(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

[Kurona]

Evolution Items being locked behind a BP shop (and in the case of Razor Claw, Metal Coat, Dragon Scale and probably quite a few others; a goddamn 5% hold item on a 5% encounter) are really stupid. There should be one in the main game, then either sell the Evolution item normally or for a low BP - either 8 or 16 would be fine. I just don't get GF's obsession with doing this.
In fact, I don't even need to say this. I think it should just be made abundantly clear when there's a ton of people on the GTS offering their Legendaries for Weavile, Porygon2 and Scizor.

 

[DragonWhale]

I ranted about this in the discord chat but...

The fact that Rare Candies are still 48BP when we need them more than ever now due to the strange requirement of "Level 100 only" for Hyper Training. Literally NOBODY bought them when they were 48, one rare candy by itself is worthless, and yet they cost as much as the most expensive non-megastone held items such as choice items? You find like 5 of them during the story on rocks on the beach as if it's trash, yet WHY are three rare candies worth 2 mega stones? Make them 2BP or something because by the time you reach the battle tree levelling up doesn't break anything for non-competitive purposes. It just feels like really terrible game design.

 

[Codraroll]

It just feels like really terrible game design.

To be completely honest, this is becoming far too prevalent in Pokémon for my taste. The Pokémon games are amazing on the whole, but so many aspects of the game design suck. There are so many instances of "why the hell did they do that?" across the games now, that I'm starting to question the whole quality control aspect of their design process. Sun/Moon alone are riddled with examples: The encounter tables for fishing are absolutely broken. Most of the Gen VII Pokémon are too hard to find or too weak to justify using for in-game playthroughs, while half the patches of grass on the last two islands contain the same three Pokémon (translation: There are exciting Pokémon out there, but they're not put in any place you're likely to find them - that's reserved for the early-game 'mons you grew tired of before leaving the first island). The Apricorn Balls (consumable items that aren't even guaranteed to work) are there, but you only get one of each. Most evolution items are stupidly hard to find. A new mechanic is introduced for level 100 Pokémon only, but getting there is harder than ever since there is no good place for post-game grinding. The framerate lag in Doubles is near-unbearable on old versions of the 3DS. Riding Pokémon overwrites the background music, playing the same ditty every time. Trading was easy and convenient last gen, and now made ten times more confusing. And I'm sure there are many others.

These are things that should have been found and fixed early in play testing. Somebody ought to have said "this doesn't work" or "this needs improvement" or "why the hell are we insisting on doing it this way?". It took them this long to find a workable solution to the inherent problems of IVs, after fans had been complaining since Gen IV or so, when a global competitive scene was made possible thanks to online battles.

Personally, I strongly suspect the games are hit hard by the "winner's curse". No matter what they do, they make money, so they see no reason to change or improve, even though quality deteriorates or becomes outdated. The "why spend money on that, it won't impact sales" attitude can work in the short term, but in the long run, something ought to be done on the management side. It's not that the Pokémon games are bad, they are just riddled with bad decisions and moments of bad design.

 

[Darth Manaphy]

Honestly, my problem with Gamefreak is that they keep trying to completely reinvent the wheel since Gen IV thinking they will keep trying to find better and more fun ways of doing things. I felt like X&Y had it perfect with it being intuitive with no tutorials necessary - just a menu that was prominently displayed when you started the game up the first time. You could click the internet button and see how you get all these connections with people in your 3DS friend list. They then started to hide it away in ORAS behind another two layer of menus, but if you played around with it, it was still pretty self-explanatory on how to get access to it.

They then decided to mess it all up as they do a complete system design like they do practically every generation. Festival Plaza was a fine addition - if you never cared about actually playing the game while being online to accept trade requests/battles/etc. In fact, it's a GREAT system for that since it leaves you with enough distractions to keep you busy while you realize that so few people actually use it. The problem is, I think Gamefreak took some of our complaints about getting constantly asked for trades/battles/etc. while playing the single player mode a bit more to heart than they should have so they restricted it to a zone where you have to be ready to do anything at a moment's notice in order to actually be there.

And, it's still obvious that while Gamefreak is making concessions to us competitive battlers, it's still far from their main radar. I don't think they even notice that Rare Candies are just that hard to earn in the game especially when people weren't complaining in ORAS due to how easy it was to cheese the leveling. They just keep thinking that Level 100 is the pinnacle of Pokemon so they make it difficult to get a team up to it.

