Greninja

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Geodude6 I agree to some extent, but:

1) You cannot compare current Fake Out and current Mat Block. Current Fake Out is really only useful the first time you use it - after that, it's simply a clone of Quick Attack, and the number of mons whose only priority is Fake Out is ridiculously small. Whereas Mat Block still allows you to block incoming damage completely for a mere 7 damage, even after first use - simply, you can't protect your partner as well. IMO this is quite excessive and needs outright addressing. I don't think the comparison between the two moves holds any water here (pun unintended).
2) I'm not sure about attaching an energy penalty to Greninj's Protean, because it doesn't reduce its offensive potential by much - rarely will the Greninja user ever run out of energy, especially on Doubles
3) We really need to address Rare Candy (and Everstone, for consistency), because letting Greninja enjoy a +1 SpA and +2 power on ANY move it uses is frankly excessive IMO. There's not a single sig item (outside megastones ofc) which is comparatively powerful for a Pokemon with THIS kind of BRT and overall power (This is almost as powerful as Marowak's Thick Club, to put things in perspective).
 
Something that is a bit interesting. Hyperspace Hole and Hyperspace Fury bypass the effects of Protect, Detect, Spiky Shield, King's Shield, and Mat Block. Of those moves, Protect, Detect, Spiky Shield, and King's Shield are of the Protective Moves subclass. If we wish to be consistent, we should classify Mat Block as being part of the Protective Move subclass.

Before you say that Feint does not ignore Mat Block and therefore should not be a Protective move, realize that Feint has a higher priority than Mat Block. Meaning that Feint will hit before Mat Block is used, unlike the moves Protect, Detect, Spiky Shield, King's Shield, Quick Guard, and Wide Guard, all of which have a higher priority than Feint.
 
Geodude6 said:
1) Ability trickery. This is a tactic that is pretty easily pulled off and that robs Greninja of its main source of strength, Protean. The most powerful of these moves is Skill Swap, but moves such as Gastro Acid and Simple Beam fall under here too.
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Yeah, easier said than done is an understatement. Skill Swap will completely ruin Greninja until it just takes Protean back with Role Play the next action. As for the other two, if you plan on using either Gastro Acid or Simple Beam on Ninja, this only becomes the definition of eating up subs. In order to even think of removing Protean ordering first, good luck having enough subs for that. With the exception of Audino, Beheeyem, Xatu, Grumpig, Chimecho, and Mew (all mons with so much usage), no mon has more than one of Skill Swap, Gastro Acid, Simple Beam, and Entrainment, so if you're ordering second Ninja can easily sub around you trying to get Protean.

2) Getting rid of his item. While this is easier said than done, and it won't stop Greninja, it'll certainly slow him down. Most powerful of these is Knock Off, but Trick works too and is pretty widespread.
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Knock Off is the only viable move you mean- with Trick you're either giving Ninja something that it could still very much use like an Expert Belt or you're sending your own mon in with something useless in hopes of getting Ninja. As for Knock Off itself, I'm basically just agreeing with it because I think Rare Candy is the problem.

3) Taunt it. This is probably the shakiest tactic here, but it keeps Greninja from using Mat Block, which is one of, if not the best move in Greninja's arsenal. This is stopped in numerous ways, but slowing down Greninja will help you pull this off considerably easier.

4) Slow it down. A lot of Greninja's power comes from his speed and ability to act before his opposition. This won't stop Greninja in and of itself, but makes it easier to pull off a different tactic. Thunder Wave is the most common way to do this, but there's also Glare and Zap Cannon (the latter of which unfortunately has pretty shaky accuracy)
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I'm basically gonna group these together because you can't do the former without the latter due to its insane Speed and many of the ways to do the latter (i.e. Thunder Wave) is to Taunt it. Only a handful of mons are able to naturally outspeed Greninja and Taunt it without tricks (as trying to use Taunt without being faster will just get you taunted)

5) Just hit it hard. Most people give Greninja a Hasty or Naive nature, which reduces one of Greninja's defensive stats to 2, which is below average, and most mons have pretty powerful STAB options. Works best in conjunction with one of the above tricks.
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"Pretty powerful STAB options" that Greninja can absolutely allow it to hit it for NVE damage, usually at the cost of only attacking you with neutral attacks. Greninja has 15 possible types (Water/Dark, 13 from regular attacks, Hidden Power), and with Rare Candy boosting each and every one of them, it's very easy for it to win the damage race, as you know first gand.

In my opinion, both Mat Block AND Rare Candy could use a nerf. I don't think Mat Block needs an extra EN cost, but that it should just he a P/E move for the same reasons King's Shield is a P/E move.

