We have all been in a situation where a critical hit cost us the game, so there's little reason in elaborating much beyond this acknowledgement of it. However, should something be done about crits?
"Yes!" Cry some. "Crits need no skill to achieve, and add too much luck to an already luck-heavy game!"
"No!" Retort others. "We've already added so many rules, even experienced players need help getting into competetive play!"
Clearly, the debate is a difficult one to compromise on. I don't claim to have the answers to this, but this is indeed a forum for discussing the mechanics of battling, so I'm simply pitching in on what I, personally, think could be done to ease the headaches critical hits have caused us all in the past.
Let's look closely at what a critical hit does in depth, courtesy of serebii.net:
"Critical Hits increase the damage to be given by a further 100% making it 200% of normal. This calculation is placed after the Type Effectiveness and STAB is calculated, causing even more of an increase in power. There is however a way of increasing it by a further 100% making it 300% of normal. This is done only with Pokémon that have the ability Sniper"
Right off the bat, this is enough to break the match. If, say for example, a Dragonite uses Outrage and kills Skarmory with a crit instead of Skarmory surviving and roosting health back, Dragonite can potentially sweep the rest of its' opponents' team.
Another thing that Serebii doesn't mention, however, is that critical hits also ignore all stat boosts and damage penalties, including burns, reflect/light screen, and weather. This means that even if a Skarmory is at +6 defense, a crit from a banded Terrakion would ruin it and negate all the setup that went into getting those stats.
Even somebody who barely plays Pokemon could tell you this is a game breaker. Unfortunately, to the ire and frustration of Pokemon fans everywhere, this power is not restricted to a supreme legendary Pokemon, or a particular move (with 2 exceptions, which we'll discuss later). It's a power granted to each and every attack in the game. As if by some miracle, a critical hit will happen a % of the time on every attack. This % is based upon numerous factors.
First off, Pokemon with protective abilities such as Shell/Battle Armor are immune to critical hits. Immunity can temporarily be granted through the move Lucky Chant.
Critical hits happen based on the % of the stage the attack used is in.
The move Focus Energy raises all attacks' critical hit ratio stage by 1, but can only be used once
Pokemon holding a Razor Claw or a Scope Lens have all attacks raised 1 stage
Chansey holding a Lucky Punch or Farfetch'd holding a Stick have all attacks raised 2 stages
Pokemon with the Super Luck ability have all attacks' stages doubled (1 = 2, 2 = 4)
Stage 1: 6.25 - Most attacks in the game start at this stage
Stage 2: 12.5 - High critical hit ratio attacks, such as Stone Edge and Night Slash
Stage 3: 25 - High crit ratio, scope lens/focus energy
Stage 4: 33.3 - Farfetch'd w/ Stick + high crit ratio / Super Luck + High Crit ratio
Stage 5: 50 - Super luck, Scope lens, high crit ratio
Stage 6: N/A - Perhaps intentionally, this is impossible because no Pokemon has the required combination of factors to go beyond stage 5. With the exception of...
Stage 7: 100 - While not technically a 'stage' the attacks Storm Throw and Frost Breath always critically hit unless the target is protected by abilities or Lucky Chant
With all the mechanics in mind, it's undoubtable that critical hits hold a certain niche in pokemon. They allow attacks to pierce normally resilient defences and score KOs. Not only does the doubled (or tripled) damage help, but by ignoring damage effects like reflects, one can completely smash dedicated setup strategies through sheer luck.
Those two words right there are what give crits their notorious ability to frustrate players to the point of everywhere: Sheer Luck
Now, Smogon is recognised by the competetive battling community to be the central authority behind the rules of competetive play. The bans Smogon has introduced have been primarily for two reasons:
- To give the more skilled player the advantage by removing excessively unfair or luck based strategy
- To give every pokemon an environment where they can compete viably
To illustrate the first point, the use of evasion boosting moves (except for ubers) and instant kill attacks has been banned. Why is that?
Well, in the case of the OHKO clause, I'll quote Firestorm directly from the clause voting thread from the start of Gen V: (http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/vote-ohko-clause.81486/)
"...we're pushing competitive battling, meaning that the best players should win. Without OHKO clause, the good players will lose to the most random noobs running fissure. The chances of it working aren't high but if we are pushing competitive pokemon where players are supposed to benefit (through wins) from their knowledge and understanding of the game, why would we include such an equalizer when it's so easy to take away."
