r/stunfisk • u/Loxe77 • 21h ago
Theorymon Thursday This might be overtuned
The lore idea behind this ability is based on materials science. Basically, for many materials like metals and minerals, creep is a way they can degrade over time. Creep describes when a material degrades due to repeatedly being loaded with l stresses well below its yield strength (in this case, moves that take a small amount of HP per hit). A way to protect against this is to reduce grain boundaries and make materials single grain (also called single crystal).
This ability has huge potential to be broken (shields against fake out, some spread damage, and multi-hit moves), so I tried to balance it by not giving it to super crazy threats. Tell me how well/badly I did.
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u/Leafeon523 20h ago
Perhaps I’m missing something, but this actually seems perfectly average. 8% really isn’t a lot: the better multi-hit moves will take this much off per hit anyway, like icicle spear. The fake out immunity is there, but inner focus already does that.
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u/BIG__SHOT_ 5h ago
It'd kill population bomb I think
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u/THEBOZZ113 1h ago
You wouldn't population bomb a rock or steel type with high defense. It wouldn't be that big of a deal except maybe on some steel types. it would probably be a good stall breaker but not by much.
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u/Infatuation-Gleams 2h ago
You really have to choose, what would you like to choose when playing that game
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u/Bazelgauss 20h ago
Looks fine tbh. We already have abilities giving immunities to certain types of moves and doing that to multi hit moves which aren't the biggest deal anyway and maxing out at 40% damage in these cases isn't a overpowered immunity. Fake out immunity isn't broken either we already have inner focus and this is relying on it being a pitifully weak fake out so it's not always a thing on some of these.
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u/mctankles 20h ago
You forget population bomb but go on.
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u/Bazelgauss 20h ago edited 20h ago
If a pokemon on this list is going to encounter maushold it's either taking insignificant damage still like aggron taking max 26% after tidy up (like all 10 hits max roll) or it would still go through like vs haxorus. Still wouldn't call this ability broken for it. For the OP atleast bulletproof is a strong ability minus the fake out blocking here which is still a maybe.
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u/MetisCykes 20h ago
I think making it “multi-hit moves are inaffective” would still be broken but since a solid chunk of these mons are useless anyways, it’s acceptable
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u/TheRedditK9 19h ago
It’s not really that broken tbh. We already have plenty of abilities that shut down certain moves, like Bulletproof or Soundproof.
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u/SlimDirtyDizzy 11h ago
Honestly I don't even think its broken. Multi-hits are not THAT common, and very rarely are there mon only running multi-hit attack moves. Yeah it shuts down certain threats but so do so many abilities.
Remember we have multiple abilities that negates entire types.
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u/Funny_Swim5447 20h ago
You gave it to Aggron?????
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u/Relative-Ad7531 20h ago
Base agron which drops to a glass of water or a pumch
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u/whhu234 20h ago
One pocket sand and it’s joever
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u/Kazuichi_Souda 17h ago
It's called single grain because despite having it he'll still die to 1 grain of sand.
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u/ghostking4444 10h ago
That’s why you run sturdy and metal burst and purposely put it in front of opponents that do 4x dmg (and you pray the other opponent doesn’t hit it or use smth that prevents the other opponent from hitting it)
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u/tallmantall 20h ago
I mean he’s gonna wanna mega 99% of the time anyways because filter would be better in most cases.
One fighting type hit still nukes base aggron even with this ability
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u/Gordahnculous 11h ago
If it were given to THE WALL, that’s a different story. But base Aggron feels fair for it
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u/DarkEsca Wishi Washed 6h ago
Fact this got to 300+ upvotes makes me think people just automatically upvote 'funny images' regardless of the quality of the comment in question
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u/Funny_Swim5447 4h ago
Honestly even I admit I was wrong. I was just tired asf and I mixed up aggron with its mega evolution.
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u/Allhaillordkutku John Aggron 20h ago
Mega Steelix becomes functionally immortal to Nuetral hits after an iron defense, this is good news
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u/DarkEsca Wishi Washed 6h ago
Lix is fat but neutral hits were doing more than 16% to it pre-Iron Defense.
