Announcement np: SS OU Suspect Process, Round 1 - Boom Boom Pow

[apesh!t]

Another point that I think holds some merit is that dynamax can make so many more 100 to 0 matchups. This is because it can essentially make a Pokémon that you team already has trouble with impossible to get past. For example, if you team has some trouble with for say lo clef(insane dmax user btw) and you have one poke, say Aegislash, that KOs and nothing else to really threaten, that matchup went from bad to impossible because the clef can dynamax and easily live you hit, even if you dynamax as well, and easily 2hko with max flare. Later that clef just has to pivot in on pex or whatever and boom it’s back to 90% game over essentially.

I think this is a big part of why it is so hard to creatively build or use new stuff with dynamax, because the amount of mons that can really be effective in a dmax meta is so small. You essentially have to use one Of the structures mentioned by teal6 (my usernames dope f u) because those are the only ones that can really handle dynamax consistently.

 

[CasualPokePlayer]

I mean; even if you allow Gigantamax and not Dynamax [Which absolutely shouldn't happen; G-Max is still Dynamax; it just gets a special move]; you could still end up with; say; Charizard being broken because Max Airstream is a thing that exists; and Charizard gets Double HP and can set up it's own Sun. People can still run multiple pokemon that can G-Max on a team so people can't predict it. And so on.

It actually can't set its own sun, since the G-Max move is Fire, so you get a fire spin effect instead of sun. Still, rest of the points are valid, especially Max Air lul

 

[Pokedom10]

On the topic of balancing around broken mechanics, allow me to talk about competitive Super Smash Bros Ultimate for just a moment.

The developers of Ultimate finally added a fan requested feature: the ability to turn on Final Smash Meter. As the name suggests, as you play, you gain a meter that charges up a weaker version of your character's Final Smash. That's a really cool feature! You can do really flashy combos and Ken/Ryu (and Terry now how wild is that) get to be fighting game characters to their fullest!

However, this meter is very decidedly BANNED in any tournament worth its weight. You know why? Because at the end of the day, Final Smashes were not balanced to be competitive. They were designed to be cool flashy all out attacks for big dumb fun casual play. Trying to justify why Samus should be able to use a screen-clearing laser beam doesn't work. Why we would ever allow Peach to send opponents to sleep for upwards of 7 seconds (and heal 60%) is beyond me. And don't even get me started on Zelda; I'm not even sure if that one was ever coded properly.

In theory, we can rebuild the entire metagame to accommodate this broken mechanic. It would probably be 5 lives and 15 minutes and probably have an even smaller stage list, if such a thing was even possible because we currently have like 5 legal starter stages and 3 counterpicks out of a 90+ stage game. But because it's a mechanic you can toggle on and off, we turn it off and we keep it off until we retire our Switches for Smash Bros; Battle Royale (kidding! I hope...).

This same deal can apply to Dynamaxing. Cool mechanic? Sure! Big Pokemon do a big smash! Wow! I love seeing my upscaled model of Tyranitar as Godzilla! Oh sweet some of these are like mega evolution! Woah! I can't believe they brought back fat Pikachu!

But at the end of the day, we should BAN THIS DUMB TRASH. And it really doesn't take long to come to that conclusion. The cracks start to show pretty quickly, as the mechanic, like Final Smashes, was not designed to be competitive (from a singles perspective idk doubles in the slightest). It was designed to be a cool flashy all out attack for big dumb fun casual play. Except it isn't just one all out attack. It's THREE... AND it increases your HP... AND the attacks have secondary effects... AND it breaks Choice locks... AND you get free reign over which Pokemon you choose to do so with, at any time.

Barraskewda is a cool fish Pokemon with cool fish moves and a really cool competitive niche as a hyper-offense Swift Swim user. With Dynamax, it can:

* Effectively double its move's BP
* Set its own rain, doubling its Speed AND powering up any further Water moves (which already have STAB)
* Break a Choice Band lock
* Get +1 attack for using a fighting type attack that normally lowers its already awful defenses (it has lower BP but +1 attack makes that point moot)
* Get +1 speed for using a 130 BP flying type attack that normally takes 2 turns.
* Tank a hit
* Set terrain
* Do your taxes

Rinse and repeat with a lot of cool 'mons... for three turns it can do any combination of the above.

Yeah, we could (in theory) rebuild the entire foundation of basic Pokemon battling from the ground up. But that would end up looking like 5 sweepers and 1 Ditto, and games would be decided entirely around who killed who fastest. Or who started killing who faster and then had Ditto sent out and got reverse swept. When your theorycraft meta will look like that, there's a problem.

I know I posted earlier and I'm still definitely not ever gonna climb the ladder to vote officially, but I hope I make enough sense here to sway someone on the fence, or back up someone else on this same side. Ban this and never look back. Peace out.

 

[Siggu]

At this point I'm just thinking "why bother?". If the mechanic is broken, and it wasn't designed with singles in mind, then it should simply be banned in singles, no hard feelings.

Frankly, there have been enough problems with this "keep the signature trait" in previous generations - namely, Mega Evolutions and Z-Moves, which both were quite a struggle to balance (especially the latter). They weren't designed with singles in mind, and it shows. Dynamax is just another, if more extreme, example.

Where's the risk of Dynamaxing if you are, at best, taking one hit per turn (making Max Guard incredibly situational as a result)?

I mean, sure, banning Dynamaxing would leave a "gimmick"-less OU for the first time since Gen V, but if a ton of Pokémon only have "Imposter Ditto copying their boosts and then Dynamaxing" as the only consistently viable counterplay (which by proxy means that Ditto lacks such a thing), then the mechanic is the problem, not the Pokémon themselves. And no game mechanic is being broken this way either - it's just as if players tacitly agree to not click the DYNAMAX button, just like the Mega Rayquaza Clause (so there is a precedent for such a thing).

The only remotely acceptable alternative I can think of is of a "No Dynamax Candy" clause (thus dropping the Dynamax boost from +100% Max HP to +50% Max HP), but not only I doubt it will make much of a difference, Gigantamax Pokémon (apart from the gift Charmander you get in the post-game) are incompatible with that idea as their Dynamax Level is always above 0.