 

[Carrier]

Finally getting a source of the Apricorn Balls just to only get one was heart-rending.

Festival Plaza takes too much grinding to be worth anything to more casual players. Honestly, besides bottle caps (which can be rarely obtained from Pelago anyway), I find the only reason I'm grinding it is in order to get the EV resetting ability, and even then having to work for hours and hours over it is just plain obtuse compared to super training

Same problem for SOS; cool concept, massive pain in the arse in reality. Honestly, despite only getting 3 guaranteed IVs in ORAS versus the 4 in SuMo, Dexnaving is waaay better.

Honestly, the only things I really like are that the Shiny charm is actually feasibly possible to get now and that Pelago gives reliable money outside of the E4 and stones

 

[Norne]

*slams fist*
Series Wide complaint: the treatment of evolution items, particularly evolution stones

It just. It baffles me.
Gen 1 was arguably the best for this. It gave a shop at the midpoint of the game for 4 of the 5 stones at a time where you have a lot of access to pokemon that evolve by them. The Moon stone is the sticking point here, with only 5 of them and i think 4 were hidden (maybe 3?)
Then gen 2 fell off a cliff. Bright side: infinite moon stones, infinite sun stones! Downside: They introduced an entirely new stone for no good reason, it requires a week to get a new moon stone, you have to compete in a biweekly contest that you have to win and THERE IS EXACTLY ONE EACH OF EVERY OTHER STONE THAT YOU CAN ONLY GET IN THE POST GAME. The only way to get more stones in GS was through mystery gift (which was garbage and often gave garbage and could only be done once a a day) or trading. Crystal added pokegear numbers but this was hamstrung by there being like 8 slots total and it being COMPLETELY RANDOM ( seriously i played crystal twice and for many horus and maybe saw one of them give me a water stone once).
Gen 3 was also nonsensical with its requiring 4 shards of one color (that you often had to steal off other pokemon) that you could only trade in near the end of the game! You at least got one freebie elsewhere but those are at so random spots in the game. FRLG was our lord and savior but that was only because it was a remake. If you wanted sun & moon stones you had to steal them off appropriate pokemon. FUN FACT: Sun Stones were effectively version exclusive because only Solrock ever held them and they were only available in Ruby & Emerald.
Gen 4 introduces THREE MORE??? And christ they put the infinite versions underground?! I spent so many hours doing that damn mini game and rarely ever found a stone, much less one of the stones I really needed. And I needed a lot because now I'm searching for 9 different stones! HGSS complicates things further by only having certain stones sold at certain days and requiring beating the e4 & its separate pokethelon currency for a large fee. Or you deal with pick up. Which only produces the three new stones and only rarely at high levels of pick up. Just. Why??
don't get me started on gen 5
gen 6 reintroduces a store in XY but it only sells 3 stones ever because CANT HAVE THINGS BE TOO EASY HUH. Enjoy grinding upper tier super training for ever.
gen 7 lets you buy that 4th stone but also they introduced another stone and also the only way to get more is through the entirely random pokepelago, though this is in fairness significantly less awful than super training or the underground.
its just...I don't understand why. There's so much more I could go into detail about why this is so awful from a main game perspective, a collection perspective and a compettiive perspective but I'd be here all day. There is no reason for this!

I was going to rant on more detail on the other evo items but instead I'll focus on Weavile because WHAT DID THIS THING DO TO GAMEFREAK?
let's break this down
DP: It's not bad enough that Sneasel is near but not quite at end game, but you can't evolve it until Victory Road where one of 2 freebies is located. There's another free one in a post-game area. Your alternative is spending 48 BP in the Battle Tower shop.
Platinum: Was generous and gave an extra one at Team Galactic HQ. Marginally earlier.
HGSS: Hey this is Sneasel's origin, surely there's a nice one to use! No. Sneasel is still in the final area of the game and the only way to get a Razor Claw is to buy it at the battle frontier.
BW1: Well, it's post game, but we can let that one slide. You get one for free, the rest has to be bought at the battle subway. Still 48 BP because screw you if you messed up your Weavile I guess.
BW2: Hey sneasel is actually available again. It's still at the end of the game which sucks but at least you can evolve it with the one free one you get. THey did lower the cost for using it to a mere 8 BP though, so this is actually the high point for Weavile usage.
XY: You can't evolve Sneasel until post game and you must buy it at the Battle Maison for 48 BP (why did it go back up). The pokemilage club option was entirely completely random even at the highest rank and also is not an option anymore.
ORAS: Find it on random mirage islands. Battle Maison, still at 48 BP.
SM: They removed it from the battle tree. THEY REMOVED IT FROM THE BATTLE TREE. whaaaaaaattttt????? So now the only way to find it is to steal it off a Jangmo-o at a 5% rate (also Jangmo-o is a 5% encounter). Or get it to SOS and steal it off Hakamo-o at also a 5% rate. Kommo-os, which are rare, can hold it at 50% rate. This is bad for many many reasons but I'll leave it at "I spent over 3 hours hunting"

