Discussion Poison... Should the Mechanic Change?

[Mariano11887]

Hi everybody!

I was thinking about the Poison effect in the game. It adds 1 damage counter between turns to the poisoned Pokemon, which is mostly irrelevant considering the high amount of HP the Pokemons have, specially GXs...
I remember when I started playing about 15 years ago, poison was a dangerous effect because Pokemon HPs were much lower than nowadays. I mean, 1 or 2 damage counters on a 200 HP Pokemon doesn't have the same relevance as on a 90 HP one. And the poison mechanic never changed.

So my question is if that mechanic should change now that cards are bigger. Maybe putting 2 damage counters instead of 1, I don't know... What are your opinions?

 

[Kent Freeze]

Same issue with burn -- I barely worry about bringing the status effect markers to a game since these status effects come up so rarely (at least in standard). I suppose cards like seviper, toxapex-gx are designed to update a bit, but these don't see much play. Maybe something like 1/4 remaining damage for poison (prior to damage from an attack), rounding down. So a poisoned 60 HP mon would take 10 damage?

 

[jperr]

well if you look at it, the last time poison was truly relevant in standard was back in the bw era when we had laserbank, which had the advantage of dealing 30 damage between turns rather than 10 (in a much easier was), so I suppose that was more reminiscent of poison in the older formats. so yes, I think it should be updated to 20 damage between turns just to make it more menacing, and burn should be updated to 30 or 40.

 

[Otaku]

Does it need to be updated? Yes, but not in the way suggested in this thread.

Right now, all Special Conditions are pretty easy to shake and not simply through card effects that cure Special Conditions. Cards that only remove Special Conditions are usually a joke, competitively, because you can deal with them through Benching or Evolving the Pokémon with them. So... what if that weren't the case?

My proposal is that, as Special Conditions are indicated by changing the orientation of the afflicted Pokémon or placing the appropriate counter on them, they no longer be cured through Evolving or going to the Bench. Wait! There's a bit more. It would be a pain to worry about Special Conditions on the Bench so they would do nothing while there. Instead, once something affected by a Special Condition hits the Bench, the Special Condition "goes dormant" and is practically ignored. Once Active, however, the Special Condition would again go into effect.

Examples:

1) Your Active Pokémon (Pokémon X) is Burned on your opponent's turn. You fail the Burn check, so it is still Burned as your own turn rolls around. You retreat your Burned Pokémon X, and the Burn counter stays on it. As you end your turn and move to the "Between turns" phase, you do not place two damage counters on it or flip to see if Burn goes away. Your Pokémon doesn't do anything to Pokémon X during your turn, but it does attack and KO your current Active Pokémon. You promote Pokémon X and move to the "Between Turns" phase; as Pokémon X is Active, you place two damage counters on it because it is Burned and then flip a coin for your Burn check.

2) Your Active Pokémon (Pokémon Z) is Asleep. You Bench it, and it remains Asleep, staying turned to the left. Until you have it Active between turns, you will not get a Sleep Check to see if it wakes up.

Now, I would be open to revising Confusion; it was horribly nerfed by removing the coin flip requirement to retreat out of it while Active. Especially if my above suggestion for all Special Conditions is not used, I'd like to see that coin flip to retreat return.

 

[jperr]

Does it need to be updated? Yes, but not in the way suggested in this thread.

Right now, all Special Conditions are pretty easy to shake and not simply through card effects that cure Special Conditions. Cards that only remove Special Conditions are usually a joke, competitively, because you can deal with them through Benching or Evolving the Pokémon with them. So... what if that weren't the case?

My proposal is that, as Special Conditions are indicated by changing the orientation of the afflicted Pokémon or placing the appropriate counter on them, they no longer be cured through Evolving or going to the Bench. Wait! There's a bit more. It would be a pain to worry about Special Conditions on the Bench so they would do nothing while there. Instead, once something affected by a Special Condition hits the Bench, the Special Condition "goes dormant" and is practically ignored. Once Active, however, the Special Condition would again go into effect.

Examples:

1) Your Active Pokémon (Pokémon X) is Burned on your opponent's turn. You fail the Burn check, so it is still Burned as your own turn rolls around. You retreat your Burned Pokémon X, and the Burn counter stays on it. As you end your turn and move to the "Between turns" phase, you do not place two damage counters on it or flip to see if Burn goes away. Your Pokémon doesn't do anything to Pokémon X during your turn, but it does attack and KO your current Active Pokémon. You promote Pokémon X and move to the "Between Turns" phase; as Pokémon X is Active, you place two damage counters on it because it is Burned and then flip a coin for your Burn check.

