Hypothetical Battle Mechanic: Armoured Pokémon

Having noticed that recent generations of Pokémon always include some cool new battle mechanic - Mega Evolution, Z-Moves, Dynamax - at some point during the summer of 2019 I tried to come up with my own.

The Premise

My goal was for the mechanic to make any Pokémon competitively viable and dismantle the stale, boring way competitive Pokémon are usually played. Also, I didn't want it to be overpowered and overly specialised like Mega Evolution can be. It should make weak Pokémon much stronger, while already strong Pokémon should be affected very little.

The Result: (VERSION 1)

Sigma Armour, an Imaginary Battle Mechanic

"In all Pokémon there live microscopic symbionts with mysterious power.

Modern technology allows us to stimulate these symbionts under specific conditions, making them multiply and grow into temporary additional tissue on the host's body to assist them in battle."

Using the activating item Sigma Resonator on any eligible Pokémon will cause that Pokémon to grow Sigma Armour. Sigma Armour makes the Pokémon very strong, but is rather unstable and falls apart after taking 5 direct hits. The Resonator must be charged between uses, so the transformation can be made only once per battle.

Specifically, Sigma Armour raises the subject's base stats so that their total becomes 600. Pokémon with a BST equal to or greater than that are considered very strong already and not in need of more power. They are not eligible for growing Sigma Armour.

The main points of the stat modification are A) that it doesn't modify HP and B) that it raises the lowest stats first and most.

For strong Pokémon with a high BST this means patching up their weaker stats. For weak Pokémon with a low BST this means a significant rise that turns the weakest of their weak stats into base 100+ strong stats, turning them into instant pseudo-Legendaries that can confront traditionally strong Pokémon.

The stats are increased in a relatively simple process I have a detailed proposition for, but not with me right now. It will be up later. Any thoughts for now?

If it's raising the lowest stats most it doesn't seem too useful as any competitively built Pokémon's moveset is based around its highest stats.

In detail, what Sigma Armor does is compute the difference D=600-(base stat total). The difference D is then split into portions, the size of which depends on how big D is. These portions are then added to the Pokémon's base stats: first portion to the lowest stat, second to the second lowest etc.

The portions are divided like this:

Step 1:
Divide D by 2 and round it up. This gives you the maximum portion size M.
If M is under 50, raise it to 50. The increase must be significant.
If M is above 100, reduce it to 100 to 90. The increase mustn't be ridiculously too much, which is why it was nerfed to 90. This was done to avoid stats of 150 in weak Pokémon (for non-Legendaries and non-Mega Evolutions, anything beyond 130 is absurdly powerful) and to make the 3rd adding portion substantial.

Step 2:
Starting from the lowest base stat, excluding HP, add M points to it (or all you have left if there are less than M left) and subtract them from D.
If there are several equally low stats, they split all portions one of them would get equally.
Once you empty D, you are done.

After this procedure, the starting Pokémon has a BST of 600 reached by boosting its lowest stats. The idea was that 2 weakest stats are boosted, and the portion sizes were set accordingly. For very weak Pokémon (here defined as having a BST under 400), more than 2 are boosted.

Let me illustrate what I mean with a few examples.

Example 1:

Torterra, with stats distributed as 95/109/105/75/85/56 and a BST of 525, has a difference D=600-525=75.
Step 1: 75/2 rounded up is 38<50, so maximal portion M=50.
Step 2: Our portions are then 50 and 25. Torterra's lowest stat, Speed, gets the 50, and its second lowest stat, Special Attack, gets the 25.

In the end we have Armoured Torterra with stats 95/109/105/100/85/106 and BST 600.

Example 2:

Ledian, with stats 55/35/50/55/110/85 and a BST of 390, has a difference D=600-390=210.
Step1: 210/2=110>100, so M=90.
Step 2: Our portions are 90, 90 and 30, added in that order to the weakest stats Attack, Defense and Special Attack.

In the end we have Armoured Ledian with stats 55/125/140/85/110/85 and BST 600.
Ledian of all things now hits like a truck and is amazingly durable.

