Resource BBP Balance and Play Experience Watchlist

Early patch balance predictions!
Lets see what takes I can have that are laughably wrong in hind sight.


1. Combos will be very strong
Unrestricting what moves can combo and letting comboes change effect chance allow for some disgusting moves.
For example:
  • dire claw + pop bomb (due to dire claw dodging the en number tweaks)
  • zap cannon + silver wind
  • poison gas + hypnosis (in doubles especially!)
  • perish song + mean look
  • belly drum + coaching
  • fake tears + acid spray
  • rockslide + inferno
First order combos might be the best tech use in the game now. I think in pvp they will at the very least overshadow non unique dynamax and z-moves, but maybe the best megas and tech mon are still better.

That is talking about singles. In doubles combos are almost certainly better than megas and tech mon. Imagine getting hit by inferno + rockslide (charizard, it is your time to shine) and being double flinched, double burned.

Winners: Honestly a lot of pokemon? maybe ones that are more damage focused so they can complete their kills before en koing. Mon with small move pools get a surprising amount of value by combos being unlocked. For example raging bolt upgrades their previous lackluster combo pool with zap cannon + ancient power. Probably movepool monsters like mew, I have not looked yet but there must be something crazy in there.

2. Free tech mon will be very strong
With comboes being this potent, getting a free second order combo is really powerful. The spinda's and shuckles of the world are likely to inflict some really nasty blow outs. It is very hard to sub vs 6 distinct combos on top of ordinary moves.

Winners: Already strong free tech mon and probably whichever free tech mon are eventually found to have the silliest combos. Shuckle, Spinda, Butterfree, Salazzle, Dewgong.

3. EN ko meta might be back
Pulling in the opposite direction from the strength of combos, it might be quite common now for mon to faint on en while still having a lot of hp remaining.
How many mon can really kill a dusknoir with pressure, leftovers and the ability to spam rest or pain split.
There is also a very "funny" en stall line where you press rest and DO NOT sleep talk, allowing you to pass your next 2 turns without spending any en at all, for an average of 1 en/turn.
I think a large number of mon would not be able to kill a lefties/rest dusknoir healing for 40 hp per round before they run out of en themselves and faint.

An example with a less extreme pokemon than dusknoir/shuckle.
slowbro typing slack off ~ chill is healing 12.5 per step and losing 1.5 en.
If an opponent is doing 20 damage for 3 en, which sounds above average, they are doing 7.5 damage per step and will do 75 damage before en koing themselves. If slowbro has lefties then they are doing 4.2 damage per step and would need something like 70 en to defeat slowbro.

Winners: Dusknoir, shuckle, toxapex etc. You guys know the drill.

4. The new incenses are cool and will see a lot of play
For a lot of mon this is a +3 item with some amount of additional upside on top of it. Especially with choice item nerfs a lot of items will not be better than +3, and while the exact value of the global rule portion of incenses is hard to evaluate, it should be at least neutral to positive in general.

The best users are mon that are either bad offensively or defensively but not both (and who can reach at least 6 in their stats). For pure incense vs lucky egg if you have at least 6 stats in everything I guess it ends up pretty simliar (unless you are actually higher than your opponent in some stat), but I do worry that for someone like furret pure incense is actually going to be quite mid in a lot of match ups. It practically guarentees that your opponent will have a 1-2 stat point advantage when attacking you.

These items are likely to make sources of bonus proof and penalty proof better. Especially for people who might want to use pure incense.

Winners: rampardos, alakazam, tapex, xatu, wailord.

5. Switching and phasing will be commonly clicked in matches
The changes make both of them very powerful (though phasing is held back by costing an incredible 6 en) and they have probably be pushed into viability.

Winners: There is no shot I know all mon with fazing and switching. Golisopod? swampert? kitsunoh? idk
 
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okay fine i'll paste from the discord to here. is that enough

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Looking back at this after having played league
1. Combos will be very strong
Mixed! Combos are very strong, but they definitely have counter play in how people play and which mon they pick. I was unable to spend all my tech due to fort bringing a mon that had magic guard and was para immune, + tormenting me.
In general I think I was assuming there would be 3-4 relevant combos the opponent would be scared of in each match up and it is probably closer to 1-2 which makes subbing around combos easier than I expected.
I will be redoing some of my combos to have more in the format "good move I want to click 1 + good move I want to click 2" so that I am less vulnerable to people bringing mon that naturally blank the more degenerate things combos can try and do with statuses and stat drops.

