In the current state of re-tweaking of moves that can hit twice, they lost a benefit of being able to attack quickly for the benefit of hitting twice automatically in an instant. On paper this sounds like a really good trade off as you would be able to finish off an enemy mon quicker as two hits come out at the same time. However, the way it was changed brings more cons to these moves than benefits and potentially hurts users who would've been potentially better off with the previous changes.
To understand these nerfs, you have to see what main purpose multi-hit moves serve and they act as a very fast attacking move that can apply very efficient stun lock and steady damage, mons like escavalier who could use twineedle and their high attack stat could get easily outsped by other mons and can start to harass other mons who try to use multi-hit moves to overcome their low speed stat. There's also the issue with the PP that was also given to these moves as well. When I initially thought about it, it made sense to halve the PP as you are hitting twice which sounds pretty logical but it is the contrary. When you are engaging in combat in PMU, it can be sometimes very easy to miss line of sight moves, as their range is very small compared to other moves that have area effects. When you essentially miss one of these moves, you are in theory missing this move twice instead of once, which can be more detrimental as it takes longer to attack from the attack speed nerf and you could easily get hit back from this.
As I was just finishing this post, it also occured to me that most bosses also have stat increases as well as a real killer to current multi-hitters, **evasion**. Missing one of these attacks could put you in a very bad spot because of the current attack speed that could make you take a massive hit or missed opportunities which just feels a lot more discouraging to use against bosses and prompts more use of the OP slumber orb to get around this.
To add onto the attack speed point, multi-hit moves become extremely unviable in an arena based environment, as these moves could provide good pressure onto players and also lock them in hitstun depending on what mon you're using. With these changes it can become nigh impossible to hit mons with quad speed or practically double speed because of the low attack speed output, making their double damage unviable.
There is an advantage to having low PP with this as ethers can easily give you twice as much PP since you attack twice, but also having the short coming of potential accuracy misses. In the midst of this, it's much easier to preserve PP before the tweak as you can use one of these moves as an opener on an enemy mon and dispatch them with another move as you can act quickly from one of these moves.
Another food for thought is that I have an Ariados that specializes in doing massive crit damage with scope lens and focus energy, this will obviously not be relevant to other PMU players but you don't get nearly as much damage when only your first attack counts as a crit, because if you had the previous attack speed, you do infinitely more damage as you can rapidly go for crits and attack other mons in your pathway as well before you could get hit yourself.
I believe these changes can be remedied with a delicate change, as multi-hit moves can become way too strong if given the wrong buff and can feel underwhelming when changed a certain way. I feel that multi-hit moves should be kept the way they were previously for mons that need a counter to their low speed or to safely apply hitstun to mobs. The safest way I can suggest at least balancing out how these moves were changed is to give at least slightly more pp to these moves or a very slight attack speed boost as they can run out way too quickly or just be slow enough to not keep consistent hitstun. At least in this light, you aren't punished as much for missing or you can avoid being punished for low speed stat.
This is all how I feel in particular. I am also aware most multi-hit moves haven't been changed to this potentially "yet" but for the current ones, it brings more cons than what they should bring to the table. I believe they served a viable option beforehand and with just a little bit of adjustment, can be a fine option for beginners and long time players. With that said, I would also love feedback on this post too, as insight on other's perspectives leads to great ideas and solutions! :)I get where you’re coming from, but I actually prefer the moves and feel more Inclined to use them as they are now
I don’t exactly see what makes that the main purpose of multi-hit moves. It’s likely they were made that way because they didn’t know how to make them actually hit multiple times. We see now that hitting multiple times works with PMU’s playstyle, at least In my opinion
That’s not a problem with multi-hits, just Twineedle In specific, which was already a line of sight before the change
Unfortunately this Is a problem with how bosses work In general. Some people just use Punishment or Haze/Clear Smog If not a Slumber Orb like you said. I don’t see It as a bad thing, because when I played Mystery Dungeon bosses pretty much required similar strategies to beat
Actually the second hit does the same amount of damage so technically both would count
Multi-hits hitting twice also bypasses sturdy If you do enough damage, which I think Is really neat
Anyway I don’t see the problem with the change from a game design viewpoint. I literally think It’s just preference. Rapid fire moves are cool, but you know what else Is cool? Moves functioning how they’re supposed to. I don’t think they need to be rebalanced since this change was their rebalance
I think the change only applied to moves which specifically hit twice, so moves such as Spike Cannon are the same. And I think having moves which hit more than twice being unchanged works fine
I’ve noticed even in my little time of playing that status moves seem to be pretty useless. Then again, they were that way in Red Rescue Team if I recall correctly. \o/