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

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Chatter... is an interesting way to make a mon have a niche. I have no objections to that.

Anyways, regardless of whether or not anything comes of this, this will be my last post on sleep before I shut up and sit back quietly. The entire vision of sleep as "reliable" is quite flawed. I've cited my match with Destiny Warrior to argue against Bide, Trick Room, and Rain. Now I'll cite it as a testament to how much sleep sucks.

"Hypnosis is a terrible move. He should really use Confuse Ray."
-Rising Dusk

Hypnosis, the most commonly distributed sleep move, has accuracy that is anything but reliable. Even with a +speed nature, most fast mons still have around 80 accuracy. This is hardly "reliable" at all. For instance, I lost my match with Destiny Warrior for many reasons. One of them was that I missed a Hypnosis twice, leading to the above quote. The point is, with Dusk's decay proposal, sleep is still a gamble: a good chance of doing nothing, but the possibility of a round of set-up. And I do agree with Temp in that with the new decay system, sleep is best used for inflicting status, setting up, or chilling/recover. No one would with intelligence would use sleep over Protect if sleep has a 40% chance of failing to do anything.

Calcs:
20% chance one turn
20% chance two turn
20% chance three turn

That is terrible. It's only a 60% chance of working in the first place, a 40% chance of earning one turn of setup, and a 20% chance of earning two turns. This isn't even mentioning how the move is stopped by Taunt, Protect, and Substitute, while Protect is not (other than Taunt).

Can we please stop pretending that Hypnosis is a less-powerful protect? In all reality, it's a final gamble of the desperate to buy one or two turns of set-up if no reliable alternative exists.
 
I'd just like to say Rising Dusk that I am a fan of your little crusade.

I haven't had much experience with the new sleep. What kind of Gengar user am I...
But Redaimond seems to make some valid points. I never felt sleep was broken before anyway.
 
I think I know what the problem with sleep is. We're applying the status equally to all sleep-inducing moves. We're saying all sleep-inducing moves always have the same chances of each stage of sleep. On the one hand, we have Spore and Yawn that are guaranteed to take effect and having those put a mon to sleep for an entire round is incredibly powerful - a little too powerful. On the other hand, we have Sleep Powder (75% accurate), Hypnosis (60% accurate) and the old Sing and GrassWhistle (55% accurate), which have a significant chance of doing nothing and the chance of them inflicting more than one-turn sleep is not that big.

Therefore, I propose that 100% accurate sleeping moves can only ever inflict the lowest stage of sleep, while Hypnosis (and, if RD's proposed effects don't go through, Sing and GrassWhistle) is guaranteed to inflict the highest stage of sleep. Anything with accuracy greater than 60% and less than 100% still has the same chances as before.

EDIT:
RD's version of Chatter said:
It has either a 1/3, 2/3, or 3/3 chance to confuse the opponent depending upon how inane the rambling is.
Click to expand...
How would one determine how inane the rambling is?
 
Objection said:
How would one determine how inane the rambling is?
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That's purely flavor. You choose the level on inanity in the move when you issue the action, exactly like how you select the HP of a Substitute. You'd order "Chatter (3/3)" or "Weakest Chatter" or whatever communicated to the ref that you'd like to use a specific level. Then, it would cost X energy depending on the level and have the appropriate effect.
Rediamond said:
Can we please stop pretending that Hypnosis is a less-powerful protect? In all reality, it's a final gamble of the desperate to buy one or two turns of set-up if no reliable alternative exists.
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While I still think that general purpose Hypnosis is a terrible move, you need to consider all facets of what you're saying before saying it. For instance, +Spe Crobat has an 86% accurate Hypnosis, which is something I'd consider reliable enough for me to risk a game on. Furthermore, other assets such as Gravity—which gives Hypnosis exactly 100% accuracy (60 x 5/3 = 100)—make sleep moves much more reliable for the long run. These strategies must be thought of, for to me (and Deck), it is not the person that uses sleep desperately that made old sleep broken, it was the person planning appropriately and using them devastatingly. In a very average case where a user planned and used an accurate sleep move to crush his opponents, old sleep was unfathomably broken when it got lucky and completely disabled an opponent for a whopping 3 whole actions.

