Data ASB Feedback & Game Issues Thread - Mk IV

[S0L1D G0LD]

Another suggestion I made earlier in discord would be allowing Malamar to target itself with Topsy-Turvy.

I don't like to pop into discussions when I don't have much to contribute, but I'm not really sure how this would fix Malamar's Swagger problem. From my perspective, all that it accomplishes is "allowing" Malamar to waste an action to fix a situation that the item's coding could have prevented from being an issue, while simultaneously turning any other stat boosts into liabilities. Furthermore, this means that, during this free action for the opponent, another Swagger can be applied, bringing Malamar back to square one, so to say, or Malamar can be pressured by any particularly strong attack, which forces it to sacrifice any prayer it had of keeping the damage race competitive.

In other words, the drawbacks of this effect seem to heavily outweigh the reward of using Topsy-Turvy in the first place, without even mentioning all of the problems Malamar could run into with Taunt, Encore, and other disruption tactics.

 

[Dogfish44]

Hi! Item rants.

So Houndoom was originally BST21, hence it got silly effects on Houndoomnite. Given it's now BST22, can we cut at least one of them? BST22 is still a smidgen low for a Mega, but it doesn't need a free Charcoal on it's Fire moves.

Also can we cut one of Manectric's two, and instead give bonus effects to Altarianite (BST 22), Banettite (BST 22), and potentially Audinite (It's current one is b/c of duplicated ability and is weak as the piss some people call beer, it's a fairly bland BST22 otherwise).

... alternatively, we can just cut all non-double ability/klutz mega stone effects because aaa.

---

Inversion Charm could stand to trade one of it's effects, although in such a case Malamar has a number of options for counterplay (Psych Up, Taunt, disabling Contrary and using Calm Mind Malamar to abuse Simple), so I think we're personally looking at a molehill here.

 

[Elevator Music]

Piggybacking off of the above post to add some more context.

Houndoominite is one of the few Mega Stones that give arbitrary boosts to the Pokemon as an added effect. The reason for this is that when Gen 6 was released, Mega Houndoom was trash.

Deck can you explain why a seemingly random array of Mega Stones give added effects while others do not?

I will probably be minority here, but I believe the general availability of Mega Stones needs to be discussed.

I mean...

The Mega Mons are stronger than (most) legendary mons and, unless I am mistaken, Mega Stones aren't something you can simply buy in-game.

Making them available for 10CC simply as that is a tad dangerous. This may center our otherwise wide metagame in 20 mons or so. I am not sure if that is the best course of action.

I was going to suggest to turn them into prizes for RP. Nothing TLR-level, mind you, but at least limit their availability somehow.

Or at least make them more expensive? Or maybe make them cost UC and not CC so people ref more?

Most of them are on Mega Mons that replicate an already existing ability on the base form, thus providing an enhancement on the ability they already have.

The ones that don't, being specifically Houndoom, Manectric, and Mawile, do not actually get much of a boost Rank-wise from their Mega Stone, and are actually in what would otherwise be "Normal" mon territory, matching the starters. As a result they got bufferd to make their evolutions sufficiently more threatening than their stats would suggest. As it stands, the higher one's BRT is slightly stronger than most Base 600 mons that are available for all players (e.g. 24-26 vs. 22-23), and using an item. The best comparison is therefore something like an opponent with Rare Candy or Everstone.

That said, I can look into the CC cost. What would you suggest?

Mega Mons are pretty scary, especially in something like a 1v1, which is why the clause exists. The CC is fairly inexpensive so that players can get access to a Mega Stone for their Pokemon fairly quickly.

However, Mega Houndoom has gotten several buffs since then. First, both Flash Fire and Solar Power were boosted from +2 to +3. There wasn't much forum discussion on this -- it was pushed largely from a "consistency" standpoint with no real consideration to the actual Pokemon involved in the buff. Which isn't a necessarily bad, but it's also not like this was a conscious effort to buff Mega Houndoom. so plz don't try that as a counterargument

Second, Mega Houndoom gained a Special Attack rank from the recent stat cutoff changes.

One thing we could do to bring the boosts back down to their intended buffs is to have Flash Fire and Solar Power only partially activate for free. This is similar to what is done on a lot of the evolution stone items.

We can probably do the same to Minus on Manectite. I'm not as worried about rebalancing that item because Mega Manectric is overall worse, and hasn't received as many buffs post Mega Stone implementation as Mega Houndoom (only Minus was buffed as opposed to two abilities + stat rank).

I don't care about buffing the other Mega Stones mentioned above. I'd prefer not to since I don't think any of those megas are horrible. They're obviously not top tier, but I don't think that means we need to buff them either.

 

[Un passant ordinaire]

About the Mega Stones:

I don't see any problem by nerfing Houndoominite, +6 BAP on Fire moves is too silly. Now what should we do? I'm for removing the Solar Blaze component just to let it reach full potential under the sun (just like it works in-game).

Audinite could do with a little buff. In Discord, we got this idea: Making Healer's effect happen every turn with a 100% chance. It could enable some cheesy strategies (Endure all the way in multiple formats).

 

[Exclaimer]

Going through the last few pages and addressing all open points here.

Signature Z-Crystals

Hi

by virtue of the +2 damage boost to normal Z Crystals, sig crystals are severely underpowered.

