The most fun thing about UB stat spreads is that they are entirely composed of prime numbers. It's a very clever way of keeping with the alien thematic on the part of GameFreak.
@@ElectricWindGirlFriend I believe Naganadel is the only exception as one of its stats (121 speed) is a prime power rather than a prime number. Probably for the best, could you image if it's 121 speed was 151, letting it's total match the other UB's at 570.
Yeah, it makes their stats "off" in a way that you'd have to be completely anal to actually notice. Even the one non-prime is still not divisible by 5 like every other base stat in the series (discounting Shedinja's HP, which doesn't use the normal stat formulas anyway)
@@HeraldOfOpera Did...you just say that every other base stat in the series is divisible by 5? that has never, ever, been even remotely close to being true
@@incandescence5547 I was going to say he was clearly being hyperbolic, but the "discounding shed's HP" clause means he wasn't hyperbolic at all. How can one person be so confidently wrong on the internet?
Part of the reason is many of them don’t have any eyes, which I wanna say has never happened in a previous gen (there’s probably something I’m forgetting though)
@@minhsu6082 I get what you're saying, but the Regi's "eyes" are still likely to register as eyes to the human brain which always looks for and sees faces in things that aren't there. Also, Bronzong very clearly has eyes in its design.
It's similar to how Digimon did Appmons which allowed them to justify a different design philosophy for that spin off series(?). Honestly I learned this from some other person like a decade ago, and never looked that deep into it, but thought it was interesting.
God I wish I was a fly on the wall when they gave direction to the voice actor. "Just scream. Really really loud. Like stepping on Lego and being kicked in the nuts at the same time kind of scream."
ah yes, we have: • evil jellyfish • pokey pokey • the wall • 🤡 • visually stronk bug • competitively stronk bug • literally just a clump of wires, like that's it • le om nom nom • some bamboo rocket thing, i guess? • ferrothorn part 2: attack edition
Celesteela is based on the story “The tale of the bamboo cutter.” In which a bamboo cutter discovers a princess from the moon in a bamboo shoot and eventually she grows up and goes back to the moon. Which is why it has both bamboo and rocket elements, and also why it has a feminine face. Because it’s a girl who was found in bamboo who uses rockets to return to the moon.
I remember when Ultra Beast were first revealed, people didn’t even believe they were Pokémon. They looked so out there, so against every design principle in Pokémon that we thought they had to be boss fights or something. When they actually had stats and moves people were shocked.
My favourite part about Ultra Beasts is that whatever design philosophy is in place, Ultra Beasts are clearly ignoring it. It's like how you can tell apart 90% of fake pokemon leaks from real ones just by how they're designed except they're actually real
If there's a diegetic reason, I'm down for insane, bullshit Pokemon designs. Like big, cartoon blush being functional organs on electric rodents? genius! I'm just mad that Bruxish didn't have zebra stripes like actual Dazzling camouflage. the rest of its bullshit design looks like actual various stupid fish
Xurkitree is by far the funniest pokemon in existence. It’s like if you took rampardos software and ran it on Regieleki hardware. He’s probably the most goofy sinister pokemon in existence and he should get access to quiver dance
The idea of alien Pokemon from other dimensions is just dope. I also love the UB classifications for some reason (I honestly call them by those more than their actual names)
They remind me of SCP’s when I call them by their UB classification names. The fact that you had to contain them in special pokeballs (thumual) makes it even more like SCP.
I believe that one reason the ultra beasts have such crazy stats is because the base stats are all prime numbers. So that leaves less flexible wiggle room for “balancing”
Buzzswole is one of the funniest designs ever. The idea of a mosquito that sucked so much blood that it went from a mere insect to “mom said it’s my turn on the xbox” makes me laugh every time I look at it.
I recently saw it pointed out that Sun and Moon often deal with the idea of invasive species, and Ultra Beasts are the logical endpoint of that theme. Made me appreciate them a lot more.
I will never be mad about Mosa. She made Salamence and Garchomp shake in fear as a goddamn BUG by threatening with an uninvested Ice Beam. Fuck your dragons, fear the roach.
I find it funny how Nihilego is a Rock/Poison type ultra beast that doesn't really look like a Rock type and only sorta like a poison type but not that much, and then gen 9 released glimmora who looks even more like an ultra beast, even less like a rock type, and even more sorta like a poison type but not that much, and glimmora is just better than it
Well Nihilego is an organic glass creature, which adds to the weirdness of ultra beasts (like Kartana being living paper) and Glimmora is based on crystal structure that looks like flowers made of a toxic chemical.
That's because ultra beasts are intentionally weird and in nihilego's case - it's a glass jellyfish wearing a white hat & a sun dress. So: Glass = rock Jellyfish = poison (like tentacruel before it) Designed after something weird like a hat & dress combo = ultra beast.
