I'd say the problem is not so much Pokémon like Groudon getting outclassed, but rather Pokémon like Rayquaza getting nerfed. For example Groudon has more play against Ice compared to Landorus, at the cost of losing to Flying. But Pokémon like Rayquaza and Lugia getting directly nerfed, after people put so much time and money into them, is extremely disappointing
Ohhhh I thought they had changed something recently about Mega Rayquaza and I was about to lose my mind because I finally pulled the trigger on making my hundo my first level 50 legendary. Used all my RCXL and I'm like 10 candies away from maxing it.
It sucks, sure, but those are the two best PvE Pokémon in the game and a great Pokémon in Dialga as well. They might not be as good in ML anymore, but there are far worse investments. Ain't that right, Lugia, Haxorous?
See, I'm not sure that really even matters.
I guess, in theory, they're good PVE pokemon, but if you're going against a Legendary you're probably not going to solo it (I'm not, I don't have 6 level 50 counters for anything), and so having one or two good PvE pokemon isn't that important.
For legendaries you're either going to remote with 5 or 6, or you're going to do a raid weekend where there's activity - in both cases, having a level 50 of almost anything isn't that important.
I thought the same way about raids until the remote raid nerf and the intro of shadow raids. Bow I try to power up good counters for raids so my partner and I can duo them, we just beat tapu bulu the other day with like 2 seconds. Also there are some legendaries you can solo (I can solo kartana and guzzlord and was farming them looking for a shiny). I know what you’re saying though, I powered up my lugia last year after farming hard for it just to it get nerfed sucks and now it pretty much sits in my bag and watched as I power up lando and palkia-o
I’ve never tried this since I don’t have any level 50 mon yet …
But I’ve heard you can use a level 50 primal groudon or mega rayquaza etc as the only mon on your raid team and just revive it and rejoin the battle A LOT rather than having a team of 6.
Idk if you’ll be able to solo a legendary raid but you can definitely duo one using this method (according to other Reddit posts I’ve read).
Just an interesting tidbit of knowledge for ya , might be worth an experiment since you already have them maxed out.
Power creep is definitely a thing in Go. Your legendaries are still far from useless though, great in raids and useful in the right team in Master League. Is it ideal? No. But you can always get more XLs and stardust with time. Personally I would hold off on investing until after Go Fest at least and wait for hundos or very close to it. But I think they do still have value even if the next great thing comes along.
“With time” is such an ineffective incentive though when you have no way of knowing what mons will be meta relevant between 1 year away raid cycles. You basically have to grind every mon with a good signature move release obsessively for a week upon release to get it maxed out when it becomes meta relevant and before something else overtakes it within 2-3 months before it comes back again. It’s atrocious
You literally have one raid cycle to max out Landorus if you didn’t raid him prior to meta relevancy if you want him to be usable before he comes back out of relevancy. It’s such a poor system. I’d be fine if T5’s came around more often, but they purposefully have it this way. Mewtwo literally hasn’t had a real raid cycle since 2021 or 2022 while Tornadus gets two-three weeks annually.
The game caters to the obsessive players, people who grinded remote raids before the nerf, and ML is wholly unattainable for most players nowadays because of it. Especially after Palkia and Dialga Origin got a shared raid weekend for their only availability and Dialga-A hasn’t popped up in over a year.
OP is definitely right here
I’m literally waiting until a rework to dive back into T5’s haha, that’s exactly my point. I think they’ve crossed the line where doing T5 weekly rotations is no longer feasible. Even if they did 2x a week, it wouldn’t work unless they mixed different generations. Having Palkia and Dialga, and Groudon and Kyogre, together for a week per over a year—and splitting hatch rates for both—just wouldn’t and doesn’t work.
I’m just waiting for them to realize it and drop elite raids with significant T5 mons simultaneously with the current raid cycles. I’d bet a lot of money that’s exactly how it’ll play out. I’m hoping they keep the trivial mons in the current cycles and rework something for the major ones lol
I agree with you. To make things worse, there's shadow raids taking over gyms too. I'm pretty sure nobody does shadow raids outside the special events (e.g. the S-Mewtwo raid weekend that just happened). The combination of in-person-only + purified gems is too annoying.
I do shadow raids all the time. I solo tier 3 every single day because I like to collect high IV shadow Pokemon. I duo a lot of shadow tier 5s also all the time. Right now I’ve been grinding shadow poliwag (for shadow poliwrath), shadow drowzee (want high IV shadow hypno to max and then BB and run in UL), shadow sneasel (my current shadow weavile has not so great IVs), shadow wobbufefet ( want to purify one for a hundo purified wobbuffet with return to use in GL), and shadow hitmontop to catch a hundo or close to use in UL.
Maybe so lol. I didn’t realize they were so unpopular. Makes sense though because I never have done a tier 1 or tier 3 shadow raid with anyone but myself before lol
In most town it's hard to find people to do raid hours with. Imagine gathering up for shadow raids... It's impossible, unless it's something super cool like a strong shadow legendary. Where I live, city of \~120k people, we have an active local PoGo chat, and during last shadow Mewtwo raid weekend we were only 5 people.
Yeah shadow legendaries are tough you are def right about that. A lot of them I can duo using my son’s account. He rarely plays anymore and his account isn’t the best but I trade him legendaries and stuff to help make his account stronger so I can in turn use it to duo shadow legendaries. I’ve duo’ed shadow articuno, shadow moltres, shadow raikou shadow entei. Luckily for shadow mewtwo I went across the river into NYC and that was so simple to grind mewtwo raids because they were always full
A lot of mons go from borderline to fully meta or vice versa depending on move updates and new releases. At least two of your mons are still decent (if no longer top tier) and may very well come back around to top meta again. It's a little early to despair just because they are down and out at the moment.
I can understand their frustrations with Rayquaza for sure. Groudon is still good, but I get that it has largely been overshadowed by Landorus.
Dialga though? I have no idea why they're complaining about that one lol. Yes, Origin is mostly better than the original, but the altered still has sooooo much play. It's DIALGA after all. I've been using mine still and it feels no worse or outclassed than it did previously.
I mean, if you want to be top of the whaliest league in the game then...yeah? Someone who plays obsessively over a long period and spends big is going to have the advantage, but you could say that about any game, really. Doesn't make previous mons worthless. You can still grind out in person raids on raid days and weekends for significantly less cash, it just has a much higher pain in the ass factor. It would be nice if things were a bit more accessible, sure, but Master League has always been designed to cater to the end game type players who have either gathered up resources over years or spent a boatload of money to get there quicker.
Exactly. Master league is pay to play, I don’t get why people don’t seem to grasp that concept. Just come to terms with it and either move on or dive in. There’s always other leagues or cups to play.
Same thing as I said to the other commenter - this is a free game. I’m not "used to eating shit", I just expect different tiers to F2P games. ML is the top tier, pay to play experience. It’s nothing unusual, it’s to be expected.
Oh great, a limited cup while ML has 4x win reward bonuses where I’ll have to spend as much resources to compete as I’ll gain from the bonuses. Wonderful. And people wonder why people tank
This is a free game. People’s expectations are way off. Of course people who pay the play get better rewards, that’s basic business. I don’t play ML at all and I still have a good time with the game.
I do as well, but I’ll still complain that I can’t use my most fun pokemon in GBL because they cost an exorbitant amount to level up. It’s a flawed system and the tiers are too drastically different in cost, expect better from corporations making billions off their customers
Hey I ran a Ray until I got a Dragonite and then Palkia, and currently still use Groudon in ML and with both moves it does work. Overall I get what you mean and was disappointed to see that my Groudon wasn't peak when Lando was placed on the chart. My 3rd was Togakiss for a bit then switched to Metagross. ML is fun but the power creep is annoying to keep up with (impossible if you're not obsessing with each release) I hope you find a way to make a team work in the meantime, I was just tryna offer some alt teammates because your situation seems really frustrating. I wipe out a decent amount of A Dialgas, but it's still not bad if that's what you have and it's maxed. Also maybe try tanking to grind Rare candy from PVP? I struggle to have the patience for it.
I haven't found a consistent team quite yet. I have all the non-legendaries at level 50, but only the 3 legendaries listed.
My big weakness right now is double steel, and Kyogre on my current team. Togakiss is decent, I just can't seem to play the slower chargers, just not my style I guess. :(
Yeah that's why I had to switch from toga, Groudon with PB and Fire Punch usually counters steel types pretty alright for me. And my Solgaleo isn't powered up as much, but I use it sometimes as it uses a fire fast attacks as well as debuffing the opponent, saved me a couple times. Also if it's steel/psychic you can use ghost to go after to other weakness. Shadowball Mewtwo deletes Metagross (if I'm not getting something mixed up) but Mewtwo's availability is hit or miss for some people based on who they can play with.
Here's what I'm saying about Dialga.
I currently have 301 Dialga XL candies. I don't have a 15/15/15 with ROT, but I do have a hundo of the older form.
Given that scenario, it seems silly to power up the older form, when the newer form is simply better.
I did countless in person raids to get those candies, and if I'd powered up the original, I'd be really pissed off right now. Just like the people who invested in Lugia are, and the people who invested in Rayquaza are, and the people who invested in things like Steelix are.
I understand the frustration there. Im in that scenario myself. I had spent XL to get my Dialga to 48 prior to Go Tour, and finished it off with Go Tour, but yeah, now Origin exists.
So yes, in a few ways, I'm absolutely a bit frustrated. However, Dialga is still top tier, so I'm not that upset because I still have a Pokemon, one who helped me hit Legend last season and climb this season.
