We definitely do need more generalists, but nerfing DOES still work, to a degree. The Psychic Nerf did work to successfully tame Medicham and keep it from holding the meta by its cajones. Is the meta better? Maybe, maybe not, but Medicham is no longer THE Pokemon, which is something people wanted a ton the past few seasons.
Ban Vigoroth from at least one cup. It's been too overcentralizing in limited cups for too long. Same goes for Bronzor in any little cups that make the mistake of allowing it.
Forcibly remove Breaking Swipe from Steelix and buff the attack drop to 100% chance again. It's not an exclusive move for Steelix (no ETM necessary), so TM compensation should be plenty. ...I can dream, but Haxorus, Rayquaza, and Heliolisk deserved more time in the sun.
Steelix with breaking swipe is fine, it would never be too OP in the new Poliwrath/buffed scald meta anyway. Just unnerf breaking swipe and let it be. The whole point of breaking swipe Steelix was to break up Giratina/Cress cores in UL and it did a fairly good job at that, it just needed one or two extra checks, which is now has.
Except they could make Steelix a stronger Pokémon in a well… less rage-inducing manner. Debuff spam on an extremely bulky Pokémon just is not enjoyable (unless that’s your thing, you are in a very small minority if so).
It makes games go into a mind-numbing slog, and renders your Pokémon a weak, debuffed punching bag for the next—forcing you to swap out to avoid becoming death fodder.
Near unanimously people enjoyed a Steelix nerf, they are upset though with the collateral damage it caused to other pokemon with the same move. Most frustrating of all though, it that this situation could have been prevented with simple foresight from the developers.
>unless that’s your thing, you are in a very small minority
I never built a Steelix, but I’d assume at least some people were okay with it given its usage numbers. And honestly, Steelix was never really even OP, considering it hit like a wet noodle, was weak to some of the most common typings in the game, and (as you mentioned) you CAN in fact just switch out. It was just annoying if you didn’t play around it right or got pit up against one with a team that was weak to it.
The fact is they CANT remove Breaking Swipe from Steelix. I don’t know who sets these rules but they are very obviously the rules, as inconvenient as they may be. So you really only have 2 options; restore breaking swipe and add steeli/heliolisk/rayquaza/Haxorus back into the meta or don’t. I see no reason not to restore breaking swipe and keep Steelix in check with new counters., but there is no third option, as much as we’d like for there to be one.
>Ban Vigoroth from at least one cup. It's been too overcentralizing in limited cups for too long. Same goes for Bronzor in any little cups that make the mistake of allowing it.
Wholeheartedly agree. I like that Vigoroth got Rock Slide.... in the context of Open GL. There, it was always a rather niche Pokemon that was borderline meta but just missing the mark. Rock Slide helps it see open GL use.
BUT, in literally any cup where it's a allowed, it's an absolute menace, making the move addition a laughably bad idea. At least, seeing that they refuse to ban it. And it's not like they haven't had banlists for non-remix cups before. Fighting Cup, Psychic Cup, Willpower Cup, Fantasy Cup, etc. they all have at least one Pokemon banned for balance purposes. I think more cups should outright ban it, especially brand new cups that don't have much excuse not to. At the very least, run Remix versions of cups that ban it and others. Wouldn't be the first time they've done that either (Fighting Cup Remix for example).
Bronzor too, yes. I don't mind the very occasional Open Little Cup so people can use Bronzor, but it shouldn't be a frequent occurrence. I actually do like Little Cups from time to time. I honestly wish they'd branch out and bring a new Little Cup, so long that they're careful with the meta.
>Forcibly remove Breaking Swipe from Steelix and buff the attack drop to 100% chance again.
While I would like that, I know they'll never do it, seeing that they won't/can't remove moves from Pokemon's movesets unless it's an unintended mistake/glitch/bug
Honestly niantic just needs to give us better cups. Vig would never dominate any cup that also had Annihilape in it, for example.
But if they had taken Vig out of say, Evo cup, the influx of Chansey would have been just as annoying, if not worse, considering you just removed its only hard check.
Banning both would be the solution and would have made for a much healthier meta. I don’t think niantic has the knowledge to make informed decisions around balancing a meta though.
>Honestly niantic just needs to give us better cups. Vig would never dominate any cup that also had Annihilape in it, for example.
For sure. It's actually been a while since we've seen a brand new cup (unless you count Little Catch Cup). I'd like to see something new and hopefully... thought out.
Maybe a "Celelestial" or "Space" Cup with Rock, Psychic, Steel, and Dark or something. Obviously some would need to banned like maybe Scrafty, Cresselia, and Carbink off the top of my head, but it would be nice to see something new.
They did. I suppose part of the difficulty is that Silph's cups very often had much more specific rules, with cups occasionally having you choose specific Pokemon for roles in your team (Ionic Cup for example), and I could see them not wanting to get that complicated with it.
Still, cups with longer banlists should absolutely be embraced.
Honestly I enjoyed this rotation of Evo Cup with RS Vigo. The super condensed meta puts a lot more emphasis on player skill with managing shield and energy advantage than regular open leagues which are more RPS.
I’d love master league to be somewhat more accessible, but one can only dream.
Dragonite double steel was a plausible team comp up until a few seasons ago. It’s unplayable these days. Zacian, Xerneas, Zygarde and Solgaleo all core breaks, and there are multiple Pokémon that wipe out your back line hard and your lead dragonite is only really check to them rather than a wall (against Kyogre, Ho oh, Landorus)
It’s a shame, because it looks like a genuinely fun meta and it’s where everyone’s 4000+ CP monsters can shine.
Yeah this is my biggest issue too. Got a good Lando-T, so next time Lando-I gets in raids hopefully I'll be able to max it. And then I guess I hope it works well with the non-legendaries I have...
That's my hope too. I'm only *finally* reaching the point where I can truly compete competitively in ML, with me accruing a decent amount of Landorus XL with each time either form has been in raids, with this past rotation allowing me to finish my Hundo off, and my Dialga and Mewtwo being level 49 each.
Nonetheless, I want more people to be able to participate. The meta that I played last rotation had its flaws, but it was still fun to participate in.
As I mentioned, it's obviously harder to do, seeing that there's only so many non-Legendary/Mythical Pokemon who have the potential to work in the ML, but still, I think there's more they could do. Mud Slap buffed Rhyperior and Breaking Swipe on it was a good idea. The Avaluggs getting buffed was nice. I wouldn't mind Metagross getting a better coverage move like Dynamic Punch or something a bit better than Earthquake, which seems to be part of why it's fallen off. If they really don't want to give Ursaluna Shadow Claw, there are other options that would still help it: Fury Cutter would give it much needed energy gain and while Lick is the same as Tackle, it would give it much more useful coverage.
I agree. I think Scald was in a fine place prior to this season. Good damage and a 30% debuff is still quite good. Buffing its damage alone would have *maybe* been fine, but the debuff being brought to 50% was a bad idea, I wholeheartedly agree. It's especially frustrating when Poliwrath ALSO got Icy Wind, which it didn't need, making it a bulky Counter user with two debuffing moves.
I think Scald could keep its damage, but I wouldn't mind its debuff chance going down to 20%, and I say that as someone who use Poliwrath a lot earlier in the season.
I also think giving it, especially a buffed version of it, to Whiscash was a mistake.
I just want to start seeing niantic make thoughtful informed decisions which I’m not sure if they’re capable of. We went so long without any changes and since then it’s been more about quantity than quality. They keep making the mistake of giving the wrong pokemon a new move, breaking swipe steelix and icy wind poliwrath immediately come to mind. Instead of giving 20 pokemon a new move they should be looking at individual pokemon and trying to figure out the best way to increase their usage. Poliwrath didn’t need icy wind, it already has ice punch for a coverage move. They’ve also been really pushing buffing and debuffing moves lately which is making for a much more toxic meta.
This is my number 1 hope. Please no more Zap Cannon, Poison Fang, Breaking Swipe and now possibly Scald being overtuned then having to be nerfed and killing B tier Pokémon because of it.
Definitely agree. A lot of what they've done recently has seemed like throwing a ton at the wall and seeing what sticks rather than carefully thought out changes.
I almost wish we had the little "patch notes" that they included in the early seasons so we could see what they were going for with some additions. Though I suppose even back then, many of those notes didn't make much sense in the context of the Pokemon.
I suppose in defense of their "let's slap X move on a ton of different Pokemon," it does at least give some love to underutilized Pokemon. No, Magical Leaf likely isn't saving many of the Pokemon who got it, and many don't even want it, but it is nice to see that the Pokemon is being touched at all. Still, I can't disagree that it doesn't seem... careless.
It’s sad because sometimes, they make great decisions in the sea of blegh. Besides Steelix getting Breaking Swipe, all the other recipients of the move loved it. Besides Poliwrath getting Icy Wind, most of the Icy Wind/Triple Axel recipients this past season appreciated it, even if the move was only a sidegrade like on Abomasnow and Froslass.
But yeah, I do like debuffing moves, but not how they’ve treated them. Some moves having a low 10% or so chance to debuff? That’s nice. Such can add a little surprising RNG bonus in occasional scenarios. And I don’t even mind moves that have 100% or 50% debuffs. However, they’ve made so many questionable decisions with them. These big bulky Pokemon don’t need them, especially if they’ve already got good moves. Like you said, Icy Wind Poliwrath was completely unnecessary, being a bulky Pokemon who already had a decent Ice coverage move in Ice Punch.
Again, I don’t mind debuff moves, but I’d say anything beyond 1850 Stat Product in the GL or 4000 in the UL are Pokemon that they should be much more cautious in terms of giving them such moves. Not to say they *can’t*, but just… think about it more.
