Pokemon's BIG Problem With Power Creep

[Music] foreign [Music] good morning everybody good morning it's jpr and welcome back to another video Power creep is defined as the gradual unbalancing of a game due to successive releases of new content leaving the older ones underpowered it happens all the time in games across a multitude of genres but the best examples of this in the Pokemon franchise would come from something like the TCG or Pokemon Masters where new content is always one-upping the content that came before Edge in an effort to drive more hype and more sales but what about the Core Series games while power creep in the mainline Pokemon games is a much more gradual process it certainly exists so today I'll be taking a closer look at some examples of how Pokemon have slowly but surely become more and more powerful over time not only in the context of the main campaign but also through the lens of competitive VGC now admittedly VGC is probably the one aspect of Pokemon that I'm the least familiar with so I brought on an expert to help with these segments hi everyone my name is Marcos and I run a channel called Moxie boosted I really appreciate jpr having me on to help out with the VGC out of this video you know obviously I've been playing VGC for quite a while and I've been a big fan of jpr so I really appreciate him having me on the channel to just assist with this video but before we power creep your browser thanks to the sponsor of today's video Opera GX no other browser allows you to customize your experience as much as Opera GX does between the many themes wallpapers or photos that you can upload yourself you can be as original as your favorite anime character speaking of anime you can pop shows or other videos out of the browser and their own adjustable little window so you can study or do other tasks while keeping it running in view the GX player also allows you to log into Spotify Apple music or YouTube music to listen to your favorite tunes and keep all your streaming services in one neat little place and lastly the quick import tool will help bring over all of your cookies bookmarks and more from your previous browser faster than an anime time skip so what are you waiting for download Opera GX today using my link in the description down below thank you Opera GX for sponsoring back to the video so since gen 1 is the first generation I know gee Sherlock how did you deduce that we'll mostly start the discussion with Gen 2 or at least I'd like to but uh if I'm being completely honest Gen 2 is like the anti-power creep generation it's no secret just how bad most of the Pokemon introduced in this gen are and I mean in terms of strength not designs because duh whoopers from Gen 2 so clearly there are some base hits this should go without saying but yes Gen 2 team building is nightmarish like I vividly remember in a crystal Nuzlocke having to rely on an icy wind man time to defeat Lance because frankly there just weren't any other options on the table or unironically using rock smash as a viable stab move for Heracross because he didn't learn anything else remotely consistent this is a rare instance where I'd say the Pokemon actually needed a bit of power creep because without it the process of moving through the game's many battles is entirely too slow and frustrating Gen 3 is really where we see the first semblances of power creep coming into play in the literal Hoenn sea of useless crap like illumise love disc and cast form it's easy to forget that gen 3 also has some very Heavy Hitters salomons and Metagross were huge Titans of strength in this generation but at least the main story does a good job at keeping them exclusive settlements is probably the hardest Pokemon to raise and evolve in all of Hoenn and as for Metagross it's not even obtainable in the main story so while this gen does a really good job with holding its most powerful creatures there definitely is still power creep present in the main story particularly towards the end example one would be in the starters no matter which of the three you picked Hoenn starters are certainly a huge step up in viability compared to the previous two generations example 2 would be Groudon and Kyogre certainly the most broken legendaries introduced up to this point and for the first time the story requires an encounter with them before the league heck an emerald is entirely possible to waltz into the league with a level 70 Rayquaza on your team if you are good enough to complete the world's most challenging bike puzzle example 3 would just be ease of access to really powerful TMS after making its to the Lily Cove department store fire blast Thunder and blizzard can be purchased as many times as you desire again props to hohen for withholding this until the late game but this is still an option that didn't exist in the first two gens Gen 4 would also continue to power crave steadily higher again mostly through the starters and legendaries but I think for the most part this gin handled power creep pretty well I would argue that the items introduced in this gen like a life orb and choice scar for bigger additions to the landscape than the Pokemon themselves a lot of cross-gen Evolutions were introduced here as well and while they make a lot of the old Pokemon better the vast majority of them aren't in any way problematic this is an example of the good form of power creep I mentioned earlier where they're taking Pokemon that were completely unusable and making them viable I think the most infamous example of power creep in this gen would be Guard Shop a Pokemon that could not only ravage the main story's hardest foes but was also the dominant force in the competitive