Reflecting on BW and Looking Ahead to Gen VI - SEE POST #508

[Schpoonman]

To be fair, Hippowdon and Tyranitar are by far the best weather inducers outside of their Ability.

 

[Hemp Man]

Hippowdon could still Slack Off the 25%, Ninetails would be happier if SR was changed to Rock to Grass, and Politoed would be nerfed....I would like for SR to become S. Grass.

 

[Nyara]

Grass-Type Stealth Rock? Oh, gosh, no, no, no. Yes, I know Water needs a nerf, but that's not the way, Rock Type Pokémon are already excesive nerfed, wants to make them the NU of the NU of the NU? Yes, Grass-Type Stealth Rock go, but I don't think it's a good idea to do things to nerf one strong thing than at the same time strongly nerf already nerfed things. Ground Types are strong on the actual metagame (in part because it's resistances to SR), but they are far of being totally dominant, so, a Grass-Type SR could spell doom all of them to the buttoms of RU or NU (well, except for Landorus, Gliscor, and Garchomp), Gastrodon viable with the half of it's HP sherd by just switching-in? Nope.

I'm not even talking about the efects that could have on lowers or highers tiers, Grass SR on ubers? Wow, Kyogre could pass to be the first uber to being banned from ubers if that comes true, Grass SR destroying it's already few checks and switch-ins. On lower tiers Rock Type and Ground Type Pokémon (mostly the later) are excesive important to mantain at control the Electric and Grass ones, with Grass SR on the field, nothing can stop them to dominate the entire RU and in part UU (maybe just Snorlax and Cofragius, maybe) and NU. On NU could be almost impossible to Rapid Spin the combo of SR + SR Grass, taking in account all the spiners there are weak to one of those two types.

Terrakion is high for being a Figther, and for it's stats. Tyranitar is OU only because it's ability (I know, without the ability it's still a good Pokémon, but not OU, maybe UU).

I know Water is strong, but something silly like SR Grass could just ruin - even more - the metagame, hope Game Freak never do something so silly like that.

Also, at difference from the types weaks to Rock, Water Pokémon tends to have healing abilities (like Slowbro with Regenerator) to heal it's HP or status (making viable Rest), and they have the higher distribution of healing move and they tend to be bulkiers, too, so, SR Grass could not really be an effective nerf to Water as it my seems at first glance. It could only make troubles to Water-Ground and Water-Rock Pokémon, and taking in account only Gastrodon is OU from those combinations, and Gastrodon is far from being the supreme force of OU... No, when more I think about that idea, worst I see it.

 

[IcyMan28]

Grass is resisted by a large number of types and would functionally nerf water alone in OU. Most of the viable OU grounds have a grass-resistant secondary typing, and rock isn't succeeding in OU anytime soon regardless. It could help.

Small nitpick: none of Kyogre's checks are particularly affected by grass (read Latias, Arceus-Grass, and Palkia). If anything, it and Groudon would become easier to check.

 

[P Mystery]

If I could, I would change Stealth Rock to deal damage in this way:

4x resist: 1/32
2x resist: 1/16
Neutral: 1/8
2x weak: 3/16 (equal to two layers of Spikes)
4x weak: 1/4 (equal to three layers of Spikes)

I would also change sleep mechanics to function as they did in fourth generation games, create a physical, 90 power, 100 accuracy Rock-type attack with no special effect, decrease Fire Blast's accuracy to 80, lower Scald's burn chance to 20%, and remove the recoil effect of Wild Charge, among many other things, but there's little point in posting about fantasies as none of these things will happen.

Entry hazards will not change as they're only viable in 6v6 single battles, which no official tournament condones because of the length of the battles, leading to Gamefreak not caring about the absurdity of Stealth Rock and abilities like Shadow Tag. I don't expect any revolutionary changes to mechanics or older moves in XY.

 

[Rapti]

Ok first here's my wishlist

What I would like to see:

• Buff Cloud Nine so that it works like Drizzle, Snowarning, etc. does instead of just removing weather while the inducer is out
• Hurracaine is no longer perfectly accurate in Rain, personaly I think this is like the principal reason Rain is so overpowered , not the only one just the main one
• Rain/Sun only increases water/fire damage by 30%
• Buff Hail, make it so that pokemon weak to ice get extra damage from it, 12.5% max, fear Stallrein
• An entry hazard that does no damage instead decreases speed, it can be ice, ground or any type GF wants for flavor reasons and it would decrease speed by one stage with each layer with a maximunm of two layers; the reason I want this is cause it would severely discourage hyper-offence and with it buff bulky offence and stall (mostly the former but still) with just one move, it would also make Swift Swim, Chlorophyll, Sand Rush easier to check
• Run Away and other useless in battle abilities to be useful, Run Away could be "Shed Shell the ability" for example

