Why Truant is a Fundamentally Flawed Ability
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ส.ค. 2024
- #pokemonshowdown
Slaking is bad in competitive Pokemon, but why is that? Well, because of its ability, truant. But why is it such a bad ability? Well, watch the video to find out!
Also, sorry that this is a shorter video, I'm working on two longer videos, so this one ended up being a little bit shorter.
Music Used:
"Blocks" by C418 - เกม
They should just rework Truant to only lower Slackings attacking stats by one stage and return them to normal after. This still plays into its lazy nature.
Or make it so that when truant is not active slaking hits through sub and protect
Or like radical red did: allow him to use healing moves like slack off during truant (would go with his lazy nature and add a gimmicky playstyle)
One stage might be a bit too powerful, maybe 2 stages instead?
Bruh that's just regigigas's ability
@@anasbinmaalik3739 no not really at all?
I like how Radical Red reworked Truant. They made it possible to use Status moves like Slack off during Loafing turns
Interesting. Any status move?
@@phantompop3192 Unfortunately not. Only healing moves
@@Idonothaveastand that’s a shame, but still an interesting idea to explore for Truant.
That stings with only 8 slack off pp
I always liked the idea of Truant activating on Slaking's first turn, like Slow Start.
That sounds like a great idea, and would allow your opponent time to react to Slaking!
I feel like, in singles, this would arguably make Truant even worse since Slaking could no longer exert any offensive power upon switching in and would instead always give the opponent a free switch.
@@willofthewind So, it depends? The wording as I see it implies that Truant would only activate on the first turn Slaking is in play. This would be a drawback, and would give your opponent a free switch, but Slaking is strong enough to deal really good damage to whatever switches in. This would also encourage skillful play as you try to eliminate all of Slaking's switch-ins.
What I like: after a regular turn, only "lazy" moves such as Slack Off work (there'd be more, Rest and Yawn would be obvious additions to the list), any other move just results in skipping your turn like Truant does now. And after a "lazy" turn, any move works. Any turn where you use a "lazy" move is considered a "lazy" turn, so you can choose to use 2 "lazy" moves in a row if you think your opponent's using Protect.
Great idea, and the fact that it can use Yawn would allow it to get around protect users. This also maintains the heavy drawback, as the one turn you can only use "lazy" moves, which would likely be a very limited number of moves.
This is unironically the best option here
I say just give Slaking the hidden ability Huge Power and watch every single meta crumble to dust...
>Gets Banned to Natdex AG
>Can't beat shed or ReviveCats
>Remains Unusable in every tier
Slaking time
@@blip_exists The true laziest way out in the most backward way possible.
One interesting option would be to give Slaking a powerful two-hit signature attack that works as a Normal type Double Iron Bash, but also has the effect of going through Protect. This would allow it to deal with both Protect and Substitute users, excepting Ghost types with those moves, but it'd still make Slaking much harder to play around without changing Truant.
Unseen fist: The Move
Other solution : Truant goes through protect moves, maybe with a damage penalty
Radical Red made it so Slaking can use moves like slack-off and rest on Truant turns
I think a change like this would be very welcome
They should give Slacking stall as an ability. It still wouldn't be great, but its BST would effectively be 570, and it could probably be a decent wallbreaker in some lower tiers.
Or how about slaking can still use status moves on its truant turn. So it could still protect, bulk up, curse, slack off, thunder wave, taunt, yawn etc. This way it still does something on truant turns but isn't attacking. You could also switch that turn. You just wouldn't be able to attack. Protecting on truant turns seems broken sure, but the opponent can still counter it through various means, switching is one, and pokemon like gholdengo are immune to status moves and garganacl is immune to status conditions so there is reasonable counterplay whilst not entirely ruining slaking. Slaking protecting also opens up the opportunity for the opponent to use a set-up move instead of switching.
This also plays into slaking's lazy nature almost as well, slaking won't attack, being too lazy, but it will do the bare minimum of using status moves.
You can still switch on truant turns unless you used giga impact or hyper beam before
Nice work man, I love videos that suggest ways to make bad Pokémon more competitive viable (and also more enjoyable for in-game use). Keep it up!
I know an easy way to fix Slaking: Give it either Klutz or stall. Stall basically makes you always go last. Klutz just makes it so the user can't use items.
