Announcement Venomicon & Venomicon-E Nerf - The Book of Love

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quziel

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Way I see it we have a few routes forward.

Broadly we can reduce speed, and leave other stats untouched. This would increase offensive counterplay, though the number of offensive checks we add absolutely depends on the exact value. Lowering to 110 adds Wisp Astrolotl as the softest of checks, and not really much else. 106 adds Blace as a revenge killer, which honestly is something I enjoy. 101 adds Garchomp, post-trick Cruc, Nihilego, and Krilowatt. I've seen some folks arguing for 96 to add Urshifu, or even 95-94 to add Lele.

Reducing Attack further doesn't seem like the way for me. Venomicon's attack is about perfect where it is, ensuring that we have just enough 2HKO potential to be viable, and if we lose even more 2HKOs we just get dropped off of teams in favor of Goltres/Gapdos/etc.

Reducing physical bulk (through a HP nerf or Def nerf) would reduce the "cheese potential" of Coil a tad by making it harder for us to get 2 turns of setup and live Melm/Gyro Ferro. This forces even larger misplays from the opponent to get into a winning potential into what should be two of our hardest checks, or forces us to have screens up. I'm not proposing any hard numbers here cause I am too lazy.

Removing Coil is something that would solve the problem, but I worry that it leaves us being unused on HO, which is really where we see the most use atm. This would make us sorta relegated to a SR user on Libra Builds or a Knock U=turn Pivot, which is definitely fine. Ultimately this route works, and is a bit heavy handed as compared to speed or defense nerfs (if both are mild enough), but imo it works.

Edit:
I don't really like the idea of removing BB. Ye, this removes a ton of its KO power against Steels in particular, but it also changes the dynamic away from health management to sorta "manage setup to put steels into Drill range".
 
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quziel

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Good day!

We currently have a preliminary nerf for Venomicon-Epilogue voted upon, however due to the connected nature of the two formes, we'd like to wait until both formes are settled before posting either.

That said, we'd like some more discussion on Venomicon-Prologue. To summarize the current discussion, we have a suggestions to cut overall bulk, remove hurricane (with compensatory buffs), remove some or all coverage (Epower or Mfire), or cut nasty plot. If there are options that are not on this list, or if you'd like to post in support of one or multiple options, please do so.
 

Da Pizza Man

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I'm a bit confused behind the reasoning for withholding the preliminary nerf to Epilogue, since I don't think that the nerf it received would impact any further discussion on Prologue.

But to talk about Prologue, here are my thoughts on all of the proposed nerfs so far

- Bulk: My stance hasn't changed in regards to special bulk and I largely don't care about physical bulk.
- Hurricane: I feel like people have started to sour on this option in favor of the removal of coverage, so I don't really feel that talking about this a whole lot would be super productive. My stance on it is pretty much the same as well, wouldn't be strictly against it but would rather explore other options.
- Coverage: spoo and Jordy did a great job at explaining the benefits of removing coverage from Venomicon and I honestly couldn't agree more with them.
- Nasty Plot: I'm completely against the removal of Nasty Plot. Nasty Plot is a large component of what makes Venomicon good right now, and I think that it's removal would be too severe of an impact to its viability.
 

Wulfanator

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I'm a bit confused behind the reasoning for withholding the preliminary nerf to Epilogue, since I don't think that the nerf it received would impact any further discussion on Prologue.
I would assume it has to deal with how shared BST will be handled for stat adjustments. If Venom-E is receiving a stat nerf, there are 2 options to resolving BST.

1) add what was removed to Venomicon-E's dump stat (SPATK) where, depending on how substantial the reduction is, you risk enabling mixed e-book.

2) remove it from the BST of both forms.

With bulk and movepool adjustments still on the table for Prologue, this will potentially inform how the nerf of the other gets implemented. Releasing the details of one nerf before locking in the other risks inviting users to try and prematurely balance the shared components in their suggestions. We shouldn't be trying to balance the shared attributes until we determine what changes are necessary for each form individually.
 

