Generation six's reverse power creep

[fulltimeslackerii]

I would love to hear you dive on the topic of “power creep vs meta shift” and how to spot the difference. I feel like with every current generation, most casuals and even competitive players blame every drop from OU as “power creep” but then ignore things like offensive pex being viable and new toy syndrome

[MimikyuStardust]

Generation 9 is my main gen and yea, gliscor is still really excellent despite losing roost.

Unlike in previous gens, gliscors main claim to fame this gen is spikes.

In DLC 1 it was banned because there is just not enough offensive power to easily beat it, and it completely ruins balance teams. Many of the amazing defensive pokemon before this time, Skeledirge, Zapdos, Dondozo, Clodsire, Garganacl got completely shafted by Gliscor because it makes them obsolete with poison heal, spikes, knock off and toxic. The tier just doesnt have enough power to punish it immediately. It forces great tusk to run ice spinner, and even made zapdos run weather ball for it since Hail/Snow is always up due to Slowking Galar's chilly Reception. Ironically, gliscor made the tier's bulk level to decrease which in turn made the core of Rillaboom + Sneaseler incredibly broken since the bulky pokemon that beats sneaseler + rillaboom, loses to gliscor so its a pretty big trade off that not many people were willing to afford. There was actually a really good core of 6 pokemon which were Sneaseler + Rillaboom + Heatran + Dragapult + Gliscor + Kingambit that ruled the ladder for a while. Because of how much gliscor ruled the tier and made it "boring", it got banned and just few days later sneaseler also got banned because it was arguably more broken than gliscor, and gliscor was one of its better checks. However, after gliscor got banned the meta arguably got worse because every team that isnt stall or HO had mono-boots Zapdos + Ting-Lu/Samurott-Hisui + Dragapult/Zamazenta + Gholdengo spikestack. Every team needs zapdos + zamazenta/dragapult to not lose to Ogerpon Wellspring (strong grass/water physical attacker with non contact stab that gets extra-powered with tera) and every game there will be at least 2 pokemon paralyzed and 4 layers of hazard up with no way of removing them (no defog outside of HARD stall which still runs 6 boots and only 1 viable rapid spinner in great tusk lol, even then, gholdengo blocks both spin and defog) and every game ends with a zamazenta mirror match. Oh and gliscor almost outclasses lando in every way that it almost dropped to UU.

In DLC 2 however, with the addition of so many broken offensive pokemon from Darkrai, Buffed Weavile, Volcarona, Gouging Fire, Archaludon, Kyurem, etc. Gliscor became much more managable, it has a great place in balance team but it no longer outclasses every ground type like Clodsire, Ting-Lu, and Lando-T since their defensive utility became much more sought after to handle the tiers huge power increase. Surprisingly, even with this huge increase of power creep, there has not been any suspect tests, the only 2 thing that are over the top right now are Kyurem and Sleep/Darkrai (depending on who you ask). Funnily enough, Gliscor no longer runs spikes in DLC 2, it either runs a stealth rock set alongside spikes iron defense skarmory, or it runs a swords dance set.

[SantaKUN]

The fact that gen6 managed to improve defensive playstyles WHILE nerfing steels is proof GF can care about competitive pokemon when they want to

[henryalberts]

Love to see this view shared, it’s one of the reasons Gen 6 is one of my favorite gens. I think of Gens 3-6 as a series of steps: Gen 3 was the first proper step towards competitiveness in Pokemon. Gen 4 was a second step, more confident and more powerful, but with intent and purpose. Gen 5 was a misstep: going a bit too hard in some areas while not accounting for leftover mechanics like trapping & weather. Finally coming to Gen 6, it was a step back and 2 steps forward. They adjusted and nerfed certain key presences like weather, Dragons & Steels, and move powers. Yet they also gave more power to many Pokemon to catch them up like the Gen 1 Starters, Gardevoir, Lopunny, Pidgeot, etc. while also keeping the already good Pokemon still reasonably good such as Tyranitar and the Latis. The new mons dex was smaller, but continued to largely try and make relevant options to competitive play. All the absolute broken was really channeled into Mega Rayquaza, and that was with the absolute intent of setting a New Bar for cover legendaries. From Gen 7 onwards, however, it feels like the overall idea has been just sheer “MORE” from GameFreak rather than actual focus like Gen 6 had.

