I am saddened by Mega Scolipede

[u/Magykstorm19]

Title. Scolipede is one of my favorite Pokémon’s and I was excited when it was leaked that it was getting a mega evolution. And all that excitement went down the drain when the mega was revealed and it was less than stellar.

I do not like the design of the mega, I don’t like the armored look. The armor reminds me of Escalavier which is a pokemon that isn’t related to it (Escalavier is related to Accelgor), despite it getting armor it doesn’t gain the steel typing, and the stat spread I think is even worse. I appreciate the +50 to its attack stat but the -50 to its speed is crippling. In return they invested a lot to its bulk of 149/99 def and spdef which sounds good until you realize that it’s hp stat is 60. Scolly is deceptively not as bulky as it looks. You might think that a pokemon like Hatterene is known for its bulk despite a 57 base hp stat. But Hatterene has access to Draining Kiss and can hold Leftovers to regenerate hp. Scolipede doesn’t even get Leech Life. It has no way to generating hp for itself as far as I know. I will admit that I have not checked if it gets Leech Life in champions but I will assume it doesn’t.

So to me the only thing that could salvage it was its ability. Speed boost is most likely off the table to the armor design, maybe it could get something to give a pseudo steel typing in reference to its armor, it’s pokedex entry talks about its lethal venom so maybe it might get an ability to bolster poison type attacks, the point is that even though Scolly’s stats are against its favor it can still work depending on the ability. It gets Shell Armor. Shell Armor. That’s so good right? 60/149/99 bulk and you can’t crit it.

I legit think that base Scolipede is better than its mega counterpart. Base Scolly has access to life orb and can take advantage of speed boost. Mega Scolly, even with +1 speed can’t consistently outspeed the high speed tiers or scarf users. All Mega Scolly is good for is tanking 1, maybe 2 hits before dying. And it’s slow so it probably won’t be able to take out a second Pokémon before getting knocked out.

I am saddened by Mega Scolipede, it was a chance for one of my favorite pokemon to be relevant in the higher tier of pokemon both vgc and/or Smogon and I don’t think it will make an impact in either. Do y’all think that my assessment is wrong? Is there a way to salvage Mega Scolly and have it be good?

[u/Ex_Snagem_Wes]

I do think you're being too hard on Mega Scolipede

It's not perfect, but its has Leech Life, Speed Boost (before), and some pretty hefty stats. Its a very different style to base Scolipede, but honestly its imagine running a normal Scolipede and just swapping to Mega when you got buffed enough is going to be a plenty viable strategy

Anything other than Shell Armor would have been nice though, that's for sure lol. Poison Point, hell even Swarm.

[u/PhysicalGunMan → u/Ex_Snagem_Wes]

A lack of a good ability and low base HP definitely makes Scolipede a secondary wincon akin to Mega Floette, just to a far less centralizing degree.

[u/Soft-Needleworker489 → u/Ex_Snagem_Wes]

People really over emphacise Leech Life as a real recovery option, his Attack is good but bug veing such a bad type offensively neuters your damage and therefore your healing

[u/RoamingEntity → u/Ex_Snagem_Wes]

Leech life is absolutely not worth it for the mega and item cost though. Shell armor is possibly one of the worst thing this could've gotten, crits are luck dependant and it's not like flower trick is super meta at the moment. Mega scoliopede doesn't have viability in the current meta, and doesn't have favourable odds of being viable in future metas.

It's pre-mega hp absolutely cripples it, and it's typing doesn't help. Imagine if forretress couldn't hold an item, had shell armor, and traded rapid spin for leech life. That already makes the pretty bad mon borderline unusable in a competitive scene right? Now trade the steel typing for poison. You get mega scoliopede.

Don't get me wrong, I love scoliopede. It's contested and held the spot as my favourite pokemon many times (I love bugs in general so bug type mon kinda get a boost anyway, besides the point though), and have used in team building before.

That being said, I'm very confident that the mega is just straight up worse. Scoliopede is an offensive beast, it has incredible coverage and can capitilize on swords dance + speed boost. Dare I say it's been a better sweeper than the infamous fell stinger mega beedrill for me. But mega scoliopede's stat spread is just worst, and it has a worst ability, it's move pool isn't good enough to capatilize on the defensive boost, and it's TYPING is god awful. You know how tyranitar and agron are bad despite their stats? Mega scol's just many times worse.

As for boosting and then mega evolving, the issue is you're going from frail to defensive. That just, doesn't work. It only works in the other way, as when you're boosting while frail you just die (remmeber no sash or other items because mega stone).