How you would fix and/or balance the metagame for the next generation, and why?

[DrCrashMD]

I believe Dragon does need to be toned town a bit - only Steel resists it, and most Dragons that can utilize powerful Dragon attacks (most of them) carry Fire Blast or Earthquake to rememdy that. Ground/Dragon with good stats was a TERRIBLE decision, Nintendo. Please give us another Dragon resist.

I'm going to kill the next person to mention Flareon with Sacred Fire.

 

[ikke]

more rapid spin like moves

 

[Dragontamer]

Making Poison supereffective to Steel(well,poison isn't acid,but it can be considered,and acid can melt metal,don't?)

Amen. Steel can keep their immunity to Toxic, but Poison can be 2x effective, which would make Poison at least a somewhat useful attack >_>

 

[Dr.Traveler]

My thoughts:

1. Make Roost available to Empoleon, and Slack Off available to Snorlax.

Why: It creates some viable alternatives to Blissey for Special Walls. Blissey is overused because nothing else matches her.... these two simple switches would give us some alternatives to Blissey for a change. This is a change that could happen in the next cartridge for Gen 4... it doesn't have to wait. In the next Gen you can simply create new Special Walls to compete with Blissey.

2. Make Poison Super-Effective to Water, make Water Resist Dragon.
Why: This would have to wait until Gen 5, but it would make Water Types resurgent while still holding them in check. Water would resist dragons, and as most Water Types have access to an Ice Attack, the number of Dragon Counters would rise.

3. Lower the effectiveness of Evasion Enhancing effects.
Why: Easily changed by adjusting a math formula here or there in the program code, this would make Double Team and other moves relatively useless. That means we don't need the Evasion Clause. Evasion could still see use among players that want to "Play the Percentage", but the returns would be greatly diminished. Probably couldn't happen until Gen 5.

4. New Competitive Weather Effects, such as one keyed to Poison Types.
Why: Another attempt to increase the effectiveness of the Poison Type on my part. A "Poison Fog" weather type that acted negatively towards non-Steel, non-Poison Types, but had a "Leftovers Effect" for Poison types would go a long way towards helping out the type as a whole. This also would have to wait for Gen 5.

5. New and More Move Tutors to teach Elemental Punches, Fangs, Rapid Spin and other Utility Moves.
Why: In general, Utility Moves like Rapid Spin, Aromatherapy, Wish, etc, need to be passed around. More access to Elemental Punches and Fangs could help some pokemon. This could happen as early as the next Gen 4 Cartridge.

6. More Field Clearing Moves, or expand the usefulness of some moves by adding clearing obstacles or weather.
Why (And Specifics): Why doesn't Whirlwind Clear Spikes and Rocks? Why doesn't Defog clear Weather? Expanding existing moves to both clear weather and clear battle field obstacles would be a solid move on the part of Game Freak to help bring some control the the Sandstorm/Spikes/Rocks issues.

 

[ikke]

My thoughts:

1. Make Roost available to Empoleon, and Slack Off available to Snorlax.

Why: It creates some viable alternatives to Blissey for Special Walls. Blissey is overused because nothing else matches her.... these two simple switches would give us some alternatives to Blissey for a change. This is a change that could happen in the next cartridge for Gen 4... it doesn't have to wait. In the next Gen you can simply create new Special Walls to compete with Blissey.

2. Make Poison Super-Effective to Water, make Water Resist Dragon.
Why: This would have to wait until Gen 5, but it would make Water Types resurgent while still holding them in check. Water would resist dragons, and as most Water Types have access to an Ice Attack, the number of Dragon Counters would rise.

3. Lower the effectiveness of Evasion Enhancing effects.
Why: Easily changed by adjusting a math formula here or there in the program code, this would make Double Team and other moves relatively useless. That means we don't need the Evasion Clause. Evasion could still see use among players that want to "Play the Percentage", but the returns would be greatly diminished. Probably couldn't happen until Gen 5.

4. New Competitive Weather Effects, such as one keyed to Poison Types.
Why: Another attempt to increase the effectiveness of the Poison Type on my part. A "Poison Fog" weather type that acted negatively towards non-Steel, non-Poison Types, but had a "Leftovers Effect" for Poison types would go a long way towards helping out the type as a whole. This also would have to wait for Gen 5.

5. New and More Move Tutors to teach Elemental Punches, Fangs, Rapid Spin and other Utility Moves.
Why: In general, Utility Moves like Rapid Spin, Aromatherapy, Wish, etc, need to be passed around. More access to Elemental Punches and Fangs could help some pokemon. This could happen as early as the next Gen 4 Cartridge.

