As I am writing this post in 2024, the United States is about to get blasted with the most cicadas they've seen in over two centuries as two main broods on different calendars happen to sync up this year. The time has never been better to address their Pokemon counterparts, Ninjask, Shedinja, and Nincada. While I have loved this family ever since they were introduced, they have never been particularly useful in an actual Pokemon battle. Shedinja is immune to more moves than any other Pokemon, but is taken out in a single hit if you run into any Fire, Flying, Rock, Ghost, or Dark type moves. Or Sandstorm, or Burn and Poison statuses, or Confusion damage, or someone with Mold Breaker, or abilities that do contact damage, or Gastro Acid or Worry Seed or Entrainment or Simple Beam or Leech Seed...you get the idea. Ninjask actually has a normal HP stat, but it might as well have 1 HP too because the only hits it is surviving with its paper thin defenses are the Grass and Fighting moves it takes 1/4 damage from. Poor Nincada doesn't even learn a Ground type move besides Mud Slap until its 40s. Needless to say, some changes are being made in Bugmerald.
1. Stats
There's really just not a need for Ninjask to have all the speed in the world. It's cool and all to be the fastest non-legendary Pokemon ever, but if you can't throw out any useful moves and you get knocked out in one hit, what's the point? I'm dropping the speed to 141, which still barely out speeds all the relevant non-legendary threats such as Electrode (yes, I am nerfing that speed increase Electrode got in later Gens and putting it toward Sp. Attack). Meanwhile, with 71/75/75 defenses, Ninjask can hopefully take at least a single neutral hit without biting the dust. I don't want a Pokemon with this raw speed to be hitting like a truck, so an Attack buff is only going up to 98 to keep things reasonable.
Ah, Shedinja. The biggest meme in all of the wild gimmicks they've thrown out over the years. I'm going to keep the 1HP, but goodness let's at least do something about its other stats. Defenses don't matter, so everything is getting dumped into Attack (118), Sp. Attack (118) and Speed (121). The Speed might throw some people off since Shedinja is specifically noted to never move or breathe. I justify it because I interpret those Pokedex entries to be calling out how creepy it is and how the Bug husk is completely dead, not an indication of how quickly it can float through the air and fire off Shadow Balls. With these buffs it can at least out-speed a lot of foes and throw out some strong hits. When we look at moves, hopefully we can tie together a package that makes Shedinja a big reward that justifies its huge risk.
Now, with these pretty substantial buffs we're giving to Ninjask and Shedinja, it would be pretty over-powered for someone to grab a Nincada before the first gym and potentially level it up all the way to level 20 to grab two powerful attackers for the price of one. Therefore, I'm raising Nincada's evolution level up to 28 to bring it more in line with a 3rd gym evolution time. Not to worry, though, as I'm buffing Nincada's meager stats to bring it up to more of a Krabby level This will also make it more useful as a potential teammate to challenge the 1st gym, given its typing makes it one of very few Bug types available at that point that is not weak to Rock.
2. Abilities
Shedinja is stuck with Wonder Guard. It can't NOT have Wonder Guard. I'm not going to be cheeky and throw Sturdy on there or something like that so there really is no other option that would make Shedinja useable in any way. If I change anything, I may make Wonder Guard immune to ability suppressing effects such as Mold Breaker or Gastro Acid, but I'm still on the fence about that.
For Ninjask, I think we can do way better than what Game Freak gave us. Speed Boost of course blew our minds when that first released, but Ninjask is perhaps the worst user of that ability because Speed is the only thing it doesn't need more of. Infiltrator is cool and ties into the ninja aesthetic, but again, Ninjask doesn't make very good use of it with its frail defenses and rather poor Attack stat. Let's throw out some options to consider and go from there.
