Have you ever thought that Pokemon could be made so much better if it were balanced? I've found myself thinking that quite often as of late, and therein is where I thought of creating a thread where we could theorize steps that this game that we (most of us at least) love.

Personally, I would like it if Pokemon were a slightly slower game that focused less on the stall and assault strategies and more on strategies like Thunderdancing and Focus Sash + Trick Room.

Calculations
I honestly think too much stuff is OHKO'able. I would like it if SE did 50% instead of 2x the damage, I'm debating on whether or not changing resistances would balance it in the way I think it should go. My idea is to create a game where teams can be made by focusing not just on sheer stats but also on the resistances that each Pokemon has. I'd like a game where Pokemon with balanced stats can shine just as much as Pokemon with polarized ones (Blissey's HP and special defense, for example). Evasion should work on a stackable percentage (10% per stage for 40% min evasion and 160% max evasion). Accuracy should be multiplicative, where a +6 boost to Fissure would only raise its accuracy to 48%, while the same boost to Thunder would allow it to hit opponents always, even if they have up to one level of evasion. A move like Flamethrower would almost always hit an opponent with 6 boosts to evasion if the user had six boosts to accuracy.

Typing
-Poison is a very poor attacking type, and is weak defensively against the most popular attack, Earthquake. I think this would make it more effective. Poison should gain a supereffective hit against water-types, bug-types and normal-types. This brings the number of SE hits to a respectable four. Water-types need one more weakness to balance them as a group, and the weakness to normal would help many Pokemon against Blissey and Snorlax. Pokemon like Staraptor, with its high speed wouldn't be hindered mainly due to the secondary typings of most poison-type Pokemon, the avaibility of slightly stronger moves with the same effect like Thunderbolt, and Staraptor's own speed. Dark-types should resist the attack. I'm curious as to which would be better. A SE against Normal or a SE against Psychic.

-Dragons are easily the most overpowered type in the game, due to its lack of weaknesses (sans Ice) and the lack of targets that resist it. They could be balanced by removing their resistance to Grass and by allowing Water to resist it. Water Pokemon should be the premier counter to Dragon-types. This would allow Milotic, Suicune, Vaporeon and Empoleon more breathing room when switching into things like Garchomp's Outrage and Salamence's Draco Meteor.

-Dark and Ghost hit the same opponents supereffective, which means that choosing between them is basically based off either movepool or if you fear Snorlax more than Machamp or vice versa. Unfortunately, I can't think of a way to possibly balance the choice between them.

-Steel is known as the ultimate defensive typing, but I would greatly like to see it weak against Electricity, and I'd like to see it strike super-effective against electrity. There is no use of steel offensively unless you're Metagross and STAB helps you power through so much stuff.

That gives the following changes.

Poison SE: Normal, Water, Grass, Bug
Poison R: Ghost, Ground, Poison, Rock, Dark, Steel
Poison W: Ground, Psychic
Dragon SE: Dragon
Dragon R: Water, Steel
Dragon W: Ice, Dragon
Steel SE: Electric, Ice, Rock
Steel R: Water, Electric, Fire, Steel
Steel W: Electric, Fire, Ground, Fighting

Pokemon
I really believe that *every* Pokemon should be useful. Those weaker Pokemon should be the ones that carry debilitating moves to even the battlefield. I would like the moves to be adjusted where weaker Pokemon gain the more reliable moves while the stronger Pokemon deal with more risk more reward type moves.

Moves
I really believe that the way the moves are set up needs to be slightly adjusted. Moves with the lowest accuracy (Fissure, Guillotine, Sheer Cold, Horn Drill) have the greatest effect (OHKO). That's good. But after that, the moves don't scale very well. Dynamic Punch and Zap Cannon have 100% effects, but I really think that the accuracy isn't fair to those moves. Comparing Zap Cannon to Thunder, Zap Cannon should have around 140 BP to compensate. It makes the option favorable to Thunder Wave. I suppose a list would be in order. Of course, I can't cover every technique without some indepth review.