As for the case of the evasion boosting moves, they were originally banned from all tiers across all generations, but were recently permitted in the Ubers tier. This is mainly because, due to the extreme levels of power permitted in the ubers tier, relying on luck has become a high risk, high reward strategy; one miss could win you the game, one hit and you lose. Because of the nature of ubers, this has been seen as fair.
But getting back to the reasoning behind these bans; Sheer Luck
The luck factor behind critical hits is far more annoying than that of min/max damage, or hit chances. With those two factors, they are somewhat within your control: EV training can increase min damage to the levels you need and the hit chances are based on the moves you choose. Critical hits are simply a constant concern.
However.
Critical hits are too useful to remove entirely. Why?
Consider the strategy of boosting defenses, just like how sweepers use moves like Swords Dance or Nasty Plot to increase their sweeping potential. If a Skarmory were to boost up to +6 with Iron Defense, it would be an nearly unbreakable physical wall. However, a random crit completely negates your strategy. This means that, were the situation the same 100 times over, mathematically speaking, 6.25% of those battles will turn out differently based on no input from either player whatsoever. Thus, defensive boosting strategies are inherently unreliable. This shifts the metagame more towards offensive strategies, which is bad for players who would prefer a more defensive approach.
Now, say critical hits were banned. All of a sudden, defensive boosters would be much more powerful. At +6, most Pokemon can easily take even super-effective hits, and sweeping could be a safer process. However, breaking boosted defenses could be near impossible without Roar, Whirlwind, Circle Throw or Dragon Tail, moves that are rarely carried by more than one team member.
After all that has been said, the question still lingers: What can be done?
Personally, I believe the biggest reason critical hits upset players is their ubiquity: Almost any attack can critically hit and change the match. Therefore, I propose that all moves have their critical hit ratio Stage lowered by 1. What this would do is remove crits from all moves and Pokemon without abilities that are not specifically geared towards them. If you want to be able to critically hit, you need to run high ratio moves, items, or abilities. This could be implemented through the coding for Pokemon Showdown. Perhaps a suspect test server similar for Pokemon banning could be written, and the decision can be made by the highest laddered of the server
While I create this thread with the knowledge that the critical hit ground has been trodden on many times before, I hope that this thread and my input to the forum can create a positive change for the game.
"Yes!" Cry some. "Crits need no skill to achieve, and add too much luck to an already luck-heavy game!"
"No!" Retort others. "We've already added so many rules, even experienced players need help getting into competetive play!"
Clearly, the debate is a difficult one to compromise on. I don't claim to have the answers to this, but this is indeed a forum for discussing the mechanics of battling, so I'm simply pitching in on what I, personally, think could be done to ease the headaches critical hits have caused us all in the past.
Let's look closely at what a critical hit does in depth, courtesy of serebii.net:
"Critical Hits increase the damage to be given by a further 100% making it 200% of normal. This calculation is placed after the Type Effectiveness and STAB is calculated, causing even more of an increase in power. There is however a way of increasing it by a further 100% making it 300% of normal. This is done only with Pokémon that have the ability Sniper"
Right off the bat, this is enough to break the match. If, say for example, a Dragonite uses Outrage and kills Skarmory with a crit instead of Skarmory surviving and roosting health back, Dragonite can potentially sweep the rest of its' opponents' team.
Another thing that Serebii doesn't mention, however, is that critical hits also ignore all stat boosts and damage penalties, including burns, reflect/light screen, and weather. This means that even if a Skarmory is at +6 defense, a crit from a banded Terrakion would ruin it and negate all the setup that went into getting those stats.
Even somebody who barely plays Pokemon could tell you this is a game breaker. Unfortunately, to the ire and frustration of Pokemon fans everywhere, this power is not restricted to a supreme legendary Pokemon, or a particular move (with 2 exceptions, which we'll discuss later). It's a power granted to each and every attack in the game. As if by some miracle, a critical hit will happen a % of the time on every attack. This % is based upon numerous factors.
First off, Pokemon with protective abilities such as Shell/Battle Armor are immune to critical hits. Immunity can temporarily be granted through the move Lucky Chant.
Critical hits happen based on the % of the stage the attack used is in.
