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Idea to fix the nuclear type
#1
Most of you know me as a competitive player so I'll cut straight to the chase. Uranium'smeta is a strange one because it involves nuclear pokemon. These pokemon are the gimmick of the game but as we of the competitive community have discussed, the typing is a bit borked. 

Nuclear is super effective against everything but steel, and every is super effective against it. As has been talked to death, this esentially means a nuclear pokemon's speed stat is the only important stat it can have: anything it can outspeed, it can kill. Anything that outspeeds it will kill it in turn. 

This leads to rather polarizing tiering for nuclears. Some of them are so good they break the game (Nucleon) wheras others are barely even playable (Hazmat).

I would like to suggest a changing to the nuclear typing in order to balance it out. I realize this has been done before, but please hear me out. 

Now previously in pokemon, there was a actually a similar situation to the nuclear typing: Shadow Pokemon. My first suggestion is to impliment what nintendo did to the Shadow type to the Nuclear type: insert a script that makes all nuclear moves super effective, but ONLY super effective. This means that nuclear attacks deal 2x damage at max, and none of this 4x supereffectiveness that is omnipresent in the game. 

EG: Proton Beam against Yatagaryu = 2x damage instead of 4x. 

Alternatively, make nuclear attacks supereffective against half of the 18 types but nothing resists it. This would balance out what pokemon can tank nuclear attacks, perhaps even more so than mu previous suggestion.

My second suggestion, in order to make the nuclear typing less reliant on speed, is to rework its defensive nature. I propose that the nuclear typing has no resistances and has around 5-7 weaknesses, letting nuclear pokemon be at least a little better defensively. 

With these two changes, the nuclear typing will be far less reliant on speed, the meta will be far less polarizing to them, and things will actually stand a chance against Nucleon. 

Feel free to leave any comments.

#Makenuclearsgreatagain
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#2
@Cataclyptic This may surprise you but I'm actually fine with the way things are for the Nuclear typing.

As you said it, it is the gimmick of the game and that's what it was always meant to be. I've made my peace with that. If the original devs wanted to create a new typing that's fair and balanced, they would have made Sound or Light or whatever and I'm sure they would have given it balanced sensibilities. But that's not what it is, Nuclear only exists because of thematical reasons. What you suggest would certainly nerf their power (and trust me, there's nothing I'd like more than balance in this meta) but I'm not sure it would make a lot of sense for the Tandor region to be afraid of Nuclear pokemon if they weren't that dangerous. Kinda defeats the original purpose.

Now as far Nuclear-type pokemon themselves are concerned, the only one I see online in competitive play is Nucleon. I've never even encountered the other ones once. There are a few reasons :

1) It is one of the fastest of Nuclear-types out there.
2) The Atomizate ability is its ultimate niche.
3) It is one of the only Nuclear-types that you can breed, the other ones being Hazma, the Xenomite line and Geigeroach.

1) You said it, Speed is everything for a Nuclear 'mon. Since almost every one of them has average Speed at best, they're likely to get outsped by every relevant threat in the meta. Their only option is to boost their Speed somehow. Nucleon does this by holding a Choice Scarf, others would perhaps rather hold another item (Gyaradosite, Baariettite, Toxic Orb for Gliscor, Life Orb for Gellin, etc). Setting up with Agility or Rock Polish in Kinetmunk's and Gliscor's case, respectively, is suicidal, given that they're weak to pretty much every attack.
2) What else can Nuclear formes provide to the original? Certainly not resistances, no other fancy abilities... Sure, Nuclear moves grant universal coverage but, not every Nuclear-type has as spammable a stab as Nucleon. Besides, N-Gyarados, N-Eshouten, N-Arbok don't even get a physical Nuclear stab.

3) What else is there to say? Why use a pokemon whose IV you have no control over, and whose nature you have to Synchronize-hunt?

These three reasons are what I think rule out Nuclear pokemon other than Nucleon in a competitive team.
Now if there's something that deserves to be balanced in the game, I don't think that that's the sensibilities to Nuclear. Rather the statistics of the pokemon, which are far too extreme in my opinion.
I wish there were some kind of kind of smogon-like ruling authority for Pokemon Uranium, that way we could submit proposals concerning tiers and possible bans on Pokemon/Abilities/Item/Moves. I know I would want to ban Atomizate, 'cause that's what needs to be nerfed, not your average Nuclear Trawpint.

Let's make this happen. o/
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#3
My suggestion for balancing the Nuclear type is essentially redefine what its strong and weak towards, while at the same time toning down on their reliance on power and speed outright. While I love the fact that these radioactive beasts are terrifyingly powerful now, I desire balancing them out for and against other types so that they are not outright stomping on most of the dex, and vice versa.