I mean, it is already well estabilished that the normal Z Crystals are more versatile. That is not my point. My point is that the normal Z-Crystals are as good (and sometimes better) than the Sig Z-Crystals at dealing damage, which, in theory, is sig Z-Crystals' main turf.

For example, on a neutral target:
Catastropika: 20.5 bap | Z-Volt Tackle: 19bap + 2 damage = 21
Malicious Moonsault: 18bap | Z-Darkest Lariat: 16bap + 2 damage = 18
Oceanic Operetta: 20bap | Z-Sparkling Aria: 18bap + 2 damage = 20
Pulverizing Pancake: 24bap | Z-Giga Impact: 20bap + 2 damage = 22
Sinister Arrow Raid: 18bap | Z-Spirit Shackle: 16bap + 2 damage = 18


The Z-moves with additional effects (Mew, Eevee, Raichu-A) you can argue that have their advantages. But the vanilla ones are severely outmatched given the bigger picture.

Not to mention the versatility thinge and how, in the long run, considering only damaging moves being used, normal Z-Crystal will always outdamage sig Z-Crystals, by virtue of having a boost that applies irrespective of the usage of the Z-move itself.

Can't we just add some added damage to sig items? To the stab of the respective Z-move or the stabs of the mon or, well, anything really. While they will still be arguably inferior (as versatility is a key aspect in ASB) at least that wouldn't be outmatched in everything by the regular Z-Crystals...which, I think isn't the point of having sig items to begin with.

Proposal: Add the "Increases the Pokemon's highest true base stat (e.g. 130 Atk) of Attack, Defense, Special Attack, and Special Defense by one (1) Rank. If the highest true base stat is tied, each Rank is raised." line to all signature Z-Crystals.

Reasoning: I like the idea of adding the STABs, but I think with how bottlenecked the signature Z-Crystals ended up being, adding the ability to gain access to stat boosts everywhere would benefit them appropriately.

i sense even more power creep
not that it particularly matters to me, I guess

But I'm going to disagree with jayy because as frosty pointed out, the point of the nonsig zcrystals is that they have versatility. If we give sig crystals versatility, then ?_?

It makes more sense to give a more focused boost to the sig z-crystals.

I think we can move this to discussion. Z-Crystals are both underpowered and overpriced, but I think we need to go on a case-by-case basis. Details in the discussion thread.

Self-Reffing expansion

We're kind of completely dependent on a small handful of users (like 1) to ref all of ASB. I mean, look at gyms and see how many of them aren't being reffed by Toon right now. Of course, we can all say that we'll ref more and pull our own weight if we have to, but historically this has not been the case.

Since this isn't really a sustainable long-term strategy, why don't we expand self-reffing to cover more serious matches to lessen the need for outside refs? It wouldn't be mandatory by any means and we wouldn't let inexperienced refs/battlers do it, but if 2 long-term users want to do a gym fight without being slowed down by the need for a ref, it could be an option.


With the decline of flavor, reffing's become more and more objective, to the point where aside from RNG rolls and rare instances of rulings disputes, outside refs aren't necessary. It's just a thought.

Re SR Expansion:

While I really, really like the idea of expanding the constraints of SRs and expediting battle speed, I'm highly against the proposal for what surprisingly amounts to mostly a flavor perspective and then a little bit of logic. A referee in all applications of the term outside of ASB refers to a third party charged with officiating a process and overseeing it to maintain fairness, and I'd prefer not to remove that aspect from ASB.

From a more practical standpoint: Serious matches, from my perspective, need to maintain that 3rd party overseer simply because its very easy to manipulate rolling, even if they are supposed to be done publicly. Not to mention, you'd be adding additional work to the council/mods/whatever committee because they'd have to actually deal with the complaints. Plus we'd have to actually set in place rules on how people are to ref for this to work, which is just so unnecessary.

Self-reffing belongs in places where refs don't have anything to lose, which is why it currently exists in RPs and flash matches that don't award KOC.

I don't believe this topic has been done justice by how little attention it's got. I'm gonna move this to discussion.

Elemental Monkeys and Stones

I noticed every elemental monkey, as well as Victreebel, get Gluttony, but they can't use it when using their signature item. Thoughts on adding a minor effect for Gluttony on them?

This one is more biased, but still seemed worth mentioning. Malamar gets screwed way too badly by Swagger when holding it's signature item. Since Malamar is supposed to be all about inverting stat boosts, as far as flavor goes, i thought it would make sense if positive stat changes weren't affected by it's Contrary as long as it holds the item.

Buff culture and etc, thoughts?

Re Gluttony + Signature Items:

You know, I've never actually noticed that. I, however, am leaning towards the fact that they shouldn't be on them. Firstly, the stones don't really have much to do with Gluttony. Secondly, there's no good reason to keep adding effects to already good signature items, and it hasn't been shown that those Pokemon are underperforming without it. Sure, you can point to the fact that no one is using them, but there are plenty of things, both items and pokemon, that aren't being used.

I'm gonna say that I don't think this needs much discussion, so I'm opting for no thread. If people want us to look it over, then let us know; of course, we'd like it if we had some battles to look over involving the monkeys for some observation.

Future Sight

Different thing:

"A Pokémon can now endure Future Sight with Endure or Sturdy, in addition to the Focus Sash and Focus Band. Future Sight disappears with no message if it would hit the Pokémon that used the move."
Source: https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Future_Sight_(move)

As such, can we have that piece edited out of Future Sight?

