Event Speculation
Up next we all know that hoenn's the region pokemon are from, but theres a lot of contention as to what its focus will be.
I've heard slakoth, and ralth throw around, but I have soemthign that i hope will put those to rest, permanently;
For Ralts, the hope's gardevoir getting a fairy fast move, that simply cant happen, its unable to learn fairy wind (and anyone thinking of bringing up that E3 trailer where it used it, they made it unable to learn it in the main games) and 2, the speculation about Gallade, which cant happen because of its special evolution requirements. and 3, if it gets a psychic charge move like future sight, it will become another psychic type outclassed by mewtwo
Slakoth: this wont happen because point blank, it would break the game if it gets an actual fast move.
And before people say things dont need to be meta relevant, pikachu was more of less a trial run and also a starter, Squirtle was also a starter, so it needed to be included, and dragon pulse ampharos was a nudge in the "mega's are going to be a thing" direction.
This leaves only 3 pokemon, bagon trapinch and beldum, we all know trapinch wont get one because it wont fit in the pattern and theres no moves it could get ti make it better unless I suppose outrage or maybe if they add dragon rush, leaving only the 2 pseudo legendaries.
in all likely hood, it's going to be a dragon move for salamence and a steel move for metagross
Answers
Pikachu is also the series mascot, naturally they would lead their new monthly events with him.
I'm not holding my breath for anything in particular until Niantic announces it officially. As far as meta-relevancy goes, I don't understand why we should rule out novelty moves. Dragonite got Draco Meteor which is arguably slightly worse than Outrage. While it does tease at mega evolutions, M-Ampharos won't be groundbreaking by any means. And surfing Pukachu was an obvious nod to fans of Yellow.
So far Community day has fit the theme of starter -> 10k 3 stage -> repeat. We'll see if this holds up when they announce the next Pokemon. Some other food for thought:
-Future Sight Gardevoir being worse than Mewtwo isn't enough to rule it out, although it would be a less than exciting CD.
-Does Slaking learn Body Slam in the main series? I don't remember. If so, that's a possibility.
-Will Porygon be a contestant for a community day when Gen 4 drops? I doubt it since evo items are required for both stages of evolution, unless they were to lift that requirement for its CD. Time will only tell.
Giving Slakoth a fast move would not break the game. Mewtwo has higher attack, and Blissey would still be a better gym defender. Plus having a Slaking day for 3 hours wouldn’t give players enough to do much. I would welcome a decent gym defender other than Blissey. A Slaking with a halfway decent fast move would be like battling a stronger version of Snorlax.
thats true, they have higher attack (but that points irrelivent as mewtwo cant be used on defense), but it is already one of the best defenders, and its main damage dealing is play rough, I fast attack that would deal damage, even if its 1, and gain energy while doing it would be over powered,
And the comment on people not getting enough to do much, people got 7+ tyranitar with smackdown, I got 6 myself starting at only 36 candy, so yes, people will be able to get enough
I hope they break the established pattern and do something completely different. They enjoy doing Kanto themed events, so they could go back and do any number of Gen1 pokemon.
August: Gen1 pokemon
September: Gen2 starter
October: spoopy Gengar with Shadow Claw to kick off a Halloween event
November: Gen2 starter
Many who played the console games or watched the anime as children stopped after the first or second generation. Focusing on the first generation would help attract them back to the series. Others their age who have never played the games or watched the anime would still know what a Bulbasaur is, because the most iconic species are all from the first generation.
This is just my opinion but that's not enough of a reason to limit Alolan forms to Gen 1 only. I love the idea of regional variants, I think it's a cool idea, but by limiting themselves the way they did it goes horribly underutilized. Pre-Gen 7 there's what, 700 some odd Pokemon? That's massive potential wasted by having less than 20 Alolan forms for the sake of reigning back players who dropped the series early on. Megas showed similar favoritism before they added a bunch of Gen 3 megas for ORAS.
Keep the Alolan Kanto Pokemon, use them exclusively for marketing purposes as a nostalgia trap if need be, but spread the love around to some other gens is all I'm saying.
I'm a Gen I diehard, but I will say the designs (especially Spinarak and Ariados) look more polished in Gen II. They actually could capitalize on early success. Gen III looks like crap, but is more varied... perhaps some sort of not-island variants for Gen VIII might be broader in scope (even 40 versus 20) or maybe Let's Go will surprise us.
Whether designs are crap or not comes down to personal taste. There are designs both good and bad across all gens, including Gen 1. If Gen 8 continues the trend of regional variants for whatever landmass they base it in I hope they extend it beyond Gen 1.