To rub some salt on your wound I actually got two on my first Jangmo-o chain, first had nothing called for 2nd stage, Butterfree steals from it, Jangmo-o calls Kommo-o I KO Jangmo-o and capture Kommo-o, it was holding razor claw.

It was stupid, just as stupid as getting a HA Maereanie on my 15th sos call.

In all justice I did 206 Clefairy chains, not a single friend guard... I need this badly.

 

[R_N]

I ranted about this in the discord chat but...

The fact that Rare Candies are still 48BP when we need them more than ever now due to the strange requirement of "Level 100 only" for Hyper Training. Literally NOBODY bought them when they were 48, one rare candy by itself is worthless, and yet they cost as much as the most expensive non-megastone held items such as choice items? You find like 5 of them during the story on rocks on the beach as if it's trash, yet WHY are three rare candies worth 2 mega stones? Make them 2BP or something because by the time you reach the battle tree levelling up doesn't break anything for non-competitive purposes. It just feels like really terrible game design.

the craziest thing about rare candies is like..well, every other level up option?

Festival Plaza has quick level options available daily if you get the right shops (though even this arbitrarily caps out at level 79 (so level 85 i think). In the time it takes you to earn enough for a single rare candy you could also just go grind out a couple levels at poni gauntlet. But also you get free rare candies out of the cafes if you use enough pokebeans. Which is significantly faster and feasibly endlessly renewable!

And that's just SM. Basically every game since...DP, we'll say, has significantly better level up options or grinding options available. I kind of wonder if it's just been carried over without a second thought for 4 generations. And all generations you can grab it off pick up, so if you get focused on grinding you could feasibly just carry around a team of one beat stick and 5 pick ups and probably get faster candy results that way.

 

[MZ]

This leveling problem could also be helped if the natural leveling curve left you off higher. Xy had diantha's ace at a whopping 68, comparatively a good amount higher than every other original champ (obv hgss is different) and like 10 levels higher than kukui off top of my head. You can sorta feel how they could've made the curve larger too: there's a few relatively uninhabited routes like that one with grimsley, a few areas like the hidden cave+cove on melemele or 10 carat hill that could've been more populated, and especially no victory road. The last one really makes no sense, it's more interesting than hgss I guess but that at least had the routes leading up to it as like a fake climax. Shift the levels a bit and I could easily see the game taking you to level 80+ counting poni areas and champ rematches. It's obviously not incredibly efficient to grind 6 things at a time over a full playthrough, but anything to get some mons closer would make it a lot more convenient. Frankly I don't see why there's no victory road when they even allude to inviting other people who had previously completed their trials multiple times and then there's only e4 chick and a few by the pokecenter, it should've been pretty basic to flesh out the mountain area and it could've come out nicely.

 

[hypno28]

^ Vast Poni Canyon is pretty clearly Victory Road.

 

[MZ]

But why? There's space for a real one, the area is cool but also happens before u get sidetracked with plot so it doesn't have that same feeling. It'd be like in bw2 if the cave part of great chasm was victory road and after the plot stuff u got dumped right into the e4. Why waste space when there's this whole area almost completely empty and great to use?

 

[DragonWhale]

the craziest thing about rare candies is like..well, every other level up option?

Festival Plaza has quick level options available daily if you get the right shops (though even this arbitrarily caps out at level 79 (so level 85 i think). In the time it takes you to earn enough for a single rare candy you could also just go grind out a couple levels at poni gauntlet. But also you get free rare candies out of the cafes if you use enough pokebeans. Which is significantly faster and feasibly endlessly renewable!

And that's just SM. Basically every game since...DP, we'll say, has significantly better level up options or grinding options available. I kind of wonder if it's just been carried over without a second thought for 4 generations. And all generations you can grab it off pick up, so if you get focused on grinding you could feasibly just carry around a team of one beat stick and 5 pick ups and probably get faster candy results that way.

