[Balance] Discuss champions

[Tempo-anon]

ref: https://github.com/Despair-Games/poketernity/blob/beta/src/data/balance/trainer-configs/champion-trainer-configs.ts

Right now champions use 5 set Pokemon (usually including a mega/gmax and a cover legend) as well as a random Pokemon with a BST filter.

Key questions to discuss

1. Should each champion still have a cover legend?
2. Should any Pokemon on their team have boss bars?
3. What are your current thoughts on the champions?
4. Should we get rid of the random slot on the champions?

[flx-sta]

1. Yes
2. As if right now I’d say yes. But it depends on the future direction of balance and meta progression
3. I like them but they sometime fall short compared to the rival. They should be an up from the rival.

[CodeTappert]

ref: https://github.com/Despair-Games/poketernity/blob/beta/src/data/balance/trainer-configs/champion-trainer-configs.ts

Right now champions use 5 set Pokemon (usually including a mega/gmax and a cover legend) as well as a random Pokemon with a BST filter.

Key questions to discuss

1. Should each champion still have a cover legend?
2. Should any Pokemon on their team have boss bars?
3. What are your current thoughts on the champions?

1: Yes but from their region. So for example wallace gets kyogre and steven gets groudon, blue gets mewtu, red gets ho-oh, lance gets lugia, cynthia either palkia or dialga, iris zekrom, the other gen 5 guy reshiram, diantha either yveltal or xerneas, hau (who else is gen 7 champ?) either lunala or solgaleo, delion gets zamazenta or zacian, sangaria koraidon, nemalia (is she champ?) miraidon, jo (dont know the Englisch name, the blueberry champ) gets ogerperon and or terapagos.
2: Only the legendary if any. But i would like them not to have boss bars on any pokemon. (i dont like.boss bars at all)
3: They are not close enough to their home region/lore accurate teams. For example cynthia has a pretty well known team. i would rather have her all of those 6 (or 5 if she gets a legendary) even if the fight then is always the same. but it has more vibes. Same for steven for example. Use his cannon Pokemon and mix it up with other steel types that can be found in hoenn for example.
(i think you get what i mean)

[Tempo-anon]

1. That's basically how it's done right now.

• Blue: Ho-Oh
• Red: Lugia
• Lance: no cover legend but a mega Lati@s
• Steven: Dialga
• Wallace: Palkia
• Cynthia: Giratina
• Alder: Zekrom
• Iris: Reshiram
• Diantha: Xerneas
• Hau: Solgaleo/Lunala
• Leon: Zacian
• Geeta: Miraidon
• Nemona: Koraidon
• Kieran: Ogerpon + Terapagos
  I admit it's not perfect, but I think at least it's better now than how it was with the original Sam teams. A few specific points

• While I do think Kyogre makes perfect sense on Wallace, I also wanted to make sure there was a more even distribution between named trainers so it made a bit more sense for me to give Kyogre to Archie. Groudon on Steven is a little bit of a reach, not to mention it makes his own team more weak to fire. I thought that Dialga/Palkia is a good pairing to give to them since they're both counterparts and the dragons are also counterparts with the perfect water/steel type pairings
• The ones that I feel the most hard to justify are Red/Blue because the only options for gen 1+2 are Mewtwo, Hooh, and Lugia, and Mewtwo is already associated with Giovanni. The two legendary birds are okay, but don't have any super strong links and they also don't improve Red/Blue's teams that much. Their teams are also noticeably weaker just in general

2. Without boss bars the champions are mostly a pushover and I think the overall consensus is that they are much weaker than 165 or 195. While the elite four does test a different player skill (resource management and team type diversity) I think that the champion at least should test a little bit of the singles 1v1 challenge that the main game of Pokemon is known for
3. If you have any specific complaints about champion teams I'm down to listen to them, but they're pretty accurate to their canon teams while still adhering to the paradigm that was in place (1 legend + 1 random). For example, Cynthia has her Garchomp (mega), Lucario, Togekiss, and Spiritomb while Steven has Aggron, Armaldo/Cradily, Skarmory, and his Metagross (mega)

[CodeTappert]