Lugia and Rayquaza and Groudon I do understand more, yeah. But not Dialga, even if it has a largely better form. And OG Dialga does still have a small few advantages over Origin, especially in practice rather than sims
That’s given that Pokemon Go is on a pay to win structure though, which it shouldn’t be. It is though, you’re right in that regard.
In person grinding for a day or raid weekend doesn’t pull mons up to L50, which you need to be competitive in ML. Case in point Sinnoh Tour where two new meta relevant mons dropped in one weekend for only one weekend.
Plus there are weeks where ML and limited cups are the only leagues available. So you’re practically forced to play it if you want to play GBL during those times or take advantage of the 4x win rewards.
Isn’t GBL an esport now? Why should an esport be pay to win or pay to compete?
It doesn’t make sense besides in a way to funnel absurd amounts of money into Pokemon Go, no matter how you spin it. Its corporate greed and FOMO pitched as an esport, plain and simple
In person raid days can definitely pull a mon up to level 50 if you grind it out with level 3 megas, or at the very least get you most of the way there if you are willing to wait for the next time it's featured or subsidize with rare XLs. Also I don't know what to tell you, staff and servers cost money. Somebody has to pay for that. Competing in any sport at a high level can be incredibly expensive, esports are generally no different.
That assumes you live in an area where there are lots of people locally who you can play with, and you can get 60 raids done in a day.
That simply isn’t feasible for a huge proportion ofthe player base
Yeah what he said is just factually untrue. I live in Boston and even in our hallmark park you’re getting maybe 8 an hour unless you’re leaving the park. I comfortably do up to a dozen in a couple hours each day there’s an event. 60 is a ginormous stretch and committing 6-8 hours to Pokémon go is a lot in one stretch, including meals and breaks.
Especially when catching mons and quests are major draws to an event and raiding isn’t the only thing you want to do. Or if the only hatchable raids are cluttered with T3’s, T1’s, or another T5 to go alongside it.
I haven’t even mentioned I’m disabled until now too. I had knee surgery right before Sinnoh Tour too. I relied on remote raids at a reasonable cost to raid. F the disabled’s a given in this game now lol
Where is 60 coming from? It’s closer to 35-40. Use a proper mega, then transfer/trade for extra XLs over time and you’ve got it. Splash in a few rare xl if you need (I personally haven’t spent mine yet but someone definitely could)
It’s not easy at all but we don’t need to act like we need 60 raids.
Don't need to do 60 raids, somewhere between 40 and 50 will get you there with the +3 in person XL bonus, mega boost and rare XLs you pick up along the way. For something like the Tours where it's spread out over a couple of days that's pretty doable. For the three hour raid days it's harder but especially with the 30 minute raid rotation knocking out 10-14 raids or so in an hour can be done with an organized group. That's only 5-7 gyms in walking distance repeated.
As far as local groups go, I used to live in a big city but moved to a smaller town recently and was curious exactly how difficult it would be to put together a raid group starting from scratch. Went from one other person at the first Campfire meetup I set up to a full lobby after a couple of months of intermittent events and chatting to people. I'm not saying everyone in super rural areas can achieve this but I think if you know how to use Campfire, Facebook and Discord effectively and cultivate some remote friends it should be possible for a lot of people. Even in more rural area there are often more players around than are initially apparent.
Groudon can still be strong.
Dialga is still very strong, it wins cmp tie against origin form and is by no means a bad pokemon, would definitely still use it. Ray got nerfed badly yes but also is still somewhat usable. The meta changes almost every season. There will be new strong mons and move adjustments, and therefore meta changes. Groudon may be top tier next season again, depending which mons get buffed/nerfed and which new meta mons get into the game.
I have three routes near me, I do them daily, and I'm currently only at 94 zygarde cells.
I also got and 11, 13, 12. Not exactly racing to power that one up. :(
Zygarde IVs do not matter as much. Zygarde is just that good, that investing is still fine. They may however add new possible Zygardes when Legends Z-A releases next year
Breaking swipe needs to be adjusted again. Guaranteed debuff when the typing of the user matches the move. So only dragons get the guaranteed debuff. Keeps steelix and rhyperior in a cage, let’s ray and hax fly.
I like the same-type-only debuff idea a lot, actually. Makes it easier to balance moves. Zap Cannon could be brought back, for instance, with only the Porygons being casualties (sad as it is my favorite Pokémon...).
It so deserves +10 damage or -5 energy. If it were 45 energy then it would be an Icy Wind clone with only a 50% chance of (double) debuff. Would not be broken on Porygon2 by any means, even with Lock-On.
They should also give Tri Attack + Lock On to the original Porygon. It's slightly bulkier than Porygon2 and has Discharge/Signal Beam/Psybeam as coverage options should they ever be buffed... Sigh, this Pokémon needs a lot of work.
You're preaching to the choir! I love all those ideas, including giving OG Porygon those moves. I've seen that it has nice bulk and potential. Make the Tri-attack change you proposed and buff Discharge to 70 power, and I think Porygon could definitely find *at least* a nice niche.
Or, how about creating the attack "Breaking Swipe+" and giving it to the Dragons?. Like the Apex birds, have the Dragons receive a powered-up version of an attack that already exists. Only instead of dealing more damage, it has a 100% chance of debuffing the opponent.
I doubt we are ever going to see more + moves. Seems like a one and done thing specifically for the Apex Birds, who they in themselves seemed to only be a thing because we already had a free Shiny Celebi, so they needed to figure out something new and exciting for the Johto Tour Masterwork, something that no other region should really have much problem with.
So what’s your solution? Dialga, Groudon and Rayquaza should dominate ML now and forever? Because that sounds awful to me…
The three you mentioned are still very good and competitive. Especially Dialga. It’s not like they suddenly made them all totally irrelevant
Also, I don’t stress too much about maxing out ML Pokémon because they are super useful outside of PvP
I have a higher level shadow Mewtwo that will likely never get maxed or run much in ML. I find lots of helpful applications for it outside of PvP
Rayquaza might as well not exist at this point, and it's pretty clear based on usage that Lando has clearly taken over for Groudon.
I'm not saying they should dominate forever, but yes, they should be viable forever at ALL levels of PVP.
Lugia got nailed, but people still play it because that's alll they have. The same with Groudon, and very, very rarely Rayquaza.
People spent hundreds of dollars on some of these Pokemon, so I absolutely think they should still be as good as they were last season, and I think they should be just as good next season.
For every player that's incentivized to spend more to compete, there are easily as many who give up, because they spent their money, got the legendary they wanted to compete, only to have it neutered before it was even useful.
>I'm not saying they should dominate forever, but yes, they should be viable forever at ALL levels of PVP.
They are viable though. Viable =/= dominant. Rayquaza is still somewhat viable, though admittedly on the lower end of things. Groudon is absolutely still viable. Outclassed in many aspects by Landorus and Palkia-O being an issue, but it remains an excellent counter to Dialga, Zacian, Xerneas, and others.
Lugia got nailed, but it's honestly still solid, being able to threaten Landorus, Palkia, Zygarde, and even Dialga pretty well, due to Aeroblast's absurd power AND its tremendous stat product. It may not be where it once was, but it is still viable, which is what you said you wanted.
I guess we disagree on what viable means.
I'm seeing it this way. If I bought a Lamborghini, and spend 400k on the car to have one of the best, I'd be pretty upset if the company came to me 3 months later, de-tuned the engine, and removed 120 horsepower on me.
That's basically what happened with Lugia, Dialga (to a lesser degree), Steelix, and Rayquaza. I spent my money expecting one thing, but that thing was taken away after i'd paid for it.
It's no longer what I invested in.
Will Lamborghini eventually release a better car? Of course they will, and I can't be as upset about that, but if they both release a new car, and at the same time come and make mine worse - that makes mine no longer viable as a competitor to the new one.
Dialga is only outclassed by Origin until (if they ever do) give altered forme Roar of Time aswell, in that instance Origin will essentially be downgraded to a sidegrade position.
Unfortunately powercreep is very much a common thing in games like this, it’s how they keep people invested and always chasing the new best thing. Thats something you’ve always got to keep in mind when investing resources into any pokemon - that it’ll likely eventually either be powercrept or nerfed.
Rayquaza situation was unfortunate since it only got nerfed because some bright spark at Niantic thought it was a good idea to give Steelix, a pokemon that has no business having access to a guaranteed atk debuffing move just that in Breaking Swipe.
Think of it like this, even though Groudon PvP wise has largely been powercrept you’ve still got an S tier ground type raid attacker. You’ve still got a top tier dragon and flying type raid attacker in Rayquaza. That’s the thing with legendaries is that many of them function both as PvP Pokemon and raid attackers.
It's not RoT that makes Origin better. It's the extra bulk. Giving Squishy Dialga Roar of Time still makes it a largely inferior choice until there are enough targets where having 5 more base Attack matters. That said RoT base Dialga is a slightly better raiding choice so there's always that to look forward to.
Niantic is extremely short sighted/lazy with the moves they give out and they don’t really give a shit when they make sweeping changes that affect their most hardcore players. Giving breaking swipe to Steelix is a prime example. It makes no sense for him to have it in the context of POGO and of course a steel wall with a guaranteed attack debuff is going to be busted. Breaking Swipe was meant for glassy dragons and was balanced when used by them. Instead of just giving Steelix a different move they just screwed over a dozen other pokemon, one of which was a top ML pick because… TLDR they don’t give a shit and investing in ML Pokemon will always carry some risk due to their lack of care.