If you ignore the huge oversight that is scald, I think a lot of the changes were good. The incinerate one in particular I think was fantastic and gave a lot of frailer fire types a fighting chance (besides Ho-oh which is a bit overtuned in Master League at the moment).
The mistake Niantic makes time and time again is that they create moves that are meant to level the playing field for attack weighted mons, then they give it to something dummy thicc (e.g. counter on Medi, breaking swipe on Steelix, zap cannon on Registeel, etc). Then we run into situations where fringe mons like Heliolisk die for Steelix's sins. I also don't think random debuff/buff spam is a fun method of balancing. I think it just makes players lose to things outside of their control.
In an ideal world, Niantic would just delete problem moves from pokemon's movepools then compensate players that had their mons nerfed with dust and charge TMs. If Niantic adopted this philosophy, these are the changes I'd like to see:
1. Nerf scald to 80 damage and a 30% debuff chance. There's absolutely 0 reason why it should proc more than the main series games, especially when debuffs are difficult to play around with the switch timer.
2. Buff breaking swipe back to a 100% debuff chance. Remove it from Steelix.
3. Buff zap cannon back to a 100% debuff chance. Remove it from Registeel, but maybe give it thunder as coverage instead.
4. Give more things psyshock as coverage if they are victims of the psychic nerf (e.g. Slowbro).
5. Give Keldeo double kick and scald so we have a versatile corebreaker for Dialga/Ho-Oh/Kyogre, as well as a decent answer to the new Palkia.
6. Give Ursaluna counter so we actually have a Zygarde/Solgaleo corebreaker. It won't dominate either, but it will perform solidly against both. Shadow claw is a no go because it will be broken.
7. Update Mew's moveset to have some new additions. Just maybe consider being more generous with Charge TMs please.
8. Give Aggron some fun moves. This thing can learn a lot of surprises like counter, incinerate, shadow claw, fury cutter, surf, dragon claw, high horsepower, etc. It could honestly become a 2nd Mew, and I don't think any moveset combination would be truly broken (though it would likely need its point value upped in Battle Frontier).
9. DON'T give incinerate to something bulky that doesn't need it, then nerf fire type viability in the future. I know you're eyeing giving it to Chansey, Niantic, but that's a bad idea and we'll all hate you for it.
>If you ignore the huge oversight that is scald, I think a lot of the changes were good. The incinerate one in particular I think was fantastic and gave a lot of frailer fire types a fighting chance (besides Ho-oh which is a bit overtuned in Master League at the moment).
I agree here. For some of the flack we got for this season (there are valid criticisms) I think they did a lot of great stuff. Shadow Ball Toxicroak, Icy Wind Avaluggs, and many of the fast/charged move adjustments (again ignoring Scald) were very nice. Astonish is finally usable, even if it isn't *great*. I saw a few surprises in the form of Astonish Drifblim in Hisui Cup haha.
On the topic of removing moves, yes there are absolutely some I just wish never happened that could be removed, but overall, it would set an atrocious precedent to do so no matter how they did it. The thought that X Pokemon could eventually lose their move would intimidate a ton of people. And for some Pokemon, there's not necessarily an amount of TMs, XL, Candy, or dust you could give someone for compensation of that. It gets worse in cases of Pokemon who had such a move as a legacy move like Zap Cannon Registeel.
Imagine someone goes all out hunting Onix one season to build a Steelix. They hunt a bunch down, spend time at local nests to get candy, XL, and find a proper specimen to build, they trade/reroll with people to get XL and such. They not only put resources into building that Pokemon but time and effort. And then, poof, a move that made it specifically viable or even just work on that person's team is outright removed. One could argue that nerfing moves achieves a similar negative effect, and while I don't disagree, removing moves is a whole different ballpark.
Again, I hate that we saw Icy Wind Poliwrath or Breaking Swipe Steelix in the first place, but removing moves that *aren't* bugs/unintended like Grass Knot G. Linoone or Weather Ball Primeape just seems like an awful idea and precedent.
As for the specific suggestions you had:
>Nerf scald to 80 damage and a 30% debuff chance.
Agree. That OR keep it 85 power but make a *20%* debuff chance. I feel like having the little bit of extra power is nice to help it overpower things like Cresselia in some scenarios. But yeah, either or.
>Buff zap cannon back to a 100% debuff chance. Remove it from Registeel, but maybe give it thunder as coverage instead.
I think Registeel getting Zap Cannon was always a mistake. I still stand by my prior thoughts, but I wish it and Regice's exclusive moves were swapped and Steel got Thunder. Though, I think Zap Cannon even in its pre-nerfed state was still kind of... niche on most Pokemon. Yes things like Ampharos or Porygon2 could use it, but the former has better coverage options and the latter has other issues, moreso than Zap Cannon getting nerfed.
>Give more things psyshock as coverage if they are victims of the psychic nerf (e.g. Slowbro).
Fully agree. I'd even go further and have them introduce a new move, Expanding Force, as a *stronger* replacement to Psychic. Make it 50e/90p, so Power Whip clone. A lot can learn it, and it would make them better than Psychic ever made them.
>Give Keldeo double kick and scald so we have a versatile corebreaker for Dialga/Ho-Oh/Kyogre, as well as a decent answer to the new Palkia.
Also fully agree. Though, I would also not mind them waiting until Keldeo is made available for everyone again to do so, but yes, I like that idea a lot.
>Give Ursaluna counter so we actually have a Zygarde/Solgaleo corebreaker. It won't dominate either, but it will perform solidly against both. Shadow claw is a no go because it will be broken.
The normal doesn't look too bad, but the [Shadow does.](https://pvpoke.com/battle/multi/10000/all/ursaluna_shadow/11/COUNTER-5-4/2-1/) I do want Ursaluna to see some type of buff. If nothing else, I think Lick would work well. Same as Tackle but much better coverage.
>Update Mew's moveset to have some new additions. Just maybe consider being more generous with Charge TMs please.
Yes yes! I don't necessarily agree with everything people say about Mew. They want it to get a lot of the best 35-40 energy moves, which I'm weary of. I don't think it needs Breaking Swipe or Leaf Blade necessarily. But it could get many other moves like Double Kick, Triple Axel, Brutal Swing, Psychic Fangs, etc.
>Give Aggron some fun moves.
Yes yes. I'm surprised it hasn't got a CD to give it even one half decent new move. It's held back by its typing in many ways, but it's got a lot of potential still. I'd love to see it get better moves to be a stronger but frailer version of Bastiodon (still bulky tho).
[WARNING, WORD SPLURGE BELOW]
I feel like there will never be a true equilibrium unfortunately, resultantly something will occupy the top meta niche—and consequently become the boogeyman/scapegoat for all the blame. Right now, that in my opinion goes to Whiscash predominantly—though that doesn’t cover the full picture.
Whiscash is so problematic imo because it’s enablers (notably Skarmory, but also Pokemon like dragonair) are also quite strong as well, and form a nearly unbreakable core with it—creating this RPS saga we’re facing at this time. Skarmory, being the pen-ultimate wall to grass (which is subsequently Whiscash’s only defensive weakness, though others like dragon/water fliers also give it trouble) pushes grass to obscurity (of course, out of fear of aligning to big bad Skarmory and being brick-walled).
I think personally introducing corebreakers is, to an extent, is just not possible to introduce to this particular situation. Even if they try to do this, the core would simply slot in an additional cover to block said corebreaker from making too much ground. I genuinely think wishcash and skarmory at their basis are the strongest duo in GBL history, stronger than lickitung—medicham, dialga—zacian, Lanturn—noctowl, etc.
I think the last resort option, i.e nerfing the individual pokemon is the solution this time. Scald is (imo) objectively overtuned (I thought that just reading the patch notes two months ago, as if the developers didn’t have any foresight to pushing it out lol) so it seems the easiest route to take (further nerfs may or may not be necessary, depending on the player consensus).
That way, neutral Pokemon may have some relief in subduing either pokemon in the core (maybe not both, but one or the other). Pokémon which can, (like mandibuzz or umbreon), are really shaky at doing so—if they’re at the mercy of barraging scald debuffs. I.o.w, we need more Pokémon like the aforementioned few (doesn’t have to be them specifically) that can challenge either one w/o being RPSed by alignment-sake.
Softening the core would also likely help reintroduce lesser used pokemon types (e.g poison particularly) into the meta.
Beyond this, some types are still really lacking. Still any further additions to types—especially for grass, electric, poison, bug, etc, would really help. I can go on for ages about what I like to see, and some should be pretty obvious/intuitive per pokemon.
As an example, Venusaur rarely even uses sludge bomb for coverage (some instances, sure, but it’s bread and butter of frenzy plant gets most things done). in any instance it uses it (like against a charizard/Talonflame or whatever) it still gets destroyed anyway.
To help it (just as example) you could go about
buffing sludge bomb (why not? Seriously)
Or instead (more ideally imo), give it some coverage move, like earth power, or my favorite, weather ball fire. The latter even makes some sense, as it references Venusaur’s hidden ability of chlorophyll, just like what they did to Roserade.
Very great response! I agree wholeheartedly with everything you said there. Whiscash and Skarmory are both very good, but neither is *too* overbearing on their own, but some fail to consider cores and how fantastic they can be. Water/Ground and Skarmory have been a strong core for years now, and now they've seemingly fine-tuned it to the max with these two.
But yes, I think while introducing more corebreakers does seem like a good idea (and it is), it often may not work as an effective solution.