I say we keep it. Endure is much stronger in ASB than in in-game, and it's nice to have more options to disrupt it for balance-related reasons.

Ooraloo sums up my thoughts entirely. If anyone else wants to pitch in their opinion, go for it, but I don't think this needs to be discussed.

Emma's substitution shenanigans

http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...c-vs-examiner-dogfish44.3596784/#post-7285882

can we fix this? thanksies

I am confused too Emma. Does it need fixing? Pretty sure it was just reffed incorrectly. Anyway, if we need to fix it, I'll put a discussion thread up, but I don't know what to do in this scenario.

Water STAB with Dive

Dive (Move) - Description: The user dives underwater and surfaces under the opponent to attack them. Dive will fail if the arena lacks a body of water.

Water STAB; Ignores arena restrictions on Water attacks that require an external water source. Evasive Diving reduced from 6 per action Energy Cost to 5 per action.

Can we clarify that Dive should be an exception to Water STAB's arena effect? There's no logical or flavorful way to justify how a Water Pokemon can dive when the arena has no water. No Pokemon could create a water source big enough to Dive in, and then dive it in simultaneously. To me, Dive's description implies that Water STAB is ignored, but not everyone agrees.

There's precedent for stuff like that in the Pokemon mystery dungeon games fwiw

Gonna push this some more because no discussion. I want your thoughts people, otherwise I'm just gonna put it to a vote.

Dodge

can we remove the cap on dodge? its unviable as is (as you can tell by the fact nobody ever uses it), but removing the cap would give it a useful niche for some fastmons.

#buffculture

Putting this to a vote.

Dual Gym Leadership

There's been talk on IRC circulating about gym leaders being allowed to run two gyms. I think it's a good idea, provided the following criteria:

1) There are less that 18 active gym leaders / applicants at the time. Should more arrive in time, the dual gym leader will step down from one gym.
2) The gym leader in question has been active in the community for three years.
3) The gym leader in question has fought over 20 battles as a gym leader.
4) The gym leader in question is an upstanding member of the community.
5) The proposed second gym offers a significant variety in competition compared to their first gym.​

I don't want to put too much red tape on this, but I think some ground rules will help keep the quality of gyms up. I hope the benefits of this would be obvious: more open gyms. It also gives another thing for "late-game" ASBers to do. Thoughts?

I like the idea, but how do we identify upstanding member? Like a Moderator?


But, I don't like this stepping down idea for the following reasons:
a) What if the Gym Leader likes both gyms
b) Gym Leader is a Fighting Gym Leader and likes Water Gym.

- Then a new aspirant for Water Gym comes up, but the Gym Leader wants to retain Water Gym and wouldn't mind giving up Fighting Gym.
- Due to prior high level experience and our current method of judging Gym Leader aspirants, the existing Dual Gym Leader has an advantage.​

If we can address how to deal with conflicts of interest which may / may not arise between Dual Gym Leaders and new Aspirants, then this idea has merit.

Though I don't have an opinion I'm willing to defend yet on allowing trainers to run multiple gyms, if the motion moves forwards I don't think we should apply a "time played" based constraint on qualification. First off, I feel like any number we come up with will be arbitrary. I doubt anyone would argue that Jayy isn't qualified to run two gyms at once, despite being a member of the community for about two years, for example. I do, however, agree with the other points. The decision should be exclusively merit-based. Though point 3 also demands an arbitrary number, I feel as though it is a reasonable evaluation of a leader's commitment to their leadership. Point 4 should go without staying, as it applies to players seeking their first gym. I don't really know how I feel about point five yet, but for now it seems reasonable. I'll edit my post if my opinion changes.

EDIT: in the event that all 18 gyms are operational by less than 18 people and a player who doesn't already run a gym wishes to apply for leadership, will the secondary/tertiary/etc. gyms of multi-gym leaders be forfeit, should the candidate be capable and wishes to run said gym?

Chiming in on this.

Firstly, I'm honored that I'm the example in the above. :D That example also points to what might be my biggest problem with this suggestion. Time in the community is not representative of anything except a bias towards older players. I like to think, and I think people will agree, that I can at least hold my own in a battle versus users older than myself. Time in the community wasn't a part of the requirements to picking up a gym in the first place, it shouldn't have anything to do with getting a second gym.

Secondly, I'd align point 3 with the discussion about maintaining a gym's badge. 10 battles as a gym leader is sufficient time as a gym leader and it would allow us to avoid the "problem" that there was a hissy fit about in the past regarding players trying to change gyms, even if it isn't purely badge based. A gym leader feels locked into their gym up until 10, and provided the option, the gym leader would leave at say 15 and just run the one new gym rather than actually wait for a number beyond that to maintain both gyms. Hell, I know if someone would've asked me to hold Fairy for another 8 matches and then I could also run Dark alongside it, I would've declined the offer and still just went for the simple switch from Fairy to Dark.

Point 5 just doesn't make sense, because every type is different, and even if types have overlaps in their rosters, it's still a different gym.
Point 4 definitely goes without saying.

Point 1 draws another thought from me. If we're going to do extra gyms for a leader, the leader does need to have the decision for themselves as to which gym is the one they are 'temp leading,' even if that gym is their first gym. It's highly likely that a gym leader which reach for this option because of an interest in another type, not just to fill the space. And as such, they should get final decision on which gym they intend to make their 'main' gym.

