We got 7 responses to the survey, 6 of which played in the tournament, which is a little lower than last year but still certainly enough to help us decide the tier's next steps!
Average - 8.00/10
It seems that people have really enjoyed playing Megas Revisited with a stellar 8/10 average, being a full point above what it was last year, which I'm extremely happy to see!
Average - 6.71/10
The competitiveness rating was quite a bit lower than the fun rating, but still slightly higher than last year's (6.11/10), so it seems that the changes we've made ever since PMPL III have taken the tier in the right direction but there's still room to grow in terms of balancing.
Average - 3.29/5
Mega Gallade has been a menace for awhile now, thanks to its great Speed tier combined with its immense power, solid typing, solid bulk, and amazing movepool. With all of that at its disposal, it's unsurprising that some action is wanted on it, so expect something to come of that.
Average - 2.57/5
Mega Sharpedo has been highly divisive ever since its potential was discovered back when Megas Revisited had a ladder last year, as it's extremely hard to take on defensively due to its combination of high-powered No Guard-boosted moves + 145 SpA + a Speed boost from before it Megas, making it a ridiculous cleaner in the right circumstances. However, it seems the playerbase is pretty split on whether action is needed on it. It's still in the range where the council will still take nerfing it into serious consideration, but that's all I can say for it.
Are there any other Megas or other elements in the metagame that you feel that we should look at?
We got a pretty wide range of responses to this question, but all of them were pretty understandable aside from one. These included:
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Mega Blaziken - Extremely hard to punish defensively due to its power and numerous tools to get around counterplay (namely Regen)
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Mega Glalie - I thought I was going crazy when nobody used the the 160 Attack Gen 6 Refrigerate mon with 90 SpA -ate Burst, so I'm glad someone mentioned it at least. Even with all of that, I suppose it still competes with the faster and more consistent Metagross.
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Mega Pinsir - This was the one I was surprised to see because every new person I see get into Megas Revisited avoids Pinsir like the plague because it's too weird looking, but it has always had a pretty insane toolkit even after it got nerfed way back when. I wouldn't personally say it's broken but it's very good.
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There are too many good ones in general - This response specifically named a few (Sableye, Tyranitar, Camerupt, some vanilla guys) but generally just felt that there are too many good Megas that crowd out the less viable options, which I can definitely see. You could see in the PMPL usage stats that a ton of different Megas were used, but for a metagame that tries to have every Mega be viable (as kinda unrealistic as that might be) there were still about half of them that weren't used. Whether this is a matter of nerfing some of the stronger Megas or buffing the bad ones even further is up for debate.
Speaking of potentially buffing bad stuff,
What Megas do you think are the worst? If you have any, do you have any ideas for how they could be buffed or if you think they should even be buffed?
Got an even wider variety of responses for this, with some very unexpected answers but mostly ones I agree with to some degree.
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Mega Diancie - Mentioned twice, while I don't think it's terrible, the fact that it's basically same as vanilla Diancie, one of the best Megas in ORAS, but with a significantly worse ability definitely makes it extremely unappealing.
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Mega Blaziken - Yeah this was mentioned as both one of the potentially broken Megas and one of the worst, this is truly the duality of man.
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Mega Absol - Despite a very solid offensive profile, Absol has always been just a bit too weak and slow to justify spending your Mega slot on something so frail.
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Mega Lopunny - This is the second year in a row where someone said that Lopunny was one of the worst Megas and while last year I brushed it off as a joke since Lopunny was in a great spot in the meta back then, this year I feel like they might have a bit of a point. Like, Lopunny is still a top tier Mega, but Gallade and especially Blaziken have given it some newfound competition that have made it worse than it's ever been before, at least compared to regular ORAS.
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Mega Charizard X - Definitely the worst of the unchanged Megas, though that's a high bar, but the response mostly focused on how it doesn't make sense for it to have Calm Mind because it would never run a Special set, so I do want to note that it has Calm Mind because it was given to Charizard Y to buff it and both Charizard gain the same moves, so yeah.
Though, I mean, if you want me to give Charizard Grass Knot and Draco Meteor to make Special Zard X usable I migh do it...
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Mega Salamence - Ridiculous statline but its Rock-weak typing, meh Speed tier, and reliance on Hurricane make it really hard to justify using, while DDance sets are done better by Zard X.
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Mega Beedrill - Also mentioned twice and very understandable, even through a bunch of buffs over the years, Beedrill is still really hard to justify using over better bulky Megas since it's fairly passive, has a poor typing, and an extreme case of 4MSS.
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Mega Steelix - Steelix had a lot of hype at one point when it initially got Flash Fire, since it was and still is so insanely hard to kill, but it does face a ton of competition from the similar Mega Aggron, who is basically equally as unkillable and has pivoting and also Leftovers, plus sharing its typing and Rapid Spin with tier king Excadrill also sucks.
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Mega Lucario - I've heard pretty mixed feelings on this one, as on one hand it's ridiculously fast for a setup sweeper and has a decent enough typing and bulk to get those boosts, but on the other hand you either have to choose between using Swords Dance off of its middling Attack stat or having to rely on Focus Blast hitting for Nasty Plot sets, along with competition from other Fighting Megas.
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Mega Medicham - I love this mon but yeah I get why it's down here, having to rely on Focus Blast sucks and its special movepool is significantly worse than the physical movepool that vanilla Medicham gets to work with while the significantly higher bulk isn't actually that significant, making it really hard to use.
- Also shared was the general sentiment that a lot bad Megas aren't actually bad, just outclassed by many of the better Megas, echoing the statement of there being too many good Megas from before.
Other comments
The one interesting comment I wanted to note here is one commenting on how the metagame doesn't feel like a Pet Mod sometimes since you can easily get away with using vanilla ORAS teams due to Metagross and Lopunny still being so good. This was something I asked about on last year's community survey, where respondents were pretty split on if the presence of vanilla Megas was a good thing or not. While I've personally always felt that they're a net positive, I do agree that it's kinda lame that some games just end up being ORAS if both players bring vanilla Megas. The solution for this last year was to buff some of the weaker Megas up to the level of the good vanilla Megas, which worked a bit given how many different Megas were used during PMPL, but evidently not enough as Metagross ended up being so common. Potentially buffing worse Megas, or nerfing what they're outclassed by, will hopefully continue to make the vanilla Megas less ubiquitous, but nerfing them ("them" as in Metagross, mostly) is always an option, though one I currently feel unlikely to pursue.
How likely would you be to participate in room tournaments or a forum tournament for Megas Revisited? (assuming the tournaments were at an optimal time for you)
Respondents generally seemed interested in playing in tournaments for Megas Revisited, which I'm glad to hear. I have some tentative plans for tournaments in the near future, so please keep an eye out for those!
Probable Mega Gallade Nerf
Other Possible Balance Changes (both nerfs and buffs)
More tournaments
Updated resources (namely making a real Viability Rankings) - this had nothing to do with the survey but it does need to be said, the fact we still don't have an actual VR considering the amount of play we've been blessed with compared to most other Pet Mods is insane lmao