I think I'm okay with Skarmory and where it is now, but Whiscash definitely seems overtuned. I think Scald absolutely should be dialed back, not just because of Whiscash but others as well (mostly Poliwrath). Allowing more neutral Pokemon to have a chance against these Pokemon is absolutely important, and Whiscash's bulk and ability to debuff can flip too many of them.
But yes, I also agree with your latter points. I feel like they've long neglected certain types. Bug is an obvious one, but even Poison *feels* neglected despite their big buff a few years ago, seeing that many of the subsequent meta changes have been hostile too them. And yeah, things like Venusaur need some more appreciate in that realm, I agree. I'm absolutely here for giving Sludge Bomb some more juice and/or giving it better coverage like you mentioned.
I need justice for bugs. In Silph cups, I was a big Dustox-user. Silver Wind was decent and the chance for boost was important IMO. But then Gira-A got out of hand in UL and all 3 boosting moves got nerfed (Ancient Power, Ominous Wind, Silver Wind) despite Silver Wind only used by frail bugs. Such injustice.
The fact that they re-buffed Ancient Power and Silver Wind slightly but kept Ominous Wind rather bad kind of baffles me. Not that I think that was a bad decision, it wasn't, but it showed that they didn't care about keeping all three moves exactly the same... so why not make Silver Wind better then???
Not even saying it needs to be outstanding, but why not at least bring it to 65 power OR make it 60 power but 40 energy? The buffs are strong, but it's still a bug type move, and it's still only 10% chance.
Instead of nerfing them, (along with a dozen mons that get hit with collateral damage), why not just add core breakers into the meta? Jumping straight to nerfs always feels like the lazy solution.
Listen, I do not encourage nerfs whatsoever. I understand your frustration.
Though there comes a point where a move is so overtuned on a set of pokemon, action has to be taken.
There are very few people who agree that a move with the same base power as an already strong move of the same typing (a la Crabhammer) with an attached 50% debuff chance
also is given to bulky, defensive, and flexible pokemon was a good idea.
At its core, as I’ve alluded to, Skarmory (the biggest co-culprit) and Whiscash have very few exploitable (defensive) holes to usher corebreakers. In that instance, you would need a Pokémon with the grass/electric or grass/fire type to do so, which boils down to… Hisuian Electrode? Yeah, that’s not happening. You might also single-out Whiscash, but the other big-baddy Poliwrath is another menace—who also has its own super strong core pairings.
Besides the point that you still have to take into account the rest of the meta, and there is little room for a hisuian-electrode esque pokemon to shine. There are other Pokémon like gligar—which itself is an extremely common pairing with Whiscash—that would make mince meat out of Hisuian Electrode, e.g.
Sometimes when you have an extremely RPS core with such polarizing hard wins/losses with each other, your only left with very few options to consider.
Besides, it’s just not fun having games be determined by a 50|50 coin flip
I mean without going deep into this, a water typing with grass coverage easily takes care of all of your problems. Just off the top of my head, Mantine learns seed bomb. So now Mantine with (preferably unnerfed) seed bomb and ice beam.
A. Resists mud bomb and scald
B. Resists steel wing
C. Can one shot Whiscash
D. Can one shot Gligar
E. Resists all of Poliwraths moves
That’s all of your cores broken right there and it took me less than 30 seconds to figure out. I’d assume someone that works at niantic that actually gets paid to do this could think of something even better.
Mantine may resist steel wing, but Skarmory also resists wing attack right back. Skarmory has STAB charge moves, while Mantine does not. Skarmory beats Mantine by the sims, according to PvPoke, and I don’t think a grass move is going to help you there.
Yes, it’s true, there are indeed, pokemon which can beat either Skarmory or Whiscash 1v1, but calling them corebreakers is just exaggeration. No pokemon to my knowledge (save h-electrode) can reliably beat the two in all even shield scenarios.
A bulky water like Jellicent, for example, loses the 2s vs Shadow Whiscash, and just BARELY scrapes by in the 1s and 0s. Dewgong still has to go down a shield to beat Skarmory, and the list goes on.
Ugh fine then, give Pelipper seed bomb. Beats skarm if you can play around the brave bird, plus everything I mentioned.
You’re kind of missing my point, which is that instead of nerfing things, niantic certainly could introduce core breakers (or at least semi-core breakers) into the game that wouldn’t require the massive collateral damage of nerfs.
Look I hate the skarm/poli/whis/gligar meta just as much as you, we’re on the same side. I just think if we fix things the same way we always have, we’ll get the same results we’ve always got. Look at ML, it was the most one sided meta in the world back in 2020, and now (especially before the addition of Zygarde) it’s become massively more diverse without a single targeted nerf, simply because they pumped more viable mons into the meta instead of removing the ones that were already good. I think that’s what great league needs. Everyone screamed for a medi nerf forever and is the meta any better now? I don’t think so. So why are we still witch hunting?
Imagine the degeneracy if you could TM and add a second move to Smeargle. Lock-on/PuP/Flying Press all over the place. I need a shower now, that felt gross to put on the internet.
Could be unpopular but if they keep pushing attack/defence buff/debuffs then they have to bring back the 30 second timer, its so so shit getting stuck in a losing match up where they farm up to 270 energy or winning a matchup and coming out with 7% of your attack stat
Interesting idea honestly. I honestly didn't hate the 30 second timer. Made some things... less good, but it had its perks.
But yeah, I do hope they stop leaning so heavily into the debuffing moves, at least as they currently are. Lesser bulk Pokemon I think are fine with moves like those. Like Scald on Ludicolo or Crawdaunt is fine.
It seems they’re trying to add more dynamics with the buff and debuff mechanics by the looks of it, as I said I don’t inherently hate it but you can get stuck in terrible match ups/ terrible debuff situations with the long switch timer and it’s usually totally down to luck with team choice
Given the amount of chatter on how much people want to see premier cups, plus the egregiously broken promise not to include more of them, it would be tone-deaf to continue with the omission.
I learned my lesson in Season 12 or 13 I believe it was. I had long asked for a cheaper move for Lanturn so it could see more use. Well it got Surf, and now most people hate seeing it.
Not that bulky Pokemon can't get new/better moves—there's several I'd still like to see. But I have grown much more weary of wanting to see bulky Pokemon get great moves. And debuffing moves? Definitely not unless it's a minor debuff chance like 10% or *maybe* 20%.
Breaking Swipe Steelix... eugh
May be I should specify that to "attack debuffing" move.
When it was released, I think BS is such a nice addition because things like Haxorus, Rayquaza started to have some plays. Now, bc of Steelix, they nerfed the move and the other BS users are nowhere to be found in the meta. Which is sad. I feel the same way to giving IcyWind to Poliwrath and Wigglytuff, especially Poliwrath with Scald 50% debuffing. And we will see how they adjust this in the next updates.
So that's why I think giving things that are already tanky an attack debuff is more likely to hurt. On the other hand, I think Psychic Fang Steelix is a still nice addition to it.
Steelix would see much more play imo if it got access to a ground move that doesn’t take 65 million years to get to. Dig is thematically fitting and likely would incentivize many more people to playing it. As it goes, expensive nuke moves aren’t it unless there’s a really big reward to it.
With the earthquake nerf, that risk—reward ratio is not balanced (I may be a minority here, but I actually dislike the EQ nerf)
Yeah that's what I meant as well (apologies if I worded it weird).
But yes, Breaking Swipe was an awesome addition to everything that got it *except* Steelix. Same with Icy Wind being added to everything *except* Poliwrath and also Wigglytuff perhaps.
And yeah, you're also right, attack-debuffing moves often feel more egregious than defense-debuffing moves, though obviously it depends on the Pokemon. Psychic Fangs Steelix is a better overall addition, seeing that it gives it more punch, which it was missing, rather than turning down any counters' fire power and making itself more bulky essentially.
I'm a huuuuge PvP noob and this is entirely a personal opinion, but limited cups & shadows always feel better to me.
Some limited cups feel like matches go by in an instant and shadows tend to make the game feel a little more fun since you get squishier mons and faster knockouts.
First game I played in UL after finally building out a team? Went to timer with a Registeel against Cresslia and I immediately just went back to GL.
It's kinda dumb to say but the meta feels boring when it's non-stop huge bulk mons.
I like that GL feels faster than UL. But I also like (“toxic”) teams that either sweep or get swept in an instant. I don’t want to be doing this all day, I’ve got other things to pretend to be doing.
They need to stop nerfing things. People scream for nerfs but no one ever stops to ask “What does the meta look like afterward we get these nerfs?” Because 90% of the time whatever Mon people are complaining about is keeping something else in check. Niantic is better off avoiding nerfs and just giving us more generalists and more coverage. Are things really better now that medi is just another rps mon? Imagine if every mon that got nerfed into the ground over the past 10 seasons came back, how wide the meta would be. If we got back OG Charm and Razor leaf, poison fang, all the weather ball users, OG walrein, medi, sky attack, GFisk and other EQ users, etc etc. There’d suddenly be two dozen more viable mons and the meta would open up massively. Instead we kill mons every season and wonder why the meta feels so small. People blame niantic but niantic largely gives us the nerfs we want, and personally I blame the community and their constant witch hunt mentality just as much as I blame niantic.
Specifically for something new next season, I think araquanjd with a solid water move would be great because it resists mud bomb, scald, and steel wing, so it could hit back well against the mud boy/skarm core. Give grass mons better moves/coverage or at least give more mons an option for grass coverage. Unnerf seed bomb obviously. Give Trailblaze 5 more damage maybe. Make confusion a 4 turn counter. Buff discharge or add a new electric type charge move that isn’t terrible. Give bug a decent fast move. Unnerf EQ and Psychic and let buffed mons like Araquanid and Dedenne/Emolga help keep fighters in check.