Zetalz

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I think I still prefer bulk cuts/any stat nerf over anything else. It's less messy with altering the mons gameplan, just reigns it back a bit. Also simplifies any stat nerfs that may or may not occur on the other forme.

Definitely not at all supporting -Hurricane anymore, it would turn this process into an unnecessarily messy endeavor trying to find the sweet spot of compensation for it's loss. An alternative suggestion (that I think got brought up before? might not've) is simply hitting Venom's SpA to lower it's overall power ceiling. It doesn't solve the frustrating feast-or-famine routine with Hurricane but it could at least open the door for more offensive checks.

Not as against removing EP and/or MFire as I was before after hearing some more arguments against them. It's not my preferred choice but it is without a doubt good enough to get the job done. There is also an option to instead replace Mystical Fire with Incinerate, most of the opinions against MFire are mainly targeted at it's cheese potential rather than just being Fire coverage. Incinerate is notably weaker and has no ability to cheese wins, still opens up more solid checks in Tran/Ttar/etc but would still allow Venom to have a coverage option beyond it's stabs. (also it's better flavor because books get burned!)

Don't remove Nasty Plot lol.
 

dex

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I think now that cutting EP is fine if a bit underwhelming. I don’t like forcing venomicon to rely purely on Sludge Bomb as secondary coverage, however. It makes the mon into a sort of Poison-fishing bot which can be just as annoying and one-dimensional. Since there are concerns with Mystical Fire’s secondary effect, I’d like to see it keep Fire-type coverage in the form of Incinerate or Burning Jealousy. Jealousy is not only the stronger of the two (10 more BP), but it comes with a secondary effect that is surprisingly useful on Venomicon because it burns Pokemon like Saharaja and Weavile that attempt to set up in front of it, forcing Stamina interactions. I’ll leave it up to the council to determine if that’s too strong of an effect, but it is worth considering. Keeping Fire-coverage doesn’t change the main goal of removing Ground-coverage (that is making Taunt Heatran a solid check to Venomicon), and I think it would be good to keep some doors open for the mon. It isn’t so overbearing that it needs Fire-type coverage removed and this achieves the same goal.
 

shnowshner

You've Gotta Try
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Alright so:
  1. Bulk cut would be pretty easy to implement as many Pokemon naturally struggle to KO us thanks to typing + Stamina, and some of those that can need to predict properly. I could definitely see an angle on "reduce HP so both forms face longevity issues" since less HP means a greater % of recoil taken on Epilogue, though I think just hitting the defense stats individually is the simplest option here. Defense could absolutely be lowered so that Stamina becomes a more active part of its gameplan, i.e. if you want to sit infront of something like Weavile or Melmetal you really need to secure an early Stamina boost and keep yourself healthy versus just eating the damage anyway. I would say that an issue here is that without knowledge on what we're doing with Epilogue, we'll have to do a fair bit of compensation if our bulk hit is a significant amount of BST. There's a point where Epilogue's SpA stops being a dump stat and begins to really matter, and it's around the point where running Earth Power to snipe Magnezone starts actually making sense.
  2. -Hurricane is the ideal nerf IMO but there's a bevy of smaller issues that arise afterwards: the lack of strong Special Flying STAB, the desire for a SpA raise in response, how other coverage moves get affected as a result, and having to balance out stats since we don't exactly want to screw with our BST. It's really lame how what I consider to be the best option has such heavy consequences because there's this awkward gap of 35 BP between the strongest available Flying moves and we can't do a thing about it. In a perfect world where the CAP Hivemind was capable of labbing out the perfect balance of changes to make -Hurricane work, things would be great, but I do feel this is demanding a bit much from us, and there's other routes available which can work just as well while being magnitudes easily to conceptualize.
  3. Removing coverage to add additional checks would help in some aspects but a couple other things arise as a result. Specifically without Ground or Fire coverage Venom starts running STAB and simply tries to muscle past hard checks with Nasty Plot and secondary effects. You are adding Heatran, Magnezone, and Equilibra to the list of decent answers (also makes crucibelle and idk plasmanta somewhat better for whatever its worth), but stuff like Zapdos and Rotom are compromised in response. Something about this just doesn't sit with me right, and I think it comes down to how Steels in the meta either have recovery and lose to Venom, or don't have recovery and don't like switching into venom since staying healthy is very important for them. Honestly I feel the best offensive threat this enables is Nihilego which is rather specific in terms of what teams it fits on right now.
    • Would like to mention that the notion of "enabling Sludge Bomb causes it to fish for Poison and that's annoying" may be true and the idea of keeping Fire coverage to prevent that is noble, but if the Sludge Bomb set is that dangerous post-Earth Power then I don't think something like Burning Jealousy or Incinerate is going to stop people. Honestly I'd rather take my chances annoying certain switch-ins than using an ass Fire move that's not really helping much more in matchups where just throwing out a Hurricane can be as effective. Also Jealousy would mean that Saharaja can't do anything into Venom without risking a Burn and that's dumb as hell can we let the one Rock move user that's really strong beat the Flying-types.
  4. -Nasty Plot has been really unpopular among responders and that's realistically going to be the extent of its promise.

