Secondly, now that I've had a closer look at the battle, I'm more convinced that the problem is the combination of Prankster, Power Lens and Tail Glow (with Baton Pass only hurting the case even more), rather than how stat boosters were treated in general in that battle. I mean, under the current system, a desperate player would resort to hax like accuracy-lowering moves anyway, and the Hone Claws was just an opportunistic manoeuvre not much different from "If he uses Protect, use Bulk Up". I would be curious to see if that system proved too strong for other stat boosters from Swords Dance and Calm Mind to Contrary Leaf Storm.
But since we want to get this over with, I'm not gonna push for another test.
I am glad that you now see one of the big reasons as to why I think a no decay ASB would be bad for the game. The fact that Volbeat can instantly hit +6 SpA & pass it off in a heartbeat to a bulky Special Attacker with some damaging recovery move is why you cannot let no decay into ASB (Cradily in particular comes to mind). The fact is, with the damaging recovery moves, the Pokémon can easily last long enough for decay to actually matter. This trinity, which was pretty much my brainchild, is designed to put so much pressure on the opponent to attempt to remove the boost—or the Pokémon—ASAP, since if you leave it too late, the Volbeat abuser will literally walk all over you so fast, that the phase attempt would count for nothing in the end. The trinity is balanced under the current system, imo, since decay means it will not last forever, & it means if you use it, you have to make the most of it through attacking & shit to make it worth the lost action(s). No decay will simply (be highly likely to) break this thing so hard that nerfing it to achieve balance would be a silly idea, because "We already had balance before decay was removed!"
Drastically increasing EN cost of moves like Tail Glow, Baton Pass, etc., is not going to solve the issue either. If you do not use Volbeat—or any other passer that you designated—for the rest of the battle, since your recipient ended up demolishing your opponent, then nothing has changed, & the supposed nerf we made is not really a nerf at all. If you have another way, then do bring it up, though we should wait until the vote is over before making any judgements.
As for the other strategies, They would not be as absurd as the Volbeat strategy, but still it is an effective buff. As I said before, Swoobat can afford to be more conservative with its Calm Mind + Stored Power strategy once it starts setting up, & can sponge special attacks effectively once fully set up for an extended period of time—Which would make putting boosts before the W/R multiplier even worse, because it would make SE moves that would walk all over it become even less powerful than having the boosts after the multiplier—as well as the obvious rip everything but Dark-Types to shreds with Stored Power. Serperior's Contrary Leaf Storm strategy would remain largely unchanged, but it still would not have to use Leaf Storm over & over again to maintain the boost, even though it would still use it anyway, because of its power. Swords Dance? Yeah well, that is another story. Time to find something that could break that move, lol.
About Deck's veto on stage boosts/nerfs before typing effectiveness:
I understand that support has shifted from changing it to before typing to retaining it at after typing, (though I'm not 100% sure about that), but given that Deck only "might" veto it, shouldn't it be fair that it is included in the slate as well? Just throwing it out...
Not exactly because of deck, but because of the aforementioned imbalance that it can cause in the game. I am not a fan of risk, but given what imbalance it can cause, I am not willing to risk ruining the balance of the game to buff stat boosters. I can give many examples, but yeah.
Potential Final Slate (After suggested alterations)
Vote #1
[box]
What should we do about decay in terms of stat boosters?
Retain the current decay system
Implement Its_A_Random's decay system
Implement Leethoof's decay system
Remove the decay system on any non-Accuracy/Evasion boosts and drops
Remove the decay system altogether[/box]
Vote #2 (Assuming this gets enough support, which is not guaranteed)
[box]
Should Spread reduction to stat boosts be applied to moves that target more than one Pokémon in a multi-battle?
Implement a 0.75× Spread reduction to stat boosts for moves that target more than one Pokémon
Do not implement a Spread reduction to stat boosts for moves that target more than one Pokémon[/box]
Vote #3
[box]
What should the ± increment number for Attack/Defense/Special Attack/Special Defense Boosts be?
1.5 DMG
1.75 DMG
2 DMG
2.5 DMG
3 DMG
What should we do in terms of the Speed stat & how the Speed Stage affects Speed?
Retain the current speed boosting system
Implement Engineer Pikachu's speed boosting system (+1 = 1.5×)
Implement Engineer Pikachu's speed boosting system (+1 = 1.75×)[/box]
As usual... Last thoughts...