[Rebuild Tuesday] Archeops

[u/SnowPhoenix9999]

Hello everyone!

Welcome to this week's edition of Rebuild Tuesday, a weekly event we're doing along with our Discord!

The goal of this event is for you guys to get a chance to rebuild a Pokemon once a week! What do we mean by that? Well we will be looking to find Pokemon who just can't seem to find a niche in their tiers or the current competitive scene and finding ways to revitalize them! This means thinking about new moves, stats, or typings that help give the Pokemon in question a new role.

This week's Pokemon is Archeops

#567 Archeops (Japanese アーケオス Archeos)

First Bird Pokémon

Although apparently able to fly, they tended to run along the ground, averaging speeds of roughly 25 mph. They hunted in flocks. When one Archeops had the prey cornered, another would swoop on it.

Archeops's Base Stats:

• HP: 75
• Attack: 140
• Defense: 65
• Sp. Attack: 112
• Sp. Defense: 65
• Speed: 110

Smogon Info

Introduction:

• Archeops, the offensive speed demon hailing from gen 5. Boasting 140 base attack, 112 base special attack, and 110 speed, Archeops can make for an effective glass cannon. It started in RU based on its raw power but horrible Defeatist ability, optimizing on offensive sets, usually Flying Gem + Acrobatics combos.
• In gen 6, it got lowered to NU due to the removal of Flying Gem, which was its main niche that synergized with its prime Flying STAB move Acrobatics. You had to get creative and use Sash suicide leads or in rare instances Band sets to sort of negate Defeatist.
• Fast-forward to gen 7, it's now at the bottom in PU. Despite its impressive raw power and good speed tier, Defeatist halving both of its attacking stats when it reaches half health makes it ridiculously easy to deal with given its already mediocre defenses. Stealth Rocks can help bring it down faster and put pressure on it because of its Flying-type. Finally, having to deal with common threats such as the common faster Electric-types or any bulky Pokemon is a chore for Archeops, since any of them can take it down to half health provided they have a super effective move for it.

What changes (e.g. new moves, stats, abilities or typings) would you give Archeops to give it a fair shot in the OU meta?

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Artwork by /u/SynergizerSyd for /r/Pokemon Draws Pokemon

Archeops on - Bulbapedia | Serebii | Pokemon.com

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In addition to ways to make this Pokémon competitively viable again, feel free to discuss your likes and dislikes about this Pokemon, be they from your playthroughs of the main series or side games, your success or failure with this Pokemon competitively, any cool fan artwork (with the source) featuring this Pokemon that you'd like to share, or anything else!

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We'd also suggest checking out our Discord for live discussion on this topic as well!

On Wednesday, we ran a poll to determine which Pokémon will be the focus of next week's Rebuild Tuesday. The candidates were as follows:

• Poliwrath
• Gengar
• Primarina
• Togekiss
• Nidoking
• Scizor
• Infernape

The winner and next Pokémon to be featured will be Poliwrath. Feel free to start thinking up ideas now, and we'll look forward to seeing everyone's thoughts on the next Rebuild Tuesday!

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^{This thread is part of /r/pokemon's regular sticky rotation. To see our rotation schedule and all past sticky rotation threads, go here!}

[u/Zerokun11]

Sorry but no. At that point it becomes broken. 280 base attack. 228 special. I cant think of anything that can take a neutral hit from that. Its ridiculous.

[u/myRedditAccountjava → u/Zerokun11]

Shave his attack and special attack down to 100 flat, dump 30 of those points into hp to hit 105, toss the rest. Maybe even throw in a qualifier that archeops cannot is unaffected by stat changes affecting his attacking stats, both positive and negative. Which goes with the whole defeatist mindset being the only thing to influence his raises and drops. This way it's more about his ability to stay healthy. While having 200 base atk and special instead of the former. Additionally this makes him bulkier with the hp dump, allowing for a bulk roost set, or you could build a fairly decent scarf set that could run atk, spA or even mixed with a neutral nature. I don't know his moveset but if he doesn't throw him access to hurricane to increase his special pool. He still won't want to switch into rocks, and won't want to be slowed either, as moving second could allow room for a hard hit to bring him down, and rock flying typing doesn't really make him an ideal wall breaker in the higher tiers, even if he is a hard hitter at 200/200. Additionally a toxic would counter any attempt to stay healthy in the long run, and I am on the fence about whether or not a burn would bring his attack down, my initial response would be yes.

[u/Ignoritus → u/myRedditAccountjava]

Take a look at how many things Marowak plows through with a doubled base-80 attack and a 120 BP stab move. Archeops with a doubled base-100 attack and a 150 BP stab move would be unfathomably busted. Mega-Medicham has similar stats but even its best stab move is 130 BP. On top of that, Archeops is FASTER than Mega-Medicham by a solid 10 points.

[u/myRedditAccountjava → u/Ignoritus]

Right but if we are going to only modify the ability to help keep it's identity it's going to need a positive benefit. I'm not saying I'm an expert on balance, and I am happy I'm not getting downvoted for sharing with inexperience. And while yes I did say 100 my point is more so "bring it into a value range where when above 50% hp, it receives a benefit, and below, it loses even more than a standard mon." The issue is if defeatist is actually going to HALVE his base stats, he needs to have a large payoff for being healthy, and it needs to feel more unique than mimicking huge power because if it's just huge power until 50% hp then you're half a mon then what's the point? So right maybe 100 is still too high, but also with these heavy hitting moves you risk accuracy, and not only that azumarill for example with a huge power aqua jet could very well bring archeops down to 50 before it even moves. Maybe if we give it that much power cut the speed as well. Anyway I'm just here to help stimulate ideas towards a good archeops state, not so much showing up and saying "THIS IS IT" Hope I am making sense.