Surprised to see that Special Attack nerf wasn't included because it sorta combines the other "lower initial power" changes in a single package. Forcing Nasty Plot so Venom can start being an offensive threat would make aggressive play way less taxing, while letting defensive checks stave it off with greater ease. There's still going to be risk involved when switching into Venom, but this would give some extra opportunities to play around it and sometimes when your down 2 mons already the only correct plays are those with the greatest risk involved.

Is there a verdict on if these are going to be combined in any fashion? Some don't feel like enough on their own, since each is tackling a different aspect of the mon that many believe need tuning, and I don't think it's correct to cover a single aspect and call it a success. Likewise, I understand the desire to keep Epilogue out of the question when discussing the base form's nerf, but seeing how intertwined the two are it does feel awkward. I guess I'm asking if we'll be allowed to discuss some minor touch-ups after both "main" nerfs are finalized so that we're happy where both stand in relation to each other.
 
I still believe that a Sp. Attack nerf in a addition to a bulk cut is the best way to go for Prologue, but I would also like to entertain replacing Earth Power with Bubble Beam. It still allows it to have supereffective special coverage for Heatran, and it can now hit Heatran and Equilibra on the same set. However, it struggles a lot more against Magnezone, Melmetal, and Tapu Koko (you still have Fire coverage for the former two but now you have to pick and choose between beating those 2 and beating Heatran), and its low base power makes you have to work more for the Nasty Plot boosts more, and it's definitely not as good of a perfect accuracy alternative to Hurricane as opposed to Earth Power. Again, I still prefer a Sp. Attack nerf, as there really is no downside to it, but I think replacing Earth Power with Bubble Beam could also be a plausible option.
 