30%<-------------------------Accuracy------------------------->Never Miss
30% = OHKO
50% = 140 BP + 100% Status/Stat Effect
55% Status = Longest Status Duration Time span (6-8 turns?)
70% = 120 BP + 30% Status/Stat Effect (Including Blizzard)
70% Status = Status Duration shortened by one turn
75% = Bind
75% Status = Status Duration shortened by two turns
80% = 100-120 BP + 10-25% Effect
80% Status = Status Duration shortened by three or more turns (not to exceed 3 turns)
85% = 100-120 BP (No Status/Stat Effect)
90% = 100+ BP + Minor Downside (Recoil, Stat Lowering, Delayed Turn)
90% = 95- BP + 30%+ Status/Stat Effect
95% = 100+ BP + Majoy Downside (HP Dependent, Power Variable)
95% = 95- BP + 10-25% Status/Stat Effect
100% = 95- BP (No Status/Stat Effects)
100% = Stat Boosts

I'm aware there there's a great deal of moves not respresented, and that's because this idea is still incomplete. It would require a lot more research and time to really balance it out.

Effects
Freeze needs to have a definite period that is one turn shorter than the duration of sleep. This is due to the fact that there are very few moves to break out of freeze, unlike Sleep's Sleep Talk.

Anyways, I really just wanted to promote some discussion on these boards in a more serious and thoughtful manner so I'd love to hear your ideas!

That's really in depth. :)
I don't really battle competitively to much so I don't know a lot of what went on here.
But Dragon and Steel need to get looked at, I would personally like to see the weaker pokemon UU and NU buffed or at least better than they are now.
More options to the weak!

An interesting post to be sure. I really think you're onto something with the toning down of Super Effective attacks. However, I feel that that will only see the proliferation of the STAB sweepers (think Metagross and Dragons) who don't hit much super effectively and jsut bank on their massive boosted attacks. Also, ugh, some tanks are hard enough to take down as is, It's a really tricky balance. I like your ideas for boosts and whatnot though.

I disagree with most of your changes to typing. Dragons are meant to be the best, they're dragons. They're all hard to raise and difficult to catch, they're a reward. And they still have that one weakness to Ice which means you can't stake your teams with them of risk being swept by a scarfed ice beamer. I do agree with your views on poison though and it really should hit normals super effectively. Alternatively they could strengthen poison simply by increasing the chance of status effects from the attack. I'd almost prefer it this way.

I like your evening out of attacks too.

One thing you have to consider though is that a lot of the imbalance in the competitive battling is a result of the stupid 'metagames' created around it, which ironically enough were designed to make it more balanced. Sleep clause is the primary offender but I strongly disagree with all kinds o things that the smogon crowd impose. Wobbuffet isn't all powerful, he's only relegated to über class because everyone in smogon couldn't bare to drop their choice band/scarf/specs items which make predicting all too easy. Mixed attackers fare well against Wobbuffet, so does anyone with the move Fling (which can be learnt by every Pokémon with anything resembling a hand) and holding Iron Ball, these guys make wonderful support to trick room teams too. They also frown on evasion boosters and luck hold items such as focus band, bright powder, quick claw etc. Hello this is Pokémon, luck plays a part and they should just fucking deal with it. I bring up Togekiss to support my argument. A lot of Pokémon are only going down in on hit because no EVs were set aside for defence. I made a point to give my Metagross enough defence to survive a Garchomp's Earthquake (normally a ohko) why? Because then I get the cahnce to ice punch him back. In the rare event that Garchomp survived, Metagross has lost enough HP to activate Salac and take him down in the next move.

