Data State of the Game - 07/10/2011 (Huge Stat Announcement)

[Tortferngatr]

Freeze: I'm glad that it's been somewhat codified now, but I think it is becoming complicated much like the degrees of burn were. The problem with anything affecting specific body parts is that, 99.99% of the time, battlers never specify which body part they're aiming an attack at. Plus, even if the ref somehow works out which body part gets affected, how does he know which moves that affects? For example, can a mon use Fake Out if its arms are frozen? I guess what I'm saying is, do not make any ASB mechanics involve specific body parts AT ALL EVER, because it's too fucking complicated. Instead, go with something like what Gerard suggested, where stage 1 of freeze simply slows a mon down, stage 2 immobilises it a la Ingrain, and stage 3 is a total freeze.

Sleep: I heard about this last night and my reaction was a great big WTF? As far as I know, if a sleep-inducing move is used on one turn in-game, that mon is guaranteed to be asleep the next time it tries to move. I don't understand why we deviate from this in ASB ... except sleep-inducing moves cost somewhere between 6 and 10 energy iirc, whereas Protect (the other way of guaranteeing avoiding damage for one action) usually costs considerably more. I heard one suggestion on irc that I liked: have sleep be 3/2/1 actions or possibly 2/1/1 actions (ie, 2/3 chance of 1-turn sleep, 1/3 chance of 2-turn sleep) instead of what is effectively 2/1/0 right now (why the fuck do we even have 0-turn anything?), but have the sleeping mon automatically wake up if it takes 12 or more damage (maybe lower this damage cap even further to 10 or 8). That's right, damage, not BAP. Why the fuck could a Dragonite sleep through an Ice Beam but not a Fire Blast? How does Aggron not wake up after Earth Power if a Stone Edge can wake it up? This way, although a pokemon can be temporarily incapacitated, the opponent is much more restricted in terms of what moves they can use.

However, Yawn is now ridiculous. It was fine the way it was before.

Moves being used evasively: I thought we ultimately agreed in a previous SotG that this was a flat out never, not in a million years, absolutely not, no way jose, no chance lance, nyet, negatory, mm-mm, nuh-uh, uh-uh, man falling off a cliff NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooo ... so why is it an issue today? If people are trying to use moves evasively, make them pay the energy cost and make the move fail completely! If you want a guaranteed dodge, use Protect (which everything gets).

However, this does bring up another issue: Protect outclasses Dodge command to the point where Dodge command is practically never a viable option. Now, I don't have a problem with Protect outclassing Dodge, since we're talking 5 energy against 7+ energy. However, I think the Dodge formula needs an adjustment. Currently it's (dodger's speed - attacker's speed)/5, how about making it /4 or /3 instead and put a cap of 50% so stuff like Ninjask and Electrode and Agility abusers can't get guaranteed dodges for 5 energy. I'll need to work out some numbers so I may withdraw this suggestion later.

Freeze: Agreed. This is why I dislike Burn.

While I'm content to specify where Dunsparce should be aiming his Secret Powers, I'm less content to have that for everything.

Sleep: I agree with a fixed damage cap. I agree that it's ridiculous an Ice Beam doesn't wake up a Dragonite but a Power Whip does.

Also..why not give them an increased energy cost a la the Draining attacks?

Moves being used evasively: Opinions change. Some of us didn't like the idea from the beginning-and honestly, using a move that deliberately involves speed to move out of the way of something (at the cost of damage, of course) seems like a fairly rational idea.

Buffing the Dodge command: I never liked Dodge due to how useless it is under common circumstances and how it restrains creative dodges. I like the idea of buffing it, although I'd personally do away with it entirely and bring it back to dodges being roleplaying/ref discretion.

 

[Engineer Pikachu]

Since my post apparently didn't go through (and I'm too lazy to type it up again), I'll just post some thoughts on non-OP stuff.