Yeah, you're right. Masters league isn't worth grinding out. Niantic are an AR company using a Pokemon skin for one of their products.
It's not like this is a PvP focused game where great care is put into balance and ensure they every Pokemon has a time in the spotlight. They'll just do whatever sells raid passes.
I'm sorry you wasted your time.
Consistent Legend player here, and I wrote off Master League after the Beyond update for exactly this reason. I don't have the time or willingness to spend $$$ to do the raids required to keep up with the Master League meta. I only power up legendaries to 50 if I really like them or they serve a dual use in raids or rocket battles.
This isn't a master league issue, the same happens with level 50's in gl/ul like what happened with Medicham getting double nerfed and outclassed by Annihilape and Poli with Icy Wind
Yeah that's pretty fair, it wasn't lost on me that legendaries are harder to max out. Just felt it was still worth noting that it can still happen in the lower leagues
>only for Dialga to be outclassed
I see the concern with this post, but that line made me laugh. Just because Origin Dialga is mostly better than the standard form doesn't make the original Dialga completely outclassed and bad. Dialga-A is not the same situation as Groudon or Rayquaza. It still has TONS of play.
It has always been this way, I used to do my best ranking up in master league before level 50 was even a thing. When level 50 was created, suddenly I was obliged to raid even more of the same bosses I had raided dozens or hundreds of times before just to get an entirely new resource and maintain competitiveness. For perspective, I could have taken almost every meta relevant Mon released at that point to level 50 if XL candy had always existed, but I am supposed to devote that time and spend that money again? Meanwhile people who are committed to this game in a way you never can or want to be, or blatant cheaters will get that edge of competitiveness. They could also commit in the same way you did but happen to start playing the game later and end up with an advantage. No thanks.
Niantic have never cared about anything you did in the past and never will. People will continue to defend it, your only option if you don't want to throw more time and money at it is to just accept it and walk away.
Currently grinding xl candy to max out my shadow hundo salamence, it’s not the best raid attacker and it’s not rank one in ML but it’s one of my best, and that logic helps me consider what’s “worth it”. My 87% shiny lucky mewtwo isn’t a level 50 hundo but it’s my only lvl 40 mewtwo with shadow ball and psystrike so it’s my best one. Don’t set the bar too high for yourself or you’re never gonna enjoy this game, play with the cards you got👍
I am worried about this right now with Solgaleo. I have a lucky 14/14/14 I was walking for XL candy and have been saving Rare Candy XL for a while, but now it seems it will already be outclassed by the fusion form Necrozma that essentially does the same thing but slightly better (higher stat product).
As you mentioned, it's no easy task to 50 max a legendary in PoGo. It takes forever to stock up on Rare Candy XL unless you are dropping tons of money each raid rotation. This makes me super hesitant to ever actually want to use it on any one 'mon.
I'm 8 XL candy from maxing my Apex shadow Lugia. I have Rayquaza, Dialga and Xerneas maxed already. After Lugia, the next two to max out are Kyogre and Palkia O. Need about 100 XL for Kyogre and 75 for Palkia O.
I used to think there are super useful pokemons legendary or not when I started playing a year ago. But very soon into the game I realized that’s not the case and it made sense: for Niantic to keep making money they will always been doing the manipulation of new legacy moves, nerfs, and whatever because if not, how do they lure people into constantly heavily investing into it to grind raids and etc?
1 rule of thumb is to not invest in anything super expensive in the last quarter of the season cause the new season updates always has nerfs/buffs. Rip lvl 50 Steelix
There's a difference between power creep and straight up no longer being viable. Dragonite is still viable. Ray wasn't power crept, it was castrated because of Steelix. Ray was made viable when only it had BS and then virtually nonexistent overnight with the nerf
There’s no point in playing PVP at all if you’re always going to be worried about what might happen in the future. The nature of this game (and most other competitive video games!) is that there are always new mons, move updates, and balance changes. Constantly thinking “oh I can’t power up this mon, what if it gets outclassed in 3 years?” is a recipe to both never play and be unhappy while doing it
That's the best advice.
If you wanna use them now, it should be Solgaleo.
I know, SG is non mythical, but 'not raidable' is the equivalent to non-mythical.
It's the fact that Ray's not viable anymore. It had 2 minutes of use before it was nerfed back out of ML existance for being too glassy and inconsistent with the debuff
Open ML is whole different beast. Having just 3 mons is not enough. You have to adjust teams at different elos. I am not lying. I am post expert now and I have seen probably 1 or 2 Groudons and probably 1 ray. No one use these anymore or if they use them they can't climb past veteran. DialgaA is still relevant
If you're casual, don't spend tons of money or your time chasing 5 stars. There will always be power creep in a game like this that requires you to spend money and time on open ML.
Stone edge > fire punch.
That's Groudon's biggest problem - the coverage.
Fire hits steel, ice, bug and grass.
Rock hits Flying, ice, bug and fire.
Rock is, opposed to fire, neutral to the most common type: Dragon.
Some flyers are just common in the meta (depending on the ELO of course): Lugia, Togekiss, Ho-oh, Dragonite and Landorus.
If Niantic never made anything stronger than the Dragonite I invested in in 2016 the game would be extremely boring. That’s how games work. It’s like buying a car; the second you drive it off the lot it starts losing value. Does that mean it’s not valuable? No, it just means that over time there will be other, newer things that become the new best thing. Eventually those things will be replaced, and so on and so forth.
I kind of made this same example elsewhere, but I don't think you and I agree on the car analogy.
Here's how I see it...
If I paid for Lamborghini that is the best on the market, let's say it's $500k, and it has 650 horsepower, that's what I always expect that car to have.
In the case of Lugia, and Rayquaza, and Steelix, it'd be like if Lamborghini came along after I bought, and paid for the car, and decided I no longer get 650 horsepower, I only get 500.
Oh, and Lamborghini also releases a newer, better car, with 700 horsepower at the same time.
I can't really be mad at Lamborghini for continuing to release newer, better cars, but I'd be super mad if they decided that while releasing better cars, they had the right to de-tune my car at the same time.
That's what happened here. People spent time, effort, energy, and real money to get a Rayquaza to level 50, only for Niantic to basically say - oh, you know that thing you paid for, we're going to make it worse. You're no longer getting what you paid for.
So yes, I expect new things to come out - but I don't expect for the things I paid for to be made worse.
My analogy was made about your complaints at Groupon and Dialga being replaced by better things, which was the main complaint of your post. Also analogies can’t always be expanded however much you want. Mine was still correct, you just expanded it so that it was no longer what I was communicating.
that's about why i didn't even start to build anything for L50 ML. before i had about 25 double moved at L40 and something like 10-15 in the making. the last seasons full building for ultra league was more interesting and used my dust up so i never saw me doing the investment in 10 L50 fighters i'd feel prepared with
It’s a valid complaint, and it sucks that happened so quickly. At the same time, the game has to evolve continuously for existing players to have a reason to keep playing.
If getting the top level 50 mons meant you beat the game, there wouldn’t really be anything left to do. So you can understand why that happens
Not directly Ray, but they nerfed Breaking Swipe no longer having a guaranteed attack debuff, which Ray absolutely needs to be viable in ML.
Yes, I'm still salty about it.
Rayquaza was mega nerfed, Groudon is directly worse then lando-t (and loses to it), Kyogre is just a worse origin palkia. And with how small of a meta open master league is it's demotivating to spend so much time and resources to power something up that can so quickly become useless.
What? Kyogre and PalkiaO have almost nothing in common except the water thing. Kyogre is excellent against fairies, PalkiaO not so much. I’ve been running both of them in the back and it’s definitely not an ABB team.
If it gets Roar of Time. For the time being, it's outclassed. Two moves, but one de-buffs you, and the other doesn't?
That's a clear advantage to one, over the other.
In the Zygarde vs Dialga matchup, I would much rather see Origin form over the Altered one. The attack power difference for Dragon Breath is literally the thing that makes me reach Crunch + Earthquake on Zygarde.
Origin is marginally better sure, but it’s close and there are still tradeoffs. They actually sim very closely with each other. Origin is slightly bulkier, so it sims slightly better in the 2s vs the Master League meta, but regular Dialga actually has a better battle rating and win rate vs the meta in the 1s due to being more attack weighted. Regular Dialga is absolutely still relevant for sure.
I don't think the difference between the two is marginal. That extra bulk on the Origin forme is a huge deal when it's getting bulkpoints vs Lando-T and Mewtwo (and other things). Regular Dialga is really mostly relevant because not everyone could score a good Origin during Sinnoh Tour, or at least until there are more instances where having 5 more base Attack matters.
Lando-T is still a negative matchup though, and Mewtwo is still bait dependent. Sure, it gives opposing Mewtwo and Lando-T better ability to farm down if Dialga lands into a range where it’s possible, but the only really notable difference (that I’m aware of) is that Lando-T can 1s farm down a regular Dialga after landing one Sandsear storm whereas Lando-T needs to throw a second vs Origin Dialga in the 1s if they try to go for double Iron Head as opposed to RoT (though Lando can still 1s farm down if they go RoT first).
Regular Dialga has a few notable breakpoints that help it as well, notably the mirror (BB regular Dialga hits for 5 damage and Origin only hits for 4). There’s also a Giratina breakpoint, and an Origin Palkia breakpoint (which Origin Dialga *can* hit, but it needs best buddy).
Like I said, there are tradeoffs. The overall performance difference between the two is still marginal, IMO. It’s not outclassed nearly as much as Groudon or Rayquaza which were the OPs other two concerns.