@@jaernihiltheus7817 my point was that the Non-ultrabeast Glimmora felt even more like an ultra beast than nihilego, and it being rock type feels even less fitting than nihilego at first even though both of them make sense
My favorite example of how minmaxed Ultra Beast stats are is how Kartana would run 0 attack timid nature in Gen 7 VGC just to get the Speed Beast Boost. The attack drop wouldn’t even matter since it has 181 attack and it could just swords dance back up to compensate
One of my favorite add campaigns ever is the analog horror like series of Pokemon go ads about ultra beasts sightings Highly reccomend checking them out
Buzzswole was so OP in Almost Every Ability with Triage since it gave him priority on leech life and drain punch. Which makes me wish Buzzswole really got Triage as a hidden ability.
Ultra Beasts reminds me of Gen1 glitch mons in a way. Both are strange to look at and are "not supposed to be here" in a way, and both usually have some very out-there stats, often including at least 1 ridiculously high stat.
how the fuck did they make all these mons and then guzzlord's stat spread i'm gonna hurl, how do you make a mon 4x weak to fairy and then make it slow, frail and weak
I think they wanted one that had a ton of HP and Gustl looks spooky. But they should have given it a better typing. Maybe something went ground and water could have given it a better usage.
Should've been like 151/167/73/73/67/59 A monstrous physical mighty glacier build that properly matches its design, basically rampardos with actual bulk, but you'll still have to be careful. I don't think it'll be that op in a fairy infested metagames.
Fun fact Some people used kartana a 19 attack IV max speed timid nature to proc speed boost from beast boost in tournaments Same thing in VGC where Stakataka ran 17 def IV with lonely nature to proc attack boost Gamefreak kind of learnt their lesson and made sure brute bonnet never gets a speed boost from Protosynthesis
"Pheromosa is Flutter Mane," but far better designed imo. It's still far too strong for OU, but its weaknesses are very exploitable, unlike Flutter Mane. Pheromosa's defensive typing is far worse and it's bulk is absurdly low. Butterfree is bulkier than it. Yes, Butterfree.
@@phyllotaxis unfortunately you can't make it only out of only fully evolved pokemon because alolan marowak and blacephalon aren't in SV so you'll have to replace them with litwick and lampent
"What, why?" Because their Base Stats are all prime numbers. Dunno if it's true for Poipole and Naganadel specifically, since they're special, but it's the case for the others if I'm not mistaken.
Naganadel's speed is the only exception, and it still isn't divisible by 5 like every other base stat that actually gets called by the normal function.
I wish they would give Ultra Beasts another chance. Yeah it's obvious that Paradox Pokémon are just "UBs But More Balanced*" so much so that they forced UBs to sit this gen out as to not steal the thunder of the Paradox Pokémon, but UBs are SO much more interesting aesthetically. More specifically, I love that they were literally made to defy our collective unconscious expectation of what a Pokémon should look like and IMO they knocked it out of the park. I fondly remember before the Gen 7 games came out and all the info we had on the UBs were magazine sized posters of a couple of them with code names to match. Their designs and the way they were presented made them out to be so alien that there was speculation that they weren't Pokémon at all so you couldn't even catch them and were instead just big scripted boss battles like the Poké Star Studios bosses were. It really screwed with us and made our imaginations run wild. They really said "You see this bundle of cables without a face? This is a Pokémon. Deal with it." Based af. UBs broke the mold, but unfortunately, they also broke the game. I think a lot of that has to do with the admittedly dumb gimmick where all of their stat spreads were prime numbers whose sum was 570. There's only so many configurations of said prime numbers below 255 that can do that and they're all stupidly "spikey". I don't think re-balancing them for a comeback is impossible though. For example, now that GF is officially in the business of Thanos Snapping moves from specific Pokemon's move pools, they could absolutely take away the really stupid moves, like Nasty Plot from Naganadel or Swords Dance from Kartana. Another idea is to nerf Beast Boost to only boost a stat once per appearance in battle, even after multiple knockouts, or make the boost a 30% boost instead of a full stat stage, or even both. Granted those are just nerfs I know Game Freak would reasonably implement. Were it up to me, Beast Boost would go in the trash and they'd all have their own unique Abilities instead, as it was always difficult for me to suspend my disbelief that alien creatures from drastically different home worlds would all have the same Ability. Thanks for reading my gushing/rambling.
i was thinking how neat if would have been if we had UB and the paradoxes but i thought of how much cool theming pokemon has with their creatures all in one series
Staka in nat dex is such a cheat code. He’s like BW reun on roids in trick room. Being double res to rocks is basically the same thing. Trick room. Then both stabs are flinch happy between head and slide, and heat crash is goated. Fine vs heatran since - minus 14 def can be all invested in spedef after u max out atk. -rock slide is still good damage, iron head is dandy vs standard Terras. Fighting, water, whatever else would be pretty bad for iron head. And then balloon terra ghost, the quad weak/ bliss line (just the terra for the pinks) savior.