I’ve found that for Venomicon-E, it still excels as an offensive pivot with U-Turn and STAB even without Coil, and while being able to force damage onto everything, it still isn’t powerful enough with that specific set to particularly overwhelm entire teams. Despite this, I do find that it is a bit bulky for its prowess in offense, and lowering its bulk to around 70 Def / 70 SpD (or whatever bulk is found to help balance it the most) may help make Venomicon-E more of a high-risk, high reward kind of mon while also allowing it to keep Coil. However, because Coil can still give it a 50% defense boost to help it force its way through certain matchups, if Coil + Substitute is removed, I feel like replacing it with Hone Claws allows it to still use set-up to help break things overtime while still creating healthy counterplay for the turns it does spend using the move. As StarFalcon555 said, removing setup for EBook might strip away one of its main identities originally set by Quizel, and Hone Claws allows it to still use the offensive benefits that Coil provides while taking away the defensive benefit that allows it to force its way through certain defensive matchups and checks
Quizel: I said this before, but I feel that giving 30i access to Swords Dance or Nasty Plot could allow for a lot healthier response patterns. Consider how annoying it is to deal with Kyurem, with its ability to 2HKO literally everything, vs a wallbreaker such as Hydreigon which, earlier in the gen, which, despite having a lower power level (lower secondary stab damage), could still break just about everything, but had a bit more leeway to play against because it didn't just KO everything at +0. Aka SD/NP let us lower our attack, thus making counterplay easier, while still giving us the ability to actually break things, albeit over a longer period of time (poison typing works great with that). Its an excellent choice for a defining move for spreads that are more open to playing the long game rather than just clicking. Make Swords Dance and Nasty Plot defining moves.
In addition to nerfing Venomicon-E’s bulk and removing SubCoil in favour of Hone Claws, I feel that a speed nerf putting it into Terrakion’s speed tier of 108 would also help a little bit if a speed nerf is necessary. Now it can be checked/forced out easier by more of the threats within the 110 speed tiers and above such as Kartana and Astrolotl, allowing forcing switches on hazards as a strategy to keep it from overwhelming teams.
This one is much more complicated though, as me and many other users have noticed that a lot of what makes PBook so overwhelming also happens to be extremely pro-concept and central to its creation for it, and being even a slight bit overbearing in how we nerf it could really hurt it. Like others have suggested, one nerf I do think can help make it less of a pain to deal with is slightly nerfing its Defense to a point where, like in its original conception, will rely mainly on fishing for good matchups and switching opportunities to take full advantage of Stamina boosts instead of just sitting on everything. Thing is that most people seem to prefer taking away one of its primary attacking moves to help balance it out, so there is an alternative route I feel would be great for Venomicon-P. Although taking away Earth Power might be controversial, forcing it to use Body Press to take on Steel types is extremely pro-concept, as it was originally meant to be a good Stamina + Body Press user that’s potent with a combo of physical Fighting coverage + special Flying STAB while still being vulnerable to bulkier/faster Electric types. Body Press allows it to still take on Heatran, Melmetal and Magnezone while also giving it a way of handling Levitate Equilibra while also allowing Zapdos and Tapu Koko to check it much harder than before, making it less overwhelming for teams to actually handle. Hurricane is arguably pro-concept for PBook and shouldn’t be removed, but despite the pushback against removing Earth Power, not only did the addition of Earth Power in the original movepool process completely overshadow the original concept of Venomicon-P being a Stamina + Body Press user, but has proven to be unhealthy in allowing Venomicon to invalidate both steel-types AND electric-types as potential counters to it.
 

dex

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not only did the addition of Earth Power in the original movepool process completely overshadow the original concept of Venomicon-P being a Stamina + Body Press user, but has proven to be unhealthy in allowing Venomicon to invalidate both steel-types AND electric-types as potential counters to it.
For the record, Venomicon was never designed with Body Press in mind. It was designed with Stamina, and Body Press was given as a way to use Stamina. It was even stated in the moves thread that Body Press was a pretty weak option that probably would not be run; low and behold, it is not run. It would use Fire-type coverage if anything to deal with Steel-types, never Body Press.

Guess I'll use this chance to voice what I think is best for the mons now.

Venomicon-Epilogue:
There have been concerns raised that, if Venomicon-E loses access to setup, its spot on HO will be jeopardized. That's a fair worry, so instead of removing Coil, I sort of like replacing it with Hone Claws as is mentioned above. It takes away the dumb interaction that occurs with Melmetal not being able to beat it sometimes and keeps its role on HO intact, as the defense boost there rarely comes into play. I also agree with nerfing its Speed; something like 106, importantly outsped by Adamant Weavile, Blacephalon after it has tricked, Ninetales-A, and Wisp/Encore Astro, makes sense to me.

