So, let's not be late with this this time...!!
Hello again, everyone!
As per usual, this post will be an end-of-submission-phase feedback post and a
roughly 24-hour warning for the current submission phase, in order to give time to respond to the feedback in question. C:
Uh, usual updates first!
Slate 37 is not quite live yet still, but the patch has been coded and awaiting approval for a couple of days now! Once it's up, there will also be the much-awaited
teambuilder cleanup at the same time! : D
I can't actually view the client-side teambuilder from my end, so it is not 100% clear if it will look exactly as neat as I hope on the first attempt - I will definitely be paying attention to make sure it looks how it should once it's live and might make minor adjustments through the coming weeks! - but if nothing else, there will be no more blatant lies about tiers and it should be
really easy to find all of our Megas and most of the Pokémon we expect to be viable in the current metagame. Personally, I'm super excited to see how this goes!! It will be a lot better than the teambuilder's current state for sure. :>
This also features more up-to-date versions of the viability list led by BitBitio from a super long time ago, adapted with incredibly helpful input from IsoCon and Paulluxx, as well as the Mega Evolution VR BlueRay has been leading with input from our whole competitive council and the VGC VR BlueRay has led with help from several other players!
We'll definitely be open to feedback on all of this as we work out potential issues over time, of course! Again, no promises that it'll be completely clean on the first update, but I really appreciate you guys indulging me in this experimental take on the teambuilder and providing so much valuable feedback while I was putting it together!!
Also, a lot of people have been adding
Tail Glow to
Lanturn!
While this is allowed in general, and I didn't really expect it to be a super big deal and was initially one of the bigger advocates for it, provisional testing in the sandbox has reminded us of why this move is as rare as it is, and it can be very dangerous on a Pokémon with offensive tools as excellent as Lanturn's (
highly synergistic STABs and the very rare combination of
Electric STAB with Water-types' typical
strong Ice coverage).
The move is not banned, but if you have chosen to add it, your sub will be approached with real caution!
We've gone through some extensive balancing discussions on the Discord
making sure the move is okay on specific people's subs, and I really appreciate those people taking it so seriously and making sure they ended up at a level that worked - that was a really good process all around!
But yeah, if you're not one of the people who's been specifically given the go-ahead already, please respect it if you're asked to remove Tail Glow and please don't assume I'm overreacting
or complain about how perfect it is flavorfully; Lanturn makes a solid foundation for a pretty scary abuser of the move and it isn't something we can afford to be liberal with.
One minor thing: I do want to apologize for making the previous veto post at a time when I was tired and inattentive, because I feel like I definitely wasn't as diligent as I might have been in calling out things I usually do and there were a couple of things I regretted allowing all the way to voting without stopping them.
This wasn't just for subs that might not be in the mod's best interests in hindsight, but also subs that heavily overlapped with each other.
I have always felt it's important to avoid subs that overlap so heavily because it would really feel bad if someone after you subbed something too much like your idea and won with it at your expense, but I let a couple of very similar pairs through last time and even found myself having a hard time deciding which to put above or below the other for my own vote, so it really made me regret not suggesting that those people discuss their ideas with each other and make a joint sub or at least checking in that it was okay with them like I usually do;;
I am thankful that these kinds of situations were avoided by the actual winners last time, but I will be making an effort to be more thorough this time, so sorry if it comes off as nitpicky at any point or if I seem like I'm being more strict than usual in turn - I do think that's for the best and I have been reminded of how important it is to do this well, haha.
Uh, hey! You may want to double-check your stats on both of these; what you have for
Dodrio's pre-Mega stats are a strange amalgamation of Dodrio and Lanturn, and the numbers do not add up correctly (nor would they total +100 even if I just took the listed changes), so I can't entirely tell what you were going for. P:
Lanturn is mostly
correct (I should point out that +42 Defense should only be base 100, but I can easily see what you were going for and I would just have fixed that myself if it won), but this one I think sounds broken and I am not comfortable allowing it, actually.
No Guard Zap Cannon is obviously
really strong, and while counterplay to it naturally exists, Lanturn can easily cover all of its shortcomings because it has abundant tools to deal with every possible Ground-type. It also combines this with Scald to be a
very reliable spreader of status in general, and 125/100*/106 is incredibly good mixed bulk; if we were to have No Guard Zap Cannon on anything
and that's a big "if", I would much rather it be something much weaker with more consistent counterplay than this.
There are other submissions that deal with raising Lanturn's accuracy, but I think just having No Guard off the bat is too strong to allow and I'm not comfortable with it, so that one is gonna be a no from me;;
Hi! I can tell your Obstagoon has pretty obviously different stat biases from that of Dramps, so you might be okay with this (and I don't think yours steps on his toes as much because his Ability has another, more important effect, so it's really up to you), but I just wanted to draw attention to Dramps's submission right above yours!
This isn't a veto or anything, but you might be interested in voting for him rather than subbing the same premise of sound moves becoming physical? or at least it might influence you to design your Obstagoon in a way that differentiates them more/to help you stand out!
