Absol

Mega Absol is supposed to be in raids until 10am February 22nd, as reported by Niantic. It looks like there is a bug and it was replaced with Garchomp before it was meant to.

Hey folks. Does it feel to anyone else like it has been a LONG time since mega Absol came to raids? Out of all the megas so far, Absol is the only one I didn’t get enough energy to mega evolve. And sure I know some need to be out of mega raids so others can be in but it feels like several Pokémon have left mega raids and come back since the last Absol mega raid. Like I’m pretty sure it hasn’t been around since November of 2021 that’s nearing 2 years now. Anyways, if anyone has heard if it might be coming back soon please let me know in the comments.

What if I told you that Absol is OP, and yet, isn't the root of the problem? Well you're probably hovering that downvote button right now, so hear me out.

Hello, I'm Elite4Niku, co-owner of Team Adepts. I've been Master every single Season with Absol as my most played, and my other co-owner, Xog, decided to do some math to prove to me that my bias on Absol clouded my judgment and reasoning. He then discovered something pretty interesting, and together, we realized there's a reoccurring trend.

Let's go back in time, earlier to closer to Unite's launch. Buddy Barrier stacking OP. Absol weak, Gengar stronk. Gengar is less relevant here as a Sp Attacker, but, let's go to what came next. Talonflame and Greninja largely took turns dominating the meta, one-shotting people left and right. I wondered when my turn to do that as Absol would come (at least, to that insane degree), and now, here it is. It's disgusting, and don't get me wrong, my bias was showing quite well to my team and co-owner.

We can all agree that Absol is overpowered at the moment. I argued that scaling needed to be toned down. It quickly turned into a debate of whether it was full nuclear, an overreaction, if there's reliable counters, etc, but yet, we weren't finding the true root of the issue, until my co-owner who's a bigger math nerd than I deep dove into the game's formula.

Remember that back in time trip we took? Buddy Barrier? Well, that's gone. We don't have everyone tanky anymore. We don't have tons of HP shields on everyone. Absol should be able to take out squishies, especially early game. We can agree on that. Absol should not be able to full nuke entire teams, objectives, and tanks. We can agree on that as well. What you might not know, what I didn't know, and what my co-owner didn't know was...

Credits to:

[ (Damage =(Attack*600)/(600+(Defense))) -- Note, edited this to be corrected

[ (-- Note, this link has been updated to be correct. This can be used to sim damage)

Defense as a stat barely does anything. Tanks cannot be tanky. Tanks, in Unite, essentially do not exist. We didn't realize this before because of HP stacking with Buddy Barrier.

When Absol inevitably gets nerfed (which I do agree needs to happen, and should!), this won't solve the issue. Surf Greninja will rise again. Talonflame will rise again. And tanks will die again.

Tank items aren't good for a reason. When have you ever, ever seen someone reasonably running Rocky Helmet? Even Garchomp doesn't like it. Defense scales horribly, and because of that, items like Rocky Helmet are terrible.

To put this in perspective, it takes 16 autos to do 6000 damage to the squishiest target in the game from Cinderace (Delphox), and it takes 20 autos to do 6000 to the tankiest (Blastoise, in terms of physical Defense). Corrected info, see Edit #2 below for context: Using Talonflame, who has the highest Attack in the game, versus Delphox (squishiest target Defense-stat wise) and Blastoise (tankiest target Defense-stat wise), it takes 12 attacks to do 6k damage to a Delphox and 18 attacks to do 6k to a Blastoise. 6 more autos.

Absol needs to be nerfed, however, the core issue comes down to this:

Defense needs to be buffed. Defensive items like Rocky Helmet needs to be buffed. While we're at it, also rework Leftovers.

TL;DR: Absol needs a nerf, the Defense stat needs an even stronger buff, or the issue will persist.

Edit/Update: The links there apparently link to an incorrect formula.

This is a reddit post done that corrects it. Apparently unite DB is (slightly) incorrect in their formula. But the math in this post is correct, just the formula in the first link isnt. But the second link, the desmos one, works.

Edit/Update #2: So, that was an incorrect formula that was thought to be correct, the unite-db one is the correct one.

Strikethroughs are through incorrect info, corrected info is posted still.

Thank you to the amazing math nerds helping to update this post to be as accurate as possible! You are loved.

Hi, Im a decidueye main. And everytike i fight a absol i cant do ANYTHING! Its so fucking annoying knowing that he can just chase you wherever. Also the fucking fact that he has a ult that makes him invulnerable. Timi should fucking fix this op asf character. Im done.

I am a free unite player, and I just got enough coins to get a new pokemon. I was thinking about getting Absol, but I wanted to know what other people think.

Should I get Absol? If not, tell me why and give me a pokemon you recommend?