 

[Gary]

At this point I'm just thinking "why bother?". If the mechanic is broken, and it wasn't designed with singles in mind, then it should simply be banned in singles, no hard feelings.

Frankly, there have been enough problems with this "keep the signature trait" in previous generations - namely, Mega Evolutions and Z-Moves, which both were quite a struggle to balance (especially the latter). They weren't designed with singles in mind, and it shows. Dynamax is just another, if more extreme, example.

It's a PR thing mostly. As much as I could give a shit about what an outsider's opinion is on Smogon, there are times where decisions are made in order to prevent as much negative PR as possible. Dynamax is very obviously one of the most imbalanced elements of any generation thus far, and it is 100% quickban worthy, but considering that it is the new big gimmick of Gen 8, simply banning it out of the gate would cause a lot of controversy from people on the outside. We need to show that we at least ATTEMPTED to give it a chance, otherwise it could give Smogon a bad look.

Again, the amount of fucks I give about the opinion of ignorant Gamefaqs/Reddit/YouTube users is non-existent, however considering I don't run this site it's not really fair for me to say whether or not this was the right decision. I can see why a suspect was chosen for a meta defining mechanic, even if it is most likely an inevitable ban.

 

[Tramuntana]

At this point I'm just thinking "why bother?". If the mechanic is broken, and it wasn't designed with singles in mind, then it should simply be banned in singles, no hard feelings.

Frankly, there have been enough problems with this "keep the signature trait" in previous generations - namely, Mega Evolutions and Z-Moves, which both were quite a struggle to balance (especially the latter). They weren't designed with singles in mind, and it shows. Dynamax is just another, if more extreme, example.

In all honestly, all the Mega Evolutions and Z-moves needed to be perfectly balanced is have the required item have a special warning, similar to how abilities like Pressure work. Furthermore, items that drastically change the pokemon's answers by significantly increasing their stats (AKA the Choice items and Ass Vest) or by completely blocking a crucial weakness (the only example is Air Balloon wich already has that warning by default, and maybe the type-resistance berries).

Readability is a crucial part of competitive games, and this is EXACTLY the reason Dynamax can't even remotely be EVER balanced. Even with Z-moves and Megas, you can get an early warning if you carefully scout with Knock Off or Trick and see if they fail on the pokemon holding them. With Dynamax, even this is impossible to do. And yes, I know Pokemon already breaks the readability rule by default due to the massive options offered by the different natures, EV spreads and movesets, but let's not open this massive can of worms today.

 

[McCoolDude]

Another issue I've not seen people talk about: for 3 (potentially a few more if you're using nonspecific set up) turns, I can completely obscure what side I'm attacking from. For mixed attackers (even if they are only using one set), that's a pretty huge thing, as walls are generally specialized heavily on one side.

It hasn't been a tremendous issue in the current meta, as there aren't many things that could really abuse this (dragapult comes to mind), but I've used a special shiftry to solid effect because people can't tell what I'm hitting them with for several turns. I even slotted growth (it's a sun sweeper) over nasty plot or swords dance just to further the effect.

Really this is just a furtherance of the boosting on a choice item issue, as it just allows for additional mindgames because dynamax obscures the source move. Z-moves also did this, but for only one turn.

You can add it to the pile, I suppose.

 

[GnuGnu]

In all honestly, all the Mega Evolutions and Z-moves needed to be perfectly balanced is have the required item have a special warning, similar to how abilities like Pressure work. Furthermore, items that drastically change the pokemon's answers by significantly increasing their stats (AKA the Choice items and Ass Vest) or by completely blocking a crucial weakness (the only example is Air Balloon wich already has that warning by default, and maybe the type-resistance berries).

Readability is a crucial part of competitive games, and this is EXACTLY the reason Dynamax can't even remotely be EVER balanced. Even with Z-moves and Megas, you can get an early warning if you carefully scout with Knock Off or Trick and see if they fail on the pokemon holding them. With Dynamax, even this is impossible to do. And yes, I know Pokemon already breaks the readability rule by default due to the massive options offered by the different natures, EV spreads and movesets, but let's not open this massive can of worms today.

The thing with Z-Moves was that even if you didn't actually "scout" them through Knock Off/Trick, you could make pretty good assumptions based upon their team composition and the item/sets of other Z-Move candidates on their team. Plus, if you were ballsy, you could even bait them into showing their cards as it's much more feasible to predict a one turn Z-Move than a 3 turn HP doubling, Stat boosting mechanic. Unfortunately, that's not the case with Dynamax. You can perfectly predict all 3 dynamax moves and still end up in a bad spot because now they just have stat boosts. Most "counterplay" against Dynamax in terms of prediction is high-risk low-reward.

The fact that we could probably remove an entire aspect of Dynamax and it'd still most likely be broken speaks to how much they overdid this one. Like why does it block flinch, go through protect, boosts stats, remove-choice lock, start weather/terrain and double your HP.

 

[Krawdaunt]

The thing with Z-Moves was that even if you didn't actually "scout" them through Knock Off/Trick, you could make pretty good assumptions based upon their team composition and the item/sets of other Z-Move candidates on their team. Plus, if you were ballsy, you could even bait them into showing their cards as it's much more feasible to predict a one turn Z-Move than a 3 turn HP doubling, Stat boosting mechanic. Unfortunately, that's not the case with Dynamax. You can perfectly predict all 3 dynamax moves and still end up in a bad spot because now they just have stat boosts. Most "counterplay" against Dynamax in terms of prediction is high-risk low-reward.

The fact that we could probably remove an entire aspect of Dynamax and it'd still most likely be broken speaks to how much they overdid this one. Like why does it block flinch, go through protect, boosts stats, remove-choice lock, start weather/terrain and double your HP.

This is mostly because it was made with doubles in mind rather than singles. Playing both metas, dynamax isn't overwhelming in doubles and I would say actually enchances the exp. Going through protect and blocking flinch are all double mechanics that would have lessened the impact of the new mechanic.