2. Free tech mon will be very strong
Mixed! This is heavily related to how strong and reliable combos are. I still believe combos are strong and free tech is strong for enabling them, but between opposing counterplay and en constraints I think it is unreliable to resolve more than 2 combos in a match, so free tech must be matched with tech spenders in order to truly shine. A line up like: "mega, tech mon, free tech mon" could be strong going forwards

3. EN ko meta might be back
Mixed! I think my initial prediction was correct, but en constraints have been loosened up twice since my initial post.
The current state of en is that it is very likely to come up, but less damaging when it does than I initially expected. That said I think the largest throw in my current league match was me ko'ing my own houndoom by accidentally spending 10en instead of 9, so it is very much something players must watch for going forwards.

4. The new incenses are cool and will see a lot of play
New incenses played in my league game.... 0. Oops!
I still believe they can be strong, but it looks like players have considered them less flexible or powerful than other options.
Leftovers, weakness policy, enigma berry and heavy duty boots remains strong.
Covert cloak and eject button are big winners of the patch.
In general consumables might be stronger on this patch due to the buffs to pivoting increasing how fast you can cycle through your mon.
All this being said, my spinda would have greatly preferred to be holding pure incense vs the opposing ursaluna or gigalith instead of leftovers, and this would likely have come out if they didn't need boots to deal with stealth rock.

5. Switching and phasing will be commonly clicked in matches
My league match had 1 use of roar, one attempted use of eject button and a lot of uses of trapping.
Trapping might remain the king of match up control due to giving up far less damage than the other options and switching no longer locking the opponent in play when used as first order.
In general I think the combo changes might have made choosing match up more powerful. Some mon will have powerful combos they are happy to jam into particular opponents even when first ordering (for example fang combos). Some mon will be able to blank their opponents combos. Having to choose your combos before hand makes it more common that your combo moves reflect your stab types.
Phasing is expensive but getting second order while disrupting your opponent seems as good as expected.
Switching is certainly interesting but is a bit worse than I expected. If you switch to bring in a mon with second order, your opponent can choose their opponent AND you cannot counter swap under the new rules. While second ordering is good, it isn't clear quite how much you want to pay to gain it while also losing all control of the match up.
 
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I am not a huge fan of how much tracking sheer cold and guillotine add in their current form, where healing or using a combo on round 1 can ko your pokemon 8 rounds and multiple switches later.

It asks you to track the move pool of every single opposing mon and keep it in consideration the whole time, when no ref has ever added total healing done or number of combos a particular mon has used to the end of round summary.

Also guillotine is an insane move. If you ever type a healing move or use enigma berry you die from 40-50 hp.
Sheer cold is more controllable and normally kills from 30hp since 2 tech is rarer and much more "your fault" if it happens.
 
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:ss/groudon:
I think Groudon is significantly stronger than other available options for spending 1 Tech, to the point where 2 Tech is closer to the fair cost.
Specifically, I think it is meaningful to compare it to Reshiram and Kyogre, being "the other Tech-cost big stat fire type" and "the other Pokemon that is theoretically its mirror", as well as some comments on Groudon in isolation.

Groudon's coverage is egregious
Here are a list of types with double-digit BAP attacks that each of the three has, with any more situational ones that I don't feel should count in parentheses in case you disagree.

Groudon: Fire (Heat Crash), Ground (Precipice Blades), Grass (Solar Beam), Normal (Giga Impact), Rock (Stone Edge), Steel (Heavy Slam) (Fighting (Focus/Dynamic Punches))
Kyogre: Water (Hydro Pump), Ground (Earthquake), Ice (Blizzard), Electric (Thunder), Normal (Hyper Beam)
Reshiram: Dragon (Draco Meteor), Fire (Blue Flare), Grass (Solar Beam), Normal (Hyper Beam) (Fighting (Focus Blast), Rock (Stone Edge))
(I was willing to count Stone Edge off of Groudon's 11 Atk but not off of Reshiram's 9 (or usually 8) Atk.)

Not only does Groudon have more coverage than the others, it's significantly better quality, with every move listed except Stone Edge being 12+ BAP, whereas we're listing things like "Earthquake off the wrong offensive stat" for other mons.
You could debate that Solar Beam shouldn't count, but with 12 BAP and perhaps the best possible coverage type, I would disagree.

Specifically, Groudon covers its own weaknesses
The following are the weaknesses of each of these Pokemon:
Groudon - Grass, Ice, Water
Kyogre - Electric, Grass
Reshiram - Dragon, Ground, Rock
At first, this looks about even; perhaps we'd even say Groudon has the worst defensive typing.

