Pretty much this, mixed attackers are just not viable unless you have legend-tier BST to compensate, which is boring. This isn't necessarily a criticism of the split, but the current stat system. If you have something like Cacturne, it's a shitmon because all of that BST in its SpA is essentially wasted/moot, whereas minmaxed mons benefit.
I'd say it's an issue with movepools. A few types, like Rock, still heavily favor one stat over the other, but most have plenty of good moves in both categories, and as a result there's almost always coverage available in a pokemon's primary attack stat.
battles would be more dynamic if mixed attackers could be mixed attackers though. Like you're going to switch in a chansey into nidoking once it reveals a special move because you can correctly assume its running speed and special attack. So you switch out into a physical attacker, and then the opponent switches to a physical wall. But if nidoking could take advantage of its mixed stats without sacrificing the most important stat in the game (speed), then you could actually do something interesting like threaten chansey and toxapex with one moveset. Not every mon should be able to do this, but mixed attackers on paper look designed for that purpose until you realize that EVs and natures make you pick one.
Before, both Atk and SpA were important for Pokemon that wanted to have certain coverage types (Ground Coverage required high Attack, Ice Coverage required high Special Attack, etc). Now, there is no reason for Pokemon to have two attacking stats because only the higher one matters. This makes Pokemon with balanced attacking stats worthless unless they have 600+ BST or a broken ability. The split may have made everyone across the board use their STAB more effectively, but that also applies to the strongest Pokemon as well, so in pratice all it really did was rise the tide and make it easier for Game Freak to overoptimize their shillmons.
I've always been a fan of the split but these seem like the biggest criticisms of it and I don't really have any rebuttal. The mememons with "SLOW BULKY MIXED ATTACKER" statlines generally weren't ever fantastic to begin with but they became pretty much worthless following the split.
I feel like we need an item or something that helps encourage running mixed sets because there just doesn't seem to be any real reason to for the vast majority of mons.
the split didn't kill mixed attackers. Gen 4 was full of mix-attcking mons, usually wallbreakers and tanks. What killed mixed attackers was hyper streamlining stats AND giving them good buff moves for said stats that came later. Why bother running mixed stuff to break through walls and counters when you can just straight up punch through them regardless and sweep given the opportunity
The things that really got fricked over by the split were certain tanks that could no longer stop things like weezing and a few one offs who somehow got abysmal movepools like typlosion
Before, both Atk and SpA were important for Pokemon that wanted to have certain coverage types (Ground Coverage required high Attack, Ice Coverage required high Special Attack, etc). Now, there is no reason for Pokemon to have two attacking stats because only the higher one matters. This makes Pokemon with balanced attacking stats worthless unless they have 600+ BST or a broken ability. The split may have made everyone across the board use their STAB more effectively, but that also applies to the strongest Pokemon as well, so in pratice all it really did was rise the tide and make it easier for Game Freak to overoptimize their shillmons.
battles would be more dynamic if mixed attackers could be mixed attackers though. Like you're going to switch in a chansey into nidoking once it reveals a special move because you can correctly assume its running speed and special attack. So you switch out into a physical attacker, and then the opponent switches to a physical wall. But if nidoking could take advantage of its mixed stats without sacrificing the most important stat in the game (speed), then you could actually do something interesting like threaten chansey and toxapex with one moveset. Not every mon should be able to do this, but mixed attackers on paper look designed for that purpose until you realize that EVs and natures make you pick one.
Yeah, I agree. That has nothing to do with what I said. Most types have equally good moves for both Physical and Special, without strong identities setting the two apart. This means that you can almost always get strong coverage without splitting your stat investment, so mixed attackers are junk.
If types had split identities across the categories - maybe physical Fighting does more damage while special Fighting is weaker but lowers stats on hit? that sort of thing - there'd be more incentive to cross the line.
Every Gen including 9 also has mixed attackers, what's your point
min maxing and power creep killed mixed attackers. when you have fakemon 255 speed 255 attack level mons you can't afford to waste points in your useless stat.
min maxing and power creep killed mixed attackers. when you have fakemon 255 speed 255 attack level mons you can't afford to waste points in your useless stat.
Mostly what other anons have said. The split over-centralized gameplay on STAB+Coverage to a painful degree, and led to some wild decisions like >Fighting moves that are special >Psychic moves that deal physical damage but scale off SpA
It's just a lot of cops to deal with the fact that most types were designed with the idea they WOULDN'T gain coverage in the class of move they shouldn't. They didn't push far enough with abilities, and decided a core mechanic rework was a better idea. they were also cowards about splitting damage types fundamentally. For example, the elemental punches should have dealt half their damage scaled off ATT/DEF, and half scaled off SpA/SpD. This would give mixed attackers an edge, and eliminated oddball cases like Alakazam.
Biggest powercreep in the whole series. The distance between playable and unplayable Pokemon became an endless chasm. I could use any Pokemon pre-split and it felt balanced. After the split some Pokemon became unplayable because they broke the game.
The physical special split was the solution to "fixing" Fire types. Too fricking bad this could have been handled in a way simpler manner, make Fire physical and have Ghost be special to fill the spot.
The physical special split is the sole reason why mixed attackers are made fun of. It promotes boring min-max on one side. Seriously, things like Tauros were able to run fricking Blizzard
It made mixed attackers kind of bad, because most sweepers can get solid coverage on a single attack stat without having to split their EV investment.