2) Your Active Pokémon (Pokémon Z) is Asleep. You Bench it, and it remains Asleep, staying turned to the left. Until you have it Active between turns, you will not get a Sleep Check to see if it wakes up.

Now, I would be open to revising Confusion; it was horribly nerfed by removing the coin flip requirement to retreat out of it while Active. Especially if my above suggestion for all Special Conditions is not used, I'd like to see that coin flip to retreat return.

I would be open to all of this except for the part about confusion; as it is confusion is the most annoying special condition to deal with as you want to avoid coin flips as much as you can when playing competitively (may I remind you of the Pokemon Catcher meta), so adding another coin flip condition would just be a nightmare. Espeon GX would suddenly become one of the best cards in the format, and in the worst possible way.

 

[Mariano11887]

Does it need to be updated? Yes, but not in the way suggested in this thread.

Right now, all Special Conditions are pretty easy to shake and not simply through card effects that cure Special Conditions. Cards that only remove Special Conditions are usually a joke, competitively, because you can deal with them through Benching or Evolving the Pokémon with them. So... what if that weren't the case?

My proposal is that, as Special Conditions are indicated by changing the orientation of the afflicted Pokémon or placing the appropriate counter on them, they no longer be cured through Evolving or going to the Bench. Wait! There's a bit more. It would be a pain to worry about Special Conditions on the Bench so they would do nothing while there. Instead, once something affected by a Special Condition hits the Bench, the Special Condition "goes dormant" and is practically ignored. Once Active, however, the Special Condition would again go into effect.

Examples:

1) Your Active Pokémon (Pokémon X) is Burned on your opponent's turn. You fail the Burn check, so it is still Burned as your own turn rolls around. You retreat your Burned Pokémon X, and the Burn counter stays on it. As you end your turn and move to the "Between turns" phase, you do not place two damage counters on it or flip to see if Burn goes away. Your Pokémon doesn't do anything to Pokémon X during your turn, but it does attack and KO your current Active Pokémon. You promote Pokémon X and move to the "Between Turns" phase; as Pokémon X is Active, you place two damage counters on it because it is Burned and then flip a coin for your Burn check.

2) Your Active Pokémon (Pokémon Z) is Asleep. You Bench it, and it remains Asleep, staying turned to the left. Until you have it Active between turns, you will not get a Sleep Check to see if it wakes up.

Now, I would be open to revising Confusion; it was horribly nerfed by removing the coin flip requirement to retreat out of it while Active. Especially if my above suggestion for all Special Conditions is not used, I'd like to see that coin flip to retreat return.

I've never thought about it, but you are right, I agree that it would be a nice modification to the game to make it more interesting.

 

[Latte1504]

I would be open to all of this except for the part about confusion; as it is confusion is the most annoying special condition to deal with as you want to avoid coin flips as much as you can when playing competitively (may I remind you of the Pokemon Catcher meta), so adding another coin flip condition would just be a nightmare. Espeon GX would suddenly become one of the best cards in the format, and in the worst possible way.

When catcher was played, it was auto-heads.

 

[semurphy444]

Did a tails on an attempted Confusion retreat also cause 30 damage? Or was it just trapped in active?

 

[jperr]

When catcher was played, it was auto-heads.

whoops trying to get away with my lack of knowledge; I'm really thinking about legacy on ptcgo at the moment.

 

[WillyCharizard]

To me special conditions would be more interesting if the effect stay even in bench specially poison, burned and confusion, the other 2 can be cured by sending the pokemons to the bench and add freeze, like Paralisys but isnt cured on bench, the pokemon cant do anything until next turn

 

[Mariano11887]

To me special conditions would be more interesting if the effect stay even in bench specially poison, burned and confusion, the other 2 can be cured by sending the pokemons to the bench and add freeze, like Paralisys but isnt cured on bench, the pokemon cant do anything until next turn

A poisoned Pokemon in the bench taking damage between turns would be too powerful in my opinion, players could do very little to defend from that. I like more Otaku's idea of maintaining the status when being on the bench but without taking the damage between turns.

 

[Otaku]

Did a tails on an attempted Confusion retreat also cause 30 damage? Or was it just trapped in active?

Under the original rules, Confusion caused you to flip for two things:

• attacking, where flipping "heads" meant your attack proceeded as normal but flipping "tails" caused the Pokémon to do 20 damage to itself
• retreating, where flipping "heads" meant you retreated as normal but flipping "tails" caused the attempt at retreating to fail. Also note that during this time, you could retreat as many times as you wanted (and could afford) during your turn but if a Confused Pokémon failed its "Confusion Check" for retreating, it was not allowed to retreat again unless it left the Active position by another means (such as Switch) and was then promoted again. Similarly, everything else could still retreat as normal once you got the Confused Pokémon out of the way.