I don't care about the minute details of this. Change the stipulations I brought up, ditch them entirely, I don't care. I just think this is something that should exist, and should exist soon. Lots of the points you raise make a lot of sense (e.g. labeling one as a 'temp lead'), so put those into place and move forward on this.

Well, that's the other thing. That's not on us. That's on gymcom.

Regardless of being gymcom's responsibility, a discussion thread is definitely warranted at this point.

Disguise and Multi-Hit Moves

Double posting bc two different thoughts:

Can we clarify the ability description to Disguise?

Does absorbing 1 hit mean it reduces the damage by a percentage? Or just the BAP by however much that one hit would've done?

Effectively, if a Cinccino uses Bullet Seed against a Mimikyu, is it:
1) 4*4+1.5 = 17.5 DMG
OR
2) (4*5+1.5)*0.8 = 17.2 DMG?

Cant speak for the other two, but I welcome discussion on this subject before we make any decision. We can move the discussion to the gym concerns thread if necessary.




its clearly not codified but i'd probably go with the former. or just make disguise block the whole move because w/e. should probably just vote on this

Gotta reply to this, as I believe the first attack to hit Disguise is meant to just "vanish" (additional effects notwithstanding), so I'd go with the former too.

YOU get a thread, and YOU get a thread, and YOU--

Anyway. Discussion thread for this one, we should clarify the interaction.

RCB

Can we revert RCB back to 3a or something?

I don’t have a proper reason other than It’s taking over the meta but ig that’s not a proper argument.

people always talk about it in discord but we never do/say anything about it on here

So there are a couple things we can do about this, but I agree we should do something.

Shortening the duration probably works. I'm fine with 3a (I never had a problem with the item back when it was 3a), although I also like 4a since that's got some potential to make the use more tactical.

Jayy also floated the idea of having it only boost certain stats (I think his suggestion was to have it not boost defenses). There's plenty of other variations we could go with here as well.

I guess one other thing we could do (although im nt a huge fan) is limit how items can be stolen after RCB is consumed. But if we do this I still want Magician/Pickpocket to have good niches :<

As an aside, could we clarify/change when the speed boost is applied for RCB on the action it is activated? It feels easiest for the boost to happen before actions start for that turn (and thus the updated speed is used to determine speed order). But I can see the argument for having the original speed be what is used during the action its activated. At the very least we should clarify this in the NDA description and handbook -- its a bit fuzzy right now


probsies should make a separate discussion thread but lol im lazy

It's fine, I'll do it I guess.

Houndoominite

can we nerf houndoominite lol?

Hi! Item rants.

So Houndoom was originally BST21, hence it got silly effects on Houndoomnite. Given it's now BST22, can we cut at least one of them? BST22 is still a smidgen low for a Mega, but it doesn't need a free Charcoal on it's Fire moves.

Also can we cut one of Manectric's two, and instead give bonus effects to Altarianite (BST 22), Banettite (BST 22), and potentially Audinite (It's current one is b/c of duplicated ability and is weak as the piss some people call beer, it's a fairly bland BST22 otherwise).

... alternatively, we can just cut all non-double ability/klutz mega stone effects because aaa.

---

Inversion Charm could stand to trade one of it's effects, although in such a case Malamar has a number of options for counterplay (Psych Up, Taunt, disabling Contrary and using Calm Mind Malamar to abuse Simple), so I think we're personally looking at a molehill here.

Piggybacking off of the above post to add some more context.

Houndoominite is one of the few Mega Stones that give arbitrary boosts to the Pokemon as an added effect. The reason for this is that when Gen 6 was released, Mega Houndoom was trash.


However, Mega Houndoom has gotten several buffs since then. First, both Flash Fire and Solar Power were boosted from +2 to +3. There wasn't much forum discussion on this -- it was pushed largely from a "consistency" standpoint with no real consideration to the actual Pokemon involved in the buff. Which isn't a necessarily bad, but it's also not like this was a conscious effort to buff Mega Houndoom. so plz don't try that as a counterargument

Second, Mega Houndoom gained a Special Attack rank from the recent stat cutoff changes.

One thing we could do to bring the boosts back down to their intended buffs is to have Flash Fire and Solar Power only partially activate for free. This is similar to what is done on a lot of the evolution stone items.

We can probably do the same to Minus on Manectite. I'm not as worried about rebalancing that item because Mega Manectric is overall worse, and hasn't received as many buffs post Mega Stone implementation as Mega Houndoom (only Minus was buffed as opposed to two abilities + stat rank).

I don't care about buffing the other Mega Stones mentioned above. I'd prefer not to since I don't think any of those megas are horrible. They're obviously not top tier, but I don't think that means we need to buff them either.

About the Mega Stones:

I don't see any problem by nerfing Houndoominite, +6 BAP on Fire moves is too silly. Now what should we do? I'm for removing the Solar Blaze component just to let it reach full potential under the sun (just like it works in-game).

Audinite could do with a little buff. In Discord, we got this idea: Making Healer's effect happen every turn with a 100% chance. It could enable some cheesy strategies (Endure all the way in multiple formats).

Discussion thread coming up soon. I don't think Houndoominite really needs a nerf, but I'm also inexperienced with it and have not seen it in a long time. I can't give much of an opinion here.

Choiced Combos

Has there been a past precedent set for using Combinations, especially Same-move Combinations, while under the effects of a Choice Lock?