There is nothing wrong with leaving yours as-is and I will definitely allow it, but I thought maybe the redundancy would be useful to highlight so you didn't come to regret it if you found out only later. C:
Nope nope. Sorry, but we are not planning to allow any more trapping Abilities for the mod - every type that can be trapped is heavily impacted, and Talonflame alone has a major impact and enables some very dangerous cores, so this is
not a set we should be "completing" or continuing to explore. The thing is that the more types can be trapped, the bigger the problem is - Talonflame was allowed
because it was first, and I don't mean this as a double-standard or as a reason to have a problem with Talonflame but as a genuine assessment of its impact: Magnet Pull and Bird of Prey will be the only two trapping Abilities this mod ever has so long as I am around to enforce it.
Also, trappers with an offensive type advantage over the thing they target are always a bad idea, if it ever comes up in another mod that hasn't already reached its limit.
I appreciate that you learned from Mightyena though! I am a fan of your Dodrio : D
Hi! I feel I should draw your attention to
ry4242's
sub, which executes a very similar idea in what I would argue is a much simpler and more realistic way. I would normally recommend streamlining this Ability to something... well... more like ry's, ahah, but that's kind of already been covered and this just seems really awkward by comparison.
While you had no way of knowing this since you're not on the Discord, they did create (and publicly share) their sub as long ago as, uh, March, so in this case I feel it's better just letting theirs take precedence x:
Sorry if this is disappointing, but between the two of them, I am much more comfortable just allowing theirs over yours;;
Hello! Requesting that you nerf this Ability to be only -2 per move, not -4; Spite is deceptively massive as a form of PP drain, and this sounds
really hard to deal with for being spammable and offensive.
For comparison, the move Eerie Spell offensively lowers PP (by 3), but it also can only be used 8 times itself (and doesn't do spread damage), so it's challenging to exploit and very limited in practice; this is also pretty massive by comparison to, say, Pressure, which is actually a strong Ability itself on the right abusers!
Accordingly, this should definitely drain by even less than Eerie Spell, not as much as Spite; -2 would be solid but more than that is probably a no.
Aaa hi! Uh, this is another case of an idea sort of being called in advance on the Discord, which I always feel bad about when it concerns people who aren't on the server x:
please everyone consider joining so people can get in touch for stuff like this more easily;;
but uh, I am sorry to say that
STICKY FINGAA shared that they were planning on it some six days before the slate opened, and they had their sub completed (even exactly as they submitted it, movepool additions and all) as of 1:25 GMT on October 7th
They just weren't able to share it in the thread until yesterday, and obviously you had no way of knowing this, but the two really are quite similar and I have been asked to let theirs take precedence with that in mind, so I will have to exclude yours x:
I know this is an unfortunate kind of veto, but I hope you understand - I don't think it would be right to have the two of them both in the running with how much they overlap, I'm afraid D:
super minor note: although your Obstagoon and ry's also both have the same Ability (ry is the person who posted above yours), this is a case where I am intentionally choosing to allow them both, because ry (the one who subbed Punk Rock Obstagoon first) confirmed they were fine with it!
we both agreed they were different enough on the basis of the way your addition of Boomburst and ry's lack thereof influenced your respective stats, and personally I quite like the direction you took with it as a mixed Punk Rock user!
just letting you know that that one is in fact totally fine and not to worry about it C:
also I support your Lanturn and really like your Dodrio that's so clever
Hi! We were discussing the implications of this on Discord, and we were concerned by the specific wording of the Ability (that it affects the last move by all foes on the field, if the Pokémon faints by any means).
While people
were generally concerned that this might be frustrating to face and it might be worth taking that into account regardless, the consensus was that it would be fine to
allow it on the condition that it worked exactly like the move Grudge - it should only apply if the user is knocked out by direct damage from an attack, and only drain the PP of the attack that knocked it out.
This decision was made particularly with the goal of keeping a healthier matchup against stall, which suffers more than any other archetype from completely losing even a single move; making it so only attacking moves can be affected and indirect ways to KO Obstagoon are still safe is necessary to keep stall from being trivialized or forced to play in unhealthy ways against this.
The flavor on this is actually really fun though I love the grudge/grunge pun
Man this is clever.