Nerfing weather damage: As of now, detrimental weather (hail, sandstorm) deals 2 damage per action, which is perfectly fine by itself. However, it doesn't quite match up to the other constant sources of damage/healing found in Pokemon, as shown in the table below. Effect is, well, the effect, the fraction is what fraction of max HP it heals/deals in-game, and "IN ASB" is the amount of damage it heals/deals per action in ASB.

EFFECT | FRACTION | IN ASB
Leftovers | 1/16 | 1 HP
Black Sludge | 1/16 or 1/8 | 1 HP or 2 HP
Weather | 1/16 | 2 HP
Burn Status | 1/8 | 2 HP
Poison | 1/8 | 2 HP
Bad Poison | 1/16, 2/16, etc. | 1 HP, 2 HP, etc.

My proposal is to lower sandstorm and hail damage to 1 DPA. This keeps it in line with with Leftovers recovery as well as the damage from the first round of bad poison. Keeping it at 2 DPA effectively means that weather is as powerful as Burn is, which is definitely not the case. Thoughts?

 

[C$FP]

Wait...... iirc, DarkSlay said... yes he did!

Guys, this is not the place to discuss the Gym League. The next SotG will highlight the starting process, so keep an eye out for it!

Now, was this the actual plan at the time? When are we going to discuss gyms? I feel like maybe 5 people (probably less) could start up a thread for the organization for this. It wouldn't have to be a big deal. It could even be a social group or whatever so people aren't all over it in the ASB forum. I think there are enough people eager about this for something to happen. Again, it doesn't have to be a huge deal (meaning not heavily discussing it here in the SotG), just a few people working on it. That is, unless someone is one step ahead of me! (Which I doubt it is being discussed now.)

 

[TravelLog]

1. Referee Tutoring Program:
I've only reffed one person so far (working on #2), so I can't make any educated assessments quite yet. I will, however, say that at a glance, it seems to be going well.

2. Bide Revisited:
Here's the thing about bide: besides a few mons with huge movepools, it's easy to predict and deal with. Further, it is only really worth the cost (in both energy and that it takes essentially a whole round) if it counters two attacks. As such, simply going: "Attack Move~Non-attack~Attack Move" renders bide not cost-effective. I really don't have an issue with it. Like anything, it can be abused in certain circumstances, but by-and-large, isn't too problematic.

3. Substitute Revisited:
No real comments here.

4. "Brokenmons":
This is, in my opinion, ridiculous. Anyone who saw my Tournament Match against DarkSlay saw me take a Gengar down to 11 HP with a barely touched Breezi. What's more, if my initial Air Slash hadn't missed, I would have won that mon-match up. Yeah, Gengar and Cyclohm have huge movepools that make them hard to deal with. But as anyone who has ever faced them also knows, smart playing can overcome almost any obstacle. Just look at Deck's matches...he uses unorthodox, creative tactics to incredible results, almost taking down a Cyclohm with a fucking Beedrill...

Seriously, play smart and it's not that big a deal.

5. Freeze and Sleep:
As mentioned by numerous others, during an IRC discussion, Terrador and I put out the idea that Sleep operate on a 1/2/3 action basis, with a set damage cap for auto-wake-up. The suggested number was 12 (such that a neutral, 12 BP attack, between equal stat mons would cause a wake-up). The number could certainly shift, but the idea is absolutely worth consideration.

Special mention for Yawn: it was MUCH better before. Put it back.

6. Evasive Move Use
Here is where I have another problem. ASB is supposed to be about creativity. As such, I think there are a number of moves which should have evasive potential, but only if the user is creative enough to think of something reasonable. Agility should be kept as an evasive move, but only when part of a combo since it doesn't in and of itself involve movement. Aqua Jet, Vacuum Wave, Extremespeed etc. should have the potential for evasive use, but not guaranteed. It should increase dodge chance by a set percentage based on the move, perhaps for increased energy cost during evasive use. Perhaps we might institute a system like this:
Base Energy Cost=x
+10% dodge chance= x+3 energy
+25% dodge chance= x+6 energy
+50% dodge chance= x+10 energy

These are by no means set. I'm open to ideas about it.
Furthermore, greater creativity should to some degree be rewarded. If I see something incredibly unique and intelligent (creativity without well-thought out reasoning is not what I'm talking about), you better believe I will let the move work. Rule of Cool people. Rule of Cool.