Example:
Weedle @ Choice Specs
Poison Sting --> Poison Sting + Poison Sting --> Cooldown

Would this orderset be legal?
And if it was deemed illegal, how would a referee interpret such orders in a battle? i.e. Would Weedle Struggle, or just use Poison Sting by itself?

I see no harm in allowing choiced pokemon to use such combinations; it's not like choice items are particularly useful anyway, and this certainly wouldn't break them. However, if it was illegal, I would follow standard combo protocol and referee it as a single Poison Sting on actions two and three.

As of now, I'd say combos are illegal under this circumstance. However, I'm open for some leniency added to Choice items to give them some extra usability. We can discuss it.

Malamar

I'm not gonna bother quoting everything here. However, I'm going to push this into a discussion thread so that we (and mostly I) can shut up about it.

Alright Council. Give me your thoughts, before I start making threads. Let's get this mess cleaned up.

 

[JJayyFeather]

Signature Z-Crystals: Agree. This probably should've been moved back when that discussion began.
SR Expansion: Disagree. We shouldn't force discussion on a topic that got zero attention when it was originally posted. If people show interest in the future, then it will move to discussion, but as of current, the only interested parties are myself and the proposer. This should stay out of a separate thread until more interest is actually directed to it.
Monkeys and Stones: Agree.
Future Sight: Agree.
Substitution Rules: Not incorrectly reffed, but what Emma requested very vaguely is to expand the definition of the 8th rule of our substitution rules to protect against things like what I did, which is the late use of a sub, to which I don't think needs to be fixed since that has been around for a while and isn't that big of an issue. Also this topic got no attention when it originally was posted, so no need to do anything with unless someone posts about it.
Dive: No need to push to a thread, that post already has gotten no attention.
Dodge: Agree.
Dual Gym Leadership: Not a council matter at the slightest, this is to be handled by the gym committee. If discussion is desired, take the ideas/suggestions/etc to the Gym Concerns thread.
Disguise: This realistically just needs a vote unless people really have opinions to give. I'd say give this 24h before it gets sent to a vote.
RageCandyBar: I'd prefer if we wait to address this until after USUM, although it has been a topic of discussion/contempt for about a month or so, mostly via Discord.
Houndoominite: Also believe this should be delayed until after USUM since it wraps into a discussion about the other Mega Stones.
Malamar: Should wait till USUM for reasons related to the above.

Altogether my opinion on all the item changes is to just wait until after USUM and we can just do what came following ORAS with a mass item retuning. Otherwise, my opinions on what to do with the topics named above are here.

 

[Un passant ordinaire]

I don't know if those need a thread or not, but here are my two newbie cents©:

Sig Crystals: Agreed : they need a buff. As a new player, I see no interest in them, I'd just buy the regular Z-Crystals and bitch about how bad Sig Crystals are. Why not giving them +2 BAP on the STABS of the mon ? This way we can make a choice and not just pick the "best" item.

Self-Reffing: I'm for. First, it'll make Toon's life less painful, second it'll free more refs. If we're afraid of the self-reff cheating, we can ask for a roll from someone else when it becomes too suspicious and that's it. But I don't think that will happen / happened a lot.

Elemental Monkeys: no opinion about that.

Malamar: Let's make Inversion Charm buff Contrary with a line like "Malamar's Contrary will affect only negative stat changes", but let's wait for USUM first.

Future Sight: Keep it disrupting Endure.

Emma's weird thingy: I don't know the game enough to have a good opinion about it, but yeah we should expand the 8th rule while we're at it.

Dive: Yes, make it need water or something divable (enough mud for example) to dive in it.

Dodge: never encountered it, so no opinion about that.

Dual Gym Leadership: As said Jayy, not a Council problem apparently.

Disguise: idk, I would say option 2 just because it would make Mimikyu a tiny bit better (and I love that mon). Let's vote for that quickly, you're right Jayy.

RCB: I opened a thread already. Jayy is right, we should wait a bit until USUM's dust has settled.

Houndoominite: idem.

 

[Granny Pie]

Signature Z-Crystals: I like that. It is signature, and should have a small niche to seperate it from the versatile normal Z-Crystals, anyway.
Self-Reffing: No. We just need more refs. Such serious battles, like gym battles, have a reputation for being serious because of that third party. These two battlers are going at it for honor and glory, and I don't like the idea of a gym leader making their own rolls and deciding their own feasabilities, and such.
Elemental Monkeys and Stones: Why not?
Future Sight: Yeah. Keep Future Sight's abilities,
Expanding Substitution Rules: This seems like an isolated case, which usually doesn't warrant a discussion. If another circumstance were to come up, I would consider it, but a discussion feels unnecessary.
Dive: Hmmmmmmmmm. Evasive Dive without Water is silly, and does warrant a discussion. Maybe not a thread, but a decision, at the very least.
Dodge: #buffculture
Dual Gym Leadership: I like the idea, but only if the leader has proven capable. I agree with Jayy that time is an arbitrary measure of anything, but if the leader can handle two gyms, and has the emotional maturity to step down if need be, then why not?
Disguise: One Multi-Hit should break Disguise, much like in-game. It's spillover damage, much like breaking a Substitute. That's what Disguise is. A free, one-time Substitute.
RageCandyBar: 4a. But we should wait for USUM.
Houndoominite: Wait for USUM. He might need a tiny nerf, tho. Just one small nerf when the time comes. What that small nerf will be should be decided in discussion.
Choiced Combos: I think choiced-combos are fine. But we need a discussion, then fine.
Malamar: This definitely needs discussion, but I don't think we need to wait for USUM. I don't see any mechanics concerning Malamar changing between now and then.