What I'm sure Gamefreak won't change

• Stealth Rock, you think Gamefreak cares about the metagame? Well it does, not this metagame tough, Gamefreak cares only about it's official metagame; why do you think Explosion was nerfed? 'Cause it was overcentralizing in doubles, why won't Stealth Rock damage be changed? 'Cause hazards are lousy in doubles
• Hail, as much as I want them to, 100% accurate Blizzard is awesome in doubles so yeah, see above

What I would like to see but may or may not be a good idea

• MOAR WEATHER, screw the haters, weather is awesome and we need more types of it, bring back a version of Shadow Sky (Night weather anyone?) and Fog (just change it's mechanics)
• Abilities that activate when there's no weather, this might very well be either to powerful (you don't even need an inducer and would be overcentralizing in the lower tiers) or so weak as to not be worth it in short it would be really really hard to balance; I still want them though
• Unnerve prevents pokemon from using any held items but berries, is not like it's on that many pokemon, but Unnerve Ttar might be too much

 

[Nyara]

Grass is resisted by a large number of types and would functionally nerf water alone in OU. Most of the viable OU grounds have a grass-resistant secondary typing, and rock isn't succeeding in OU anytime soon regardless. It could help.

Small nitpick: none of Kyogre's checks are particularly affected by grass (read Latias, Arceus-Grass, and Palkia). If anything, it and Groudon would become easier to check.

Ground Type Viable and Weak to Grass: 5
Ground Type Viable and Not Weak to Grass: 3

Ok.

Rock is not succeding in OU, reasons:

- Scizor and Breeloom
- Spam of Water and Water
- Spam of Close Combat/Superpower

End list. What changed from Gen III to IV for the rocks? Scizor buff, massive increse of Fighter's usage thanks to Close Combat AND because they are resistant to SR. Of course, debuffing SR means there will be more Fire's and Normal's on the game, making the rocky pals a need again. SR Grass by other hand could debuff (to low degree for already explained reasons) water, but that's a spell doom for almost the 2/3 of Ground Types on OU, and a spell doom for any possible improve to rocks for future generations, and a spell doom to Tyranitar and Hippodown (in other words, you're making Sand unviable, less things that rain needs to take care!). Great. Also, Rock is not totally unviable on OU, as the strongest users and abussers of Trick Room are on it's majority; rock, and that's a rare, but really effective way to play on OU, SR Grass could make it unviable.

No, I still think debuffing an huge portion of the world Pokémon just because one type or one Pokémon is not a good way to "balance more" things, it's the reverse effect, actually. There're better solutions over there.

@Rapti: The "official" metagame is 1vs1, actually, VGC and related events are doubles just for time constrains, but if I rebember ok, Game Freak still say they focus more on singles. Explosion was debuffed because it was a need, it's not a pretty smart way to play to just blow your Pokémon and neat a free K.O, but I think the debuff was a bit severe, maybe decresing the 25% of defense on place of 50% could work better. The official events were always singles, anyway, but they changed it recently for the time constraint problem that arised with the huge number of new competitive players, worldwide tournaments, and stuff.

If they were just taking care of doubles, then they could have modified Surf and other moves that on doubles are fantastic, but on it's place, they were retooling them on just doubles, like the important debuff to Surf from Gen III to Gen IV were you now you can hit your partners with it at the same time, any change on singles? Nope.

Hurricane buff is also an excelent thing, because special flyers really needed it. Tornadus-T is broken? Well, that's because it's ability and synergy, the Hurricane with perfect accuracy is just a nice plus.

 

[Rapti]

I should clarifly, I don't mind Hurriacane but I don't want it in Rain make it 80% accurate with no confusion anywhere, the poblem is that Rain already has way too many toys not the move itself

 

[Darkmalice]

Gamefreak should buff Defog to remove entry hazards from both sides of the field. This can become another strategy to remove entry hazards without reliance on the horribly distributed Rapid Spin, but it continues to remove them on your side of the field to balance the move (imagine if you set up all your hazards whilst your opponent set up theirs, and then you just remove all of them with a move your opponent cannot block). This would also nerf Stealth Rock by making it easier to remove, improving the viability of Pokemon like Moltres, and may even possibly discourage the use of Stealth Rock on some teams so that it won't be appearing on literally every team.