That would probably be balanced, particularly in this metagame. Stall would probably be the more interesting ability, and would fit better on Slacking, though Slacking is strong enough it still might be too powerful?
@blip_exists With stall the ability to be revenge killed is a huge balancer I feel- especially considering it's spd stat so I think it would be balanced actually.
@@UncreativePF It definitely could be, tho it still has fantastic bulk and damage output. It does seem like it could be an interesting change tho.
Doesn't slaking have payback? Stall would make it able to hit ghosts for big damage easily no matter what their actual speed stat is. Gholdengo and other special attacking ghosts could still easily deal with it though
@@avaluggglazer445 Payback plus Stall on Slacking sounds incredibly menacing, though I think you might be undervaluing Slakings special bulk. 150 hp makes even 65 spdef pretty solid, with the addition of reliable recovery.
This was an interesting video! I hadn't really considered Slaking much one way or another.
Truant should be like hyperbeam, you only need to rest if you actually hit the oponent
Another fix could be
Truant: before making any nove, this Pokémon Is inflicted with paralisis, the Pokémon Is immune to the Speed reduction caused by paralisis
It would make the turns of inactivity random, so that protect requires luck to stop him compleately and It has the side effect of making him "immune" to status
Make an exclusive item that gets rid of the drawback, that way there is still counterplay in knock off/trick and it can't be scarf or banded
I mean, I guess, but that still feels like slaking would be too powerful. Though an item that negates an ability sounds like a cool concept, and it doesn't have to be exclusive to Slaking, such as it could affect the opponents Pokemon through trick.
Giving up your item slot to basically become a Legendary?
Man, if only we had a gimmick that works pretty much like that to prove it would work.
Aw shucks.
Blazing Emerald managed to do the impossible by buffing the ability as a built-in Leftovers. Meaning you can have a Leftovers with Truant constantly heal Slaking non-stop.
I have a better solution:
Truant still has it's usual effect,*but* it has an affect where it will heal itself for each truant turn, so basically don't let slaking gets a heal if you want to win
I'd use Slaking way more, especially since mine knows Giga Impact and Hyper Beam
Time for the heal block anti meta
He IS “slacking off” every other turn
If I'm not mistaken, this is exactly what Radical Red did to it. It still isn't the monster it'd be without Truant, but at least it isn't garbage anymore.
To be fair, this is looking at Slacking from a competitive perspective. From a Singleplayer perspective, I’d argue Traunt is perfectly fine the way it is.
Because in Singleplayer, the player essentially gets access to a box set Legendary before the 4th gym and no other mons have the raw power to match it. AI trainers almost never use protect or play around a mon. And if you’re playing on switch mode, you never have to deal with truant if you KO a mon.
All this means that in Singleplayer, even if Slacking only moves every other turn, it’s hitting like a truck on that turn. Choice Band Slacking is a great option in the Battle Frontier for a reason.
So yeah, if you buff Traunt for competitive, you risk breaking Slacking in Singleplayer.
Title made me think, ‘yeah you don’t say.’ But then you came up with all these cool solutions or ideas on how to change truant. Very cool
There was a VGC like big tournament in Italy, and slaking was actually used even without neutralizing gas or other gimmicks. You can always punish the opponent that double protects by using a setup move on your other Mon.
Interesting! Definitely seems like a cool strat, glad to see that Slaking did get some use!
If Truant just didn’t allow you to use an attacking move two turns in a row. That would be amazing, still crippling, but you could circumvent protect, by using a status move, once or twice, or until the opponent uses protect. Then attack, then repeat.
this pokemon is here for a metaphor of someone dismissed
What if you could use slack off in your truant turn? Also In inclement emerald. Slacking also gets slow start. On my first run I used it with bulk up, amnesia, slack off, and façade. Couldn’t hit ghost types but I effectively had a guts slacking after 5 turns. It was very good to say the least
Best solution: every truant turn slacking has to use the move “slack off” and recover 50% HP
That's a horrible solution because that just means Slaking turns into a stall mon with theoretically infinite recovery lol
Maybe if truant worked like a leftovers. Even if you failed to get a move off, you get health in return so you have longevity without being a menace...though that means people might run bulk up leftovers
I had this cool idea for a move for slaking that says "heal it for 25%, but truant is reset so next turn you can still act". It could also enjoy U-turn to swap out to negate truant, and my personal lil theorymon concept made it a bug/steel type for STAB and a good defensive typing
another idea could be that status moves doesn't activate truant so that slaking could still play some utility without having to move every other turn as for slow start they could lower its duration to two turns and when it returns to normal it boosts its attack and speed 1 stage
Proposed fix: you can use status moves in your truant turns.
