Focus Sash Poll - to make it not consumed in PvP

[Zinsmiter]

As some of you might know, Focus Sash is currently being consumed permanently if you use it in Ranked PvP or friendly battles. This has made the item pretty much non-existant in the PvP metagame since no one can stock up on them as if it were lum berries.

 

I personally filed this interaction as a bug a long time ago because i believed it was not intentional but a staff member replied that it was intended to be consumed in PvP. He said that it was better that way for the grinding MMO aspect of the game and also that it was a powerful effect that allowed the pokemon to survive.

 

The current way to get Focus Sash(es) is to grind bosses and get lucky. These are limited on a timer and thus can't be grinded indefinitely even if the player had a lot of spare time. This is unlike other consumable pvp items such as Lum Berry. This punishes the player for playing a lot of PvP matches and is in my opinion a horrible game design decision. Just because it is a grinding MMO game it doesn't have to be this way. Should we consume Leftovers as well because we can just grind them by doing limited digging spots and search hidden locations? This is no different. Leftovers are just a lot more popular and i believe people would demonstrate a lot more if the same mechanics were applied to this item.

 

I believe the reasoning that it should be too powerful in PvP is flawed as well and i don't see how it's better than other items such as the predominant Leftovers item. Especially because it can be broken on common entry hazards such as Stealth Rock since the requirement to survive at 1 hp is having full hp prior to the effect. Things like sandstorm can disrupt this as well. I have never seen any clauses against Focus Sash in other pokemon communities either.

 

There has also been people linking descriptions from bulbapedia (pokemon wiki) saying the Focus Sash will get consumed in battle. In reality in the real games, the items won't get consumed when you play online in PvP (this includes all consumable items like berries. PRO doesn't have rare berries yet) so please don't keep linking this.

 

Back then i stood alone in the topic and it wasn't really noticable unless you happened to check the bug report section.

Since time has passed while i haven't seen any development on this subject among the developers or players i decided to make this topic to hopefully make people more aware of this situation. A lot of other people i talked with found this frustrating as well and agreed with me so i wanted to make this poll to get more "voices" out there to hopefully make the game designers behind this decision change their minds.

 

I hope you will vote so we can get the opinions of the community out there.

 

 

I made the poll in the same manner as the Yellow Server Poll Shane made in the sense that you have to post in the topic in order to vote. This will also prevent someone from making free accounts to vote if anyone would do that (could be the poll creator).

[Coop33]

Lets make it short: Agree^^

[Artoriel]

If that's the case, imagine people can have unlimited Focus Sashes. Therefore, I'm sure more than 75% of sweeper Pokes you find in PvP will be sturdy and the actual sturdy ability will be pointless. There's a reason why Nintendo makes Focus Sash a consumable item in the first place.

[Bigdanny]

agree, ofc we need it

 

and i think.. only sweeper will hold focus sash, u will not make slowbro hold focus sash :Grin:

 

and if a pokemon has ability-sturdy, it can hold other item, like power boost item or lum berry

 

if focus sash is not consumable, we can have more choice to decide what we should make our pokemons hold

 

not just always, lum berry, leftovers ....

[Artoriel]

220127 agree, ofc we need it

 

and i think.. only sweeper will hold focus sash, u will not make slowbro hold focus sash :Grin:

 

and if a pokemon has ability-sturdy, it can hold other item, like power boost item or lum berry

 

if focus sash is not consumable, we can have more choice to decide what we should make our pokemons hold

 

not just always, lum berry, leftovers ....

More items will be introduced in the future. And PRO is not a battle simulator where you can use your desired Pokes and Items anytime you want. You gotta put some efforts to build a decent team that can overpower your opponents. One of the factors that makes PRO PvP competitive is the efforts you put to get Items, Pokemons, and Moves. Unlike leftovers and berries, Focus Sashes can be really dangerous if used by Pokes with high damage but low defense which are supposed to faint in one hit. Considering its effect, we intended to make it rarer, while on the other hand it's not really impossible to stock it up.

[Fatmanclt]

220136

220127 agree, ofc we need it

 

and i think.. only sweeper will hold focus sash, u will not make slowbro hold focus sash :Grin:

 

and if a pokemon has ability-sturdy, it can hold other item, like power boost item or lum berry

 

if focus sash is not consumable, we can have more choice to decide what we should make our pokemons hold

 

not just always, lum berry, leftovers ....

