ive seen this get mentioned by staff a few times but i do really think its something worth reconsidering WRT how its balanced
i find bug bite/pluck to be a severely overpowered obstacle in PVE. these moves are nigh useless for players to use but on enemies have extremely short cooldown and you can be surrounded and spammed with it, losing all of your belly and pp items.
while traps like sticky and grimy also do this to an effect, they feel much less punishing because while you can run into 3 sticky traps in a row, this is very rare and theres ways to prep for it (no-stick, cleanse orb, etc…, plus you can get these items back via lickylicki, you dont lose them forever unlike bugbite and pluck). the only way to prevent pluck/bug bite is using a mon with unnerve, an ability which only 19 pokemon have.
the main thing id suggest is adding a longer cooldown just so it couldnt be used repeatedly. while this would make the move a pain to use for players, its a fairly bad move unless youre training a low level bug (which also get other moves) so i think it’s a fair tradeoff. that, or give it a % chance to fail to eat something so it remains useful for players to use it, even if its not accurate to the games
Ackchyually NPCs Ignore cooldowns I learned, so a move can have a cooldown of 9000 and NPCs can still use It much faster than that while It still affects players. Applies to very fast moves too however. A fail chance might be best but my Idea Is completely unrelated to how the move works.
I’ve always thought Decoy Seeds should be In the game. I feel people will go “well that Idea sucks because I don’t want to have to bring them everywhere!!!1!” but It’s just what I thought Much better than nothing.
Maybe staff will end up releasing an Unnerve Ability Item since those are becoming a thing now. You can also semi-counter those moves by not bringing an Item affected by them; I think it’s only Apples/Ethers/Bananas/Gummis/Berries/Seeds/Grimy Items and that’s It ( I mistook the Items that can’t be grimied for the Items that can’t be Plucked/Bug Bitten ). So If you wanted you can bring Elixirs Instead of Ethers, etc.
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Maybe staff will end up releasing an Unnerve Ability Item since those are becoming a thing now. You can also semi-counter those moves by not bringing an Item affected by them; I think it’s only Apples/Ethers/Bananas/Gummis/Berries/Seeds/Grimy Items and that’s It. So If you wanted you can bring Elixirs Instead of Ethers, etc.
imo i think this is a really good utility solution and like, id run it since my held setup is usually like, weather rock/mobile scarf/nostickcap/???
mb on not being knowledgable about npc cooldowns (but it does make sense <___< eruption spam) that ones on me lol
i think decoy seeds, fail chance, or a held team item would all work well as solutions tho
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