- Gale Wings
- Sap Sipper
- Technician
- Tinted Lens
- Adaptability
- Wind Rider
- Delta Stream
- Hustle
- Protean
- Unnerve
- Disguise
- Mimicry
- Opportunist
- Mind's Eye
Sap Sipper, Tinted Lens, Hustle, and Unnerve are flavor options; real life cicadas drink sap, Ninjask's Bug eyes can fit with Tinted Lens, its blistering speed is an easy justification for trading accuracy for power, and Ninjask is known to cause headaches with its buzzing, which could easily unnerve a foe. Then we get to the "ninja-esque" abilities. Technician, Adaptability, Disguise, Mimcry, Protean, Opportunist, and Mind's Eye all can be tied into ninja abilities. The first two make use of a ninja's skill to power up moves, while the rest either reference ninja abilities or call to mind powers that various ninja's have had in popular media. Finally, we have some abilities meant to represent Ninjask's incredile aerial agility with Gale Wings, Wind Rider, and Delta Stream. Ninjask is already blazingly fast, so I don't think Gale Wings is really needed. Wind Rider and Delta Stream both are fantastic, offering some protections against weaknesses and even boosting Attack for Wind Rider. After some consideration, I'm leaning toward the following three options:
Delta Speed (modified version of Delta Stream that prevents super-effective damage against the Flying Type, but only applies to the user and does not prevent other weather effects) gives Ninjask some more survivability without being too overpowered.
Wind Rider gives Ninjask some protection against its Flying weakness but also boosts Attack not just from opponent's moves but from any Tail Wind set up from its allies
Shadow Weave is a new ability that operates similarly to Disguise. Instead of tanking a hit, however, it gives Ninjask 100% evasion for the first move it is targeted by per battle. This makes it better in some situations, such as against multi-hit moves that could break Disguise and keep going, but worse in others, such as against low-accuracy moves that could miss Disguise but will always use up Shadow Weave's single dodge. I might consider have Shadow Weave activate once per switch-in, but that seems massively overpowered to me, especially since Game Freak have since nerfed Disguise to cause damage to the user.
As you can tell, I was not super interested in giving Ninjask an ability that just gives a flat buff to its offenses such as Technician or Adaptability. I think these abilities play into its evasive and high-speed nature much better. As for Nincada, I'll let it keep Sap Sipper and Tinted Lens since Ninjask didn't end up needing them.
3. Movepool
Let's start with our cute boy, Nincada, this time. Since people will be using him longer, we're mixing up the level-up learnset to accommodate that change. Scratch, Harden, and False Swipe will now be its starting moveset at level 5. At 9, we're adding Fury Swipes, at 14, Mud Shot, and 19, Metal Claw. Dig is getting moved down to level 22, and Bug Bite is getting added at level 25. This should give Nincada some better options to fit on the team until it is able to evolve.
For Ninjask, Bug Bite at level 29 is now replaced with Hone Claws for a nice combo with the Fury Cutter it learns upon evolving. Fury Swipes is getting replaced by U-Turn, and Mind Reader with Dual Wingbeat.Slash, Swords Dance, and X-Scissor are getting lowered respectively to levels 47, 52, and 58. For teachable moves, we're adding Lunge, Roost, Swagger, Mimic, Defog, Final Gambit, Mirror Move, and Trick.
Shedinja is getting the works. As a huge potential liability to any team, it needs to be able to offer fantastic utility in return. Mind Reader is getting a buff to affect all opponents, and Inferno and Sheer Cold are being added as learnable moves. In honor of its noisy cicada origins, I'm throwing in Parting Shot, Hyper Voice, Perish Song, Eerie Spell, Psychic Noise, and Snarl. For Ghost flavor, Shedinja gets Destiny Bond, Hex, Ominous Wind, Nightmare, and Dark Void. Yes, you heard me, that Dark Void. We're going by Legends rules too, so it is a 90% accuracy move with lowered priority. Assuming you can keep Shedinja from getting hit by two foes for a whole round, you are netting some fantastic reward. I'm hoping that with these moves, Shedinja is coming in hot and stealing souls left and right until it goes down.
Conclusion
Ninjask and Shedinja have always been awesome, but now they can hopefully be awesome to use in the actual game that you are playing. Fantastic speed, ninja cunning, and ghostly maleficence are the names of the game with these cicada counterparts should you choose to use one or both. Nincada also gets a little bit of love to make it stand out in the early parts of the game where you meet it. Overall, I'm very excited to try these guys out in play-testing.
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