Balance

No Pokémon Left Behind

It's no secret that GameFreak doesn't love all their creations equally. There's tons of Pokémon that may be fun to look at, but are just weak and boring in battle. Our goal is to make sure that every single Pokémon has a reason why you'd want to use it on your team. No more Pokémon that are just straight-up worse than others! In order to make this happen, we have weakened some of the strongest Pokémon—but the vast majority of our work has been making Pokémon stronger, more interesting, and more unique. We've put in hundreds of hours of work into fulfilling the needs of more than 1000 species—creating over 500 new moves and abilities in the process. We love every Pokémon! If you still don't believe us, check out our full Balance Changelog.

Typechart Changes

For us to balance one thousand Pokémon, we must balance the elemental types. Through changing type matchups, we've improved the weakest types (and weakened the strongest). For example, we improved the Bug-type by making it Super-Effective against Fairy-type, and making Psychic-type Not Very Effective against it. We wanted to avoid a total overhaul, however, and so worked hard to make a big shift with about a dozen changes. Even then, don't worry about memorizing what we've changed! The game will help you to know when moves will be effective or not, and the MasterDex shows the complete type matchups of each species.

Status Condition Reworks

We've introduced four new statuses conditions:

• Frostbite replaces Freeze. Frostbite is the special counterpart to burn, and was originally introduced in Pokémon Legends: Arceus.
• Numb replaces Paralysis - removing the chance to become "fully paralyzed". Instead, numbed pokémon deal less move damage.
• Dizzy replaces Confusion - It suppresses abilities and increases move damage taken.
• Leeched expands on the classic move Leech Seed—Nearly the same, but now many more Pokémon can inflict it!

Other conditions has been tweaked:

• Burn's attack reduction is down to 1/3.
• Poison and Toxic have been merged together.
• Sleep lasts only 2 turns. Sleep moves, rather than being inaccurate, all have a unique condition or downside.

These changes make battles more strategic and interesting!

Weather and Terrain Changes

Weathers and Terrains are important battle mechanics. Many Pokémon rely on Weathers and Terrains for their strength, either by creating them or by synergizing with them. The better balanced Weathers/Terrains are, and the more interesting elements they contain, the better we can use them to provide niches to many Pokémon.

We've changed three of the weathers:

• Hail now provides Ice-types a 50% increase to Defense. Hail synergy abilities and moves have also been given out to many Ghost-type Pokémon, to diversity Hail teams.
• Sun only boosts Fire-type moves by 30% (rather than 50%), and no longer reduces Water-type move damage. Rather, all Pokémon deal 15% less move damage and cannot perform critical hits. Fire-type and Grass-type Pokémon are immune to this, however. Moves of those types too.
• Rain only boosts Water-type moves by 30% (rather than 50%), and no longer reduces Fire-type move damage. Rather, all Pokémon deal 15% less move damage and only have half as much chance to activate their additional effects. Water-type and Electric-type Pokémon are immune to this, however. Moves of those types too.

Terrains have been cut from the game. We've given new abilities to Pokemon that were dependent on Grassy or Electric Terrain before, often focusing on Sun (Grass) or Rain (Electric). This left Psychic and Fairy-type out, so we introduced two new weathers for them:

• Eclipse is a new weather that increases the damage of Psychic-type moves by 30%. In addition, every 4 turns a "Total Eclipse" happens, and all Pokemon on the field receive a decrease to their Attack, Sp. Atk, Defense, Sp. Def, and Speed. Pokemon that are Psychic-type, Dragon-type, or have an Eclipse synergy ability are all immune to the Total Eclipse downside.
• Moonglow is a new weather that increases the damage of Fairy-type moves by 30%. In addition, every 4 turns a "Full Moon" happens, and all Pokemon on the field flinch. Pokemon that are Fairy-type, Dark-type, or have an Moonglow synergy ability are all immune to the Full Moon downside.

We've also introduced many abilities for each Weather, old and new.

Style Points

We don't think Pokémon games benefit from more grinding. Effort Values (EVs) and Individual Values (IVs) both encourage you to spend a lot of their precious time to create the perfect Pokémon. We don't like EVs or IVs. However, we want you to be able to customize stats on your Pokémon. In comes Style Points, which you can move around freely to change your Pokémon's stats. Your Pokémon start with a full amount of Style Points, and there's no cost to change them. Just talk to the Style Points Adjuster in any PokeCenter or Ranger Station!

Moveset Reworks

A Pokémon's moveset shouldn't hold it back from fulfilling its role! We've overhauled the moveset of every Pokémon, customizing them for a unique niche while also filling out the holes that GameFreak left. In canon games, Pokémon like Gastly or Liwick have to wait a long time to get good Ghost-type moves. For Pokémon Tectonic, we fixed issues like this by making sure that there's a physical and special move for each type to use in the early, mid, and late-game.