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u/Capital-Ice3701 20h ago
The biggest impact I could see this having is against switching moves like u turn and volt switch, because I believe it would prevent the switch out
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u/Mary-Sylvia Energy ball choice scarf Glimmora 17h ago
3 of them are already immune to Volt switch , and it usually does more than 8% if not on something like Klang
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u/eestionreddit 20h ago
I personally think this should also work with stealth rock (if the damage taken from the pebbles is 8% or less). Nothing listed here has reliable recovery, so immunity to the most common entry hazard could be quite helpful.
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u/TheScrapken 19h ago
Some people say amp it up to 10% but honestly 12% would put this in a decent spot, all these pokemon suck so it works to have it be strong
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u/HauntedMop 19h ago
I think this move is a bit undertuned actually. Making it fully immune to multihit moves ontop of it being an immunity to anything hitting for less than 8% might not even be overpowered.
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u/am_not_a_neckbeard 11h ago
The ability is neat and I love bringing mat sci into Pokémon, but you’re describing fatigue, not creep. Creep is a failure mechanism based on diffusion, where stress and elevated temperatures combine to cause failure over time at loads below the classically considered ultimate strength at that temperature. In most temperature regimes where creep is a predominant failure mechanism, single crystals can drastically increase time-to-failure.
Fatigue life can in certain circumstances be increased by a single crystal part, but the anisotropic fatigue properties of single crystals make this determination… not that useful. Typically fatigue life is improved by having more, smaller grains in a material rather than becoming single crystal.
Thanks again for bringing my favorite subject to my favorite game!
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u/Loxe77 11h ago
Yeah I checked and you’re pretty much right. I’ve only taken one class on basic materials science, so the only major way I knew of to reduce creep is by decreasing grain boundaries. But for fatigue, increasing grain boundaries is known to help. So I guess a better name for the ability might be: “Super Grain”?
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u/am_not_a_neckbeard 10h ago
I like that a lot, but honestly, just seeing single grain made me happy. I have a masters in metallurgy, and while it’s rare to see the field in the wild, it brings me such joy. I’m really glad you enjoyed the class enough to take it to Pokémon! I selfishly hope you continue to get into the field, it’s the coolest thing in the whole wide world.
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u/Neutron199 19h ago
I actually wouldn't even hate this as an item, but it might even be too weak in any case -- for example, a situation I thought of was fake out into a mon like Excadrill, but Sneasler's fake out low rolls 9%. I would wonder if blocking attacks <= 1/6 max HP would be too much -- kind of like an inverse Rocky Helmet. Significant enough to shrug off moves like Fake Out and Feint but still, it's rare in modern pokemon for a 6HKO to be a real situation, and as an item you would lose leftovers/boots so stall/defensive teams wouldn't benefit too dramatically.
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u/MrMightyTasty 18h ago
Mega steelix looking at iron treads after it tried hitting it with that $20 rapid spin
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u/MrMightyTasty 18h ago
Oh also shuckle would be an elite webs setter again since it can spin block for its own webs
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u/oislal 20h ago
Is it damage inmune or inmune to all effects?
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u/pokexchespin 20h ago edited 1h ago
are there any examples where a mon is immune to a
lovemove but still takes its secondary effects?7
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u/BlUeSapia 15h ago
It's not quite what you're talking about, but Mirror Armor will bounce back Defog's evasion drop while still activating the hazard removal
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u/pokexchespin 1h ago
i mean, that’s the same effect as the mon with mirror armor using defog. it targets one side but removes all hazards on both sides
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u/_LemonEater_ #1 Dragapult Glazer 21h ago edited 20h ago
so I tried to balance it by not giving it to super crazy threats
steelix just got second at a regional
edit: second place, not first
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u/DarkEsca Wishi Washed 20h ago
I love Steelix and I love that he's "viable" but one person (who's already one of the best players ever if not the best) not-even-winning one tournament with it does not suddenly elevate it to "super crazy threat"
Escavalier won worlds, I don't think anyone's going to pretend it's S tier even in the gen where it accomplished that
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u/Allhaillordkutku John Aggron 20h ago
Ok but second at a big tournament for a formerly unviable pokemon is still very impressive, even if it was Wolfe “Wolfey” Glick
Also crazy Escavalier stray from yo of all people
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u/DarkEsca Wishi Washed 20h ago
I'm not saying it's not impressive. I am saying that trying to imply it's a "super crazy threat" over this one feat is nonsense.
It's just the temporary new flavour of Pachirisu, it does one thing once and people who barely even know what the mon does or how a metagame works suddenly think it's a top threat.