That's all for now. I may come up with more later.

 

[Flamestrike]

Deck has already said many, many times that Gym stuff will not be implemented until after the tournament. While DarkSlay may bring it up whenever he is able to post here, the simple fact of the matter is that nothing will be set in stone until after the tournament, and all bringing up again will do is most likely bring Deck's wrath down on you.

 

[Arcanite]

I agree that Agility needs to be banned as a dodge move, and think that priority motion attacks shouldn't have dodge chance either.

I've been tutored as a ref, and it works great, it prevents bad refs being allowed!

 

[C$FP]

Alright, I never saw it anywhere that he said that, but now I know. I am also going to agree with TravelLog with the priority dodging thing. It should have a certain chance, not just guaranteed. And also with the broken-mon thing, I have about the exact same experience with Gengar and Cyclohm. My Marshtomp did fairly well against DarkSlay's Gengar (maybe DarkSlay hasn't given it the moves that make it amazing yet and that is why), but once it KOed Marshtomp and used Perish Song on Magneton -- it was even more over than it was before.

Perish Song can be pretty broken!!!! If I KO something with let's say Gengar, and this Gengar knows Perish Song, and Gengar has let's say 30 HP left, the opponent is screwed. Gengar simply uses Perish Song and stalls. If Gengar is as broken as people say he is, he can snatch two KOes without a ton of difficulty in most circumstances, which is super broken. My message here is that PERISH SONG should be nerfed to some degree.

 

[Ragnarokalex]

Since my post apparently didn't go through (and I'm too lazy to type it up again), I'll just post some thoughts on non-OP stuff.

Nerfing weather damage: As of now, detrimental weather (hail, sandstorm) deals 2 damage per action, which is perfectly fine by itself. However, it doesn't quite match up to the other constant sources of damage/healing found in Pokemon, as shown in the table below. Effect is, well, the effect, the fraction is what fraction of max HP it heals/deals in-game, and "IN ASB" is the amount of damage it heals/deals per action in ASB.

EFFECT | FRACTION | IN ASB
Leftovers | 1/16 | 1 HP
Black Sludge | 1/16 or 1/8 | 1 HP or 2 HP
Weather | 1/16 | 2 HP
Burn Status | 1/8 | 2 HP
Poison | 1/8 | 2 HP
Bad Poison | 1/16, 2/16, etc. | 1 HP, 2 HP, etc.

My proposal is to lower sandstorm and hail damage to 1 DPA. This keeps it in line with with Leftovers recovery as well as the damage from the first round of bad poison. Keeping it at 2 DPA effectively means that weather is as powerful as Burn is, which is definitely not the case. Thoughts?

I agree with this, weather seems a lot more powerful than other EoT ping effects ingame. While I almost want to say I'd rather just have the healing increased a point or so. Unfortunately this would probably lead to different healing builds that would end up restoring to much health a turn or somesuch (im to lazy to crunch numbers atm). Anyway I agree with the lowering of weather damage, or if its even mildly viable, increasing heal over time effects.

Anyway i forgot to post earlier, I think that the approver issue should be addressed in some way, I think I agree with the aforementioned cycling of approvers. Approving doesnt seem to be too difficult of a process that someone with a little experience and time on their hands shouldnt be able to pick it up with just a little instruction. So I think we should either just teach a few more people to be approvers, or swap out a few of the current approvers that are to busy to do it atm for others that can at least temporarily pick it up.

 

[Tortferngatr]

I have no such qualms with Leftovers getting raised to 2 HP per turn.