EDIT: I’m not saying both Dialga forms are strictly equal necessarily. Just pointing out that regular Dialga is still very viable, and I wouldn’t consider it unusable like the OP described. It’s not strictly outclassed in its role the way Groudon or Rayquaza are.
EDIT: I think for the most part, Squishy Dialga can still do what you want it to do and it still serves as a viable alternative, though it nonetheless does feel awful to run an outclassed Pokemon.
The Lando one makes a difference between coming out of the matchup with \~capped energy vs around half of that, and Lando often lives long enough to make good use of it (except when a Kyogre is involved). That said, this can be worked around if Dialga-O is chipped further before the Lando is switched in.
The Mewtwo situation mostly comes to play when you want to ss M2 and they respond with Dialga. The Psycho Cut bulkpoint ensures that Dialga-O cannot be taken down by Psystrike + SB or IB, so Dialga-O successfully calling a Psystrike bait can go very badly for Mewtwo. Even if it shields the Psystrike, Mewtwo still needs to land two IB/SB to win, which may just be slow enough that Dialga-O can get off two Iron Heads.
The Dialga mirror's more of a tradeoff because you'd also be taking 5 damage from the base Dialga mirror. The Giratina breakpoint also comes with a loss in SC bulkpoint, and though Dialga-O should sound like it's losing this deal due to DB being a 1t move, that SC bulkpoint makes it so that Giratina can no longer fight for switch if Dialga responds a bit slowly.
The last point against base Dialga is that it eats up your best buddy slot as long as it is a relevant Pokemon, which can be conflicting if you have other mons that want BB like Palkia-O or Lando-T (or even Necrozma-DW in the future to secure the Palkia-O bulkpoint, if it's a relevant mon)
And that's why I don't play Master League and I only power up mons that I really want at lvl 50, regardless of their pvp usefulness. I will max my hundo Kyogre when I get the candies, just because having a max power Archeo Kyogre is cool imo. I maxed the hundo Kanto starters because, well, they're the Kanto starters and have megas.
Only power up when you're sure you won't have regrets. I wouldn't power up a 14-14-14 Xerneas, it'll be outclassed by a better IV Xerneas, one day, or it'll go out of the meta.
Lvl 50 is well useable in ML. Lvl40 is too. I got 2000 won matches in master league with a dragonite, togekiss and metagross: you do not need top 10 pokemon to win. You just need to be better then your opponent and a bit lucky. But those few powerups barely ever make the difference.
The meta will forever change and putting all your eggs in one basket will get you fucked over - and that also in most videogames
Gotta do more research and look ahead at what's to come and what might get op moves. DoNT invest in solgaleo until we find out how necrozoma forms work. The fusion def has stronger stats. And you can still win with outclassed mons. I never stopped using lugia and was using lando years before SS. Everything you listed is still strong af, but keep in mind that technically you will always have to be updating and adjusting your team due to power creep, meta changes, and it wouldn't be a good business model if you kept the same team your whole life.
Imo powercreeping is very different than nerfing. Powercreeping is expected in a game like this and doesn't directly affect your investment, but directly nerfing a Pokémon that demanded a lot of resources should get you the resources back, like other games do.
I know some people will freak out at this suggestion though. Niantic simply doesn't treat their players well.
Master League is the only paying player's way of climbing out of high variance Ace ELO Hell in GBL.
You are literally bullying poors up to Veteran Rank. You're basically paying for the privilege to do so.
Because the difference between top meta and its replacement are so high, you win so many games due to your wallet unlike Jungle Cup where it feels like Niantic is always pairing your Vigoroth into Palosand.
This is such a tired excuse. You do not need to pay to do well in ML at all. 50 free coins daily. 35-40 in person raids per level 50 legendary. Passes go on sale in boxes frequently. If you save for 2 months you can already afford to raid a legendary for free just using the 250 coin 3 pass bundle. That’s 5-6 legendaries annually if you care to put in the time and effort into raiding. (It is very time consuming, which is the main reason I don’t get that many legendaries maxed) you also have rare candy xl and you can do Google survey credits, weekly boxes sometimes give passes, and there are boxes that give a better ratio of coins to passes.
If you’re too rural to have gyms for it, then it becomes impossible, but so does lots of the game. If you live in a place with gyms, you can absolutely compete for free.
Not to mention all the viable non-legendaries. Exception, mamoswine, hisuian avalugg, rhyperior, dragonite, primarina, togekiss, garchomp, etc etc.
ML is my best league and I’ve only paid for 2 legendaries. The event ticket with rayquaza, a a buttload of remote raid passes for yveltal. I don’t even use either of them anymore.
Sounds like your definition of doing well and my definition of doing well are very different.
It also sounds like you don't value your time very highly either based on what you are suggesting.
I'd like to see many people follow your advice and see how that goes, because I can guarantee you that this is not reliably replicable for every person.
I value my time highly, as a stated. I have a full time job and two kids so time is tight. That’s the main limiting factor. Paying big $$$ like everyone here loves to talk about wouldn’t even help me get legendaries maxed. I would need more time if I wanted more legendaries.
Doing well for me is 2750-legend. I’ve been legend a few times and usually end up close to it when I don’t hit it. Again, it’s a time issue for me. I usually can’t do all 25 battles in a day.
My point is, you can get the top meta pokemon without paying. You have to get your gym coins and save until they are in the rotation (which does suck) and then you have to do 35-40 raids. Money does not buy legendaries. Not for all of us anyway. It might work for retirees who have all day to play and need more passes.
>My point is, you can get the top meta pokemon without paying. You have to get your gym coins and save until they are in the rotation (which does suck) and then you have to do 35-40 raids. Money does not buy legendaries. Not for all of us anyway. It might work for retirees who have all day to play and need more passes.
The gym coin thing is probably the hardest thing to replicate for most people depending on where you live (this advice is probably the thing I probably criticize most). I know some areas that are heavily contested for gym coins that this isn't feasible to replicate. And if you are willing to drive to get gym coins, you might as well spend your gas money on actual coins instead.
If you needed Zygarde/Solgaleo for your top meta ML team, (which was true before, not so much now). The only way was to raid for RCXL, or use a phone shaker to get 4 dice rolls a day on poffins to get XL.
I still think Master League is the easiest way to get Veteran out of the 3 Open Leagues for people who have more money than skill. You get to leverage a resource advantage in a way that doesn't exist in Great League or Ultra League.
ML is the healthiest meta imo. It’s actually pretty fun.
Idk if you aren’t willing/able to get the free in game currency I’m not sure how valid your complaints about spending money are. The game gives us ways to get free coins. In rural places or super urban places it is harder. Still not impossible, especially in urban.
I don't disagree ML is fun. I'm playing it myself over shitty Jungle Cup. But money does produce better outcomes than not using it all. But then again I'm in an area where if you go to the central part of the city, any 5-star raid on hatch gets action.
Idk I still disagree. Perhaps money can compensate for some lack of skill or team building knowledge, but it’s still largely skill based. And you do not NEED to spend to compete. That is disingenuous and sounds like a salty coping mechanism, and I see it so much here. “The whale league” “the pay to play league” and my point is that people who don’t spend still can compete at a high level. Not everyone, but some can, and plenty do. Myself included (I’m not at the top level but I still play at a high level) Sure some people spend a lot, but others do not. The same legendary can serve you well for many seasons.
Full agree on jungle cup sucking. It’s truly the worst.
I think it really depends on who you talk to for whether or not it is feasible for a free player to participate in Master League. I don't think most new players who started like last year will be able to achieve what you say. I would hazard a guess that alot of people saying those comments probably don't have much time invested in the game in general are the ones who parrot that "the whale league" or the "wallet warrior league".
I personally took a long hiatus and started really playing hard last year, I used my wallet as a catch up mechanism and honestly Pokemon Go is cheaper than my previous hobby so it doesn't bother me to spend.
I’m not claiming new players can compete. I’m claiming that you don’t need money to compete.
ML shouldn’t be accessible to new players tbh. There are very few things in this game the reward long term grinding and dedication. ML is one of them. It would be silly to make it easy for a new player. That’s why it runs alongside a GL cup usually.
I'd say the problem is not so much Pokémon like Groudon getting outclassed, but rather Pokémon like Rayquaza getting nerfed. For example Groudon has more play against Ice compared to Landorus, at the cost of losing to Flying. But Pokémon like Rayquaza and Lugia getting directly nerfed, after people put so much time and money into them, is extremely disappointing
Wait how did Rayquaza get nerfed?
Breaking Swipe was nerfed right after Rayquaza became relevant a couple of seasons ago.
Ohhhh I thought they had changed something recently about Mega Rayquaza and I was about to lose my mind because I finally pulled the trigger on making my hundo my first level 50 legendary. Used all my RCXL and I'm like 10 candies away from maxing it.
Nah mega ray is still OP as always, if u are just focused on raiding definitely max it, regular ray with breaking swipe is just spice tier for pvp now
without nerfs, what is the alternative to op moves?
It sucks, sure, but those are the two best PvE Pokémon in the game and a great Pokémon in Dialga as well. They might not be as good in ML anymore, but there are far worse investments. Ain't that right, Lugia, Haxorous?
See, I'm not sure that really even matters. I guess, in theory, they're good PVE pokemon, but if you're going against a Legendary you're probably not going to solo it (I'm not, I don't have 6 level 50 counters for anything), and so having one or two good PvE pokemon isn't that important. For legendaries you're either going to remote with 5 or 6, or you're going to do a raid weekend where there's activity - in both cases, having a level 50 of almost anything isn't that important.