Pretty much this, mixed attackers are just not viable unless you have legend-tier BST to compensate, which is boring. This isn't necessarily a criticism of the split, but the current stat system. If you have something like Cacturne, it's a shitmon because all of that BST in its SpA is essentially wasted/moot, whereas minmaxed mons benefit.
I'd say it's an issue with movepools. A few types, like Rock, still heavily favor one stat over the other, but most have plenty of good moves in both categories, and as a result there's almost always coverage available in a pokemon's primary attack stat.
battles would be more dynamic if mixed attackers could be mixed attackers though. Like you're going to switch in a chansey into nidoking once it reveals a special move because you can correctly assume its running speed and special attack. So you switch out into a physical attacker, and then the opponent switches to a physical wall. But if nidoking could take advantage of its mixed stats without sacrificing the most important stat in the game (speed), then you could actually do something interesting like threaten chansey and toxapex with one moveset. Not every mon should be able to do this, but mixed attackers on paper look designed for that purpose until you realize that EVs and natures make you pick one.
I've always been a fan of the split but these seem like the biggest criticisms of it and I don't really have any rebuttal. The mememons with "SLOW BULKY MIXED ATTACKER" statlines generally weren't ever fantastic to begin with but they became pretty much worthless following the split.
I feel like we need an item or something that helps encourage running mixed sets because there just doesn't seem to be any real reason to for the vast majority of mons.
the split didn't kill mixed attackers. Gen 4 was full of mix-attcking mons, usually wallbreakers and tanks. What killed mixed attackers was hyper streamlining stats AND giving them good buff moves for said stats that came later. Why bother running mixed stuff to break through walls and counters when you can just straight up punch through them regardless and sweep given the opportunity
The things that really got fricked over by the split were certain tanks that could no longer stop things like weezing and a few one offs who somehow got abysmal movepools like typlosion
> and a few one offs who somehow got abysmal movepools like typlosion
>somehow
It was intentional sabotage to stop it from overshadowing CHARIZARD
Ew the games pre split were ok. I only really miss elemental punches Alakazam.
It made Dragon-type broken for two generations straight.
i miss elemental punches being good on typhlosion
Before, both Atk and SpA were important for Pokemon that wanted to have certain coverage types (Ground Coverage required high Attack, Ice Coverage required high Special Attack, etc). Now, there is no reason for Pokemon to have two attacking stats because only the higher one matters. This makes Pokemon with balanced attacking stats worthless unless they have 600+ BST or a broken ability. The split may have made everyone across the board use their STAB more effectively, but that also applies to the strongest Pokemon as well, so in pratice all it really did was rise the tide and make it easier for Game Freak to overoptimize their shillmons.
>Now, there is no reason for Pokemon to have two attacking stats
What about single-defense mons?
What if we combined ATK and SpATK into one stat, but kept DEF and SpDEF separate?
soulless
Houndoom basically lost Crunch
the physical/special split didn't kill mixed attackers, changing stat exp into EVs did
Gen 3 OU still used mixed sets + stat XP sucks
Yeah, I agree. That has nothing to do with what I said. Most types have equally good moves for both Physical and Special, without strong identities setting the two apart. This means that you can almost always get strong coverage without splitting your stat investment, so mixed attackers are junk.
If types had split identities across the categories - maybe physical Fighting does more damage while special Fighting is weaker but lowers stats on hit? that sort of thing - there'd be more incentive to cross the line.
Every Gen including 9 also has mixed attackers, what's your point
>min maxing
what do you think natures and EVs are
min maxing and power creep killed mixed attackers. when you have fakemon 255 speed 255 attack level mons you can't afford to waste points in your useless stat.
Mostly what other anons have said. The split over-centralized gameplay on STAB+Coverage to a painful degree, and led to some wild decisions like
>Fighting moves that are special
>Psychic moves that deal physical damage but scale off SpA
It's just a lot of cops to deal with the fact that most types were designed with the idea they WOULDN'T gain coverage in the class of move they shouldn't. They didn't push far enough with abilities, and decided a core mechanic rework was a better idea. they were also cowards about splitting damage types fundamentally. For example, the elemental punches should have dealt half their damage scaled off ATT/DEF, and half scaled off SpA/SpD. This would give mixed attackers an edge, and eliminated oddball cases like Alakazam.
nothing bad
Biggest powercreep in the whole series. The distance between playable and unplayable Pokemon became an endless chasm. I could use any Pokemon pre-split and it felt balanced. After the split some Pokemon became unplayable because they broke the game.
Alakazam lost its Avatarism
Alakazam was ruined the moment they removed its pentagram and gave it Kadabra
The physical special split was the solution to "fixing" Fire types. Too fricking bad this could have been handled in a way simpler manner, make Fire physical and have Ghost be special to fill the spot.
The physical special split is the sole reason why mixed attackers are made fun of. It promotes boring min-max on one side. Seriously, things like Tauros were able to run fricking Blizzard
Sceptile went from a cool Leaf Blade-using lizard to spamming fricking Energy Ball and Leaf Storm.
Removed all the strategy that was in the game by making every pokemon naturally viable.
The only real one is them not rebalancing the mons it fricked over.