the main series games.
A second option would be Regigigas as it would link the end of gen 3 with the beginning of gen 4 as the leader of the Regis
Any other boss would not make sense in my opinion.
I'm thinking Regigas first to get some initial hype going, followed by Lake trio to get us to the northern hemisphere winter, then Creation trio during the winter like you said. They could possibly do short periods of shiny Ray/Groudon in between the Lake trio to keep up interest.
I agree that the Lake trio will be another extremely dead period of raiding, not looking forward to it no matter when it happens. Niantic really should go with shorter periods for these undesirable legendaries, nobody wants to have them for a full month.
