Like Beat Up, the opportunity cost is extremely low for Weakness Policy, just an item slot and a move on already good Pokemon. The risk / reward is insanely skewed. As Lunar said on Discord, it isn't fun when you only have to win a single turn to win the game.Strategies like Beat Up are only balanced when there is a significant opportunity cost to using the strategy which does not exist right now.
When do we decide Dynamax is just too good instead of banning 5 things to keep it alive?
Frankly I agree with every point madeLet me do a baddy bad attempt at detailing the impact of Dynamax in Doubles OU. Do note that this is not about calling a ban or suspect test to Dynamax, I will get into that later.
Beat Up
This move has been recently banned and as everyone has said before, Dynamax does make Justified + Beat Up more overwhelming than before since it gains flinch immunity from Fake Out with its HP doubled. Whimsicott and Dragapult being both Tier 1 mon don't help matter with the latter also immune to Fake Out. Only good counterplay is Follow Me, moving on.
Weakness Policy (almost everything)
Weakness Policy is ridiculous in Gen 8. A Dynamaxed Pokemon taking a super-effective hit from a regular Pokemon usually doesn't OHKO them thanks to the doubled HP. This enables them to go crazy once they get the boosts from WP and forcing the player to do mind games. Even then, there is a surprising amount of Pokemon that takes advantage of WP without Dynamax. A good counterplay is to use Knock Off..... unless they happened to be weak to Dark which will activate it anyway. Necrozma is particularly notorious as it has Prism Armor to take less damage from SE attacks and being weak to Knock Off.
We have made a discussion about limiting Dynamax level to 0 in an attempt to balance it, but nothing has come into fruition. Though Weakness Policy might still be overwhelming, just on a lesser scale. Also, please ban Weakness Policy.
Flying-types
Definitely the lesser evil of the trilogy since Trick Room and Thunder Wave exist, but getting the speed boosts from Max Airstream makes Flying-types strives again as an offensive type with its neutral coverage and nothing is immune it makes the boosts nearly guaranteed with the exception of Max Guard. Togekiss becomes one of the best in the meta with it taking advantage of its speed boosts later by potentially flinching foes with Air Slash and having arsenals such as Follow Me to redirect and potentially get Weakness Policy boosts and Tailwind. I do fear Gyarados as it's a dangerous sweeper with Max Airstream backed up by Moxie and/or Dragon Danceand I used to think it's banworthy lol. Braviary was great as a Dynamax user before but eventually fallen down.
Sleep
Sleep has been used to check Dynamax Pokemon to either waste their turns or force them to switch out and lose Dynamax in the process. Since we only have Shiinotic as the sole Spore user, we rely on Yawn until Pokemon Home brings Venusaur.
In all honesty, I'm not a big fan of Dynamax, it's unpredictable and leaves too much undesirable impact. Heck, I never understand why people think Z-move or Mega Evolution is broke but Dynamax is more balanced than these two. However, as odd that may sound after expressing my dislike towards it, I do acknowledge that Dynamax isn't as game-changing as it did in OU with sweepers being much harder to stop thereor I just suck lol, especially with Dynamax and having to use Imposter Ditto to check them. Let me know what you think of Dynamax.
Did I fucking call it or what? Good bye beat up, good bye weakness policy, good bye shadow tag, goodbye Melmetal, goodbye dynamax. This game already lacks a wide selection of strats, so lets take as many as we can away. Very good mindset.Bans have consequences that only lead to a floodgate of more bans.
Think you're off the mark on this one honestly, Alcremie was never going to be good because boosting your partner is only very powerful if the boosted partner is attacking on the same turn and with Alcremie's speed tier that's very difficult to set up. I highly doubt she'd see any more play after a dynamax ban.I used to be dead set on Dynamax not being game breaking in doubles unlike it very clearly is in singles, but after reading your posts, I have started to reflect on the topic and have come to the conclusion that it gives certain pokemon way too much independance. You have all done a fantastic job explaining why, so instead of repeating the same arguments, I'll use an example.