Probably the best way to nerf rain is to buff other weathers by distributing more Pokemon who are good only in those weather. Hail could really use this type of buff, particularly considering that Abomasnow is good against rain. It yearns for Pokemon whose speed double in hail. "Ice skater" or something along the lines of that; if they introduce second hidden abilities to each Pokemon, I could easily see the penguin Empoleon getting that ability and becoming a monster on hail teams.

 

[Nyara]

Defog actually remove entry hazards on doubles/triples as you can aim it to your partner, so, yes, it just need an small improvement to being aplied on singles as well, but I could rather add a "block" of hazards for at least 3 turns, because all it's users are flyers, so, they're already weak to SR, so, they need something to being at least similar to it's Rapid Spin friends (because your flying friend will not be able to switch-in too offen to remove them).

About the weathers, I don't think that buffing even more them is actually a good idea, there should be a balance between weather vs weather-less, but it can also be fixed making better abilities that are not dependant of weather, anyway.

 

[Darkmalice]

Defog actually remove entry hazards on doubles/triples as you can aim it to your partner, so, yes, it just need an small improvement to being aplied on singles as well, but I could rather add a "block" of hazards for at least 3 turns, because all it's users are flyers, so, they're already weak to SR, so, they need something to being at least similar to it's Rapid Spin friends (because your flying friend will not be able to switch-in too offen to remove them).

Skarmory, Gliscor, Empoleon, and Mew can all learn Defog. They'd be decent users of the move at the worse, the first two could be great users. For the other Pokes, I suppose it's kinda of fair for them to lose 25% for a move that is guaranteed to remove entry hazards unless you're using it against a Pokemon with Taunt, which can completely wreck stall teams.

About the weathers, I don't think that buffing even more them is actually a good idea, there should be a balance between weather vs weather-less, but it can also be fixed making better abilities that are not dependant of weather, anyway.

I agree with you that there should be a balance. I disagree with you about not buffing them though. Weather-less teams should get buffed too to maintain the balance. I agree with others when they said Cloud Nine should be buffed to remove weather, or a new ability should be made for that purpose.


With the metagame become more offensive with each generation being released starting with Gen III, and with stall becoming harder and harder to pull off, I feel the metagame should shift towards more offensive measures to check Pokemon.Moree priority moves should be introduced to help counteract speedy threats. They should be given moreso to the weaker types to boost their viability, such as Poison- and Psychic-types, though really they would be beneficial with any type. A Fire-type priority could place Genesect back in the OU tier. More importantly, there should be more priority attacks coming off SpA; currently only Vacuum Wave does. This would be helpful so it would be harder for speedy threats to invest in defenses to survive priority.

An item like Muscle Band could also be introduced but it boosts Speed instead (by 1.1x). This could be used as an extra and surprise measure to check Pokemon. It's only a small boost so that it wouldn't be overpowering and so that it wouldn't be a overcentralising item, probably weaker than Choice Scarf. Imagine checking your opponent's Thundurus-T with a surprise Draco Meteor from an unchoiced Latios. People may rage about speed tiers becoming less relevant, but I doubt it.

Also, I doubt this would ever happen, but imagine an ability that was like auto-Trick Room as long as the ability remained active / the Pokemon remained on the field. The ultimate Choice Scarf and Swift Swim checker!

 

[Voltage]

If weatherless teams do get that boost that they need so much, then I hope we get some good weatherless Sweepers and Tanks. If somehow Nidoking got an even bigger boost than it already has, or if Rhyperior got something to up it's speed, then I feel that weatherless pokemon would get a better attempt at OU. The thing that would be cool is maybe an Item that switches your speed with either your attack, or Special Attack, or even an item that makes it like a Trick Room effect on the holder. Who knows?

 

[IcyMan28]

Any instant/guaranteed freeze move would be horribly overpowered given the current freeze mechanics (though Ice type needs the boost). If it is made, guarantee a defrosting within 3 turns, cumulatively and not consecutively.

 

[b2j135]

How about this:
A move similar to Tailwind that gives +1 priority to all moves for 3 turns
An item that gives +1 priority to all moves
Another ability but this time it gives +1 priority to attacking moves

DISCUSS!!!!

 

[Bent1ey]

Nah, but maybe a Helping Hand effect that gets priority until the end of turn, or a new ability that gives priority or a speed boost to pokemon with Plus or Minus.

 

[Voltage]

How about this:
A move similar to Tailwind that gives +1 priority to all moves for 3 turns
An item that gives +1 priority to all moves
Another ability but this time it gives +1 priority to attacking moves

DISCUSS!!!!