I would be open to all of this except for the part about confusion; as it is confusion is the most annoying special condition to deal with as you want to avoid coin flips as much as you can when playing competitively (may I remind you of the Pokemon Catcher meta), so adding another coin flip condition would just be a nightmare. Espeon GX would suddenly become one of the best cards in the format, and in the worst possible way.

You bring up a valid criticism, but I think you mean the Pokémon Reversal-driven metagame of the HS-era (especially after Junk Arm released). I'm going to start by laying out my starting assumption, as those who disagree with it understandably won't support the rest (though I think everyone who has commented so far has agreed to it, or hasn't outright challenged it). Let me point out that if one accepts the premise that retreating ought to be affected by Confusion, then the problem would not be Confusion adding too many flips to competitive play but that careless designers have misallocated coin flips in their card design.

Let us also consider the current cardpool and metagame; it isn't super easy to inflict Confusion right now. The proposed changes might make some of the current options more viable, but Confusion becomes a gamble both ways when compared to Paralysis and Sleep. Until the Special Condition is removed, a Pokémon that is Paralyzed or Asleep is only good as a meatshield, and one that cannot retreat at all. Confusion lets you gamble; if luck favors your opponent, then he or she will attack or retreat as normal (just a little added stress and uncertainty before it happens). If luck favors you, your opponent not only fails - as with the previous two - but face an added consequence (damage counter placement or wasting a retreat, and in both cases anything done in order to attack or retreat).

The third big piece is to understand why Pokémon Reversal was such a problem: the game already has other balance issues. Right now, controlling what your opponent has in the Active position during your turn is amazing. That is because we are in a format where decks hit hard and fast, specifically where OHKO's and 2HKO's are the norm. Slow things down to where 2HKO's and 3HKO's are the norm - even of Benched supporting Pokémon or those waiting to further Evolve - and Pokémon Reversal is suddenly only worth a slot or two in most decks. Why? Because the payoff is now either less, or at least uncertain. It can even backfire; force a Bench-sitter Active and hit it once without KOing it, and that attack might be wasted if your opponent can drop a Switch. You'll have to finish the injured Pokémon on the Bench or force it Active again, or else all you did was put damage on something you'll never touch again instead of on your opponent's preferred Active!

Now we put it all together; Confusion that is more difficult to remedy is indeed dangerous but exactly how will depend upon the cardpool (really, the metagame). It may add more coin flips to competitive play, but if that causes there to be "too many" coin flips that really means something else is using them that should not. Under the proposed revision for all Special Conditions, all of them are intended to become so nasty that few decks will want to risk going without a proper remedy for them (as opposed to relying on current incidental cures like Guzma and Switch). It is entirely possible such a change cannot happen because the powers-that-be will not implement them properly, doing something crazy like re-releasing Hypnotoxic Lazer and Virbank City Gym, but I sadly must conclude that risk applies to anything they do. In the end, however, I am fine with my two proposals being exclusive. I would also add that there may be alternatives to both issues at hand, such as a different Confusion based penalty for retreating (no retreating at all while Confused? Pay [C] more?) or the real fantasy: replacing coin flips with dice rolls.

Addendum: Sorry for making a monstrous post even longer, but to address some stuff that went up while I was typing this comment the first time

To me special conditions would be more interesting if the effect stay even in bench specially poison, burned and confusion, the other 2 can be cured by sending the pokemons to the bench and add freeze, like Paralisys but isnt cured on bench, the pokemon cant do anything until next turn

I thought about this, but there are three big issues with it:

1. It doesn't mesh with the "flavor" of the Bench being relatively safe.
2. This creates a lot of bookkeeping! Do you really want to risk having to calculate Burn and/or Poison damage between turns for up to 9 Pokémon (Skyfield in play)? Also, doublecheck your opponent if all of his or her Pokémon are similarly afflicted? @_@
3. Even if the above two aren't issues, now we have power-balance issues.

As for adding Freeze, I prefer the game focus on streamlining card effects. Unless something would make Freeze significantly different, it makes about as much sense as introducing Flinch and other minor status effects. Burn should not really exist, either; I may love adding flavor to the game, but it took them about 15 years to make Burn distinct and worthwhile... or we could have just had Fire-Types inflicting Poison with attacks that had "Burn" in the name.

 

[optimal_max]

I don't want to mess with conditions on the bench, even if it's not actually "in effect". I like the way it is now, BUT I also like the OP's idea of just having poison/burn do more damage. AS was said, when Hypnotoxic laser and virbank city gym were combined in the early XY days, status effects were more formidable and game-altering because poison was doing 30 damage per turn, and of course because it was an item card, and not an attack, you could combine the poison damage with an attack.

