1.6x, the sweet spot?
Hello guys. not been here for a while, i've been on one of my hiatus' from the game. Have yet to try PvP.
the new 1.6x multiplier for super effectiveness is a surprise. My question is, is this what it should be in pokemon go?
Originally, the multiplier was 1.25. This was a complete joke, by a company who obviously didn't know how to balance a meta in pokemon. In these days dragonite was the answer to everything except lapras. Let's not go there.
They increased it to 1.4 when raids appeared. This still felt inadequate to me. A pokemon like machamp would only do moderate more damage to a Snorlax than a top generalist for example. Machamps 234 x1.4 =327, compared to rays 284. With weather boost, Ray closes that gap completely.
In a Machamp vs Tyranitar fight, the Tyranitar is doing 0.71 effective damage while the machamp is doing 1.96 (less than three times more effective.) This gap is a bit small, considering Tyranitar is expected to be demolished by any fighting pokemon. Even a Hitmonlee should be beating Tyranitar. Also, ground moves doing 0.51 damage to flying pokemon is too much, as is electric to ground types
But now, 1.6. with this multiplier, Top generalists are now doing significantly less damage to that Snorlax than Machamp. Machamps attack with the multiplier is upto 374! Beyond even a weather boosted Ray.
In the Tyranitar vs Machamp fight, Tyranitars multiplier is 0.625, Machamps is 2.56. This is a gap of nearly four fold, which is more what it should be.
Ground moves are now doing 0.39x damage to birds. I have said before, under the 1.4x multiplier, that immunity should be buffed to count as a triple resistance. And now, this is effectively what has happened. This is a good move.
I would have taken the multiplier being increased to 1.5, but 1.6 seems like a very good place to be in GO. Raids becoming easier is another matter, but NIanitc are free to buff their HP is they don't like that. And would help make it more important for players to know their type advantages, which is necessary in PvP anyway.
1.6 is enough to ensure super effective pokemon with good stats are not matched by any generalist, which is how it should be. So i think this is a good sweet spot for GO.
Answers
They're has been ZERO interest in Cresselia in my small town. However, with the new buffs, we were able to win with 4 trainers: me, level 40, (my team was 4 level 40 Gengar, level 40 Mewtwo, level 35 Mewtwo), a level 38 with a very solid team, a level 35 and level 25. I saw a Vaporeon, Flareon, Ninetails, and Donphan battling, yet we won with 15 seconds on the clock. Raids have always been easy for city players, but now they're more doable for rural players. This is only a good thing.
Welcome back, Harry.
We're still sorting out a lot of changes all at once. The ability to buy a second charged move is huge. Wonder how that will play out with Mew. So it hard to tell if they hit the sweet spot with 1.6x. I'll let you know after my Flygon takes on Spark's Ultra team after midnight tonight.
I like the fact that type matchups will be more important, and fighting Dragons cleverly will be a thing, not just bashing them with other Dragons.
So, we'll see. Promising so far, though.
Oh, and for a good read check out the Niantic Impactful Mistake Timeline, on this site. You, Harry, will get several good chuckles out of it.
I get why people like hard raids, but at the same time, do people really want the possibility of losing to a raid when people dont bring the right pokemon? I know when I misted about half a dozen mewtwo raids because people brought the wrong pokemon I certainly didnt enjoy missing them but a sliver of HP...
This helps to make up that gap, lets also not forget it speeds things up A LOT when it comes to raid days, which we know are coming because its too good of a money making idea for niantic to just shelve, the faster you can beat the raid, the more raids you can do, that and it makes PvP a lot more about having solid type coverage rather than just bringing high neutral DPS generalists.
Though it unfortunately seems like Gengar's done for against, well, the kinds of things you'd want a gengar for, ghost and psychic types (maybe aside from psycho cut cress)
The effectiveness change arguably made Gengar better. It creates some dps gap between Gengar and its competitor, PC + SB Mewtwo due to the latter's split effectiveness. While it has made Gengar roughly as fragile as before the cp rebalance against super effective moves, its own super effective hits cancel it out. Against nve moves, Gengar shines even further.
The only notable downside is that it no longer survives Cresselia's Future Sight.