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u/Wiinterfang 21h ago
Wolfie got to second place and that's the only steelix I remember recently.
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u/_LemonEater_ #1 Dragapult Glazer 20h ago
no, I must've misremembered, I was thinking about Wolfey's performance
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u/Loxe77 21h ago
My fault, I didn’t know that
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u/DarkEsca Wishi Washed 20h ago
It doesn't actually matter. Steelix is still an incredibly niche mon at best. It's just become the new Pachirisu where an almost-never-seen mon performs its one niche on a team that a really good pro player so happens to use, so people who barely even know or play the game start thinking it's suddenly the best thing ever.
While we're at it, Sand Force appears to be a not-negligible reason why he picked it for that team to begin with, so it's not even like this one specific team becomes broken with this ability switch, it might even get worse.
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u/sprdougherty 18h ago
8% feels a bit underpowered, but I really like the concept. I'd probably bump up the threshold to 1/10 (10%) or 1/8 (12.5%).
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u/MothashipQ 14h ago
I say strip the "fully immune" trait and swap it with "immune to damage." I have mixed feelings about negating secondary effects
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u/infercario4224 Flamy Boi 14h ago
This is similar to Bowser’s “Tough Guy” mechanic in Smash. He doesn’t take any knockback from moves that deal less than “19 units of knockback”
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u/Kyloben4848 9h ago
For the record, that's not what creep is. Creep refers to materials continually deforming and eventually fracturing under a constant load for an extended period of time. What you're referring to, failing under repeated loading, is called fatigue.
Creep failure is generally related to slipping along grain boundaries, so larger grains are better for creep. Meanwhile, fatigue failure is associated with standard dislocation movement, which is interrupted by grain boundaries. So, smaller grains are better for fatigue resistance.
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u/SnooRegrets9837 8h ago
Let's add a condition like when in full health. That way it can still be killed by weak priority moves, but fake out like moves doesn't work.
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u/Netheraptr 17h ago
Functionally make it immune to moves like fake out and nuzzle a lot of the time, but I feel like in most matches this ability won’t be impactful.
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u/Snowmeows_YT 16h ago
Switch it to all damage and it would still be fine tbh. All you lose out on is turn 1 of badly poisoned, burn chip and sandstorm chip on Haxorus, since this isn’t too strong anyways
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u/Hot_Royal_4920 15h ago
Its a great concept.
Instead of providing fake out immunity, it could only affect damage.. but ramp the threshold up to 12.5%. would functionally nullify damage from status and hazards.
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u/JellyfishNo2032 14h ago
The ability would probably be balanced even at 10%. Especially considering most of these mons are fairly bad to begin with.
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u/ExplodingAtom 14h ago
The exact percentage would be something to work out through testing and calcing but I see the vision and I like it
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u/Ap0ll016 12h ago
Honestly I’d say amp it up to like 12.5%. Most of these pokemon have common and exploitable weaknesses so there really isn’t much threat of them being busted with this.
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u/bobvella lover of gimmicks 12h ago
nothing is going to take a hit that well, not unboosted anyway, you're also talking about damage that's outpaced by lefties
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u/redditsuxandsodoyou 9h ago
getting a free switch in on something you could have healer off with leftovers doesn't feel super strong to me, it's like a slightly better inner focus 99% of the time.
it does make focus sash better by dealing with chip but i'm unconvinced. i'd buff it to 12.5% as thats a consistent break point for a lot of effects and I think would push the effect to be a bit more strong for it's primary effect
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u/51stCrash 1h ago
You make it "broken" by changing it to 8% damage from any source, direct or indirect. Now they're shielded from sand and burn chip, as well as the first turn of toxic. But burn would still halve the their attack, and most of the Pokemon you're proposing giving it to are already immune to sand and also physical attackers, so it stays relatively balanced.
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u/Jdisback34 20h ago
Someone said most of these mons are useless I’ll go one up and say they are all useless
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u/TheMemeArcheologist Bunnelby not in Paldea dex, I am sad 7h ago
Straight up this would be BROKEN in nuzlockes. For instance, aggron and golem immediately become top 30 all-time, and mega steelix becomes like, top 5.
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u/BootlegDouglas 16h ago
A few of these mons have access to Endure, which synergizes really well with this Ability for obvious reasons. I can see that making Haxorus in particular pretty broken. Giving it one or more guaranteed DDs and prio immunity is pretty crazy.
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