Venomicon:
I think Earth Power is not long for this world. To be honest, I think I am fine with just nixing its coverage altogether. I would probably prefer to keep Fire-type coverage in the mix, but I don't think that is wholly impactful; Sludge Bomb probably outclasses Fire-type coverage in practice, as Steel-types, outside of Taunt Heatran, are not going to be good answers to Venomicon even without Earth Power.
 
For the record, Venomicon was never designed with Body Press in mind. It was designed with Stamina, and Body Press was given as a way to use Stamina. It was even stated in the moves thread that Body Press was a pretty weak option that probably would not be run; low and behold, it is not run. It would use Fire-type coverage if anything to deal with Steel-types, never Body Press.

Venomicon:
I think Earth Power is not long for this world. To be honest, I think I am fine with just nixing its coverage altogether. I would probably prefer to keep Fire-type coverage in the mix, but I don't think that is wholly impactful; Sludge Bomb probably outclasses Fire-type coverage in practice, as Steel-types, outside of Taunt Heatran, are not going to be good answers to Venomicon even without Earth Power.
I guess my memory was a bit hazy when it comes to what happened with Body Press in the movepool discussions. In that case, maybe Aura Sphere would be a decent coverage option to replace Earth Power as it’s coming off Venomicon-P’s main attacking stat to hit harder than Body Press most of the time while also reliably beating Heatran and most steels (Other than Bulletproof Equilibra, which is pretty good anyways for keeping Focus Blast Lele/Jumbao or the occasional Voodoom or Tomohawk and Shadow Ball spammers like Pult and Blacephalon in check, which is pretty healthy counterplay to Aura Sphere PBook imo) AND while still being checked well by the two main electric types of the tier in Zapdos and Tapu Koko, along with being checked easier by other Ghost/Flying/Bug/Fairy/Psychic types such as Assault Vest Tornadus-T and both Slowking variants.
Although 106 Speed does seem reasonable to me, Blacephalon and Adamant Weavile out speeding it seems like a slight bit too hard of a speed nerf. Other than that not much else to say about nerfing this one really.
 
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spoo

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Well, here are the fruits of our labor:
1664565001041.png

Stats: 85 HP / 102 Atk / 85 Def / 62 SpA (Lowered 1) / 85 SpD / 101 Spe (Lowered 19) | 520 BST (Lowered 20)
We began by taking inventory of all the proposed options we had seen in this thread - removing Brave Bird/Coil, nerfing Attack/Speed/bulk, or some combination - and briefly discussed the pros and cons of each route. After ruling out a few options, we were left with three to vote between: nerfing Speed, nerfing bulk, or removing Coil. Nerfing Speed received a super-majority of votes so we compiled relevant Speed benchmarks and selected a range we would like to nerf within, ultimately landing on 96-104; out of this range, 101 was the most popular option by far. This adds Wisp Astrolotl, non-Scarf Kartana, Alolan Ninetales, Specs Blacephalon, Krilowatt, Nihilego, and offensive Garchomp as counterplay, also tying with Pajantom. While -19 is a large number, the amount of offensive counterplay added is not a massive amount in reality, with many of these listed Pokemon being fairly niche/rare in their own right. We felt that this reflected the kind of minor rebalancing that Venom-E needed while not overly hurting its viability and preserving its main niche as a setup sweeper on HO.

1664565008958.png

Movepool: -Earth Power, -Mystical Fire
Nerfing base Venomicon was the much more complicated task; its identity as a Toxic-immune, boosting mon with Stamina and Nasty Plot is essentially impossible to change, while other routes that were more accessible to nerf also didn't quite seem to solve the issue at hand. Nerfing Venom's bulk, SpA, and coverage were the main routes we decided to discuss. While stat nerfs had some initial traction, they ended up falling out of favor - many proposed benchmarks either only affected mons that Venom was already answered by, made Venom easier to pressure in general but didn't meaningfully affect its C&C list, or were too drastic in general. We ultimately voted to remove coverage, believing that it was effective in creating additional counterplay while preserving its role as a strong wincondition on slower teams. There were some votes to add Burning Jealousy to its movepool in compensation, but the option didn't garner enough support. -20 Atk was also cut to keep its BST in line with Venomicon-E.