To balance it out, you can make truant affect odd turns instead of even ones
One of the easiest subs of my life, your stuff is crazy underrated dude
Thanks!
What if instead giga impact and other recharge moves could go through protect and not need recharge if the move ko’s?
I remember one rom hack. I played a loud you to still use recovery moves during his rest period
I think the real problem is that while back in gen three, slaking may have been overpowered without truant, now the power creep is so extreme that if it had anything less than pure power it'd still be mediocre. Slaking just isn't actually that good, and I know this for a fact as I have a team setup for doubles. Using grafaiai's doodle move, slaking can sweep with a neutral ability, but it's other weaknesses (bad spdf and underwhelming speed even maxed) make it still easy to exploit without significant help.
I mean, its still an absolute menace, but it is definitely possible to defeat. And 100 base speed is exactly underwhelming either. Having to use two slots to help one pokemon isn't great though.
It would be banned from OU within minutes lol
Have you heard of Palafin?
Sucks that we've reached the point where 100 speed is seen as underwhelming
I think the perfect solution to this would be to buff Slaking two ways.
1. Give Slaking a signature move that bypasses protect and substitute but is not too strong. 70-80 power.
2. Someone said truant should heal every turn it activates and I agree. Slaking could heal 1/8 of it's hp every non active turn.
why not give it something that has 100 base power, but only does 66-75% damage if an opponent uses protect, then if an opponent doesn't use protect, Slaking has a good chance for a KO, but if they do use protect, Slaking does decent damage, but doesn't eviscerate them
Honestly, just giving Slaking the move feint would go a long way.
And with traunt healing, that doesn't really do much about the protect issue, which is the main problem with Slaking.
@@blip_exists I meant the solution would be to buff Slaking in both of these ways. Probably could have worded it better. The healing alone would not help Slaking but with a way to bypass protect I think Slaking could be at least UU.
Yep, definitely agree on that! IDK about UU, hard to tell with changes like this, but it would make Slaking much better.
An idea I've had is to make Truant like a one turn sleep, enabling it to use Sleep Talk on loafing turns (and Snore too I guess). Slaking now has the potential to deal some consistent damage, but the inherently unreliable nature of Sleep Talk, how vulnerable it becomes to Taunt and Encore, and needing to dedicate a moveslot to it should hopefully keep things in check. I think a set like Sleep Talk / Double-Edge / Shadow Claw / Fighting move or Slack Off holding Boots or Lefties or Life Orb would be the best set. Maybe you could combine this effect with Radical Red Truant?
Back in the Gen 6-7 days, I remember watching a couple of clips of Slaking getting rid of Truant with a move Skill Swap. I'm pretty sure it was in Doubles, because I don't think itself Slaking gets Skill Swap in any game, but it still made for an interesting way around that ability.
Then you also have a pokemon like Durant, who's got Truant as a Hidden Ability. It could use Entrainment to replace the targets ability with Truant, severly distrupting them.
What you’re saying about protect all the way back in black and white Pokémon online I had a slaking with band trying to be cool It was 1v1 with gengar it just subbed and tbolted me to death. Obviously stuck with me if I’m still talking about it still and I started using scarf on slaking after that. What you’re saying about its bst is so true. It truly is the best Pokémon for one turn. When return still existed I saw it 100% so many things with just return. Fun mon
Good video, direct to the point!
Another way to change Truant is to make the user have -5 or -6 priority, so it always attack last, even if the opponent use Counter/Mirror Coat. This would make Slaking's Speed negligible, in a format other than 2x2 (because of Skill Swap and alike). Ah, and obviously would create possibilities of using it differently.
This would give Slaking (kinda) of a weakness? Even Snorlax, Slowbro and other slower Poké would always attack first, which would gradually diminish its HP, but in other hand it would always attack with its monstrous Attack stat.
I think that this would still be too powerful, as it has the bulk to live almost any attack, though I'm not quite sure? Stuff like Melmetal exists, but Melmetal doesn't have reliable recovery.