Example 3 (the ultimate test):

Solo Form Wishiwashi, with stats 45/20/20/25/25/40 and the lowest BST of all Pokémon at 175, has a difference D=600-175=425.
Step 1: 425/2>100 so M=90.
Step 2: Our portions are 90, 90, 90, 90, 65. All available stats are increased.

In the end we have the horror that is Armoured Wishiwashi with stats 45/110/110/115/115/105, only slightly weaker than School Form Wishiwashi, but three times as fast.

EDIT: changed upper bound for portion size if there are more than 2 portions to 90

Rainbow said:

If it's raising the lowest stats most it doesn't seem too useful as any competitively built Pokémon's moveset is based around its highest stats.

Click to expand...

What do you think now, ye of little faith?

Try this procedure on your favourite weak Pokémon and see it turn monstrously powerful!

The idea is to take any weak Pokémon and turn it very powerful in an unexpected way.

Even though most Pokémon have a relatively wide specially/physically mixed set of teachable moves, most are competitively useful for one way of attacking and serious battlers don't bother using the moves of the wrong category on them. This system can help you have a viable specially oriented Unfezant or physically strong Ledian if you want it.

Very weak Pokémon have large, ~100 adding portions and their stat increase is frankly dramatic and completely changes their role in battle. That's why the system had to be tweaked to make the portions 90 at most - powerful, but manageable. With 100 they climbed to 150(!!!), which is just too much.

Look at this:

Sableye and Mawile, with stat distributions 50/75/75/65/65/50 and 50/85/85/55/55/50, respectively, and a BST of 380.
The difference is 600-380=220, so they will get increases in portions of 100, 100 and 20 90, 90 and 40.
The lowest stat for both is Speed, so it gets the first 90 and is now 140 (incredibly high!).
Special Attack and Special Defense are tied for their second-lowest stats. If they were not tied, one would get the 90 and the other 40. However, as they are tied, each gets half of that: 45 to both, 20 to both, so that both stats are increased by 65.

Now we have absurdly fast, specially defensive special sweepers Armoured Sableye at 50/75/75/130/130/140 and Armoured Mawile at 50/85/85/125/125/140.

I haven't even touched on the possibility of putting Armour on unevolved Pokémon. Those stats would be wild - all, like, base 30, and suddenly it's 120. In several stats. Even Armoured Wurmple would be terrifying.

EDIT: To keep in line with previous edit.

Another take on the Armour: (VERSION 2)

Crystal Armour

Version 1 Armour was usable without needing a held item. Further thought led me to conclude a specific held item should be given for balancing purposes. With it I thought up a whole new theme for it:

"There exist mysterious minerals that absorb the energy radiated by Pokémon.

Small pieces of them are equipped to Pokémon, and in places saturated with background energy (where Pokémon often battle, such as Gyms), they react and grow over the wearer's body into shining, crystalline armour that covers weaknesses."

In this version, Armour is can be activated by a Pokémon holding the activating item Crystal Piece at an Armour-enabling location. The Armour itself works exactly like it did before: boosts weaker stats to get a BST 600, breaks after 5 hits.

It's intended to be very versatile and friendly to weaker Pokémon and Pokémon with balanced mediocre stats.

Since it's Christmas time, I'm feeling inspired to give Pokémon Santa Delibird the Armour treatment!

Delibird's BST is 330, distributed 45/55/45/65/45/75.

Procedure:
The difference D is 600-330=270. That is greater than 200, so maximal portion size is 100 90 and the portions are 90, 90 and 90. Delibird's lowest stats are Defense, Sp. Defense and Attack, and each gets a boost of 90.

Presenting the tanky vessel of destruction Armoured Delibird with stats 45/145/135/65/135/75. With defenses almost on par with Toxapex's, sky high Attack and quite a wide physical movepool, this thing would be fierce. Who would have guessed we'd ever say that about Delibird?

(Plus, with all that extra strength, it can carry even more presents!😛)

Let's work on another well-known weakling: Dunsparce gets armour today.

Dunsparce's stats are 100/70/70/65/65/45, BST 415. The difference is D=185, under 200, so portion size M=93 (185/2 rounded up). Our portions are 93, going to Speed, and 92, shared equally between Special Attack and Special Defense (each gets 46).