 

[Elevator Music]

about sub shenanigans. its a dumb rule currently, fix it lol

your options are either:
- wait until similar instances come up and everyone gets salty, then fix it
- fix it now and avoid that

 

[Fort Colorcastle]

I maintain that giving sig z-crystals the same versatility as the generic ones is boring and the easy way out and pointless and nonunique and boring and dum?
Did I mention its boring?

there's literally nothing "signature" about giving a mon +BAP on stabs.
that's literally half the effect of our generic "you have no sig" items, RC and Everstone.
+BAP to x type does the exact same thing but you put a sticker on it saying "not the exact same thing"
its also what the generic z crystals get...

I would prefer to give each crystal a targeted boost because historically that's what we do with sig items.
Also because that's more interesting.

 

[Frosty]

just give sig crystals two activations.

I agree with fort on how +1 stat is horrible. It is boring, doesn't bring anything new to the table and draws unneeded competition with sig items. If you want more variety of options/strategies, that is certainly not the way to go.

either way, just move to discussion.

Also, this is being bugging me for some years, so hear me out:

A council member can open discussion on the topic if they feel it is warranted - the council member will post a link to this new discussion in a post in feedback. A council member can also create a discussion thread without going through feedback, if they so desire.

One of the perks of being a Council members is that you have the almighty power to single-handedly create discussions for whatever points you personally feel discussion is warranted, even if everybody else disagrees.

in other words, just create the discussions for all topics really. I mean, there is this tendency in this topic to bump matters and then discuss them here...and then they get buried and are in need of another bump. Seriously, while we have 13 matters being discussed here, there were...2 votings and 1 discussion since august? Just create the threads and have some actual discussion. Don't just push the like button or post "no" and pretend this is done. srsly.

 

[TMan87]

Signature Z-Crystals: The specifics are still up here, but I do think we need to give them an edge over regular Z-Crystals.
Self-Reffing: On the fence. On the one hand, finding new refs isn't that easy and they might even not be active enough to shoulder the work there is to do. On the other hand, I feel opposed to self-reffed serious matches because I feel like a third party is needed to a) be as impartial as possible but mostly b) make the whole match more fun and anime-styled.
Elemental Monkeys and Stones: Not enough knowledge on this one.
Future Sight: Given how powerful Endure is in ASB, I'd gladly have another way to bypass it. Keep it as is.
Dive: From a flavory standpoint, Diving in an arena completely made of steel is... unlikely. At best.
Dodge: Not opposed to trying it, but we should keep an eye on it just in case though.
Dual Gym Leadership: The requirements are going to be many, but I like the idea itself.
Disguise: I've already stated how it works in-game and it doesn't strike me as particularly unbalanced to keep it as is.
Houndoominite: I agree with people saying to wait for USUM and I agree to a nerf.
Choiced Combos: I don't see anything wrong with them as you're still using the same move in the end.

 

[Dogfish44]

Is there any reason that 85 BAP Darkest Lariat is only 8 BAP in ASB? No? Oh good. Changing that to 9 BAP in 24 hours, as well as moving Malicious Moonsault to 20 BAP to match how that's been done.
Speak up if you have a problem with that :D

 

[JJayyFeather]

Pretty sure this is a change that can just be fiated through, but only the Darkest Lariat part.

Malicious Moonsault is 180 BP in-game, which is why its 18 BAP here. The BAPs for each Z-Move is hardcoded to the linked moves in-game.

 

[JJayyFeather]

Managerial things~

To Voting: Dive, Disguise, Choice Combinations
- These are more of the simple ruling type of post with two outcomes, and as such just need resolution

To Discussion: SR Expansion, Substitution Rules, Dodge
- SR Expansion I don't think is actually under the domain of the council, but the discussion will still be healthy and potentially informative for mods
- Substitution Rules has no suggestions as to what should actually be done, and that needs to change before it can actually progress
- Dodge, while a simple yes/no vote, needs discussion about the implications of going one way or the other about it, as well as potentially just altering the cap rather than altogether removing it

Discussion following USUM: All the item ones - Malamar, Gluttony on Elemental Stones, RageCandyBar, Houndoominite and related Mega Stones, Signature Z-Crystals
- As a whole I think item discussions should wait until USUM is implemented in ASB. Reduces the amount of scattered changes that we'd make. Altogether it might just be worth going back through Signature Items as a whole as a part of this, given that our rank cutoffs change did alter quite a few things as well (Tyrantrum is one that comes to mind). Overall, the discussion would probably be held in a few separate threads: Signature Items, Signature Z-Crystals, Mega Stones, and RageCandyBar. But again, after USUM is here.

No Movement: Future Sight, Dual Gym Leadership
- Future Sight was merely suggested as a consistency thing, I personally didn't really care, and it has received opposition from all replies, so this goes nowhere.
- Dual Gym Leadership is not a council matter and should be addressed in the Gym Concerns thread, which has received a bit of life recently.

 

[Dogfish44]

As for why Darkest Lariat decided to annoy me? I was doing this nonsense.