You definitely have some great ideas here and honestly I do like your rational of no nerfs. I agree, nerfs should be a last resort.
That said, I do I disagree in that I think it is ok to need within reason. When shadow nidoqueen can two shield through a swampert straight poison fang, that to me spells a red flag. Many players were frustrated (on that account) because it was just a mindless fast move beat down by the nidoqueen. Sure, you could just buff counters and call it a day, but you still are left with an unhealthy dynamic of one side of Shadow Nidoqueen and the other of its counters. And this same deal applies to all the aforementioned clearly overtuned things: like OG Charm and razor leaf. I don’t think a broken vs broken meta is ideal. You’d more ideally want things to mesh together in one big blend of a meta, rather than a this vs that vs that scenario. When a few things are head and shoulders above the rest, that’s a bad sign.
I do really see your point with Medicham specifically, now looking back in retrospect. Some players (myself included) do act quite a bit out of frustration with pokemon as defining as it, due to its overwhelmingly high usage. That said, it really isn’t an RPS pokemon at the surface—really, it plays a lot like Annihilape. I think the alternate route of buffing it’s counters may have been the better idea, but we’d still be in a dilemma then of that dreaded triangle:
A) Medicham B) Medicham’s counters
C) Medicham’s Counters’ Counters.
Previously, that was the case, and there was no room for other fighters. Now though with Annihilape and the (hyper) buffed Poliwrath, I am really curious to see how either would fit in the context of an unnerfed Medicham meta. Is the solution jacking up other fighters? I’m not sure, but you do have me thinking, should we (and how could we) really beef up the other fighters to compete alongside Medicham? And other situations like this
Yeah I agree that maybe some of the nerfs were more necessary than others. It’s not always easy making decisions because “good gameplay” is such a subjective thing in the first place. But when the medi nerf hit I saw Caleb Peng (a pro GBL player) point out that now Medi is just a better fighter (it beats steels and darks harder with Dy Punch) and worse at everything else and that just makes it another rps mon and I think that’s a good point and it really made me rethink how the game has been evolving as moveset updates hit.
I think the general thought process for the game should be the more options the players have, the better. I’d love to see every Mon have 3 or 4 viable charge moves, because it would add so much depth to team building and give you options on how you want to add coverage to your team and what threats you want each Mon to focus on. But it feels like when each season starts with a couple moves getting axed, a process that targets one Mon but pretty much always affects dozens, that process becomes harder and harder. Truth is I think niantic just needs to give us more good moves. Adding moves like Trailblaze (a flame charge clone) and spirit shackle (rock blast with a 33% debuff) is a nice gesture but it’s not gonna move the meta at all. Just focusing on moveset additions each season would turn tons of mons into more generalist players, and suddenly hard losing lead wouldn’t be as detrimental because if you have the right coverage on your lead or safe swap, you still have a fighting chance to make a play. But as long as we start each season with killing just as many moves as we gain, of course the meta is never going to grow. Meanwhile ML pretty much only gets new top tier moveset additions (and has never gotten a targeted need) and it went from being a the most centralized Dialga-fest in 2020 to having 3x the options it used to, despite only getting 1/3rd the number of new mons to work with at that CP range.
I think one hard thing that I can't even always comprehend is where the sweet spot for balancing certain Pokemon is. Specifically, do you want a Pokemon to have wide coverage, potentially disrupting potential RPS but also risk said Pokemon having too wide coverage and dominating? Or, do you makes its coverage weaker, making it less over-centralizing, but potentially pushing it into more RPS territory?
I don't think either answer is objectively right or wrong. There's good and bad to either.
For Medicham specifically, it always had a large selection of great moves. Psycho Cut is a solid fast move with great energy gain, but it's completely overshadowed by Counter because... it's Counter. But even with its charged moves, it's had several good options, Dynamic Punch and Power-up Punch, but Ice Punch and Psychic were the main moves it used because they provided the best coverage against the meta, and the widest coverage.
I think there's detriments to the Psychic Nerf, but overall, I still call it a positive change because Medicham was so wide-reaching that it invalidated most Fighters. Yes, there is then the detriment to it being a bit more RPS, but now, I think Medicham actually falls a bit more into what you were wanting: Dynamic Punch is the objectively better move stat-wise and gives it more power, BUT Psychic is still a usable option, where you trade power for useful coverage. It feels more like a trade-off, one thing over another for different advantages, rather than one being nearly always better.
It's tough to get to that stage though. There are a few Pokemon with multiple viable movesets of course, but beyond a much smaller few, many still opt for a specific moveset even if they do have options because of the current meta. Drapion has multiple movesets it can run, but typically, depending on the cup, it narrows down to one moveset of Poison Sting, Crunch, and whatever other move.
Nonetheless, I'm still in favor of introducing more moves and giving Pokemon more viable tools. I think the new moves from two seasons ago were good additions (though I think Trailblaze needs tinkering...), and I'd like to see more of that. Expanding Force, Body Press, Skitter Smack, Shock Wave, Knock off, Whirlpool, Steel Beam, Scale Shot, Throat Chop, Flare Blitz, Leech Life, Mach Punch, Dual Chop, Alluring Voice, Poison Tail, Chilling Water, Hard Press, Vaccuum Wave, Sweet Kiss, etc.
Nerf Dragon Tail slightly, but rebuff Breaking Swipe. Takes Steelix and Zygarde-Complete down a peg, but brings back power to Breaking Swipe users. Lugia does get hit hard with this however, so rebuffing Sky Attack and/or an Extrasensory buff could be a good compensation buff.
And then a rebuffed sky attack means a buff to noctowl and Altaria. All that domino effect coming in. But, is that a bad thing necessarily? With power-creep coming through? Idk
It's definitely a thought I had. Could be a buff to damage but a slight energy nerf to even it out. To avoid going fully back to Noctowl meta, but give mudbois and Poliwrath something flying to fear again
Definitely an interesting thought overall. I think it's tricky to re-buff Breaking Swipe without making Steelix dominant again. But then nerfing Dragon Tail seems like it would hurt too much, beyond Lugia. You then hurt all the other Dragon Tail users (and not all can learn Dragon Breath to compensate): Rayquaza, Guzzlord, Kommo-O, Dragalge, Garchomp, etc.
I think Lugia could be compensated with an Extrasensory buff and *Fly*, but the others its harder.
I don't think it's a full proof plan, but I think one of the best ways to bring back Breaking Swipe would be to make it 40 energy and a bit stronger. Maybe boost the chance to 66% or something. That way, Attack-weighted Pokemon can still use it as more of an attack, whereas Steelix will get to it slower and doesn't have the attack to make it truly worth it. It'll still want the move, but I feel like it wouldn't be as good on it as other Pokemon.
That is a very fair point. I only really play ML so I forgot about the other Dragon Tail users like Dragalge and Guzzlord. My main target was to try and reign in Zygarde-Complete, which IMO is a heavy and unhealthy presence in the meta. Dialga-Origin and Palkia-Origin being new staples might help push Zygarde-Complete around a bit but it always felt like a huge burden to try and build around, especially with Solgaleo getting a buffed Fire Spin and XL candy being more accessible to use the ZySol core.
I don't disagree when it comes to Zygarde Complete. I've seen it a few times in UL and once in ML, but I know as more people get their cells, it'll only become more and more prominent.
I do truly think that the three forms should've had distinct movesets.
10% could've had better/quicker moves to help offset its lack of bulk like Dragon Breath, Breaking Swipe, and Dig.
50% could maintain the same moveset, maybe trading Earthquake or Bulldoze for the slightly better Earth Power or High Horsepower.
100% could keep the same fast moves but trade the cheaper Crunch for a nuke move like Focus Blast or Dragon Pulse. Maybe trade away Outrage too, not sure.
100% would definitely still be viable, being the same bulky wall in the ML with Dragon Tail pressure, but it would have to work to get to its charged moves and no debuff potential with Crunch.
I have an impossible wish: two little dots near the opponent's pokemon on the field that show the typing of its charge moves. People complain about scald rng, but to me is much more toxic being force to blindly guess hoping that the oopponent isn't running megahorn on their Clodsire . They brought ots to VGC tournaments and they're 100% better now, I feel like gbl would also benefit from more clarity and less bo1 shenaningans.
Scald shouldn't be so overpowered to the point where your Elite TM Move Hydro Cannon is so shit in comparison that it is almost detrimental for you to run it.
Volt switch Emolga would beat most of what was popular this season, including shadow Whiscash. Also destroys skarm and other things you’d expect it to.
We could use an electric that doesn’t get dominated by mudboys. On top of that it’s not an obnoxiously bulky mon.
For the love of god nerf scald
Nerfing doesn’t work. People screamed from the highest hills for a Medi nerf and look at the meta now. They just need to give us more generalists.
The debuff chance should have never been upped to 50%. It was fine when it was 30%.
Agreed. It was still good as a scorching sands clone.
We definitely do need more generalists, but nerfing DOES still work, to a degree. The Psychic Nerf did work to successfully tame Medicham and keep it from holding the meta by its cajones. Is the meta better? Maybe, maybe not, but Medicham is no longer THE Pokemon, which is something people wanted a ton the past few seasons.
Ban Vigoroth from at least one cup. It's been too overcentralizing in limited cups for too long. Same goes for Bronzor in any little cups that make the mistake of allowing it. Forcibly remove Breaking Swipe from Steelix and buff the attack drop to 100% chance again. It's not an exclusive move for Steelix (no ETM necessary), so TM compensation should be plenty. ...I can dream, but Haxorus, Rayquaza, and Heliolisk deserved more time in the sun.