However, in singles all these boost are excessive and make it easy for offensive mons to snowball with very few good ways to stop mons from snowballing.

 

[The Indigo Plateau]

It brings me great pain to say it, but I undoubtedly believe Dynamaxing/Gigantimaxing should be Banned.

My main reason for this decision is based on the spontaneity of the mechanic and the unpredictability that can come with it. Unlike Z-Moves and Mega Evolutions from our previous generations, the incorporation of those mechanics were an important part of teambuilding and a teams overall composition. This is not the case for Dynamaxing; with no held item requisite and the ability to use it on any pokemon at any moment provokes a level of instability and redundancy to teambuilding. We've reached a point where defensive cores can be made entirely redundant because player A decides to Dynamax a pokemon which Player B doesn't deal well with, forcing player B to either lose half their team or Dynamax in retaliation and stall. Dynamax seems to be either an extremely offensive tool or a responsive tool, to said offence. While there is some skill in reading a Dynamax and using it at the right time, that is heavily outweighed by the lack of defensive options against the mechanic, especially considering the free boosts from Max Moves. If you can't defend, you just have to switch between Max Moves and bait the turns to waste it - potentially taking many casualties in the process.

This takes me onto my second reason: the benefits from Max Moves. The fact that max moves become increasingly more powerful with the boost from weather and terrains, or lowering of your opponents stats make switching into Dyna's incredibly difficult, and leaves the Dynamaxed pokemon with a cost-free set-up afterwards, which has provoked an insane spike in the usage of Ditto. There is also the fact that Max Moves can help either themselves or other pokemon sweep without any assistance from other team members; notable examples being Max Rockfall Sand Rush Excadrill and Swift Swim Barraskewda. In my opinion, the biggest causes for concern arise from Pokemon with access to Max Airstream; Gyarados, Togekiss and Corviknight have became premiere sweepers this generation after using a single turn to set up before Dynamaxing and increasing their stats further whilst already going for a sweep. The reliance on Ditto to revenge kill in these instances alone stands as a shiny declaration for the lack of stability Dynamaxing has on the meta, especially considering the increase in HP makes it virtually impossible for a pokemon without a x4 type advantage to revenge kill a Dynamax pokemon.

Finally, my final problem lies in the ability to remove your Pokemon from choice-locked items. Not only does this generation have some premiere breakers/sweepers like Darmanitan and Dragapult with the help of Choice items, but Dynamaxing removes the skill in predicting X switch-ins when they can simply remove their restrictions to continue breaking through defensive cores. Granted, Dynamaxing ignores the effects of the choice item, but a player who outplays a choice-locked pokemon should not be punished by players using the Dynamax mechanic as a get-out-of-jail-free card. To build on this, there has been an increase in Banded/Specs Pokemon using Dragon Dance/Nasty Plot to set up, only to then bypass their own lock and sweep, continue to boost and sweep via Dynamaxing.

It will be strange to see the first 'gimmick'-less generation since Gen V, and would not be opposed to ONLY banning Dynamaxing, so that teams can build around the lesser used Gigantimax forms, which in itself would allow for more prediction and creativity in-game and in teambuilding, but this could also lead to a massive overcentralisation of Hatterene and Charizard, so it's probably better they both go.

TLDR; Dynamaxing, unlike Mega/Z, has no impact on the teambuilding process, and is harder to identify and predict based on a teams composition. The Max Moves providing arena effects, boosts or stat deductions make Dynamaxing virtually impossible to switch into without a complete wall or to dynamax yourself/run protect on multiple mons. The ability to escape choice-lock and set up with choice items is absurd. Any meta with Ditto as a team staple is a walking advertisement for an imbalanced metagame.

I'm voiting to BAN Dynmaxing/Gigantimaxing.

 

[Tramuntana]

Any meta with Ditto as a team staple is a walking advertisement for an imbalanced metagame.

While I completely agree with everything else, I take offense for that last one. Ditto is a SEVERELY underrated pokemon that can be extremely useful in a lot of scenarios. Played optimally, you essentially have a team of 11 pokemon, and I have the experience of 3 generations of shamelessly abusing his utility in OU and BSS to prove it.

The thing with Z-Moves was that even if you didn't actually "scout" them through Knock Off/Trick, you could make pretty good assumptions based upon their team composition and the item/sets of other Z-Move candidates on their team. Plus, if you were ballsy, you could even bait them into showing their cards as it's much more feasible to predict a one turn Z-Move than a 3 turn HP doubling, Stat boosting mechanic. Unfortunately, that's not the case with Dynamax. You can perfectly predict all 3 dynamax moves and still end up in a bad spot because now they just have stat boosts. Most "counterplay" against Dynamax in terms of prediction is high-risk low-reward.

The fact that we could probably remove an entire aspect of Dynamax and it'd still most likely be broken speaks to how much they overdid this one. Like why does it block flinch, go through protect, boosts stats, remove-choice lock, start weather/terrain and double your HP.

Yes, it was also pretty easy to bait Z-moves by sending a potential priority target and essentially force the opponent into commiting to the Z-move. I've been on both ends of this, mostly with my Clefable soaking a boosted attacker and forcing them to Z-move (and taking it with Protect) or by having an enemy Toxapex force me into commiting to a Supersonic Skystrike and switching to a random death fodder.

 

[McCoolDude]

I'm going to add this replay because it sums up the absurdity of a lot of dmax users.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1028577364

In this one: I predict the dance turn, then I predict the dmax turn (not super hard), then pivot into a sacrifice, then bait a specific move (so I can get the flame orb activation), then I was able to finish gyara.

All this because Gyara got one turn. One turn. True, I was playing very conservatively and let it come in on pex, but the same thing could have happened if I let literally anything that couldn't significantly hurt Gyarados get a KO at any point.

The implications of this for the meta:

* You can never let anything get a KO if it cannot significantly hurt a dynamax abuser on your opponent's team. (Memento, explosion, etc, all make this impossible and I'm surprised they aren't being used to specifically set this up).