6. More Field Clearing Moves, or expand the usefulness of some moves by adding clearing obstacles or weather.
Why (And Specifics): Why doesn't Whirlwind Clear Spikes and Rocks? Why doesn't Defog clear Weather? Expanding existing moves to both clear weather and clear battle field obstacles would be a solid move on the part of Game Freak to help bring some control the the Sandstorm/Spikes/Rocks issues.

number 1 is awesome

 

[el_B]

A few points of theorymon..

- Pokémon alseep should automatically recover a small amount of HP at the end of each turn (1/16, like Leftovers?). Think of it, when you're asleep, you're "speeding up" your body's restoration. Also would make Sleep a (small) tad less powerful and additionally make Rest more viable again.

- Get rid of those auto-weather traits. Or atleast give them to lesser used Pokémon and make them last 5 turns only, but still, I prefer to get rid of auto-activating weather altogether (With the possible exception of ubers). Maybe change the standard duration of weather (or only Sandstorm / Hail) to seven turns.

- Stop giving every second Pokémon Stealth Rock. Seriously, if one field move is so overused, there must be a reason and in my opinion, only a few selected Pokémon should be able to set up Stealth Rock. And while we're at it, it should have its damage capped at 25%, taking a half of one unlucky (type-weise) Pokémon's HP when switching in makes them a tad useless.

- Stop creating 600 BaseStat-Pokémon with insane movepools and good stat distribution - or atleast make them story-"legends", so it's easier to promote a if needed, ban (I honestly think that the ability to catch and breed unlimited Tyranitars/Salamence/Metagross/Garchomps in one playthrough makes too many people not even consider them for banning.) 4x weaknesses are fine and all that stuff, but if those Pokémon are just overpowering their counters and actually have the defenses to take hits (sometimes including the 4x weakness), something went wrong.

- Add one or two resists to Dragon to the game. This does not really need explanation (I'm thinking about Fire and Ice resisting dragon, makes a little sense considering Gamefreak's general logic and upps both type's defensive values.)

- Poison should hit some things super-effective other than Grass. Atleast Bug or do you know a better way to get rid of a bug plague than some kind of poison?

- In-Game Sleep Clause and Freeze-Clause.

- I'd love to see some improved AI in the games, but in order to support that many turns consisting of switching and absorbing resisted attacks the battle system has to be sped up ingame.

 

[joshua]

give luvdisc drizzle. that'd be awesome. =]

Overall in the metagame I'd like more Support Pokemon and more choice of Special Walls (the roost on Empoleon idea sounds good that Dr.Traveller suggested). I'd love to see more Pokemon with mediocre stats, but great movepools and unique abilities like Clefable.

 

[CLegacyM]

Spikes should not do 12% after one layer. T_T

 

[Syberia]

I would give Snorlax Slack Off. Perhaps Swampert as well.

And change Zapdos/Moltres/Articuno's traits to Drizzle/Drought/Snow Warning. But have them only remain in effect for five turns once the particular pokemon has left the field.

Oh, and a physical Hidden Power clone would be nice too.

 

[AJC]

i don't know about a physcial hidden power clone mostly because its useless because 90% of the pokemon get a primary stab physcial move stronger than a hidden power 70 and those who don't generally have a secondary stab that falls under the above like gyarados and salamence (both lost HP fly from advance but got stronger stab in waterfall/aqua tail and dragon claw)

 

[Syberia]

Swords Dancing Skarmory wants its HP Ground back.

 

[Wichu]

Hehe, this will come in useful to the game I'm working on.
A couple of ideas: Poison should be SE on water and bug. Fire should resist Dragon. And Porygon-Z should become part Ghost, because it fits with the design.
Stealth Rock needs to be toned down a bit.
More interesting move effects would be nice, too.

 

[Syberia]

The maximum Stealth Rock should do is 25%. To 4x weak pokemon.

 

[Artillery]

Oh boy, the list could go on...

1. Make Blissey Weaker. We want to use more special walls other than the fat whore who loves everything but taunt-gyara in a 1-1 battle. What was said above(empoleon with roost and snorlax with slack off) make sence and decent additions. And give the pixies duel types or something that would make azelf have a crappy STAB(It's already good enough), Mespirit shine more compared to the other two, and Uxie a better tank. OR they could also evolve some OTHER pokemon that they shoved into deep dark hell from who knows where(I'm looking at you, stantler. There's no love for you) and make them better at ANYTHING(We are all watching luvdisc and plusle/minum at this very moment) instead of making them a gimick just for the anime.

2. If something isn't broken, don't make it close to broken (ahemT-tarandmetagrossahem) Yes, they are killable, yes they have counters, but few counters and aren't as balance as some other pokemon(Azelf, we're looking at you, yes you're strong, but pursuit makes you cry)

3. Make more Utilities. When's the last time you used a decent utility other than Baton/Wish passers and a Phazer/Rapid Spinner? Do something, like make more team-friendly moves or make whirlpool/fire spin/any other turn move with small damage get rid of stealth rocks/spikes/toxic spikes. And make sure the moves are more widely spread around. Not much gets rapid spin AND is fairly usable in OU/BL with some exceptions.