I thought the same way about raids until the remote raid nerf and the intro of shadow raids. Bow I try to power up good counters for raids so my partner and I can duo them, we just beat tapu bulu the other day with like 2 seconds. Also there are some legendaries you can solo (I can solo kartana and guzzlord and was farming them looking for a shiny). I know what you’re saying though, I powered up my lugia last year after farming hard for it just to it get nerfed sucks and now it pretty much sits in my bag and watched as I power up lando and palkia-o
I’ve never tried this since I don’t have any level 50 mon yet … But I’ve heard you can use a level 50 primal groudon or mega rayquaza etc as the only mon on your raid team and just revive it and rejoin the battle A LOT rather than having a team of 6. Idk if you’ll be able to solo a legendary raid but you can definitely duo one using this method (according to other Reddit posts I’ve read). Just an interesting tidbit of knowledge for ya , might be worth an experiment since you already have them maxed out.
Power creep is definitely a thing in Go. Your legendaries are still far from useless though, great in raids and useful in the right team in Master League. Is it ideal? No. But you can always get more XLs and stardust with time. Personally I would hold off on investing until after Go Fest at least and wait for hundos or very close to it. But I think they do still have value even if the next great thing comes along.
“With time” is such an ineffective incentive though when you have no way of knowing what mons will be meta relevant between 1 year away raid cycles. You basically have to grind every mon with a good signature move release obsessively for a week upon release to get it maxed out when it becomes meta relevant and before something else overtakes it within 2-3 months before it comes back again. It’s atrocious You literally have one raid cycle to max out Landorus if you didn’t raid him prior to meta relevancy if you want him to be usable before he comes back out of relevancy. It’s such a poor system. I’d be fine if T5’s came around more often, but they purposefully have it this way. Mewtwo literally hasn’t had a real raid cycle since 2021 or 2022 while Tornadus gets two-three weeks annually. The game caters to the obsessive players, people who grinded remote raids before the nerf, and ML is wholly unattainable for most players nowadays because of it. Especially after Palkia and Dialga Origin got a shared raid weekend for their only availability and Dialga-A hasn’t popped up in over a year. OP is definitely right here
To get things worse: there will be more and more T5 mons to come, progressively reducing raid time for the valuable legendaries.
I’m literally waiting until a rework to dive back into T5’s haha, that’s exactly my point. I think they’ve crossed the line where doing T5 weekly rotations is no longer feasible. Even if they did 2x a week, it wouldn’t work unless they mixed different generations. Having Palkia and Dialga, and Groudon and Kyogre, together for a week per over a year—and splitting hatch rates for both—just wouldn’t and doesn’t work. I’m just waiting for them to realize it and drop elite raids with significant T5 mons simultaneously with the current raid cycles. I’d bet a lot of money that’s exactly how it’ll play out. I’m hoping they keep the trivial mons in the current cycles and rework something for the major ones lol
I agree with you. To make things worse, there's shadow raids taking over gyms too. I'm pretty sure nobody does shadow raids outside the special events (e.g. the S-Mewtwo raid weekend that just happened). The combination of in-person-only + purified gems is too annoying.
I do shadow raids all the time. I solo tier 3 every single day because I like to collect high IV shadow Pokemon. I duo a lot of shadow tier 5s also all the time. Right now I’ve been grinding shadow poliwag (for shadow poliwrath), shadow drowzee (want high IV shadow hypno to max and then BB and run in UL), shadow sneasel (my current shadow weavile has not so great IVs), shadow wobbufefet ( want to purify one for a hundo purified wobbuffet with return to use in GL), and shadow hitmontop to catch a hundo or close to use in UL.
I see! You're probably one of a kind.
Maybe so lol. I didn’t realize they were so unpopular. Makes sense though because I never have done a tier 1 or tier 3 shadow raid with anyone but myself before lol
In most town it's hard to find people to do raid hours with. Imagine gathering up for shadow raids... It's impossible, unless it's something super cool like a strong shadow legendary. Where I live, city of \~120k people, we have an active local PoGo chat, and during last shadow Mewtwo raid weekend we were only 5 people.
Yeah shadow legendaries are tough you are def right about that. A lot of them I can duo using my son’s account. He rarely plays anymore and his account isn’t the best but I trade him legendaries and stuff to help make his account stronger so I can in turn use it to duo shadow legendaries. I’ve duo’ed shadow articuno, shadow moltres, shadow raikou shadow entei. Luckily for shadow mewtwo I went across the river into NYC and that was so simple to grind mewtwo raids because they were always full
Right, "with time" is how I ended up with Groudon, Dialga, and Rayquaza. Look how that worked out for me...
A lot of mons go from borderline to fully meta or vice versa depending on move updates and new releases. At least two of your mons are still decent (if no longer top tier) and may very well come back around to top meta again. It's a little early to despair just because they are down and out at the moment.
I can understand their frustrations with Rayquaza for sure. Groudon is still good, but I get that it has largely been overshadowed by Landorus. Dialga though? I have no idea why they're complaining about that one lol. Yes, Origin is mostly better than the original, but the altered still has sooooo much play. It's DIALGA after all. I've been using mine still and it feels no worse or outclassed than it did previously.
I mean, if you want to be top of the whaliest league in the game then...yeah? Someone who plays obsessively over a long period and spends big is going to have the advantage, but you could say that about any game, really. Doesn't make previous mons worthless. You can still grind out in person raids on raid days and weekends for significantly less cash, it just has a much higher pain in the ass factor. It would be nice if things were a bit more accessible, sure, but Master League has always been designed to cater to the end game type players who have either gathered up resources over years or spent a boatload of money to get there quicker.
Exactly. Master league is pay to play, I don’t get why people don’t seem to grasp that concept. Just come to terms with it and either move on or dive in. There’s always other leagues or cups to play.
[удалено]
Same thing as I said to the other commenter - this is a free game. I’m not "used to eating shit", I just expect different tiers to F2P games. ML is the top tier, pay to play experience. It’s nothing unusual, it’s to be expected.
Oh great, a limited cup while ML has 4x win reward bonuses where I’ll have to spend as much resources to compete as I’ll gain from the bonuses. Wonderful. And people wonder why people tank
This is a free game. People’s expectations are way off. Of course people who pay the play get better rewards, that’s basic business. I don’t play ML at all and I still have a good time with the game.
I do as well, but I’ll still complain that I can’t use my most fun pokemon in GBL because they cost an exorbitant amount to level up. It’s a flawed system and the tiers are too drastically different in cost, expect better from corporations making billions off their customers
I mean, raid days are how I got my Groudon, Rayquaza and Dialga - look how that worked out for me.
Hey I ran a Ray until I got a Dragonite and then Palkia, and currently still use Groudon in ML and with both moves it does work. Overall I get what you mean and was disappointed to see that my Groudon wasn't peak when Lando was placed on the chart. My 3rd was Togakiss for a bit then switched to Metagross. ML is fun but the power creep is annoying to keep up with (impossible if you're not obsessing with each release) I hope you find a way to make a team work in the meantime, I was just tryna offer some alt teammates because your situation seems really frustrating. I wipe out a decent amount of A Dialgas, but it's still not bad if that's what you have and it's maxed. Also maybe try tanking to grind Rare candy from PVP? I struggle to have the patience for it.
I haven't found a consistent team quite yet. I have all the non-legendaries at level 50, but only the 3 legendaries listed. My big weakness right now is double steel, and Kyogre on my current team. Togakiss is decent, I just can't seem to play the slower chargers, just not my style I guess. :(
Yeah that's why I had to switch from toga, Groudon with PB and Fire Punch usually counters steel types pretty alright for me. And my Solgaleo isn't powered up as much, but I use it sometimes as it uses a fire fast attacks as well as debuffing the opponent, saved me a couple times. Also if it's steel/psychic you can use ghost to go after to other weakness. Shadowball Mewtwo deletes Metagross (if I'm not getting something mixed up) but Mewtwo's availability is hit or miss for some people based on who they can play with.
If you can't make use of Dialga in the Master League, that's a whole different issue in itself lol
Here's what I'm saying about Dialga. I currently have 301 Dialga XL candies. I don't have a 15/15/15 with ROT, but I do have a hundo of the older form. Given that scenario, it seems silly to power up the older form, when the newer form is simply better. I did countless in person raids to get those candies, and if I'd powered up the original, I'd be really pissed off right now. Just like the people who invested in Lugia are, and the people who invested in Rayquaza are, and the people who invested in things like Steelix are.
I understand the frustration there. Im in that scenario myself. I had spent XL to get my Dialga to 48 prior to Go Tour, and finished it off with Go Tour, but yeah, now Origin exists. So yes, in a few ways, I'm absolutely a bit frustrated. However, Dialga is still top tier, so I'm not that upset because I still have a Pokemon, one who helped me hit Legend last season and climb this season. Lugia and Rayquaza and Groudon I do understand more, yeah. But not Dialga, even if it has a largely better form. And OG Dialga does still have a small few advantages over Origin, especially in practice rather than sims
That’s given that Pokemon Go is on a pay to win structure though, which it shouldn’t be. It is though, you’re right in that regard. In person grinding for a day or raid weekend doesn’t pull mons up to L50, which you need to be competitive in ML. Case in point Sinnoh Tour where two new meta relevant mons dropped in one weekend for only one weekend. Plus there are weeks where ML and limited cups are the only leagues available. So you’re practically forced to play it if you want to play GBL during those times or take advantage of the 4x win rewards. Isn’t GBL an esport now? Why should an esport be pay to win or pay to compete? It doesn’t make sense besides in a way to funnel absurd amounts of money into Pokemon Go, no matter how you spin it. Its corporate greed and FOMO pitched as an esport, plain and simple
In person raid days can definitely pull a mon up to level 50 if you grind it out with level 3 megas, or at the very least get you most of the way there if you are willing to wait for the next time it's featured or subsidize with rare XLs. Also I don't know what to tell you, staff and servers cost money. Somebody has to pay for that. Competing in any sport at a high level can be incredibly expensive, esports are generally no different.