Did you really just try to justify levelling to 100 in SM? A random level 85 cap for autolevelling...in a game which uses the gen 5 exp system...in a game where nobody is above level 70. Amazing. Then rare candy farming options which are just as grueling. Fantastic.

Reminder that a month ago I could get 50k exp from battling one Blissey base.

 

[hypno28]

But why? There's space for a real one, the area is cool but also happens before u get sidetracked with plot so it doesn't have that same feeling. It'd be like in bw2 if the cave part of great chasm was victory road and after the plot stuff u got dumped right into the e4. Why waste space when there's this whole area almost completely empty and great to use?

Yeah, I don't know, but the game does have a Victory Road. I guess the idea is that you're one of the first challengers and the would-be challengers who end up populating pre-E4 areas in other regions haven't had time to show up there yet.

 

[R_N]

Did you really just try to justify levelling to 100 in SM? A random level 85 cap for autolevelling...in a game which uses the gen 5 exp system...in a game where nobody is above level 70. Amazing. Then rare candy farming options which are just as grueling. Fantastic.

Reminder that a month ago I could get 50k exp from battling one Blissey base. I'm going to assume you're just trolling.

i mean you can read that into my post if you want but no, it's actually pointing out how even in SM the 48 BP price tag is stupid compared with all the other options for rare candy-like services?

 

[DragonWhale]

i mean you can read that into my post if you want but no, it's actually pointing out how even in SM the 48 BP price tag is stupid compared with all the other options for rare candy-like services?

Oh my bad you were promoting those methods so I thought you said they were improvements.

 

[ApathyandToast]

the lack of rebattleable trainers as well. the level grind wouldn't be so painful if you had more options than the daily morimoto battle and grinding the e4, even purely for variety of battling

 

[R_N]

Oh my bad you were promoting those methods so I thought you said they were improvements.

They are relative improvements in the sense that you don't have to grind up to 48 BP for a single level. The time required to do that you could probably get a couple levels on a high leveled pokemon. Or you could give a couple beans and get one for free!
Compared with previous games, SM methods are bad. We should be ~so thankful~ that poni gauntlet has ~57-59 range.


ironically this wouldn't even be a big deal (still stupid mind you because even XY had the restaurants and battle chataeu (WHICH WERE BOTH BAD BTW), but less of a deal over all) if they didn't have hyper training. Wild pokemon in that level range are fine (if mind numbingly tedious)for filling out most of the pokedex and thanks to changes to the move reminder+ the gen 5 exp curve it doesn't take too long to get to the level 50 needed for competitive battles & battle tree stuff. Even EV training had slight reworking to make that less painful with items giving more EVs and SOS battles doubling EV gain. But now there's an incentive to get to level 100 to iron out IVs and its awful. Even in BW2 getting someone to level 100 was a long, dedicated affair and that game had the most high leveled refightable trainers in the series. And BW2 had audinos!!!

 

[Kurona]

xy: someone gives you a destiny knot for free
oras: you have to get it as a random side-effect of battling one specific trainer
sm: pickup or pay 48bp we hate you.

trailer: you can still use megas!!! relive mega evolution from xy!!!!!!
game: if you want to use any mega not called alakazam you have to get either 64BP or beat Red also we're arbitrarily not going to give you half of them

game freak employee 1: hey weavile is a really popular pokemon and last gen we made it in-game but didn't give players razor claw until aftergame where its a bp item since its still in-game in sun and moon we should make the item easier to get
game freak employee 2: make it a 5% hold item on a 5% encounter
game freak employee 1: .
game freak employee 2: remove it from the BP shop



sun/moon's aftergame sucks

 

[Random Passerby]

Some Pokemon need to level up near a "charged electric area" to get into their evolved forms. Having no knowledge of the S&M games, I levelled up Magneton at the Power Plant and thought my game had glitched when it didn't evolve. It doesn't help that the "correct" place to evolve was near the end of the game instead of about halfway through the game as was the norm since forever.

Want to use a Crabrawler? Be my guest. Bear in mind that you can only evolve it at Mt. Lanakila, where you are basically almost done with the story. I have no idea why they would do this and it really discourages me from using Crabrawler as it has really unimpressive stats and will be almost deadweight by the time I reach that point in the story.