But you are going to have a very difficult time sending a Grass- or Ice- type to fight Groudon; both are weak to Heat Crash, Groudon's strongest offensive move in most case. With average-ish defenses (7 Def and 3 WC), you're looking at (6 + 3 + 12 - 3)*1.5 = 27 from Heat Crash; even with extremely charitable offensive stats (12 SpA STAB Ice Beam; you can't use Blizzard effectively in Sun) you won't be racing that - (12 + 3 + 9 - 7)*1.5 = 26; and you are very unlikely to have 12 SpA and 7 Def on your Ice-type.
Even Water-types only perform okay; Solar Beam with Groudon's usual -SpA nature may not be impressive coverage, often dealing only 18 or so, but the -3 power from Sun means that an "average" Water-type (9 SpA Surf) will do only (9 + 3 - 3 + 9 - 7)*1.5 = 17 in return.

This means Groudon's only "real" weaknesses are a slower Rain-setter or egregious Water attackers.

Meanwhile, the only SE coverage Reshiram has against a Ground-type is a Solar Beam (without Drought to set Sun), and Kyogre's best option against an Electric-type is Earthquake off of a likely 6 Atk. These are much weaker options, and most players should be able to field a counter to these Ubers.

Weight moves are the strongest general-purpose attacks in the game
Heat Crash and Heavy Slam have a BAP of 6 + weight difference; for Groudon's WC of 12, this means 18 - enemy weight.
The lower weight classes are far more common than the higher ones - around 25% of FE Pokemon have a WC of 2 or less, nearly half are 3 or less, and over 90% are 6 or less - so these attacks will be 15+ BAP quite often, and 12+ almost always.
However, unlike other extremely powerful attacks like Blast Burn (costing 6), these only cost 3 EN. Even Solar Beam, with only 12 BAP, costs 4 EN.
There's not much else to say here; these moves mean that Groudon often is doing 5+ more damage than you'd expect from just looking at his stats.

Drought is a premier ability
This is maybe the least egregious part of the mon, but it's specifically relevant to the Reshiram comparison: Mold Breaker is only a mediocre ability in BBP, great in some matchups and completely useless in many more, whereas Drought is one of the strongest "normal" abilities in the game, granting +3 and -3 power modifiers exactly where Groudon would want them. (A reasonable argument can be made that it's even better than Drizzle, as Drizzle's -3 to fire is a type you already resist.)
There are no other Pokemon that have Drought without paying a significant cost; Malaconda's 7/5/3/9 statline is perhaps the best you can get, and that helps everyone hit you with SE Fire attacks.

Groudon doesn't pay for this in utility
This is more of an afterthought, but it's worth explicitly noting that Groudon's utility movepool is respectable. Compared to Kyogre, it gets Rock Polish, Spikes, Stealth Rock, Swords Dance*, and Will o' Wisp, losing only Aqua Ring. These aren't insane, but it means that if for some reason its plan A of "I have big numbers" can't work, it can likely find three valuable actions before switching out. (Reshiram vs Groudon on utility is a close call, with Reshiram getting powerful defensive moves at the cost of many of the offensive moves.)
(*Kyogre does not have Nasty Plot. Both Pokemon have Bulk Up/Calm Mind as appropriate.)

Potential Solutions
I expect Groudon would still deserve to see competitive play at the moment at 2 Tech - but I don't know how true that would be if other Ubers and Megas become widespread. (It'd be very funny to make it "2 Tech, but free tech", as a 1.5-ish Tech option, but I'm not sure that's design space we wish to explore.)
If this were too much, a nerf to the weight moves would likely only have Stakataka as collateral damage, and at least it has Body Press to remain usable.
Unfortunately, nerfing Sun/Drought would likely hurt other users (such as Ninetales) much more than Groudon, and I don't think anything else would particularly matter.
 
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This league is helping me articulate why I do not like the current version of chill despite liking the other changes to en.
The current version of chill was designed to stop stall, but it actually encourages stall by punishing players for being stalled instead of punishing players for stalling.

I currently have a full hp raichu with 1 en. They have 15 attack and 14 spA + 1 spA boost and have only clicked attacks the whole game including a feint to stop themselves being stalled by protect. They are now functionally dead after only doing about 1 pokemon worth of damage despite my opponent never bothering to attack them because if I chill I do not gain enough en to take another attack and I also do 25 damage to myself.
In return prismat got to set up 2 hazards and get value from a spidops that had no ability to click a move other than "protect" or "endure" without dying.