I think the easiest way to go is that Truant lets Pokemon with it hit through Protect, although at some massive damage cut, like half. It gives Truant a legitimate benefit, even if it's minor and outweighed by the drawbacks. It makes it so there's a reason you might actually want it aside from using Entrainment to give it to your opponent.
Other fixes-
Make it like Slow Start where his attack and speed are halved every other turn where he uses Slack off or something
Option 2- Slaking cannot move it’s first turn, but after that is good. Fits the idea of being late/truant
Both good ideas!
Slaking either needs Feint or for Truant being turned into a turn manipulation ability maybe with rng.
Status moves will be split into “Active” and “Lazy” moves. Lazy moves guarantee that you get to move next turn and Active status moves will have 33% to allow you to move the next turn, and Damage moves will always trigger Truant the next turn. Essentially you give all Active status moves the Protect spam treatment.
Yeah, really just anything to prevent protect spam
I like the idea of Truant only activating after an attacking move connects. You could alternate between attacks and status, could use multiple status moves in a row to change it up, and wouldn't be afraid of protect because it wouldn't trigger Truant anymore. That said, it would still need a good move to beat substitute. Or not, maybe it just can't beat sub if they want to play around with it first, and decide on that after the change.
honestly, i feel like giving slaking feint, or perhaps a move thats like feint, but slightly stronger, that fails if the target dosnt protect would do wonders for the mon
Oh definitely. It would move Slaking from "fundamentally flawed" to being bad, or maybe even good.
the conversion of BST doesn't really work that way, you can half the attack because it only attacks half the time, or HP, because it takes twice the attacks for the same action, but you can't do both and certainly not half all of them. meaning the effective BST is still high, it's definitely a threat if you don't have specific counterplay, but it will never sweep a team and it generates negative momentum for your team
I like your truant ideas too. But as far as your question it probably would be op that way
How about: after Slaking has been sent out, his attacks can only be blocked by protect once before negating that move altogether (reset after switching)
Honestly. If I could rework truant, I’d make it so you’d be inflicted with yawn status after one turn being out on the field. The sleep would override any other statuses. It can be reset by switching out, or can be prolonged with the use of a chesto berry or with moves/abilities like Uproar/Electric Terrain. I think it could add a lot of ways to work with it and against it without being too busted
That's an honestly really interesting change to Slaking. Its fairly different from the current Truant, but still fits with the theming. However, it does seem like this would always be used to just immediately switch out Slaking to a defensive pivot, which could lead to less interesting gameplay.
It doesn't always work but a lot of times people will do some black magic fuckery to swap his ability out so he isn't just useless
I would make truant a reverse-taunt. Every other turn, Slaking cannot use attacking moves
Lower Slaking's attack and then using protect is a great way to torture the AI in the games and allows you to setup and sweep a team taking basically no damage
slaking is one of my favs and I always use it while traveling through hoenn. for the longest time my personal rework was truant having a 20-30% chance of activating at the start of slaking's turn but your first rework synergizes much better with giga impact
That rework would also work! And Slaking is a blast for playthroughs.
Just make truant a percent chance that goes up the more turns it doesn't happen. Balanced randomness.
And this is why I'm giving Slaking Comatose in my theoretical fangame.
This suggestion of truant not activating if the attack fails is very interesting. About other bad Abilities, they could fix slow start by it not being reseted on switch out after the five turns, or even better: the five turns not needed to being consecutive, like any full five turns of Regigigas on the field solving slow start.
Yeah, that would make slow start still suck, but be much less hindering. Great Idea!
Truant would make so much more sense if it just locked you into using slack off every other turn you don't use it
could be cool if truant gave negative priority on the turn following an attack, rather than just making it so you get no turn. follows the theme of the character and they would at least be usable to a degree, though i dont know if that could potentially make slaking an overcentralizing force in the games either.
It would definetly be in theme. This could likely be too strong, and I think it would just be easier to give it Stall. Slaking is both Fast (100 Base Speed) and Tanky (150/10065 bulk), meaning it could outspeed on some turns, and take hits on others. Stall however, would make it easier to use very powerful wallbreakers on, without the threat of being outsped by a scarf of sticky web slacking.
My idea is that Truant would prevent Slaking from attacking twice in a row. So it could hypothetically use Slak off 3 times in a row and hammer arm the next turn
That would definitely help Slaking a lot, and would allow for mixups against protect.