* You must play always like the dynamax abuser in front of you is going to start spiraling immediately. If Gyarados had just clicked earthquake and dipped the next turn, my pult would have been weakened for nothing (honestly the better option as I don't really have a good switch in for it on that team), but acting like it *wouldn't* is the only thing that saved me.

 

[Bopska]

I’m working on climbing the ladder to get my vote in, but there’s no point, the overwhelming majority is for Ban, which I also reluctantly support.

I think trying to do complex bans to accommodate Dynamax would be more intensive than any complex ban tried so far. The number of Pokémon that could be used normally in OU that would require banning to allow Dynamax would severely narrow the pool of Pokémon in the meta. Even if you try to remove select offenders like Gyarados, Hawlucha, and Corviknight new abusers would likely take their place. Complex bans in the past at least revolved around specific moves, items, and abilities more than anything; and telling a new player they just can‘t bring a Pokémon with the ability Moody, or that Baton pass has some extra rules was much less impactful than banning the core feature of the generation that ANY Pokémon can do. I personally think the only time a ban has been too complex before was the Baton Pass bans, where it should’ve just been outright banned. I don’t feel complex bans are inherently bad when we’re dealing with less significant features being abused to be game defining strategies, but this isn’t an insignificant feature that will go unnoticed if we tweak it.

I really want Dynamax to be viable in singles, but GF dug the grave here. They could’ve added some kind of reliable counter play beyond using your own Dynamax, as doubling the HP and adding stat boosts could maybe be balanced out if they didn’t get absurd bonuses like ignoring choice, flinching, force switching, Protect not blocking moves, not requiring an item to Dynamax, etc. There's simply too much that makes those three turns of Dynamax so powerful and game defining if you don’t go and retaliate with your own Dynamax. I saw someone make a comparison to Dynamax being equivalent to a super meter in a fighting game, which is a good analogy. The core issue with Dynamax though is the sheer lack of counter play and flexibility. In a fighting game one player using their super move before the other doesn’t decide the entire outcome of the match, which happens with Dynamax snowballing even after the transformation has ended due to what the Dynamax mons set up on their turns. The only two reliable counter measures are retaliating with your own Dynamax to tank the hits or using Ditto. Yes you can build teams around resisting common Dynamax meta threats, but that issue of ANY mon using it comes back up. Packing counters and resistances to D-Gyrados falls apart when your opponent sees you’ve prepared for it and just Dynamaxes ANY of their other Pokémon instead. This isn’t like countering a Mega-Gyarados, because the power and buffs can freely go to any other mon. You’re almost required to use your own Dynamax when the opponent does, because holding onto yours for later use is worthless when your opponent used their three turns to boost stats and set weather to demolish your Dynamax mon before it can even perform.

I hate to say we ban the defining mechanic of a generation so early, but this one is so starkly different from Megas or Z-moves. Megas were much easier to balance as we could limit the items instead of the entire mon, and not every Mega was inherently broken. Some like Lucario, Kanga, and Metagross got overpowered and unnecessary buffs, but it turned others like Aggron from unusable to slightly usable. A blanket ban on Megas would’ve been the stupidest thing ever when it was so each to just approach the individual items like individual mons. Would you really need something as bad as Mega-Ampharos to be banned just because it’s a Mega? Z-moves towed the line a little more, but again you had to give up your item slot for a one time use of a move that could be predicted, or even if not you’d still be left with one use you could botch. While there were select offenders who utilized it with stat boosting Z-Moves the overall worst impact on the metagame was making stall busting easier, which a lot of people didn’t mind as evident by it never being banned through its many suspect tests.

I see a lot of people talking about PR, and I think banning Dynamax will have a serious effect on the number of new players coming into the Smogon meta. Casual players who want to start getting into the Smogon community competitive battling will be significantly put off by such a core mechanic to their experience simply being unavailable. The most flashy and identifying mechanic of their gameplay experience being COMPLETELY disallowed will significantly hinder the influx of new players regardless of how well we document the discussions surrounding its banning. I dislike the posts here along the lines of "I couldn’t care less about the stupid uninformed casuals players who don’t understand the metagame". I really think this ban caters existing players more than potential new players. A lot of people want Dynamax to stay because it’s fun and flashy when you don’t care so much about climbing in rank or fine tuned balance; and to many the removal of such a "cool" mechanic further reduces Pokémon battles to just a numbers game where you need to bring the same pool of 15 or so top OU performers to win.

I was discussing the potential ban with some friends who have varying degrees of familiarity with the Smogon community and the opinion I heard very frequently from the less familiar was the idea that hardcore Smogon players care less about having fun and more about just watching their rank stats climb. That the players don’t care about having any fun, and just want to raise their ladder number.

To me this ban isn't a divide between random Smogon players; it’s a divide between the ranked focused community (people who enjoy competitive Pokémon by playing to the best the meta allows and focusing on winning) and casual/new players (players who enjoy competitive Pokémon because they just want structured battling). Banning Dynamax will greatly benefit dedicated ladder players who enjoy climbing and battling for the best rank, while not banning benefits more casual Smogon players and newcomers who don't care about ladder rankings and dislike VGC rules, but they want to have a community to play singles in for fun using their favorite Pokémon. Yes a balanced game is good for everybody; but at a certain point cutting out so many key features of the cart crosses the line for those who are just seeking structure. Banning the defining mechanic only adds to that barrier to entry that puts off people who just want to have structured fun by removing a feature that they enjoyed through their cart playthrough. Overall though this is a decision we’re making that effects how SMOGON plays their metagame. And from these threads and discussions it’s clear that the majority of Smogon players prefer a Dynamax ban. While I do think it will significantly alienate new players we can’t discard the enjoyment of our existing players for the potential of attracting new players. This community has overwhelmingly spoken in support of a ban, and if that’s what the people who put the most time into playing the Smogon ladder want then it should stand. I think the people in the Smogon community who dislike the ban the most are those aforementioned casual players who don’t care about rank and just want to have fun using any Pokemon in a singles environment where jimmy.gonzales2011 doesn’t just bring a full team of box legendaries and inherently unbeatable ubers to any battle he participates in.