scene as well regardless of whether you were playing by smug and single battle rule set or for the first time VGC okay so I actually didn't start playing VGC until Generation 6 so I had to consult an expert on gents 4 and 5. unfortunately I could only get the help of the three-time world champion Ray Rizzo so we'll have to make do only a three-time world champion who let this guy into the building this was actually the first year of EGC so rather than talk about new Pokemon specifically we're gonna have to explain where the power level of VGC began now according to Rey some common Pokemon in VGC around this time were Garchomp Cresselia Snorlax Metagross and Latios a lot of really bulky Heavy Hitters and this is mainly due to damage output being lower across the board since many Pokemon had yet to gain access to high base power moves that they get in future Generations Metagross and Snorlax were especially strong as they had access to explosion and self-destruct which in this gen would actually have the opponent's defenses before calculating damage hardly anything could tank that hit He also mentioned to me that Reign teams were fairly common although this was prior to Politoed getting drizzle so rain had to be set up manually by a Pokemon like Jolteon sleep was especially common this gen as hypnosis had 70 accuracy rather than 60 however just a year later in 2009 hypnosis was nerfed to 60 accuracy and was mostly no longer worth running so that's about where power capped out in Gen 4 just a lot of fat Pokemon having a slugfest this would change in 2010 however simply due to a rule now allowing the use of two restricted legendary Pokemon per team the most common of these were Groudon Kyogre Palkia and Dialga all of which were top-tier threats granted this was before we got a lot of Legends so their only real competition were ho Lugia and Mewtwo it also should be noted that Kyogre was definitely the most powerful of them since it had access to drizzle giving it a boost on its water type moves while also setting up the rain Gen 5 is really the generation where we see Power creeps start to spill over onto the majority of the Pokedex not just the legend pseudos and starters Pokemon like Excadrill crocodile and archeops need no introduction probably some of the best main story Pokemon ever introduced and that's just to name a few long gone are the days where nearly half the decks was complete garbage and unusable past the third gym even the literal garbage Pokemon this gen still has above average stats compared to the majority of jodo and Owen for the most part Gen 5 does a pretty good job at balancing this though by making some extremely broken Pokemon like Volcarona and hydragon extremely high level devolutions a problem that many people complain about with Gen 5 and admittedly yes I do think it's unjustified in the case of things like coniered and rufflet evolving in the 50s but most of the other high-level Evolutions serve as a way to balance the game especially when this gen made exp grinding loads easier and introduced unbreakable TMS so now almost all of your Pokemon can have move sets miles better than before this really does feel like the first decks where almost anything can be made viable and while black twin Y2 ease some of these restrictions by giving you access to 150 older Pokemon that actually evolve at reasonable levels they responded by making the sequels considerably harder than the first pair of Gen 5 games so I would say Gen 5 actually hits a very nice sweet spot when it comes to considerably improving your options but but not making the game a complete Cakewalk but what about the competitive side effects once again deferring to Rey the master told me that in 2011 the decks was restricted to Pokemon found in black and white this is where we see some obvious centralization because thunderous Tornadus and Terrakion were on nearly every team the three of them were overpowered compared to much of what else was available in the format Tornadus was especially Infamous for using the combination of flying gem plus acrobatics this would not only give it the flying gem boost but the item would get consumed and thus acrobatics would double empowered the following Year in 2012 nothing felt particularly overpowered but dragons were very good due to their amazing typings and access to the nuke of Dragon Gem Draco meteor also Metagross was back and it's typing allowed for it to resist Dragon moves making it obviously quite useful this was also prior to the steel nerf so it resisted dark and ghost moves still Cresselia remained viable in this format due to its immense bulk and utility as always finally in 2010 eruption Heatran was fairly common and Landorus Therian felt quite overpowered alongside chrysalia and thunderous as a tangent before we end off Gen 5 I want to note that on the single side of things weather was quite good due to it being permanent sand and Rain teams were very common and it was rare to see a team not take advantage of some kind of weather but what happens when power creep goes too far well there's no need to speculate because Gen 6 is basically power creep incarnate Greninja Talent flame Aegislash Mega Evolutions all incredibly overpowering forces that are exceptionally easy to get your hands on Karina even gives you a mega Lucario after the third gym just in case you were getting bored of actually playing the game and you'd better believe that all of these Pokemon are just as oppressive on the competitive side of things as they are on the main story heck for months the singles meta completely revolved around is he gonna King shield this turn or not OU basically turned into a coin flip simulator and while