This plays into what Objection was suggesting. It might sound cool to give Hypnosis, a generally terrible move, a nice and high sleep status infliction, but there are so many Pokemon that can convert Hypnosis into something devastating that you're really only making those very strong Pokemon stronger. This is not the case with Sing and GrassWhistle, however, as every Pokemon—bar any given legend—with the moves is terrible. Let's consider the distribution:

Sing:
Clefable, Wigglytuff, Blissey, Jynx, Lapras, Delcatty, Altaria, Kricketune, Chatot, Cinccino, Meloetta, Azumarill, Plusle, Minum

GrassWhistle:
Leafeon, Sunflora, Roserade, Abomasnow, Shaymin, Leavanny, Venusaur, Meganium, Sceptile, Cacturne, Cherubi, Carnivine, Simisage, Whimsicott, Maractus, Lilligant, Sawsbuck

I only listed fully evolved Pokemon because for purposes of top-notch battles, this makes sense. Sing's best user is like... Cinccino? Altaria? Outside of a nifty niche in "all abilities", Cinccino isn't broken, and does anyone even own an Altaria when Dragonite is so strong? I mean, the best anyone in that group of users has is Telekinesis + Sing, which requires you set up the thing and not get Taunted over two actions, or Encored, or whatever. Furthermore, only Clefable and Jynx even have Telekinesis, and both are lol Pokemon compared to monsters like Gengar or Cyclohm or Syclant or what-have-you. Now let's look at GrassWhistle, since it has better distribution. Venusaur, Lilligant, Roserade, and Carnivine also get Sleep Powder, so let's pretend for a moment that they'll never use GrassWhistle as it is under normal circumstances. That makes the best user of GrassWhistle... Whimsicott? Leafeon? Simisage? See a trend here? They're all pretty bad. I mean, Leafeon's pretty above average, but it's not winning any awards even with a boosted GrassWhistle. Furthermore, Whimsicott is never running +Spe with Prankster, so it's suffering that nasty 55% accuracy of failure the whole time. Okay, well, Sceptile has like a 77% GrassWhistle if it uses +Spe nature, which is pretty not-terrible, but he's the only one, and in general is beaten by boss Serperior's Contrary Leaf Storm anyway so that's not a big deal.

My point in discussing the distributions of the moves is that we have leeway with Sing and GrassWhistle to make them better and not break Pokemon. The Pokemon who get the moves would love a useful sleep move that they can actually kind of bank on when push comes to shove. Mind you, I don't want to touch Hypnosis because just look at its distribution. I can rattle 10 Pokemon out offhand that beast already and can make Hypnosis reliable either passively or easily. That move doesn't need the love like Sing and GrassWhistle. I don't like the idea of arbitrarily increasing their (Sing's and GrassWhistle's) accuracies or making them inflict maximum level of sleep. Face it, it makes no sense. Why would Spore not inflict max sleep logically? That's why I went the route of changing the effects of the moves entirely to be closer to how they operate in the anime, which is to keep things asleep for as long as the songs are sung/played. Hopefully this will explain to you all why I'm focused on these two and don't think the problem is inherently with sleep; I love the new sleep mechanics, they balance the status as an entity.
 
Well, I sort of lied. My logic on sleep is Still intact from the last post. However, Cobat, Persian, and Gengar are really the only mons of sufficient speed to abuse accurate Hypnosis. Crobat and Perisan would gain a nice niche from this, and Gengar will very rarely be doing less than 15 damage an action. As for setting up with Gravity and higher level strategies: why nerf it? It's a creative, high level strategy that takes a few turns to set up and encourages long term planning. Also, Gravity's distribution is questionable at best.
 
No one suggested to nerf Gravity or what works with it. For the record, you should check who gets the move before saying it's questionable, especially since it was a well-distributed HGSS Tutor move. Anyway, you're also forgetting that Telekinesis is learned by nearly every (>80% of) Pokemon that gets Hypnosis. There is pretty much nothing in that list outside of a few extreme examples like Spinda that cannot use an accurate Hypnosis with proper planning. Furthermore, countless of the Pokemon that learn Hypnosis are great Pokemon even without Hypnosis. For instance: Politoed, Gengar, Gardevoir, Gallade, Bronzong, Spiritomb, Sigilyph, Ninetales, Crobat, Milotic, etc. That is not true with GrassWhistle and Sing, as I've already reviewed above.
 