1. So yeah i dont like that the Kanto Champ has a pokemon from Johto. And obviously same for Hoenn Champs.
   But if all evil team leaders also need a legendary then its fine. Keep it as ist
2. I mean for balance reason probably. Just not a fan of the whole concept of boss bars. But if you think its needed then keep it. (maybe on legendarey + ace)
3. Overall: Random POkemon should be choosen from their respective region. Also cant we just bring the signature species directly into the init call for them? Its otherwise 2 places you need togo to see their full team
   Blue: Well assuming he is Gary Oak he should maybe get his Umbreon. But thats just flair. No major complaint about his pool
   Red: Could maybe get Lapras as a option since he lore wise gets it during the events of Red/Blue/Green/Yellow in Safron City (team rocket hideout). Remove umbreon/espeon from him so Blue can have it. Give him a kanto eveeloution instead. The one that is strong against whatever the [VENUSAR,CHARIZARD,BLASTOISE] Slot is weak too.
   Lance: Give him either Gyrados (forced Shiny) or Hydreigon since those are pokemon he uses in the anime. This could replace his random slot(?)
   Steven: Force his metagross to be shiny. He had a shiny one in the anime. Otherwise fine. (Random pokemon should be either a hoenn pokemon or a steel type at least
   Wallace: Give him either a Walrein or a Wailord to represent hoenn water types more without major overlap
   Cynthia: We could give her a Kommo-o if we want to include other regions pokemon (she uses one in the anime). Also maybe Roserade as a option ?
   Alder: Nothing to add
   Iris: Nothing to add
   Diantha: Should get one of the fully evolved Kalos Fossils since she uses them in her Kalos Champ battle.
   Hau: Do we make sure the Decidueye is always forced to be alolan? If not can we do that? (would not fit seeing him with the hisui version since he cannonicly trains and evolves them on alola only.
   Leon: Nothing to add
   Geeta: Can we make sure (dont know how that works) that the kinggambit is always her strongest one? Maybe we already do with the order of signatureSpecies
   Nemoa: Nothing to add
   Kieran: I assume the mask on ogerperon is randomly choosen? it should be one always applied imo. Otherwise fine

So yeah maybe i had it wrongly in mind / it was changed since i last looked at it. Looks mostly fine.
Still. Random pokemon maybe from their region or for people like wallace and steven at least fitting to their type

[Tempo-anon]

First off, there's been an idea proposed to get rid of the random slot completely so I'll proceed with that assumption in mind.

Blue: Honestly, I can see the Umbreon. It doesn't really make his team stronger but I can see it as a nice counterpart to Red's Espeon
Red: Lapras is definitely something to add if we want to move away from random Pokemon on champion teams completely. A Kanto Eeveelution can work but I think it'll feel weird when he has a canon Espeon to use. It's just annoying that Ho-Oh/Lugia don't really fit thematically with either of these two, nor does it mesh well with their teams considering they both can use fire/psychics
Lance: Lance has Gyarados on his E4 team actually (Gyarados, Alola Exeggutor, Aerodactyl, Dragonite). It's basically the same team as his champion team except the Gyarados has been swapped out for Mega Lati@s and Kingdra. In terms of forced shinies, I don't think this is particularly needed as generally the game's canon takes priority over
Steven: Same comment about the shiny metagross. I imagine way more people have played the game than watched the anime in which case the Metagross is not shiny
Wallace: I think Walrein makes more sense in terms of type balance
Cynthia: Yes, if we do away with the random type then Roserade will fill that last spot
Diantha: Also will add the Kalos fossil if we do away with the random slot
Hau: Hau's Decidueye is always forced to be its normal form by default.
Geeta: Yes, we can do that. Right now the pokemon and trainer slots are a bit messed up but I will go and fix that when I redo the teams
Kieran: Right now the Ogerpon has no mask. Its ability is also technically (N) and causes p1 crashes with weird interactions

[Tempo-anon]

So from some earlier discussions it seems like the following points have been decided

Cover legends

It seems people generally like seeing the generation legend in the champion teams

Random slot

It seems the majority wants to get rid of the random Pokemon slot on the champion team.

Boss bars

It seems the general consensus would like to add boss bars segments with around 6 (same as evil boss2). I'm thinking a split of 2/2/2 between the lead, ace, and legendary, the same as how it's done for evil boss2

Other points of consideration:

• What are people's thoughts on each champion having a mega/gmax on the team? Is it something visually cool and impressive? Or is it unnecessary overtuning and constrains teambuilding?
• Terastallization is randomly slapped on 3 Pokemon on the champion's team, using either of their types as the tera type. How should this be handled? Should this be on a case by case basis?

[CodeTappert]

• I am not a fan on forcing a mega on every team. But if they naturally have a pokemon that can mega (like steven) they could mega that pokemon.
• Maybe tone it down to 1 or 2 terra. That rather should terra to a defined type per champion. Or even better define which pokemon will terra in which type (set the pokemon that will terra)

[Tempo-anon]

Closing for now because of #327