In the end we have Armoured Dunsparce with stats 100/70/70/111/111/138. Insanely fast but nothing spectacular at first sight.

Now step back and remember how Dunsparce has Serene Grace and learns Air Slash. This thing is the new and improved Togekiss.

I have to say that I didn't expect that.

Though I never cared about Valentine's day, I'll go with it and put Armour on Luvdisc today.

Luvdisc was one of the Pokémon I had in mind when thinking of a weakling-empowering mechanic in the first place - part of me wanted to finally see the sappy romantic fishy wreak mass destruction for once in its life.

I didn't design the empowering process particularily for Luvdisc, but it turns out it does use it very well. Observe:

Luvdisc's stats are 43/30/55/40/65/97, BST 330. 600-330=270>200, so added portions will be of maximum size 90 - and there will be 3 of them, all full 90.

The 90-point boosts are given to Attack, Special Attack and Defense, which are now 120, 130 and 145, respectively.

We now have Armoured Luvdisc with stats 43/120/145/130/65/97. Luvdisc of all things is now a physically tanky, fast and strong mixed attacker.

I've been casually watching this thread since its beginning and I liked the concept right away.
I didn't really have anything to say about before it but it's making me sad that nobody else is saying anything either. This thread needs some love!

Now as I said, I quite like the idea, but I do have two fairly minor gripes.

First, it's not a super intuitive mechanic. Most "super forms" are a straightforward power up. The character was good at things, now they're great at things. But this Armour mechanic generally seems to take what a pokemon is worst at and make it what they're best at. And in an actual game it wouldn't be presented to the player with all the math there for them to see. I'm not saying people wouldn't get it, but if they glossed over the explanatory NPC they might not get it right away.

Second, I'm not sure how I feel about it being limited to Gyms and other special places. It just seems like an arbitrary and unnecessary limitation to me.

Neither of those things are dealbreakers at all. Heck, they barely rank as real problems with the mechanic itself. I guess I'm mostly saying you'd have to be careful with how the mechanic was presented to the player in-game. Which may or may not be a concern of yours, since this is only a hypothetical :P

Benermerut said:

I've been casually watching this thread since its beginning and I liked the concept right away.
I didn't really have anything to say about before it but it's making me sad that nobody else is saying anything either. This thread needs some love!

Now as I said, I quite like the idea, but I do have two fairly minor gripes.

First, it's not a super intuitive mechanic. Most "super forms" are a straightforward power up. The character was good at things, now they're great at things. But this Armour mechanic generally seems to take what a pokemon is worst at and make it what they're best at. And in an actual game it wouldn't be presented to the player with all the math there for them to see. I'm not saying people wouldn't get it, but if they glossed over the explanatory NPC they might not get it right away.

Second, I'm not sure how I feel about it being limited to Gyms and other special places. It just seems like an arbitrary and unnecessary limitation to me.

Neither of those things are dealbreakers at all. Heck, they barely rank as real problems with the mechanic itself. I guess I'm mostly saying you'd have to be careful with how the mechanic was presented to the player in-game. Which may or may not be a concern of yours, since this is only a hypothetical :P

Click to expand...

First of all, thanks for commenting! I saw that people were looking at the thread, but no one seemed to have anything to say about it for a long time.

Hypothetically presenting the mechanic to the player is in fact part of the hypothetical mechanic! My intuitive-sounding explanation goes along the lines of "armour covers weaknesses and makes them strengths: it makes slow Pokémon fast, fragile Pokémon tough, weak Pokémon strong".

Concerning the current idea of limiting it to gyms and multiplayer battles, I reasoned that you can use any Pokémon in ordinary situations without needing it superpowered. What's the fun in battling Pokémon with glowy armour of power if your opponent can't respond in kind, if they want to? You don't need it for wild battles, only maybe for trainer battles... But that's a maybe. Normal trainers should be no problem for your slightly overleveled Dunsparce if you want to use it on them.

I do consider changing this restriction - I think this mechanic is not as overpowered for regular circumstances as Mega Evolution, Z-Moves or Dynamaxing are... Late game. Late game it just lets you use anything you want against powerful opponents.

