You know, I've been playing a lot on Ladder, trying to get reqs for this suspect test. I came in this with a very spiteful mindset. I told myself about how terribly balanced this mechanic would be, even months before Swsh was released. Seeing what essentially is Z-moves but on steroids really turned me off. You could blow past all your checks, make your stats ridiculously high, doubling your HP stat, can set weather, and the restrictions had made me think this mechanic would be way too strong for any tier.
Spending pretty much the entire day laddering, getting more experience with the mechanic, I now have an evolved perspective on the matter. I was previously a huge advocator for the removal of Dynamax everywhere. I would like to say that my opinion is much more positive about Dynamax.
Nah just kidding. I loath this god awful mechanic even more having to Ladder with it enabled.
Among all things I have experienced in my life, having to ladder with Dynamax enabled is definitely up there among having a catheter up my urithra after painful surgery for my hips.
Jesus Christ. Please off the love of all gods among all religions, disable Dynamax for the Ladder while Suspsect test happens.
Hell, disable it forever.
Why do we even have this suspect? We all very well know this unholy hell spawn of a mechanic is going to be banned.
You know it.
I know it.
People who like the mechanic know it.
The people who will vote No Ban know it.
The fetuses which do not have any form of intelligence yet knows it.
It absolutely does not at all deserve to be the false identity a manageable mechanic by having a suspect test.
Quick ban it, so that literally everyone can get on with their lives, and stop giving a shit about some 12 year old Verlisify fan pissing and shitting themselves about how we banned a core mechanic. As if people wouldn't advocate to change many aspects of competitive Pokemon. Dynamax just so happens to be one of those.
To add why I think this, we need to look deeper as to what makes a good competitive scene, and what people look for in playing games competitively.
You know what it is?
Reliability, the many skills offered in the game, and creativity.
Now Pokemon is already of the riske side of this already, given that a lot of the game has RNG elements (which I would totally 100% support a complete overhaul of mechanics and rebalancing every thing about battling just to remove RNG).
Despite this, Pokemon generally falls under these principles nicely.
That is until Dynamax throws a wrench into that idea. All those ideas are thrown out the window because of this abomination of a mechanic.
There is 0 reliable strategy against Dynamax, the many skills of Pokemon that attract many players are absent when this is available, and it leads to an uncreative and tiresome meta.
100% of the games I have been playing on ladder currently felt like neither party had any cognitive functioning while playing, and it felt completely random with who ever had the right lead winning most of the time. Every single time Dynamax was used, it's used in exclusively 3 ways, either breaking past a wall, to get out of Encore or Choice item, or to survive a hit from another Dynamax user.
Every
Single
Time
Just full autopilot.
Is this what people really want to play? What essentially is cavemen bashing 2 big sticks on each other?
Despite how complex the actual mechanic itself is, those complexities only serve to dumb down the game as much as possible.
I also want to take an exert from this this
video.
Yes, it is a Team Fortress 2 video, but the it still very much applies to this discussion, which is about keeping new players dumber. In the video, it's about the Random Crits mechanic in TF2 (Fitting huh), where the mechanic hinders the progress of new player's skill. It's illustrated in a GSC battle, as to demonstrate the interaction that would happen in seconds, where the respective players have to use their knowledge of several weapons, mechanics, damage, tactics, and more. In the end, the Demoman loses, but learns a valuable lesson by losing. This in turn helps develop their skill level. Uncle Dane then goes through the scenario again, but instead adds a random crit, which teaches the Demoman nothing about the game besides shooting erratically will just solve everything.
Dynamax creates a similar problem.
Pokemon competitively is beyond just crits and rps typings. There is a lot to learn on your own by playing the game. I remember just spamming my STABs with my in game teams, as long as it was super effective, and I had no idea the benefit of switching was until I started learning from my mistakes. Learning things like how to deal with set up sweepers, that walls can be dealt with by means other than attacking them, when you should or shouldn't advance, and more elements about Pokemon are all thrown away when Dynamax is involved.
You know that Encore can be used to get an advantage over sweepers or attackers?
Well too bad. Your opponent can just Dynamax and completely ignore this valuable information because it bypasses it.
You know that a common way to beat strong temporary effects like rain and trick room can be stalled out with protect, or by simply tanking those hits?
Well too bad. Dynamax is a strong temporary effect that creates other strong temporary effects while bypassing protect and hitting you hard with 3 moves.
You made a mistake by letting your opponent set up too many boosts? Or maybe you are locked into an Icicle Crash while an offensive Pokemon with a type resist is about to punish your mistake?
Don't worry. Just double your HP on the fly while also releasing your lock so you can use your coverage moves just in case.
You have memorized the front and back of the speed tiers, knowing which Pokemon will be moving first, and you keep a damage calculator at all times to ensure your Pokemon is safe to do this action?
Cool. But your opponent's Rayquaza started spamming Max Airstream (or literally anything with flying moves) with a whooping 140 BP for 3 straight turns, so it now outspeeds everything immediate besides Ditto, while having safely KOd at least a few of your Pokemon because of that double HP.
All the knowledge you have acquired through your history of Pokemon battling all becomes null for more than 3 turns as Dynamax simply just says "No" to it, and you learn nothing from it.
It's a worthless mechanic that does not deserve recognition of anything better.