Hiiiii, am doing part of the write-up for this and actually just wanted to point out some things, as I think we could tweak this to be even better! With that in mind first I'll TLDR what I have written down as Dewgong's weaknesses:
- Ice Type makes it a not fantastic defensive Pokémon due to neutralising Fire damage, adding a Rock weakness (bad for Water types!) and as a result a weakness to Stealth Rock
- Unreliable recovery in Rest. RestoCheso only works once, you have 2 turns of dying and Hydration requires Rain Dance setup.
- Abilities that somewhat combat these (Hydration/Thick Fat namely) will be removed with addition of Aurora Cast
- Low coverage, low offensive stats
- Lacking movepool - can't trap very well, no more Toxic, no Taunt/other status
- Can't set up Aurora Veil
- Stats just don't keep up with other powerhouses nowadays
So 100% yes to the defensive changes, but I think we could do with tweaking some of the numbers a little bit. I think - and I can see in the spirit of fairness why Attack/Speed have had some increases - we need to siphon out some of the Attack/Speed changes into Special Attack. Or Attack! I don't think it needs to be anything crazy, perhaps something like this:
HP: 90
Attack: 60 (-10)
Defence: 100 (+20)
Special Attack: 105 (+35)
Special Defence: 140 (+45)
Speed: 70 (+0)
It is a bit more cliché/'typical' of a stat increase you see most people do with Megas, but hear me out. Dewgong's coverage isn't fantastic, so it's not like we're now creating some crazy coverage powerhouse and also base 105 Special Attack is a solid number nowadays I feel. If nothing else, +10/+15 increases in stats that aren't really going to be used anyway is effectively the same as making them the same imo. That said, it does get some interesting moves in Smart Strike, Triple Axel and Play Rough AND two STAB priority moves. SO there's also potential for something a little different if we instead increase its Attack? If we do that then I'd suggest something like:
HP: 90
Attack: 110 (+40)
Defence: 100 (+20)
Special Attack: 70 (+0)
Special Defence: 115 (+20)
Speed: 90 (+20)
This'll give it a bit of punch, bit more bulk and the Speed is to just help eke out the win in things like priority wars and the such. With the only setup move being Curse, I don't want to tap too heavily into the stats it buffs!
Either way, it would be nice to give Dewgong some variation as to what it can do because a huge problem is that (especially with no Toxic anymore) it can't really do like anything. At least this will give it the ability to stall/support better and also have an OK offensive presence.
I appreciate the inclusion of Freeze-Dry as something to combat Water Types and I love including Aurora Beam into its moveset, so don't want to touch those really. That said I think we could maybe add a few things to help combat Dewgong's issues whilst still kinda keeping it somewhat canon. I was toying with the idea of:
- Moonlight/Slack Off - kinda tying in with the Aurora theme with Moonlight and Slack Off is normally used for those thicc blubbery mons, but hooray reliable recovery! Also this + Curse + buffing Attack as I mentioned earlier will make a really cool take on CurseLax!
- Wish - again tying in with the whimsy of Aurora theming, it's less reliable so it is a bit fairer but also gives Dewgong a nice new role as a WishPasser
- Cosmic Power - Aurora theme + stall brrrrrrrr
- Scald - mostly just so it has a way of chipping down health, but do we think that might be too overtuned?
So the first thing about the Ability - I like that it sets up AV, however AV can only be setup in in Snow. Does this mean that the Ability should set up AV and Snow? I feel like that would be more than OK and it would certainly help as it'll give Mega Dewgong the boost in defence too. If not then we might need to rethink the ability or perhaps go with Flash Freeze instead.