Our “PR” is a significant factor because like any online community it will stagnate if potential players feel the divide between existing players and new players is too great. In the other Pokémon forum sites and communities I’m involved in almost all casual or non Smogon players have referred to this ban as the "stupidest thing they’ve ever heard of from Smogon", something that puts them off ever wanting to play with Smogon rules because it makes Smogon sound like they’re just remaking the core game rules and removing fun mechanics to suit the desires of a small handful of players. Granted some of these players include the aforementioned jimmy.gonzales2011 who’re mad they can’t bring their “Super cool team of god power Pokemon” to battle any other player in OU. Nonetheless many current Smogon players started as these kind of casual players who became attracted to the Smogon meta and wanted to learn more about it and get involved in the community. Increasing the difference between the cart and the metagame even further by removing a core feature creates a HUGE divide.

It should also be noted that these casual players do have an outlet for more balanced singles that allow Dynamax through the in game ranked battle system where users can select the battle type and ruleset for matchmaking.

Overall I think Dynamax warrants a Ban. It’s clear the dedicated Smogon players don’t enjoy it, and if Smogon doesn’t like a mechanic then we shouldn’t be forcing it on dedicated Smogon players. The part of me that dislikes battling for rank and enjoys using non meta mons dislikes the ban. The part of me that worries about new users and the divide between Smogon and new players dislikes the ban. But the part of me that understands Smogon’s purpose is to focus on balance for a flexibly competitive meta, not just raw blind fun, understands we need to ban this for the enjoyment of the SMOGON meta. I expect the influx of new players to the Smogon playerbase to stagnate though, and to see the community to shrink over the divide. There’s no easy decision here that will satisfy everybody. But even if it isolates players from the Smogon playerbase it benefits our existing players, the people who’re our confirmed playerbase.

 

[BAGANHA13]

My opinions about dynamax are unsurprisingly negative when it comes to balance, i believe gf has kinda lost the sense of the most basic fundamental principles of how balance works ever since they tried to introduce "gimmicks".
Dynamax is something completely broken because it has fundamentally no cost and im sure i dont need to go over as to how much it rewards the player when using it. When every pokemon, at any time can activate all these buffs at the cost of nothing, its clearly gonna make the game to be revolved around it, why shouldnt it? its free for everyone and any pokemon, ive felt the same way towards megas and z moves, tho obviously neither has had such an impact on the meta in such unhealthy fashions has dynamax had, with maybe some megas has the exception, i mean its not like they havent figured it out already, take hydro pump for example, it hits harder than surf or scald but at the cost of a lower accuracy and people understand this, sometimes its worth using one move over the other for specific situations. Its not just a move to add for your arsenal, it gives the player a choice between how he wants to go about it, hit harder and take the risk, or be consistent with the weaker move. This promotes insight for the player, dynamax doesnt, you can argue there is a need for skill on when you should use it but when you have mons like hawlucha and gyarados who have been since day 1, consistently abusing dynamax and sweeping entire teams, while all this time has passed and the same keeps happening kinda shows there isnt much to understand and how to optimally abuse it, the only "skill" it brings is when you dynamax for defensive purposes, which even then its really nothing more than a guessing game and you certainly dont gain much from the dynamax you use it, you simply stopped your opponents, showing how centralising this mechanic is.
You can also say that the drawback of dynamax is that it only last 3 turns so it does have a cost after all, but id argue, in a 6v6 singles aspect, that is actually more hindering, to have games be decided mostly for what happens in 3 turns when they can go for as long as 30 or 40 isnt a sign of a good game, like ABR said, it promotes short bursts of prediction as opposed to long term thinking, making the rest of the battle either setting up for your dynamax or being it flat out pointless, regardless if you were ahead in the game or not.
I for one am more excited then ever to play a game where these mechanics such as megas, z moves and dynamax arent present for the game, as a guy who started playing since early oras having things such as megas being absolutely necessary for any team in OU because they're to good to pass on, kartana having one specific move that ohkos pokemon it should have no business to do so or making unkillable pokemon have access to incredibly powerfull moves that further buffs you as a secondary effect whilst being immune to flinching/phazing/d bond and whatever the fuck, being removed will sure be a nice refreshing experience.
Good riddance to this bullshit mechanic, cheers to a brighter future.

 

[Negrodamusness]

I don't think Dynamax is as busted as many people make it out to be. Is it meta-defining? Absolutely. Can games snowball out of control if you or the opponent Dynamax at the right time? Of course. But is it busted in 6v6 OU singles? I don't think so. There is counter play to virtually every Dynamaxing Pokemon. In my opinion, Dynamaxing is akin to Primal Groudon in Ubers last gen.

That said, I thought Primal Groudon should've been banned last gen because it was SO GOOD that every single team either had a Primal Groudon or had to have multiple checks for it. The same is true of serious Dynamax threats like Gyarados, Corviknight, Kommo-o, Hydreigon, Hatterene, Togekiss, etc. (Not to mention all the Choice-locked mons with great movepools like Barraskewda and Galarian Darmanitan.) If you don't have Haze or Ditto to reverse sweep or a faster Pokemon that can OHKO the opponent or a bulky enough mon to Dynamax in return and stall out the threat (which is often asking a lot), you lose 9/10 times. And you still might lose even if you do have any (or all) of these Dynamax checks because every team is naturally weak to at least one of the listed threats and good players can usually avoid letting Ditto get in position to reverse sweep. That makes for a less (*cough cough*) dynamic metagame that could otherwise be far more interesting with more creative teambuilding were the ever-present threat of Dynamaxing removed.

Overall, I think Dynamax should be banned now and be suspected back into OU at the end of January if (and that's a big 'if') the metagame starts to lean heavily toward stall and very fat balance teams.

There are a lot of very bulky cores with great synergy right now (e.g. Toxapex + Ferro/Appletun // Toxapex +Mandibuzz/Corviknight + Hippo // Sylveon + Corvinknight + Jellicent) and many of their strongest counters like SD Lando-T and Heatran aren't in the game at the moment, nor are Z-moves. I'd rather have a meta with Dynamax than a meta where stall dominates tournaments and the high ladder, but maybe the community disagrees. (And, of course, the meta may not see a huge rise in stall teams, so we'll have to see.)

