Why is everything so slow this gen?

[Imperator161]

From what I could tell when looking through a list of base stats, it seems like most of the final evolutions in Sun and Moon are pretty slow. It seems like there are a lot fewer speedy Pokemon than normal, and quite a few Pokemon seem to get slower when they evolve. Any idea why that is? Is it supposed to reflect the island environment in some way, or is there another reason for it? It also seems like a number of the Alolan forms are slower (but sturdier) than their base forms.

 

[Charlie Brown]

Yeah I was thinking about this yesterday, I feel like part of the reason may be because it's a more slow-paced region so the slower Pokémon could reflect the lifestyle of Alola in general. However I do feel it is a bit odd that a lot of Pokémon seem to get slower as they evolve (though just trusting your word on this part as I haven't looked into it myself).

 

[Snorl.ax]

Yeah I was thinking about this yesterday, I feel like part of the reason may be because it's a more slow-paced region so the slower Pokémon could reflect the lifestyle of Alola in general. However I do feel it is a bit odd that a lot of Pokémon seem to get slower as they evolve (though just trusting your word on this part as I haven't looked into it myself).

Makes sense

 

[Sir Codin]

Oh man.....

It's Black and White all over again....

 

[Imperator161]

Yeah I was thinking about this yesterday, I feel like part of the reason may be because it's a more slow-paced region so the slower Pokémon could reflect the lifestyle of Alola in general. However I do feel it is a bit odd that a lot of Pokémon seem to get slower as they evolve (though just trusting your word on this part as I haven't looked into it myself).

Sounds reasonable, though I do feel like it may make the Pokemon less likely to catch people's attention (they're unlikely to be used a lot competitively due to their speed, so unless they become popular for other reasons, I have a hard time seeing a lot of them retaining a lot of people's attention in the future). Re: the slowing on evolution thing (which I'm basing off the base stats in the Sun and Moon locations sticky), it's not all of the Pokemon, of course, and there have been other Pokemon that have done this in past couple of generations, but it seems like a larger proportion of the Pokemon are getting slower than usual.

At a glance, I'm seeing about 7 new Pokemon lines where the final form is slower than the middle form. (I'm not looking at ones where the middle form is slower than the first one, as is commonly seen in many bug Pokemon lines.) Not sure how many evolving lines total there are this gen, but I don't think there are that many.

 

[PeePi Coming S.]

It kinda blows that its the very case. Heck, I've been playing for quite a while now and I can pretty much see already from the get go that the Speed base stats in these Alolan creatures are so bucking slow.

Might as well just run trick room.

 

[Sektor]

Meh. I can't be too bothered. Magnemite is in early, so I can Magneton my way to victory. That's all that matters.

 

[Hikamaru]

I believe the low Speed stats might be due to an introduction of a new move called Speed Swap. It's essentially Skill Swap but swaps your Speed stats with the opponent, and Game Freak are likely trying to give the move a useful purpose.

 

[tokyodrift]

The first Pokémon that comes to mind is Wishiwashi. I mean it has very a very low HP stat but the thing hits like a fucking truck despite it being really slow. Now imagine if they gave a Pokémon of that nature say base 80 or 90 speed. It'd be pretty busted while murdering everything. Not that I enjoy the abundance of really slow Pokémon this gen, but I do think most of them "patch" that by being really well rounded defensively so you can live to take a hit.

 

[The Evil Mewtwo]

Sometimes I do enjoy slow Pokemons because it has a wide move pool and it can have good defenses. However, the trick room will put the faster Pokemons into a trap and they will be wiped out quickly.

 

[Yoshikkko]

i don't see a necessity for crazy speed pokemon each gen, speed is quite a weird stat in that it basically enhances what stats a pokemon already has, and there are two possible outcomes, it either outspeeds or it doesnt. i think that maybe, alola is supposed to be pictured as a very relaxed region, and with the new introduced regional forms, maybe the speed stat is also a way of pokemon adapting to their environment.

 

[blue]

Yeah, I was kinda surprised when looking at the speed stats of the Alola Pokémon collectively. They seem almost too low if that makes sense? There are some Pokémon such as Araquanid or Vikavolt that, to me, should definitely have a higher speed stat than what they already have. Vikavolt only having a speed total of 43 is partly why I haven't ended up using one in my first playthrough. I'm not asking for ridiculously high speeds from these Pokémon, but with a majority of them being under 50, it kinda begs the question why?

 

[Altairis]

I feel like they didn't want to have a ton of new fast powerhouses so they wanted to go with slow powerhouses?

I also noticed that a lot of the new moves this generation seem to be physical, so I wonder if there's something up with that

 

[thedestinedblade]

Thematically it fits with region. Everyone's chill and takes things at their own pace. Still, how many fast pokemon are there? Excluding Legendary, and Alolan forms, you have Midday Lycanroc, Salandit line, and Cutiefly line. Doesn't bother me too much, but would have liked a little bit more variety from the new pokemon. Everything is built and hits like a tank this gen, lol.

 

[Zeturic]

As long as this is just for Alola, it's fine. We have plenty of fast Pokemon, and if they wanted to add a bunch of slow Pokemon just to do something different this generation, I'm okay with it.

Although, to be fair, maybe I'm not the best person to be discussing this. My team has 2 of the fastest new Pokemon - Salazzle and Alolan Raichu - and the fastest starter, Decidueye, paired up with older Pokemon. So I haven't really used any more of the new Pokemon.

 

[classiccartoonsftw]

This generation has some Pokemon that I think should be faster. Incineroar, Vikavolt, Wishiwashi, and Lurantis come to mind.

 

[User19sq]

why Alola is A-slow-la

I've been wondering why almost all Alola-native Pokémon are slow compared to the rest of the world, then it hit me...

Alola's based on Hawai'i. Who on earth tells you they're going to Hawai'i to stay active?!

 

[TrendyHipsta]

They don't need the extra pedal to the metal! Their abilities and even some of their signature moves are beyond ridiculous. The shroom and the water bug are my favorites by far 10/10

 

[PageEmp]

Yeah I'm with the others that I believe that the low speeds are possibly to show that this is more of a relaxed region, and so the mons are slow to adapt to the environment.

But yeah, admittedly the slowness could get annoying at times, but then again in return of having one bad stat(speed) it could mean that the other 5 stats could possibly be better, so yeah. Plus for my case I've ran with tons of slow teams in the past, so I can live with it.

 

[Bellsprout]

okay small rant

i felt like the majority of battles involved physical moves. i had a team of primarina, lycanroc (midnight), dhelmise, kommo-o, muk, and palossand. In the beginning primarina and lycanroc were great, but as the game progressed they couldn't last long in battles. it didn't help that lycanroc had a bad nature for defense, but still being a rock type with mediocre defense full of physical battles was annoying to say the least. palossand had a better defense, but a mediocre sp.defense, but regardless of what it faced it fainted fast with such low speed. It wasn't until it learned earth power + shore up that it could hold up a bit better on its own, but it took a long time to get to that point and it didn't feel worth it in the end.

I'm waiting till i get sun to try out a new team based with more thought towards my defenses seeing as speed and defense did me in a lot