[gaberobison]

ORAS was the best balance we ever had. You could just agree to not use busted things but now gimmicks are so widespread it’s impossible. I probably have like 1000 hours on ORAS showdown and that’s from while I was a kid with limits on how much I could be online

[squidheadss]

Meteor mash got its power lowered, but its accuracy was increased a bit to compensate, which is interesting

[Yodaminnesota]

Despite Gen 9s reputation, there actually is quite a bit of reverse powercreep with movepools. Scald, for one, was infamously limited and so was knock off for a time. I think restrictions like this are good. This seemed to have hit defensive mons a lot harder though-- toxic being limited, recovery moves nerfed, aromatherapy/heal bell being basically removed from the game. If they did this more interestingly and gave mons actual gaps in their coverage it could serve a similar purpose.

[reverie]

thanks for making into a video a thorough explanation of why i enjoy oras more than other modern gens and feel that it's more similar to old gens in terms of power level than later ones. I think another factor contributing to this perception is that megas were a generational gimmick that did a pretty good job of benefiting both offense and defense, while every following gimmick has been far more of a boon for the former than the latter.

[PhaseInnis]

I forgot how many moves were nerfed during Gen 6. I dropped out of competitive pokemon around that time, so I did not know how much was impacted when compared to Gen 5.

Also a critique I have for the video, when discussing base power and damage dealt I think mentioning calcs would be useful for getting the point across. Like telling us how much Gliscor takes from a Lando-T HP Ice in Gen 5 compared to 6, instead of just a nebulous "it takes less damage in Gen 6."

Interesting video overall, I do agree that some moves may need slight nerfs. I would also say some balance changes for some moves in general would be nice. Such as Focus Blast becoming 110 BP and getting its accuracy boosted. I would also say that the secondary effect chances of some moves could be adjusted too. Like Moonblast could drop from 30% chance to lower Sp.Atk to 20% chance.

[metalmariomega]

Gen 6 was such a great format for "legacy support". Between Mega Evolutions for popular classics, the new Fairy typing retroactively applying to a few things like Clefable and Wigglytuff, and even the adjustments to everything from high powered moves, Steel typing(and a few others in minor ways due to interactions with the new typing), weather status and Defog changed things up a ton from gen 5's hilarious mess of powercreep.

[siddhantkamble]

I haven't played gen 6 when it was current genn but it seems like Lando and Gliscor switched their positions in the metagame from current to post gen.

[Mepphy]

In Gen 9 you'll have Tusk dropping ice spinner and Gliscor Just spikes and toxic/Protect on you Forever
oh? Tusk actually used spinner, nice we roll with- Gliscor Takes 48% from It, and toxic you ... huh
so yeah, right now It's ok because of Meow/Wile with triple axel, Kyurem, Tytar kinda resurgens with ice moves
Still this mon is incredible

[aamr]

an 18 min vid feels like YouTube Shorts from BKC

[whomgod]

They nerfed Meteor Mash's power from 100>90, but they did buff its accuracy from 85>90. Which honestly I don't think is necessarily a nerf because at least now it hits and the more it hits the more its attack proc goes off.

[KFLawless]

The note about move power generally getting lower is also a big reason why Life Orb feels worse than it used to

[dreadfury]

As the generations go by, Gliscor somehow becomes more unkillable.

The thing feels borderline invincible in Gen 9 OU (my main gen) at times and Ice STAB is VERY common there as of DLC2’s release, *and* it lost Roost. The thing keeps aging like the finest of wines.

[bluefacestan]

Toxic heal is also a really strong hidden ability

[screwtokaiba]

Meteor Mash might be nerfed in part because up to that point Metagross was a pretty dominant pokemon in VGC. It was actually one of the more known pseudo in VGC at the time due to Clear Body being great and Explosion. If you remember back in gen 5 iirc theres a downloadable Metagross based on the set it was winning worlds 2012 with and pwt/battle tower had a downloadable opponent based on Ray Rizzo's team

[Garde_Mystik]

Never thought I'd see someone use "reverse powercreep" and "Gen 6" in the same sentence. Nice. I never thought Gen 6 was as broken as many make it out to be. Even Anything Goes.

[deparinge]

Honestly they probably forgot about Moonblast like how they forgot about Alakazam's buff when giving it a Mega