Just find interesting this is all coming from the person who told me that sleep was ok some time ago, and that there were many ways to stop it reliably (and the cap on sleep wasn't even necesary)

Persian, Crobat?, why did you forgot Yanma, not really a problem, even with my meowth i prefer to use hone claws to make hypnosis reliable, i find that hardly overpowered since you just give two turns to have the chance of putting your opponent three turns down (with a 66% chance of getting no extra turns, no more than the ones you already spend)

Gengar is really the only one that can actually make hypnosis dangerous, why are we destroying a lot of planning and strategy because one pokemon is able to break it, while in a lot of pokemon you still have to use gravity, hone claws, or telekinesis to make it so it actually hits, spore has crappy distribution and while i find it really powerfull against slow pokes that lack TR or Safeguard it's not the worst, yawn is probably the most broken part of sleep with great distribution and late sleep, but why not nef it so it will only cause 1/2 sleep, seriously, sleep is game-changing in game, and even more in anime, a little power for the very real possibility of failing should at least be considered, why not make it like the multi hit moves where the 3 still there, but it would have a smaller chance of being picked against the 1 & 2 sleep stages

PS: Sing/Gw also becomes 91 acc under gravity, it will also never fail against someone in telekinesis, it also has only 5 acc of diference with hypnosis i agree they are far from good, but saying they are useless while hypnosis is broken is far from reality
 
Yes, the fairies get all sorts of moves (they have among the biggest in-game movepools), but they are all very slow and easily exploited as they set up. That's not the case with the faster Gravity/Telekinesis abusers that pack Hypnosis, such as Sigilyph, Gardevoir, Claydol, and so forth. They also suffer from decidedly crappy typing and stat distributions in ASB; Clefable is the best with Magic Guard and 100/3/3/3/3/60, but is still absolutely mediocre.
Gerard said:
PS: Sing/Gw also becomes 91 acc under gravity, it will also never fail against someone in telekinesis, it also has only 5 acc of diference with hypnosis i agree they are far from good, but saying they are useless while hypnosis is broken is far from reality
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No one said that Hypnosis is broken. Please stop putting words into my mouth. All I said was that Hypnosis's distribution is far more favorable for setting it up successfully, and is on better Pokemon in general. Thus, I don't feel it necessary to change Hypnosis, while I do for Sing and GrassWhistle.
 
I don't mind R_D's chatter proposal, though I do think it necessitates higher energy costs on the order of:
1/3 chance=6 energy
2/3 chance=9 energy
3/3 chance=11-12 energy.

Alternatively, it could keep the suggested energy costs and instead work as follows:
1/4 chance=4 energy
2/4 chance=6 energy
3/4 chance=8-9 energy
4/4 chance= either not included, or 10-12 energy.
 
I had sonething to say, but Gerard stole it. The basis: if I'm spending two turns to earn a what will statistically only be 2 turns, then it's just a two-turn protect with high-ish energy due to Gravity and/or Telekenis. With your proposal, it becomes a little over a protect for two turns of set-up. This is all assuming that the user is never Taunted, and the moves Protect and Substitute exist. While Hypnosis-Gravity is a good strategy, it isn't OP.

PS: Gengars Hypnosis isn't even 80%. Not the definition of reliable, and buying one extra turn isn't really broken in most cases.

EDIT: I apologise to RD and the community for not checking facts for a few of my last posts (Gravity's distribution). My free time is quite limited at the moment, so I didnt take the time I should have to check. Once again, I apologise and promise to be more informed if I ever engage in another policy debate.
 
New topic:
Dig, Fly, Bounce, and Dive are broken.

These moves are never used for their damaging effects, but instead are used as the cheapest way to dodge guaranteed in the game. They cost 6 or 7 energy and dodge entire swaths of attacks from all opponents (bar specific moves like Thunder on Fly) and also deal damage, always netting the person spamming them a gain from the encounter. Furthermore, countless Pokemon have 2 of the above moves, making move substitutions utterly incapable of beating the moves. You move substitution against Charizard's Fly? Good thing he knows Dig! Prepared for Gyarados's Dive? He's got Bounce for just such a situation! This is true for so many high-power Pokemon that it's outright stupid.

I don't want these moves to lose their evasive nature, as I think it's in the spirit of the actual Pokemon game. That said, these need to cost a shitload more energy. You're doing a lot of work to Bounce super high in the air, or Fly into the air, or Dig deep underground, or Dive deep underwater. They should cost energy representative of the effects they have. I think each of these moves should cost 12 energy without question. And to be fair, I actually think 12 energy is cheap for the effects these moves have.
TravelLog said:
I don't mind R_D's chatter proposal, though I do think it necessitates higher energy costs on the order of:
1/3 chance=6 energy
2/3 chance=9 energy
3/3 chance=11-12 energy.
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Remember that DynamicPunch costs 8 energy, and it has guaranteed confusion. 12 energy for a guaranteed confusion and a "meh" attack is not worth it. It shouldn't cost more than 9, especially since the only Pokemon with it is hardly on par with anything popular in ASB.
 
