Hello there everyone! I would like to announce something veeeery special.
You're officially invited to our
Our First Playtesting Tour!
When?
1:00 PM EST on Sunday
Where?
dragonheaven.psim.us
Rules?
Best of 3, Single Elimination on the Bench Abilities format.
Concerning Balancing
This tournament isn't just for the hell of it. I wanna focus this tournament in particular on nipping some potentially problematic elements in the bud early on, developing the meta further while giving us an idea of how to balance things for now and the future.
Mega Aerodactyl has benefitted immensely from the changes in this mod, arguably one of the most to do so. Previously a mediocre niche pick in vanilla Battle Spot Singles, it first got proper Tough Claws-boosted Flying STAB via Silvally-Flying's Omnimorph. This in itself isn't too remarkable and special considering this applies for staples like Landorus-Therian and Celesteela, but it is still a huge buff for it. What really has elevated it to stardom is Ancient Awakening, which in its case boosts its Attack and Speed to new heights, outspeeding not just the general meta but most scarfers as well. With these two factors plus a catalogue of additional options like Retro Racer, Heavy Expert and Omnimorph-Rock, this mon is currently one of the most hyped up and, at least in my opinion, potentially unbalanced.
Now, if it does turn out to be too much, it seems simple what to do. Just ban Mega Aerodactyl itself, right? Personally, I don't wanna do that. Since this is a Pet Mod for Battle Spot, which has its own special clauses and banlist compared to OU, I don't wanna tinker with said banlist. Instead, I want to try to tone down potentially broken elements; in Aerodactyl's case, that would be nerfing one or more of the abilities that makes it broken.
While the Wills for the most part seem OK, there is potentially an exception:
Swamp Summoning. By combining Grass Pledge with Torrential Will or Water Pledge with Overgrowing Will, you can summon Swamp on the opponent's side of the field, which cuts the speed of
all of their Pokemon by 3/4s. This is obviously an insane boon for all kinds of teams, and could be especially useful in this fast-paced meta where every turn counts. It's not like you gotta gimp your team to use this strategy either; all of the above mons are good in their own right and can use Swamp to make themselves even more dangerous.
Finally, let's talk about
Guardian Angel. As its S Rank on the Bench Abilities Viability Ranking demonstrates, its one of the most powerful and splashable abilities around. Making your allies take half damage from any and all attacks while they switch-in is a huge boon for every Pokemon and playstyle, whether it be carving new set-up opportunities for deadly sweepers like Naganadel and Volcarona or making fat mons like Alomomola and Toxapex even harder to take down. Similar to Swamp summoning, not only is the effect incredibly useful, but its users are perfectly usable even if you gotta send them out into battle, especially Gardevoir. Could it be too much in its current state, or is it just really damn good?