Meg Evolutions did benefit some Pokemon that actually needed them to be considered good it definitely was taken a bit too far in some cases on the competitive side of things I can safely say that this is one of the biggest power jumps we've ever seen strictly thanks to Mega Evolutions giving certain Pokemon 100 base stat boost and some incredible abilities while these Pokemon for the most part weren't able to hold any items many of them were incredibly powerful to the point of being the central focus of a team thanks to this megas were the primary focus of our power creep talk on this gen let's start off with a mega that statwise looks pretty mediocre until you get a chance to look at its ability Mega Mall wild boasts arguably the best typing in the game as a fairy Steel type one which we'll see pop up later in this video and it was gifted the ability huge power which doubles the Pokemon's attack step permanently keep in mind that this is an ability that was given to a zoom roll and Diggersby Pokemon with stats in the mid 50s and basically made them some of the best wall breakers in the game azumo with huge power has the same attack stat as Mel metal whose face attack is 143 Mega Mall while here has double at base 105 meaning it has the same attack stat as well nothing it's the highest natural attack stat in the game sitting at 344 which is 78 points higher than Mega Mewtwo it was a staple of EGC 2014 15 and early 16. the the mega Charizards were no slouches either particularly sard Y which really cranked up the power of sun teams by enabling chlorophyll users and boosting the power of its fire type moves with 159 base special attack this thing had some monstrous spread damage in Heat Wave and it saw play in nearly every metagame it was allowed in okay last non-legendary Pokemon but Mega Kangaskhan was probably the Pokemon you expected to see most in this video coming from vjc normal is already a super solid typing while it doesn't have the ability to hit anything for super effective damage with stab moves this thing was only weak to fighting moves and had effectively a choice band boost on all single target attacks via its ability parental bond this ability allowed each move to hit twice with 50 of the power on the second hit this meant that if Mega Kangaskhan could one shot something not even a focus sash would save it combo that with its great bulk speed access to fake out and Power Punch which was basically an attacking swordsness the Shen and we can understand why this thing was on merely every team in top 16 of the 2015 World Championships that was a huge run on sentence I know but it's legitimately the only way I can emphasize just how much utility this thing had onto the legendary Pokemon this generation gave us Xerneas cernius is the first Fairy Type legendary with the ability fairy aura which boosts the power of all fairy type moves by 1.33 times as long as it's on the field coming off a 131 attack and special attack means that this thing packs a punch naturally but that isn't even half the story its signature move geomancy allows for Xerneas to basically set up two Quiver dances instantly if it's holding a power herb past that point if your Pokemon doesn't resist any fairy moves it's certainly getting ko'd even if it does resist them you're gonna have to calc to ensure that it takes the hit specifically and it would often partner with Primal Groudon another example of power creep that we really don't have the time to cover but this fire and ground type was a hard counter to various poison or steel types that would otherwise be able to deal with Xerneas now let's take the power of a legendary Pokemon let's say hypothetically Rayquaza and give it a Mega Evolution pretty jump in power right now let's allow that to mega evolve without holding a mega stone thus opening up the ability for it to have a life orb a choice band a focus sash or whatever you want conceptually you should be screaming at me as a game developer to stop me from making this thing well too bad I'm not listening and now it's won the World Championships trust me this 180 base attack 115 Speed Dragon type needs to be able to hold an item and it needs to have an ability that indicates all of its flying type weaknesses otherwise it won't be viable like honestly trust me I'm a Game Dev ironically this thing wasn't actually busted mvgc though but it did pick up in usage next to Kyogre and Mega Gengar as partners towards the time of the World Championships arguably it was only bounced due to the fact that Xerneas existed jumping in the Gen 7 I would say that the main story actually does a pretty good job balancing the options available to you with some super tough opponents particularly in the ultra games where nearly every route in the game has some sort of minor boss battle present plus some actual behemoths such as the totems and Ultra necrozma what makes it even better is that all the notable trainers in this game actually have put in some serious evg training on the player's side of things the Pokedex is arguably the best it's ever been in the ultra games and the Pokemon introduced here are much better balanced across the board in Kalos if the Pokemon wasn't completely garbage you could count on destroying entire legs of the game so as far as the main story goes I think alola like univa manages to balance a power creep's decks with opponents that are actually challenging but I get the feeling that the competitive side of things were a much different story take it away Moxie okay so Mega still exists this gen but we have much more pressing matters to attend to do you like being able to see the battlefield in battles well too bad because it's going to