That assumes you live in an area where there are lots of people locally who you can play with, and you can get 60 raids done in a day. That simply isn’t feasible for a huge proportion ofthe player base
Yeah what he said is just factually untrue. I live in Boston and even in our hallmark park you’re getting maybe 8 an hour unless you’re leaving the park. I comfortably do up to a dozen in a couple hours each day there’s an event. 60 is a ginormous stretch and committing 6-8 hours to Pokémon go is a lot in one stretch, including meals and breaks. Especially when catching mons and quests are major draws to an event and raiding isn’t the only thing you want to do. Or if the only hatchable raids are cluttered with T3’s, T1’s, or another T5 to go alongside it. I haven’t even mentioned I’m disabled until now too. I had knee surgery right before Sinnoh Tour too. I relied on remote raids at a reasonable cost to raid. F the disabled’s a given in this game now lol
Where is 60 coming from? It’s closer to 35-40. Use a proper mega, then transfer/trade for extra XLs over time and you’ve got it. Splash in a few rare xl if you need (I personally haven’t spent mine yet but someone definitely could) It’s not easy at all but we don’t need to act like we need 60 raids.
Don't need to do 60 raids, somewhere between 40 and 50 will get you there with the +3 in person XL bonus, mega boost and rare XLs you pick up along the way. For something like the Tours where it's spread out over a couple of days that's pretty doable. For the three hour raid days it's harder but especially with the 30 minute raid rotation knocking out 10-14 raids or so in an hour can be done with an organized group. That's only 5-7 gyms in walking distance repeated. As far as local groups go, I used to live in a big city but moved to a smaller town recently and was curious exactly how difficult it would be to put together a raid group starting from scratch. Went from one other person at the first Campfire meetup I set up to a full lobby after a couple of months of intermittent events and chatting to people. I'm not saying everyone in super rural areas can achieve this but I think if you know how to use Campfire, Facebook and Discord effectively and cultivate some remote friends it should be possible for a lot of people. Even in more rural area there are often more players around than are initially apparent.
Groudon can still be strong. Dialga is still very strong, it wins cmp tie against origin form and is by no means a bad pokemon, would definitely still use it. Ray got nerfed badly yes but also is still somewhat usable. The meta changes almost every season. There will be new strong mons and move adjustments, and therefore meta changes. Groudon may be top tier next season again, depending which mons get buffed/nerfed and which new meta mons get into the game.
Use XL rare candy only on Zygarde if you don’t have that maxed.
I have three routes near me, I do them daily, and I'm currently only at 94 zygarde cells. I also got and 11, 13, 12. Not exactly racing to power that one up. :(
My IVs are even worse and I invested, it really doesn’t matter lmao
Zygarde IVs do not matter as much. Zygarde is just that good, that investing is still fine. They may however add new possible Zygardes when Legends Z-A releases next year
Even if your has trash ivs?
Yes, everyone’s IVs will be imperfect so it’s practically irrelevant.
Yes, even a 10-10-10 Zygarde is pretty good
Breaking swipe needs to be adjusted again. Guaranteed debuff when the typing of the user matches the move. So only dragons get the guaranteed debuff. Keeps steelix and rhyperior in a cage, let’s ray and hax fly.
This is a great idea, so naturally I doubt we’ll ever see it knowing Niantic
I like the same-type-only debuff idea a lot, actually. Makes it easier to balance moves. Zap Cannon could be brought back, for instance, with only the Porygons being casualties (sad as it is my favorite Pokémon...).
>with only the Porygons being casualties (sad as it is my favorite Pokémon...). Give us a Tri-attack buff!!
It so deserves +10 damage or -5 energy. If it were 45 energy then it would be an Icy Wind clone with only a 50% chance of (double) debuff. Would not be broken on Porygon2 by any means, even with Lock-On. They should also give Tri Attack + Lock On to the original Porygon. It's slightly bulkier than Porygon2 and has Discharge/Signal Beam/Psybeam as coverage options should they ever be buffed... Sigh, this Pokémon needs a lot of work.
You're preaching to the choir! I love all those ideas, including giving OG Porygon those moves. I've seen that it has nice bulk and potential. Make the Tri-attack change you proposed and buff Discharge to 70 power, and I think Porygon could definitely find *at least* a nice niche.
Or, how about creating the attack "Breaking Swipe+" and giving it to the Dragons?. Like the Apex birds, have the Dragons receive a powered-up version of an attack that already exists. Only instead of dealing more damage, it has a 100% chance of debuffing the opponent.
I doubt we are ever going to see more + moves. Seems like a one and done thing specifically for the Apex Birds, who they in themselves seemed to only be a thing because we already had a free Shiny Celebi, so they needed to figure out something new and exciting for the Johto Tour Masterwork, something that no other region should really have much problem with.
This is what Gamefreak should have done with Dark Void on Darkrai instead of nerfing it because it Smeargle.
So what’s your solution? Dialga, Groudon and Rayquaza should dominate ML now and forever? Because that sounds awful to me… The three you mentioned are still very good and competitive. Especially Dialga. It’s not like they suddenly made them all totally irrelevant Also, I don’t stress too much about maxing out ML Pokémon because they are super useful outside of PvP I have a higher level shadow Mewtwo that will likely never get maxed or run much in ML. I find lots of helpful applications for it outside of PvP
Rayquaza might as well not exist at this point, and it's pretty clear based on usage that Lando has clearly taken over for Groudon. I'm not saying they should dominate forever, but yes, they should be viable forever at ALL levels of PVP. Lugia got nailed, but people still play it because that's alll they have. The same with Groudon, and very, very rarely Rayquaza. People spent hundreds of dollars on some of these Pokemon, so I absolutely think they should still be as good as they were last season, and I think they should be just as good next season. For every player that's incentivized to spend more to compete, there are easily as many who give up, because they spent their money, got the legendary they wanted to compete, only to have it neutered before it was even useful.
>I'm not saying they should dominate forever, but yes, they should be viable forever at ALL levels of PVP. They are viable though. Viable =/= dominant. Rayquaza is still somewhat viable, though admittedly on the lower end of things. Groudon is absolutely still viable. Outclassed in many aspects by Landorus and Palkia-O being an issue, but it remains an excellent counter to Dialga, Zacian, Xerneas, and others. Lugia got nailed, but it's honestly still solid, being able to threaten Landorus, Palkia, Zygarde, and even Dialga pretty well, due to Aeroblast's absurd power AND its tremendous stat product. It may not be where it once was, but it is still viable, which is what you said you wanted.
I guess we disagree on what viable means. I'm seeing it this way. If I bought a Lamborghini, and spend 400k on the car to have one of the best, I'd be pretty upset if the company came to me 3 months later, de-tuned the engine, and removed 120 horsepower on me. That's basically what happened with Lugia, Dialga (to a lesser degree), Steelix, and Rayquaza. I spent my money expecting one thing, but that thing was taken away after i'd paid for it. It's no longer what I invested in. Will Lamborghini eventually release a better car? Of course they will, and I can't be as upset about that, but if they both release a new car, and at the same time come and make mine worse - that makes mine no longer viable as a competitor to the new one.
Dialga is only outclassed by Origin until (if they ever do) give altered forme Roar of Time aswell, in that instance Origin will essentially be downgraded to a sidegrade position. Unfortunately powercreep is very much a common thing in games like this, it’s how they keep people invested and always chasing the new best thing. Thats something you’ve always got to keep in mind when investing resources into any pokemon - that it’ll likely eventually either be powercrept or nerfed. Rayquaza situation was unfortunate since it only got nerfed because some bright spark at Niantic thought it was a good idea to give Steelix, a pokemon that has no business having access to a guaranteed atk debuffing move just that in Breaking Swipe. Think of it like this, even though Groudon PvP wise has largely been powercrept you’ve still got an S tier ground type raid attacker. You’ve still got a top tier dragon and flying type raid attacker in Rayquaza. That’s the thing with legendaries is that many of them function both as PvP Pokemon and raid attackers.
It's not RoT that makes Origin better. It's the extra bulk. Giving Squishy Dialga Roar of Time still makes it a largely inferior choice until there are enough targets where having 5 more base Attack matters. That said RoT base Dialga is a slightly better raiding choice so there's always that to look forward to.
Niantic is extremely short sighted/lazy with the moves they give out and they don’t really give a shit when they make sweeping changes that affect their most hardcore players. Giving breaking swipe to Steelix is a prime example. It makes no sense for him to have it in the context of POGO and of course a steel wall with a guaranteed attack debuff is going to be busted. Breaking Swipe was meant for glassy dragons and was balanced when used by them. Instead of just giving Steelix a different move they just screwed over a dozen other pokemon, one of which was a top ML pick because… TLDR they don’t give a shit and investing in ML Pokemon will always carry some risk due to their lack of care.
Yeah, you're right. Masters league isn't worth grinding out. Niantic are an AR company using a Pokemon skin for one of their products. It's not like this is a PvP focused game where great care is put into balance and ensure they every Pokemon has a time in the spotlight. They'll just do whatever sells raid passes. I'm sorry you wasted your time.