Signature Z-Crystals

I got bored. Note that to be used, these Z-Crystals have to be able to beat the regular Z-Crystals, which have a damage boost, and have flexibility to go into stronger Z-Moves (Z-Sky Attack, Z-Hydro Cannon, etc.), or Z-Status options (Z-Teleport, Z-SPLASH!). I disagree with the idea on two-activations being the way to go (except maybe for Eevium, since that sounds hilarious).

Designed some potential ideas, because I have no life. These options are hence based on my understanding of what each mon's general niche is... or aesthetics, when the mon is being dire.

Aloraichium Z

Aloraichium Z
Once per match, a Pokémon holding this item can use the Z-Move: Stoked SparkSurfer, by linking Thunderbolt. Moves which target "All Adjacent Targets" also summon Electric Terrain for two (2) rounds. Dodge has no cap.

Raichu-A honestly needs more love - it has almost the entirety of Pikachu's movepool available (108 moves T_T), after all. But Raichu-A is specifically a speed spammer, abusing Surge Surfer + Stoked SparkSurfer to then go into Electro Balls at 15 BAP with insane reliability.

For Alolaraichium, I've given it a couple of Taunt-Immune sources of Electric Terrain (Discharge and Surf. Thematic appropriateness!!!), then emphasised the fact that Raichu-A is about 10cm shorter than Raichu (And qualifies for Base 40 Dodge), and stupidly fast. Or if we remove the dodge cap universally we can just empower it. :shrug:.

Decidium Z

Decidium Z
Once per match, a Pokémon holding this item can use the Z-Move: Sinister Arrow Raid, by linking Spirit Shackle. Ignores the evasive effects of Sky Drop and Damaging Evasive moves. Uses the Levitate Command for 0 EN upon being sent out.

Decidueye's problem is summed up in an 8 letter word. "Dhelmise". The trapping is lovely, but Decidueye lacks a niche. Aesthetically, Decidueye is the archer - it doesn't care how far away you are, it's going to hit you. It's also a Bird, dammit, it shouldn't immediately be standing still.

Eevium Z

Eevium Z
Once per match, a Pokémon holding this item can use the Z-Move: Extreme Evoboost, by linking Last Resort. Allows the usage of Last Resort, even if nine (9) unique actions have not yet been used.

Eevium is probably the only Signature Z-Crystal which truly justifies it's usage just by existing on a silly move (Plus... Stored Power exists). So, play off the signature ability... NEXT.

Incinium Z

Incinium Z
Once per match, a Pokémon holding this item can use the Z-Move: Malicious Moonsault, by linking Darkest Lariat. The holder of this item is treated as unemcumbered. The holder is not confused by the effect of it's own attacks. The holder is immune to recoil.

Stupid wrestler is stupid. Right, so, the whole niche thing is struggling here, and 'IT'S NOT ACTUALLY FIRE/FIGHTING' is not a niche. Mainly Incineroar has lots of moves with -ve effects (Outrage, Thrash, Flare Blitz), so I've given it anti-negatives. Someone give ideas here, k? Oh, and Acrobatics, honestly because 'why not'.

Marshadium Z

Marshadium Z
Once per match, a Pokémon holding this item can use the Z-Move: Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike, by linking Spectral Thief. The equipped Pokemon's stat boosts can go above +6. The holder does not pay the increased energy cost from Technician.

Silly legend is silly. Don't bother using Swoobat against it :P

Mewnium Z

Mewnium Z
Once per match, a Pokémon holding this item can use the Z-Move: Genesis Supernova, by linking Psychic. Places all opponents under the effect of Telekinesis.

Psychic Mon is Psychic-Typed, enjoys benefitting from wide inaccurate movepool and not giving opponents priority immunity, more news at 4.
(If Telekinesis doesn't work like this then fix it, k?)

Pikanium Z

Pikanium Z
Once per match, a Pokémon holding this item can use the Z-Move: Catastropika, by linking Volt Tackle. Increases the holder's Weight Class by five (5). Negate all recoil damage.

Pikachu needs less sig items. So GameFreak's response? Two feckin' more. Have some actual BAP for Wild Charge, Volt Tackle, and Catastropika.

Pikashunium Z

Pikashunium Z
Once per match, a Pokémon holding this item can use the Z-Move: 10,000,000 Volt Thunderbolt, by linking Thunderbolt. Increases the holder's Critical Hit level by one (1). When the holder uses an attack with STAB, the holder's ATK and SPA are each equal to the holder's combined ATK and SPA.

Might as well tie Pikachu's never-ending chain of signature items into the Costumes, which are basically mandatory for Pika - which thankfully give STAB.

Primarium Z

Primarium Z
Once per match, a Pokémon holding this item can use the Z-Move: Oceanic Operetta, by linking Sparkling Aria. Liquid Voice causes damaging sound-based moves to gain three (3) BAP, and ignore Soundproof and the Silenced status condition.

You want a Pokemon to do shenanigans with Perish Song? Oh, look, it's Primarina. Partner with an Araquanid in doubles (viva Spider Web) if you really dislike someone.

Snorlium Z

Snorlium Z
Once per match, a Pokémon holding this item can use the Z-Move: Pulverizing Pancake, by linking Giga Impact. When Snorlax attacks, increases Snorlax's final Weight Class by six (6).

