So is Parasect...Dead?

 

 

 Hoowee, what a monstrous sight. In between your Pikachus and Clefairys, there are some really messed up Pokemon out there and Parasect was one of the first. A parasitic mushroom that is so ingrained in the host that it essentially is the only living part of the pair. And yet despite how grotesquely awesome Parasect has always been, you're going to be pretty hard pressed to ever see it on a player's team. Why? The classic issue that so many Pokemon seem to run into. It's slow, it has average defenses at best, and it is riddled with weaknesses that let almost any opposing team immediately remove it from the fight. It's bad enough that I've already watched several videos of people trying to make this mon a little more viable, even just for single player. How are we going to tackle it for our Bug hack?

1. Typing

I know I usually have been grouping this together with Stats, but for Parasect it is such a problem that we're going to talk about just that topic first. Bug/Grass is pretty cool as a type on paper, and it is plain awesome when considering Parasect's lore. What is not so awesome is having to deal with 6 weaknesses, two of which deal 4x damage, while the Grass typing only adds a resistance to Water and Electric. Water resistance is always appreciated, but not at this cost. Every single discussion involving this Pokemon usually centers directly on this typing, and changing it is a pretty easy fix. If we weren't limiting ourselves to only Bug types, then Grass/Ground would be a nice option to consider. Since Paras and Parasect are based somewhat on cicadas, the Ground typing definitely fits into the cicada lifestyle. Of course, keeping the Bug half of the typing is going to be absolutely essential for our purposes.

The big suggestion that I've seen a lot of people online take is the idea of Bug/Ghost or Grass/Ghost. It can fit thematically because the Bug part of Parasect is practically dead. A walking corpse and the Ghost type go hand in hand. This immediately gets rid of all the 4x weaknesses and offers some useful immunities to go along too. I'm not going to be taking this route, however, because at its heart Parasect is two things. A bug, and a mushroom. Bug/Grass is really the only typing that is true to its nature, especially considering that Parasect is NOT dead. The Pokedex has several entries explicitly state that the bug part of Parasect appears to be nearly dead, but not quite. No, the fungus wants to keep its bug host alive as long as possible. It can't move the bug around if the muscles are dead and atrophying. It is only when Parasect is well and truly dead that the mushroom releases its final spores onto nearby Paras eggs to start the cycle anew. 

The other reason is purely gameplay related. There is a very difficult boss fight right away in the first gym in Roxanne the Rock specialist. If the player doesn't opt for the Bug/Grass Sewaddle as their starter type, Paras is the only other early game Grass type they can obtain. All the Bug/Water types are too strong to dole out before the first gym, so I really need to keep Paras as a solid Grass option for a relatively easy solution to most of Roxanne's team.

Well, long story short, we're keeping the Bug/Grass typing. lol. Not to worry, I think we can more than make up for it with some stats and some special abilities.

2. Stats

Good news, Parasect is eligible for a big bump up in the stat department. I limited myself to a 475 total, which is a very cushy 70 point increase from its vanilla stats. Defense is my main focus here, as it doesn't make sense to make a shuffling zombie-like mon a speedster. I've also got some boosts to both attacking stats to round it out. If we can get its weaknesses out of the way, Parasect will be tanking some good hits here and can hit back decently well on either the physical or special side.

We're also tweaking Paras a bit. It's still young, so the mushroom has a vested interest in keeping the Bug part alive and growing so I think it is fair to assume it would be more involved in battling. We're dropping Paras' attack a bit so we can boost its special attack and allow it to really make use of moves like Mega Drain. This will be clutch for the first gym where it can hit the weaker Sp. Def of most Rock types. 

3. Abilities

Here we go, how can we make Parasect survive its crippling weaknesses with some good abilities? After a lot of consideration, the only way I could think of to make Parasect work outside of a type change is with a custom ability. Filter and Solid Rock just aren't good enough in this case. Instead, let me introduce Living Shield. This ability halves the damage of all super effective moves. Suddenly, Parasect goes from four weaknesses and two 4x weaknesses to just two 2x weaknesses. Fantastic. This sounds pretty dang strong so let me justify myself.

Parasect is pretty unique in that nothing you see on the outside is actually essential to its survival. The mushroom part of a fungi is not necessarily the largest part of the organism. The mycelium growing in the dirt is what you'd consider the main living part of most fungi. But for Parasect, of course, the mycelium is growing inside of the bug's body instead. In the real life counterparts to Parasect, the mycelium grows into the bug's brain and controls it from there and only sprouts a mushroom later to spread its spores and infect more bugs. In other words, if you are battling a Parasect and deal incredible damage to the visible mushroom or claws or legs of the Pokemon, you haven't actually damaged anything essential to its survival. Even though the Bug part of Parasect is still alive, it can't respond to pain or stimuli unless the Grass part of it commands it to, and there very well could be so much mycelium infesting the body that it can't feel pain at all. Thus the Bug part of Parasect and to a lesser extent the visible mushroom on top act as a Living Shield to protect the actually critical mycelium hiding deep inside. When a Parasect faints, it just means you've done enough damage to the robot that it won't respond to the pilot's input anymore.

All of this is super cool to me and I love Parasect so much. I think the above can justify an incredibly powerful ability, especially since we're not giving it stats that even get to the 500+ range. For alternative options, we'll throw in Aftermath, because taking down a gigantic poisonous mushroom is absolutely gonna mess you up, and Long Reach for a Hidden Ability. I like that thematically because the mycelium is not suffering any effects when it smacks a Slugma with its zombie bug claws.

4. Movepool

For having a buttload of Pokedex entries talking about how it drains the nutrients out of trees, how did they not give Parasect Leech Life? We're fixing that for sure, probably around level 40. That will also make up for it not getting a solid Bug attacking move until...level 66?! We might change that too, considering Legends Arceus dropped that down quite a few levels already.

Otherwise, Parasect has access to Spore, of course, its defining move. Rage Powder now actually has a use with its improved defenses. Giga Drain and Energy Ball serve as potent Grass STAB now that it has a bit more Sp. Attack to throw around. And Aromatherapy provides some team support against status effects. Nothing too shabby, but the critical change is that Parasect should actually be surviving now to get a Spore off successfully.

For new toys, let's move several Egg moves over to the Level-up learnset instead. We're grabbing Leech Seed, Wide Guard, and Grassy Terrain as ways to enhance its tankiness and support the team. We'll make sure that Grassy Glide is available too either through TM or tutor. And for Paras, let's change Absorb to Mega Drain to give it that extra oomph. It was a bummer that scrapping Effect Spore was pretty essential, so to make up for it let's give Parasect access to Dire Claw instead. It's perfect, because Parasect is the only mushroom Pokemon that actually has claws to justify this move. Now it can threaten debilitating statuses against Sleep immune foes without having to be directly attacked.

And that's a wrap. We've turned Parasect from a terrified abomination that can't take a hit to a tanky, status-inflicting monster that even Amoongus would be afraid of. It does still need to watch out for Mold Breaker and similar situations. I'll have to do some play-testing on the stat changes combined with Living Shield to see if it ends up a little too strong. It would be pretty easy to bring some stats back down to compensate, but I'm optimistic that Parasect will finally be strong without being ridiculous.