-I would make Ghost, Steel, Water resistent to the type, as radiation main corrupting effect shouldn't overly bother the dead, metal, and what has been termed nature's energy sink.

-I would make Electric, Fire, Dragon, and Bug types neutral to the type (It would take neutral damage from Fire and Electric too), as Fire and Electricity are just another form of energy like Nuclear, Dragons have enough problems with the resident Fairy types making their lives hell, and Bugs are ever adating and evolving creatures that could change with the mutating effects of the corrupting power.

-Rock types, however, I would make Immune to Nuclear types, as having a valuable trait like that can make them premier counters to the types, turn them into less of a liability for their other weakness, and its more or less fits scientifically speaking: Hard Rock and Mineral desposits can contain radioactive material safely until the ground itself or us pesky humans decide to crack them open and release those toxic content the world over.

-For the Nuclear types own resistences, I would give it resistences to Fairy types, Grass type, and Ground types, and magical creatures connect to Nature itself and...well, nature itself would hardly make a dent in the all destructive and corrupting POWER!

-Besides that, I would implement Cataclyptic's suggestion to just make Nuclear moves do only 2X damage at most to not make them overwhelming powers (But still mighty none of the less), but make it 4X effective while reducing its weakness in Nuclear Fallout weather.

-I'd also remove the hidden bonus that Atomizate, as without that and Hyper Voice only be 2X effective without weather if all of the above balances are implemented, the Green Demon is no where near as effective, especially the opposing person has a Rock type to switch in to CS Hyper Voices.

-Finally, I would actually make a facility like in Sun and Moon that would allow you to max out the IVs of corrupted Nuc mons, as since you can't breed them you might as well offer an alternative to make them competitively viable (Or just make the breedable at a special facility and cut the knot right there).

That is the way I would 'fix' the Nuclear type, but as it stands the dev team seems to be just fine with it as is, so unless we get enough people demanding these sort of changes, our arguments are likely going to be ignored/disregarded.
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#4
Even if I somewhat doubt that Nuclear Type will be balanced and altered drastically - I'm very fine with keeping it as gimmick, but not being a competitive player surely adds a lot to that - it's interesting to read people's ideas how it could be balanced.
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#5
(09-24-2017, 11:15 AM)shademonkey Wrote: I'm not sure it would make a lot of sense for the Tandor region to be afraid of Nuclear pokemon if they weren't that dangerous. Kinda defeats the original purpose.

The thing is though, they really aren't. As you mention in a few lines down, the only one that's really dangerous is Nucleon- the rest are easy to outspeed and OHKO. In game, you can beat most nuclears pretty easily. But speaking in terms of theming, the game already tells you how and why the nuclears are dangerous (EG: you can't run away from them in a battle) so I don't think it would change much thematically.


(09-24-2017, 11:15 AM)shademonkey Wrote: Now as far Nuclear-type pokemon themselves are concerned, the only one I see online in competitive play is Nucleon. I've never even encountered the other ones once.

And this is why I say the type is unbalanced. Not overpowered, but unbalanced. It's either the king of the entire meta or so worthless it can't be used. Yes Atomizate definitely helps, but many nuclear moves are good in theory if they had better (read: faster) users. Any of my suggestions would make all the nuclear pokemon fall under a more normalized tiering system, where there are good ones, slightly better ones, slightly worse ones and the like.

I do agree though that you have a point in that it is hard to get good IV's for the corrupted nuclear pokemon, but the fact remains that nuclear rypes are allowed in play, so I'm just trying my best to balance a few issues.


Also, agreed in that the stats for the dex as a whole are too extreme- too many fast attackers and hardly enough walls (especially with the nuclear type being allowed). The game is extremely offense based, that's for sure.

@LordWindos , that could be one thing. Mostly all I want is to change the typing effectiveness to cap at 2x, as in Colloseum and XD.
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#6
I totally agree with most of the sentiments expressed in here. I find it very disappointing that the vast majority of nuclear type Pokemon are unviable in standard online/competitive play. The most prominent nuclear type in the meta is Nucleon, due to the reasons stated above by shademonkey. However, as seen in other forum posts, the competitive community feels the need to quick ban other nuclear type users, particularly:

1) Urayne (due to its high base speed of 102)
2) Raffiti (due to its ability, Quick Feet, and access to Shell Smash in conjuction with Nuclear type moves)
3) Jerbolta-N (due to its high base speed of 110 and its ability, Quick Charge)

