I'm making this thread to know where people stand on Z-Moves. I'm not promoting any kind of ban, nor do I want something specific to happen. I just wanna talk about them and hear players' opinions on the matter.
So why am I making this thread to begin with? Well, I'm starting to think more and more that Z Moves on Stabs in particular are so strong they're borderline OP, especially on setuppers. Once a Pokemon has boosted its offensive stats, a Z-boosted stab will blow through almost everything. On one hand, it's a good thing because it promotes proactive gameplay and on the other hand, I feel like it's too powerful at times.
The two examples that stand out the most to me and which made me think about this more are:
Of course, the idea of altering your moveset to beat your checks isn't anything new and shouldn't be frowned upon, but there used to often be a drawback to it. "Wasting" one of your 4 valuable slots being one of the biggest one. I feel like this drawback is not as bad nowadays because a Z-Stab is pretty much always useful. It will either blow through your check/counter or get a super strong hit vs anything else (not to mention other benefits such as not triggering abilities like Iron Barbs).
I know there is also the option of playing around them but I feel like the Z-Move user has such a clear advantage in those situations it's so one-sided.
So yeah, in conclusion, Z-moves are amazing, nothing new here, but I feel like they're on a whole new level when Stabbed and on setuppers because you can just kill anything without much drawback.
So why am I making this thread to begin with? Well, I'm starting to think more and more that Z Moves on Stabs in particular are so strong they're borderline OP, especially on setuppers. Once a Pokemon has boosted its offensive stats, a Z-boosted stab will blow through almost everything. On one hand, it's a good thing because it promotes proactive gameplay and on the other hand, I feel like it's too powerful at times.
The two examples that stand out the most to me and which made me think about this more are:
- when building in SM UU and trying to check stuff like CM Latias or SD Terrakion
- watching SM OU battle and seeing Z-Fleur Magearna in particular just winning games after games just because Z-Fleur just destroys even its checks with its sheer power
I agree here that hard checks/counters barely exist anymore. One example I briefly mentionned earlier is SD Terrakion in UU. Sure you might have Hippodown or Slowbro on your team, which are like, some of the best physical walls in the games and even them won't save you from boosted Z-Fight or Z-Rock. In OU, countless games have been won because Heatran blew through its checks thanks to Z-Magma (goodbye Gliscor).00:38] WCAR: i think z-moves push a whole slew of mons to be borderline broken/unwallable when previously these mons could be stopped by a few hard checks, and now with the advent of z-moves all these dangerous mons have the opportunity to utterly destroy their hard checks. and since z-moves are universal and can be used on every mon, we dont ban anything bc if we ban one mon for being unwallable due to their z-move set whats stopping us from banning like other 20 different mons with the same logic?
[00:38] Fin_g_nator: Twinkle tackle mag is the most ridiculous of them all
[00:39] WCAR: like if mons didnt have access to z-moves would shit like magearna and heatran be as ridic as they are now
Of course, the idea of altering your moveset to beat your checks isn't anything new and shouldn't be frowned upon, but there used to often be a drawback to it. "Wasting" one of your 4 valuable slots being one of the biggest one. I feel like this drawback is not as bad nowadays because a Z-Stab is pretty much always useful. It will either blow through your check/counter or get a super strong hit vs anything else (not to mention other benefits such as not triggering abilities like Iron Barbs).
I know there is also the option of playing around them but I feel like the Z-Move user has such a clear advantage in those situations it's so one-sided.
So yeah, in conclusion, Z-moves are amazing, nothing new here, but I feel like they're on a whole new level when Stabbed and on setuppers because you can just kill anything without much drawback.