I'll save my rant about LGPE being the most obvious case of genwunner nostalgia-bait and simply say I'd be tremendously surprised if LGPE did anything to extend regional variants since it's locked to the first 151 plus Alolans.
A thought on Gardevoir:
Gamefreak has taken notice of Go's success in a big way. This is most obviously revealed in Let's Go's heavy centralization around Go's gameplay. Based on this, I would not consider the following exchange too far out of the realm of possibility:
Niantic: Hey, Gamefreak. We screwed up and made every obvious Fairy move save Fairy Wind into a charged move, but we want to give Gardevoir a fairy fast-move for community day. Think you could hook us up by letting it learn Fairy Wind in gen 8, or maybe even letting us showcase a new move before it's released in the main series?
Gamefreak: K
...now, admittedly it's not terribly likely, but I can see Gamefreak starting to bend more for Niantic as we move forward.
Ever think that maybe all the fairy moves being charge moves was intentional?
gardevoir with a double fairy set would be devastating, dazzling gleam and confusion deal a lot more than you'd think to dark types, it could have been a balancing thing, something most players dont consider
also if they changed disarming voice to a fast move, what would thet do about ALL the pokemon that have it as a charge move now? keep a charge move disarming voice and then get tm'able fast move disarming voice? And then that would open up whole arguments about what moves should and should not be switched, its a pandora's box they likely wont open
I don't think they add moves the way they do with the intent on nerfing single Pokemon, Slaking being an exception (which honestly? After the stat nerf didn't need it). Gardevoir's attack stat is only 237, stronger Pokemon get more broken move combos than that. Power creep is real and if you haven't noticed it yet you will in another generation or two, despite Niantic's efforts to curb it.
Also your bit about C/DG doing more damage to dark types simply isn't true. Go to the DPS/TDO ranking, change one of the enemy type dropdowns to dark and look up Gardevoir. Its CB/DG moveset has higher DPS than C/DG as well as higher TDO. Both sets are eclipsed in both regards by the typical slew of fighting types. I'm not saying a fairy fast move wouldn't allow it to spring past the fighting types, I'm just saying you're overestimating its role against dark types right now.
Currently the only Pokemon who get Disarming Voice are NFE's, Delcatty, and Exploud. I'd assume they would legacy the charge move version and add it as a fast move. Despite allowing for some funny DV/DV shenanigans it's the safest way to do it.
The thing about power creep doesnt really apply to gardevoir, as theres nothing that can do what fairy does, there may be bigger, and stronger pokemon, but until we get to gen 6, its only competitor it togekiss, which has more weaknesses, and is a lot more scarce
I dont think they'd ever make a move go from charge to fast, because whats to say people wont complain about play rough not being a fast move, or something else like it. this is a pandora's box, and after all the complaints that people have about things niantic has done, changing one move for one specific pokemon (or even a specific move for a small handful) would open them up the criticism from people saying every pokemon should get its move changed
Honestly that's as crazy as it is plausible. I'm sure when Go was first conceptualized it was contracted somewhere that Gamefreak had the final say in most matters. Now that Go is raking in fat stacks like it's no one's business I'm sure they're trying to get a bigger say in some decisions.
Or maybe not, Gamefreak could still be clinging onto as much of the rights as possible.
Instead of these constant community days, I would like to see afew of them replaced with raid days like the Articuno one we've just had. It's a great chance to stock up on RC's & the 3 hour timer on each gym was genius. It would also serve to spread out the dwindling number of CD eligible mons & keep things fresh.
The question isn't just if people are burnt out, it's if they're too burnt out to keep playing. The limited time shiny prospect is enough to get most people out, not to mention the oodles of raid rewards (items, XP, legendary candy if your catches are successful). The fact that they took a slight hit by giving out extra free raid passes was probably enough to coax people into buying more to keep raid trains going.
If Niantic keeps with the current trend of alternating between starters and non-nesting 10k Mons with 2-stage evolutions, in the order of their Pokedex #s, then we should be getting Ralts for August. As for the special move, Niantic actually has the freedom to do all sorts of things, so we'll just have to wait and see.
It's also entirely possible that they change things up (like they did giving us BS Snorlax as our research breakthrough encounter for July, instead of a legendary). Just because there's been a pattern thus far doesn't mean they're going to stick to it.
Edit: Slaking with a quick move that deals damage for CD will not break the meta. At all. It would likely become the top Normal-type attacker, but it would be far from breaking anything, would still be outclassed by Blissey on defense, and by specialists on offense.
Well, then the people who mentioned that it had higher dps than aggron when I was talking about things aggron does better than machamp, they said that Rayq had higher DPS with neutral double flying after I said that argon's steel set beat machamp's fighting set against aerodactyl, then again what can you expect from people defanging machamp when it cant do something aggron can
