You certainly have a point, but I still have to say I disagree. The entire situation I mentioned is only one of the possible scenarios that could happen, but for me the main issue here isn't just about Dragapult killing Gyara. What I really don't like is the very fact that Dragapult now has the choice to dynamax and unlock the choice item here. It now has accesses to not only coverage moves like Max Lightning, but STAB moves like Max Wyrmwind and Max Phantasm would impair your power and durability for its teammates through lowering atk and def. It took enough advantage of its speed tier through scarf, and now it has the ability to put even more pressure on the opposing team through dynamaxing? I never liked Z-Moves, but both Mega and Z-Moves actually cost you an item slot instead of actually letting you utilize the mechanic WITH other items (killing scarf pokemons with scarf, and then drops the scarf immediately when the speed threat is gone). I mean, after all, the entire purpose of a scarf pokemon is to deal damage and put pressure on faster pokemons. If you run scarf too to counter me that's perfectly cool but at least now I have your move locked. That's how we've been playing BSS for the past decade, but now it seems like if your lead pokemon died from a choice user, it probably died for essentially nothing.This to me just seems like smart play and building by your opponent and poor assessment on your part, this doesn’t make Dynamax uncompetitive. Choice-item users are usually 4 attacks, Dracopult has 2 STABs to use, it revealed a Fire move, what would the fourth move be? Maybe U-turn? But Thunderbolt makes a lot of sense on a Scarf set as it can revenge kill +1 Gyara. This is why Gyara’s post popular item at the moment is Wacan Berry.
I don’t know why people are surprised that it’s best to answer an opponent’s Dynamax with your own Dynamax. The whole story mode teaches you this, the only time they make you fight an in-game Dynamax is with 3 friends, and even then you can Dynamax yourself. Predicting a Dynamax is just going to have to be a skill people learn, just like predicting Z moves in gen 6 or basically any set any mon uses. People aren’t going to Dynamax their worst team member, you’ll be able to predict it when they’re choice-locked into a bad move, or have something that benefits from a max move like the water, fire, fighting, or flying moves.
As someone who very vocally HATED Z moves from day 1 last gen, I am really enjoying the Dynamax mechanic at the moment. I understand it’s all personal preference but I think people need to give learning the mechanic a little more before adamantly hating it.
Running one particular item (wacan berry you mentioned) against an opponent just because of its relatively rare scarf potential is just that absurd to me, since neither Z-Moves nor Mega forced you to run a certain item to counter them, at least not for me. And you certainly don't need a Mega/Z-Move to fight a Mega/Z-Move.
I am actually not to the extent that I "adamantly" hate it, but yes I do have some concerns for it being the main mechanic for this generation. It would certainly be better if dynamaxing could keep the choice users still locked, and dropping some of the other effects like weather changing, breaking protect, unable to be flinched, etc.
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