Rare Candy is a but more complex as everyone's said before- it's either gonna be inconsistent with Everstone or hit Kecleon for collateral damage. Personally I don't really care if there's an inconsistancy and we just make it that Rare Candy only grants a +2 bonus to the original type of the holder (and if we do end up applying this to Everstone we should provably make an exception for Forecast due ti Castform really not abusing this as much as Protean mons)
 
waterwarrior said:
Rare Candy is a but more complex as everyone's said before- it's either gonna be inconsistent with Everstone or hit Kecleon for collateral damage. Personally I don't really care if there's an inconsistancy and we just make it that Rare Candy only grants a +2 bonus to the original type of the holder (and if we do end up applying this to Everstone we should provably make an exception for Forecast due ti Castform really not abusing this as much as Protean mons)
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If Rare Candy and Everstone were both nerfed to only boost the holder's type original type, not whatever it is changed to by abilities, wouldn't Castform not be hurt since it is technically a form change, not just a type change?
 
akela said:
Something that is a bit interesting. Hyperspace Hole and Hyperspace Fury bypass the effects of Protect, Detect, Spiky Shield, King's Shield, and Mat Block. Of those moves, Protect, Detect, Spiky Shield, and King's Shield are of the Protective Moves subclass. If we wish to be consistent, we should classify Mat Block as being part of the Protective Move subclass.

Before you say that Feint does not ignore Mat Block and therefore should not be a Protective move, realize that Feint has a higher priority than Mat Block. Meaning that Feint will hit before Mat Block is used, unlike the moves Protect, Detect, Spiky Shield, King's Shield, Quick Guard, and Wide Guard, all of which have a higher priority than Feint.
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Just wanted to note that this is a bad reason to add Mat Block to p/e moves. Phantom Force, for example, breaks P/E moves but doesn't break Mat Block. Also, a Feint called by Sleep Talk will still break Protect, Detect, Spiky Shield, King's Shield, Quick Guard and Wide Guard, while not breaking Mat Block.
 
I have no complaints with Mat Block being included with the P/E Moves.
I also don't mind it having an increased energy cost based on damage maybe modeled on King's Shield's cost as they both only block attacks.
I don't really see the need to make it one use only on the round it's sent out though, at least once these changes are made.

I'm not in favor of Rare Candy/Everstone/Protean getting changed however as I'm still not convinced it's necessary and I don't think the collateral damage is warrented.

Yes you can counter argue the various methods to at least lessen Greninja's abilities but the fact remains those methods still exist.
If Greninja is using its subs to get around taunt and skill swap it's not subbing to protects its type changes. If it's subbing for type changes then there are bound to be holes for moves like taunt or the like.
And then during all of that also subbing for Knock Off, speed dropping moves, and status? It can't all be done. You can point out all these ways it can get around things but in practice it can only do so much.
 
Just as not all mons have the tools to hit each and every of Greninja's weaknesses. Chances are you can only harm Greninja in, what, 2 or 3 ways of the ones listed here, so he can sub for those. If you are good with your orders, you don't even need to sub for your type changes as you should be dealing more damage with your always STAB than your opponent with its coverage moves.

And Taunt isn't that bad when you'll be nuking everything with +5 BAP moves. Just saying.

EDIT: I think I have to be clear in the fact that I'm not in the "Let's nerf Greninja!" bandwagon, but the ones in favor of the nerf seem to have better arguments than the ones that don't want it to be nerfed. I'm on the fence in this issue, but I just feel the need to point some things that seem to be ignored.
 
Yes, just as many mons don't have viable ways to fight all of Gengar, Sableye, or Garde's various back breaking options. There is a power level difference between the top mons and the lower tier ones but that doesn't mean Greninja is too much because it's too much for more limited mons. That's not something it has exclusive to itself.

As for Taunt, yes it's not a big deal if you're dmaage racing, it does however limit ways Greninja can stop other mons from taking less direct methods of beating it. After all Taunt is Greninja's answer to many things too and without that it has no choice but to damage race (which is doesn't always win).

Finally if you want to abuse Protean as much as people are proclaiming then yes it often does require subbing to do (you can't hitting Se and taking NVE damage all the time without a bit more effort especially going first). If they don't sub for typing then it to is getting hit SE and it too is going down fast. And lets not just say "And it gets stab on everything" as if that alone makes up the damage it does. If it has to use hidden power or aerial ace to hit SE (which if often does) then it's entirely possible that a mon using a non-stab but more powerful move is hitting for more and winning that damage race (or at least taking greninja down with it).
 