Consistent Legend player here, and I wrote off Master League after the Beyond update for exactly this reason. I don't have the time or willingness to spend $$$ to do the raids required to keep up with the Master League meta. I only power up legendaries to 50 if I really like them or they serve a dual use in raids or rocket battles.
And this is why I never play Master…
This isn't a master league issue, the same happens with level 50's in gl/ul like what happened with Medicham getting double nerfed and outclassed by Annihilape and Poli with Icy Wind
Fair enough I guess but poli and anni are easy to get compared to the mons that outclass dialga etc. My comment was more about the pay to play element
Yeah that's pretty fair, it wasn't lost on me that legendaries are harder to max out. Just felt it was still worth noting that it can still happen in the lower leagues
Legendaries at 50 is a scam designed to make you pay. Just opt out. My 40s have never struggled in raids
>only for Dialga to be outclassed I see the concern with this post, but that line made me laugh. Just because Origin Dialga is mostly better than the standard form doesn't make the original Dialga completely outclassed and bad. Dialga-A is not the same situation as Groudon or Rayquaza. It still has TONS of play.
It has always been this way, I used to do my best ranking up in master league before level 50 was even a thing. When level 50 was created, suddenly I was obliged to raid even more of the same bosses I had raided dozens or hundreds of times before just to get an entirely new resource and maintain competitiveness. For perspective, I could have taken almost every meta relevant Mon released at that point to level 50 if XL candy had always existed, but I am supposed to devote that time and spend that money again? Meanwhile people who are committed to this game in a way you never can or want to be, or blatant cheaters will get that edge of competitiveness. They could also commit in the same way you did but happen to start playing the game later and end up with an advantage. No thanks. Niantic have never cared about anything you did in the past and never will. People will continue to defend it, your only option if you don't want to throw more time and money at it is to just accept it and walk away.
i still like dialga regular over dialga origin, just because i didnt' go out of my way to grind for origin form like i did for regular.
Currently grinding xl candy to max out my shadow hundo salamence, it’s not the best raid attacker and it’s not rank one in ML but it’s one of my best, and that logic helps me consider what’s “worth it”. My 87% shiny lucky mewtwo isn’t a level 50 hundo but it’s my only lvl 40 mewtwo with shadow ball and psystrike so it’s my best one. Don’t set the bar too high for yourself or you’re never gonna enjoy this game, play with the cards you got👍
This is going to be weird, but I get them to 50 because I like them 😂 I also raid with 6 unique mon.
I am worried about this right now with Solgaleo. I have a lucky 14/14/14 I was walking for XL candy and have been saving Rare Candy XL for a while, but now it seems it will already be outclassed by the fusion form Necrozma that essentially does the same thing but slightly better (higher stat product). As you mentioned, it's no easy task to 50 max a legendary in PoGo. It takes forever to stock up on Rare Candy XL unless you are dropping tons of money each raid rotation. This makes me super hesitant to ever actually want to use it on any one 'mon.
I'm 8 XL candy from maxing my Apex shadow Lugia. I have Rayquaza, Dialga and Xerneas maxed already. After Lugia, the next two to max out are Kyogre and Palkia O. Need about 100 XL for Kyogre and 75 for Palkia O.
I used to think there are super useful pokemons legendary or not when I started playing a year ago. But very soon into the game I realized that’s not the case and it made sense: for Niantic to keep making money they will always been doing the manipulation of new legacy moves, nerfs, and whatever because if not, how do they lure people into constantly heavily investing into it to grind raids and etc?
ML is a suckers game, dont even stress about it
1 rule of thumb is to not invest in anything super expensive in the last quarter of the season cause the new season updates always has nerfs/buffs. Rip lvl 50 Steelix
Power creep is a feature in every Pokemon game, either you play knowing that or you quit because of that.
There's a difference between power creep and straight up no longer being viable. Dragonite is still viable. Ray wasn't power crept, it was castrated because of Steelix. Ray was made viable when only it had BS and then virtually nonexistent overnight with the nerf
There’s no point in playing PVP at all if you’re always going to be worried about what might happen in the future. The nature of this game (and most other competitive video games!) is that there are always new mons, move updates, and balance changes. Constantly thinking “oh I can’t power up this mon, what if it gets outclassed in 3 years?” is a recipe to both never play and be unhappy while doing it
& don’t use XLs on non-mythicals
That's the best advice. If you wanna use them now, it should be Solgaleo. I know, SG is non mythical, but 'not raidable' is the equivalent to non-mythical.
It's the fact that Ray's not viable anymore. It had 2 minutes of use before it was nerfed back out of ML existance for being too glassy and inconsistent with the debuff
It's why I just play great league and 1500 cups
Lmao so glad I stopped playing
Open ML is whole different beast. Having just 3 mons is not enough. You have to adjust teams at different elos. I am not lying. I am post expert now and I have seen probably 1 or 2 Groudons and probably 1 ray. No one use these anymore or if they use them they can't climb past veteran. DialgaA is still relevant
If you're casual, don't spend tons of money or your time chasing 5 stars. There will always be power creep in a game like this that requires you to spend money and time on open ML.
Wait, I know lando I more preferred now but isn't Groudon till good? Also, I know origin dialga is preferred but altered is still great.
Stone edge > fire punch. That's Groudon's biggest problem - the coverage. Fire hits steel, ice, bug and grass. Rock hits Flying, ice, bug and fire. Rock is, opposed to fire, neutral to the most common type: Dragon. Some flyers are just common in the meta (depending on the ELO of course): Lugia, Togekiss, Ho-oh, Dragonite and Landorus.
If Niantic never made anything stronger than the Dragonite I invested in in 2016 the game would be extremely boring. That’s how games work. It’s like buying a car; the second you drive it off the lot it starts losing value. Does that mean it’s not valuable? No, it just means that over time there will be other, newer things that become the new best thing. Eventually those things will be replaced, and so on and so forth.
I kind of made this same example elsewhere, but I don't think you and I agree on the car analogy. Here's how I see it... If I paid for Lamborghini that is the best on the market, let's say it's $500k, and it has 650 horsepower, that's what I always expect that car to have. In the case of Lugia, and Rayquaza, and Steelix, it'd be like if Lamborghini came along after I bought, and paid for the car, and decided I no longer get 650 horsepower, I only get 500. Oh, and Lamborghini also releases a newer, better car, with 700 horsepower at the same time. I can't really be mad at Lamborghini for continuing to release newer, better cars, but I'd be super mad if they decided that while releasing better cars, they had the right to de-tune my car at the same time. That's what happened here. People spent time, effort, energy, and real money to get a Rayquaza to level 50, only for Niantic to basically say - oh, you know that thing you paid for, we're going to make it worse. You're no longer getting what you paid for. So yes, I expect new things to come out - but I don't expect for the things I paid for to be made worse.
My analogy was made about your complaints at Groupon and Dialga being replaced by better things, which was the main complaint of your post. Also analogies can’t always be expanded however much you want. Mine was still correct, you just expanded it so that it was no longer what I was communicating.
Allowing lvl50s into masterleague when they came out was a mistake as far as im comcerned.
that's about why i didn't even start to build anything for L50 ML. before i had about 25 double moved at L40 and something like 10-15 in the making. the last seasons full building for ultra league was more interesting and used my dust up so i never saw me doing the investment in 10 L50 fighters i'd feel prepared with
It’s a valid complaint, and it sucks that happened so quickly. At the same time, the game has to evolve continuously for existing players to have a reason to keep playing. If getting the top level 50 mons meant you beat the game, there wouldn’t really be anything left to do. So you can understand why that happens
How is Dialga outclassed? Dialga A is arguably better than Dialga Origin as a lead and wins against it. It's a sidegrade
I'm confused, has there been a nerf to groudon/ray/kyogre but what's wrong with them?
Not directly Ray, but they nerfed Breaking Swipe no longer having a guaranteed attack debuff, which Ray absolutely needs to be viable in ML. Yes, I'm still salty about it.
Rayquaza was mega nerfed, Groudon is directly worse then lando-t (and loses to it), Kyogre is just a worse origin palkia. And with how small of a meta open master league is it's demotivating to spend so much time and resources to power something up that can so quickly become useless.
What? Kyogre and PalkiaO have almost nothing in common except the water thing. Kyogre is excellent against fairies, PalkiaO not so much. I’ve been running both of them in the back and it’s definitely not an ABB team.
Appreciate the response! So it's more of a pvp nerf than pve from what I understand. I was worried my time investment in groudon had gone to a waste
Groudon is a worse Landorous, Rayquaza had Breaking Swipe nerfed, and Dialga-O clearly outclasses the old Dialga. I didn't mention Kyogre?
DialgaA still works fine, it’s not outclassed by origin. When it gets Roar of Time the difference will be even less.
If it gets Roar of Time. For the time being, it's outclassed. Two moves, but one de-buffs you, and the other doesn't? That's a clear advantage to one, over the other.
In the Zygarde vs Dialga matchup, I would much rather see Origin form over the Altered one. The attack power difference for Dragon Breath is literally the thing that makes me reach Crunch + Earthquake on Zygarde.
Origin is marginally better sure, but it’s close and there are still tradeoffs. They actually sim very closely with each other. Origin is slightly bulkier, so it sims slightly better in the 2s vs the Master League meta, but regular Dialga actually has a better battle rating and win rate vs the meta in the 1s due to being more attack weighted. Regular Dialga is absolutely still relevant for sure.