I suppose you're right in that regard, but at the same time, I really think that if Dragon were only to lose its resistance to Grass, that would be balancing. I suppose I might have paid too much attention to Salamence and Garchomp when suggesting that water gain a resistance. It really would help grass-type Pokemon like Sceptile and Shaymin if they could use their more powerful attacks without worrying about so many Pokemon having a 4x resistance to them, and it would certainly tone down Garchomp as there would be another move to hit super-effective. Sadly, Flygon would suffer as well, but this could be rectified by giving him access to more bug-type moves. I really think Flygon would do well to learn Bug Buzz. What would be most excellent is if Flygon's attack and special attack stat would be switched, giving Flygon something that neither Garchomp nor Salamence have access to; STAB special ground attacks.

Something else I'd like to do is decrease the effects of general recovery moves. If we can force Recover and similiar moves to only regain 40% of their HP, I think that would help a lot. Moves like Morning Sun, Synthesis and Moonlight can remain the same. Leech Seed can remain the same. Leftovers should recover a set amount of HP; instead of recovering 6.25% of a Pokemon's max HP, it could recover a set 20 HP. This would benefit any Pokemon with less than 320 HP while forcing those with higher HPs to either take a loss in recovery or use a different item. If that's too low of a threshold, the HP can be boosted to 25, upping the HP threshold to 400.

I suppose what I'm attempting to do is lower the amount of damage a Pokemon can do while at the same time, reduce the ability of Pokemon to be able to stall. In the end, though, I believe what I'm trying to do is create an environment where Cradily, Grumpig, et cetera, can function as viable alternatives to Pokemon like Blissey and Cresselia.

I agree with you on Flygon/Garchomp. There are simply too many Pokémon that are pale imitations of better Pokémon. Altaria comapred to Salamence and Dragonite is another example. That pissweak Ghost/Dark type compared to Spiritomb. I also hate, like you the strength of polarised Pokémon. This guy in particualr has never been the dominant force he should be.

I lke your leftovers idea too, it's fr too dominant an item, however since Pokémon is a game that is also played in environments other than 6v6 lvl 100, I feel that instead of it healing 20hp per turn, maybe it could be more like One fifth of the Pokémon's level per turn. Similar to how Seismic Toss/Night Shade increase in strength with the level of their Pokémon, Leftovers could be the same. So level 50 Pokémon are only getting 10 hp per turn.

That's a very good idea. It would prevent Leftovers from being simply overwhelming in Little Cup rules. Imagine, recovering more than your max HP every turn! I can't believe I didn't think of that.

Sableye has *one* thing of Spiritomb; Recover, but unfortunately, by giving it such an absolutely TERRIBLE second ability, they nullified any chance it had of being used in a serious competition.

To be bluntly honest, I seriously hope (but at the same time, realize that it's just a dream) that Gamefreak goes through the Pokemon and balances their stats. There's absolutely no reason why they should design some Pokemon to do so poorly. Taking Sableye for an example, its highest stat is 75 in attack and defense. In Farfetch'd case, its 65 speed. Pachirisu; 95 speed and 90 special defense. Mightyena; 90 attack. I really don't think this is fair at all. And there's no excuse for it, either. There's no reason why starting Pokemon can't be competitive. It's not about them being overpowered. Look at Staraptor. Base 100 speed. Base 120 attack power. Intimidate. Its defenses may be poor, but at least it does what it's supposed to do.

I think there are a lot of good ideas on this thread. Though I think one of the interesting things about Pokemon is that there really is no "best" pokemon. Pretty much for every pokemon there is another that is able to beat it. True, there are a lot of pokemon that will never be useful in competition, but I think the developers were considering a more realistic view. We can't really expect a smaller pokemon to take out a large behemoth. ^_^

It also seems to me that a lot of people don't think for themselves about how to construct a good party, but just listen to others. One of the aspects I enjoy is trying to develop a new party that can win through the weaknesses in my last party. Unfortunately I don't really have a chance to play competitively against other people very often, so I'm not sure how accurate my assessment is...