Okay uh,
I actually
love this conceptually, with fast Mirror Move and Me First specifically
and those are definitely my favorite elements of it
As for the other moves, I think it's worth noting that this sounds... just hard enough to control in unhealthy ways that I'm okay
allowing it as-is,
but I just want to put down for the record that it actually does
feel kind of borderline to me in its current state, and it maaay be worth toning it down a little to make it feel like a safer addition? Stuff like Assist and Metronome feels both the most extraneous and the most risky to allow, so I think as fun as they sound on paper, it would probably be a good idea to reconsider those and maybe drop them for a first pass x:
2x is also kind of a lot and another course of action might be to tone it down to 1.5x?
remember that unlike Mirror Move, Me First already has a 1.5x power boost to simulate STAB but I don't think I would require that
Uh, anyway, mostly I really want to like this and I think it could be really,
really fun to play with, but I am suggesting some nerfs because I don't want to feel too uncomfortable voting for it (and I don't want other people to feel too uncomfortable voting for it so it can have a fair chance :v), even if I wouldn't necessarily veto it as-is
I also really like all of your other subs FWIW I just don't have any comments : D
Okay so-- I know you and
okispokis did get in touch and the
overlap between your subs is not a problem here,
but the, uh, the power level itself definitely is - this is
really broken, unfortunately;;
The free paralysis is
way too damaging to team archetypes that rely on pivoting and will definitely be extremely problematic, and the Ability would be
more than strong enough without that side effect
I will be vetoing this, sorry;; but I think you should vote for okispokis's tamer equivalent if you want to se something like it because the anti-pivoting part is still very compelling on its own
You're not giving it Spore for no reason, and Bug Bite is not a biting move
(this is not up to us to decide because the list of biting moves comes from canon, so I'm not changing that for a custom)
As a relevant fact, the move Snap Trap with STAB is almost as strong as Bite without it (~57.5 BP vs 60), so this really isn't a necessary custom Ability at all if you were just to add that instead
I don't fully trust that you have put much thought into this, myself, and I would encourage you to reconsider it more thoroughly...? I don't personally like the idea of making a custom this specific for a Pokémon that has absolutely no reason to use it
Personally I think this is kinda broken actually - 130 Speed Aerilate with 135 Attack and SD is, uh, a lot? and unlike Pinsir
which is a very good Mega with very similar tools and much less Speed - it's not like you need to one-up it like this, its other STAB is synergistic and relevant for handling Steel-types, and it has reliable recovery to deal with chip, making it easier to run Double-Edge over Return
-ates are also very overdone, and there's a reason why we have so few of them and why the last few -ate-adjacent subs have been based on types other than Normal; there are only so many distinct ways to make an -ate abuser when you're using it to justify exactly the same Normal-type moves; I won't veto this if you nerf it well enough (with, like, a lot less Speed), but that doesn't make it a good idea and I would personally really discourage "just" making it not broken and leaving it at that
No.
Use the existing Volt Absorb, Lightning Rod or Motor Drive if you want an Electric immunit
but there's already a Volt Absorb Mega Lanturn anyway so I would suggest just voting for that one but I have absolutely no intention of indulging evasion boosts.
As written, your Ability boosts the power of Flying-type moves by no less than
7/3......... so no.
You can't call this Heavy Metal because Heavy Metal is an Ability that already exists.
Also, Dark and Ghost don't need to be exceptions and have no reason to be, so I recommend dropping that part.
This one looks coherent and well enough balanced though!
No what
No
- We can't do trapping when an opponent uses a contact move because it means Victreebel can trap something the turn it switches in; that part is a definite no regardless of what else you change and is and always will be an instant veto
- Trapping with Grass-type moves and stealing other Pokémon's setup are completely unrelated effects, so please pick one of them if you want this not to be vetoed
Thanks
Aaaa I feel bad saying so because this
is a really cool constraint to apply to this effect in theory
but
I think this is probably still too strong?;;
I'm not really comfortable allowing Taunt on entry in this context - it shuts down too many important strategies, and even if an opponent theoretically has an attacking move that it could use to target Obstagoon, this Ability is very good at delaying the most important moves it could want to use until it's too late (like... if Obstagoon switches in on a slower Pokémon that's trying to recover, it both denies that and probably gets off at least two attacking moves before the target is able to use the move it wanted, which is very often going to be too much for the target to take)
It is still a really cool take on Taunt on entry and not as fundamentally broken as the idea of this often is, but I am worried it is still too much x:
jazzmat made the suggestion of not disabling status moves until Obstagoon's first full turn on the field (so it can't
switch in on a move to disable it, but it prevents the moves as long as it's already "visible" at the point of move selection), and I think I would be more okay with that! so that's one possible nerf that might be worth considering without losing the spirit of the Ability, as long as you're okay with it
In its current state, though, I do think it's too much unfortunately D:
I believe that should be everything! Thank you guys in advance for your cooperation and I can't wait for voting!!
There are actually a ton of really fun ideas this time and I'm really excited : D
I also saw a lot of cool discussions on the Discord exploring the potential of different ideas this time around and I'm really enthusiastic about where all of them went :> This feels like an especially strong turnout for a slate!!!
So uh, submissions will close and voting should begin in 24 hours or a bit later, and the council will make a compilation of all of the legal entries then! If you've gotten feedback here that you want to address, it would be best to do that as soon as possible with that in mind. C:
(As usual, though: no worries if you can't quite make it by then! If you decide to make changes based on this, then as long as you can do that before voting closes
just leave enough time for people to vote for you! and please make sure to check which council member made the compilation post for that Pokémon and get in touch with them, such as by pinging them or DMing them here or on Discord, we'll be happy to edit the compilation to include any amendments you made!)
