It's Ledian Time

 

 

What is there to say about Ledian? It's awful. It's hard to imagine giving a worse stat spread to a worse typing. Conceivably, Ledian could be a support Pokemon because it has Light Screen and Reflect and some Special Defense to take a hit. But in exchange for its Chansey-level offensive power, it only sports 55 base HP to go along with its 50 Defense and 110 Special Defense. Then you factor in weaknesses to common attacking types like Fire, Electric, Ice, and a 4x weakness to Rock and you realize Ledian is not surviving long enough to support much of anything. We've got our work cut out for us with Ledian. I'm going to take this post a little differently because I don't actually have a solid plan mapped out in advance for this poor Bug. Instead, I'm going to be throwing any ideas I can come up with at the wall and hopefully by the end of it we'll have some kind of design philosophy cobbled together that will make using Ledian a choice instead of a punishment.

1. Ledian's style

Before we jump into moves and abilities and stats, is there anything we can say about Ledian as a Pokemon in-universe? Yes, actually, we have some good prompts from the Pokedex in this case that could be useful. Ledian is nocturnal, and sleeps in forests during the day while curled up in leaves. At night it flies and spreads a glowing powder that supposedly grants good luck to people that touch it. There's a theory that it gets energy from starlight and its dots move around based on the stars in the sky. It doesn't have a lot of power, so it fires off as many punches as it can from all its arms to compensate.

We also have some nice meta-knowledge based on its movepool and appearance. It is one of relatively few Pokemon that gets Baton Pass as a level up move, instead of learning it through breeding or TM. It can set up protective screens and gets access to boosting moves such as Agility and Swords Dance that it can pass on to its teammates. It has a huge special defense stat, could that tie into the theory of it getting energy from star power? It also has a design very reminiscent of one of the rare non-Pokemon Game Freak games: Pulseman. The main character in that game is a superhero who has electric powers and can travel in and out of the digital world and physical world. 

All that established, I really want Ledian to capture that superhero vibe. It heroically fights against danger, but it also cares deeply for its allies and wants to protect them. Its strength is not its raw power, but rather its supernatural abilities that grant it a lot of flexibility. Now that we have at least some kind of idea of what makes Ledian tick, let's look at the main game mechanics and see if we can realize that vision.

2. Abilities

Now that we have some background info on Ledian, quite a few new ability options come to mind that fit thematically in one or more aspects. Before that, let's see if we want to keep any old abilities. We have Swarm (barf, so boring) which is definitely getting trashed. Early Bird, which does not fit at all thematically (since Ledian sleeps all day) but it does fit mechanically with older games that had Ledyba/Ledian only catchable in the morning hours (how does that make sense when Ledian is nocturnal?). I think we can do better, so Early Bird is out. Finally, Iron Fist is a nearly unusable hidden ability currently off a base 35 Attack stat, but we will be revisiting those stats in our rework. It also fits thematically for a superhero using rapid four arm punches, so we'll add it to our list as a maybe. Ok, let's look at the new stuff!

• Iron Fist (See above, fits superhero and punching theme)
• Skill Link (fits the idea of hitting more punches instead of stronger punches)
• Victory Star (fits superhero theme and references power from starts)
• Magic Guard (Based on the idea of getting energy from the stars or space, like Clefable)
• Super Luck (since it apparently has luck powder it just sprays everywhere)
• Justified (very superhero-esque)
• Shield Dust/Overcoat (to indicate its supernatural defenses, per a previous post I'm merging these two abilities)
• Motor Drive/Volt Absorb (a nod to its possible Pulseman origins and its a cool superhero ability)
• Friend Guard (using its star energy and playing off its focus to protect its friends)
• Huge Power (an option to let us easily work around low stats, but we can be more imaginative)
• Costar (a good fit for an action hero)
• Regenerator (can't keep a superhero down for long)
• Power Spot (if it is truly absorbing star energy, no reason it can't be a power spot)

Wow, a lot to work with there. Let's see if we can pare it down to just three. Seeing the wide spread above, I like the idea of giving Ledian one ability for offense, defense, and utility. And with that strategy in mind, I'm thinking the following:

1. Super Luck
2. Lucky Star
3. Motor Drive

I will be making some big buffs to stats, but Ledian is still not going to have a great attacking stat. Super Luck thus not only fits thematically but gives a bigger boost to all its hits than something like Iron Fist or Skill Link that only apply to certain moves. For Skill Link especially, there just aren't that many multi-hit moves that fit well on Ledian. For utility/support, we have Lucky Star to boost accuracy for the whole team. This is a super fun ability that you never get to use much in game because only Victini gets it. This will let us add some inaccurate moves to its movepool in the next section and let you play more risky with your teammates too. For the Hidden Ability, I landed on Motor Drive. I find it a nice easter egg to Pulseman and defensively, its always great to pick up an immunity to a type you don't resist. This will also let Ledian's allies play around with moves like Discharge, damaging all enemies at full power and boosting Ledian at the same time. Great, let's see what we can do with moves!