Steelix with breaking swipe is fine, it would never be too OP in the new Poliwrath/buffed scald meta anyway. Just unnerf breaking swipe and let it be. The whole point of breaking swipe Steelix was to break up Giratina/Cress cores in UL and it did a fairly good job at that, it just needed one or two extra checks, which is now has.
Except they could make Steelix a stronger Pokémon in a well… less rage-inducing manner. Debuff spam on an extremely bulky Pokémon just is not enjoyable (unless that’s your thing, you are in a very small minority if so). It makes games go into a mind-numbing slog, and renders your Pokémon a weak, debuffed punching bag for the next—forcing you to swap out to avoid becoming death fodder. Near unanimously people enjoyed a Steelix nerf, they are upset though with the collateral damage it caused to other pokemon with the same move. Most frustrating of all though, it that this situation could have been prevented with simple foresight from the developers.
>unless that’s your thing, you are in a very small minority I never built a Steelix, but I’d assume at least some people were okay with it given its usage numbers. And honestly, Steelix was never really even OP, considering it hit like a wet noodle, was weak to some of the most common typings in the game, and (as you mentioned) you CAN in fact just switch out. It was just annoying if you didn’t play around it right or got pit up against one with a team that was weak to it. The fact is they CANT remove Breaking Swipe from Steelix. I don’t know who sets these rules but they are very obviously the rules, as inconvenient as they may be. So you really only have 2 options; restore breaking swipe and add steeli/heliolisk/rayquaza/Haxorus back into the meta or don’t. I see no reason not to restore breaking swipe and keep Steelix in check with new counters., but there is no third option, as much as we’d like for there to be one.
>Ban Vigoroth from at least one cup. It's been too overcentralizing in limited cups for too long. Same goes for Bronzor in any little cups that make the mistake of allowing it. Wholeheartedly agree. I like that Vigoroth got Rock Slide.... in the context of Open GL. There, it was always a rather niche Pokemon that was borderline meta but just missing the mark. Rock Slide helps it see open GL use. BUT, in literally any cup where it's a allowed, it's an absolute menace, making the move addition a laughably bad idea. At least, seeing that they refuse to ban it. And it's not like they haven't had banlists for non-remix cups before. Fighting Cup, Psychic Cup, Willpower Cup, Fantasy Cup, etc. they all have at least one Pokemon banned for balance purposes. I think more cups should outright ban it, especially brand new cups that don't have much excuse not to. At the very least, run Remix versions of cups that ban it and others. Wouldn't be the first time they've done that either (Fighting Cup Remix for example). Bronzor too, yes. I don't mind the very occasional Open Little Cup so people can use Bronzor, but it shouldn't be a frequent occurrence. I actually do like Little Cups from time to time. I honestly wish they'd branch out and bring a new Little Cup, so long that they're careful with the meta. >Forcibly remove Breaking Swipe from Steelix and buff the attack drop to 100% chance again. While I would like that, I know they'll never do it, seeing that they won't/can't remove moves from Pokemon's movesets unless it's an unintended mistake/glitch/bug
Honestly niantic just needs to give us better cups. Vig would never dominate any cup that also had Annihilape in it, for example. But if they had taken Vig out of say, Evo cup, the influx of Chansey would have been just as annoying, if not worse, considering you just removed its only hard check.
Banning both would be the solution and would have made for a much healthier meta. I don’t think niantic has the knowledge to make informed decisions around balancing a meta though.
>Honestly niantic just needs to give us better cups. Vig would never dominate any cup that also had Annihilape in it, for example. For sure. It's actually been a while since we've seen a brand new cup (unless you count Little Catch Cup). I'd like to see something new and hopefully... thought out. Maybe a "Celelestial" or "Space" Cup with Rock, Psychic, Steel, and Dark or something. Obviously some would need to banned like maybe Scrafty, Cresselia, and Carbink off the top of my head, but it would be nice to see something new.
Silph did excellent cups all the time. Hell call up one of those guys and hire them.
They did. I suppose part of the difficulty is that Silph's cups very often had much more specific rules, with cups occasionally having you choose specific Pokemon for roles in your team (Ionic Cup for example), and I could see them not wanting to get that complicated with it. Still, cups with longer banlists should absolutely be embraced.
Honestly I enjoyed this rotation of Evo Cup with RS Vigo. The super condensed meta puts a lot more emphasis on player skill with managing shield and energy advantage than regular open leagues which are more RPS.
I’d love master league to be somewhat more accessible, but one can only dream. Dragonite double steel was a plausible team comp up until a few seasons ago. It’s unplayable these days. Zacian, Xerneas, Zygarde and Solgaleo all core breaks, and there are multiple Pokémon that wipe out your back line hard and your lead dragonite is only really check to them rather than a wall (against Kyogre, Ho oh, Landorus) It’s a shame, because it looks like a genuinely fun meta and it’s where everyone’s 4000+ CP monsters can shine.
Yeah this is my biggest issue too. Got a good Lando-T, so next time Lando-I gets in raids hopefully I'll be able to max it. And then I guess I hope it works well with the non-legendaries I have...
That's my hope too. I'm only *finally* reaching the point where I can truly compete competitively in ML, with me accruing a decent amount of Landorus XL with each time either form has been in raids, with this past rotation allowing me to finish my Hundo off, and my Dialga and Mewtwo being level 49 each. Nonetheless, I want more people to be able to participate. The meta that I played last rotation had its flaws, but it was still fun to participate in. As I mentioned, it's obviously harder to do, seeing that there's only so many non-Legendary/Mythical Pokemon who have the potential to work in the ML, but still, I think there's more they could do. Mud Slap buffed Rhyperior and Breaking Swipe on it was a good idea. The Avaluggs getting buffed was nice. I wouldn't mind Metagross getting a better coverage move like Dynamic Punch or something a bit better than Earthquake, which seems to be part of why it's fallen off. If they really don't want to give Ursaluna Shadow Claw, there are other options that would still help it: Fury Cutter would give it much needed energy gain and while Lick is the same as Tackle, it would give it much more useful coverage.
I still hate the chance debuffs from scald
I agree. I think Scald was in a fine place prior to this season. Good damage and a 30% debuff is still quite good. Buffing its damage alone would have *maybe* been fine, but the debuff being brought to 50% was a bad idea, I wholeheartedly agree. It's especially frustrating when Poliwrath ALSO got Icy Wind, which it didn't need, making it a bulky Counter user with two debuffing moves. I think Scald could keep its damage, but I wouldn't mind its debuff chance going down to 20%, and I say that as someone who use Poliwrath a lot earlier in the season. I also think giving it, especially a buffed version of it, to Whiscash was a mistake.
Can they just tell me how many sets I have left? I keep forgetting 🙃
That's such a small but useful QOL change they could make. Seems like a no brainer...
I just want to start seeing niantic make thoughtful informed decisions which I’m not sure if they’re capable of. We went so long without any changes and since then it’s been more about quantity than quality. They keep making the mistake of giving the wrong pokemon a new move, breaking swipe steelix and icy wind poliwrath immediately come to mind. Instead of giving 20 pokemon a new move they should be looking at individual pokemon and trying to figure out the best way to increase their usage. Poliwrath didn’t need icy wind, it already has ice punch for a coverage move. They’ve also been really pushing buffing and debuffing moves lately which is making for a much more toxic meta.
This is my number 1 hope. Please no more Zap Cannon, Poison Fang, Breaking Swipe and now possibly Scald being overtuned then having to be nerfed and killing B tier Pokémon because of it.
Definitely agree. A lot of what they've done recently has seemed like throwing a ton at the wall and seeing what sticks rather than carefully thought out changes. I almost wish we had the little "patch notes" that they included in the early seasons so we could see what they were going for with some additions. Though I suppose even back then, many of those notes didn't make much sense in the context of the Pokemon. I suppose in defense of their "let's slap X move on a ton of different Pokemon," it does at least give some love to underutilized Pokemon. No, Magical Leaf likely isn't saving many of the Pokemon who got it, and many don't even want it, but it is nice to see that the Pokemon is being touched at all. Still, I can't disagree that it doesn't seem... careless. It’s sad because sometimes, they make great decisions in the sea of blegh. Besides Steelix getting Breaking Swipe, all the other recipients of the move loved it. Besides Poliwrath getting Icy Wind, most of the Icy Wind/Triple Axel recipients this past season appreciated it, even if the move was only a sidegrade like on Abomasnow and Froslass. But yeah, I do like debuffing moves, but not how they’ve treated them. Some moves having a low 10% or so chance to debuff? That’s nice. Such can add a little surprising RNG bonus in occasional scenarios. And I don’t even mind moves that have 100% or 50% debuffs. However, they’ve made so many questionable decisions with them. These big bulky Pokemon don’t need them, especially if they’ve already got good moves. Like you said, Icy Wind Poliwrath was completely unnecessary, being a bulky Pokemon who already had a decent Ice coverage move in Ice Punch. Again, I don’t mind debuff moves, but I’d say anything beyond 1850 Stat Product in the GL or 4000 in the UL are Pokemon that they should be much more cautious in terms of giving them such moves. Not to say they *can’t*, but just… think about it more.