The move Focus Energy raises all attacks' critical hit ratio stage by 1, but can only be used once
Pokemon holding a Razor Claw or a Scope Lens have all attacks raised 1 stage
Chansey holding a Lucky Punch or Farfetch'd holding a Stick have all attacks raised 2 stages
Pokemon with the Super Luck ability have all attacks' stages doubled (1 = 2, 2 = 4)
Stage 1: 6.25 - Most attacks in the game start at this stage
Stage 2: 12.5 - High critical hit ratio attacks, such as Stone Edge and Night Slash
Stage 3: 25 - High crit ratio, scope lens/focus energy
Stage 4: 33.3 - Farfetch'd w/ Stick + high crit ratio / Super Luck + High Crit ratio
Stage 5: 50 - Super luck, Scope lens, high crit ratio
Stage 6: N/A - Perhaps intentionally, this is impossible because no Pokemon has the required combination of factors to go beyond stage 5. With the exception of...
Stage 7: 100 - While not technically a 'stage' the attacks Storm Throw and Frost Breath always critically hit unless the target is protected by abilities or Lucky Chant
With all the mechanics in mind, it's undoubtable that critical hits hold a certain niche in pokemon. They allow attacks to pierce normally resilient defences and score KOs. Not only does the doubled (or tripled) damage help, but by ignoring damage effects like reflects, one can completely smash dedicated setup strategies through sheer luck.
Those two words right there are what give crits their notorious ability to frustrate players to the point of everywhere: Sheer Luck
Now, Smogon is recognised by the competetive battling community to be the central authority behind the rules of competetive play. The bans Smogon has introduced have been primarily for two reasons:
- To give the more skilled player the advantage by removing excessively unfair or luck based strategy
- To give every pokemon an environment where they can compete viably
To illustrate the first point, the use of evasion boosting moves (except for ubers) and instant kill attacks has been banned. Why is that?
Well, in the case of the OHKO clause, I'll quote Firestorm directly from the clause voting thread from the start of Gen V: (http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/vote-ohko-clause.81486/)
"...we're pushing competitive battling, meaning that the best players should win. Without OHKO clause, the good players will lose to the most random noobs running fissure. The chances of it working aren't high but if we are pushing competitive pokemon where players are supposed to benefit (through wins) from their knowledge and understanding of the game, why would we include such an equalizer when it's so easy to take away."
As for the case of the evasion boosting moves, they were originally banned from all tiers across all generations, but were recently permitted in the Ubers tier. This is mainly because, due to the extreme levels of power permitted in the ubers tier, relying on luck has become a high risk, high reward strategy; one miss could win you the game, one hit and you lose. Because of the nature of ubers, this has been seen as fair.
But getting back to the reasoning behind these bans; Sheer Luck
The luck factor behind critical hits is far more annoying than that of min/max damage, or hit chances. With those two factors, they are somewhat within your control: EV training can increase min damage to the levels you need and the hit chances are based on the moves you choose. Critical hits are simply a constant concern.
However.
Critical hits are too useful to remove entirely. Why?
Consider the strategy of boosting defenses, just like how sweepers use moves like Swords Dance or Nasty Plot to increase their sweeping potential. If a Skarmory were to boost up to +6 with Iron Defense, it would be an nearly unbreakable physical wall. However, a random crit completely negates your strategy. This means that, were the situation the same 100 times over, mathematically speaking, 6.25% of those battles will turn out differently based on no input from either player whatsoever. Thus, defensive boosting strategies are inherently unreliable. This shifts the metagame more towards offensive strategies, which is bad for players who would prefer a more defensive approach.
Now, say critical hits were banned. All of a sudden, defensive boosters would be much more powerful. At +6, most Pokemon can easily take even super-effective hits, and sweeping could be a safer process. However, breaking boosted defenses could be near impossible without Roar, Whirlwind, Circle Throw or Dragon Tail, moves that are rarely carried by more than one team member.
After all that has been said, the question still lingers: What can be done?
Personally, I believe the biggest reason critical hits upset players is their ubiquity: Almost any attack can critically hit and change the match. Therefore, I propose that all moves have their critical hit ratio Stage lowered by 1. What this would do is remove crits from all moves and Pokemon without abilities that are not specifically geared towards them. If you want to be able to critically hit, you need to run high ratio moves, items, or abilities. This could be implemented through the coding for Pokemon Showdown. Perhaps a suspect test server similar for Pokemon banning could be written, and the decision can be made by the highest laddered of the server
While I create this thread with the knowledge that the critical hit ground has been trodden on many times before, I hope that this thread and my input to the forum can create a positive change for the game.