 

[Flamestrike]

Perish Song is one of those things that is a product of Switch=KO being popular. In Switch=OK it's easily fixed by switching out. In Switch=KO it's a guaranteed kill. Just one more reason for more people to play Switch=OK IMO!

As for approving, I'm not huge on the idea of a rotation. I wouldn't mind seeing more approvers, but that's up to Kaxtar. Maybe he can weigh in on this here? He's already discussed it on IRC but it would be nice for everyone to see it.

 

[Rising_Dusk]

I think it is important to keep Sandstorm and Hail damage at 2 damage per action so that the weathers are actually still on par with the immense advantages provided by Rain Dance and Sunny Day.

Perish Song can be pretty broken!!!! If I KO something with let's say Gengar, and this Gengar knows Perish Song, and Gengar has let's say 30 HP left, the opponent is screwed. Gengar simply uses Perish Song and stalls. If Gengar is as broken as people say he is, he can snatch two KOes without a ton of difficulty in most circumstances, which is super broken. My message here is that PERISH SONG should be nerfed to some degree.

This is easy for Gengar to achieve, but I don't think the issue is Perish Song necessarily, rather the structure of Switch=KO matches. Perish Song can be powerful, but I think it's okay in the grand scheme of things because it works on you too, and to be honest, Switch=KO is retarded. ;)

Anyway, after a bit of discussion on IRC, I think I have a good solution for sleep:

• Sleep should not last 0 actions ever, because it is both difficult to inflict outside of the currently-broken Yawn, and having a chance for an already inaccurate move to do effectively nothing is crazy.
• In a similar vein, 3 actions of sleep is brutally broken in every case possible, and it should not be possible.
• Sleep has a 2/3 chance of lasting 1 action at least, and a 1/3 chance of lasting 2 actions.
• A Pokemon that takes over 12 damage while sleeping from attacks will automatically wake up. Rest's sleep is exempt from this ruling.
• Your sleep counter at the time of being put to sleep is the same as the number of actions that the sleep should prevent. (2 if you rolled that 33.3% or 1 if you rolled the other 66.6%).
• Your sleep counter decrements when the "<POKEMON> is fast asleep!" message would display and you've failed an action because you're asleep.
• You wake up when your sleep counter is 0 and you attempt to act.

 

[Engineer Pikachu]

I agree with this, weather seems a lot more powerful than other EoT ping effects ingame. While I almost want to say I'd rather just have the healing increased a point or so. Unfortunately this would probably lead to different healing builds that would end up restoring to much health a turn or somesuch (im to lazy to crunch numbers atm). Anyway I agree with the lowering of weather damage, or if its even mildly viable, increasing heal over time effects.

I have no such qualms with Leftovers getting raised to 2 HP per turn.

I originally wanted Leftovers and Black Sludge to be upped to 2 health per action, but then it skews the table even more. Should bad poison start at 2 DPA and work its way up to 10 DPA? Definitely not. Should burn do 4 DPA? That's pretty bad as well. Reducing weather damage to 1 DPA is a simple solution that manages to keep all the effects in line with each other and the in-game percentages.

 

[Gerard]

4. "Brokenmons":
This is, in my opinion, ridiculous. Anyone who saw my Tournament Match against DarkSlay saw me take a Gengar down to 11 HP with a barely touched Breezi. What's more, if my initial Air Slash hadn't missed, I would have won that mon-match up. Yeah, Gengar and Cyclohm have huge movepools that make them hard to deal with. But as anyone who has ever faced them also knows, smart playing can overcome almost any obstacle. Just look at Deck's matches...he uses unorthodox, creative tactics to incredible results, almost taking down a Cyclohm with a fucking Beedrill...

Seriously, play smart and it's not that big a deal.

