>>54570468>>54570965What appears to have happened is that, in order to ensure that the majority of Alola Pokemon would be VGC viable but without giving them increased BSTs, they gave 90% of them below average speed stats in order to give them above average stats everywhere else. (above average for their BST, not above an actual overall average) And they did this regardless of the "lore" associated with the specific Pokemon, eg. Vikavolt is supposed to be fucking FAST.
These speed changes appear to have been last minute as well, because when it was first revealed on the official website it was stated that Alolan Sandshrew and Alolan Sandlash both have lore describing them as SLOWER than regular Sandshrew. But that isn't the case, both of them have identical speed stats to the originals. But both of them have lore making specific reference to how and why they are SLOWER than the original. And the reason they'd change this for the final game is obvious, Sandslash has a x2 speed ability for Sandstorm, but it only has 65 speed to begin which means the boost isn't enough to actually make it faster than everything. Alolan Sandslash has the same ability but for hail, but making it slower than the original would mean it would have even more difficulty ensuring that it outsped opponents and would make it even less viable. So they went against the lore that was already written and just made it the same speed so it would hit the same speed tier.