 

[Deleted User [433215]]

Overall, I think Dynamax should be banned now and be suspected back into OU at the end of January if (and that's a big 'if') the metagame starts to lean heavily toward stall and very fat balance teams.

There are a lot of very bulky cores with great synergy right now (e.g. Toxapex + Ferro/Appletun // Toxapex +Mandibuzz/Corviknight + Hippo // Sylveon + Corvinknight + Jellicent) and many of their strongest counters like SD Lando-T and Heatran aren't in the game at the moment, nor are Z-moves. I'd rather have a meta with Dynamax than a meta where stall dominates tournaments and the high ladder, but maybe the community disagrees. (And, of course, the meta may not see a huge rise in stall teams, so we'll have to see.)

If the metagame becomes bulkier, so be it, as long as other teamstyles that aren't stall are reasonably usable without having to overcompensate. We shouldn't be reintroducing broken elements (you yourself even admit it's broken to an extent) just to unnecessarily bend a likely healthy metagame in ways that shouldn't be bent on the basis of "too bulky" when the metagame will still have tried and true breakers that will do the job. And defensive cores like the ones you mentioned have existed for a long time now, they're cornerstones of many team styles and we haven't had to reintroduce other broken Pokemon or keep them just on the basis of having a metagame be less bulky. Also, one month? If we were ever to try and reintroduce this mechanic or frankly anything (Pokemon, ability, etc) back into OU for whatever reason (it certainly wouldn't be for the reason you're proposing), we'd need to see MAJOR metagame development over a long period of time before giving it another chance. One month isn't nearly enough time, not to mention January is right in the middle of SPL so that much of a shakeup to the metagame would be bad for tournament players, which is a part of the side that needs to be considered in all this.

 

[Yung Dramps]

If the metagame becomes bulkier, so be it, as long as other teamstyles that aren't stall are reasonably usable without having to overcompensate. We shouldn't be reintroducing broken elements (you yourself even admit it's broken to an extent) just to unnecessarily bend a likely healthy metagame in ways that shouldn't be bent on the basis of "too bulky" when the metagame will still have tried and true breakers that will do the job. And defensive cores like the ones you mentioned have existed for a long time now, they're cornerstones of many team styles and we haven't had to reintroduce other broken Pokemon or keep them just on the basis of having a metagame be less bulky. Also, one month? If we were ever to try and reintroduce this mechanic or frankly anything (Pokemon, ability, etc) back into OU for whatever reason (it certainly wouldn't be for the reason you're proposing), we'd need to see MAJOR metagame development over a long period of time before giving it another chance. One month isn't nearly enough time, not to mention January is right in the middle of SPL so that much of a shakeup to the metagame would be bad for tournament players, which is a part of the side that needs to be considered in all this.

To add on to this: Even if the meta ends up trending to unhealthy levels of fatness (which I don't think will happen), we'll just suspect/ban the stuff that makes stall too powerful and leave it at that.

Let's not resort to "broken check broken" to regulate our meta. That's exactly what happened in Gen 7, and that's how we ended up with PR threads in the last weeks of the meta's lifetime desperately trying to come up with a miracle solution because there was no time left to do the suspects that should've been done a long time ago.

 

[swift mons]

The way I see it, dynamaxing is not broken itself, but rather the way that people define "counterplay" is making Dynamax skewed. I would compare the way that Dynamax is to if you are running a HO team against Trick Room because rather than direct counterplay, players should know how to strategically sac their mons and position their pieces in the correct way. As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing in OU that is running some insane tech right now that can beat their checks as a result of dynamaxing. Even though mons can break through being choiced through dynamaxing, the simple solution to this is to double predicting either a switch or a dynamax and either you've wasted a d-max turn from your opponent or put yourself in an advantageous situation or somehow your opponent makes a don play predicting you to dynamax. Either way, more dynamax sweepers have potential to be outplayed, especially if you have kept your own dynamax in the back as a defensive measure. An example of this is how Togekiss can get all the speed boosts it wants from Max Airstream with Air Slash to flinch the opponent down once the dynamax is over, however if you still have your dynamax, then you can't be flinched and can revenge it. The solution to beating dynamax is to not use your own as a precaution unless you are nearly certain you can win on the spot or can dent your opponent's team (with the idea that they can still max). With moves like Max Knuckle and Ooze even being weakened when you dynamax, this can provide a free switchin for your opponent into a resist that would maybe prevent you from dynamaxing in the first place. While z-moves are just one turn and dynamax is three, dynamaxing revolves around an offensive metagame that makes it so that for three turns, a mon may be harder to check. However, if you play your cards right, after those three turns if you have a mon that checks it, it still will. Dynamaxing is not broken if you have to lose a mon to waste the three turns, and if there was a Pokemon like Magearna who could setup and then use its coverage to decimate everything in the tier, regardless of whether they dynamax themselves, then at this point I would just ban the broken mon rather than dynamax itself. People are really just scared that they might have to play intelligently with their Toxapex rather than just stall the opponent out with Recover.

 

[Negrodamusness]

If the metagame becomes bulkier, so be it, as long as other teamstyles that aren't stall are reasonably usable without having to overcompensate. We shouldn't be reintroducing broken elements (you yourself even admit it's broken to an extent) just to unnecessarily bend a likely healthy metagame in ways that shouldn't be bent on the basis of "too bulky" when the metagame will still have tried and true breakers that will do the job. And defensive cores like the ones you mentioned have existed for a long time now, they're cornerstones of many team styles and we haven't had to reintroduce other broken Pokemon or keep them just on the basis of having a metagame be less bulky. Also, one month? If we were ever to try and reintroduce this mechanic or frankly anything (Pokemon, ability, etc) back into OU for whatever reason (it certainly wouldn't be for the reason you're proposing), we'd need to see MAJOR metagame development over a long period of time before giving it another chance. One month isn't nearly enough time, not to mention January is right in the middle of SPL so that much of a shakeup to the metagame would be bad for tournament players, which is a part of the side that needs to be considered in all this.