Not to be rude, but just like everybody also saw, your second pokemon was put on a timer by gengar, he had already removed breezi from the field and took another pokemon with him with little lost, besides, fidgit (breezi's prevo) is one of the only things in ASB that taunts faster than gengar can, the other few are aerodactyl, kitsunoh, whims, and few others, even frosslas has to relly on speed tie if they are both in the same condition, altough I admit it requires some kind of work to get them, it's like the infinite sword, once you get it, you will probably win in most situations

Gengar is probably the harder pokemon to nerf if this is done since his movepool is the only place where he really shows how powerful he is (ok, his typing helps a little), and the fact that he is so fast

Cyclohm is "easier" in that he can be effectively nerfed by changing it's DW ability, this was kind of a flavor ability and nowhere is written that it has to stay that way, change it to something like Cloud Nine and nobody will complain

PS: yeah, Switch = KO is bad, but most people that accept challeges use it, that's kind of the reason Perish Song and Toxic are so good, but i think Curse should be boosted, you loose half your health for a 45 damage over three turns, that makes Perish Song always the better option, no matter what, boost it so it doesn something like 10 damage to actuslly be worth the lost of HP, since right now it's useless

 

[Engineer Pikachu]

err, Gerard, you also missed Persian, Prankster Murkrow, Sneasel, Speed Boosted Sharpedo, Weavile, Prankster Liepard, Crobat, Alakazam, Electrode, Crobat, Prankster Purrloin, Serperior (speed tie), Swoobat, and Archeops (speed tie). There are probably some other ones that I missed as well.

I don't think they're broken; they're just very powerful. Besides, if someone has invested many, many counters into a Pokemon, it's highly likely that it'll be much more powerful than a fresh-off-the-prize-claiming-thread one.

 

[Deck Knight]

RE: Weathers:

Damaging Weathers are staying at 2 DPA.

If you notice the general trend, healing is a lot more expensive than damaging in ASB. This is purposeful in that the league is designed with offense as a viable strategy in and of itself. Not to the extent it is in-game, defense still matters but primarily for tanks. There aren't really any "walls" in ASB, since basically every wall can have some modicum of offense or at least employ a strategy that takes advantage of ASB's general emphasis on damage.

Thus healing items have been generally weakened and abilities tend only to be on par with damaging weathers rather than superior.

RE: Agility and Evasive Attacks

I think this is an issue of codification. The reason I prefer not to have Evasive Damaging attacks (save Dig/Fly/Bounce since that's part of the attack itself) is because they become very tedious to ref. If a move does direct damage and is a contact attack then there are few interpretations that would allow the move to be used evasively.

Agility is a different story, and actually I've been meaning to make it and Rock Polish somewhat distinct. I think I have a solution for that.

Move updates

Agility: The Pokemon sharply boosts its speed with a quick dash, increasing its speed by two (2) stages. Agility can be ordered as an evasive action with +1 priority for an additional three (3) Energy Cost, however it will not raise speed any stages.

Attack Power: -- | Accuracy: -- | Energy Cost: 7 | Effect Chance: -- | Typing: Psychic | Priority: 0

Rock Polish: The Pokemon focuses energy around its body, glowing red or white and sharpening the surface of its exterior. The energy allows much freer movement, increasing the user's Speed by two (2) stages. If combined with a Rock-type Attack, it will increase the Base Attack Power by (2) and Base Accuracy by 10.

Attack Power: -- | Accuracy: -- | Energy Cost: 7 | Effect Chance: -- | Typing: Rock | Priority: 0

What I'm eventually shooting for is making every attack have a unique niche, even if it's just a clone in-game.

From the looks of it Yawn and Sleep are getting a revamp. I'm fine with the 2/3rds-1/3rd system, but I think it should be Damage > 15. Pretty much anything can do 12 damage to something. It should at least be able to break a weak Sub before it would affect a sleep counter.

RE: Perish Song

A potential fix, much like making Roar/Dragon Tail and Co act like a phazing that doesn't switch the mon in a Switch=KO batte, using U-turn or Volt Switch will nullify Perish Song on the user.