3. Movepool

Ledian's movepool is actually pretty decent for a support Pokemon. It has access to dual screens, Safeguard and Tailwind to boost stats on its side of the field. It has Encore and Knock Off to disrupt foes. It can even boost up with Agility or Swords Dance and hand it off with Baton Pass. All we really need to do here is swap moves around a bit so its egg moves can be actually utilized in a single player play-through and add some moves for thematic effect. Here's what I have so far:

• Knock Off, Encore, and Tailwind will be either added to the Levelup Learnset or set as tutor/TM moves
• Follow Me, Helping Hand will be added to the Levelup Learnset to reflect its superhero theme
• Cosmic Power, Wish, Healing Wish and Meteor Mash will be added to the Levelup Learnset to reflect how Ledian draws energy from starlight
• Fire Punch, Ice Punch, and Thunder Punch will all be available as tutor or TM moves
• Ledian will get a new signature move, "Star Dusting" which boosts the critical hit ratio by one stage for itself and its ally Pokemon

With these changes, Ledian will be a treat to use. The player has many different strategies they can choose to focus on and they can mix and match strategies through the course of the game. Ledian can be an ally booster with dual screens, Tailwind, Helping Hand, and Star Dusting. It can disrupt with with Encore and Knock Off and try to boost its attack for some damage. It can lean into critical hits with Star Dusting and Super Luck to do some decent damage unaffected by stat changes. It can ramp its defenses with Cosmic Power and then take hits using Follow Me. Ledian will actually be a treat now instead of a huge disappointment. Of course, it doesn't matter what cool moves we give it if it immediately faints when it hits the field, so let's take a look at its Stats and Typing to see what we need to put the finishing touches on our hero.

4. Stats and Typing

Yeah, Ledian is feeling pretty bad with its base stats. Add Bug/Flying typing and Ledian may as well faint as soon as it switches in. While I'm keeping Ledian in the "Low" stat tier along with other early game Bug types, I am upping the stat total for Ledian and Ariados to 445 instead of the normal 434 to reflect how they only get one evolution and evolve later than most of their friends. Every little bit helps. For stat goals, I want to keep Sp. Def as Ledian's highest stat. That has always been its defining feature and there's no reason to take it away. That being said, 110 is excessive and I've dropped quite a few points there to make its other stats at least usable. I've also switched its main attacking stat from Sp. Atk to Attack to reflect its use of punches and its sleek superhero design. With a little fiddling, here is my proposed update:

I hate to take Sp. Atk so low, but Ledian desperately needs those 10 points to boost up its defenses. Here we see a decent HP, slightly below average Defense and solid Sp. Defense. It has decent Speed for a support/utility Pokemon but would definitely need to rely on Agility, Tailwind, or Sticky Web if it wants to go on the offensive. Likewise, 85 attack is way better than the 55 Sp. Atk it had before, but it is not putting much of a dent in anything unless you're running a critical hit setup or boosting with Swords Dance. Ledian's primary focus will be to survive while setting up screens or disrupting, and then seizing on the resulting opportunity to either boost itself or draw attacks for an ally. 

Of course, if we're talking survival then Bug/Flying has to go. As replacement options, all of the below have some justification:

• Bug
• Bug/Fighting (since it loves to punch and gets a lot of fighting moves)
  
• Bug/Psychic (ties into the otherworldly nature of its star energy similar to Solrock/Lunatone or Beeheyem/Reuniclus)
  
• Bug/Fairy (reminiscent of its ties to space like Clefairy/Clefable and how it spreads good luck)
  
• Bug/Electric (as a nod to the Pulseman/superhero design)

Solo Bug would be pretty solid here since we are adding some resistances to the type chart but it is a little boring. Bug/Electric, while cool, I feel misses the mark with our philosophy and makes Motor Drive much less useful as a defensive Ability. Bug/Fighting would give some utility by removing the Rock weakness to help with the first Gym Leader, Roxanne. You do have to consider the 4x weakness to Flying this adds to a more defensively oriented fighter, though. Bug/Psychic and Bug/Fairy both fit well thematically and would allow an easy way to add coverage moves like Play Rough or Zen Headbutt. From a game balance perspective, each of Bug/Fighting, Bug/Psychic, and Bug/Fairy are sitting around 3-4 representatives each so adding Ledian to any of these groups would not over-saturate anything.

With a lot of back and forth, I think I find myself landing on Bug/Fighting as the best option here. It is a great fit both with Ledian's design and its in-game lore as a rapid punching machine. It serves a great niche in the early game to help the player with a pretty difficult boss fight, and the changes we're making to the type matchup chart mean that the types complement each other very well defensively. Plus, the 4x weakness to Flying actually serves as a nice nod to the "kryptonite" that many superheroes have, a key weakness you have to plan around that balances Ledian's exceptional movepool. In the end, Ledian will have a 4x resistance to Dark, resistances to Fighting, Grass and Ground, a potential immunity to Electric if you opt for Motor Drive, and only two weaknesses in Fire and a 4x to Flying.

 Whew, well it took some doing but I'm pretty happy where Ledian is at now. It's a heroic Bug/Fighting ladybug that dishes out rapid punches with all four arms. But unlike other Fighting types, Ledian's strength lies not in its incredible power but with its mystical energy drawn straight from the stars that lets it protect its allies and bless them with luck and accuracy. It may get out-classed in any one niche, but you'll be hard pressed to find a utility Pokemon that can wear as many hats as effectively as Ledian can.