I could think of more but I got lazy

 

[Kira]

If they decide to stick with SW, and SS (weather abilities) they should make a non-uber drought/drizzle pokemon. Although I think it would make rain dance teams too powerful...

Also to the poster above... if anything they should make other special walls stronger. If they make Blissey weaker then we lose a valuable part of the metagame, and also keep the others at their current level then the amount of SP. Attackers will rise because special walls will be pretty crappy.

 

[Ash Borer]

I would really like to see, a roost and slack off on snorlax / empoleon

Defog removing weather and boosting acc. by 1 stage unlike gravity's 2, so gravity isn't nerfed.

A ground rapin spin so it can be protected against, but used effectively.

Drizzle / snow warning / drought on the 1st gen bird trio.

All the weather abilities nerfed to make it 5 turns after switching out and hail boosting ice moves.

and absolutlely NO evasion boosting items or abilities.

SR nerfed to 25% at 4x and spikes doing less than 12% after 1 layer.

 

[Taylor]

I will be reading alot more of this thread in time. I haven't too much time so I've skipped the pages of replies.

Personally, I want another metagame like R/S/E OU. Being able to use Stall very, very effectively is always good for experience and learning to predict. Unfortunatly, we can't have a metagame like that due to the danger of being set-up against and being un-prepared. Life Orb helped the Pokemon and their nudge towards defensive Pokemon like Cressilia so they could eventually OHKO after a few turns. Imagine Cressilia in R/S/E OU, lol?

With that aside, I like those teams that are built with no regrets, no backfires and no counters, teams that can open up one's team in a beginning turn, a team that can hit so hard when built with pure offense. Yes, we know DP takes the cake for the name "Offensive Metagame". Or, is it just the name for "Most Offensive Metagame"?

You can't really take away what we have, so you must add to what we've got. That would be to give us more defensive Pokemon, still with draw-backs but with the ability to take on a few common threats without losing to a un-pretictable set.

Is it easy, or is it impossible?

 

[Kira]

I want SR weakened, but I dont believe spikes should be. It should remain 25% after all 3 layers because it is a lot harder to set up and it fails to hit flyers. SR should be lowered to a max of 25%

Plus I use a team geared towards T-spikes/Spikes (both, but I dont use SR for some reason), and I dont think they should be nerfed. Any Spinner can defeat it easily and if you neglect to bring a spinner than that is your own fault.

 

[Darkflagrance]

give luvdisc drizzle. that'd be awesome. =]

Overall in the metagame I'd like more Support Pokemon and more choice of Special Walls (the roost on Empoleon idea sounds good that Dr.Traveller suggested). I'd love to see more Pokemon with mediocre stats, but great movepools and unique abilities like Clefable.

Luvdisc -> Brokendisc, the rejected pokemon

Evolve Luvdisc by making it hate you and releasing it in a special zone.

Base Stats: No change from Luvdisc
Ability: Drizzle

This pokemon never sees the sun. It is perpetually shrouded by thunderclouds. It is said that its eyes never stop shedding tears, and to taste its tear will bring on a long-lasting depression.

Edit:

i don't know about a physcial hidden power clone mostly because its useless because 90% of the pokemon get a primary stab physcial move stronger than a hidden power 70 and those who don't generally have a secondary stab that falls under the above like gyarados and salamence (both lost HP fly from advance but got stronger stab in waterfall/aqua tail and dragon claw)

It would help things like Fearow, Raticate, Azelf, and other (admittedly generally useless or outclassed in OU) Pokemon who have decent attack stats but crappy movepools.

 

[buddha_the_god]

Dr. Traveller: I really liked your idea of adding another weather effect, I'd love to see that actually.

I wonder if there could be a type that's immune to rock, so you could switch it in on SR much like Ghosts on spikes.

 

[chip_the_fox]

i want freeze to last at least 1 turn because its a pain to get the lucky freeze hax and then just to watch them defrost the same turn

 

[RBG]

Dr. Traveller: I really liked your idea of adding another weather effect, I'd love to see that actually.

I wonder if there could be a type that's immune to rock, so you could switch it in on SR much like Ghosts on spikes.

I think you mean flying, ever switched a Spirtomb into spikes?

 

[Bourbon]

My thoughts:

1. Make Roost available to Empoleon, and Slack Off available to Snorlax.

Why: It creates some viable alternatives to Blissey for Special Walls. Blissey is overused because nothing else matches her.... these two simple switches would give us some alternatives to Blissey for a change. This is a change that could happen in the next cartridge for Gen 4... it doesn't have to wait. In the next Gen you can simply create new Special Walls to compete with Blissey.