All of these Pokemon have two things in common: access to Nuclear type moves and a high Speed stat/means to boost speed. There does not seem to be any middle ground for the Nuclear type as a whole: any Nuclear not fast enough is relegated to obscurity and any Nuclear that meets the appropriate benchmark for speed is suddenly Ubers material. This begs the question of what a UU tier would look like in competitive Uranium; I have come to the conclusion that any Nuclear type at the top of the speed cap for the UU tier would also be deemed "overpowered" as well as "uncounterable" and would also face the banhammer like Nucleon & company. In addition, what exactly would prevent Pajay/Harptera/Whimsicott from setting up with Tailwind and allowing one of the "lesser" nuclears to start a sweep against the entire UU tier? The nuclear type just isn't healthy for the meta the way it is. At the very least, I am on board with capping damage done by nuclear moves at 2X and making any Pokemon with a Steel/Nuclear type take 0.5X damage from nuclear type moves, so that they can serve a decent chance at being counters.
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#7
(05-14-2019, 03:11 PM)Andyv2 Wrote:

Well, you're commenting on quite the old thread here.  But since you are...well, let me point out another reason that Shadow Moves aren't nearly as scary as Nuclear moves.

In addition to Shadow moves only being able to score 2x SE damage in XD, no pokemon can get STAB on them.  That also plays a very important part in mitigating how much damage the moves can deal.  Combine both prior facts with how readily available decent Shadow Pokemon are, giving the player access to many options for resisting/tanking Shadow type damage, and the type doesn't seem as daunting to face in the long run.

Nuclear has no such handicaps, likely as a way to differentiate it from the Shadow Pokemon in XD.

And I'm honestly fine with that.  It mechanically supplements the in-game story, and it does a fantastic job of driving home the point of how dangerous Nuclear types are.

While I don't need to elaborate on how hard they are to balance from a competitive standpoint (we've beaten that topic to death and then some), I do agree with Shade that they don't need to be changed.

I also agree with Shade that the statistics of some of the pokemon in this game are rather extreme, but I don't think they necessarily need to be altered drastically, either.  As nice as having everything perfectly balanced would be, that's not typically the foremost thought when pokemon are usually designed.  Twitch and JV had some ideas and wanted to run with them, and this is what we got (minus nerfed Dramsama, which is a decision I both do and don't agree with).

A tiering system is one method used to make a competitive environment feel more balanced (and possibly more fun as well.)  And if things have to be banned from a certain tier to make things more fair, than that's what that kind of system can do.

If the Nuclear type proves to be too much for the competitive meta as a whole, then the simplest answer would be to be to ban usage of the type and separate it into two metas: One where Nuclear types are allowed, and one where they aren't.

That's only in concept, though.  In practice, only a few Nuclear types are actually relevant due to the difficulty of getting the majority of them competitive ready at all.  And that's where usage based statistics come in if possible.
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#8
(05-15-2019, 12:21 PM)Dragonstrike Wrote:
(05-14-2019, 03:11 PM)Andyv2 Wrote:

Well, you're commenting on quite the old thread here.  But since you are...well, let me point out another reason that Shadow Moves aren't nearly as scary as Nuclear moves.

In addition to Shadow moves only being able to score 2x SE damage in XD, no pokemon can get STAB on them.  That also plays a very important part in mitigating how much damage the moves can deal.  Combine both prior facts with how readily available decent Shadow Pokemon are, giving the player access to many options for resisting/tanking Shadow type damage, and the type doesn't seem as daunting to face in the long run.

Nuclear has no such handicaps, likely as a way to differentiate it from the Shadow Pokemon in XD.

And I'm honestly fine with that.  It mechanically supplements the in-game story, and it does a fantastic job of driving home the point of how dangerous Nuclear types are.

While I don't need to elaborate on how hard they are to balance from a competitive standpoint (we've beaten that topic to death and then some), I do agree with Shade that they don't need to be changed.

I also agree with Shade that the statistics of some of the pokemon in this game are rather extreme, but I don't think they necessarily need to be altered drastically, either.  As nice as having everything perfectly balanced would be, that's not typically the foremost thought when pokemon are usually designed.  Twitch and JV had some ideas and wanted to run with them, and this is what we got (minus nerfed Dramsama, which is a decision I both do and don't agree with).

A tiering system is one method used to make a competitive environment feel more balanced (and possibly more fun as well.)  And if things have to be banned from a certain tier to make things more fair, than that's what that kind of system can do.

If the Nuclear type proves to be too much for the competitive meta as a whole, then the simplest answer would be to be to ban usage of the type and separate it into two metas: One where Nuclear types are allowed, and one where they aren't.

That's only in concept, though.  In practice, only a few Nuclear types are actually relevant due to the difficulty of getting the majority of them competitive ready at all.  And that's where usage based statistics come in if possible.