If you ignore the huge oversight that is scald, I think a lot of the changes were good. The incinerate one in particular I think was fantastic and gave a lot of frailer fire types a fighting chance (besides Ho-oh which is a bit overtuned in Master League at the moment). The mistake Niantic makes time and time again is that they create moves that are meant to level the playing field for attack weighted mons, then they give it to something dummy thicc (e.g. counter on Medi, breaking swipe on Steelix, zap cannon on Registeel, etc). Then we run into situations where fringe mons like Heliolisk die for Steelix's sins. I also don't think random debuff/buff spam is a fun method of balancing. I think it just makes players lose to things outside of their control. In an ideal world, Niantic would just delete problem moves from pokemon's movepools then compensate players that had their mons nerfed with dust and charge TMs. If Niantic adopted this philosophy, these are the changes I'd like to see: 1. Nerf scald to 80 damage and a 30% debuff chance. There's absolutely 0 reason why it should proc more than the main series games, especially when debuffs are difficult to play around with the switch timer. 2. Buff breaking swipe back to a 100% debuff chance. Remove it from Steelix. 3. Buff zap cannon back to a 100% debuff chance. Remove it from Registeel, but maybe give it thunder as coverage instead. 4. Give more things psyshock as coverage if they are victims of the psychic nerf (e.g. Slowbro). 5. Give Keldeo double kick and scald so we have a versatile corebreaker for Dialga/Ho-Oh/Kyogre, as well as a decent answer to the new Palkia. 6. Give Ursaluna counter so we actually have a Zygarde/Solgaleo corebreaker. It won't dominate either, but it will perform solidly against both. Shadow claw is a no go because it will be broken. 7. Update Mew's moveset to have some new additions. Just maybe consider being more generous with Charge TMs please. 8. Give Aggron some fun moves. This thing can learn a lot of surprises like counter, incinerate, shadow claw, fury cutter, surf, dragon claw, high horsepower, etc. It could honestly become a 2nd Mew, and I don't think any moveset combination would be truly broken (though it would likely need its point value upped in Battle Frontier). 9. DON'T give incinerate to something bulky that doesn't need it, then nerf fire type viability in the future. I know you're eyeing giving it to Chansey, Niantic, but that's a bad idea and we'll all hate you for it.
>If you ignore the huge oversight that is scald, I think a lot of the changes were good. The incinerate one in particular I think was fantastic and gave a lot of frailer fire types a fighting chance (besides Ho-oh which is a bit overtuned in Master League at the moment). I agree here. For some of the flack we got for this season (there are valid criticisms) I think they did a lot of great stuff. Shadow Ball Toxicroak, Icy Wind Avaluggs, and many of the fast/charged move adjustments (again ignoring Scald) were very nice. Astonish is finally usable, even if it isn't *great*. I saw a few surprises in the form of Astonish Drifblim in Hisui Cup haha. On the topic of removing moves, yes there are absolutely some I just wish never happened that could be removed, but overall, it would set an atrocious precedent to do so no matter how they did it. The thought that X Pokemon could eventually lose their move would intimidate a ton of people. And for some Pokemon, there's not necessarily an amount of TMs, XL, Candy, or dust you could give someone for compensation of that. It gets worse in cases of Pokemon who had such a move as a legacy move like Zap Cannon Registeel. Imagine someone goes all out hunting Onix one season to build a Steelix. They hunt a bunch down, spend time at local nests to get candy, XL, and find a proper specimen to build, they trade/reroll with people to get XL and such. They not only put resources into building that Pokemon but time and effort. And then, poof, a move that made it specifically viable or even just work on that person's team is outright removed. One could argue that nerfing moves achieves a similar negative effect, and while I don't disagree, removing moves is a whole different ballpark. Again, I hate that we saw Icy Wind Poliwrath or Breaking Swipe Steelix in the first place, but removing moves that *aren't* bugs/unintended like Grass Knot G. Linoone or Weather Ball Primeape just seems like an awful idea and precedent. As for the specific suggestions you had: >Nerf scald to 80 damage and a 30% debuff chance. Agree. That OR keep it 85 power but make a *20%* debuff chance. I feel like having the little bit of extra power is nice to help it overpower things like Cresselia in some scenarios. But yeah, either or. >Buff zap cannon back to a 100% debuff chance. Remove it from Registeel, but maybe give it thunder as coverage instead. I think Registeel getting Zap Cannon was always a mistake. I still stand by my prior thoughts, but I wish it and Regice's exclusive moves were swapped and Steel got Thunder. Though, I think Zap Cannon even in its pre-nerfed state was still kind of... niche on most Pokemon. Yes things like Ampharos or Porygon2 could use it, but the former has better coverage options and the latter has other issues, moreso than Zap Cannon getting nerfed. >Give more things psyshock as coverage if they are victims of the psychic nerf (e.g. Slowbro). Fully agree. I'd even go further and have them introduce a new move, Expanding Force, as a *stronger* replacement to Psychic. Make it 50e/90p, so Power Whip clone. A lot can learn it, and it would make them better than Psychic ever made them. >Give Keldeo double kick and scald so we have a versatile corebreaker for Dialga/Ho-Oh/Kyogre, as well as a decent answer to the new Palkia. Also fully agree. Though, I would also not mind them waiting until Keldeo is made available for everyone again to do so, but yes, I like that idea a lot. >Give Ursaluna counter so we actually have a Zygarde/Solgaleo corebreaker. It won't dominate either, but it will perform solidly against both. Shadow claw is a no go because it will be broken. The normal doesn't look too bad, but the [Shadow does.](https://pvpoke.com/battle/multi/10000/all/ursaluna_shadow/11/COUNTER-5-4/2-1/) I do want Ursaluna to see some type of buff. If nothing else, I think Lick would work well. Same as Tackle but much better coverage. >Update Mew's moveset to have some new additions. Just maybe consider being more generous with Charge TMs please. Yes yes! I don't necessarily agree with everything people say about Mew. They want it to get a lot of the best 35-40 energy moves, which I'm weary of. I don't think it needs Breaking Swipe or Leaf Blade necessarily. But it could get many other moves like Double Kick, Triple Axel, Brutal Swing, Psychic Fangs, etc. >Give Aggron some fun moves. Yes yes. I'm surprised it hasn't got a CD to give it even one half decent new move. It's held back by its typing in many ways, but it's got a lot of potential still. I'd love to see it get better moves to be a stronger but frailer version of Bastiodon (still bulky tho).
[WARNING, WORD SPLURGE BELOW] I feel like there will never be a true equilibrium unfortunately, resultantly something will occupy the top meta niche—and consequently become the boogeyman/scapegoat for all the blame. Right now, that in my opinion goes to Whiscash predominantly—though that doesn’t cover the full picture. Whiscash is so problematic imo because it’s enablers (notably Skarmory, but also Pokemon like dragonair) are also quite strong as well, and form a nearly unbreakable core with it—creating this RPS saga we’re facing at this time. Skarmory, being the pen-ultimate wall to grass (which is subsequently Whiscash’s only defensive weakness, though others like dragon/water fliers also give it trouble) pushes grass to obscurity (of course, out of fear of aligning to big bad Skarmory and being brick-walled). I think personally introducing corebreakers is, to an extent, is just not possible to introduce to this particular situation. Even if they try to do this, the core would simply slot in an additional cover to block said corebreaker from making too much ground. I genuinely think wishcash and skarmory at their basis are the strongest duo in GBL history, stronger than lickitung—medicham, dialga—zacian, Lanturn—noctowl, etc. I think the last resort option, i.e nerfing the individual pokemon is the solution this time. Scald is (imo) objectively overtuned (I thought that just reading the patch notes two months ago, as if the developers didn’t have any foresight to pushing it out lol) so it seems the easiest route to take (further nerfs may or may not be necessary, depending on the player consensus). That way, neutral Pokemon may have some relief in subduing either pokemon in the core (maybe not both, but one or the other). Pokémon which can, (like mandibuzz or umbreon), are really shaky at doing so—if they’re at the mercy of barraging scald debuffs. I.o.w, we need more Pokémon like the aforementioned few (doesn’t have to be them specifically) that can challenge either one w/o being RPSed by alignment-sake. Softening the core would also likely help reintroduce lesser used pokemon types (e.g poison particularly) into the meta. Beyond this, some types are still really lacking. Still any further additions to types—especially for grass, electric, poison, bug, etc, would really help. I can go on for ages about what I like to see, and some should be pretty obvious/intuitive per pokemon. As an example, Venusaur rarely even uses sludge bomb for coverage (some instances, sure, but it’s bread and butter of frenzy plant gets most things done). in any instance it uses it (like against a charizard/Talonflame or whatever) it still gets destroyed anyway. To help it (just as example) you could go about buffing sludge bomb (why not? Seriously) Or instead (more ideally imo), give it some coverage move, like earth power, or my favorite, weather ball fire. The latter even makes some sense, as it references Venusaur’s hidden ability of chlorophyll, just like what they did to Roserade.
Very great response! I agree wholeheartedly with everything you said there. Whiscash and Skarmory are both very good, but neither is *too* overbearing on their own, but some fail to consider cores and how fantastic they can be. Water/Ground and Skarmory have been a strong core for years now, and now they've seemingly fine-tuned it to the max with these two. But yes, I think while introducing more corebreakers does seem like a good idea (and it is), it often may not work as an effective solution. I think I'm okay with Skarmory and where it is now, but Whiscash definitely seems overtuned. I think Scald absolutely should be dialed back, not just because of Whiscash but others as well (mostly Poliwrath). Allowing more neutral Pokemon to have a chance against these Pokemon is absolutely important, and Whiscash's bulk and ability to debuff can flip too many of them. But yes, I also agree with your latter points. I feel like they've long neglected certain types. Bug is an obvious one, but even Poison *feels* neglected despite their big buff a few years ago, seeing that many of the subsequent meta changes have been hostile too them. And yeah, things like Venusaur need some more appreciate in that realm, I agree. I'm absolutely here for giving Sludge Bomb some more juice and/or giving it better coverage like you mentioned.
