"Rebalancing EPS and DPS to change the meta"

#PokemonGO: I think that the current event is mostly a good thing (the number of Blissey in gyms tho -__-). While not new content, it is at least something to keep people playing. Now while we wait, there is one more thing Niantic could do that could change the game without much effort on their part.With Gen II looming over us, they need to address (again) move imbalance. Both damage per second and energy per second.Blissey Is An IssueAs we all know, Blissey is going to be a monster due to the fact that of all the original base stats used to calculate the base stats in PoGo, HP was the only one to be directly translated into the game. Stamina is simply HP x 2, which widens the HP gap between Pokemon. This has been addressed many times, but now it is really going to be a problem because: everyone playing during this event will likely acquire the candy to evolve at least one Blissey (catching, transfering, hatching, and buddy walking to victory). If Blissey does become widespread, it will completely kill the meta-game unless something is done (changing how defenders are ordered solves this, somewhat).Besides changing SE and NVE values, here is another simple measure Niantic could take to at least alleviate this problem.Balancing Moves And Creating Move UniquenessAs the original games are turn based, there is no energy gain or “cooldown” for move use. Thus, while they have power, how they are implemented in PoGo is pretty arbitrary. That is to say, Niantic pretty much just made up cooldown and EPS for all of the moves (and made some questionable decisions when making certain moves quick attacks and others charge attacks).Water Gun, Ember, Thunder Shock all have base 40 power in the main games. But as we all know, one is clearly better than the others.There are 3 other moves with the exact damage/energy model as Water Gun. Bite, Scratch, and Dragon Breath all do 6 damage every .5 seconds (base 12 DPS), and build up 14 energy per second (7 energy per use of the move). The problem here is that there is no drawback to these moves. They rank among the highest DPS and the highest EPS moves in the game.I want to be clear. We should not make every move the exact same. We do not need to make Thunder Shock and Ember play exactly as Water Gun does. Rather, if moves have a weak damage output, they should be balanced by having a higher energy gain per use. So, while you do less damage in the meantime, you will be able to use your charge move sooner and more often. By balancing moves in this way, we can give “character to the moves,” how they play will be much different and less dependent on simple DPS in the short-term (most people look at the damage a move does over 1 second as the basis of comparison)Back To Blissey And Doing Some MathBlissey is going to be godly, and our current fighting types won't be able to stop this juggernaut (maybe Heracross will be the hero we need, but we deserve a better Machamp).Machamp – out of all 251 Pokemon in Gen I and Gen II, only two Pokemon (Dragonite and Tyranitar) have a higher attack stat than Machamp in the original games. It ranks up there in PoGo as well, but…it has Karate Chop (ಠ ͟ʖಠ). Now here is a way to fix Karate Chop to make Machamp a little more interesting (besides changing SE to higher than 1.25x). Raise the EPS to compensate. Karate Chop does 6 damage every .8 seconds, with an energy gain of 10 per second (worse than Water Gun in every way lol). In the original games, Karate Chop actually has a higher base power (50) than Water Gun (40). But let’s just keep the DPS the same. Instead, raise the EPS of Karate chop so you can use Cross Chop (“CC”) much sooner, and more often. Right now Bug Bite has the highest EPS at 15.56. What happens if we increase Karate Chop (“KC”) to, hmmm, 25 EPS?Analysis of Karate Chop at 25 EPS25 EPS for a move with a .8 second cooldown = 20 energy per use of KC5 uses of KC to 100 energy full charge, at 6 damage per hit = 30 damage dealt before ready to use CC5 uses of KC (at .8 second cooldown) takes 4 seconds. Cross Chop does 60 damage in 2 seconds.The cycle = 4 seconds KC (30 DMG), 2 seconds CC (60 DMG), 4 seconds KC (30 DMG), 2 seconds CC (60 DMG) – 180 damage in 12 seconds.Now for an analysis of Water Gun(“WG”)/Hydro Pump (“HP”)WG does 14 energy per second, has a .5 second cool down = 7 energy per use of WG.14.2857 uses of WG to reach 100 energy, rounds to 15 uses of WG before you can use HP, which does 90 damage in 3.8 seconds.15 uses of a .5 second move takes 7.5 seconds, and at 6 damage per use = 90 damage over 7.5 seconds.The cycle = 7.5 seconds WG (90 DMG), 3.8 seconds HP (90 DMG) – 180 damage in 11.3 seconds.Move ComparisonEven modifying KC to a much higher EPS, in this short cycle comparison, it deals less damage per second. WG/HP deals the same amount of damage in .7 seconds less. But imagine how big the gap was when KC only yielded 12.5 energy per use, for 10 EPS…you can see how bad of a move KC is given the current damage model. However, keep in mind that Machamp has a much higher attack stat than Vaporeon, and if used at a type advantage would get the 1.25 SE multiplier that would clearly make Machamp better for matchups he should be better at. Right now, Vaporeon simply outdamages Machamp in pretty much every scenario even when dealing neutral damage. With an EPS change, Machamp can finally become the Blissey and Snorlax counter he is supposed to be (also change the SE multiplier, but here is an additional option)Conclusion and TL;DRBy changing the EPS, we can balance moves and create more defined playstyles. With Machamp, you can dodge more during your charge move since CC has such a short cool down, and you will be using your charge move far more often than other Pokemon do if you increase the EPS. Re-balancing EPS with DPS should add more variety to how we use Pokemon with the limited battle mechanic we have now, and is not a difficult update to implement. via /r/pokemongo http://ift.tt/2kME5w6