The current chill punishes you for being at full life and thus incentivizes opponents to take non attacking actions if your en is low. The current chill has very awkward windows to be clicked, since it does little unless you are under 10 en the first time and at practically 0 en the second. This gives a lot of opportunities for the opponent to force you to trade en by clicking protect, endure or similar moves.

The current chill does not make it harder for players to stall. If your opponent is trying to attack you then it is easy to find times where you have lost at least 25hp and have used up 20 en clicking defensive moves.


Over all I would greatly prefer if chills themselves ended up more similar to the old system. Something like "chill gives 6 en, 3 uses per pokemon." so that every Pokemon actually has an answer to opponents mashing protect or endure to waste your en.
 
Saving this table for later reference. I'd like to refresh this thread in the next week.

Balance and Play Experience Watchlist
The following pieces have been found to be possibly harmful to serious PvP:​
WatchedPleasing FeaturesConcerning Features
:mew:
Mew​
1. Offers a fantasy of versatility and game mastery.
2. Now only ever brings a sane, answerable number of moves to a battle.		1. If dominant, 115 is the (rather high) meta Speed to beat, rather than 80-92.
2. Selection mechanic incentivizes discarding the most interesting moves Mew learns, in favor of workhorse moves.
3. 15 moves per level may prove still oppressive, or may prove non-viable. Unknown without field experience.
:weavile:
Torment​
1. This move now has clear moments of power and of weakness.
2. The delay in partial effect means that opponents can order mostly normally until Torment is used; but must be cautious with combos when Torment is present.		1. The effect being partially immediate, and partially delayed, may cause confusion.
2. The move may prove rather weak even when used; when it should exert pressure to switch and switch soon.
:lanturn:
Absorbing Abilities​
1. The capacity to self-trigger means they're not completely inert in BBP.1. They currently trigger from non-attacks, which is attractive to players in the same smelly way that becoming damage-immune is. This complicates any work done to non-attacks of the relevant types.
2. The timing at which they trigger is poor (that is, they there's no good way to make them trigger "When the user would have been hit"), leading to non-intuitive interactions.
3. Tying them to the Recovery ecosystem was necessary but left them mostly unexciting as a result.
:choice scarf:
Choice Scarf​
1. Offers long-lasting speed control to non-archetypal teams.
2. Broadening subs is an interesting tool to offer.		1. The item has memory issues and has resulted in many blowouts, due to its strict sub illegality.
:normalium-z:
Z-Moves​
1. Allows investment of Tech into a single user.1. Spending lots of Tech early makes it simpler to drive a match to a controlled finish. We would prefer if matches did not often devolve into races to spend Tech first.
2. If this proves to be viable, but not dominant, we will remove this entry.
:lucky egg:
Lucky Egg​
1. Helps players get excited for low-statted Pokemon.
2. Lends common relevance to Penalty-Proof in particular.
3. Excels in offensive and defensive roles.		1. For every low-statted or even medium-statted Pokemon, this item is often regarded as their best-in-slot.
2. Disproportionately rewards Pokemon for having all of their stats in HP.
3. Even for Pokemon with heaps of stats, they still sometimes slot this item for a free +3 to their lowest rank.
4. Excels in offensive and defensive roles at once.
5. Further diminishes the relevance of ranks, when smaller Pokemon can get a massive injection of ranks from one item.
:metal powder:
Ditto Powders​
1. Now offer flexibility of use to Mew and Necturna, while favoring Ditto.
2. No longer scale exclusively with the stats of the Pokemon being transformed into. They should now play nicely with custom arenas, PvE, and so on.		1. The degree to which they favor Ditto over other holders may be too small.
2. Malleable Powder may cause rules confusion down the line.
:reuniclus:
Manual Switching​
1. It's difficult to call this a "feature". Changing the matchup is a fundamental feature of the game.
2. We want players to skillfully manage their reserve and jockey with each other for field presence. Cost-free switching enables that to some degree.		1. Because it happens in its own special phase, and spends nothing; the only potential cost of manually switching is having to order first in your prefered matchup.
2. Instead, counterswitching and counter-Tera incur a heavy cost: Having to order first.
:archaludon:
Archaludon​
1. It's nice to have a public enemy whose win condition isn't "players literally give up reading its moves and quit BBP."2. It accrues stat stages with little cost. Defense stages just from being hit, and Sp.Atk stages just from using its strongest attacks.

Some interesting entries in this table, in an archaeological sense, aren't there?

I'm overall pleased that players seem to be rolling with the punches that come their way in a given patch. Players have learned to adapt to new combination rules and have started identifying what they should and should not be combining.