You make a good point about SPL, I hadn't considered that. But Dynamax is (likely) being banned just a month after the start of the meta, so I don't think the time frame is the issue. The problem isn't so much that those fat cores exist, it's that there are fewer counters to those cores. I don't know whether or not bulky/stall teams will become extremely common in the absence of Dynamax, but if it does, I'd prefer the Dynamax meta to the stally meta. Dynamax makes for faster paced, more enjoyable games than would be the case in a really bulky meta with no dynamax, z-moves, or mega evolutions.

To your other good point, if a stall-heavy meta does develop, there may be ways of reducing it's prevelance by banning certain mons or abilities (most notably Arena Trap and Shadow Tag) without having to reintroduce Dynamax. For the record, I don't think Dynamaxing is broken (for me, 'broken' = 'rarely counterable or uncounterable'). Dynamax is just so threatening and ever-present that it puts a damper on creative teambuilding and creativity in the metagame in general (at least in 6v6 Singles OU) much like Primal Groudon did last gen in ubers which makes the meta less interesting and less fun than it otherwise could be.

 

[Dragoon Rider]

Dynamax should be banned because it is uncompetitive. It's that simple. That's the only reason something should be banned. If a game mechanic is uncompetitive it means that it takes emphasis away from skill and places it onto using overpowered tools, dynamax in this case. Overpowered tools can be defeated, but that is not the point. It's that overpowered tools essentially break what are a fair system of rules for a game.

Yea, you can predict if they want to break their choice lock or use dynamax to get past the one counter to their sweeper. But the point is that dynamax just automatically puts players at a disadvantage...simply because dynamax is too strong. Your counter to a sweeper might or might not work because if they dynamax they tank the hit and KO you, and then sweep. You could have predicted it, but it's just really a toss up. Dynamax just puts one player at an advantage even though their opponent has a check their sweeper. Playing around dynamax is not something you can always do against the best sweepers. You can't intelligently play around gyarados clicking max airstream, rain boosted max geyser etc and boosting its stats when gyarados just straight up beats the entire tier aside from ditto checking it. You can't intelligently play against dynamaxed CMLO clef that just gets 1 calm mind and KOs the entire tier by clicking the same button. It's not skill based. Yes, it can be kept at bay by intelligent guessing, but why should a game mechanic automatically create situations like that?

Overall, it is true that Gen 8 is fun because of how you don't have to painstakingly try and defeat stall and balance every other game like other gens. Stall does well when typical teams need to pack many checks and scarfers to dangerous offensive sweepers like greninja, hawlucha, etc and that leaves the typical team unable to run enough slow and otherwise useless wallbreakers to beat stall reliably. So stall is usually players relying on a good matchup and poor preparation of the other player to win. But I think the reason stall isn't used in Gen 8 isn't because of dynamax it's just because all the best stall mons were just cut out of the dex. Without Chansey, Sableye, Unaware Clef, Zapdos, etc stall is just going to straight up lose to Clefable, Hydreigon, Reuniclus, Corviknight, etc. Regardless, this shouldn't be a reason to keep dynamax though, this is a separate issue. It has nothing to do with whether or not dynamax is broken.

 

[damien the genius]

Firstly I just want to state my agreement with the many previous posts, stating that dynamaxing is an overcentralising and unhealthy mecahnic that has to go, though I don't feel that i need to add anything that hasn't already been stated better than I can to that discussion.

However, I really disagree with the idea being thrown around that dynmaxing will alienate all (or at least most) current and future casual players from smogon. I feel that there is quite a large subset of players who play very casually but still are strongly against dynamaxing, even if it's only because that at a lower skill level, it seems like even less counter play is available to you (because outplaying dynamax does take a certain level of skill). I am friends with several fairly casual players who have gone back to Gen 7 and randbats and refuse to play Gen 8 again until Dynamaxing is banned and in addition, while failing to get REQs (I missed them due to literally only Max Airstream), I spoke to quite a lot of low ladder players during matches who were incredibly frustrated with dynamaxing and would often make sarcastic comments about balance when my ttar or hat dyna'd and swept them. However, often people also were on the other side, complaining about the balance when their own mon dyna'd and got a kill or boost. These aren't good players I'm talking about btw, these are people rated below 1200 who are often using questionable teams. This is because, for some casual players, dynamax wins feel unearnt and dynamax losses feel unfair. This is a group of people who rely on Smogon to create a competitive ruleset, because while they only play casually, the reason they have come to Smogon is to play with rules that they know are regarded as balanced and fair.

Obviously it's important to handle the PR of a ban appropriately, and of course, some casual players will really hate the idea of dynamax being banned because they think it's cool or more fun or for whatever other reason. However, I think it is a really unfair argument to say that this ban will alienate all casual players, when it could be equally true that many casual players dislike dynamaxing and will become less interested if dynamaxing remains in the meta, many will return to gen 7 or simply just get bored of playing. Just like people claiming that dynamxing makes the game more fun, claiming that casual players want dynamaxing are just subjective arguments that vary from person to person and really shouldn't be considered when discussing a ban.

 

[Hugin]

Of course, Smogon exists for the Smogon ruleset. But the sim has Battle Stadium Singles as an option for a reason. If people want to play with all the toys, they still can. (And a public reminder of that might help soften the blow).

 

[PokePoindexter]

I said a few weeks ago that I wasn't going to rush to decide whether or not to ban Dynamaxing until I got more familiar with the metagame. Well, now I am more familiar with it, and I've got things to say about it. (TL:DR: I agree with banning it now.)

Here's the thing: I don't think the mechanic itself is bad per se. I think it requires a degree of strategy to use effectively and it can be played around with some skill. However, the fact is some Pokemon can abuse the mechanic way too much. You have Hawlucha being able to Max Knuckle and Max Airstream to boost both its Attack and Speed with its STABs, Barraskewda pretty much turns Rain Dance into (B)Rain(less) Dance with its coverage and huge offensive stats, the less said about Galarian Darmanitan the better, and I've even seen things like Togekiss and Beartic take it too far (Max Hailstorm + Slush Rush). Safe to say if it can make Beartic of all things have an unfair advantage over opponents, that's a good sign it's not conducive to a healthy metagame.