Traunt turns should have healed some amount of hp
My take have always been to make it so that Truant doesn't skip a turn if you knocked out a pokemon, including if you use a recharge move, like Giga Impact.
How to fix slaking? Give him a move like hyper drill
Definitely! It would also require the least work to do, and might end up happening, unlike any change to Truant.
I play mid-high ladder Doubles OU, and I just about never see Slaking. The main problem with Doubles Slaking is that it absolutely 100% requires a specific ally Pokemon (either Grafaiai or something with either Entrainment or Skill Swap) to be functional. One might argue that a similar situation exists with Armarouge on Psyspam since it needs Indeedee to be at its strongest (when Expanding Force hits both opponents with boosted power). However the key difference between Slaking and something like Armarouge is that while Armarouge can still deal consistent damage every turn without Indeedee or if the terrain is overridden by Pinchurchin, Slaking becomes an inconsistent mess without its partner. In short, consistent doubles pokemon go from “this pokemon is doing something meaningful” to game winning with support, but slaking just goes from useless to maybe useable with support.
i feel like if slaking had an ability that did nothing now, with the amount of power creep it would probably be in ou
Put me in contact with your dealer because you smoking Loud
@@WohMi ok maybe not ou but its still not the best compared to mons around its bst
Definitely would be in OU
Slaking would probably be too good for OU. 670 BST is not joke, I think its the highest BST in OU (Besides Regigigas) besides megas. It has no other major drawbacks (Besides Truant), and hits like a truck, while having the bulk to back it up.
@@blip_exists then again, Palafin Hero was basically Slaking but better as it was a better typing, had a better movepool, and had a stab 60 base priority. Slaking would be significantly worse than Palafin due to its poor typing and lack of priority and a low base power stab in Body Slam and certainly not banworthy. Would it be banned from UU? Absolutely, no defensive talonflame is stopping an ability-less Slaking. Would it be OU proper? I don't think so. It matches poorly against the tier kings Gholdengo and Great Tusk, but its wallbreaking potential is certainly there. It might run a bulk-up set with Body Slam and Earthquake, and it has the potential to run gunk shot, trailblaze, wild charge, zen headbutt, x-scissors, seed bomb, or play rough. Unfortunately, despite its vast movepool, its stab move is just not that strong. It could run a fast support set with encore, slack off, yawn/thunder wave/ attacking move, but it has a poor defensive typing and exploitable SPDef stat. Endure flail would be pretty funny though
how about on truant turns, slakings attack stat is halved, but slaking takes 200% recoil on all damaging moves? (the recoil would only account for slakings non halved attack though, so itd be risky to attack on a truant turn)
Great ability idea, though I don't know how well it fits on Slaking? Would be sick on another Pokemon tho
I've had a couple ideas for modifying Truant. The idea for both is that instead of forcing Slaking to stop moving very other turn, these versions would instead encourage occasional inactivity.
These ideas are:
1: When attacking you lose 1/8th of your maximum health, when not attacking you restore 1/8th of your maximum health lost to Truant.
2: Similar idea to the last, but instead of losing health when attacking and restoring health when not attacking, attack and speed are reduced 1 stage when attacking, and raised 1 stage when not attacking, until brought back to neutral.
As mentioned previously, these abilities are designed to encourage turns spent "inactive". Slaking will become "exhausted" for attacking and the exhaustion incurred form those attacks will be restored on turns spent inactive, and since the reward is always equal to the exhaustion, Slaking is encouraged to spend an equal number of turns active/inactive. However, the Player is now given the choice to keep attacking despite the exhaustion penalties, giving Slaking more flexibility. Failed attacks will not increase or decrease exhaustion. So Protect cannot be used to wear down Slaking with exhaustion.
Turns Slaking spends switched out count as inactive, so if Slaking is switched out with 1/2 health gone due to exhaustion and switched back in after 2 turns, Slaking will still be missing 1/8 health from exhaustion penalties. This also counts for the stat drop idea. If Slaking switches out with 4 stat drops due to exhaustion, Slaking will still have to wait out the 4 turns before having neutral stats.
These changes would never happen because of neutralizing gas
In VGC gen 8, regigigas + weezing was a legitimately scary strat
Idk how well weezing + slaking would be but I’d imagine it would be similar
For GF to make these changes they’d have to care about singles lmao
Yah, I guarantee no changes are ever made. Its still fun to theorize, and rom hacks do exist, which do care about Slaking.