Well, you might use Dig if you're in doubles and have to choose between that and Earthquake as your ground move of choice and your other mon is 4x ground weak ... but yeah, I think you're absolutely right about this, especially given that it's not uncommon for a Dig/Fly/Bounce user to be faster than their opponent(s).
 
I agree 100% with RD's proposal here. 3 energy for an evasive Dig (for example) is ludicrous. An increase is essential here, maybe to as much as 12, personally I'd be happy with about 9 or 10.
 
In general I agree that the energy cost of these moves is a little low, but I also think that we shouldn't make it too high. I don't really think there is a problem with them when used as a dodging move over multiple turns, but I think the main problem with them is how they have normal priority for the first part but negative priority for the second part, effectively allowing a fast Pokemon to evade and damage on the same turn if the opponent does not have an increased or decreased priority move.

Possibly one way to fix this, in addition to added energy cost, is to eliminate the negative priority, and, like in game, make the move take two actions (minimum), both at 0 priority. In this kind of situation, you still both evade and attack, but you get one turn of evasion and one of attack, not one turn where you do both.
 
Well, sure, it is certainly possible to hit a faster Pokemon who uses Fly or a similar move by using a negitive priority combo. However, combos take a lot of energy, and make you lose your next action, so forcing someone to use one just to get a single hit in doesn't seem right.
 
I agree with jas, a very fast Pokemon using Dig/Fly/Dive can easily avoid any one attack, bar Earthquake/Thunder or whatever/Surf, respectively. Using a combo simply delays which action is ineffective, and you can't even use a combo on the last action of a round iirc.
 
OK lots of people are saying sleep moves are broken. My counter for sleep move using pokemon. The ability insomnia. Never been mentioned before I think so remember the word INSOMNIA.
 
RE: Dig and co:

Earthquake, Thunder, Surf.

3 Common TMs worthy of being a primary attack that still hit during Dig/Fly/Bounce/Dive. There are many other moves that can actually hit, and a few moves that become situationally useful like Gust and Twister.

You can also use your own slower Dig or Fly etc. to circumvent another move. Pursuit also hits without fail. The moves are useful to be sure, but hardly broken. When you hit with one, you also end up in proximity and thus if you try the same attack again to evade a whole host of moves will just strike the opponent as it tries to dig away.

Now there might be an argument for additional evasive action underground/in the air being bumped up, but invariably its just an energy sink.
 
Rising_Dusk said:
Remember that DynamicPunch costs 8 energy, and it has guaranteed confusion. 12 energy for a guaranteed confusion and a "meh" attack is not worth it. It shouldn't cost more than 9, especially since the only Pokemon with it is hardly on par with anything popular in ASB.
Click to expand...

While true in terms of energy, DynamicPunch only has 50% accuracy, while Chatter is 100% accurate. DynamicPunch tends to require set-up or No Guard in order to be used effectively without a gamble. Chatter has no such needs (and Chatot does get STAB with it, to be fair, so it isn't quite as meh. Far from great, but not "meh".) Thus, I would argue that it would require a higher energy cost.

Furthermore, the additional energy cost (while not made for the purpose) might also help to ensure Chatter is not abused in Combos (Most notably with Hyper Voice, Uproar, etc. which would not only increase its base power, but might have the possibility of making it AOE.) Just things to consider.
 
TravelLog said:
While true in terms of energy, DynamicPunch only has 50% accuracy, while Chatter is 100% accurate. DynamicPunch tends to require set-up or No Guard in order to be used effectively without a gamble. Chatter has no such needs (and Chatot does get STAB with it, to be fair, so it isn't quite as meh. Far from great, but not "meh".) Thus, I would argue that it would require a higher energy cost.

Furthermore, the additional energy cost (while not made for the purpose) might also help to ensure Chatter is not abused in Combos (Most notably with Hyper Voice, Uproar, etc. which would not only increase its base power, but might have the possibility of making it AOE.) Just things to consider.
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Nobody uses DynamicPunch outside of the pokemon that can use it reliably (machamp, golurk ans + spd pokemon), an would it be so wrong to be abused since only ONE pokemon can actually abuse it, a pokemon with crappy stats, common typing and not really great coverage options, at least it would help him to being captured by someone

In the Dig and Co, fly is the only one that i have a little problem with, since the best move to hit them with is Thunder, if Thunder had 100 ac when attacking a pokemon during fly I think it would really help to battle that kind of really fast pokes (also could add some to the ones that do hit)
 
Agree 100% with RD. Dig is utterly ridiculous in what it can do when going second, and the combination of Dig and Fly can make a mon almost impossible to play around. While his proposed energy may be a bit high, 7-10 would be perfect, and I agree entirely with the concept.
 
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