astralydia
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1) How has the metagame changed since Equilibra was released?
Changed directly for the worse. Originally CAP was quite diverse in playstyles but now it generally revolves around fat balance Equilbra cores to slowly chip down Equi checks and counters. Rotom-Wash has seen an extreme increase in usage, because it is one of the few Pokemon that can actually handle it, and even then it will often get slowly chipped down by ProTox variants as it struggles to significantly damage Equi with its STAB and fails to account for potential partners with Equilibra that might just hand the momentum over to the user. The Equilibra metagame is a metagame of voltturn - in an attempt to not lose momentum against the opposing Equilibra, I've found that the best way to stave this off is to use offensive VoltTurn cores like Syclant + Krilowatt and just evade Equilibra entirely.
2) How do you think Equilibra has affected the metagame? Positively? Negatively?
Very negatively. What was once a metagame with a ton of options now becomes grossly centralized around one playstyle and trying to beat that one playstyle. Screens teams are now no longer as effective as Equilibra just outright walls half of the abusers and not only that, it hits hard when it comes in. A lot of the time I find it so difficult not to use Equilibra because of how punishing it is to a multitude of playstyles and just how easy it is to lock the opponent into a poor situation with a wallbreaker and an impending Doom Desire. This would be a cool benefit to the metagame if only Equilibra didn't get 11 billion chances to do it.
3) Should Equilibra undergo a nerfing process?
For the sake of the meta this mon needs to be nerfed heavily. Unfortunately the best way to do this is base stat reduction / ability removal, as Equi's limited movepool is already enough to carry it to a grossly centralizing level. One of the issues I find when discussing Equilibra is whether to remove Levitate or Bulletproof, as whilst removing Levitate would make breakers like Garchomp and Landorus-T better, it still leaves a lot of mons in the dust because of how disgustingly bulky this mon is for how punishing it is. Bulletproof would mean mons like Magearna and Megazam would be much better again and fall into the category that the last meta did. But seeing as Magearna was very powerful in that meta, it would probably be best to remove Levitate instead. I would also like to ask for a significant reduction in HP, for most of thw reasons stated above. So - nerf Equilibra, and the meta becomes a lot more fun to play imo.
Changed directly for the worse. Originally CAP was quite diverse in playstyles but now it generally revolves around fat balance Equilbra cores to slowly chip down Equi checks and counters. Rotom-Wash has seen an extreme increase in usage, because it is one of the few Pokemon that can actually handle it, and even then it will often get slowly chipped down by ProTox variants as it struggles to significantly damage Equi with its STAB and fails to account for potential partners with Equilibra that might just hand the momentum over to the user. The Equilibra metagame is a metagame of voltturn - in an attempt to not lose momentum against the opposing Equilibra, I've found that the best way to stave this off is to use offensive VoltTurn cores like Syclant + Krilowatt and just evade Equilibra entirely.
2) How do you think Equilibra has affected the metagame? Positively? Negatively?
Very negatively. What was once a metagame with a ton of options now becomes grossly centralized around one playstyle and trying to beat that one playstyle. Screens teams are now no longer as effective as Equilibra just outright walls half of the abusers and not only that, it hits hard when it comes in. A lot of the time I find it so difficult not to use Equilibra because of how punishing it is to a multitude of playstyles and just how easy it is to lock the opponent into a poor situation with a wallbreaker and an impending Doom Desire. This would be a cool benefit to the metagame if only Equilibra didn't get 11 billion chances to do it.
3) Should Equilibra undergo a nerfing process?
For the sake of the meta this mon needs to be nerfed heavily. Unfortunately the best way to do this is base stat reduction / ability removal, as Equi's limited movepool is already enough to carry it to a grossly centralizing level. One of the issues I find when discussing Equilibra is whether to remove Levitate or Bulletproof, as whilst removing Levitate would make breakers like Garchomp and Landorus-T better, it still leaves a lot of mons in the dust because of how disgustingly bulky this mon is for how punishing it is. Bulletproof would mean mons like Magearna and Megazam would be much better again and fall into the category that the last meta did. But seeing as Magearna was very powerful in that meta, it would probably be best to remove Levitate instead. I would also like to ask for a significant reduction in HP, for most of thw reasons stated above. So - nerf Equilibra, and the meta becomes a lot more fun to play imo.