RE: Dodges:

Dodge was codified precisely because it puts too much pressure on a ref to follow a player's order to the letter. In the beginning people were trying to make Zen Headbutt an evasive attack. That's just silly, and much of the idea behind balancing the game is to make full action nullification nearly impossible outside of status or a few creative combinations that don't involve using the actual word "dodge."

RE: Freeze

Still looks like a WIP. It's a 10% chance and it should do something, the question is what. The likelihood of getting multiple freezes is incredibly low, and you have the practical aspect where hitting a tiny mon like Durant with Ice Beam should have more effect than aiming it at something massive like Gyarados.

 

[Objection]

Deck, it sounds to me like you deliberately wanted the Dodge command to be crap. Am I interpreting you correctly?

Your solution with evasive Agility looks nice but the question is how much of an evasive action could it be? Assuming that the attack being dodged does more than 10 damage, Protect is still more expensive, so I don't think evasive Agility should be a guaranteed dodge. One idea I came up with was halving the incoming attack's accuracy, but other people might have other ideas.

With regards to freeze, as much as it makes sense for a larger pokemon to be harder to freeze fully than a smaller one, the fact is, nobody writes down the sizes of their mons anywhere (except for the CAPs in the data audit thread). This means that we have to look on Veekun/Bulbapedia for that information unless someone is willing to put it in the data audit thread.

As for what freeze should do, perhaps the first partial freeze could root a pokemon to the spot, making it unable to use close range attacks but still able to use medium or long range ones. It's pretty obvious which attacks are close range and which ones aren't. After that, X amount of partial freezes can add up to a full freeze.

Finally, if you do that fix for Perish Song with U-Turn and Volt Switch, then really you'd have to make those also remove any other stuff that switching out would remove (including but not limited to stat boosts, confusion and taunt).

EDIT: Oh, and damage >= 15 is better than damage > 15. 15 HP subs get broken by 15 damage attacks but sleep doesn't?

 

[Tortferngatr]

Idea time:

Why not simply re-codify Quick Attack/Aqua Jet/ExtremeSpeed/Flame Charge to allow a dodge in a manner similar to the proposed Agility change?

Again, all four of those moves make sense to some degree to be used to dodge attacks-just don't allow damage at the same time.

Aqua Jet: The Pokemon surrounds itself with a stream of water and launches toward the opponent at blinding speed, outpacing the opponent’s attack. Aqua Jet can be ordered as an evasive action by jetting away from an opponent's attack, making it a +1 priority evasive action for an additional seven (7) Energy Cost, however it will not be able to deal damage to any opponents it's dodging.

Attack Power: 4 | Accuracy: 100% | Energy Cost: 3 | Effect Chance: -- | Typing: Water | Priority: 1


ExtremeSpeed: The Pokemon tackles the opponent with blinding speed. The attack is so blindingly fast it strikes even before other priority attacks. Only Fake Out can strike more quickly. ExtremeSpeed can be ordered as an evasive action by moving away from the foe's attack with blinding speed, making it a +2 priority evasive action for an additional six (6) Energy Cost, however it will not be able to deal damage to any opponents it's dodging.

Attack Power: 8 | Accuracy: 100% | Energy Cost: 6 | Effect Chance: -- | Typing: Normal | Priority: 2


Flame Charge: The Pokemon intensifies their internal or external fire supply to charge at their opponent with unnatural speed and searing heat. The attack provides a one (1) stage boost to speed. Flame Charge can be ordered as an evasive action charging away from the opponent's attack. This gives it +1 priority for an additional six (6) Energy Cost, however it will not be able to deal damage to any opponents it's dodging and not grant any sort of speed boost.

Attack Power: 5 | Accuracy: 100% | Energy Cost: 4 | Effect Chance: -- | Typing: Fire | Priority: 0

Quick Attack: The Pokemon moves at extraordinary speed, striking the opponent before they can move. Quick Attack can be ordered as an evasive action by moving away from the opponent's attack at extraordinary speed for an additional seven (7) Energy Cost, however it will not be able to deal damage to any opponents it's dodging.

