I’m playing Pokemon Masters, a mobile gacha game set on the island of Pasio. Collect many Pokemon waifus and husbandos and participate in unique battles involving sync pairs.
Gym ID:
9540112209765265
With 6.5 Anniversary (Anni) in full swing, I have to say that they released characters as strong or even stronger than 6th Anni. 1996 Red has similar supporting aspects as Anni Gloria in which he can give a lot of Sync Move Buffs quickly. While Anni Gloria has more explosive Sync Move Countdown and Break Effects, 1996 Red summons three Kanto Circles and just has high damage potential. Anni Juliana is very powerful like Anni 2026 Red, yet Anni 2026 Red might be a bit better when paired with EX Dragon Zone. I got lucky enough to get Anni Florian too, but am not going to upgrade him because I want to direct all my resources to completing Pasio Towers. He doesn’t seem too crazy, but maybe one day I’ll upgrade him to 3/5.
I feel like with the introduction of Pasio Towers, new sync pairs are on a whole new level. I’m not the biggest fan of this power creep, because it is so hard to recommend older characters for their power level. I really hope the reason why 6.5th Anni sync pairs are strong is because it is 30th Anni for Pokemon. I’m be totally fine if the rest of the sync pairs this year (including 7th Anni) are a bit more underpowered, because again, stronger sync pairs gives the developers reason to make harder and harder content that only people who pay a lot of money can complete. Power creep is normal, but the characters we have been getting the past 6 months have been way too overturned in my opinion.
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1 Comment
Hi, fancy to see another new video from the Zinnia fan! I think the main problem with 'powercreep', speaking as someone who has played multiple gacha games and thus being sort of a veteran, is the exponential nature of it. In gacha terms, a character dominating the meta and being in top 1 for 12 to 18+ months is actually very long in gacha terms. what's happening is that in addition to releasing more frequent 1% rate banners (like every half and anni, which has now had at least 5 1% banners) they are getting around to types that need a big upgrade, like Rock, Grass and Normal, and upcoming Dark and Fairy (Gym Marnie/Bede, according to datamine at least). We've breached the 'inflection' point at which it starts to become more noticeable, if not evident by the fact they raised the damage cap a few months ago. (they raised the damage cap to 999999 in 2022, 3 years later it's now 9999999. Might increase again for 10th anni or beyond).
As I have mentioned in the previous video Anni Juliana has to be tuned hard because there might not be any new 1% Normal-type unit anytime soon, it's a self inflicted issue by mainline games not caring much about them expect Terapagos and Arceus, plus Normal cannot deal supereffective damage. Florian is also a much needed upgrade to Grass. If Arc Suit Diantha comes in future, expect her to be as strong to bring Fairy up in line. There is a Chinese tier list and in said tierlist, Arc Cynthia remains in the Masterball tier (basically highest tier) and was the only one in Masterball in the Striker tierlist (they sort by role) until 6th anni Red came along. In support tier list, NC Blue, a character from 2.5 years ago, is still in Masterball tier. Anni Gloria and Red 1996 are in their own tierlist (above Masterball) and is 'GOAT'.
The ceiling hasn't raised THAT much actually excluding 1996 Red, in fact half anniversary generally introduce new feature / feature creep and do not raise the ceiling as much. Even though 5.5 anni was strong, it didn't raise the ceiling as much, but the presence of EX WTZ inflated the numbers due to the multiplier being x3 instead of x1.5, then you have Break on top of it, it's more multiplier being introduced. For a while it did throw off the balance, because the strikers are actually fairly close in power, but their types hadn't gotten an EX WTZ field unit at that time. I hope they would slow down with featurecreep…
Finally, re: Red 1996 – while it's baseless speculation, I suspect Red 1996 is like an Ash situation, in which he is made very overtuned on purpose because he is a collab unit and may not rerun again in future. In fact in CN tier he's actually in his own tier list, the next 1% rate Tech unit will probably be in Masterball tier (below Red 1996). He also has alot of things, like his banner being slightly longer than 6.5 anni pairs, and having a one time 1000 paid gems banner and bundle, last time it happened was Ash and he never returned. I will boldly guess that with his power, even 8th anni pairs (1 years and half later, when Winds and Waves releases) won't get on par with him. Maybe a bit close, but still a bit of gap.
sorry to yap so much, all this just to say, personally I haven't felt the powercreep accelerating, in a significant manner or pace anyways, but it is getting more noticeable because the inflection point has been crossed over, and the exponential nature is taking over. I think the most important aspect to consider is the 'pace'. The overall tempo hasn't changed that much, so for example, I'd say the 5th anni and subsequent arcs continue to be used, I'd continue to recommend Arc Cynthia, Steven or even Alder. The main problem however is that this time the Arc Suit Fair reruns are very short (48 hours and cycle through in order of who awakened their Arc Suits first, so from Cynthia, Lance, Steven, Leon, N, Alder). With how many banners there are, it's just hard to recommend a rerun ban. After 6.5 anni, things will go back to more regular stuff. Sadly you might be disappointed by 7th anni lmao, because full anniversaries are when they push the ceiling. After Arc Diantha I might save up gems until 7th anni, I need a breather because 6.5 was a disaster in terms of luck, it was by sheer miracle that I can guarantee Florian at least and secure all 3 anni pairs.
TLDR: ceiling hasn't actually increased much on average, it's usually during annis, it's just that featurecreep like EX WTZ, Break, and Tera are elevating the numbers.