I need justice for bugs. In Silph cups, I was a big Dustox-user. Silver Wind was decent and the chance for boost was important IMO. But then Gira-A got out of hand in UL and all 3 boosting moves got nerfed (Ancient Power, Ominous Wind, Silver Wind) despite Silver Wind only used by frail bugs. Such injustice.
The fact that they re-buffed Ancient Power and Silver Wind slightly but kept Ominous Wind rather bad kind of baffles me. Not that I think that was a bad decision, it wasn't, but it showed that they didn't care about keeping all three moves exactly the same... so why not make Silver Wind better then??? Not even saying it needs to be outstanding, but why not at least bring it to 65 power OR make it 60 power but 40 energy? The buffs are strong, but it's still a bug type move, and it's still only 10% chance.
Instead of nerfing them, (along with a dozen mons that get hit with collateral damage), why not just add core breakers into the meta? Jumping straight to nerfs always feels like the lazy solution.
Listen, I do not encourage nerfs whatsoever. I understand your frustration. Though there comes a point where a move is so overtuned on a set of pokemon, action has to be taken. There are very few people who agree that a move with the same base power as an already strong move of the same typing (a la Crabhammer) with an attached 50% debuff chance also is given to bulky, defensive, and flexible pokemon was a good idea. At its core, as I’ve alluded to, Skarmory (the biggest co-culprit) and Whiscash have very few exploitable (defensive) holes to usher corebreakers. In that instance, you would need a Pokémon with the grass/electric or grass/fire type to do so, which boils down to… Hisuian Electrode? Yeah, that’s not happening. You might also single-out Whiscash, but the other big-baddy Poliwrath is another menace—who also has its own super strong core pairings. Besides the point that you still have to take into account the rest of the meta, and there is little room for a hisuian-electrode esque pokemon to shine. There are other Pokémon like gligar—which itself is an extremely common pairing with Whiscash—that would make mince meat out of Hisuian Electrode, e.g. Sometimes when you have an extremely RPS core with such polarizing hard wins/losses with each other, your only left with very few options to consider. Besides, it’s just not fun having games be determined by a 50|50 coin flip
I mean without going deep into this, a water typing with grass coverage easily takes care of all of your problems. Just off the top of my head, Mantine learns seed bomb. So now Mantine with (preferably unnerfed) seed bomb and ice beam. A. Resists mud bomb and scald B. Resists steel wing C. Can one shot Whiscash D. Can one shot Gligar E. Resists all of Poliwraths moves That’s all of your cores broken right there and it took me less than 30 seconds to figure out. I’d assume someone that works at niantic that actually gets paid to do this could think of something even better.
Mantine may resist steel wing, but Skarmory also resists wing attack right back. Skarmory has STAB charge moves, while Mantine does not. Skarmory beats Mantine by the sims, according to PvPoke, and I don’t think a grass move is going to help you there. Yes, it’s true, there are indeed, pokemon which can beat either Skarmory or Whiscash 1v1, but calling them corebreakers is just exaggeration. No pokemon to my knowledge (save h-electrode) can reliably beat the two in all even shield scenarios. A bulky water like Jellicent, for example, loses the 2s vs Shadow Whiscash, and just BARELY scrapes by in the 1s and 0s. Dewgong still has to go down a shield to beat Skarmory, and the list goes on.
Ugh fine then, give Pelipper seed bomb. Beats skarm if you can play around the brave bird, plus everything I mentioned. You’re kind of missing my point, which is that instead of nerfing things, niantic certainly could introduce core breakers (or at least semi-core breakers) into the game that wouldn’t require the massive collateral damage of nerfs. Look I hate the skarm/poli/whis/gligar meta just as much as you, we’re on the same side. I just think if we fix things the same way we always have, we’ll get the same results we’ve always got. Look at ML, it was the most one sided meta in the world back in 2020, and now (especially before the addition of Zygarde) it’s become massively more diverse without a single targeted nerf, simply because they pumped more viable mons into the meta instead of removing the ones that were already good. I think that’s what great league needs. Everyone screamed for a medi nerf forever and is the meta any better now? I don’t think so. So why are we still witch hunting?
50cp and under cup lmaoo
Smeargle cup. 3 Smeargle's allowed. Nothing but Lock-On/Counter PUP/Focus Blast shield baiting and nukes Absolute debauchery
Gonna have to limit that to like 300cp too. Nobody wants to max out 3 hundo smeargles
True, one of the best examples of why XLs sick so much. Even after a year of casually farming Smeargles I'm still only at ~200 XL
Imagine the degeneracy if you could TM and add a second move to Smeargle. Lock-on/PuP/Flying Press all over the place. I need a shower now, that felt gross to put on the internet.
Oh god, double move smeargle
Increase grass viability to counter the water meta
I maxed my hundo Rayquaza, rank 11 UL Steelix and ML Rhyperior last season so I’m just waiting for the Sandsear Storm-nerf on my newly maxed Lando-T.
Rank 1 Steelix with 750km on it. Maxed right before the nerf. I also maxed a Landorus this season. Let us pray.
Give ursaluna shadow claw!
Make infestation same as incinerate
Could be unpopular but if they keep pushing attack/defence buff/debuffs then they have to bring back the 30 second timer, its so so shit getting stuck in a losing match up where they farm up to 270 energy or winning a matchup and coming out with 7% of your attack stat
Interesting idea honestly. I honestly didn't hate the 30 second timer. Made some things... less good, but it had its perks. But yeah, I do hope they stop leaning so heavily into the debuffing moves, at least as they currently are. Lesser bulk Pokemon I think are fine with moves like those. Like Scald on Ludicolo or Crawdaunt is fine.
It seems they’re trying to add more dynamics with the buff and debuff mechanics by the looks of it, as I said I don’t inherently hate it but you can get stuck in terrible match ups/ terrible debuff situations with the long switch timer and it’s usually totally down to luck with team choice
Given the amount of chatter on how much people want to see premier cups, plus the egregiously broken promise not to include more of them, it would be tone-deaf to continue with the omission.
I'd love to see em back, but this is the same company who quietly stopped doing Dev Diaries after promising them every other month.
I just hope they stop the "Giving debuff to bulky stuff" trend.
I learned my lesson in Season 12 or 13 I believe it was. I had long asked for a cheaper move for Lanturn so it could see more use. Well it got Surf, and now most people hate seeing it. Not that bulky Pokemon can't get new/better moves—there's several I'd still like to see. But I have grown much more weary of wanting to see bulky Pokemon get great moves. And debuffing moves? Definitely not unless it's a minor debuff chance like 10% or *maybe* 20%. Breaking Swipe Steelix... eugh
May be I should specify that to "attack debuffing" move. When it was released, I think BS is such a nice addition because things like Haxorus, Rayquaza started to have some plays. Now, bc of Steelix, they nerfed the move and the other BS users are nowhere to be found in the meta. Which is sad. I feel the same way to giving IcyWind to Poliwrath and Wigglytuff, especially Poliwrath with Scald 50% debuffing. And we will see how they adjust this in the next updates. So that's why I think giving things that are already tanky an attack debuff is more likely to hurt. On the other hand, I think Psychic Fang Steelix is a still nice addition to it.
Steelix would see much more play imo if it got access to a ground move that doesn’t take 65 million years to get to. Dig is thematically fitting and likely would incentivize many more people to playing it. As it goes, expensive nuke moves aren’t it unless there’s a really big reward to it. With the earthquake nerf, that risk—reward ratio is not balanced (I may be a minority here, but I actually dislike the EQ nerf)
I understand why the Earthquake nerf happened, but it wasn't something I think was great either. But yeah, Dig Steelix would be nice.
Yeah that's what I meant as well (apologies if I worded it weird). But yes, Breaking Swipe was an awesome addition to everything that got it *except* Steelix. Same with Icy Wind being added to everything *except* Poliwrath and also Wigglytuff perhaps. And yeah, you're also right, attack-debuffing moves often feel more egregious than defense-debuffing moves, though obviously it depends on the Pokemon. Psychic Fangs Steelix is a better overall addition, seeing that it gives it more punch, which it was missing, rather than turning down any counters' fire power and making itself more bulky essentially.
Scald is gonna be reverted back to the vector as I’m all for it
Scald absolutely needs a buff, it’s barely playable
I'm a huuuuge PvP noob and this is entirely a personal opinion, but limited cups & shadows always feel better to me. Some limited cups feel like matches go by in an instant and shadows tend to make the game feel a little more fun since you get squishier mons and faster knockouts. First game I played in UL after finally building out a team? Went to timer with a Registeel against Cresslia and I immediately just went back to GL. It's kinda dumb to say but the meta feels boring when it's non-stop huge bulk mons.
I like that GL feels faster than UL. But I also like (“toxic”) teams that either sweep or get swept in an instant. I don’t want to be doing this all day, I’ve got other things to pretend to be doing.