Overall, League Circuit is in an aggressive place, but not unplayably so. Players are reaching for Pokemon that can try to steal turns in various ways and leaving aside Pokemon who can't. Because Pokemon can currently gain a lot of type-affected damage (from Choice Band and Choice Specs), it's hard to play slower weakness-riddled Pokemon in seriousness, even if they have bulky statlines.


This table format is all well and good, but I think I would like more freedom to just write for a given entry. I'll think on what I find easiest to work on; and maybe invite the mod team to weigh in with their own balance concerns.

I think it's fine if this thread takes a backseat in the schedule, especially if balance work isn't our current priority. This thread sat aside while we did work on Raid first, and Safari second. If we have to undergo a long period of structural work (adjusting rules and venues instead of balance) I would expect this thread to languish in the meantime, just as it has done now.
 
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Took me a day longer than I had expected, but here's your new Watchlist for the split.


:choice band::choice specs:
Choice Band and Choice Specs
These items are contributing to a volatile, high-damage environment. They outperform most competing damage items, and make weaknesses and low Speed a greater liability than they should be.

This contributes to many seemingly-unconnected player concerns:
  • Players have expressed concern about Flinch combos, but the skipped turn matters more when Pokemon don't survive in play as long as they should.
  • Pokemon who feature low offenses but high BAP on their attacks look silly when other Pokemon can do similar damage low-power coverage such as Crunch.
  • Pokemon with high bulk but many weaknesses, such as :tyranitar:Tyranitar or :kyurem:Kyurem, have their bulk undermined. The only currently-valued way to be bulky is to minimize weaknesses, contraining choice.
Expected Remedy: It may finally be time for the multiplier on these items to be reduced, or replaced with a flat increase. Various attempts at sculpting a balanced restriction have failed to address the issue. Players will willingly endure basically any restriction to defeat their opponent a step sooner.​
​
As a result of this damage decrease, I'm interested in new and easier-to-remember restrictions. The current restriction is appropriately lenient for a weaker version of these items, but annoying to track.​

:swoobat:
Boosting Combos
Like Choice Band and Choice Specs above, combinations that increase offensive stages by 2 are currently causing Pokemon to fall over much sooner than they are expected to.

However, it's unclear if these combinations alone would be out of line. They are currently being used with Choice items, and they do cost a precious Technique Control. They also provide untyped damage, meaning they don't specifically make Pokemon with many weaknesses unviable, like Choice items do.

Expected Remedy: None at this time. These combinations will likely remain on the watchlist after Choice items are actioned.​
​
If they remain too good even after Choice items are actioned, certain boosting moves will have to be made CL: Banned.​

:smeargle:
Triple Combos
Players have theorycrafted certain Triple Combos that seem frightening in theory. Most are pie-in-the-sky Population Bomb brews, but Triple Combos consisting of two stage-increasing moves and an attack seem both boring and terribly effective.

Expected Remedy: None at this time. It remains to be seen if other ways to spend Technique Control wither and die as Triple Combos become more widely available.​
​
If they prove to be oppressive, the first thing I would prefer to try is to make them cost more Energy than regular Combos. If that fails, I'm willing to make players combine only two components from their "Triple" Combo slot, such that the unlock essentially acts as extra Combo Slots. I would like to avoid having to resort to this, as it is terribly boring.​

:golduck:
Golduck
Currently, this Pokemon can hold Pure Incense to have virtual 9's in every stat, while being terribly fast and invalidating opposing Weather control. Thanks to Damp, Golduck can ignore the shared Attack Forte and Defense Forte.

Expected Remedy: Probably remove the effect of Damp that grants Penalty-Proof. It's fine if Golduck holds Pure Incense as if it granted Defenses; and it's fine if Golduck holds other Incenses. Only the interaction with specifically Pure Incense is out of line.​

:lilligant-hisui:
Lilligant-Hisui
This Pokemon does not need the Free Technique trait.

Expected Remedy: :puff:​

:medicham:
Endure
So long as Endure exists in its current state, Type Gems will be nonviable in Level 4 battles.

This has a few effects on competitive play, but the largest is that offensive pivots and revenge-killers need to have as much type coverage as possible in order to function. Type Gems are meant to be the item of choice for Pokemon who plan to drop a neutral Draco Meteor or Explosion and leave, as just two examples, but they currently cannot do so.

Expected Remedy: We will probably make this move grant Bonus-Proof and Defense Aid only for the step it is used. This does still allow Type Gems to be wasted if spent carelessly, but this doesn't differ meaningfully from Protect.​
 
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