We're still working out implementation logistics so no definitive date yet on when the nerfs will be live. Thanks again for all your helpful input over the course of this thread!

Venomicon nerf
Code:
--- /data/pokedex.ts ---
    venomicon: {
        num: -66,
        name: "Venomicon",
        baseForme: "Prologue",
        types: ["Poison", "Flying"],
        gender: "N",
        baseStats: {hp: 85, atk: 50, def: 113, spa: 118, spd: 90, spe: 64},
        abilities: {0: "Stamina", H: "Power of Alchemy"},
        heightm: 0.8,
        weightkg: 11.5,
        color: "Purple",
        eggGroups: ["Amorphous"],
        otherFormes: ["Venomicon-Epilogue"],
        formeOrder: ["Venomicon", "Venomicon-Epilogue"],
        gen: 8,
    },
    venomiconepilogue: {
        num: -66,
        name: "Venomicon-Epilogue",
        baseSpecies: "Venomicon",
        forme: "Epilogue",
        types: ["Poison", "Flying"],
        gender: "N",
        baseStats: {hp: 85, atk: 102, def: 85, spa: 62, spd: 85, spe: 101},
        abilities: {0: "Tinted Lens"},
        heightm: 0.8,
        weightkg: 12.4,
        color: "Purple",
        eggGroups: ["Amorphous"],
        requiredItem: "Vile Vial",
        changesFrom: "Venomicon",
        gen: 8,
    },

--- /data/learnsets.ts ---
    venomicon: {
        learnset: {
            aircutter: ["8L15"],
            airslash: ["8M"],
            assurance: ["8M"],
            attract: ["8M"],
            bodypress: ["8M"],
            bodyslam: ["8M"],
            bravebird: ["8M"],
            clearsmog: ["8E"],
            coil: ["8L50"],
            confuseray: ["8L10"],
            darkpulse: ["8M"],
            drillpeck: ["8L35"],
            dualwingbeat: ["8T"],
            endure: ["8M"],
            facade: ["8M"],
            fly: ["8M"],
            focusenergy: ["8M"],
            foulplay: ["8M"],
            gigaimpact: ["8M"],
            guardswap: ["8M"],
            gunkshot: ["8M"],
            hex: ["8M", "8L25"],
            hurricane: ["8M", "8L55"],
            hyperbeam: ["8M"],
            imprison: ["8M"],
            irondefense: ["8M"],
            knockoff: ["8E"],
            lashout: ["8T"],
            magicroom: ["8M"],
            magicalleaf: ["8M"],
            meanlook: ["8E"],
            memento: ["8E"],
            nastyplot: ["8M"],
            payback: ["8M"],
            peck: ["8L1"],
            phantomforce: ["8M"],
            poisonjab: ["8M", "8L40"],
            poisonsting: ["8L1"],
            powerswap: ["8M"],
            protect: ["8M"],
            psychic: ["8M"],
            psyshock: ["8M"],
            rest: ["8M"],
            retaliate: ["8M"],
            roost: ["8L45"],
            round: ["8M"],
            safeguard: ["8M"],
            scaryface: ["8M"],
            shadowball: ["8M"],
            skillswap: ["8M"],
            sleeptalk: ["8M"],
            sludgebomb: ["8M"],
            sludgewave: ["8M"],
            snore: ["8M"],
            stealthrock: ["8M"],
            steelwing: ["8M"],
            substitute: ["8M"],
            swift: ["8M"],
            thunderwave: ["8M"],
            toxic: ["8L30"],
            toxicspikes: ["8M"],
            trick: ["8M"],
            uturn: ["8M"],
            venomdrench: ["8M"],
            venoshock: ["8M", "8L20"],
            withdraw: ["8L5"],
        },
    },
 
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