Pokemon's BIG Problem With Power Creep

As the years have passed, Pokemon have gotten steadily stronger and stronger. These are the consequences of unchecked power creep.

BIG THANKS TO @MoxieBoosted FOR HIS KNOWLEDGE

(0:00) What IS Power Creep?
(2:12): The Main Story
(5:09): VGC's Beginnings
(6:52): Power Creep in Gen 5
(9:25): The Impact of Mega Evolution
(13:43): The Alolan Landscape
(16:37): Gen 8 & Dynamax

[JPRPokeTrainer]

Also go check out Moxie Boosted's channel, without his help this video wouldn't have been possible!!

[axyzsz]

Zacian has 170 attack and 148 speed with 115 defenses and gets +1 attack on switch in, Calyrex has two abilities despite its 165 SpA and 150 speed. Meanwhile, Regigigas is still stuck with slow start for some reason even though it has 160 attack and 100 speed :/

[Supermateo]

My first Sword playthrough basically turned into _"How many times can I spam Pyro Ball in one battle?"_ 😭

[stupidflandrs]

JPR: "Archeops needs no introduction"

Defeatist: "Well, you're half-right"

[AzureGreatheart]

Making new things stronger than old ones is fine in the short term, but you need to keep the old things viable. Gen VIII did not keep the old things viable; it actually made some of the old things _less_ viable by taking away the boosts earlier generations gave them!

[alv]

The problem with power creep in competeitive perspective is that they do not rebalance super broken pokémon like other online competitive games tends to do. In fact, every "update" comes in the form of a 60 dollars game.

[matthaisstupidus]

Can't wait for Koraidon and Miraidon to have abilities that basically just function as dragon dance so long as they do one thing that... nah they'll probably just get it for existing, Zacian is basically that

[crylistic]

The trading card game is also heavily impacted by power creeping, at first there was like charizard and mewtwo with over 100 hp and attacks that did huge damage had drawbacks. And now, a lot of the cards have over 300 hp that you can get easily and do more than 200 with minimal drawbacks.

[choueriito]

Another thing to note with Regieleki is that its speed is broken in a very literal manner. Due to the programming in how Trick Room works, Regieleki's speed stat is at such a high level that it's immune to Trick Room if getting 2 or 3 Agilities up first.

[BoneyGaf]

I think the video would gotten the point across better if you explained how previous meta threats dropped in usage by a huge amount and how many actually held on as the generations went on.

[kalosianporygon]

It's interesting to see BW are somewhat not too easy despite a regional Pokédex loaded with good options, while XY has really good Pokémon but is piss easy, even if one believes they forgot to give stronger teams to NPCs to compensate in-game.

[ismaelswaggie]

It genuinely feels that Gen 8 is the Elephant of the room when it comes to power creep. It's bad enough that Dynamax and the 20 minute timer killed single battles in game, but the new Pokemon were only kept in check by Dynamax. If they don't get any nerfs coming in Gen 9 the meta will be an unhealthy all out offense no defense mess. And it could get worse from here.

[Slayerlord]

I would note that with Articuno specifically(since it's in the thumbnail) it's actually gotten significantly weaker since its very first implementation in japanese gen 1.

For one its special attack used to be as high as its special defence owing to the gen 1 special stat. Freeze also used to be absolutely busted in gen 1. And in the original japanese gen 1 games blizzard had a 30% chance to freeze. And of course there were no stealth rocks back then.

[c.m.]

I think the best evidence for power creep is in the starters.
The first starters were all these kind of all-rounders. Not spectacular in any stat, but not terrible either. They had their roles (like Blastoise being physically more tanky) but they didn‘t excel to an extreme.
Then, I‘d argue with the introduction of Blazakin, this changed. Gamefreak not only realized that with Fire/Fighting, they had a great type-combo (which made them spam it to death eventually…), it also was a lot more specialized in its role. Which they then out-did one gen later with Infernape. Suddenly starters weren‘t all-rounders anymore (which to me always made sense for a starter) but became a lot more powerful due to their specialization.
Which eventually ended up at the point where we are now…
With Incineroar being so damn OP at this point that it‘s barely optional in WGC anymore.
You really shouldn‘t get one of the best pkm as a starter… that seems poorly thought out.

[Ben-wuor]

yeah I thought this was just me, glad to see others agree. seems like they're "1-upping" themselves for the hell of it at this point. we do NOT need a pokemon with 200 base speed 😭😭

[jwanie]

Special Thanks to Marcos for contributing to the VGC portion of this video!

[eduardocervantes]

Surprised there was no mention of Incineroar when it got intimidate and then parting shot in Gen 8

[MidwestArtMan]

I'm replaying Ruby so I can use my favorite Pokémon, Zangoose. I never realized how busted it can get. When you catch one, it has swords dance already and then learns slash at level 19. You get a silk scarf in Dewford Town, so you can have a 70 base power attack with boosted crit chance, a STAB bonus, a silk scarf, and swords dance before the 4th gym.

[Rose-ezyn]

8:57 Metagross was neutral to Dark and Ghost, not resistant.

[turtlenator]

I do like some of the gimmicks like Mega Evolution and Dynamax, but yeah, they were nuts trying to fight it with yours down.