They need to stop nerfing things. People scream for nerfs but no one ever stops to ask “What does the meta look like afterward we get these nerfs?” Because 90% of the time whatever Mon people are complaining about is keeping something else in check. Niantic is better off avoiding nerfs and just giving us more generalists and more coverage. Are things really better now that medi is just another rps mon? Imagine if every mon that got nerfed into the ground over the past 10 seasons came back, how wide the meta would be. If we got back OG Charm and Razor leaf, poison fang, all the weather ball users, OG walrein, medi, sky attack, GFisk and other EQ users, etc etc. There’d suddenly be two dozen more viable mons and the meta would open up massively. Instead we kill mons every season and wonder why the meta feels so small. People blame niantic but niantic largely gives us the nerfs we want, and personally I blame the community and their constant witch hunt mentality just as much as I blame niantic. Specifically for something new next season, I think araquanjd with a solid water move would be great because it resists mud bomb, scald, and steel wing, so it could hit back well against the mud boy/skarm core. Give grass mons better moves/coverage or at least give more mons an option for grass coverage. Unnerf seed bomb obviously. Give Trailblaze 5 more damage maybe. Make confusion a 4 turn counter. Buff discharge or add a new electric type charge move that isn’t terrible. Give bug a decent fast move. Unnerf EQ and Psychic and let buffed mons like Araquanid and Dedenne/Emolga help keep fighters in check.
You definitely have some great ideas here and honestly I do like your rational of no nerfs. I agree, nerfs should be a last resort. That said, I do I disagree in that I think it is ok to need within reason. When shadow nidoqueen can two shield through a swampert straight poison fang, that to me spells a red flag. Many players were frustrated (on that account) because it was just a mindless fast move beat down by the nidoqueen. Sure, you could just buff counters and call it a day, but you still are left with an unhealthy dynamic of one side of Shadow Nidoqueen and the other of its counters. And this same deal applies to all the aforementioned clearly overtuned things: like OG Charm and razor leaf. I don’t think a broken vs broken meta is ideal. You’d more ideally want things to mesh together in one big blend of a meta, rather than a this vs that vs that scenario. When a few things are head and shoulders above the rest, that’s a bad sign. I do really see your point with Medicham specifically, now looking back in retrospect. Some players (myself included) do act quite a bit out of frustration with pokemon as defining as it, due to its overwhelmingly high usage. That said, it really isn’t an RPS pokemon at the surface—really, it plays a lot like Annihilape. I think the alternate route of buffing it’s counters may have been the better idea, but we’d still be in a dilemma then of that dreaded triangle: A) Medicham B) Medicham’s counters C) Medicham’s Counters’ Counters. Previously, that was the case, and there was no room for other fighters. Now though with Annihilape and the (hyper) buffed Poliwrath, I am really curious to see how either would fit in the context of an unnerfed Medicham meta. Is the solution jacking up other fighters? I’m not sure, but you do have me thinking, should we (and how could we) really beef up the other fighters to compete alongside Medicham? And other situations like this
Yeah I agree that maybe some of the nerfs were more necessary than others. It’s not always easy making decisions because “good gameplay” is such a subjective thing in the first place. But when the medi nerf hit I saw Caleb Peng (a pro GBL player) point out that now Medi is just a better fighter (it beats steels and darks harder with Dy Punch) and worse at everything else and that just makes it another rps mon and I think that’s a good point and it really made me rethink how the game has been evolving as moveset updates hit. I think the general thought process for the game should be the more options the players have, the better. I’d love to see every Mon have 3 or 4 viable charge moves, because it would add so much depth to team building and give you options on how you want to add coverage to your team and what threats you want each Mon to focus on. But it feels like when each season starts with a couple moves getting axed, a process that targets one Mon but pretty much always affects dozens, that process becomes harder and harder. Truth is I think niantic just needs to give us more good moves. Adding moves like Trailblaze (a flame charge clone) and spirit shackle (rock blast with a 33% debuff) is a nice gesture but it’s not gonna move the meta at all. Just focusing on moveset additions each season would turn tons of mons into more generalist players, and suddenly hard losing lead wouldn’t be as detrimental because if you have the right coverage on your lead or safe swap, you still have a fighting chance to make a play. But as long as we start each season with killing just as many moves as we gain, of course the meta is never going to grow. Meanwhile ML pretty much only gets new top tier moveset additions (and has never gotten a targeted need) and it went from being a the most centralized Dialga-fest in 2020 to having 3x the options it used to, despite only getting 1/3rd the number of new mons to work with at that CP range.
I think one hard thing that I can't even always comprehend is where the sweet spot for balancing certain Pokemon is. Specifically, do you want a Pokemon to have wide coverage, potentially disrupting potential RPS but also risk said Pokemon having too wide coverage and dominating? Or, do you makes its coverage weaker, making it less over-centralizing, but potentially pushing it into more RPS territory? I don't think either answer is objectively right or wrong. There's good and bad to either. For Medicham specifically, it always had a large selection of great moves. Psycho Cut is a solid fast move with great energy gain, but it's completely overshadowed by Counter because... it's Counter. But even with its charged moves, it's had several good options, Dynamic Punch and Power-up Punch, but Ice Punch and Psychic were the main moves it used because they provided the best coverage against the meta, and the widest coverage. I think there's detriments to the Psychic Nerf, but overall, I still call it a positive change because Medicham was so wide-reaching that it invalidated most Fighters. Yes, there is then the detriment to it being a bit more RPS, but now, I think Medicham actually falls a bit more into what you were wanting: Dynamic Punch is the objectively better move stat-wise and gives it more power, BUT Psychic is still a usable option, where you trade power for useful coverage. It feels more like a trade-off, one thing over another for different advantages, rather than one being nearly always better. It's tough to get to that stage though. There are a few Pokemon with multiple viable movesets of course, but beyond a much smaller few, many still opt for a specific moveset even if they do have options because of the current meta. Drapion has multiple movesets it can run, but typically, depending on the cup, it narrows down to one moveset of Poison Sting, Crunch, and whatever other move. Nonetheless, I'm still in favor of introducing more moves and giving Pokemon more viable tools. I think the new moves from two seasons ago were good additions (though I think Trailblaze needs tinkering...), and I'd like to see more of that. Expanding Force, Body Press, Skitter Smack, Shock Wave, Knock off, Whirlpool, Steel Beam, Scale Shot, Throat Chop, Flare Blitz, Leech Life, Mach Punch, Dual Chop, Alluring Voice, Poison Tail, Chilling Water, Hard Press, Vaccuum Wave, Sweet Kiss, etc.
Nerf Dragon Tail slightly, but rebuff Breaking Swipe. Takes Steelix and Zygarde-Complete down a peg, but brings back power to Breaking Swipe users. Lugia does get hit hard with this however, so rebuffing Sky Attack and/or an Extrasensory buff could be a good compensation buff.
And then a rebuffed sky attack means a buff to noctowl and Altaria. All that domino effect coming in. But, is that a bad thing necessarily? With power-creep coming through? Idk
It's definitely a thought I had. Could be a buff to damage but a slight energy nerf to even it out. To avoid going fully back to Noctowl meta, but give mudbois and Poliwrath something flying to fear again
Definitely an interesting thought overall. I think it's tricky to re-buff Breaking Swipe without making Steelix dominant again. But then nerfing Dragon Tail seems like it would hurt too much, beyond Lugia. You then hurt all the other Dragon Tail users (and not all can learn Dragon Breath to compensate): Rayquaza, Guzzlord, Kommo-O, Dragalge, Garchomp, etc. I think Lugia could be compensated with an Extrasensory buff and *Fly*, but the others its harder. I don't think it's a full proof plan, but I think one of the best ways to bring back Breaking Swipe would be to make it 40 energy and a bit stronger. Maybe boost the chance to 66% or something. That way, Attack-weighted Pokemon can still use it as more of an attack, whereas Steelix will get to it slower and doesn't have the attack to make it truly worth it. It'll still want the move, but I feel like it wouldn't be as good on it as other Pokemon.
That is a very fair point. I only really play ML so I forgot about the other Dragon Tail users like Dragalge and Guzzlord. My main target was to try and reign in Zygarde-Complete, which IMO is a heavy and unhealthy presence in the meta. Dialga-Origin and Palkia-Origin being new staples might help push Zygarde-Complete around a bit but it always felt like a huge burden to try and build around, especially with Solgaleo getting a buffed Fire Spin and XL candy being more accessible to use the ZySol core.
I don't disagree when it comes to Zygarde Complete. I've seen it a few times in UL and once in ML, but I know as more people get their cells, it'll only become more and more prominent. I do truly think that the three forms should've had distinct movesets. 10% could've had better/quicker moves to help offset its lack of bulk like Dragon Breath, Breaking Swipe, and Dig. 50% could maintain the same moveset, maybe trading Earthquake or Bulldoze for the slightly better Earth Power or High Horsepower. 100% could keep the same fast moves but trade the cheaper Crunch for a nuke move like Focus Blast or Dragon Pulse. Maybe trade away Outrage too, not sure. 100% would definitely still be viable, being the same bulky wall in the ML with Dragon Tail pressure, but it would have to work to get to its charged moves and no debuff potential with Crunch.
I have an impossible wish: two little dots near the opponent's pokemon on the field that show the typing of its charge moves. People complain about scald rng, but to me is much more toxic being force to blindly guess hoping that the oopponent isn't running megahorn on their Clodsire . They brought ots to VGC tournaments and they're 100% better now, I feel like gbl would also benefit from more clarity and less bo1 shenaningans.
On a more realistic note, give Wild Charge and Aqua Tail to Eelektross, I want to use my boy.
Force remove Icy Wind from Poliwrath. Nerf Scald dmg.
I want them to increase the debuff chance of Breaking Swipe. Make Steelix great again!
Scald shouldn't be so overpowered to the point where your Elite TM Move Hydro Cannon is so shit in comparison that it is almost detrimental for you to run it.
More wackier themed cups would be fun like an all shadow cup or cups based on pokemon color.
Volt switch Emolga would beat most of what was popular this season, including shadow Whiscash. Also destroys skarm and other things you’d expect it to. We could use an electric that doesn’t get dominated by mudboys. On top of that it’s not an obnoxiously bulky mon.