Was the physical/special split a good thing? It really only seems to benefit attackers.
Was the physical/special split a good thing? It really only seems to benefit attackers
Michael Rivera
Tyler Torres
>Was the physical/special split a good thing?
Yes
Jonathan Reed
Was the. Spe. Attack and Spe. Def. split a good thing? It really only seems to fucking suck.
Adrian Richardson
It was a lateral change. Some Pokémon can use their STAB better but now Pokémon having two attacking stats is pointless. Before Pokémon needed Atk and SpA for coverage ( ground coverage required high attack, Fire coverage required high special attack) but now there is no reason for Pokémon to not just double down on their higher attack stat. Of course this is less an issue with the split and more of a problem with Movepool privilege screwing over certain Pokémon to make Kanto Pokémon look better.
Hudson Roberts
>Blissey hard countering half of the Pokemon is….good! IT’S JUST GOOD OKAY!
Dylan Rivera
Just switch to a physical attacker or get fucking filtered
William Barnes
Isn't that still the case though?
Elijah Lewis
I'd say overall yeah, both from the perspective of the game's setting and gameplay wise.
Setting wise, it feels weird when something like a punch or melee attack of some kind from the Pokemon is dealing special damage instead of physical damage.
Gameplay wise it gives more control to the developer in terms of how Pokemon stat spread and move set will interact with each other. You aren't forced to just by default punish a Pokemon of a particular type for not being strong in the corresponding stat. They can still indirectly do that by giving them a bad movepool, but not getting forced by the core mechanics of the game isn't really a bad thing.
Sebastian Thomas
For the most part, yes. It was fucking stupid how certain moves like the elemental punches did special damage despite being physical attacks and other moves like Shadow Ball did physical damage despite being non-physical attacks.
Some 'mons like Sceptile may have been screwed over by the split, but I'd still rather have the split than go back to the retarded pre-split system that Gens 1-3 had.
Christopher Ramirez
>It really only seems to benefit attackers.
so what's the problem? you're not a stallcuck, are you?
Owen Nguyen
They should give blissey fairy type too to make niggas seethe
Connor Rivera
>It really only seems to benefit attackers.
Not really IMO. Some Pokemon were more incentivized to just purely invest in their one stronger attacking stat as a result of the split, but that just means specialized defensive Pokemon can wall them easier now.
Maybe you'll have some Pokemon running an odd Physical Attack in their set just to kill Blissey or whatever, but that kind of just takes it back to how it was before the split.
Hudson Sanders
Absolutely.
Ian Edwards
it was fine, choice scarf was the real sin of gen 4
Jordan Hughes
>Fucks with the balance of pokemon
>Makes some better, most worse
>Only benefits Pokemon that have hyper specialized stats that dumps their other attack stat
>Ruined Hidden Power by making it special attack only, hurting the moveset potential for physical attackers
Bentley Stewart
>Fucks with the balance of pokemon
It improved the balance. Yes, it "fucked with" the balance, but so does literally anything you can do. Fixing the bugs in Gen 1 would've fucked with the balance since Normal-types could be paralyzed by Body Slam, for example.
>Makes some better, most worse
Most Pokemon improved from the Phys/Spec split. There are only a handful of examples of Pokemon that got worse. Yes, a lot of older Pokemon dropped down a tier or two in Gen 4, but that's largely because Gen 4 was full of power creep with new items like Choice Specs, Life Orb, and the weather rocks as well as strong attacks for types that previously had no good moves, like Close Combat for Fighting and Brave Bird for Flying.
>Only benefits Pokemon that have hyper specialized stats that dumps their other attack stat
It benefits any Pokemon with a dominant attacking stat that wasn't good for their type. Physical Water-types like Kingler, Feraligatr, and Kabutops, special Ghost-types like Gengar, Misdreavus, and Mismagius, and physical Dark-types like Absol, Tyranitar, and Sneasal all got improved by the change.
Also, slow, frail mixed attackers were always a dumb concept. Always have been, and always will be.
>Ruined Hidden Power by making it special attack only, hurting the moveset potential for physical attackers
It actually improved Hidden Power since now special attackers had beneficial coverage moves that they couldn't otherwise use. Hidden Power Fighting, Ground, and Flying are great coverage options for weaker special attackers
Dominic Butler
>Was the physical/special split a good thing?
Yes.
>It really only seems to benefit attackers.
Yes.
Isaiah Sullivan
>>Ruined Hidden Power by making it special attack only, hurting the moveset potential for physical attackers
I half agree with this.
On one hand, the change screwed over physical attackers, but on the other hand, it helped special attackers.
I think a better option would've been to just give HP a physical counterpart.
Ethan Phillips
That too, but it's too late now. Game Freak decided to just completely fuck balance and remove it entirely. No physical or special option because then Pokemon would've had access to DMax moves that GF didn't want them to have. We lost one of the most important moves in the game because GF wanted to add a shitty giantess fetish.
Jeremiah Gray
>Gameplay wise it gives more control to the developer in terms of how Pokemon stat spread and move set will interact with each other
Yes but now for the devs to make half decent defensive mons they need to have both of their defenses cranked up to 100+ to account for that. Like Aggron had lopsided defenses but it was hard for special attackers to properly exploit them due to the nature of its typing. Now any mon running focus blast can hit it for 300% without even trying.
Juan Johnson
It could've and should've been executed so much better.
Luke Sullivan
Fucking this. It used to be worth it to run mixed sets purely for the coverage back then, even if you weren't a mixed attacker, so the offensive power was just generally lower too. Nowadays everything has access to at least 1 spammable stab attack that matches their strongest attack stat, sometimes reaching as high as 120 power.