be yellow pink or green for this entire generation no kidding the introduction of the tapus changed to VGC forever while they weren't broken from an offensive perspective the sheer utility of automatically setting up terrains made at least one of them essential for almost every VGC team whether you want to block status heal your team or block priority moves there was pretty much no reason to not run a tapu yeah most of them did hit pretty hard but that was only half the reason they were ran speaking of big damage we should briefly to cover the various Z moves that got used in BGC boosting the power of any move to a nuke is once again only half the story some Pokemon got access to exclusive Z moves that let them do some pretty wacky stuff kamo actually gained itsy move not in sun and moon but a year later in ultrasound and Ultra Moon it took it from a low tier dragon type in a fairy infested meta to a major threat this was a sound based Dragon move that hit both opponents called Klinger soulblaze if the move successfully connected on either one of the opponents kamo would gain plus one in every single stat this pseudo Legend was more than capable of sweeping entire teams with a combination of clanging scales in close combat having the ability soundproof also made it immune to snarl and opposing Klinger of Soul blazes it made for a really weird dynamic whenever you played in the kamoa mirror match finally we need to talk about light that burns the sky which is definitely the hardest name for a Pokemon move ever it's the exclusive move of ultra necrozma which effectively is just Mega necrozma if you have either necrozma form equipped with ultra necrosme and Z the first turn it can Ultra burst and become Ultra necrozma then on the following turn you can use this um 200 base power psychic move single Target none of that explosion spread damage reduction I mean look at this thing it's literally a nuke even in the animation in VGC alternate cross missile play next to tapu Lele on Psychic spam teams that basically pick up one free KO each game almost nothing switched in on this thing and Stat wise this Pokemon was a menace all of the defensive stats were 97 and its offensive stats were 167 and it had 129 base speed this thing had higher stats than RCS itself don't get me wrong I love this thing's design but I really don't miss playing against it oh boy gen 8 where do we even be again Dynamax the mechanic that was so polarizing and had to be completely banned and competitive singles golari and darmana tan a Pokemon that literally has a choice band as an ability what about drakovich or rilaboo between vicious Rend and grassy Glide these are some of the biggest one button Pokemon ever introduced sure those examples are all much bigger deals in the competitive side than the main story but the fact of the matter remains some of the Pokemon introduced here are completely nuts and on top of that team building is convenient in this gen almost too convenient there are some great quality of life Buffs in this gen like having a movie loader in every Pokemon Center but it also makes Pokemon that evolve as Stone's completely broken for the first leg of the game by the first gym you could have access to shiftry Arcanine Vaporeon Ludicolo or any other number of things normally Stone Evolutions are balanced by the fact that they can't learn any moves by leveling up so you usually have to wait a while to get the moves that you want but here that trade-off is completely erased since you can just teach the Pokemon any moves it normally would have gotten in the Pokemon Center trust me the last time I know select this game I stepped into Milo's gym with a level 15 shiftry that new Leaf blade hurricane extra sensory and Sucker Punch do you think I struggled with that gym freedom is great I love freedom of course I do I live in America I eat fried chicken for breakfast lunch and dinner but with freedom also comes responsibility okay that's great in all jpr but I'm literally gonna need every second possible to break down gen 8 on the competitive side honestly as someone who's played VGC for years this isn't going to be an analysis of power creep as much as it's going to be a conviction gen 8 was the worst Power crap Generation by far and you could argue that gen 8's power creep is purely due to it taking one step further than gen 7 but it all lies within Dynamics and the Pokemon built specifically with Dynamax in mind this mechanic allows for you to double your Pokemon's HP stat for three turns while hitting the opposing team with exclusive moves that bypass protect yes the opponent can Dynamics to counter your Dynamics but it doesn't solve the issue of how fast-paced competitive could feel this gen investor 3 this mechanic was a little bit more tolerable as you would no longer lose to a random weakness policy Pokemon by being prepared for them in games two and three but in best of one this mechanic felt like pure cheese at times the doubled HP statement that literally anything could run a weakness policy rather than Pokemon with the stats to back it up like Tyranitar or Metagross in previous generations and Pokemon began to run movesets that we used to make fun of people for running scopeland's toga kiss weakness policy Charizard eject button whimsicon none of these were particularly great until Dynamax came around that combined with the power of the gigantom X moves like those of the Kano starters plus colossal really pushed it these moves were not only nukes but they also doubt 1 6 of your Pokemon's total HP as damage for 4 turns unless they were matching the type of that Max move that's two-thirds of your Pokemon's HP Gone without out attacking this