Early on, however, it's just ridiculous. Basically giving your Wurple a giant crystal supersuit matching Tyranitar in power to do... what? Crush wild Zigzagoon? Trainers just starting out have no business wantonly using horrible power like this, the hypothetical game would be boring. Therefore an everywhere-allowed Armour must be unlocked later in the game, I'd say around level mid-30?

In the end it's really just a matter of when we better like it to be first accessible. I personally prefer the restricted option, it seems more fair and more all-encompassing. Not to mention the potential of things like Armoured Raid Battles from early on.

NikolaP said:

Hypothetically presenting the mechanic to the player is in fact part of the hypothetical mechanic! My intuitive-sounding explanation goes along the lines of "armour covers weaknesses and makes them strengths: it makes slow Pokémon fast, fragile Pokémon tough, weak Pokémon strong".

Click to expand...

Yup, that's clear and straightforward. And it'd fit in like two text boxes. I like it.

As for the topic of limiting the Armour's use... Just for discussion, what if the boost started small but grew as the player progressed?
For example, it could initially only raise base stat total to, say, 300. After completing certain story moments or collecting Gym badges the boost becomes more substantial, until it's finally full power and raising bst to 600.

im gonna be honest... i skimmed past a lot of this thread. this isn't trying to be harsh or anything, and maybe this is because i've been far too exposed to game freak's generational gimmicks over the years, but keeping it simple, understandable, and practical have basically been why game freak's battle mechanics have been pretty easy to grasp. z-moves are just souped up regular moves, mega evolutions are souped up regular pokemon, and dmax pokemon are giant pokemon with additional buffs that last three turns. this idea should follow that same concept. perhaps i missed the general tl;dr while i skimmed, in which case, my apologies.

from what i can tell based on the tl;dr... it doesn't seem very useful on the face of things. i mean, for example, whimsicott has a base stat total of 480, and from this, its weakest stat (attack) would be raised first, but... why? am i missing something, here? i'd feel like slightly modifying this so that it functions similar to an eviolite boost (except not quite as powerful) would probably be more useful?

just my two cents, is all!

The stat increases still seem a little too arbitrary to me. How would you even justify such a mechanic ingame?

Mega Evolution at least was pretty straightforward: this Pokemon is really quick and hits hard, but now it is even quicker and hits even harder. It took things a Pokemon was "designed" to do and played around with that concept. The result was pretty much a furthered evolution (tbh. it's a little confusing that the game considers "metamorphoses into stronger appearances" as evolution, as opposed to the long taking process that real evolution entails).
Now having a means to make a Pokemon stronger by way of increasing its weakest stats (evolutionarily those that it simply never needed to survive in the Pokemon world) just doesn't make a lot of sense.

The thing with BST: as BST is static the end result also is going to be predictable and if you can predict it you can counter it in some way. Add to that the limitations of sacrificing a moveslot for a potential 5 turn nuke that ends up being deadweight outside of these turns most of the time. Every teamslot is precious in competitive.
And at the end: even your powered up 130 base attack Tackle still ends up just being a Tackle. Terrible moves, terrible types, terrible abilities and terrible synergy end up being the downfall of a Pokemon in the majority of cases. That even includes Pokemon with a BST of 600+.

colours said:

im gonna be honest... i skimmed past a lot of this thread. this isn't trying to be harsh or anything, and maybe this is because i've been far too exposed to game freak's generational gimmicks over the years, but keeping it simple, understandable, and practical have basically been why game freak's battle mechanics have been pretty easy to grasp. z-moves are just souped up regular moves, mega evolutions are souped up regular pokemon, and dmax pokemon are giant pokemon with additional buffs that last three turns. this idea should follow that same concept. perhaps i missed the general tl;dr while i skimmed, in which case, my apologies.

from what i can tell based on the tl;dr... it doesn't seem very useful on the face of things. i mean, for example, whimsicott has a base stat total of 480, and from this, its weakest stat (attack) would be raised first, but... why? am i missing something, here? i'd feel like slightly modifying this so that it functions similar to an eviolite boost (except not quite as powerful) would probably be more useful?

just my two cents, is all!

Click to expand...

