One of the Titan Pokemon in Gen 9 is Klawf, a Rock-type crab whose habitat seems to be a deserted area in Paldea. Klawf was revealed in the fifth trailer for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet alongside Armarouge and Ceruledge, which are version-exclusive critters that share a pre-evolution. Design-wise, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet may have gone overboard with Armarouge and Ceruledge, as they look more like Mega Man characters than Pokemon, as many fans have pointed out. Still, the two seem to already be quite popular, and it’s worth exploring the reasons why Ceruledge is going to be better than Armarouge in many ways.
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Comparing Pokemon Scarlet and Violet’s Armarouge and Ceruledge
For starters, both based on its design and the description on the official Pokemon Scarlet and Violet website, Ceruledge fits the archetype of the fast physical attacker, whereas Armarouge is a special attacker with higher defense stats. Although the two share the exact same weaknesses to five types, their resistances do differ, and Ceruledge’s are better overall thanks to Ghost being a much better secondary type than Psychic. Not only that, but Ceruledge is also immune to Normal and Fighting moves, whereas Armarouge has no immunities unless a major change to type combinations in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet takes place, which is unlikely.
In Pokemon games, speedy pocket monsters are most of the time better than slow, high-defense ones, with a great example coming from Gen 8’s competitive scene, where Calyrex Shadow Rider was miles better than Calyrex Ice Rider. Calyrex was the Legendary Pokemon introduced in the Crown Tundra DLC, and it could be found in its Shadow Rider or Ice Rider form depending on what players chose, which is not too dissimilar from Armarouge and Ceruledge being version-exclusives. In terms of battle efficiency, Calyrex Shadow Rider is faster and has better attack stats and damaging moves overall, whereas the Ice Rider form is slower but bulkier, which makes it less popular and less relevant.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet’s Armarouge is also weak to Ceruledge, but it deals normal damage to it with its Psychic moves. Furthermore, Armarouge’s signature move lowers its defenses in order to deal more damage, which is a very bad thing to do in Pokemon games because the damage dealt still scales off one’s stats, and having lower defenses means taking more damage until that Pokemon switches out. This means that Armarouge’s powered-up move will likely still deal less damage than or the same damage as Ceruledge’s most powerful attacks, but it will remove the benefit of using Armarouge by lowering its defenses.
Lastly, Ghost is a more valuable type across the board than Psychic, which deals no damage to Dark-types – compared to Ghost not being able to damage Normal-types, this is much worse. Generally speaking, there seem to be mainly downsides to using Armarouge, whereas Ceruledge seems like a very solid pick that could have a chance at being a great contender for competitive battles as well. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet’s Pokedex seems to be full of interesting critters and type combinations so far, especially considering what transpired from the various alleged leaks, and Ceruledge could easily be one of the fan-favorites in the long run.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are set to release on November 18, exclusively for Nintendo Switch.
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