Attack Power: 4 | Accuracy: 100% | Energy Cost: 3 | Effect Chance: -- | Typing: Normal | Priority: 1

Energy costs for evasive versions of these moves:

Aqua Jet: 10 (same as Agility)
ExtremeSpeed (12, as it is an even larger increase in priority)
Flame Charge 10 (same as Agility)
Quick Attack 10 (same as Agility)

 

[Woodchuck]

you should be able to AIM FOR THE HORN

1. Referee Tutoring Program:
I haven't been a part of the program but the refs have been good so i'm happy

2. Bide Revisited:
not much to comment on here, moving on

3. Substitute Revisited:
The Substitute change probably made it more balanced, but, to be honest, 20 HP substitutes are almost never used -- nearly everything that 2hkoes 15 HP subs 2hkoes 20 HP subs. And it seems like the energy cost for making a 25 HP substitute is a little much. Anyone else's thoughts here?

4. "Brokenmons":
I don't think any pokemon is really really broken because you can defeat it with smart play.

5. Freeze and Sleep:
I'm agreeing with those who say Sleep should always be at least one action.

 

[Objection]

Tort, Flame Charge's dodge would only cost 8 energy (4+4).

 

[Tortferngatr]

Fixed, thanks Objection.

 

[Objection]

No problem.

What about Shadow Sneak? All the other priority and speed-boosting moves I can't really see working as dodges, but Shadow Sneak possibly.

 

[IceBug]

1. Can't really comment, as I neither signed up for tutoring nor as a tutoree. However, I think it's definitely a great idea, especially to get those who aren't as familiar with the mechanics of ASB ready to contribute to the most necessary part of the game (and, allow them access to the fastest source of income possible).

2. Well, despite Bide ending my last Battle Hall Challenge in a single round, it is just something you should have a substitution ready for. After you whittle down your opponent's health a bit, the move becomes a non-issue (unlike CounterCoat), so I'm fin with where it's at.

3. Substitute is still powerful, but no longer encourages people to scout ahead for Damage-of-next-move-plus-one. I'm fine that is has default levels.

4. So, I've actually fought EVERY stage of the two suspects except Duclohm. The Gengar line is strong, but I suppose I haven't ever fought one with a full movepool. Monohm is a monster against the majority of the NFE pool since it can acquire some extremely strong type coverage right out of its TMs. But, when we're talking about Cyclohm vs FE mons, I did not have a problem using some Ice moves, which took it down just as fast as it should. When you get creative with things, too (ex. Deck vs D_W), nothing is impossible, so I think, if anything, strong monsters like Gengar and Cyclohm should just encourage more creativity to deal with.

5. Sleep: Yawn needs to go back to the old speed. Other than that, I'm fine with whatever change everyone wants to make to them.

Freeze: See Burn Degrees. I've stopped rolling freeze in my last couple battles because Partial Freeze is both largely impossible to determine hit location, and whether it'll actually stop something. For example, should a leg freeze stop punching moves? In theory, no, because the frozen Pokemon can still move their arms, but then, we get into whether or not the punch can reach. As mentioned by Objection, moves should NEVER rely on body parts (this does not mean moves should not be able to designate target body parts).

However, I don't mind if Partial Freeze exists. I actually think that freezing a body part should be able to happen, but only if a target is designated. Otherwise, some sort of levels is in order, probably slow-down, 1 turn immobility, 2 turn immobility.

6. Evasive move use should be based on ref discretion. I don't think Agility should allow a dodge, since it's basically elaborate stretching to make yourself faster next round, but things like priority moves I have no problem with. They just aren't going to be doing damage. Basically, I think most stat boosters shouldn't be able to be used evasively, but things like Volt Switch, U-Turn, priority moves, and the like should have a chance to dodge moves at the cost of not doing damage. I think codifying something like this, however, will just discourage creativity in move use (and, just so we're clear, I'm a big fan of hard data, I just think this is just the start of something not beneficial to the game, that is, the removal of freedom of interpretation).

