Balance

[Lord of the Fireflies]

I completely agree with that. I was actually wondering, haha. Especially with the possibility of a FF Cyndaquil popping up! Should be a 1.25x boost to fire moves imo. (And Overgrow / Blaze / Torrent are indeed huge, and it makes a lot of HA starters pale in comparison).

 

[Eifie]

All right, since people seem mostly ambivalent, I'm going to go ahead with two of the changes.

Flash Fire: change the boost to 1.25x power for Fire moves instead of +10 base power. This was it's not as good as Blaze, but potentially more readily available.
Protean: add the restriction that the Pokémon doesn't get STAB from any moves at all. If this proves too much, we can try just reducing the STAB boost instead, as Totodile suggested.

As always, these changes should be implemented in battles starting from this point forward only.

edit: While we're here, I guess I'd also like to formally bring up discussion about Overgrow, Blaze, and Torrent (and also Swarm). They're kind of really good abilities while they're mostly kind of "eh" in the games, because, I mean, 33% health is higher than some damage caps. In the games it's kind of hard to actually get to that threshold of 33% health without actually fainting, and you could probably get knocked out in one hit by a moderately strong Pokémon. Maybe we could lower that threshold to 20% or even 15%?

 

[Lord of the Fireflies]

I don't think they're a problem. They are very good abilities indeed, but the power boost has already been lowered to 1.3x (instead of 1.5x) which is exactly the kind of nerf they need, in my opinion. As far as I can tell, they have never been gamebreaking (gamechanging, yes, as any good ability is). It's very possible to go around it (via energy-fainting, for example), or simply to plan ahead and discourage the use of fire / grass / water / bug moves.

Augmenting the energy cost of those moves would be a fair middle-ground, though, especially at a point in the battle when energy is a more valuable ressource.

like they're not worse than fuckin magic bounce

edit2: Why is the evasion boost for tangled feet so low? In the game it's like 50% oops it's actually 20% but still

 

[Byrus]

Protean: add the restriction that the Pokémon doesn't get STAB from any moves at all. If this proves too much, we can try just reducing the STAB boost instead, as Totodile suggested.

It definitely needs nerfed, but I kinda think that's a bit much. A Protean Pokémon still getting a STAB boost on its original typing sounds okay, and Protean is still usable as a more defensive ability.

Also, I agree with the changes to Torrent/Blaze/Overgrow, but maybe have the HP drop less drastic and go with 25%. Like LOTF said, I don't think the boost is too over-powered at the moment.

like they're not worse than fuckin magic bounce

I feel like I'm missing something obvious, but Magic Bounce doesn't seem that bad to me. I mean, it only works once, but it still forces your opponent to waste a valuable turn trying to status you in order to use it up, which is definitely useful.

EDIT- Oh, I just checked, and apparently it prevents the user from using Magic Coat normally to block the same status that got Magic Bounced. Is that what you meant?

 

[JackPK]

I feel like I'm missing something obvious, but Magic Bounce doesn't seem that bad to me. I mean, it only works once, but it still forces your opponent to waste a valuable turn trying to status you in order to use it up, which is definitely useful.

EDIT- Oh, I just checked, and apparently it prevents the user from using Magic Coat normally to block the same status that got Magic Bounced. Is that what you meant?

Unless I'm the one missing something, that's not how Magic Bounce works. When the description says an attack can be bounced just once, as far as I'm aware, this means each time a nondamaging attack is used, it can't be bounced back and forth like a pingpong ball. Unless I'm wrong, Magic Bounce is still effective against, say, Thunder Wave every time it's used. It's just that Thunder Wave can't be bounced back and forth.

This effectively makes all non-self-targeted non-damaging moves (stat-reducers as well as statuses) pointless in a battle against a Magic Bounce Pokemon.

 

[Eifie]

Unless I'm the one missing something, that's not how Magic Bounce works. When the description says an attack can be bounced just once, as far as I'm aware, this means each time a nondamaging attack is used, it can't be bounced back and forth like a pingpong ball. Unless I'm wrong, Magic Bounce is still effective against, say, Thunder Wave every time it's used. It's just that Thunder Wave can't be bounced back and forth.

This effectively makes all non-self-targeted non-damaging moves (stat-reducers as well as statuses) pointless in a battle against a Magic Bounce Pokemon.

This is correct. Almost everyone I know (including myself) seems to have been confused about this, so I really need to rewrite it, I guess. Magic Bounce works exactly as it does in the games, and probably needs to be nerfed since it could actually come into circulation now, yes.

As for Protean, I'll add back the thing about getting STAB for moves of its original type for now. I'll have a post to make on the matter later. And yeah, what I suggested for Blaze was a bit extreme now that I am actually thinking about this while awake. 25% as the threshold sounds better.

 

[Byrus]

Ah, yeah, the way it was worded confused me a bit. :x I suppose that could work as a reasonable way of nerfing it, though? Have Magic Bounce work once per battle or something similar. That way it's still useful, but not to the point of making status moves completely useless. (I mean, even Magic Guard can be disabled by moves like Gastro Acid, but MB would block it..)

 

[Eifie]

Okay, so re: Protean, I feel that the main trouble in dealing with it is that there's an added need for conditionals depending on what type your opponent transforms into. When you're commanding first, you need to decide how you want to split up your conditional slots between accounting for the moves your opponent could use and the type they could be, and that makes it so much harder for someone battling against a Protean Pokémon that I feel negating all STAB would not be too much of a nerf. Since the playstyle when using Protean is to constantly switch between different types anyway, it wouldn't have so large an impact. (And if you plan to spam your STAB moves, then Protean is not really the ability you'd want to be using.) I kind of like the idea of Protean being a trade-off: you get all this added flexibility at the expense of STAB, so you've got to be smart with it.

Hm, at first I was thinking having Magic Bounce work once per battle period would be a bit too underpowered, but it might work? I mean, the initial bouncing back deters the opponent from using any of those moves anyway, like how the Cell Battery and similar items work. You'd have to spend an action neutralizing Magic Bounce with a move you don't mind getting bounced back so much if you want to use a better status move.

 

[Lord of the Fireflies]

It then becomes very convenient for an opponent with Flash Fire, Poison Heal, etc. A bit too much of a nerf, maybe? Especially when Magic Bounce is already something you can work around. We don't know if MB is actually that powerful since nobody's used it yet - it's just a different type of opponent, in my sense, one you can either batter with damaging moves or abuse through abilities, or both.

 

[Lord of the Fireflies]

Looking at some abilities, it seems some keep the in-game multipliers (Sheer Force, Guts, Analytic, Flare Boost, Tough Claws, etc.) while others (Pure Power, Blaze and co., Mega Launcher, Strong Jaw) have their multiplier cut (most of the time from 1.5 to 1.3). I have no problem with reducing the multipliers in general (like STAB) because they quickly end up being too powerful, but why not apply this rule to all damage modifiers?