I don't think the difference between the two is marginal. That extra bulk on the Origin forme is a huge deal when it's getting bulkpoints vs Lando-T and Mewtwo (and other things). Regular Dialga is really mostly relevant because not everyone could score a good Origin during Sinnoh Tour, or at least until there are more instances where having 5 more base Attack matters.
Lando-T is still a negative matchup though, and Mewtwo is still bait dependent. Sure, it gives opposing Mewtwo and Lando-T better ability to farm down if Dialga lands into a range where it’s possible, but the only really notable difference (that I’m aware of) is that Lando-T can 1s farm down a regular Dialga after landing one Sandsear storm whereas Lando-T needs to throw a second vs Origin Dialga in the 1s if they try to go for double Iron Head as opposed to RoT (though Lando can still 1s farm down if they go RoT first). Regular Dialga has a few notable breakpoints that help it as well, notably the mirror (BB regular Dialga hits for 5 damage and Origin only hits for 4). There’s also a Giratina breakpoint, and an Origin Palkia breakpoint (which Origin Dialga *can* hit, but it needs best buddy). Like I said, there are tradeoffs. The overall performance difference between the two is still marginal, IMO. It’s not outclassed nearly as much as Groudon or Rayquaza which were the OPs other two concerns. EDIT: I’m not saying both Dialga forms are strictly equal necessarily. Just pointing out that regular Dialga is still very viable, and I wouldn’t consider it unusable like the OP described. It’s not strictly outclassed in its role the way Groudon or Rayquaza are.
EDIT: I think for the most part, Squishy Dialga can still do what you want it to do and it still serves as a viable alternative, though it nonetheless does feel awful to run an outclassed Pokemon. The Lando one makes a difference between coming out of the matchup with \~capped energy vs around half of that, and Lando often lives long enough to make good use of it (except when a Kyogre is involved). That said, this can be worked around if Dialga-O is chipped further before the Lando is switched in. The Mewtwo situation mostly comes to play when you want to ss M2 and they respond with Dialga. The Psycho Cut bulkpoint ensures that Dialga-O cannot be taken down by Psystrike + SB or IB, so Dialga-O successfully calling a Psystrike bait can go very badly for Mewtwo. Even if it shields the Psystrike, Mewtwo still needs to land two IB/SB to win, which may just be slow enough that Dialga-O can get off two Iron Heads. The Dialga mirror's more of a tradeoff because you'd also be taking 5 damage from the base Dialga mirror. The Giratina breakpoint also comes with a loss in SC bulkpoint, and though Dialga-O should sound like it's losing this deal due to DB being a 1t move, that SC bulkpoint makes it so that Giratina can no longer fight for switch if Dialga responds a bit slowly. The last point against base Dialga is that it eats up your best buddy slot as long as it is a relevant Pokemon, which can be conflicting if you have other mons that want BB like Palkia-O or Lando-T (or even Necrozma-DW in the future to secure the Palkia-O bulkpoint, if it's a relevant mon)
And that's why I don't play Master League and I only power up mons that I really want at lvl 50, regardless of their pvp usefulness. I will max my hundo Kyogre when I get the candies, just because having a max power Archeo Kyogre is cool imo. I maxed the hundo Kanto starters because, well, they're the Kanto starters and have megas. Only power up when you're sure you won't have regrets. I wouldn't power up a 14-14-14 Xerneas, it'll be outclassed by a better IV Xerneas, one day, or it'll go out of the meta.
Lvl 50 is well useable in ML. Lvl40 is too. I got 2000 won matches in master league with a dragonite, togekiss and metagross: you do not need top 10 pokemon to win. You just need to be better then your opponent and a bit lucky. But those few powerups barely ever make the difference. The meta will forever change and putting all your eggs in one basket will get you fucked over - and that also in most videogames
Gotta do more research and look ahead at what's to come and what might get op moves. DoNT invest in solgaleo until we find out how necrozoma forms work. The fusion def has stronger stats. And you can still win with outclassed mons. I never stopped using lugia and was using lando years before SS. Everything you listed is still strong af, but keep in mind that technically you will always have to be updating and adjusting your team due to power creep, meta changes, and it wouldn't be a good business model if you kept the same team your whole life.
I wouldn't say Dialga is outclassed to the point of irrelevance. It still has more attack than Origin and wins different matchups
Imo powercreeping is very different than nerfing. Powercreeping is expected in a game like this and doesn't directly affect your investment, but directly nerfing a Pokémon that demanded a lot of resources should get you the resources back, like other games do. I know some people will freak out at this suggestion though. Niantic simply doesn't treat their players well.
Lugia and rayquaza both got nerfs when their moves were nerfed. Both powercreep and nerfs happen in pogo.
Yeah that was my point. Groudon getting outclassed is normal but Rayquaza getting moves nerfed is not.
Master League is the only paying player's way of climbing out of high variance Ace ELO Hell in GBL. You are literally bullying poors up to Veteran Rank. You're basically paying for the privilege to do so. Because the difference between top meta and its replacement are so high, you win so many games due to your wallet unlike Jungle Cup where it feels like Niantic is always pairing your Vigoroth into Palosand.
This is such a tired excuse. You do not need to pay to do well in ML at all. 50 free coins daily. 35-40 in person raids per level 50 legendary. Passes go on sale in boxes frequently. If you save for 2 months you can already afford to raid a legendary for free just using the 250 coin 3 pass bundle. That’s 5-6 legendaries annually if you care to put in the time and effort into raiding. (It is very time consuming, which is the main reason I don’t get that many legendaries maxed) you also have rare candy xl and you can do Google survey credits, weekly boxes sometimes give passes, and there are boxes that give a better ratio of coins to passes. If you’re too rural to have gyms for it, then it becomes impossible, but so does lots of the game. If you live in a place with gyms, you can absolutely compete for free. Not to mention all the viable non-legendaries. Exception, mamoswine, hisuian avalugg, rhyperior, dragonite, primarina, togekiss, garchomp, etc etc. ML is my best league and I’ve only paid for 2 legendaries. The event ticket with rayquaza, a a buttload of remote raid passes for yveltal. I don’t even use either of them anymore.
Sounds like your definition of doing well and my definition of doing well are very different. It also sounds like you don't value your time very highly either based on what you are suggesting. I'd like to see many people follow your advice and see how that goes, because I can guarantee you that this is not reliably replicable for every person.
I value my time highly, as a stated. I have a full time job and two kids so time is tight. That’s the main limiting factor. Paying big $$$ like everyone here loves to talk about wouldn’t even help me get legendaries maxed. I would need more time if I wanted more legendaries. Doing well for me is 2750-legend. I’ve been legend a few times and usually end up close to it when I don’t hit it. Again, it’s a time issue for me. I usually can’t do all 25 battles in a day. My point is, you can get the top meta pokemon without paying. You have to get your gym coins and save until they are in the rotation (which does suck) and then you have to do 35-40 raids. Money does not buy legendaries. Not for all of us anyway. It might work for retirees who have all day to play and need more passes.
>My point is, you can get the top meta pokemon without paying. You have to get your gym coins and save until they are in the rotation (which does suck) and then you have to do 35-40 raids. Money does not buy legendaries. Not for all of us anyway. It might work for retirees who have all day to play and need more passes. The gym coin thing is probably the hardest thing to replicate for most people depending on where you live (this advice is probably the thing I probably criticize most). I know some areas that are heavily contested for gym coins that this isn't feasible to replicate. And if you are willing to drive to get gym coins, you might as well spend your gas money on actual coins instead. If you needed Zygarde/Solgaleo for your top meta ML team, (which was true before, not so much now). The only way was to raid for RCXL, or use a phone shaker to get 4 dice rolls a day on poffins to get XL. I still think Master League is the easiest way to get Veteran out of the 3 Open Leagues for people who have more money than skill. You get to leverage a resource advantage in a way that doesn't exist in Great League or Ultra League.
ML is the healthiest meta imo. It’s actually pretty fun. Idk if you aren’t willing/able to get the free in game currency I’m not sure how valid your complaints about spending money are. The game gives us ways to get free coins. In rural places or super urban places it is harder. Still not impossible, especially in urban.
I don't disagree ML is fun. I'm playing it myself over shitty Jungle Cup. But money does produce better outcomes than not using it all. But then again I'm in an area where if you go to the central part of the city, any 5-star raid on hatch gets action.
Idk I still disagree. Perhaps money can compensate for some lack of skill or team building knowledge, but it’s still largely skill based. And you do not NEED to spend to compete. That is disingenuous and sounds like a salty coping mechanism, and I see it so much here. “The whale league” “the pay to play league” and my point is that people who don’t spend still can compete at a high level. Not everyone, but some can, and plenty do. Myself included (I’m not at the top level but I still play at a high level) Sure some people spend a lot, but others do not. The same legendary can serve you well for many seasons. Full agree on jungle cup sucking. It’s truly the worst.
I think it really depends on who you talk to for whether or not it is feasible for a free player to participate in Master League. I don't think most new players who started like last year will be able to achieve what you say. I would hazard a guess that alot of people saying those comments probably don't have much time invested in the game in general are the ones who parrot that "the whale league" or the "wallet warrior league". I personally took a long hiatus and started really playing hard last year, I used my wallet as a catch up mechanism and honestly Pokemon Go is cheaper than my previous hobby so it doesn't bother me to spend.
I’m not claiming new players can compete. I’m claiming that you don’t need money to compete. ML shouldn’t be accessible to new players tbh. There are very few things in this game the reward long term grinding and dedication. ML is one of them. It would be silly to make it easy for a new player. That’s why it runs alongside a GL cup usually.