 

[WillyCharizard]

A poisoned Pokemon in the bench taking damage between turns would be too powerful in my opinion, players could do very little to defend from that. I like more Otaku's idea of maintaining the status when being on the bench but without taking the damage between turns.

Cards that cure special conditions will be more common, people will find a way to play around but well is just my opinion, Im pretty much had the idea a few weeks after start playing pokemon, thiking how amazing would it be Special conditions on bench

 

[WillyCharizard]

Under the original rules, Confusion caused you to flip for two things:

• attacking, where flipping "heads" meant your attack proceeded as normal but flipping "tails" caused the Pokémon to do 20 damage to itself
• retreating, where flipping "heads" meant you retreated as normal but flipping "tails" caused the attempt at retreating to fail. Also note that during this time, you could retreat as many times as you wanted (and could afford) during your turn but if a Confused Pokémon failed its "Confusion Check" for retreating, it was not allowed to retreat again unless it left the Active position by another means (such as Switch) and was then promoted again. Similarly, everything else could still retreat as normal once you got the Confused Pokémon out of the way.

You bring up a valid criticism, but I think you mean the Pokémon Reversal-driven metagame of the HS-era (especially after Junk Arm released). I'm going to start by laying out my starting assumption, as those who disagree with it understandably won't support the rest (though I think everyone who has commented so far has agreed to it, or hasn't outright challenged it). Let me point out that if one accepts the premise that retreating ought to be affected by Confusion, then the problem would not be Confusion adding too many flips to competitive play but that careless designers have misallocated coin flips in their card design.

Let us also consider the current cardpool and metagame; it isn't super easy to inflict Confusion right now. The proposed changes might make some of the current options more viable, but Confusion becomes a gamble both ways when compared to Paralysis and Sleep. Until the Special Condition is removed, a Pokémon that is Paralyzed or Asleep is only good as a meatshield, and one that cannot retreat at all. Confusion lets you gamble; if luck favors your opponent, then he or she will attack or retreat as normal (just a little added stress and uncertainty before it happens). If luck favors you, your opponent not only fails - as with the previous two - but face an added consequence (damage counter placement or wasting a retreat, and in both cases anything done in order to attack or retreat).

The third big piece is to understand why Pokémon Reversal was such a problem: the game already has other balance issues. Right now, controlling what your opponent has in the Active position during your turn is amazing. That is because we are in a format where decks hit hard and fast, specifically where OHKO's and 2HKO's are the norm. Slow things down to where 2HKO's and 3HKO's are the norm - even of Benched supporting Pokémon or those waiting to further Evolve - and Pokémon Reversal is suddenly only worth a slot or two in most decks. Why? Because the payoff is now either less, or at least uncertain. It can even backfire; force a Bench-sitter Active and hit it once without KOing it, and that attack might be wasted if your opponent can drop a Switch. You'll have to finish the injured Pokémon on the Bench or force it Active again, or else all you did was put damage on something you'll never touch again instead of on your opponent's preferred Active!

Now we put it all together; Confusion that is more difficult to remedy is indeed dangerous but exactly how will depend upon the cardpool (really, the metagame). It may add more coin flips to competitive play, but if that causes there to be "too many" coin flips that really means something else is using them that should not. Under the proposed revision for all Special Conditions, all of them are intended to become so nasty that few decks will want to risk going without a proper remedy for them (as opposed to relying on current incidental cures like Guzma and Switch). It is entirely possible such a change cannot happen because the powers-that-be will not implement them properly, doing something crazy like re-releasing Hypnotoxic Lazer and Virbank City Gym, but I sadly must conclude that risk applies to anything they do. In the end, however, I am fine with my two proposals being exclusive. I would also add that there may be alternatives to both issues at hand, such as a different Confusion based penalty for retreating (no retreating at all while Confused? Pay [C] more?) or the real fantasy: replacing coin flips with dice rolls.

Addendum: Sorry for making a monstrous post even longer, but to address some stuff that went up while I was typing this comment the first time


I thought about this, but there are three big issues with it:

1. It doesn't mesh with the "flavor" of the Bench being relatively safe.
2. This creates a lot of bookkeeping! Do you really want to risk having to calculate Burn and/or Poison damage between turns for up to 9 Pokémon (Skyfield in play)? Also, doublecheck your opponent if all of his or her Pokémon are similarly afflicted? @_@
3. Even if the above two aren't issues, now we have power-balance issues.