You would be accurate, if it weren't for the fact that there are several small and powerful Pokemon. Light Ball Pikachu, Weavile, Dugtrio, Azelf, just to name a few. My issue lies in the fact that Gamefreak didn't just gimp some Pokemon, they made them outright useless. Farfetch'd, Sableye, Girafarig, Chimecho... these Pokemon have potential with useful and interesting moves, and design-wise, they're kickbutt, but they just have such inferior stats that it doesn't matter. You can't use interesting moves if you can't even survive two turns to get them out.

Look at Farfetch'd. It gets Knock Off and Air Slash and Swords Dance, but it can't DO anything with two of those moves. It can Knock Off, but so can other Pokemon, and they won't faint in one hit.

I believe that in a balanced game, this wouldn't happen. I believe these adjustments could make Farfetch'd more balanced.

Original Stat total: 352
HP: 52
Atk: 65
Def: 55
SAtk: 58
SDef: 62
Spd: 60

Adjusted Stat total: 504
HP: 82
Atk: 105
Def: 65
SAt: 100
SDef: 70
Spd: 82

Basically, it exchanges speed and defense to hit a lot harder. Give it Focus Energy and you can reliably have a Pokemon that does most of its damage through critical hits.

Hmmm... while I disagree that Pikachu w/ light ball is that great. I recognize that a lot of pokemon kinda go the way side, I like to try to find ways to use pokemon that most people don't use. Maybe if you gave Farfetch'd Covet instead of Knock-off (yes, I realize that you wouldn't get to hold an item at the start of battle) and FeatherDance, you could reduce the enemy's attack so that even after Farfetch'd feints the next one can come in and take the enemy down more easily.

Also if they begin to raise the stats of all the pokemon who are weaker, then either all the pokemon will have about the same stats and types will become the most important. And in the end most people are still just going to work with the pokemon with the slightly higher stats anyway.

Not necessarily. I will never use Swampert because I find Quagsire much more useful due to its Water Absorb. Swampert may have the superior stats, but Quagsire's ability makes it superior in my personal opinion.

While your idea with Farfetch'd is unique, in the end, it's not very effective. Farfetch'd is just too slow.

Well... you can't say I didn't try ^_^;
I guess the point is that if the make certain pokemon better, it will inevitably push others out of usefulness... or if they actually find a way to balance them, then people wouldn't have to think about which pokemon they were going to use in their party as much...

sorry to bump this but ive been gone and didn't get a chance to talk in this. I don't agree with increasing their stats or changing anything. I don't even EV train and I take a while to beat. But an example here with types i almost agree with is, lets say you actually like paras or parasect. You bring them to competition with a dryskin ability. And your opponent sends out a charizard. Your toast, literally. Even if you send a rock or rock-water in you have the dissadvantage at that point.
Unfortunately for me no one brings parasect even the battle tower, so you probably don't get my point. They made them as close to real life for a reason. And even if we hate them most of the time, we can use these things against them someday, maybe. And you kind of have a problem with farfetched.

I wished that Flareon wasn't the most rejected Eeveelution created, or some pokemon that might have potential, movepool wise, but have poor stats(like Clefable or other Normal-types). Sadly, Flareon's only STAB physical move is Fire Fang, and that move is sub-par on its own. It would definitely be better if it got something like Flame Wheel or Flare Blitz. Flygon used to be a good choice but is now completely knocked out of usage by Draco Meteor for the already mighty Salamence and the addition of Garchomp.

Also, being the only non-legendary pure-steel type, Mawile really got the pits, besides getting all the elemental fang moves. Its stats are screaming out for an evolution, and it has a pair of abilities that help it maintain a superior Attack...if its stats were better, of course.

You can't look into your own personal experience when it comes to things like this. How your Pokemon may or may not perform against others doesn't necessarily stay true in the long run. Even now, we don't know the full potential of all the Pokemon, but we know enough to be quite sure of a claim that (for example) Garchomp can do almost anything Flygon can do just as well, if not better.