 

[WaffleTitan]

All in all, Sun and Moon seem to me like the least thought out and worst executed games. Everything from the replacement of the gen 6 wifi system with the horrid festival plaza and the lack of half the mega stones, to the fact that there are few new pokemon (and of those few, nearly all are slow and have poorly distributed stats) and that there is a ridiculously rigid structure, especially in the beginning (cutscenes, quest markers, blockades). There are definitely some redeeming qualities, like, um, well, I guess cosmog is cute and...

Anyway,I'm not going to say that these are the worst pokemon games (yet), but they just feel like such a massive step back from the system that gen 6 had set up. Here's to hoping that the next games take a step back in the right direction. If they don't, I see a dubious future for pokemon.

 

[Siggu]

game freak employee 1: hey weavile is a really popular pokemon and last gen we made it in-game but didn't give players razor claw until aftergame where its a bp item since its still in-game in sun and moon we should make the item easier to get
game freak employee 2: make it a 5% hold item on a 5% encounter
game freak employee 1: .
game freak employee 2: remove it from the BP shop

Funny. I got a Razor Claw from the very first Jangmo-o I found and caught.

But yeah... why such limited item availability? Are they pushing another version or events?

 

[Kurona]

All in all, Sun and Moon seem to me like the least thought out and worst executed games. Everything from the replacement of the gen 6 wifi system with the horrid festival plaza and the lack of half the mega stones, to the fact that there are few new pokemon (and of those few, nearly all are slow and have poorly distributed stats) and that there is a ridiculously rigid structure, especially in the beginning (cutscenes, quest markers, blockades). There are definitely some redeeming qualities, like, um, well, I guess cosmog is cute and...

Anyway,I'm not going to say that these are the worst pokemon games (yet), but they just feel like such a massive step back from the system that gen 6 had set up. Here's to hoping that the next games take a step back in the right direction. If they don't, I see a dubious future for pokemon.

In my opinion Sun/Moon has the opposite problem of XY - XY focused immensely on making Multiplayer great (introduction of Megas, attempts at balancing, extreme improvements to breeding, fantastic ways to grind exp and money, etc etc), but as a result the single player (the main game before the credits role and any aftergame story) suffered as a result.
Likewise, Sun/Moon focuses on having an incredible in-game - a great change to the formula in particular gives it a breath of fresh air and I actually felt some connection to the characters; not to mention the Ultra Beasts quest being great and basically the Delta Episode done much better - but as a result the multiplayer aspects suffer. Colosseum is still my favourite game and Platinum eases into second place just due to nostalgia, but I'd easily rank Moon as my third favourite Pokémon ignoring all multiplayer aspects. It's very well designed.

But, of course... for every step forward they take, they take a step back. The IV judge is absolutely amazing! Getting the Destiny Knot and any decently IV'd Pokémon to start with is a pain in the neck. IV increasing is now a thing! To get there, you need to be able to get to Level 100 but the methods to do so are about as limited as Red/Blue. They balanced out some of the more notorious aspects of Gen 6's competitive by nerfing Parental Bond and Gale Wings! Half the Mega Stones aren't available. The Apricorn Balls are back! You only get one per save. Breeding mechanics means passing down the ball is so much less of a pain! Getting even one Hidden Ability in this game is an absolutely ludicrous irritating pain compared to even the DexNav. BW2's Join Avenue is back! It's combined with multiplayer to create an ultimately mediocre experience when the Join Avenue and PSS in previous generations on their own without being merged were nigh-perfect.

We honestly don't know how good we had it in XY. Oh sure it's in-game was absolute bollocks, but Restaurant Le Wow gave us an easy way to grind Exp and Money - sure it's debatable whether this method or Blissey Bases is better, but both were very good at the end of the day especially compared to every other generation including 7. We had a great breeding route, items like the Destiny Knot weren't as hard to get, the O-powers were a tremendous aid once you maxed them out and started using them right, the PSS was leaps and bounds ahead of even what the last game in the series had to offer in terms of connectivity, and goddammit if the Friend Safari wasn't one of the best features to ever be cut from the games.

Sun/Moon had arguably the greatest in-game we've ever had, but at a great cost for anyone who's interested in multiplayer. A lot of the decisions made in regards to the latter are absolutely baffling.

