Gearcroc and Plume literally could not be farther apart. Let’s compare:
Gearcroc -
-single hit move
- hit all move
- Knock back
- risky heal (single)
Passives - Stun Absorber & Auto Protect
Plumelisk (2nd form)
- Union Attack (single hit kill move)
- double hit move
- ELEM Shield Ally
- Baby Summon (with Auto Taunt)
Passives - Stun Absorber & Auto Taunt
At a glance, it’s already apparent these two full similar roles while performing very different. Gearcroc will not kill anything with his attacking moves unless they are on Hold Ground or very low defense and low HP Fire types vs. Plumelisk actually can one shot some enemies with Union Attack and is easy to fulfill while the double hit attacks can fulfill the same purpose as Crocs I. Taking away Stealth or Shields.
Point goes to Plume.
Support wise is a similar story. Gearcroc has Knockback at 250s cost which will put him out of the game regardless of Stun but has the benefit of removing a problem monster from the enemy team, while Risky Heal can bring an ally to full health with a 60% chance of losing your Croc in the process, a monster who is there to block attacks and absorb Stun. Kind of a silly move on a support monster imo. Plume has Baby Summon that puts a copy of it’s first form next in your lineup who also comes packing Auto Taunt and ELEM Shield Ally, so Plume replaces itself with yet another attacker deterrent, while ELEM Shield Ally on both forms is 130tu and grants a shield, even to itself, negating the next source of damage. Objectively, it can be much more beneficial to have a shield than to have full health, we can look at Blood moves as proof of point where a charged Blood move will still kill Full HP mons, a shield will block the hit. Dusicyon being the monster he was and still is after all its nerfs are proof of concept with this.
Point to Plume again.
Cost wise is negligible. 10 vs 11.
What about capabilities on the competitive front?
Gearcroc being an Auto Protector opens up your team to Assassinate and True Hit attacks, things which are far too common as is and locks your team from using RAW Moves where Plume is much more versatile by not giving any weaknesses (let’s face facts that Auto Taunt is much much better than any Protect skill) and let’s you have free access to RAW Moves and skills. Already talked about Shield vs Heal so, again, point goes to Plume.
Offensively? Well Plume already has attack options over Gearcroc, not that you need them, but basically the argument comes to Knockback. I don’t know how much PvP you play, but a large amount has things like Skeleviathan, Regalion, or the Dark LINK Toad in FL, all of which have Gravity Field and make Knockback unable to even be used, at which point when it gets to your Crocs turn you will try to skip, they will skip back, and you are forced to use one of it’■■■■■ moves or its Risky Heal. Absolutely terrible. Plume remains unaffected by this and can give Shields.
Plume is miles better than Croc, and turning someone away from it by comparing it to an inferior Mon is just bad.