Of course, this is all just for fun! You do seem to have skimmed past much of the explanations: my idea was to specifically empower weak, useless Pokémon, and give many others an alternative way to use them by making their lowest stats high and changing their battle style (which may not be better per se, just something interesting as an option).

Whimsicott from your example is by no means weak or useless. However, armouring Whimsicott would (skipping the calculation) raise its weakest stats, Attack and Special Defense, by 60, ending up with a 127 Attack/135 Special Defense Whimsicott. It appears Whimsicott can learn Seed Bomb, U-Turn and Play Rough in addition to its many special moves. So, if you feel like using a mixed offensive speedy special tank Whimsicott, you can. And perhaps surprise an opponent who would have expected otherwise.

Benermerut said:

As for the topic of limiting the Armour's use... Just for discussion, what if the boost started small but grew as the player progressed?
For example, it could initially only raise base stat total to, say, 300. After completing certain story moments or collecting Gym badges the boost becomes more substantial, until it's finally full power and raising bst to 600.

Click to expand...

Definitely an option! I'd start at 400-something though, the starters already have BSTs of over 300.

Seliph said:

The stat increases still seem a little too arbitrary to me. How would you even justify such a mechanic ingame?

Click to expand...

"Armour covers weaknesses, turns them into strengths." As already stated above, in both the symbiotic growing tissue version and the enveloping crystal version. I'll have to reorganise the thread a bit so that it's more readable and all in one place.

Seliph said:

Now having a means to make a Pokemon stronger by way of increasing its weakest stats (evolutionarily those that it simply never needed to survive in the Pokemon world) just doesn't make a lot of sense.

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Precisely the point: the stats are risen by external, artificial means, exactly because they were the lowest. Think of it as anti-handicapping, to give weaker Pokémon a chance to shine and to provide an alternative playstyle to non-weak Pokémon.

Seliph said:

The thing with BST: as BST is static the end result also is going to be predictable and if you can predict it you can counter it in some way.

Click to expand...

Again, that's the point - it is meant to be predictable (that and making it relatively easy to calculate). You, the user, should first of all know what a Pokémon turns into when armoured, and knowing its base stats gives you exactly that (possibly through a hypothetical ingame feature that shows you base stats in broad terms). Also with opponents: if your serious opponent has brought a Dunsparce, you know it will be armoured and that it's running Serene Grace Air Slash. On the the other hand, you can armour a usually useful Pokémon and play it completely differently, surprising your opponent (see Whimsicott above).

Seliph said:

Add to that the limitations of sacrificing a moveslot for a potential 5 turn nuke that ends up being deadweight outside of these turns most of the time. Every teamslot is precious in competitive.
And at the end: even your powered up 130 base attack Tackle still ends up just being a Tackle. Terrible moves, terrible types, terrible abilities and terrible synergy end up being the downfall of a Pokemon in the majority of cases. That even includes Pokemon with a BST of 600+.

Click to expand...

I'm not claiming that every Pokémon will become viable or useful with armour on. It was just a starting idea.

As for your competitive concerns, the way I see it, most Pokémon are knocked out in less than 5 hits in competitive battles. Mostly, I'd say, 3 hits. So your offensive nuke probably won't survive long enough to lose armour if it starts losing. As for the defensive ones, isn't five turns of nigh invulnerability enough to get you set up or do whatever you intended to do with that mon?

At the end, I'd answer that there are so many, and I do mean really many Pokémon out there, and their movesets are mostly varied enough to find something good once the armour is on. Just look at Delibird: I showed above that it turns into a slow physical tank with 145 Attack and 135 defenses. Usually Delibird is the poster-mon for terrible types, terrible moves and terrible synergy - the same thing that learns Drill Run, Ice Shard, Icicle Crash, Seed Bomb and Brave Bird. See where I'm going with this? With armour on, it might even stand a medium-strong Rock-type move, and retaliate generously.

Of course, not all Pokémon will have synergised movesets or abilities with armoured stats. Not all will end up competitive, though of course some will since there's a lot of them to choose from (see Dunsparce, perhaps). For some with, as you say, terrible synergy, armour just might be the thing that makes the synergy good.