I am certain all of us were astonished when we saw alcremie at the beginning of the generation, and expected her to make the meta a brainless exercise of decorating something with a powerful spread move, whether physical or special, and sweeping to victory, yet it has been shown so easy to set up different OP strategies (riskless beat up and weakness policy, boost from fighting and poison moves, tanking in general which includes flinch) thanks to dynamax that alcremie has been relegated to DUU, as few have found it worth it to use this support mon in such an unbelievebly volatile metagame. This is not to say that alcremie is without other flaws, but just imagine the impact she would have had, even in more powerful metagames like gen 7 with megas and z cristals, but lacking dynamax.
haha just wait until smeargle's backI am certain all of us were astonished when we saw alcremie at the beginning of the generation, and expected her to make the meta a brainless exercise of decorating something with a powerful spread move, whether physical or special, and sweeping to victory, yet it has been shown so easy to set up different OP strategies (riskless beat up and weakness policy, boost from fighting and poison moves, tanking in general which includes flinch) thanks to dynamax that alcremie has been relegated to DUU, as few have found it worth it to use this support mon in such an unbelievebly volatile metagame. This is not to say that alcremie is without other flaws, but just imagine the impact she would have had, even in more powerful metagames like gen 7 with megas and z cristals, but lacking dynamax.
Spore+decorate+sticky web+fake out, that's going to be real scary, we'll have to find a way around it I guess.haha just wait until smeargle's back
I recall nerfing the HP from Dynamax being a discussion that got floated around when OU axed Dynamax, but I think the biggest issue with it is that a good number of G-Max Pokemon can't conform to the given restrictions. I don't know the minimum G-Max level obtainable for every Gigantamax mon, but from experience it seems that the minimum Dynamax Level is 5. All gift G-Max Pokemon have a Dynamax Level of 0, but any G-Max Pokemon caught through raid battles have that minimum level of 5 (which includes G-Max Lapras, Solar Power G-Max Charizard, G-Max Hatterene, G-Max Butterfree, etc.).Have we thought of maybe implementing something like restricting the Dynamax Level of a Pokémon? I notice every mon has their Dynamax Level at its maximum, which grants I believe a 200% boost to the HP. But maybe something like a Lv 5 or even Lv 0 boost?
I thought of this when I used a Weavile in a raid battle and noticed that I had forgotten to raise its Dynamax Level to max and got damaged and worn down a LOT faster than usual. So I decided to do a bit of testing and got these results. Idk all the exact math, but lol
Base - 260HP
Lv 0 - 390HP
Lv. 1 - 403HP
LV. 5 - 455HP
Lv. 10 (MAX) - 520HP
This may not mean much to some, but I feel like doing something like this will cut down on the survivability of Dynamax Pokémon, especially true for the more bulkier ones, and make them a bit less oppressive to fight and easier to revenge kill have you find yourself in a situation where they’re just too dummy thicc to knock down by normal means. Dynamax has been an extremely controversial topic around the community lately and for VERY good reason. And I think trying this could be an interesting plan of action opposed to jumping straight to an outright ban of it maybe (considering that’s even on the table rn)
Just food for thought imo
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I have read this and I have thought, we aren't Game Freak, and this isn't VGC, so how about we instead of adhearing to the gen 7 format, why don't we just go ahead and ban dynamax in gen 8 DOU, and create a DOU including all gens which, at least for now allows dynamax, and see if the added power of megas and z cristals and other old mons is enough to balance the extra power, although I didn't play that much national dex, I didn't feel dynamax being as centraling as in OU albeit, still ban worthy, similarly in doubles the dynamax isn't as clear cut, so I'd like to see it's combination. This I think is the compromise that would fullfil everybody's wishes, DOU without dynamax, somewhere to use dynamax, and bringing back the old mons.As Marilli said, nobody here actually thinks banning Dynamax is on the table at this point. If that were the only choice, I'd vote for a Dynamax ban because I personally don't enjoy playing with it, but I understand that taking it away without adding back Megas or Z-Crystals would be kind of like going back to Gen 5, except with a less impressive and more limited cast of characters.
However, rather than banning Dynamax at this early stage, I'd much prefer to put back up the Gen 7 DOU ladder as an alternative. I have made my case for that in the Doubles chat room, but figure I'll briefly outline it here too. For the record, one mod suggested I e-mail the Smogon site proprietor about that. When I did, this was the response I got, "I'm glad you're so passionate about our game! Unfortunately, I don't make these decisions. I'd probably recommend you post this on the Smogon forums, where they make the decisions about what formats belong on the ladders." And yes, I get that there's no forum on whether keeping the Gen 7 DOU ladder would be a good idea, which is why I'm posting here.
Here are the main reasons for supporting the revival of the Gen 7 DOU ladder as I see them:
--In the recent survey in the Doubles chat room, Gen 7 was voted the best DOU Gen by a wide margin.