is by far the worst received mechanic in the history of Pokemon holes that I put out regarding Dynamics show that a large majority of VGC players strongly dislike the mechanic several of top players have even spoken out about their dislike for Dynamics the mechanic was so unpopular that not once but twice during sword and shield VGC the majority of VGC players stop playing the official format to play fan made rule sets in brilliant diamond and Shining Pearl or the current most popular format Spike myth cup which is literally Series 7 VGC just with Dynamax disabled okay now with Dynamax out of the way we can talk about four Pokemon that didn't even really need Dynamics to be busted since they were balanced with Dynamax in mind let's do this in order of speed tiers because that's where a lot of the issue lies okay ursifu both of them not only were they Pokemon with access to moves that have guaranteed crits meaning that pretty much nothing walls them out without shell armor but they have access to an ability which bypasses all forms of protect except for maxguard with that 130 base attack set they can in one shot many relevant competitive Pokemon regardless of what defensive measures you may take no reflect intimidate or protect will stop the reliably high damage the only thing keeping them from being entirely busted is that 97 speed stat which puts them just shy of the 100 speed stat where many relevant Pokemon live if you can not beat them and hit them with a special move they will drop for the most part zation crowned for the record this thing has 148 base speed and we still have two more Pokemon that we need to cover it is the best typing in the game fairy and steel along with that high speed it has a ridiculous 170 base attack stat which by default has a 1.5 times multiplier on it due to its ability Intrepid sword this means that after an intimidate it still hits like a truck this thing also had a signature move which allowed it to hit Dynamax Pokemon as though they had the regular HP stat Behemoth blade doubled in power on Dynamax targets so if the opponents the wrong Pokemon in front of zashian it could be instantly deleted removing the best counter play for the zashian users Dynamax Pokemon it was on nearly every single VGC team in 2022 and was widely considered the best legendary Pokemon period caloric Shadow this thing barely outsped zashian at 150 base speed but it also had a ridiculous 165 base special attack set and the ability to hold an item unlike sashian crowned being a ghost type meant that you couldn't figure out to block its 120 base power double targeting move after garage by the way if you were thinking that you could slap a berry onto something to take an extra hit you're wrong this Pokemon actually had two abilities as one not only blocks the opponent's use of berries but gives caloric Shadow a special attack boost on every KO it gets if you let this thing take a KO it's gonna snowball and it's not easy to prevent this thing from taking Kos Reggio leki 200 base speed that's the highest in the history of Pokemon this wouldn't be too bad if Reggie leki didn't also have the ability transistor which took its 100 base attack in special attack and said okay you know what buddy you can have a free 50 boost on whichever stat you need as long as you're using an electric move this actually made Reggio leki capable of out speeding and one-shotting almost everything including zashian with life or Max lightning Not only was this thing threatening as an offensive Dynamax Pokemon but has a supportive speed control Pokemon it was able to out speed and slow down even Tailwind boosted Pokemon with electroweb there's probably the single best non-tailwind speed control Pokemon in the game for all of 2022 okay I'm done talking about gen 8 I'm really sorry for the record I did enjoy playing gen 8 VGC so in a nutshell has Pokemon power creep gone a bit too far yeah probably as mentioned before though power creep isn't entirely an evil thing I would even argue that everything done between Gen 2 and Gen 5 was completely necessary to make the game more fun but once gimmicks and other Pokemon with completely overpowered options were introduced things started getting a bit messy we're at the point now where it feels like the new Pokemon almost completely outclass many of the old ones just pull up the VGC stats for this year or the current outer on Smogon and count how many Pokemon from before Gen 5 are still around I guarantee you it's not many anyway let's just hope that cyclizarre is bad because switching in with a free substitute sounds kinda busted and that game's not even out yet but of course be sure to check out Moxie boosted here on YouTube this guy is going to be doing a ton of cool stuff on scarlet and violet drops he's definitely a guy you'll want to see in your sub box this video certainly wouldn't have been possible without his experiences and he even got world champion Rey Rizzo to help out so that's pretty sick but yeah be sure to leave a like if you enjoyed And subscribe for more videos just like this one I'll see you guys next time

Channel: JPRPokeTrainer98

Views: 193,635

Keywords: Pokemon, JPRPT98, JPRPokeTrainer98, Problem With Power Creep, Power Creep, Analysis, VGC, Dynamax, Sword and Shield, Scarlet and Violet, Legends Arceus, Competitive Battling, Ash vs Leon, Starter Evolutions, Fuecoco, Sprigatito, Quaxly, Legendary Pokemon, Mythical Pokemon, Best and Worst, Koraidon, Miraidon, Zacian, Mega Rayquaza, Mega Evolution, Paldea, Ash-Greninja, Pokemon Problem, Pokemon Video Essay, TCG, Pokemon Card Opening

Id: L3sYt-ysODo

Length: 23min 56sec (1436 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 28 2022