2. Make Poison Super-Effective to Water, make Water Resist Dragon.
Why: This would have to wait until Gen 5, but it would make Water Types resurgent while still holding them in check. Water would resist dragons, and as most Water Types have access to an Ice Attack, the number of Dragon Counters would rise.

3. Lower the effectiveness of Evasion Enhancing effects.
Why: Easily changed by adjusting a math formula here or there in the program code, this would make Double Team and other moves relatively useless. That means we don't need the Evasion Clause. Evasion could still see use among players that want to "Play the Percentage", but the returns would be greatly diminished. Probably couldn't happen until Gen 5.

4. New Competitive Weather Effects, such as one keyed to Poison Types.
Why: Another attempt to increase the effectiveness of the Poison Type on my part. A "Poison Fog" weather type that acted negatively towards non-Steel, non-Poison Types, but had a "Leftovers Effect" for Poison types would go a long way towards helping out the type as a whole. This also would have to wait for Gen 5.

5. New and More Move Tutors to teach Elemental Punches, Fangs, Rapid Spin and other Utility Moves.
Why: In general, Utility Moves like Rapid Spin, Aromatherapy, Wish, etc, need to be passed around. More access to Elemental Punches and Fangs could help some pokemon. This could happen as early as the next Gen 4 Cartridge.

6. More Field Clearing Moves, or expand the usefulness of some moves by adding clearing obstacles or weather.
Why (And Specifics): Why doesn't Whirlwind Clear Spikes and Rocks? Why doesn't Defog clear Weather? Expanding existing moves to both clear weather and clear battle field obstacles would be a solid move on the part of Game Freak to help bring some control the the Sandstorm/Spikes/Rocks issues.

Wouldn't it be nicer if ICE resisted dragon? It doesn't have ANY resistances yet. Other than that, I agree. But the Regis need a unique recovery move; maybe it could restore 33%, and restore status too; it'd be as good as Rest theoretically (ie, how long it takes to heal you) but you wouldn't need two moveslots.

 

[chip_the_fox]

Wouldn't it be nicer if ICE resisted dragon? It doesn't have ANY resistances yet. Other than that, I agree. But the Regis need a unique recovery move; maybe it could restore 33%, and restore status too; it'd be as good as Rest theoretically (ie, how long it takes to heal you) but you wouldn't need two moveslots.

ice resists ice :)

maybe on the regis but that rest is only good recovering if damage is less then 33%

___________

we need a move called implosion with 2 possible effects
1) heals your whole party with a %age of its total imploded pokemon's hp ad then your pokemon faints
(if and only if opponent uses explosion (& maybe self destruct)) takes no damage, doesnt heal party, your pokemon doesn't faint, your opponent's pokemon doesn't faint, and all pp of these 2 moves is lost

2)(possible + priority move) you lose 20%-30% health and all damage done by opponent's pokemon becomes healing for this turn only

 

[Deck Knight]

How would I balance the Metagame? Short of banning all the Base 600s:

1. Better Special attacks for Normal and Rock.

I'm sorry, but Tri Attack is rare, Hyper Voice is even rarer, and Hyper Beam is setup bait. Power Gem is a joke, the only rock type that gets it is Corsola (Yes, it exists!) Ancientpower is a poor gamble with 8 Max PP and 60 BP.

Why shouldn't there be some kind of no-effect 90 BP special normal move with about 20PP? Porygon-Z might get marginally improved?

Puhleeze. Just name it Normal Wave or something. It might bite on most of the lowish SA normals, but it will give Blissey, Girafarig, Stantler, and Clefable something more to work with.

Rock really needs a standard special move. Even yet another rehash of Psychic or Shadow Ball would be fine. Tyranitar, Omastar, Lunatone, Magcargo, Cradily, and Probopass will thank you (also likely Flygon and Claydol). Special Rock has a lot of potential in it.

2. Make the Haban Berry Reduce dragon attacks regardless of weakness/resistance. Increase Outrage to always 3 turns. In other words it would have the same effect as the anti-normal berry, and make Outrage an even more risky strategy by making it always last 3 turns. This would be better than something inane like giving Water of all things a Dragon resist. Waters are already powerful enough, if you must make something arbitrarily resist Dragon, make it Poison. Pretty soon Weezing would be everywhere again.

3. More Rapid Spinners.

Yeah, this is a big one. They made a two brand new kind of spikes but only granted Rapid Spin to old pokemon. I wouldn't go so far as making it a tutor or a TM, but at least open up the breeding pool to it.

4. Tutors

Just the old GSC and RBY move ones from Emerald for DP Pokemon. Rivalry Nidos with punches plox. Also Body Slam and DE Luxray.

And of course, Seismic Tossing CharmBliss >_>

And please, don't give Snorlax Slack Off. It's powerful enough already.