Dynamax Discussion

[warzoid]

Dynamax and Gigantamax are essentially the same mechanic. If a pokemon doesn't know any attacks of its G-Max move's type, the difference is purely cosmetic. Banning Dynamax while permitting Gigantamax just sounds like a complex ban with extra steps.

Allowing Gigantamax means specs Toxtricity will be able to break choice lock at any time. We will have to deal with Hatterene setting up a Trick Room or Calm Mind and going wild with G-Max Smite, Max Mindstorm, and Max Flare. We will almost certainly have to ban Gengar to Ubers. Melmetal won't even get a chance at staying in OU when it's released. There will be more unnecessary bans once the next game drops and we get Gigantamax Garchomp or whatever. And let's be honest, half of the Gigantamax mons will just end up in UUBL anyway.

Some players might suggest tiering Gigantamax formes separately from base formes, similarly to how Megas were tiered. However, this would lead to double tiering. Take a future OU staple like Corviknight, for instance. In a Gigantamax-only OU, there is no downside to running Gigantamax Corviknight over the base forme, even if you're using Corviknight as a wall and Gigantamaxing your Hatterene in most battles. Regular Corviknight would see zero usage in OU and drop to UU, even if Corviknight were mostly being used for its base forme in OU. Double tiering couldn't happen with Megas because there was an actual downside to running the Mega (such as Garchomp losing its Rocky Helmet or Z-Crystal).

We also have to consider the impact on console battles. The distinction between Dynamax and Gigantamax is not entirely intuitive on console. Gigantamax mons are also difficult to obtain. I can imagine players finding it very unfair when they get swept by the rare Gigantamax Toxtricity that their opponent caught (or hacked), but when they try to Dynamax their own Toxtricity in response they're told that's not allowed.

 

[Martin]

Not posting an opinion about G-Max here bc I’ve already said my piece, but there are some policy argument niggles I have with the above post that I just wanna respond to. For the record I think the points about G-Max’s power level are good and valid, it’s just a few bits that I disagree with on a base level.

Banning Dynamax while permitting Gigantamax just sounds like a complex ban with extra steps.

I don’t understand how you reached this conclusion.

It wouldn’t be a complex ban because there is an objective, official distinction that can be narrowed down to a single attribute of the Pokémon, and it’s very hard to dispute this regardless of whether you believe they’re broken or not. This same attribute means that there is one objective thing that can be handled separately if we decide one gmax is too much but not the others (we’d ban the flag that allows the transformation, just like we would with a mega stone or Batle Bond/Zen Mode). It’s a simple ban both in a world where Dynamax is legal and in a world where it is not.

Edit: I’ve read ur post again and realised I misread your first paragraph initially. I’ve added detail at the beginning of the paragraph to account for this but I’ve left the old stuff in there, so I apologise if parts of it (pretty much just the second half) is responding to something you weren’t arguing.

Some players might suggest tiering Gigantamax formes separately from base formes, similarly to how Megas were tiered. However, this would lead to double tiering. Take a future OU staple like Corviknight, for instance. In a Gigantamax-only OU, there is no downside to running Gigantamax Corviknight over the base forme, even if you're using Corviknight as a wall and Gigantamaxing your Hatterene in most battles. Regular Corviknight would see zero usage in OU and drop to UU, even if Corviknight were mostly being used for its base forme in OU. Double tiering couldn't happen with Megas because there was an actual downside to running the Mega (such as Garchomp losing its Rocky Helmet or Z-Crystal).

I doubt anyone who has been suggesting handling them as a separate entity in policy meant say they should be usage tiered separately. I’ll be surprised if it gets tiered on anything other than a ban list level at most, similarly to ability bans, as opposed to on a tier level like a Pokémon ban.

We also have to consider the impact on console battles. The distinction between Dynamax and Gigantamax is not entirely intuitive on console. Gigantamax mons are also difficult to obtain. I can imagine players finding it very unfair when they get swept by the rare Gigantamax Toxtricity that their opponent caught (or hacked), but when they try to Dynamax their own Toxtricity in response they're told that's not allowed.