Slate (attempt) time

Mat Block behavior

Make Mat Block behave like Fake Out in-game (Successful use is first attempt per send out) with no additional EN cost.
Make Mat Block behave like Fake Out in-game (Successful use is first attempt per send out) with additional EN cost.
Keep Mat Block as is but with additional EN cost.
Keep Mat Block as is.
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Mat Block: the P/E question

Class Mat Block underneath the Protective/Evasive Sub Class
Keep as is
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If Additional EN cost wins

Zarator's Suggestion: (6+damage/4)
Solid Gold's Suggestion: (damage/3)
Back to Drawing Board
Keep as is
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Protean: Additional EN cost

Solid Gold's suggestion: (+2 EN if the Pokemon changes type)
Back to Drawing Board
Keep as is
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Booth in 48h
 
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I think we've decided that we're not going into this thread with the intention to nerf one mon. Be it Greninja, Mega-Gardevoir, Gengar, or any mon whose name starts with a "G" - our intention will not be trying to exclusively change a mon. Because as Frosty said, doing so sets a slippery precedence to the point that mons in-ASB will be nerfed/buffed simply because some vocal minority decided to make a racket about it. So please stop going back and forth about "Greninja is broken because X" and/or "Greninja is not broken even with X because Y" because a) read above, and b) we've had this discussion for about a dozen posts already, and are at the point where we're just picking up old arguments and throwing them back at each other. Also, off the record, Frosty and IAR have already expressed an interest in mod-hammering people who do so for derailing the topic.

I apologise again for misleading people with the OP, and I take full responsibility for that because I drafted it by myself. I would want to post something along the lines of "using Greninja as a case study of why mechanic X is overpowered" but that would be a lame excuse.

* * * * *​

Backing Rain up, so far we've had suggestions to change Mat Block either to reflect in-game precedence, or incur a cost to better reflect its use, or to reflect consistency amongst Sub classes. So those suggestions are making the slate, and each slate will have to be voted separately, in that order. If you have anything to comment on the slate, please do so before it is moved to Voting, and please read the first paragraph on what not to post.
 
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ZhengTann the minimod (nah just kidding you are fine).

That said I would hold off on making changes to Protean / Rare Candy until further notice and just concentrate on fixing Mat Block for now but yeah. I am half tempted to just force a "no change" to anything not named Mat Block since my real beef with Greninja—and by extension why I think it is a bit too good—pretty much lies in Mat Block pushing it over the edge, especially in Doubles / Triples on the basis of a pooly-designed move, and that we cannot come to an agreement on the other things (And saying we should hit Everstone because we hit Rare Candy is a dumb argument by the way because it does not sufficiently justify hitting it and it is not as if there is some pact we made where we HAVE to make the two have virtually the same effect).

One thing I am in favour of with Mat Block is defaulting to in-game effect except that it is not a forced first turn use like it is in-game, as well as adding it to the Protective Move class. The in-game effect + the addition to the sub category will make it far more manageable and not have to waste as many substitutions as a normal player would (although imo people should stop subbing for Protective Moves and sub for Mat Block instead against Greninja like I do but that is just me). It balances the move very well (maybe too well but idc) and I think people will find that Greninja will be far more manageable.

But yeah it was an interesting discussion putting something under the microscope and seeing what makes something too good to the point of being unbalanced—or not—and I am pleased that those who took part remained respectful and the thread did not devolve into a shit sling-fest unlike what usually happens elsewhere. That said, would I start something like this on another Pokémon? Unlikely. Did I learn a lot from this? I would like to say I did.
 
Making Mat Block a P/E move is a bad idea imo.

When you sub for P/E, usually it's because you don't want something blocked, but in my experience, that thing is usually either a) a status move (in which case I set up and push back) or b) a single-target attack in doubles (in which case I attack the other guy) (I guess sometimes you sub for it when using combos going first, but then you're using a combo going first so lol). Mat Block doesn't affect a, and makes b pointless too, which makes it kinda useless to sub for P/E when the opponent has Mat Block. For the record, I think the P/E sub class should consist of Protect, Detect, Agility (evasive), and Teleport (evasive) >.> (especially since sometimes you want to sub for shield form anyways)

I do like the idea of altered en cost, and I have another idea for it: 4*targets+damage blocked/2.5. Basically like KS' en cost, but costing extra per ally affected.

Also, I think Rain forgot something:

Rare Candy and Protean

Rare Candy does not boost types that have been changed by Protean
No change
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Huh, i was thinking...


What if Protean only gave a STAB if the pokemon started the Action as that type?

This would lower Greninja's offense by a big margin and force it to stay in a predictable type (Ie, risk itself) if it wants to deal it's damage.

Or instead nerf it so Rare Candy only counts for the type the mon started the action as, if thats too harsh.
 
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