 

[Deck Knight]

So if I have this right, what you guys are saying is you don't want one non-damaging move to be used evasively, but you do want 5+ damaging moves to be used evasively.

Ridiculous. Damaging moves do damage. End of story. If I were cynical I'd say you'd want ways to be evasive that you could stretch around Taunt, but I'm not that cynical yet.

Agility at least has Anime precedent for being used to dodge things. It's animation has the Pokemon shift positions faster than the eye can track ffs. That's never happened with a single one of Buizel's Aqua Jets, save for those couple of times he used it with a spin move to counteract Ice Beam. Pikachu's Quick Attack has had a similar use as far as the blur animation, but Pikachu invariably hits the target with Quick Attack.

As far as reffing it, I've had Agility dodge single-target attacks, but I've punished opponents for using it to try and evade field-wide attacks like Razor Leaf. I can codify it so it specifically says single-target attacks (except Pursuit, which gets the BAP boost against against Agility for obvious reasons), which makes it quite a bit weaker than Protect.

And yes, I deliberately made the dodge command difficult to use without using a +2 Speed booster on a fast Pokemon first. If this means "suck" well too bad, the forum quality is shit if you have people trying to pull evasive tactics with every move in the game, no matter how illogical. Basic Commands like Dodge should not be as powerful as standard attacks without some level of usage of said attacks beforehand.

 

[Tortferngatr]

...My personal thoughts were simply "why not use the PROPERTIES of the damaging move in an evasive maneuver?" Again, if we could do this with pre-change Agility (which didn't make sense, the main reason we wanted it to not work), why not with moves that involve speed as a way of getting away from an attack? The main issue we have with not allowing certain priority attacks to be available as dodging moves is that it does not make sense to prevent a rapid movement move from being used evasively.

As for Taunt evasion...it's more an issue of "making sense" than "evading Taunt." Obviously using such moves evasively would prevent them from working as damaging attacks, thus "evasive Quick Attack" wouldn't work while Taunted.

 

[Gerard]

So if I have this right, what you guys are saying is you don't want one non-damaging move to be used evasively, but you do want 5+ damaging moves to be used evasively.

Ridiculous. Damaging moves do damage. End of story. If I were cynical I'd say you'd want ways to be evasive that you could stretch around Taunt, but I'm not that cynical yet.

I could seriously tell you I have neve think about that before, altough it's actually a good idea

Agility at least has Anime precedent for being used to dodge things. It's animation has the Pokemon shift positions faster than the eye can track ffs. That's never happened with a single one of Buizel's Aqua Jets, save for those couple of times he used it with a spin move to counteract Ice Beam. Pikachu's Quick Attack has had a similar use as far as the blur animation, but Pikachu invariably hits the target with Quick Attack.

Pikachu vs Raichu, Quick attack was used evasively the whole battle (the reason pikachu won since raichu was slower), and the few attacks where thundershocks or tackles

As far as reffing it, I've had Agility dodge single-target attacks, but I've punished opponents for using it to try and evade field-wide attacks like Razor Leaf. I can codify it so it specifically says single-target attacks (except Pursuit, which gets the BAP boost against against Agility for obvious reasons), which makes it quite a bit weaker than Protect.

Agree completely

And yes, I deliberately made the dodge command difficult to use without using a +2 Speed booster on a fast Pokemon first. If this means "suck" well too bad, the forum quality is shit if you have people trying to pull evasive tactics with every move in the game, no matter how illogical. Basic Commands like Dodge should not be as powerful as standard attacks without some level of usage of said attacks beforehand.

I just think is dumb that Agility can be used to doge but ES can't, i don't really want sometimes to do damage, just to avoid anything something like gengar can do to me avoiding protect (because it would trigger a sub), actually avoid the attack not doing damage, just like how you can use rapid spin agains a ghost type just to remove hazzards