I'm not gonna comment on whether it’s fair to allow G-Max sweeps but not D-Max sweeps bc this is a policy response, but difficulty to obtain is a non-issue. We allow Wish Chansey—an event which hasn’t been in circulation for almost 2 decades—as well as event-exclusive mythicals. And these are no less “unfair” than using a form which is difficult to obtain but actually available to everyone who owns the game (with a handful of exceptions obviously—see pika/eevee/Meowth)

 

[Eisenherz]

I'm not gonna comment on whether it’s fair to allow G-Max sweeps but not D-Max sweeps bc this is a policy response, but difficulty to obtain is a non-issue. We allow Wish Chansey—an event which hasn’t been in circulation for almost 2 decades—as well as event-exclusive mythicals. And these are no less “unfair” than using a form which is difficult to obtain but actually available to everyone who owns the game (with a handful of exceptions obviously—see pika/eevee/Meowth)

I don't think "difficulty to obtain" was the main point here, it's more about how silly the distinction would appear in the context of an in-game battle.
If someone has an opposing Toxitricity Gigantimax and they themselves are using a regular Toxtricity, it seems very counterintuitive to think they would not be allowed to Dynamax theirs simply because they don't own the Gigantimax variant, especially when functionally, it just means they would have one less move on it than their opponent's, and the Dynamax button is right there, available. And this wraps into their main point that Gigantimax is just a signature Dynamax; it's a stretch to consider it a separate thing, it's more like a (small) extension.

This is a very different situation than not having access to a rare move due to an event, since they may not even want to use the additional, signature Gigantimax move. Move rarity from events would be a more appropriate comparison if both could Dynamax and use Max moves, but only the Gigantimax one gets to use the rarer, signature move.

 

[Martin]

I don't think "difficulty to obtain" was the main point here, it's more about how silly the distinction would appear in the context of an in-game battle.
If someone has an opposing Toxitricity Gigantimax and they themselves are using a regular Toxtricity, it seems very counterintuitive to think they would not be allowed to Dynamax theirs simply because they don't own the Gigantimax variant, especially when functionally, it just means they would have one less move on it than their opponent's, and the Dynamax button is right there, available. And this wraps into their main point that Gigantimax is just a signature Dynamax; it's a stretch to consider it a separate thing, it's more like a (small) extension.

This is a very different situation than not having access to a rare move due to an event, since they may not even want to use the additional, signature Gigantimax move. Move rarity from events would be a more appropriate comparison if both could Dynamax and use Max moves, but only the Gigantimax one gets to use the rarer, signature move.

That’s fair; I could’ve misinterpreted their point. While I disagree with the notion that it’s any different from a rare move/ability (or rare forme for that matter)—after all, I don’t see how there is any mechanical destinction between this and, say, a theoretical form difference that swaps access to TWaves or TArrows or w/e—I do agree that the power levels are comparable enough to make it feel very weird to allow one without the other, with this power level obviously being the point of contention in the argument about whether it’s still broken without dynamax or not.

I just think the scenario presented isn’t really something that I think we should feel the need to make room for if it comes at the cost of taking the time to assess the restricted form of the mechanic—if you want a Pokémon with a specific form or ability on cart you put the time in to obtain it, and if you want your Toxitricity to max up in a game when the only legal way within the ruleset is Gigantamax you put the time in to obtain one which can do so, regardless of whether you think that time sap is justified or not.

This, of course, all assumes people decide Gigantamax is a mechanic worth assessing in and of itself. Just from a policy standpoint, when there *is* an official, objective distinction (no matter how small), I don’t think we should tie ourselves down based on silly, non-concrete things like “it feels weird to allow x but not y” as opposed to because of a consensus is that it is still broken without Dynamax’s unpredictability, which is a concern I voiced earlier myself.

 

[PK Gaming]

After playing + watching a ton of gen VIII battles, I've completely changed my mind on Dynamax. It's a broken mechanic that puts a stranglehold on the metagame. There's very little room for leeway or expression in this metagame, and the end result is a format that feels frustrating to play in a way that no other format has ever felt before.

I don't regret making my initial post. It may have been premature, but I sincerely believed in the potential of Dynamax. It's a shame it didn't pan out, but i'll always remember the sheer thrill of sweeping teams with Dynanax Pokemon.

 

[Greybaum]

First time posting here, please be gentle. :)

Just to keep everyone updated:


The current leading idea is "only allow Gigantamaxing". Most of the worst Dynamax abusers don't have a Gigantamax version, so it has the potential to be a lot less broken, while still retaining this gen's gimmick in some usable form.


Feel free to discuss the "Gigantamax only" idea.

