Reduced PP

[pubby]

Reduced PP

PP is an interesting way to balance high-powered moves, yet in a single battle it is practically irrelevant.

This can be changed.

By drastically reducing the amount of PP each move has, it forces players to use a larger variety moves, including those considered less powerful.

The altercations are as followed:

• PP-Up and PP-Max are banned
• Viable moves' PP are divided by 5
• Non-viable moves' PP are divided by 3 (rounded down), minimum is 3
• Outrage's PP is set to 1
• Trump Card's PP remains at 5
• The ability Pressure is banned

Examples of modified moves:

• Tackle: 11 PP
• Steel Wing: 8 PP
• ThunderPunch: 3 PP
• Draco Meteor: 1 PP

Here's a moves.js for Pokemon Showdown with the updated PP, which means you can test out this metagame. I would take a shot at hosting, but unfortunately I don't have the setup for it.

 

[Codraroll]

This would be a metagame with a lot of switching. People would opt to switch to stall turns, or chip away their opponents' PP with low-powered moves, dropping the heavy hitters because that single use can be wasted by one clever switch. The first one to use Struggle loses.

I think Wobbuffet and Gothitelle would be staples in this metagame. Wobbuffet for the usual reasons. In a metagame with all that switching, boosting moves are irrelevant, so the opponent is forced to attack. Gothitelle could use stuff like Heal Block or Screens to cripple the opponent, and Psybeam (6 PP) to chip away their HP. Alternately, it could PP stall practically forever with Covet (13 PP).

 

[Antihaxxer]

Struggle all the way ? I like the idea, but the Reduced PP seems too high. 2 Draco Meteor seems more balanced for me for example ...
Protect / Detect banned ?

 

[Onicon]

The given PPs appears too low for us. How about you just half the amount of PP?
8 to 4
16 to 8
24 to 12

We see a rise in Zapdos and Suicune. Also, Aura Sphere would become much more common because of its 16 PP. It still wouldn't be a ridiculous amount for a 90 BP move.

 

[The Zororoaster]

I predict...a boring metagame. The PP is too far reduced. 3 PP for ThunderPunch, Psychic, ect. Not enough to net a kill with even a minor amount of switching. If people use weaker moves with more PP it will be pointless because then you will just have to use more of that move to net KO's. In the end it will just be a lot of struggling and switching. Recovery moves, though limited, would pretty much dominate too.

 

[tehy]

Why would recovery moves dominate? They've also got only 3 PP. Stall teams would be really helped, because they can afford to run bulky spinners and spinblockers, and hazards would own in this metagame. I foresee Toxic being pretty useful too, as a single use of Toxic does more than many weaker offensive moves, while the stronger ones run out of PP quickly. (Aside-Rapid spin still has plenty of PP). And SubRoost Zapdos would be interesting, although I think it'd need to carry Chestorest or something, because 3 PP of Roost isn't great. (Also, Stall teams might have Recover+Rest, or such.) Poison Heal 'Scor would be pretty great because it doesn't waste PP healing if it doesn't want to, and while Protect PP runs out fast, you can use it to chip away at, say, Ice Beam or Surf PP. SubTect would be interesting for PP stall, but more than not you'd probably just see a lot of switching. (Of course, you could take advantage of it by Toxic'ing a lot. And remember, Heal Bell should only have one use!)

Now, sure, a stallmon can stall out your strongest move and then not really be breakable. But now he can't heal either, and he usually relies on healing. So it's almost a wash. Meanwhile, if you have multiple moves that can hurt him, it's a net loss. So an interesting option could be like I often do ingame-carry a weaker STAB alongside a stronger one, for PP purposes. After you've been stalled by, say, a Jellicent (Cursed Body won't be too good in this metagame, where PP is liable to run out before you can disable the move), you can just unleash the weaker move and watch him fall. Or pokemon with pretty wide coverage that can afford to have a moveslot slashed will be more viable. I also think Forry will be pretty beastly in this metagame, although Gyro Ball runs out quick. Still, pair him with a Suicune and watch as his counters suddenly can't touch him.

Now Regenerator... THAT will dominate.

Edit:SubRoost Aerodactyl could be pretty great, actually. Like Zapdos, but he can suicide lead if you like and set rocks, and if switching really is going to be so prevalent, having rocks up as fast as possible could be really helpful. Meanwhile, he can also Taunt to block enemy rocks from going up, also helpful in this kind of a metagame.

Also, Zoro:Psybeam, from what was said above, has 6 PP? And Psychic has three. Seeing as Psybeam=65 and Psychic=90, it's clearly not a case in that instance. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples.

Stall teams probably would still be great mind you, but powerful wallbreakers could get through them, just because if you only have 1 check to a pokemon, it can get through you via killing your Recover PP.

