I was going to say that the biggest issue Vanilluxe has right now is its abysmal movepool, but I cannot remember if many of the original Megas changed their movesets to a level that I think Vanilluxe would need.
Design-wise, how about a Mega Vanilluxe that looks like a hot fudge sundae?
It becomes an Ice/Ground type, with the Ground-type reflecting the hot fudge, so it can use moves like Earth Power.
The ability can be something fun, like an ability called Gelato.
Gelato is a very thick ice cream, so the ability can be "halves physical damage.".
This makes Mega Vanilluxe highly resilient to common fighting, rock, and steel-type moves.
I like the idea of introducing a different flavour to really hone in on that ice-cream canon! The ability itself is a little crazy and mostly because it will already mitigate some strong counters and well Vanilluxe sits on an alright 85 base Defence. If we did go with that we'd need to probably leave that stat as it is. Also gelato is thick yes but idk if it's thick as in durable as opposed to thick as in like gloopy, so unsure the ability fits 100% thematically.
Now some thoughts of my own:
Definitely want to focus on the idea of different flavours/desserts as you mentioned RMVNZ! But I also want to try and stick to at least some of the original features of Vanilluxe itself - most Mega forms generally are just exaggerated versions of the existing form. Now that said, looking at how the model changes throughout the line, a "logical" route would probably be adding an extra peak in? IMO I'd want to steer away from that it just feels a little
too easy. Maybe we could instead amalgamate the two peaks back into one, but really enlarge it and cover it in all sorts of sauces/toppings etc. that correlate to a secondary Type (if we give it one)?
When you mention sundae, is that presumably having it in something that's not a cone? 'Cause I was sorta thinking maybe it could also go from cone to a sundae boat/bowl? That would lend to having 3 instead of 2!
This has probably been the hardest part to come up with anything "interesting" in my eyes other than what has been already posted.
The Ground-Fudge idea I am on board with, once I got over trying to think of it as Ground = dirt as opposed to just a colour thing. It does pack 5 weaknesses (fire/grass/water/ground/steel), BUT does also get an immunity. That said, inclusion of moves like Earth Power that was mentioned will help deal with a lot of those pretty nicely. Not writing this off for sure!
My mind kept jumping to Fairy as a secondary Type because of Pokémon such as Alcremie and Slurpuff having that Type and being based on similar concepts, but it kinda felt a bit boring? Maybe it isn't IDK I am very likely overthinking it! It does also pose a bit of an issue in the sense of getting a 4x Steel weakness. However it does pick up an immunity and doesn't have a huge amount of weaknesses (fire/rock/poison outside of the 4x weakness) so perhaps this would be good balance? It would definitely help with the whimsy of the design too!
So this is kinda going away from the ice-cream aspect of things and looking more at an exotic sorbet dealio. Kinda thinking say a blue raspberry + lemon affair, using the Electric type to help bring out that pop of colour sorbet usually has and also as a nod to the sharper 'flavours' in this design? It's definitely an interesting typing for sure and opens up some really interesting options with things such as Volt Switch, let alone any potential abilities. No immunities here though, but it can help fend off Ground types with its Ice pairing!
HP: 71
Attack: 95
Defence: 85
Special Attack: 110
Special Defence: 95
Speed: 79
So Vanilluxe has some good bases to play around with, leaning towards a quasi-bulky special attacker. Base 110 SpA is quite good already and access to Autotomize means there's potential for a nice sweeper here. However with Attack being as high as it is as well, we really could swing either way depending on what we decide to make its movepool. 85/95 defences are also pretty nice, with the 71 base HP helping balance it out a little bit. 79 Base Speed is kinda mid but access to Autotomize kinda mitigates that and we could even increase it to not need that move if we wanted to.
I would probably look to bolster it as a special attacker just because its better moves (TLDR Ice Beam/Blizzard/Weather Ball/Flash Cannon lol) are special and it doesn't really carry much in the way of good physical Ice moves outside of Ice Shard (Icicle Crash is alright but compared to Ice Beam it is pretty poor). Based on that, I will suggest something like this:
HP: 71
Attack: 95
Defence: 117 (+32)
Special Attack: 135 (+25)
Special Defence: 127 (+32)
Speed: 90 (+11)
Trying to not go into silly territory was quite hard! As its BST is somewhat quite high already (535), we're going in with a BST of 635 which actually is quite better than a significant portion of the existing ones! Because of this, I have chosen to try and bolster its defences and special attack and only put a small investment into Speed. This means you either need to run Autotomize to be a fast sweeper or you can choose to utilise its bulk instead. I've put base 90 because at +2 it outspeeds even Choice Scarf Flutter Mane.
So Vanilluxe has Snow Warning as an Ability, which honestly is already kinda strong. Free Snow means easier to set up Aurora Veils (which it has access to), 100% accuracy Blizzards and also a boost to what will be an impressively high Defence stat. We could honestly just roll with that, but that would mean not having something new and exciting... here are some existing Abilities I thought could be aight:
- Gooey
- Volt Absorb (Ice/Electric)
- Misty Surge (Ice/Fairy)
- Supersweet Syrup
- Shed Skin
In terms of something new:
I definitely like the idea of basing something off the consistency! As mentioned I do think perhaps it doesn't quite fit as something that makes Vanilluxe tougher per se, but I think we could definitely look at the damage reduction aspect and we do also have abilities like Fluffy to reduce that sort of damage. What about instead a special damage reduction, and maybe 33% to just not make it as crazy (especially as we will likely be having to increase its defences quite significantly anyway). If we did do this I think we'd need to change the base stats around a bit.
I wanted to play on the idea of numbness etc. you get from eating ice-cream. So I was thinking that maybe when Vanilluxe uses an Ice move, it could maybe have a % chance to drop Special Attack? OR if we're not too fussed about like how things work mechanically, maybe give Ice attacks a chance to cause Frostbite (ice-based burn from P:LA)?
I generally try not to change these much when it comes to theorising Mega forms and the such, however this really is Vanilluxe's weakest point fr. It literally gets Flash Cannon and Weather Ball as its means of coverage and otherwise just gets Ice moves. Granted it does have Snow Warning + Blizzard/Weather Ball, but yeah it just kinda sucks all around in this department. Therefore it's probably imperative to give it some new options. Based on the typings from earlier:
- Earth Power - self-explanatory, good STAB and helps with Fire/Steel/Rock coverage
- Spikes - if we're including things like sprinkles and stuff in the design, don't see why we can't have it essentially throwing these down!
- Shore Up - Ground type recovery move!
- Power Gem - kinda similar logic to Spikes and generally Ground types learn Rock moves and vice versa
- Tri-Attack - if we go with the 3 peaks/whatever part of the new design, seems canonical enough and is a Funny(tm) option?
- Moonblast - good STAB for singles
- Dazzling Gleam - good STAB for doubles
- Misty Explosion - fun + scary variant of Explosion!
- Decorate - another good doubles option? thinking behind this is it sharing its toppings/sprinkles etc. with its teammate
- Heal Pulse - mostly tying in with a potential viable doubles partner
- Freezing Glare - normally a lot of Psychic/Fairy crossover and this ties in nicely with the freezing theme
- Volt Switch - great pivot tool
- Thunderbolt - good STAB
- Thunder - good STAB for rain/if you want to be a bit more high risk/high reward
- Discharge - good doubles option