I'm very much against this idea.
Is Dynamax the problem, or are the Pokémon that use Dynamax the problem? I, and most people in this thread, believe that it's Dynamax as a core mechanic that is flawed.
Without repeating too much, it allows sweepers to snowball through a team, makes turn-based strategies like Rain overly effective, and indirectly buffs Choice items to the point where holders are seen as overbearing and unfair. All of this has been covered by people with more eloquence and more competitive experience than I in posts above.
Gigantamax holds almost all the benefits Dynamax does. Yes, GMax Lapras is unlikely to be tearing up the OU ladder, but by allowing Gigantamax users to exist under Smogon policy we'd be delegitimizing our own argument that Dynamax as a whole is the uncompetitive aspect, as opposed to Hawlucha, Gyarados, Ditto and any number of other arguably banworthy-under-Dynamax Pokémon. Allowing GMax Corviknight suggests that Dynamax isn't the issue, but rather, Max Airstream is, hence GMax Corviknight is fine. After all, that's the only degree of seperation between GMax and DMax Corviknight, while the latter would be banned under the proposed ruleset. But if that's true, why not allow every Dynamax user that lacks Flying-type coverage? Better yet, why not ban Max Airstream itself and allow the other moves? Yes, this is a complex ban, but much like warzoid I see Gigantamaxing itself as a complex ban; I don't see any justification for banning the Dynamax mechanic, but not if it's Gigantamax, with the distinction primarily being "Gigantamax Pokémon often, but not always, have a lower BST, and we can ban the exceptions".

On top of this, the majority of Gigantamax users are also inherently uncompetitive. I'm not just referring to potentially banworthy ones like Gengar and Melmetal, but also to the likes of Grimmsnarl that induce a Yawn status, or Eevee inflicting infatuation. Even tamer ones, like Pikachu simply inducing Paralysis and Butterfree inducing, well, a random status, are centered around luck and outside of this luck element are no different from their Dynamax forms.
To me, appeals to allow Gigantamax seem to be based around attempts to maintain a new gimmick by way of limiting its users to a convenient list provided by Game Freak. The issue is that some forms ARE (arguably) still overpowered, and the majority of the ones that aren't (or don't seem to be) offer virtually nothing unique or competitive to the table but instead just serve to add additional elements of luck to the game, with the only notable exception being Copperajah. Is a visual change and a Gravity effect instead of Psychic Terrain enough reason to allow GMax Orbeetle and maintain a ban on DMax Orbeetle? This is subjective, but personally I don't think so. This isn't even going into the potential issues that low tiers may face when the likes of Butterfree and maybe even Eevee are suddenly in a format where their stats become high enough to take advantage of their luck-centered mechanics.

It wouldn’t be a complex ban because there is an objective, official distinction that can be narrowed down to a single attribute of the Pokémon, and it’s very hard to dispute this regardless of whether you believe they’re broken or not. This same attribute means that there is one objective thing that can be handled separately if we decide one gmax is too much but not the others (we’d ban the flag that allows the transformation, just like we would with a mega stone or Batle Bond/Zen Mode). It’s a simple ban both in a world where Dynamax is legal and in a world where it is not.

I believe I understand where you're coming from, but the objective, official distinction does not come in the form of an item or an ability, or anything, for a lack of a better term, "physical". I'm of the opinion that banning Gigantamax is more akin to banning the use of an event move on a Pokémon than it is to a banning a Mega Stone. You are banning a fundamental element of a Pokémon, removing something it can naturally do without any additional changes to its set. I understand that this is a grey area, with Mega Rayquaza as a notable example where we broke this precedent by banning it from Mega Evolving while at the same time allowing it to use Dragon Ascent, and it could also be argued that instead of an event move, the ability to Gigantamax is closer to an alternate ability à la Dream World... but Gigantamaxing isn't quite like anything we've seen before, and I think it's hard to make a conclusive argument for or against Gigantamax being an "objective, official distinction" in any legitimate sense, at least not in a clearly defined sense like you seem to be suggesting it is.

 

[Zarel]

There's a lot of unnecessary quibbling here about whether or not "Gigantamax-only" would be a complex ban.

The answer is yes. But it's important to note that:

1. we've done complex bans in the past (DrizzleSwim, Sleep Clause, the complex Baton Pass bans before we banned it entirely)

2. wanting to preserve the gimmick of the generation in some way at all is a pretty normal situation to complex ban in

3. banning a large list of Dynamax abusers would be even more complex than a simple "Gmax only" rule

 

[Finchinator]

The OU Council has no intention to handle Gigantamaxing separately than Dynamaxing.

The arguments separating the two are either prioritizing things in a fashion in which we do not believe is proper (as explained in Eo, Charmflash, and dice’s posts) or based off of conceptual preservation as opposed to competitive balance and tiering consistency.

There will be a suspect in the near future and we are already set on grouping the two.

 

[Finchinator]

I am locking this thread as we have determined our line of action moving forward. Expect a suspect in the near future. Thank you to everyone who contributed to this discussion; you all played an instrumental role in this complicated decision making process. Happy Thanksgiving!