Double Edit: Uh, Pillsbury, couple ways around that. First is T-spikes, which gets many of them. Second is just SR and Spikes and Phazing. Thirdly is having a good Rapid Spinner and just switching around. Let them stew in their own PP juices.

Of course, those teams would have a bulky spinblocker and maybe a grounded poison-type/spinner, but in a metagame where recovery runs out quickly, you can definitely muscle through spinblockers. Although the metagame might revolve a little around Pressure Subtecters and those that set up hazards on them.

Also, Harvest Exxegutor. #LeppaBerry. So weather would be good to counteract that, and seeing as weather MOVES have 1 PP, most teams will need a way to deal with that. I'm actually thinking multi-hit moves will be popular as hell in this metagame, as will Leppa Berries.

 

[doughboy]

Speaking of Zapdos, how the hell would pressure operate in this metagame?

A team could effectively stack a bunch of pressure users on a team with Substitute and a couple of filler moves and watch the opponent run out of PP to attack them with.

For moves with 75+ base power, which acceptable base power, they have 3 PP (judging from Thunder Punch).

Now at most your team could have 3 pp * 4 moves * 6 pokemon = 72 PP to attack the opponent at most with decently powered moves. With a team of 6 pressure Pokemon this can be limited down to 36. Basically, for every six moves you must KO a Pokemon. With the use of Protect+Substitute you extend the PP stalling by 2 turns.

So with that out of that 36 pp you can waste 4 with just Protect+Substitute. That means with that in place, you have 12 moves to KO every Pokemon. 12 moves / 6 Pokemon = 2 moves per every Pokemon to KO!!!!!! Considering we are using 75 base power moves, I don't think that is going to be plausible. In addition, that Protect has 2 PP, so you can effectively waste 6 PP of your opponent with every Pressure Pokemon.

You don't need to attack the opponent, use hazards, or whatever. You can just straight up Pressure stall them. I don't think this metagame isn't going to end up well.

 

[Zarel]

hm, what about just half PP to all moves? Don't ban Pressure, leave Trump Card at 4 PP... Much simpler, but I think still enough for PP to actually matter.

 

[pubby]

I've read over what everyone has said, and there are some great points. In particular, I agree that stalling sounds much too effective and flat out not fun.

I suppose the problem is that the amount to set PP to is hard to guess. Too high will have no effect, while too little favors cheap stalling.

To fix this, I'm thinking it might be better to abandon the PP scale GF used, and instead set every move to a fixed amount. For instance:

• Viable moves: 4 PP each
• Non-viable moves: 8 PP each
• Problem moves: 1-2 PP each

Where problem moves are ones such as substitute, protect, outrage, and others mentioned in this thread.

Thoughts?

 

[tehy]

So I've been reading all of this and I have to ask:

What makes SubTect Pressure stalling more viable in THIS metagame than any other?

Think about it. Logically speaking, we're probably going to avoid 1 PP moves in most situations, right? And Sub and Protect and even Roost all have 2 PP. So if most people are using 2 PP moves and so are the Pressure stallers, how is it any different from higher PP? It'll just be 2 PP versus 2 PP instead of 16 PP versus 16 PP. And anyone using higher-PP moves has even less of a problem.

Yeah, you can stall out a foe entirely before you run out of HP. But on the other hand, every mispredict on your part is a pretty big hit. And as i've said before, it's not so hard to spin on a lot of SubTect users, or just set up many, many hazards on them. (And if you get enough hazards, it's even easier to spin!)

Edit: Okay, no PP up. So it's even less PP on Protect and Sub? Leppa+Recycle could be pretty common in this metagame.

 

[doughboy]

Tehy the ratio of PP is the same, but the amount of PP you have makes it completely different. If you have 16 pp, you still have 4 moves to be able to KO the oppnent with Sub and Protect. If you just had 3 PP you only have 1. A 4HKO vs a OHKO is very different. If you have a higher total amount of moves such as in a 16 pp metagame, even against a pressure stalller you have more total moves to KO an opponent. If you have less total PP, you have less total moves to KO the opponent with meaning you need 2HKO's or OHKO's. 3HKO's or 4HKO's would not be possible.

What is stopping me from running hazards on my own and running Taunt to prevent recycle/hazards? Toxic Spikes or Spikes paired with something like this:

Deoxys-D @ Leppa Berry
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Taunt
- Substitute
- Protect
- Agility / Night Shade

could dominate the game. To add to the madness, you can spinblock Starmie (the only spinner with recycle) with Spiritomb, which can Pursuit trap it. Even better would be with its Pressure ability you missing Hydro Pump and be completely lost with a way to deal with.

Also banning Pressure acts as a softban on many Pokemon, since it is their only released ability. Articuno, Zapdos, Raikou, Suicune, Dusclops, Dusknoir, and Kyurem would all be banned.