Dynamax could be healthier if it didn't provide so many stupidly good secondary effects or remove the Choice Item lock on moves when activated, but as it stands right now, I can't defend it. I'll miss the sheer hilarity of Dynamaxing a +2 Speed Morpeko and wiping out 5 mons on my opponents' teams by abusing various Max attacks, but even that isn't worth trying to preserve it.

 

[Big Bayou]

In the past, the mechanics that powered up pokemon were usually just moves that buffed stats or changed field conditions in ways that interacted with moves, stats or abilities. The force multipliers were the moves and what was buffed was the pokemon.

This generation it almost feels that the pokemon are the force multipliers of the Dynamax mechanic. The same massive health, the same 19 moves, the same gravity towards offense. Everyone is dropping identical bombs on each other, every match. Even if you want to choose something different, you will always end up Dynamaxing to the win.

 

[Tricking]

i'll drop my two cents as well after yesterday's discussion i had with some other players on discord, without too many expectations due to what i've seen on this thread/discord chats, but let's give it a try. so, my initial stance on dynamax can be found here. i'll add a few things to that post. i've noticed how teambuilding became much less important with dynamax (many games in the previous generations among the best players were already decided before the game started because of the nature of the tier and the importance of getting a good matchup), and this is a positive factor because it gives emphasis to playing abilities - you can win against any other team by playing better than your opponent, tough matchups still exist but you can circumvent them way more easily thanks to dynamax. now, someone who enjoys building counterteams in team tours and thinks he is a great builder (!) will be sad about not being able to do so as effectively as they used to .

now, onto short-term vs. long-term planning. so, dynamax is a very powerful tool in the short-term, as it can easily make your opponent think twice about doing certain moves because it adds more possibilities every single turn. this is undeniably true, but there's more. in most scenarios that occur when playing a game, you can be proactive and use your dynamax first to open holes or you can wait for your opponent to use it by eventually exploiting secondary effects of your opponent's dynamax (based on your team - see ditto), or you can use it defensively if you 100% need to win a 1v1 against a threat/ensure you are not getting flinched/phazed or w/e. this way of weighing all the different possibilities in the short-term, while still keeping focus in the long-term is - my friends - the definition of long-term planning with some degree of adaptation. very far from being uncompetitive in my opinion. i am sure that even in previous gens everybody playing this game competitively needed to adapt their long-term plan to some sequences that happened in the game (be it an unexpected tech, the fear of a certain move, bad luck...). dynamax brings nothing new on the table from this point of view. some people say getting one turn wrong against dynamax means a loss. that is completely untrue and an exaggeration, because it depends on a myriad of factors, but even if you spot some degree of truth, i could show a good number of games where someone (me included) got outplayed the whole game except for one turn, capitalized the one chance he had (in general because of good matchup) and still managed to win. this game doesn't often reward the one who played better, it is a huge mistake assuming so.

as i stated in my old PR post, there are some mons i deem incredibly annoying to face combined with their dynamax, and here it is where teambuilding is important. as a tour player, i've always been careful about bringing teams weak to most types of cheese because, while i always accept losses, i tend to get very annoyed when such losses come from the impossibility to touch the opponent's team. the same applies to this dynamax meta. if you are not inclined to see hazards on your field, you will run double defog teams; in the same way if you are not inclined to see the opponent boosting his stats and revenge-killing with usual mons, you will run ditto or haze. if you are not inclined to play for 150 turns, you will bring a team that wins (or loses) earlier. no big deal. this is part of the problem eo addressed in his pro-ban reasoning and it has nothing different from what teambuilding has always been. to add onto what eo's said and possibly tdk too, is dynamax a 50/50 decision? it usually is not. it is impossible to say there's a fixed scheme about when using dynamax or not, but 50/50s occur almost solely when you are facing a choice locked mon (usually cb darmanitan) for which you often haven't got a midground that covers both dynamax and the cb move or protect on your dedicated check. that is a sort of 50/50 as in "will he dynamax or not" - note that he can switch back too, but it isn't a 50/50 for you, as you just weigh pros and cons of staying in and not caring about his dynamax vs. dynamaxing your own mon vs. scouting his dynamax. now these choices all have some pros and cons. if you don't care about his dynamax and you lose your dedicated check, you know that you can deal damage back (with interests) by using your own dynamax - this is my preferred choice in most cases; if you win the 1v1 when both mons use dynamax and there is no particular drawback in case he switches back, this is your preferred choice; otherwise you can decide to scout for his dynamax when you can afford a possible loss of the mon you switch in to the cb move. as you clearly see, it's easy to see "oml 50/50s" when in reality the whole picture is way more complex and the chances there's an actual situation similar to the bisharp vs gengar tdk talked about are incredibly low from a pure game theoretic perspective. then if we are talking about approximations and biases - that some of pro-ban arguments include - there's not much to be done.
finally, competitive pokemon is and has been (with rby being a partial exception) a game with incomplete information, otherwise we would be watching AIs play against each other and cheer for the one with the nicest name. incomplete information is nothing but a perk, else mazar's bot would have been encouraged.

i tried to address to the most significant opinions by council members - don't get me wrong, most of those arguments are valid and well-explained, some are not arguments, so i just skipped them. my post isn't aimed at contradicting the statements in the OP about dynamax, i just wanted to add some points to the entire picture and explain why i am voting NO BAN. i believe there are ways to have a healthier metagame by addressing this problem gradually rather than drastically.

(also if you are interested in how the post dynamax metagame will look like in the short-term, you can come here and have a look at replays among some of the best players on smogon in this discord invitational tournament. note that this is for mere curiosity, this is a developing metagame, without the chance to properly test teams on the ladder. future state shouldn't shape your decision about the current state, but there's nothing bad about having a genuine look imo).

Thanks for reading.