My favorite Kartana Tech is that one of its best strats is to lower Attack Investment so you can get Beast Boost to activate +1 Speed so you can’t get outsped by anything, and then using Swords Dance to compensate
I have nothing insightful to add here, so I'm just going to share my favorite bit of trivia. The base stats of all the Ultra Beasts are all prime numbers, except, oddly enough, for Naganadel with a base Speed of 121... which happens to be a perfect square. Also, if you're wondering, despite being told explicitly that it's *not* an Ultra Beast, Necrozma's base stats are also all prime numbers, except for both Dusk Mane and Dawn Wing Necrozma having a base speed of 77. (Ultra Necrozma goes back to having prime numbers, though.)
Some of the most fun I’ve ever had with this game was in low ladder doubles games where a couple opponents would somehow let me get a choice specs modest max spatk blacephalon in drought + tailwind next to charjabug and instantly kill everything on the screen with mind blown
i very much like both stakataka and buzzwole, because imo they're very well balanced. they both have typings riddled with weaknesses and each make up for it rather well with their individual traits. and if they have to min max for me to have a viable steel/rock on my all steel team then so be it
I miss Celesteela and Xurkitree so much. In this 9 gen Xurkitree could have recovered Tail Glow. Celesteela is another fun pokemon in design and competitive, I ran mixed variants with it in the ultramoon era with WP to defeat Heatran from an earthquake
The only thing keeping Kartana from being Ubers material is that if you think about clicking a Fire move it dies, and has nowhere near the special bulk of Ferrothorn to try EVing for that. It also helps that Heatran is pretty much only scared of Sacred Sword and neither of its STABs (both puns unintended). Meanwhile Blacephalon either gets a kill, gets six kills, or dies horribly, and is still talking to its therapist about Sucker Punch
I love the UBs a REAL lot. My personal favorite being Xurkitree. Fun fact: in SM and USUM, this thing had access to TAIL GLOW, thats right, the move that raises your special attack by a whopping 3 stages in a single move. Granted, Xurkitree's sucky defenses and speed mean its probably not gonna live to make use of that, but if you can somehow get a tail glow off safely, it will freaking nuke!
Xurkitree was always my fave. The only one who didn't get min-maxed. Comparing his stats to Nidoking just shows how extremely balanced they made his base stats and then they dumped 173 Special Attack onto him becauses thats just how much they had left.
The concept of UBs is actually terrifying lore wise. Pheromosa and Buzzwole are basically another dimension's version of early game bugs (most obvious being Caterpie and Weedle lines), and yet are extremely destructive when transported to a more mundane dimension like mainline pokemon's. Xurkitree has a whole-ass forest of themselves... Crazy.
I love the Ultra Beasts so much!! Their designs are so fun, being based on alien movie tropes + invasive species. And they all look super out there and truly alien when put among other Pokémon, even compared to other aliens like Deoxys and Beheeyem. I hope one day we get more of them, potentially when revisiting Alola.
Stakataka is an awesome Pokémon it's such a fun design and it's a giant brick cube made of sentient bricks which can flip out as eyes top 10 Pokémon of all time I think
I feel lile Xurkitree would have been OU in gen 9 or at least a good choice, simply because he can blow up most of the top threats out of the field (great tusk gets annihilated bh energy ball, and a strong thunderbolt 2hko almost anything), and having a special nuke is always good.
Pheromosa may seem strong, but it’s so frail, and that makes it interesting. Flutter Mane is like the Queen in a chess game. A bitch to deal with and annoying to remove unless your opponent makes a misplay.
Man why did you have to say you were in middle school during SM? Now I feel old 😭 Jokes aside the UB were an amazing addition to pokemon, a great way to stretch the conventional designs with a tight theme to go with it.
Yknow I thought this was about the implications of UBs in the Pokémon world like world building wise and the effects they’d have on humans and Pokemon alike But this is freaky too lol
Stakataka is awesome. I have fond memories of using an absolutely stupid team in Gen 8 AG that mostly revolved around this guy: The Wall (Stakataka) @ Shuca Berry Ability: Beast Boost EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD Brave Nature IVs: 0 Spe - Trick Room - Gyro Ball - Stone Edge - Earthquake If it wasn’t fully set up, I swapped in a flying or ghost type to read ground or fighting attacks, and Dynamax allowed for absurd defensive options, by giving me a way to boost its defensive stats and set up sandstorm without switching out. The shock value alone won me some games, because people who definitely could have beat me forfeited after losing a couple Pokémon.
Gotta love the best play in pokemon: killing your own stakataka with kartana to get a boost + reset fake out pressure. Absolutely genius. also why does boingus say kartana was legal in gen 9 at 3:04, am i stupid?
I want a Pokemon Legends where the games is happening in Ultra Space, where your starter is an ultra beast, where you explore all the weird environments, and that you fight and catch only ultra beasts.
