Oh, this is open! Some quick opinions:
Lycanroc Dusk:
Design: Looks alright, though I do wish it had more traits of Midnight's design in it. Right now it's an Orange Midday with Midnight's hair (and I guess its eyes glow red when attacking). I think it should at least had the abdomen ribs, maybe also make its back feet bigger to reference Midnight's larger front paws and give it some of its own style.
Stats: From the video we saw and the calculations done by people above, sounds like it's design isn't the only thing being based off Midday. Thinking about it, since its an Event Pokemon (we'll get to that), would it be possible it'll have a higher BST? Midday's stats are 75/115/65/55/65/112//487 and Midnight's is 85/115/75/55/75/82//487. I'm wondering if they wouldn't give it the best of both for a BST of 85/115/75/55/75/112//517. It's not that high of a BST (the Starters are higher than it) and Counter is a negative priority move to begin with so it can still use it just fine. It'll pretty much play like a slightly bulkier Midday, which I don't think is that bad.
Ability & Moves: Tough Claws is always a nice Ability for a physically offensive Pokemon to have, though Lycanroc Dusk may get limited use out of it. Looking through their movepool here are their notable moves that can take advantage of Tough Claws (minus Egg Moves because its an Event Pokemon):
- Accelerock: Starting with the STAB, it's also the only Rock-type move that makes contact that it knows. Honestly I think Rock-types prefer having No Guard, which Lycanroc Midnight had, to bypass Rock-types moves having imperfect accuracy. However having a Rock-type Quick Attack of 78 Power is pretty handy.
- Dark: Crunch
- Fighting: Reversal, Brick Break (TM)
- Normal: Rock Climb, Return (TM), Facade (TM)
Yeah, it just barely gets enough to have four contact moves of different types and even then it's not that great coverage (though maybe Move Tutors may help with that). This is also excluding they think you're going to have Counter on it which, yeah, no. Sorry GF, Lycanroc ain't dethroning Wobbuffet. I went over this on another thread but I'll summarize it here: I have no clue why GF thought Lycanroc Midnight would make a good Counter Pokemon. It doesn't really have the stats nor Ability to support it (and this especially goes for Lycanroc Dusk) and it doesn't get Mirror Coat so it's completely open on the Special side. And with Dusk having great speed, an increased priority STAB, and Power increasing Ability which Counter doesn't take advantage of further puts a nail in the coffin for it using Counter. But back on point, Dusk just gets enough though this excludes Status Moves (gets Stealth Rock) and what Move Tutors might give it so it could carve out a niche for itself yet.
Event Pokemon: So is this a new thing now? A normal Pokemon given something special and used as an early promotion event gimmick? I'm not sure if I like that, especially if it encourages the anime writers to keep making Ash a special snowflake (he's suppose to be an "every man" character, him being special comes from his strategies and working with his Pokemon's strengths and weaknesses, not that one of his Pokemon gets a special power-up no one else gets). Also, were the Mythical Pokemon not enough? Like in ORAS I thought we were getting to a point where there were so many Mythical Pokemon that GF started to de-mythified some just so they didn't need to plan an Event to distribute it in the future (ORAS did this with Deoxys, hoping Sinnoh remakes would do this with Darkrai and maybe Manaphy (or use it as the early promotion event)). But now we're getting these special Event Pokemon who are super versions of normal Pokemon. Are they going to be gen exclusive like the Spiky-Eared Pichu? If not, would you ever plan on releasing them again even though they're closely tied to the anime who might not feature that Pokemon once that gen arc is over? Do they plan on making them available normally at some point? This just feels like a slippery slope I think GF should jump off of while they're still at the top.
Lycanroc Trailer: Only thing I can say I like the remix of the SM wild battle music. :) But nothing else to really take form it.
Comment Responses:
I really like how good Tough claws accelerock could be. I hope Lycanroc Dusk also gets SD, Rock polish or even Bulk up like its counterparts.
A drawback I can see is egg moves unless they come with the Rockruff event because then we miss on Tough claws boosted Sucker Punch, Firefang and Thunderfang. Lycanroc Dusk still can use Tough claws boosted Crunch, Quick attack, Brick break, Reversal assuming it gets the same pool as previous forms.
I like the new Hp bars background.
I think Lycanroc Dusk is going to be very cut & paste of both Lycanroc Midday & Midnight, so any moves they get I'm sure Dusk is getting too (including the exclusives moves). I'd say the question is more on what Move Tutors will it get. Would be nice if the special Rockruff that evolves into Dusk came with Fire Fang, Thunder Fang, and Sucker Punch (BTW why no Ice Fang?) but I kind of doubt it, though maybe for this reason they may make them Tutor moves?
Hmm, opponent has (dark) green HP bar while player has (dark) blue. I wonder if there's a significance to that. Would be neat that depending on your opponent the colors are different. Your Pokemon are always blue, Wild Pokemon are green, Trainer's Pokemon are red, Rival is orange, villain group is black with special variants for admins & boss, Gym Leaders/Captains is bronze, Kahuna/Elite Four is Silver, Champion is gold, Legendary Pokemon is purple... sorry, got out of hand there.
I literally can't think of anything but Crash Bandicoot with that color palette when I see the new Lycanroc forme.
Geez, even in Pokemon I can't escape Crash (two playthrough channels I watch are playing through the Crash trilogy games).
Also, there are many moves that the Lycanroc forms could potentially get via tutor, such as the elemental punches.
Well, Midnight might be able to get the Punches but I'm not sure about Midday and Dusk. Also, Midnight looks more of a slasher so even then chances aren't looking so great (wait, why doesn't Lycanroc get Shadow Claw from TM? Heck, probably could also get Aerial Ace & False Swipe too. And why not also Slash, Night Slash, and Metal Claw?).
And yet... I want some info on so that I can choose on whether to pick Ultra Moon (to follow on Moon) or Ultra Sun =/
Ah yes, let's not overlook that. Or first piece of USUM news... and it's about the early promotion event and not really anything indicative of the games themselves. Also, this news was first and second given to use via Pokenchi and CoroCoro, aka a television broadcast and a magazine. You know, two forms of media with limited audience range instead of using THE GOD DAMN USUM WEBSITE!
Now, this is an Event promotion so at first I was willing to overlook it... but then I remembered that outside the announcement trailer this has been the only new bit of information about the games.
GF, we all know it being a Pokemon game alone will sell a million copies, but it ain't going to look great for the first few weeks of sales if you don't tell us about the game! And if you're trying to keep what you did a surprise there's plenty ways of doing it than keeping completely quiet. At least tell us when you plan on giving us more info! It's been 2 months since you announced it and there's 2 months before it releases! We've reached the midpoint, NOW is the time!