24 BAP on Pulverizing... is actually one of the stronger Z-Moves, but it's hampered by only ever hitting neutrally. So, might as well play up Snorlax's big thing.... and that's being big. 15 WC is fun (Especially when Low Kick doesn't catch on), with Pulverizing Pancake at 28 BAP, Highhorse Power at 15.5 BAP...

... y'know what someone else design this, k? I am having Elec Gym flashbacks here...

Tapunium Z

Tapunium Z
Once per match, a Pokémon holding this item can use the Z-Move: Guardian of Alola, by linking Nature's Madness. Causes Electric Surge, Psychic Surge, Grassy Surge, and Misty Surge to cost no energy to activate and reduces the energy cost of Electric Terrain, Psychic Terrain, Grassy Terrain, and Misty Terrain by five (5). Extends the duration of Electric Terrain, Psychic Terrain, Grassy Terrain, and Misty Terrain induced by the holder of this item to six (6) rounds if it would otherwise have a smaller duration. Enables Electric Terrain, Psychic Terrain, Grassy Terrain, and Misty Terrain to be induced in all arenas where it might otherwise be disallowed, without any kind of restriction.

Perhaps boring, but this gives Tapus something to use whilst they inflicy 46.25 Damage to entirely unsuspecting Blissey.

 

[JJayyFeather]

These are actually really cool baselines. When the discussion thread goes up, definitely using these as the baseline that we'll discuss from. Thanks corgi :>

 

[nightblitz42]

While we're on the topic of buffing sig Z-Moves, can I suggest adding to Extreme Evoboost an effect that prevents the stat changes from disappearing after Eevee leaves play? Y'know, like how Belly Drum works in ASB? Because Eevee has a tiny movepool with no access to phasing/trapping/taunt and trying to play around the opponent's phasing just to hold onto its one-time boost is a nightmare.

Being able to use Extreme Evoboost twice sounds hilarious and fun, but if you pair it with Delcatty in doubles you could have Eevee use Extreme Evoboost ~ Extreme Evoboost and Delcatty use Simple Beam (Eevee) ~ Psych Up (Eevee) and now you have two +6/+6/+6/+6/+6 mons by round 2 and that's kinda scary.

As for letting it use Last Resort, it already has Skull Bash at 1 less BAP, so aside from providing multi-hit protection I'm not really sure how it'd help. The big appeals to Eevee's Z-Move (as far as I can tell) seem to be Stored Power, Baton Pass, and having a Doubles partner Simple Beam Eevee for a 42 BAP +8 dmg Stored Power.

 

[Fort Colorcastle]

As for letting it use Last Resort, it already has Head Smash at 1 less BAP, so aside from providing multi-hit protection I'm not really sure how it'd help. The big appeals to Eevee's Z-Move (as far as I can tell) seem to be Stored Power, Baton Pass, and having a Doubles partner Simple Beam Eevee for a 42 BAP +8 dmg Stored Power.

last resort doesn't have recoil, for one thing
head smash isn't a charge move (and shouldn't be interruptable?)


EDIT: that argument makes so much more sense when its Skull Bash instead xD

 

[nightblitz42]

last resort doesn't have recoil, for one thing
head smash isn't a charge move (and shouldn't be interruptable?)

whoops sorry I meant Skull Bash, Eevee doesn't learn Head Smash. my bad.

 

[JJayyFeather]

Really weird nitpick that I happened to notice while working on the USUM update, but Ion Deluge needs to be corrected to match its in-game version.
=======================
Ion Deluge (Move) - Type: Electric | Category: Other | Target: Field | BAP: -- | Acc: -- | Energy Cost: 8 | Effect Chance: -- | Contact: No | Priority: 1 | Z-Bap: -- | Combo Type: Set | Snatch: No | Magic Coat/Bounce: No

Description: The Pokemon charges the field with special ions that convert Normal-typed attacks into Electric-typed attacks for the next six (6) actions when used. This takes precedence before any Ability effects. Z-Move Effect: Raises the user's Sp. Attack by one (1) stage, adjusting the natural stage.
=======================
In-game it no longer outprioritizes -ate abilities, but still alters moves affected by Normalize. (source)

 

[TMan87]

Um, I dunno whether this warrants discussion but I know that a while ago someone raised the possibility to rework part of Normal STAB's effect (namely the +1 BAP part), because a lot of people (including me) don't even know what it does. Is that still a thing?

 

[Un passant ordinaire]

It should be reworked, at least for consistency with us never caring about that side effect. How does Normal-type so far in the meta ?

 

[PTPlatinum]

Normal types have access to a fair selection of strong STAB moves, such as Giga Impact, Hyper Beam, Skull Bash, Boomburst and Double-Edge, among other options.

That being said, STAB effects have never really been game-changingly strong, so perhaps something simple such as Normal-type STAB bonus is +4 instead of +3? That's already similar to the old effects but it's something that people will remember and that could come in handy.

 

[JJayyFeather]

Normal-types tend to be rather strong as long as they have decent stats since they tend to have the wider movepools in the bunch.

As for its current STAB Effect, I'm 99% certain it is supposed to be: "+1 BAP on attacks that match dominant arena type after being sent out for 3 actions." The italics are me adding the text that was missing. Ultimately, though, that condition is ass, and also it's about 60% of the time in line with what PT suggested (cases where it isn't: gyms - useless if you arent the gl, tlrs - also probs useless as is, raids iirc - but also probs useless there)