Was looking over its statline and something doesn't make much sense. Cranidos would seem to be a slightly-slow physical sweeper (58 base Speed isn't bad for a first-stage, while its 125 base Attack is monstrous), but when it evolves it gets 30 points in its Sp. Attack and 20 in its defenses, but gets no Speed whatsoever, leaving him sitting in this awkward stage of neither a tank nor a sweeper. What's a Trainer supposed to do with a 'Mon like this?
With a name like Cranidos and the fact that its evolution line is all based around having a hard head, it'd seem like the perfect kind of Pokémon to use Head Smashes. But I found Aggron to be better for that kind of deal! Anyway, I wouldn't really worry about its speed myself. Sometimes the best thing to do is to balance yourself, like with these two.
Yeah, I suppose so... it's just so awkward. It's kind of like how Rotom goes from a special-sweeper to a special-based mixed-tank when it takes its alternate formes. Overall, I think Gen 4 had the weirdest overall stat designs (though I can't speak for Gen 5 since I didn't play much of it).
I like to think Gen 4 had a bit of rushing with its stat designs myself but I don't know how accurate that truly is, aheh...
It may be, since DPPt was the most rushed of all the mainline Pokémon games (sans Gen1). It's why Diamond and Pearl specifically had so many issues (such as Hearthome being the 5th badge despite coming across it early, and the overall lack of Fire-type Pokémon outside of Chimchar).
Yeah, I remember being pretty disappointed when I raised one my first time playing through Diamond. I actually regretted evolving it since it looked worse and didn't even seem all that much stronger. I don't think I ended up keeping it on my team.
I never actually used it because I had Bastiodon and, IMO, it was the better of the two (even though both sucked). Eventually got rid of it for Bronzong since that Rock/Steel hurts with its huge weakness to Fighting-types (of which Cynthia's Lucario is the standard of that generation).
Rampardos is a one time hitter and its usually guaranteed to kill with a 165 attack. For anything else than regular playthrough is pretty bad and even doing regular playthroughs is kinda sucks still I used one when first playing and it just dies too fast because of that absolutely awful speed.
Right! It's like at the end of Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz. Heero fires the Twin Buster Rifle twice but, because of the damage it sustained against Altron earlier, destroyed itself in the process of opening up the nuclear shelter that the Mariemaia Faction was hiding in. That's what using it feels like. You might be able to get a KO in, but you're just asking for a quick KO right back...
The thing with sweepers is that to be good, 90% of the time they absolutely have to be speedy glass cannons. Very few Pokémon have been able to pull off sweeping without being fast as hell. Combine that with Ramp's lackluster typing and you've got a Pokémon that's never going to make a splash in the meta
I don't understand the first half at all since I've never watched the anime, but yeah Rampardos is a high risk high payout mon and its speed usually just make it a high risk mon for the most part. It really needed those 20 in speed instead of sp. ark which should never even be used on that mon to begin with like spuriously. With 70 something speed it might have been able to be used as a lower tier sweeper or heck just more useful in general.
Meta nothing; he's problematic even in-game. Would have to use meta tactics just to get him into play, such as BPassing a Substitute and some speed boosts a la Ninjask + Vaporeon. Er, sorry about that. I sometimes forget that not everyone really even knows about Gundam Wing, let alone has seen it (I recommend it highly). But yeah, take all those points in its defenses and put them into Speed, and it would really help his case, even in-game.
It's why choice scarf Rampardos exists, but yeah, it is a very situational glass cannon. Although, rock types are rarely known for their speed, so I'm not entirely sure why that's such a surprise? It's odd though, because Rampardos' defenses are so odd, but I guess it's supposed to be a massive foil to Bastiodon- where Bastiodon has all the defenses and no attack, while it's the complete opposite for Rampardos. Either way, as much as I love Gen 4, the fossil Pokémon were... disappointing to me.
It might put in it NU since right now is PU iirc, I'm not a smogon player really as I don't care for their rules or even follow them so I don't know the newest stuff. But 20 more in speed would def help it since that would land it at 78 meaning it would at least be okay in-game for regular playthroughs.
