Hey all, I was wondering about the balance of lower BST mons vs higher.
I understand that Pokemon with a BST > 550 are objectively better and take a level nerf to help balance the stats. However, I find the converse does not always hold true.
For example, sunflora is one pokemon that I think is burned a lot in random battles. Especially since its only gimmick (from my time playing on ladder) is running Choice Specs, Tera Fire with some array of special moves including solar beam, earth power, etc.
A despite the level boost AND the potential damage boost that a choice item gives. It is still severely limited by the especially low speed...considering that most mons are going to outspeed, outclass, etc, before sunflora even gets a chance to do anything.
It is objectively bad to claim there is balance when many pokemon (especially legendaries) are 20-30 levels lower with move freedom, and still hit harder and faster before your "buffed" flower gets a chance to breathe.
My only requested solution would be to add to the algorithm limiting weaker mons to higher up the ladder. I don't know if that is possible to implement a mild restriction of ELO > 1400, where objectively worse mons start to enter your random pool.
OOOOOOOOr alternatively, making legendaries lose a move entirely? (although that seems busted, but one idea would be minmaxing what is broken on those pokemon with much greater BSTs (ie., a choice item, but with a setup move to remove a slot).
It has been too many that I've been burned by choice specs sunflora on low ladder...and getting outclassed in randoms with my opponent for some reason getting two legendaries with lefties...and my poor flower is locked, and its easier to just let it faint, than "save it" for a better switch-in.
I hope I made my case, and I'm open to discussion about alternatives about how to either critically balance weaker mons so that they may keep up with the debuffed but still crazy strong mons.