More items will be introduced in the future. And PRO is not a battle simulator where you can use your desired Pokes and Items anytime you want. You gotta put some efforts to build a decent team that can overpower your opponents. One of the factors that makes PRO PvP competitive is the efforts you put to get Items, Pokemons, and Moves. Unlike leftovers and berries, Focus Sashes can be really dangerous if used by Pokes with high damage but low defense which are supposed to faint in one hit. Considering its effect, we intended to make it rarer, while on the other hand it's not really impossible to stock it up.

 

I think it would be nive to have a quest or evenement who can drop Focus shash more frequently. That could be a difficult Quest for experiment player. ( like boss lvl 130 with no items or potion alowed. )

[Zinsmiter]

220126 If that's the case, imagine people can have unlimited Focus Sashes. Therefore, I'm sure more than 75% of sweeper Pokes you find in PvP will be sturdy and the actual sturdy ability will be pointless. There's a reason why Nintendo makes Focus Sash a consumable item in the first place.

 

I can imagine people will have unlimited Focus Sashes (all you need is 6 that don't break though) and i don't see the problem. You can investigate Smogon (a pokemon PvP community) for example and you will see that your statement of everyone using Focus Sash is not correct. It might be more popular in PRO in the beginning because it would be new and other items such as the choice items aren't implemented yet. The facts about it's fragility in PvP as i mentioned in the post still stands and Focus Sash does nothing against status either unlike Lum Berry which is perhaps the most popular item on sweepers in order to negate that first will-o-wisp or thunder wave while setting up. Obviously, sweepers such as Excadril do not care about toxic and thunder wave due to immunities and will therefore often go for items such as Leftovers or Soft Sand to be able to last in battles against pokemon like Skarmory in order to Rapid Spin more often (Leftovers) or push through that Slowbro or Donphan standing in the way (Soft Sand).

 

Sturdy won't be pointless. Who uses sturdy the most? Skarmory. Skarmory would never use Focus Sash. It would use Leftovers like the majority of wall pokemons out there.

 

As i mentioned in the post. Nintendo didn't make Focus Sash consumable in PvP which is easily proven in areas such as the Battle Mansion where the item is refunded after each PvP match. It is still consumed in PvE where the item serves as another tool against difficult encounters.

220136

More items will be introduced in the future. And PRO is not a battle simulator where you can use your desired Pokes and Items anytime you want. You gotta put some efforts to build a decent team that can overpower your opponents. One of the factors that makes PRO PvP competitive is the efforts you put to get Items, Pokemons, and Moves. Unlike leftovers and berries, Focus Sashes can be really dangerous if used by Pokes with high damage but low defense which are supposed to faint in one hit. Considering its effect, we intended to make it rarer, while on the other hand it's not really impossible to stock it up.

 

You can use your Leftovers any time you want and people did work to get them. Personally dug up the 4 of mine and 2 from hidden locations IIRC. And i did work to get focus sash as well. Focus Sash is a reward that can be given by several bosses now but in the beginning it was a 20% chance of a 14 day cooldown boss in safron city. That was on average 70 days wait time if you were consistent with the boss to get 1 Focus Sash. How is that not working for an item? That's way more work than Leftovers. And yes it's impossible to stock it up. It's fine if you personally play 3 PvP matches a week but some people here like to play PvP A LOT. And since you can't grind them indefinitely as i mentioned they cannot stock it up. I Think i have like 19 and i have more than a thousand hours on this game. Still it makes no sense to use them since they would disappear in a flash. I tried to use 2 just for fun and they were gone in 3 matches. It's also a horrible feeling to think about losing a focus sash in a match and therefore not wanting to use the pokemon. It IS impossible to stock it up.

[Fatmanclt]

Im agree, focus shash is a probleme in this game. He is in the game but no one can use it frequently, so its a useless item. And its to bad for the pvp.

Please improve the way to get Focus shash.

[Ezyquake]

Making it consumable was the right choice, it's a strong item that should still be a consumable and a fine reward from bosses for at least the quanity of 5 on each boss.

[Drayano]

220136

Focus Sashes can be really dangerous if used by Pokes with high damage but low defense which are supposed to faint in one hit.

If you play showdown you'll notice that a VERY FEW "high damage but low defense poke" use them, plus it's a simulator so you don't have the problem of grinding to get one focus sash and it's still poorly used, focus sash shouldn't be consumed in pvp battle, it simply make no sense at all. Strong pokemons with sash can be easily countered.