Do you think it would be broken if it made Slaking not able to move for 1 turn upon switch-in? Like an automatic fake out that your opponent can punish by clicking another move or switching out.
Ehhh? Of the different solutions people provide, this is easily the hardest to determine how powerful, at least for me. It gives your opponent a turn to act, and switch to a counter or something. It would be a fun change, particularity with double switches, but I have no idea as too the balancing.
It’s just not fun to build/play around, it either crumples and enables massive setup coming in against protect, forces a sacrifice to get a protect user in safely, or a team doesn’t have protect/loses their protect users so slaking l gets to just throw out attacks with no thought because of its Ubers stats in ZU
It’s so easy to beat in theory but slotting protect on everything isn’t always feasible and if you get unlucky with crits/status and your protect users go down it’s absolutely soul crushing
I’m not saying slaking is good I’m saying it’s annoying in low tier play where you often can’t punish it as hard on its truant turns as you could in OU/UU, and the way it warps the meta kind of sucks
Most people do use stuff like replacer abilities like Mummy to remove This i know ability swap was also one of the main Statagies with Slacking i dont know if it still exists but over all Slacking is able to destroy peoples teams with some effort and the protect thing use moves like Brick brake or Faint
Skill Swap i ment
Slacking is more of a Double pokemon battle pokemon as it was introduced in gen 3
graifiaig or whatever has a move that swaps his and his partner ability with the target, doozle i think its called
@@SantosOverlord Grafaiai
Ya its been the idea sinece the early days of Slacking like Spinda own tempo Was the offical way they wanted it to be used
Doodle does work on slaking, I think neutralizing gas does as well. Simple beam doesn't unfortunately.
Using simple beam on slaking and then boosting it up with howl sounds like it would be funny if you could actually use it
I'd give the ability an upside. Basically, the turn it has an action, it WILL do the action, regardless of any and all opposition.
Unaffected by flinching, attraction, full para, freeze, sleep, confusion, redirection, protection and detection, missing, taunting, maybe even ignoring immunities and defensive abilities, to hell, even Focus Punch works when hit.
There's nothing stopping Slaking the turn he must act!
Slaking is a bit of a slacker
Somehow it looks like you made this comment before the video went up?
Yah, Code Cultist here helps me with my vids, and I run the videos by him before I upload them.
@@blip_existsOh that makes sense.
Make an ability nullifying held item. It's gotta be careful about knock off and trick, and it doesn't get the benefits of another item. It has a BST similar to Mega Pokemon which also don't get the benefit of an item, so there is some precedent for it's power level, though the fact that it is vulnerable to knockoff and doesn't have an ability probably keeps it from being a top threat.
This solution is extra nice because it can fix Regigigas as well.
I love the idea of an item that nullifies abilities, it might make Regigigas and Slaking too good, IDK, but you could also use if offensively with trick to cripple opponents. Fun stuff.
@@blip_exists Thanks, I actually think though that they is a good chance they would not even be OU with a nullifying item. Their problems run deeper than their abilities, and being held item reliant would hold them back further.
Their 100 speed stat is respectable, but not as impressive today as it was in their debut generations, as more and more faster pokemon get released.
Their 160 attack stats are still really high, but normal is not a great offensive type, which can force them to use coverage moves without stab. Additionally, as they can't use damage boosting items like life orb. For a bit of reference on how much of a difference life orb can make, it means they basically do the same damage as a life orb pokemon with 110 base attack if both fully invest into attack.
They have solid defensive stats, but they do both have weaknesses on that front too. Normal typing is good in that only fighting super effects it, but they have no resistances and only a ghost immunity, which means they will be prone to being chipped down. This is especially problematic for Regigigas, who has no recovery and can't use leftovers because his item is in use.
Lastly, most OU pokemon have a useful ability. Consistent OU staples like Landorus, Garchomp, and Tyranitar would all probably drop a tier if they didn't have an ability.
Truant should just halve damage if you used an attacking move last turn
Personally I would make it so the first move Slaking does every switch in is boosted by 1.25x. Its hard to modify Truant without compromising the identity of Slaking and the ability. Rather than buffing its downside, I would focus on Slaking's strengths and add to that.
While it is completely possible to invalidate Slaking with Protect, most Pokemon in singles dont carry the move, as in many cases they arent actively looking for Slakings to block.