 

[Darth Manaphy]

In my opinion Sun/Moon has the opposite problem of XY - XY focused immensely on making Multiplayer great (introduction of Megas, attempts at balancing, extreme improvements to breeding, fantastic ways to grind exp and money, etc etc), but as a result the single player (the main game before the credits role and any aftergame story) suffered as a result.
Likewise, Sun/Moon focuses on having an incredible in-game - a great change to the formula in particular gives it a breath of fresh air and I actually felt some connection to the characters; not to mention the Ultra Beasts quest being great and basically the Delta Episode done much better - but as a result the multiplayer aspects suffer. Colosseum is still my favourite game and Platinum eases into second place just due to nostalgia, but I'd easily rank Moon as my third favourite Pokémon ignoring all multiplayer aspects. It's very well designed.

But, of course... for every step forward they take, they take a step back. The IV judge is absolutely amazing! Getting the Destiny Knot and any decently IV'd Pokémon to start with is a pain in the neck. IV increasing is now a thing! To get there, you need to be able to get to Level 100 but the methods to do so are about as limited as Red/Blue. They balanced out some of the more notorious aspects of Gen 6's competitive by nerfing Parental Bond and Gale Wings! Half the Mega Stones aren't available. The Apricorn Balls are back! You only get one per save. Breeding mechanics means passing down the ball is so much less of a pain! Getting even one Hidden Ability in this game is an absolutely ludicrous irritating pain compared to even the DexNav. BW2's Join Avenue is back! It's combined with multiplayer to create an ultimately mediocre experience when the Join Avenue and PSS in previous generations on their own without being merged were nigh-perfect.

We honestly don't know how good we had it in XY. Oh sure it's in-game was absolute bollocks, but Restaurant Le Wow gave us an easy way to grind Exp and Money - sure it's debatable whether this method or Blissey Bases is better, but both were very good at the end of the day especially compared to every other generation including 7. We had a great breeding route, items like the Destiny Knot weren't as hard to get, the O-powers were a tremendous aid once you maxed them out and started using them right, the PSS was leaps and bounds ahead of even what the last game in the series had to offer in terms of connectivity, and goddammit if the Friend Safari wasn't one of the best features to ever be cut from the games.

Sun/Moon had arguably the greatest in-game we've ever had, but at a great cost for anyone who's interested in multiplayer. A lot of the decisions made in regards to the latter are absolutely baffling.

This has absolutely been my opinion of this generation so far. Having not even gotten to the point where I care about competitive anything I have to say that I love it (aside from the Icy Rock and Magnetic Field locations), but just planning ahead I see a massive pain in the ass in my future involved with it. It's like they knew what the problems in everything were but then just completely forgot all the good things that they have previously done. And that's part of what makes this generation so frustrating. Honestly, most of my problems could have been solved if we could have transferred items to Gen VII, but we can't and so now we're stuck with things that just make our lives a living hell.

 

[ApathyandToast]

it's good that they're trying to push more towards the competitive direction, and with the gen 6 breeding changes, hyper training, pelago, they're really giving people less of a reason to just hack in competitive viable pokemon. except as was mentioned with hyper training, they lock it behind a ridiculous grind and don't give you any way to alleviate that grind.

imagine if there was a pokemon for pc that could just be continually iterated upon and improved. instead of starting afresh with each generation and taking steps forwards and also some steps back. of course they'd probably need to charge a subscription fee or some sort of microtransactions, and even then it would be financially inferior to just releasing new cart games every couple of years

 

[Norne]

The nerf to gale wings was a disaster, it's not a step forward, it's straight murder.

They only saw a Pokémon in the vacuum of 3v3 and doubles and fucked up a perfectly good pivot in singles.

Khangaskan nerf doesn't affect shit as it can still 2hko anything with less than 401 hp or 370 with lefties.

They are poorly thought as fuck.

 

[Kurona]

The nerf to gale wings was a disaster, it's not a step forward, it's straight murder.

They only saw a Pokémon in the vacuum of 3v3 and doubles and fucked up a perfectly good pivot in singles.

Khangaskan nerf doesn't affect shit as it can still 2hko anything with less than 401 hp or 370 with lefties.

They are poorly thought as fuck.

Kangaskhan can only 2HKO anything with under 401HP if it has Seismic Toss. A move it can only get through a Gen 1 TM or a Gen 3 Tutor. This of course means it's bad for OU and should still be banned, but I'd hardly call it 'poorly thought out' if they're not taking into account an extremely obscure move which is difficult to get in-game and isn't even allowed in their own metas.
If the nerf murders Talonflame, oh well. It's not like there aren't a thousand more pivots out there.