As for the Paras example, Paras and Parasect don't exist in real life. They have no counterpart. If your opponent has a Charizard and you have a Parasect, it's up to you as the trainer to make sure your team is equipped to handle Parasect's weaknesses. Putting Parasect on a Rain Dance team, for example, greatly increases its odds of survival, where it can support the team through status afflictions and Light Screen.

However, honestly, I don't see how this applies to what I said in my posts. Parasect could do with a lot more defense to help it survive non-fire attacks, but it has a niche where it can excel in. This is unlike a Pokemon like Mightyena or Furret who can't quite compete against Pokemon like Gyarados or Snorlax.

EDIT: Also, Parasect happens to be one of my more favored Pokemon. I use it on my Water Doubles team and it's been very useful at times.

Clefable is actually a very useful Pokemon. It's Magic Guard makes it excellent in combating, or supporting, a Sandstorm or Hail team. Combined with a Toxic Orb, it is immune to status as well. Flareon is a Pokemon that fails to meet its potential. What that Pokemon should be is one that relies on getting Critical Hits, akin to Absol. It should be the Eon that makes use of Focus Energy.

No offense, but it's quite obvious you really don't know what you're talking about. These seem to be common sentiments from people who aren't really competitive battlers; let me see if I can clear up the misunderstandings.



Wobbuffet was originally banned in R/S because two Wobbuffets in play leads to a stalemate. The ban carried over to D/P originally. Right now, it is under debate for inclusion in OU because Shadow Tag no longer has this property. However, don't make the mistake of thinking that Wobbuffet is uber because of Counter; no... that's hardly the case, and it shows your inexperience with actually playing the game.

The reason people are annoyed with Wobbuffet is because it is technically uncounterable; the competitive definition of a counter is a Pokemon that is able to switch in, take the incoming onslaught, and ward off the Pokemon in play. Most strategies revolve around the use of Encore and occasionally Tickle; there is one strategy in general that nearly always guarantees a kill against wall-like Pokemon. Here is the discussion of it, for those who are interested: http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38850



...? Fling/Iron Ball wastes a move slot and the item slot for a one time combination. What's going to happen is Skarmory or Forretress will take your Fling, and your Pokemon will be rather useless afterwards. I can assure you nothing carrying Fling is going to have great type coverage or take Sandstorm well enough to justify the costs involved with running a set like that.



Do you know the history behind the "frowning"? In R/B, matches would be dragged out hundreds and hundreds of turns due to Minimize Chansey. This might not be applicable anymore, but nobody has really cared enough to "remove the stigma". It's not even technically a ban.

FYI, nobody cares about your hold items.



I'm going to leave this one to you to investigate. At Smogon, we encourage thought and discussion about policy. What we DON'T appreciate is baseless assumptions - especially baseless assumptions posted on other forums where the crowd might not be knowledgeable enough to actually steer you on the right track. I urge those who don't have a firm grasp on competitive battling to educate yourselves instead of trying to rebel against the system. Once you have a clear understanding of why everything is the way it is, branch out and question - but do so by providing sound reasoning for your claims, and in a manner that doesn't make you seem like an anti-Smogon 13yo "my opinion counts TOO guys!!!!" fanboy.

We've been theorizing, playtesting, and researching this junk for over 7 years now. Those who do not learn from the mistakes of others are doomed to repeat them again.

Thank you for your input, Chaos, and I apologize if RAB offended you or your sitegoers in any fashion.

If you do look over this thread again, could you perhaps comment on my ideas or offer your own? Obviously, in the grand scheme of things it wouldn't matter, but I like to know the ideas other people have.

In all honesty, I disagree with most of your suggestions. The move power/effect versus accuracy and adding more super-effective offensive modifiers to Poison type are two things I do agree with, but I think everything else is unnecessary.

Dragon type, as you said, is most definitely overpowered. But that's been balanced out by only giving the type to a handful of non-legendary pokemon. Those with the type usually also have a x4 weakness to Ice to go along with it.