Slaking's main gimmick is its ability to use its giant stats in the first turn its active then swap out. And this could in turn also benetit the other Pokemon with Truant; Durant. While gimmicky it would make its First Impressions hit even harder.
You know which Pokémon doesn’t get protect? Gen 4 regigigas, the one Pokémon who needs protect to function
I swear, gamefreak legitimately hates Regigigas.
Slacking is fun in Double with ability Swap 😉👍
Gives it all IT needs 😂
You can use entrainment and neutralising gas on Shaking, but it still sees no play in VGC because its outclassed by Regigigas in that regard.
RIP Slaking in that case.
Just another one of those examples that showcases competitive balance is hardly a priority when designing their games. I seen a vid with the same premise as this, but talking about regigigas' slow start. Basically the ability is so detrimental to the point of the pokemon being useless because of the ability is referencing the 7 day golem story; can't be due to balance regigigas since there are a plethora of other legendaries with better stats and abilities and movepools.
I mean, not every pokemon can be good unfortunately. Best to make every pokemon unique, I think. And with Regigigas, its bad, for sure, and its cool that it has a story at least. It can also beat a Toedscool, so it has that over Slaking. But yeah, but Slaking and Regigigas prolly need a rework.
1:30 doodle and entrainment do work on slaking, I used to have a slaking grafaiai team lol
Ah. That sounds pretty cool, and honestly not half bad.
It was pretty hard to make work, most people would just protect first turn, so I couldn’t use doodle lmao, but maybe I’m just bad at doubles idk.
I wonder how much use Slaking would get if it had a Normal type U-turn.
A banded Giga Impact can 1 shot any 100/100 def mon w/o max investment and that normal u-turn would do half to most bulky OU staples like Slowking or Rotom-W. And that's with Speed nature so it would tie any unscarfed 100. You're a palafin-hero that's forced to use normal flip-turn except for one execute. All things considered, that's still really good. Especially when Giga isn't even your only execute. Hammer arm & Sucker punch cover the rest of the metagame except for 4 OU mon.
I mean, that sounds like it would definitely make Slaking better, though it would probably increase it's weakness to protect even more. Of course, it would punish switches to a mon with protect very heavily, so IDK how good it would be.
Fan fact: slacking is UUBL on gen 3, so yeah, he was banned from one tier xd
What if Truant bypasses Protect?
This feels like it would either make Slaking absolutely broken, or do very little, but it is hard to tell.
Truant rework: Moves have double power and ignore Protect, so Slaking cannot be cheesed.
How bout they give him an atk that has perfect accuracy & ignores def moves like screens, protect & defense^ (maybe not the last one). A bit ridiculous on any other mon, but for a gorilla sloth that barely moves, a signature move like that can make him scary
i wanna know why Archeops has Defeatist. like, its supposedly because it has a high base stat total, but that doesn't really mean too much with its oddly fragile typing. and while itsmoveset is far from bad, its nowhere near devastating. its actually a decently balanced glass canon which makes defeatist look rather redundant.
I think it was mainly to balance it out with Carracosta, which has a much lower BST.
@@blip_exists but it knows aqua jet and shell smash so its automatically a monster
Slaking + cofagrigus
Is it flawed if it fullfills its purpose?
I mean, it fills its purpose very well in playthroughs, and this video is mainly about competitive. When it comes to competitive, drawback abilities aren't flawed (I love defeatist for example), but because of how counterable traunt is, I consider it to be flawed.
Probably because it wasn't made with competitive play in mind.
The franchise introduces Pokémon that are useless or at least only useful within certain part of an in-game playthrough for flavour rather than usability, otherwise Pokémon like Regigigas, Castform, Butterfree, Delibird, Unown or Cosmoem wouldn't exist.
And yes, some of those Pokémon are useful in lower tiers, but clearly the intention wasn't for them to be, they just happened to be.
tl,dr: Calling Truant flawed feels wrong when the ability was made to discourage players from using Slaking, not for them to work their way around it.
slaking is my waifu...
Why is every pokemon your waifu??
love is life
@@zealfplays6483 every mon deserves love and appreciation
@@thefarfromaniaccount dosent mean they gotta be a waifu....
By the way, entrainment and skill swap don’t work on slaking
Truant is fun in a single player context. Not everything in Pokemon has to be geared towards multiplayer battling. Honey Gather can just gather honey it doesn't need to be "fixed" to have some in-battle effect.
