MajorBowman
wouldst thou like to live fergaliciously?
Now that we've had some time to let the dust from Isle of Armor settle, it's time to get back to work. We've had a lot of Pokemon return to the metagame, some with new toys, and we've also seen the addition of Urshifu, who seems to be performing pretty well so far. While there aren't any huge, glaring problems with the metagame (yet, at least), there was plenty of talk before the DLC release of reintroducing some previously banned elements to the metagame, and we want to talk about that.
These are the current bans beyond the obvious "never see the light of day" legendaries:
The most controversial and impactful of these is pretty clearly Dynamax. While Dynamax was indeed banned by a public suspect vote, the vote was far from a landslide. As such, the DOU Council discussed reexamining Dynamax before possibly reintroducing banned Pokemon because of another addition to Sword and Shield via Isle of Armor - Max Soup. This in-game item gives the Gigantamax Factor to any Pokemon that can have it (Charizard, Hatterene, Butterfree, etc), which means that you are no longer restricted to only being able to Gigantamax Pokemon you caught in Max Raids.
While this might seem irrelevant to DOU tiering, this actually unlocks another option for tiering Dynamax - limiting every Pokemon to Dynamax Level 0. Previously, all Gigantamax Pokemon (other than the gift Charmander, Eevee, and Pikachu you could get throughout the game and maybe more idk I'm not an encyclopedia) could only be obtained at Dynamax Levels greater than 0, which meant that trying to restrict Dynamax to Dynamax Level 0 when we first tested Dynamax would have artificially banned all Gigantamax. The council did not think that was a good idea at the time, but now it is no longer an issue.
The only difference between a Pokemon at Dynamax Level 0 and Dynamax Level 10 is the HP boost it receives when it Dynamaxes. At Level 10, the HP stat is doubled, while it is only increased by 50% at Level 0. This helps to alleviate the nigh invincibility of Dynamax Pokemon, one of the two overarching issues that led to Dynamax's ban. Note that there is no effect on the max moves at all; all secondary effects are the same, and there is no change in their base power based on Dynamax Level.
Given all of this, the general consensus of the DOU Council is that the next course of action should be to suspect test Dynamax once again, but this time restricting every Pokemon to Dynamax Level 0. Such a decision has pretty big impacts on future DOU tiering decisions, so it only makes sense to get this out of the way and move forward based on its results. Reintroducing Dynamax potentially reignites some other problematic elements of the pre-Dynamax ban metagame, Weakness Policy and Charizard being the main examples brought up in that np thread, so if the result of a Dynamax retest is to unban it, the DOU Council would quickly look to identify and eliminate such problematic elements in the appropriate fashion.
The purpose of this thread is to gauge interest. This is not an official announcement of a suspect test, nor is it a commitment to a suspect test. The DOU Council just wants to make sure everyone is on the same page before we tackle any tiering decisions in a post-DLC metagame. Looking forward to some good discussion!
These are the current bans beyond the obvious "never see the light of day" legendaries:
- Jirachi
- Kyurem-B
- Marshadow
- Melmetal
- Beat Up
- Gravity + Sleep
- Dynamax
The most controversial and impactful of these is pretty clearly Dynamax. While Dynamax was indeed banned by a public suspect vote, the vote was far from a landslide. As such, the DOU Council discussed reexamining Dynamax before possibly reintroducing banned Pokemon because of another addition to Sword and Shield via Isle of Armor - Max Soup. This in-game item gives the Gigantamax Factor to any Pokemon that can have it (Charizard, Hatterene, Butterfree, etc), which means that you are no longer restricted to only being able to Gigantamax Pokemon you caught in Max Raids.
While this might seem irrelevant to DOU tiering, this actually unlocks another option for tiering Dynamax - limiting every Pokemon to Dynamax Level 0. Previously, all Gigantamax Pokemon (other than the gift Charmander, Eevee, and Pikachu you could get throughout the game and maybe more idk I'm not an encyclopedia) could only be obtained at Dynamax Levels greater than 0, which meant that trying to restrict Dynamax to Dynamax Level 0 when we first tested Dynamax would have artificially banned all Gigantamax. The council did not think that was a good idea at the time, but now it is no longer an issue.
The only difference between a Pokemon at Dynamax Level 0 and Dynamax Level 10 is the HP boost it receives when it Dynamaxes. At Level 10, the HP stat is doubled, while it is only increased by 50% at Level 0. This helps to alleviate the nigh invincibility of Dynamax Pokemon, one of the two overarching issues that led to Dynamax's ban. Note that there is no effect on the max moves at all; all secondary effects are the same, and there is no change in their base power based on Dynamax Level.
Given all of this, the general consensus of the DOU Council is that the next course of action should be to suspect test Dynamax once again, but this time restricting every Pokemon to Dynamax Level 0. Such a decision has pretty big impacts on future DOU tiering decisions, so it only makes sense to get this out of the way and move forward based on its results. Reintroducing Dynamax potentially reignites some other problematic elements of the pre-Dynamax ban metagame, Weakness Policy and Charizard being the main examples brought up in that np thread, so if the result of a Dynamax retest is to unban it, the DOU Council would quickly look to identify and eliminate such problematic elements in the appropriate fashion.
The purpose of this thread is to gauge interest. This is not an official announcement of a suspect test, nor is it a commitment to a suspect test. The DOU Council just wants to make sure everyone is on the same page before we tackle any tiering decisions in a post-DLC metagame. Looking forward to some good discussion!