As for adding Freeze, I prefer the game focus on streamlining card effects. Unless something would make Freeze significantly different, it makes about as much sense as introducing Flinch and other minor status effects. Burn should not really exist, either; I may love adding flavor to the game, but it took them about 15 years to make Burn distinct and worthwhile... or we could have just had Fire-Types inflicting Poison with attacks that had "Burn" in the name.

I honesttly dont care about your second point, I only play online anyway xD But I understand your point

About the difference with Freeze, like I say it would it be like Paralisys but Paralisys could be cured by sending to the bench, Guzma and a float stone and your Pokemon is ready again but a Freeze pokemon still couldnt do nothing even with that combo, what about make the pokemon unable to get energies or items while he is freeze?

BTW I throwing this ideas without thinking if can make broken the game, I come from Yugioh and every expansion introduce and even more broken archetype, I am used to it xD

 

[Otaku]

I don't want to mess with conditions on the bench, even if it's not actually "in effect". I like the way it is now, BUT I also like the OP's idea of just having poison/burn do more damage. AS was said, when Hypnotoxic laser and virbank city gym were combined in the early XY days, status effects were more formidable and game-altering because poison was doing 30 damage per turn, and of course because it was an item card, and not an attack, you could combine the poison damage with an attack.

You say "more formidable", I say "broken". XP

It was often quite frustrating that such a simple combo provided a +30 damage bonus (or effectively did 30 damage against walls that might otherwise be immune)... oh, and there was a 50% chance you'd be Asleep at the start of your next turn, to boot. The weird thing? Why doesn't a laser Burn? Confuse or Paralyze? XD Power creep is usually not the answer, in my experience. Or, rather, it is only a short term answer.

Which does not invalidate most of what you said; just sharing my take on it.

BTW I throwing this ideas without thinking if can make broken the game, I come from Yugioh and every expansion introduce and even more broken archetype, I am used to it xD

Yeah, I tried to get back into Yu-Gi-Oh - twice - after having left in 2009. Yu-Gi-Oh, not unlike Pokémon, has solid core rules and mechanics that are sabotaged by the greater demands of the franchise and/or the combination of apathy and confusion about how the game will develop when certain elements are introduced. Obviously, I don't know how Yu-Gi-Oh is doing now (or how its done since I've been gone), but back in the day, I always pointed out the big issue was effects on cards that ignored the actual cost of playing the card. Spells are the easiest cards to play, but have some of the most devastating effects even after adjusting for any card specific costs or conditions, while Monsters are the most expensive to use, with Traps falling in between. Monsters with easy Special Summon requirements ought to be thought of as "Spells with bodies", etc.

 

[optimal_max]

You say "more formidable", I say "broken". XP

It was often quite frustrating that such a simple combo provided a +30 damage bonus (or effectively did 30 damage against walls that might otherwise be immune)... oh, and there was a 50% chance you'd be Asleep at the start of your next turn, to boot. The weird thing? Why doesn't a laser Burn? Confuse or Paralyze? XD Power creep is usually not the answer, in my experience. Or, rather, it is only a short term answer.

Never thought about that. How does a LASER poison or put to sleep anyhow? I don't mind the power creep as a solution, since we are always going to have HP creep till Pokemon no longer exists.

 

[Otaku]

Never thought about that. How does a LASER poison or put to sleep anyhow? I don't mind the power creep as a solution, since we are always going to have HP creep till Pokemon no longer exists.

I could see a laser possibly causing radiation poisoning, but what about Sleep? I guess the designers do think of Sleep and Paralysis as "Incapication A" and "Incapacitation B". XD

Okay, caught myself before I posted another short essay. So the short version is that power creep honestly does not have to happen, but it is really, really hard to avoid so I do accept a small amount of it and...

It isn't the actual damage numbers that matter, it is how long it takes to score a KO.​

I haven't been competitive most of the time, but I've been playing the Pokémon TCG since 1999... which doesn't prove I'm right, but I'm telling you that Poison usually hasn't been that great, and that includes times when HP scores were lower and when multi-counter Poison has been in the cardpool. What matters is reducing how many turns it takes to score the KO. Hypnobank usually shaved a turn off that count (sometimes more), but if the damage output per turn/HP scores aligned, you could have the same situation with only Hypnotoxic Laser, or not have that situation with stronger versions of Hypnotoxic Laser and Virbank City Gym!

If you want Poison to matter again, hope HP scores go up*. That gives the designers more wiggle room when making attacks, which lets them get creative while remaining effective. The more turns a Pokémon was going to survive anyway, the more turns Poison has to make a difference.

*Edit: It is a little more complicated than that, but if anyone cares to know, I can go into details.