That's fair, but with Truant, I really dislike how it makes Slaking unable to do anything against certain Pokemon. Pokemon with honey gather don't really have to deal with that, which is why honey gather is a better ability in terms of design (and competitive play, but that's a given).
Still better than slow start
Considering that Regigigas is usable in some tiers, and Slaking isn't, Id say Slow Stat is probably better. In playthroughs tho, Truant is probably better.
Every time I see the argument for Slaking, I always see people that miss the point of Truant: It was specifically designed to be a lead yoke. Slaking was introduced in gen 3, the same generation abilities were added. In the Hoenn games, you encounter Slaking's base form before even battling the first gym, and Slakoth evolves into Slaking at level 36, whereupon you have an absolute monster of a mon with power on the scale of the box art legends. Slaking has the same BST as Groudon and Kyogre, and actually has a higher base attack stat than Groudon, having base 160 attack, the highest attack stat not belonging to a Mythical, Legendary, or Mega pokemon even to this day, combined with base 100 defense and speed and base 150 hp, plus a solid base 95 special attack stat so it can run special coverage, not to mention a lot of good coverage. Even in gen 3, Slaking had a really good movepool. STAB Return, Shadow Ball (which was a physical move prior to gen 4) for ghost types, Brick Break/Earthquake for steel and rock types, Aerial Ace for fighting types, Slack Off for Recovery, and Bulk Up for boosting. It has even more options now, Thunder Wave, Play Rough, and Trailblaze for a few examples. Slaking would be one of the top ou mons without Truant if it didn't get sent to Ubers.
Yah, I kinda wish I had talked about Slaking being really cool in playthroughs, and Slaking would definitely be REALLY good if not for Truant, and I totally think Slaking should have a drawback ability. Drawback abilities spice up the game, and are often quite interesting. It makes it so that you can do so much more with a mon, and more options is more better. My main issue is really just how much protect ruins Slaking, and thats really my only complaint with it.
Clearly the move Protect should be banned.
Slaking Stonks Rising Fast
The issue is that misshandling Slaking may just cause it to wreck havoc because it has Legendary level of Stats. Truant activating every third turn means Slaking can attack and then switch out. So it becomes a hit and runner that hits like a truck. Maybe that's not unbalanced now-a-days but still can become a problem. In general Slaking wasn't meant to be a good pokemon, it's its whole identity that it is monstrously strong but too lazy to make use of that.
A shaking wearing timbs
Bro made 10 chapters for a 3 minute video
Truant should have healing
To be fair, this is looking at Slacking from a competitive perspective. From a Singleplayer perspective, I’d argue Traunt is perfectly fine the way it is.
Because in Singleplayer, the player essentially gets access to a box set Legendary before the 4th gym and no other mons have the raw power to match it. AI trainers almost never use protect or play around a mon. And if you’re playing on switch mode, you never have to deal with truant if you KO a mon.
All this means that in Singleplayer, even if Slacking only moves every other turn, it’s hitting like a truck on that turn. Choice Band Slacking is a great option in the Battle Frontier for a reason.
So yeah, if you buff Traunt for competitive, you risk breaking Slacking in Singleplayer.
Slaking is great in single-player, and I regret talking about it.
And with Singleplayer, its already very unbalanced, so I don't think buffing truant would cause that many problems? Slaking could be placed later in the game, as well as trainers AI being buffed if it ever was much of a problem, though singleplayer these days isn't really made to be hard, though it is better if it isn't made more unbalanced.
@@blip_exists
*>"Slaking could be placed later in the game, ""though singleplayer these days isn't really made to be hard,"
Of course it is flawed lol its supposed to be.
I play doubles, game freak balance the game around doubles, so its not even an issue. You wana make use of slakings amazing stats? Then make a strategy to get rid of truant. There is many options.
Well, I would say its intended to be bad, not flawed. And it definitely is more balanced around doubles, but even in doubles, there's another OP normal type with an unflawed (though bad) ability.
@@blip_exists yes it is a shame he relies on team support much more than others.
Unown is op!!! It always does super effective!!!!!
Unknown also has one of the best movepools of all time.
Truant
The ability designed to be awful
Right
Awful, not flawed. I would say there is a difference.
Slaking is better in VGC... but not by much