--Currently, as I write this, there are 0 Gen 8 DUU battles (usually, there's like 1), 59 Gen 7 OU battles, 4 Gen 6 OU battles, 1 Gen 5 OU battle, 5 Gen 4 OU battles, 3 Gen 3 OU battles, 0 Gen 2 OU battles and 0 Gen 1 OU battles--all of these formats currently have ladders. Right before the Gen 7 DOU ladder was taken down on Feb. 1, there were 10+ Gen 7 DOU battles going on at any one time most of the time. In terms of pure numbers, the Gen 7 DOU ladder has way more reason to exist than Gen 8 DUU or Gens 1-6 OU.
--Gen 7 DOU is still popular for the same reason that Gen 7 OU is still popular. Gens 7 and 8 are very different and there's not much overlap in terms of the mons regularly used (exceptions like Incineroar prove the rule) or the style of play. Gen 7 is the height of development of the previous Gens, while Gen 8 burns a lot down and starts with something very different.
--I get that, in the past, the doubles community has believed we could only support one Gen at a time, but Gen 7 and 8 are so radically different, we should reexamine whether that makes sense in this case. Also, the Gen 7 and Gen 8 DOU ladders coexisted for some time with no problem. People were actually slowly coming back to Gen 7 DOU when they found out that the ladder was still up. Meanwhile, Gen 8 DOU was doing just fine.
百花齊放,百家爭鳴 ("let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend")
That's the main idea. I appreciate you guys considering it. I know there are many others who feel the way I do, although most of them probably play less now, like I do, and are not the people always commenting here (https://pokemonshowdown.com/ladder/gen7doublesou <-- it looks to me like less than 15 of the top 50 on this list have made a serious attempt to ladder on Gen 8 DOU) . Although no one is willing to take responsibility, I'm sure that if enough people backed this, we could make it happen (mods who are just fine with your awesome challenge battles in any Gen when you want them, please consider this is not a viable option for most of us mortals). Then we could all see how Gen 8 DOU evolves, but if you wanted a break from Dynamax madness, you could always come back and find Lando, the Tapus and your favorite Mega waiting for you back in Gen 7 DOU.
That just seems pretty arbitrary, like when people suggested having only certain Pokemon Dynamax or only having the Pokemon in the first slot Dynamax.Have we thought of maybe implementing something like restricting the Dynamax Level of a Pokémon? I notice every mon has their Dynamax Level at its maximum, which grants I believe a 200% boost to the HP. But maybe something like a Lv 5 or even Lv 0 boost?
I thought of this when I used a Weavile in a raid battle and noticed that I had forgotten to raise its Dynamax Level to max and got damaged and worn down a LOT faster than usual. So I decided to do a bit of testing and got these results. Idk all the exact math, but lol
Base - 260HP
Lv 0 - 390HP
Lv. 1 - 403HP
LV. 5 - 455HP
Lv. 10 (MAX) - 520HP
This may not mean much to some, but I feel like doing something like this will cut down on the survivability of Dynamax Pokémon, especially true for the more bulkier ones, and make them a bit less oppressive to fight and easier to revenge kill have you find yourself in a situation where they’re just too dummy thicc to knock down by normal means. Dynamax has been an extremely controversial topic around the community lately and for VERY good reason. And I think trying this could be an interesting plan of action opposed to jumping straight to an outright ban of it maybe (considering that’s even on the table rn)
Just food for thought imo
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I don't know that Dynamax needs to be banned in Gen 8, personally I feel it is okay but I do see where people might want a separate ladder without it and I think that would be great. Also as much as I would love a National Dex Doubles bringing back older Pokemon that have a higher power I dont think will be able to fix the problems with Dynamax instead it makes the issues worse, If ultra beasts come back we dont know if Game Freak would allow them to Dynamax, however strong Pokemon that are brought back are just going to benefit even more from Dynamax which increases the power level of Pokemon that were already common in past doubles formats and make it even higher where a weaker pool of Pokemon at least can keep things a little more manageable If Beat Up+Terrakion is significantly better because of Dynamax then imagine the impact of a good pokemon like Lando-T gaining extra bulk from Max Quakes or Kartana using Max Airstream to gain speed get a OHKO and then getting +1 Atk from Beast Boost.I have read this and I have thought, we aren't Game Freak, and this isn't VGC, so how about we instead of adhearing to the gen 7 format, why don't we just go ahead and ban dynamax in gen 8 DOU, and create a DOU including all gens which, at least for now allows dynamax, and see if the added power of megas and z cristals and other old mons is enough to balance the extra power, although I didn't play that much national dex, I didn't feel dynamax being as centraling as in OU albeit, still ban worthy, similarly in doubles the dynamax isn't as clear cut, so I'd like to see it's combination. This I think is the compromise that would fullfil everybody's wishes, DOU without dynamax, somewhere to use dynamax, and bringing back the old mons.