Steel doesn't need another weakness either. Although it resists most anything, there is only a very small number of Steel pokemon without a x4 weakness to Fire and/or Ground.

The Frozen status effect is a huge handicap and almost impossible to play around, but at the same time is completely fair because the highest percentage of inflicting the status is 10%. It stays true to what it was meant to be, a lucky game-breaker.

I do battle competitively from time to time, though, mostly its just casual online match ups. I don't consider myself to be an expert on the subject by any means, but I am somewhat educated on the subject.

The problem is that the frozen status is no longer a lucky gamebreaker. Most fights last long enough (or are short enough) that the status will either heal itself or the Pokemon is defeated quickly enough to make it no different than sleep. The fact that a frozen Pokemon can thaw itself the very turn its frozen, and the high rate that it occurs, means that the 10% effect is rather pointless as there's an even lower chance of it actually sticking. Unlike the other statuses, you can't make a strategy around freezing the opponent (and there's always the freeze clause that makes the status work like sleep).

Personally, I'd like to see self-induced freeze. Similar to the Ice Block spell mages have in World of Warcraft, I'd like to see a Pokemon possess a move where they freeze themselves, preventing all damage that turn and shedding any statuses they may have, except sleep and freeze. The Pokemon would be immune to statuses and all effects for a set number of turns, but would be unable to switch out or perform any actions until the freeze ends. It'd be a risky manuever as the opponent could switch out and setup during that time, but at the same time, it could be used for stalling for damage from Toxic or Leech Seed. I'd think that ignoring damage that turn, and the turn after, would be an optimal amount, as well as adding diminishing returns similar to Protect. The move could also be penetrated by fire moves, including Will-O-Wisp, though it would not cause a burn.

Something else I'd like to see is a 70-80 BP fire move that has a high chance of causing Critical Hits. I'm aware Blaze Kick is similar, but due to the mechanics of that move, the Pokemon who I'd like to possess this new move are unable to use it. Personally, I'd like to see Flame Wheel buffed to this level. A 20BP increase to Flame Wheel along with a chance to cause a Critical Hit would do wonders for a Pokemon like Arcanine as a substitute for the recoil-inducing Flare Blitz. I would also like to give this new Flame Wheel to Flareon, a Pokemon who I believe I stated should have been designed to focus on obtaining critical hits with Focus Energy.

I would also like to give the ground-type a similar move. If Flareon could obtain that move (which for now I'll just call Tremor), you could come up with the following set.

~Flame Wheel
~Tremor
~Will-O-Wisp
~Focus Energy

This is a set that would allow Flareon to use its high special defense and Will-O-Wisp to survive the setup. Most physical water-types like Gyarados and Swampert wouldn't want to switch into a Will-O-Wisp, and the same hold true for most sets of the flying dragons. The critical hits would allows Flareon to overcome Intimidate as resistances. It wouldn't be an OU set, of course, but it would be a breath of fresh air for the Pokemon, which is all I really want.

I hope I've made my desires clear. I don't want all Pokemon to be OU. I just want an environment where every Pokemon has a chance to be used in a way that isn't just for gimmicks. If someone uses Flygon, I want it to be because Flygon can do something a lot better than Garchomp or Flygon adds something to the team that Garchomp can't, and not because they are just settling for second best or because they like Flygon's design. That would be no differen than someone using Quilava over Typhlosion because they like it better; Quilava may be cuter, but you're still gimping yourself.

Flygon can stall by digging. It's immune to Earthquake because of levitate, and immune to everything else as well while underground.

If not for all the ice that would be an interesting toxistall setup.

I mostly use Flygon due to Ground/Dragon immune to EQ, and also being a decent mixed sweeper. It can stand on its own against Skarmory, and has a decent movepool that doesn't restrict it to only 1 moveset, like Espeon(I love the pokemon to death, but it just has a craptastic movepool, sparring Grass Knot, HP, Psychic, Calm Mind, and Shadow Ball).