An in-game nerf to the type as a whole does seem rather extreme when you put it that way. I am also perfectly fine with playing a meta where no nuclear types are allowed at all. With regards to the one where they are allowed, it seems as if all the good ones are doomed to receive the ban hammer and then both metas will be functionally identical. Then, what would be the point of having separate metas? I think it would probably be best to follow a Smogon-like example and ban the type as a whole to Ubers, avoiding complexity in the process.
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#9
(05-15-2019, 02:00 PM)Andyv2 Wrote: An in-game nerf to the type as a whole does seem rather extreme when you put it that way. I am also perfectly fine with playing a meta where no nuclear types are allowed at all. With regards to the one where they are allowed, it seems as if all the good ones are doomed to receive the ban hammer and then both metas will be functionally identical. Then, what would be the point of having separate metas? I think it would probably be best to follow a Smogon-like example and ban the type as a whole to Ubers, avoiding complexity in the process.

Yeah, that's another possible way to do it too.  However, the problem with that is not all Nuclear types are busted to the point of being uncounterable.  Nuclear Kinetmunk, for example.  The only Nuclear attack it gets is the underwhelming Gamma Ray, which isn't going to be OHKOing much of anything with Kinetmunk's stats (75 Sp Atk is kinda eh).

For now, I do agree that following a Smogon-like process and avoiding complex bans when possible would be an effective plan.  Banning the type as a whole might be a bit extreme, though.

In any case, this isn't a question that's likely to be fully answered today.  Until the Battle Sim is fully updated with the new stuff unique to Uranium (and it's all properly functional), there's not a whole lot that can be done about creating official tier lists.  All we have for the time being is baseline tiers based mostly on speculation and the statistics of every pokemon.
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#10
(05-15-2019, 03:41 PM)Dragonstrike Wrote:
(05-15-2019, 02:00 PM)Andyv2 Wrote: An in-game nerf to the type as a whole does seem rather extreme when you put it that way. I am also perfectly fine with playing a meta where no nuclear types are allowed at all. With regards to the one where they are allowed, it seems as if all the good ones are doomed to receive the ban hammer and then both metas will be functionally identical. Then, what would be the point of having separate metas? I think it would probably be best to follow a Smogon-like example and ban the type as a whole to Ubers, avoiding complexity in the process.

Yeah, that's another possible way to do it too.  However, the problem with that is not all Nuclear types are busted to the point of being uncounterable.  Nuclear Kinetmunk, for example.  The only Nuclear attack it gets is the underwhelming Gamma Ray, which isn't going to be OHKOing much of anything with Kinetmunk's stats (75 Sp Atk is kinda eh).

For now, I do agree that following a Smogon-like process and avoiding complex bans when possible would be an effective plan.  Banning the type as a whole might be a bit extreme, though.

In any case, this isn't a question that's likely to be fully answered today.  Until the Battle Sim is fully updated with the new stuff unique to Uranium (and it's all properly functional), there's not a whole lot that can be done about creating official tier lists.  All we have for the time being is baseline tiers based mostly on speculation and the statistics of every pokemon.

Having 4X supereffective damage on greater than 50% of the Pokedex is definitely broken. I think the best way to think about this is just like thinking about the Baton Pass ban in Sun and Moon OU. One of the arguments against banning Baton Pass was that some Pokemon have sets that would benefit from "dry passing". However, the Pokemon which this applied to were very irrelevant in the meta and preserving Baton Pass while disallowing stat passing was ultimately decided against.

My point is that Baton Pass was banned on the basis of having broken aspects (the passing of all accumulated stat boosts to strong abusers who would otherwise not be busted without it), despite its ability to be used in certain situations without being broken. The Nuclear type, by definition, has a broken aspect, which is that of having 4X supereffective damage against the entire Pokedex. >50% of the Pokedex is oneshot by any STAB Nuclear type move of reasonable power, another large chunk cannot counter the type due to dying in 2 hits or less. Not banning the Nuclear type on the basis of preserving meta-irrelevant Kinetmunk and Gamma Ray (both mediocre Pokemon and moves) is unreasonable. It doesn't matter either that nuclear is bad as a defensive type, since the discussion is focused on countering the type, which means being able to switch in multiple times on the type's STAB moves, since they will almost always switch out if they are slower than the opponent.

In conclusion, the type, by its design itself, is busted, or at least threatens the idea of countering in the comp scene, which should make people feel very uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong; I would still be interested in having two metas: one with and one without the nuclear type. However, I sincerely hope that they aren't so ban-heavy on specific Pokemon in the meta where the Nuclear type is allowed, to the point where it looks and functions identically to the meta not containing nuclear types.
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