If Tailwind did that, then suddenly it would become used like crazy, and would become a bit OP in my humble opinion. Overall I don't think the +1 Priority item is a good idea due to the fact that then it would just become a priority war, and outspeeding things would mean jack squat.

 

[Tassa]

An item that gives +1 priority to all moves
Another ability but this time it gives +1 priority to attacking moves

Overpowered and overcentralizing.

 

[Cromat]

I think the best thing they could do is to make defensive strategies more viable. Defense means longer, more strategic battles, less dependence on luck and less dependent on rock-paper-scissors team countering.

Someone here mentioned having a healing entry hazard (that will naturally be Grass or Psychic), and that sounds like a great idea, especially if it's more effective for the weaker types. Making weather not permanent but limited to 5 turns like Rain Dance/Sunny Day themselves makes a lot of sense. At most, they could have it permanent only while the Drizzle/Drought/Sandstorm pokemon is out, and then 5 turns after that.

Introducing some new defensive boosting moves and defensively-oriented pokemon would also contribute.

 

[b2j135]

Also, how about a new choice item called Choice Hat that gives +1 priority to one move.
And can be stacked with Prankster.
Imagine something like Vaporeon with this....mmm

 

[Sixonesix]

One thing that we can all agree it's going to happen is the damn Beat Up+Justified combo nerf.
It's hands down the lowest risk-highest reward strategy in doubles, so I don't see that staying that way in Gen 6.

Nah, not even close. It's predictable and there are a bunch of ways you can ruin it before it even gets set up. Generally you should not be losing more than one pokemon to it unless you lead badly against it.

Prankster on the other hand needs a nerf asap. +1 thunder waves are shitty and even lum berry + substitute doesn't guarantee you won't eat one in a match.

Edit:

Also, how about a new choice item called Choice Hat that gives +1 priority to one move.
And can be stacked with Prankster.
Imagine something like Vaporeon with this....mmm

itt we come up with stuff that breaks the game in half

 

[Schpoonman]

Making weather not permanent but limited to 5 turns like Rain Dance/Sunny Day themselves makes a lot of sense. At most, they could have it permanent only while the Drizzle/Drought/Sandstorm pokemon is out, and then 5 turns after that.

That idea (weather is permanent while weather users are in, then on a timer once they switch out) has been flying around in my head for a long time but I never really took the time to hash it out. This would keep shit like Chlorophyll users with Sleep Powder (read: Pretty much every fucking one) from sleeping your one counter and then boosting to +6 with no way to stop it.

 

[Drako]

Also, how about a new choice item called Choice Hat that gives +1 priority to one move.
And can be stacked with Prankster.
Imagine something like Vaporeon with this....mmm

That would be awesome imo. Could be overpowering though, but I don't care. I love powerful stuff. Imagine "Choice Hat" with like Kyurem-B's Outrage or sth.

Or even better, give that shit to Victini and pair it with ninetails and dugtrio. remove heatran and you're good to go.

Very interesting concept. I like it. Although, Choice Scarf would be kinda useless at that point and revenge killing made easy as fuck.

 

[Onicon]

The only way I can see healing entry hazards work without breaking the metagame would be a redistribution (and likely a buff) of Defog. This is currently the only way to remove enemy properties, this move unfortunately removes their entry hazards, too and quasi invites the opponent to Taunt you.

Unfortunalely, what works for defensive teams takes HO to ridiculous levels. The only way I can ever see an advent of stall working will not be by "buffing" things because offensive teams profit by them equally while they enjoy the rise of the moves base power more than stall.
The only way I can see an advent of stall working is by nerfing the base power of a few selected moves. We believe this to be one of the grave reasons why offensive teams are much more popular.

Oh, and we think that Choice priority kills the Choice Scarf. Common sense keep telling us that any way of increasing the priority for a move of choice but Custap Berry is broken.

 

[LilOu]

Maybe giving some abilities better distribution instead of creatig new ones. Think about technician Lucario with Bullet punch and Vacuum Wave maybe, or giving him mach punch by tutoring. The release of Lightingrod zapdos is also something i want a lot as well as contrary serperior or reckless emboar.

 

[ClubbingSealCub]

GF already has a lot of good abilities that aren't properly distributed, I agree.

What they really suck at is distributing good moves.

Head Smash Aerodactyl, Hurricane Zapdos, Brave Bird Archeops and SHIFT GEAR (not autotomize, thanks Lord of Bays) Metagross are the ones I look forward the most.