Thoughts on new Sturdy mechanics

[BigShotJoe]

First off, I'm putting this in GD because it is not a suggestion for suspect testing. I just want to know people's thoughts on it so far.

Because Sturdy has quickly gone from a completely useless ability to one that can be argued as OP on some Pokemon, it has obviously had quite a large impact on the game. For example, Sturdy Skarmory can no longer be trapped and 1-shotted by Magneton without prior damage. That means Skarmory gets to Roar Magneton out and wait until Magneton dies to come back in. Same for Forretress and Earthquake. On that subject, Magneton can also use Sturdy to some benefit. Rock Pokemon almost all have Sturdy and Golem can easily use Explosion on whatever it wants. Personally, I feel that it is too easy to abuse without Stealth Rocks to reliably break Sturdy on everything, regardless of type or ability.

What's everyone think?

[Faiyad]

I pretty much ended up making a post about sturdy too 

 

post link: http://goo.gl/Me3yM4 there are some replies that might help you get other people's thoughts 

 

~Qaviul

[DaftCoolio]

If you aren't running keen eye skarmory then your bad

[OrangeManiac]

Looking at ability as alone to me is pointless because what comes to actual competitive analysis the whole package of the Pokemon matters. You can't look at current Skarmory/Forretress and say "Sturdy is OP here". It would be like saying "Huge Power/Pure Power is OP because it makes shitty base stat Pokemon really good so it's a bad ability to have in the game". (using term "OP" ruins the meaning of said word anyways especially with Sturdy..) I would understand this concern if the question here was "Does Sturdy make Skarmory and Forretress Pokemon that are now something you have to run in every team?" The obvious answer is no. And because of this I don't see any problem to have a later gen mechanic which actually has some competitive use now. Change can be sometimes good.

 

Btw Explosion sucks now, it's nerfed.

Edited August 25, 2016 by OrangeManiac

[Tackle]

remove..sturdy ability for npc...its annoying....it makes me buy leppa berries and revive to finish grinding in six island..

[fredrichnietze]

cb donphan, golem, and aggron just got a lot less counters.

[Hotarubi]

Honestly being a lover of shuckle

I really like sturdy.

Though its rough not being able to 1 shot certain rock or ground types. 

I really love this ability being implemented.

[SirYurop]

Bonemerang marowak when

[BigShotJoe]

9 hours ago, OrangeManiac said:

Looking at ability as alone to me is pointless because what comes to actual competitive analysis the whole package of the Pokemon matters. You can't look at current Skarmory/Forretress and say "Sturdy is OP here". It would be like saying "Huge Power/Pure Power is OP because it makes shitty base stat Pokemon really good so it's a bad ability to have in the game". (using term "OP" ruins the meaning of said word anyways especially with Sturdy..) I would understand this concern if the question here was "Does Sturdy make Skarmory and Forretress Pokemon that are now something you have to run in every team?" The obvious answer is no. And because of this I don't see any problem to have a later gen mechanic which actually has some competitive use now. Change can be sometimes good.

 

Btw Explosion sucks now, it's nerfed.

To be fair, Sturdy can be slapped on to nearly every Steel- or Rock type Pokemon whereas Pure/Huge Power only works on a few very specific Pokemon. To me, Sturdy seems like an afterthought or an extra cherry on Pokemon that were already great. Pure/Huge Power Pokemon are pretty much utter crap without said ability. Skarmory and Forretress already had a solid place in OU without any decent ability while Medicham/Azumarill/whatever other Pokemon might have similar abilities would be in a bottom tier somewhere without their standard ability. I believe that Gen 4 Sturdy was severely nerfed by the implementation of Stealth Rocks at the same time.

[BurntZebra]

4 minutes ago, BigShotJoe said:

To be fair, Sturdy can be slapped on to nearly every Steel- or Rock type Pokemon whereas Pure/Huge Power only works on a few very specific Pokemon. To me, Sturdy seems like an afterthought or an extra cherry on Pokemon that were already great. Pure/Huge Power Pokemon are pretty much utter crap without said ability. Skarmory and Forretress already had a solid place in OU without any decent ability while Medicham/Azumarill/whatever other Pokemon might have similar abilities would be in a bottom tier somewhere without their standard ability. I believe that Gen 4 Sturdy was severely nerfed by the implementation of Stealth Rocks at the same time.

There aren't that many rock/steel types already and a lot of ones that come to mind (golem/steelix/magneton/aggron) would often prefer running a different ability. Golem/steelix/aggron would all give up double edge to run sturdy and magneton would lose its biggest niche in trapping steel types. And for most duels, its not really a good idea to just basically get your own pokemon down to 1 hp so it can take a hit that it shouldn't be staying in vs anyways. It's also somewhat difficult to keep stuff at 100% hp throughout the match, especially if youre relying on like magneton to tank a belly drum zard hit. It could be clutch in some scenarios like donphan vs tentacruel in UU, but that'd be very situational at best, since it'd have to be late enough in game that your special wall is dead and donphan would pretty much have to be unrevealed or else you risk taking damage (pursuit swellow vs eq locked donphan etc). 

[BigShotJoe]

3 minutes ago, BurntZebra said:

There aren't that many rock/steel types already and a lot of ones that come to mind (golem/steelix/magneton/aggron) would often prefer running a different ability. Golem/steelix/aggron would all give up double edge to run sturdy and magneton would lose its biggest niche in trapping steel types. And for most duels, its not really a good idea to just basically get your own pokemon down to 1 hp so it can take a hit that it shouldn't be staying in vs anyways. It's also somewhat difficult to keep stuff at 100% hp throughout the match, especially if youre relying on like magneton to tank a belly drum zard hit. It could be clutch in some scenarios like donphan vs tentacruel in UU, but that'd be very situational at best, since it'd have to be late enough in game that your special wall is dead and donphan would pretty much have to be unrevealed or else you risk taking damage (pursuit swellow vs eq locked donphan etc). 

I suppose that's fair. I can see Choice Band/Sturdy/Explosion Golem becoming a thing.

[Spree]

Its Annoying on npc runs.

[MisterHide]

15 hours ago, SirYurop said:

Bonemerang marowak when

Bullet seed work too

[Xatu]

Why are you guys still doing npc runs?  They severely nerfed the payouts and gave us the option to rematch hoenn gyms and the e4 with a proper comp ubers team.  It's pretty much only viable to fight the beauties and a few npcs in hoenn.  I'd say the only true downside to this ability would be the aforementioned def training spot mt magma.  Even this however can be replaced by other ev training spots and/or simply put up with while using a damp golduck thus taking about 2x the time to ev train in a place that is easy to get to and sometimes gives 10 def evs a battle.  Using a macho brace and a switch it would take 1 extra turn but you would gain 20 def evs.