Anyone else thinks X items are way overpowered?

[beroosh]

   I've recently came across this game on a youtube video and decided to try it out. It was a great game and enjoyed it very much.

 

   Reading through the forums I noticed a lot of people have a lot of knowledge about optimal teams and adapt to every gym to win within a few tries. I don't know much about this game - I even had to rely on a type chart and googling the types of the pokemon I see because I just don't recognize the later gen ones.

   I've seen that everyone wins with just their team or moveset and specific strategies against each fight; but from personal experience, all my gym/difficult battles go the same way: spam X items to go to +6 and praying to not get crit, and wipe their entire team if I'm able to set up (if not, soft reset).

 

   I just think that, if I hadnt had this option, this game would be on an entirely different level of difficulty, because I would have to actually use the fields and custom pokes for every gym and beat their unfairly overpowered pokemon without any help (some of the leaders with their mega evolutions are ridiculous); but my "ugly" strat just ignores all of that. I only used 5 pokes and 1 slave for the entire playthrough because of this.

 

Edit: The main reason I opened this thread was because of all the advice threads I saw around with several posts reccommending strategies/movesets that would take a long time to achieve just for 1 fight. Maybe the best advice is to buff up your stats with these OP items.

Edited April 8, 2018 by beroosh

[seki108]

X-items overpowered?  This is the first time I've heard someone say that.  You still have to survive the hits, so isn't it the same risk/reward situation as general powerup moves?  

 

I might be in the minority here, but I didn't know anyone regularly used them.

[Zargerth]

I don't know if a strategy relying on not getting critted/ minimal damage rolls is OP. Likewise, I don't find X items game-breaking in any shape or form. They just allow every mon to set up and just like setting up with moves like Dragon Dance etc., timing is important.

 

Assuming you have enough money, you can buy Revives, Ultra Potions etc. to your heart's content and win battles by using said items. Does that make Revives or Ultra Potions broken or overpowered too? Not in my opinion.

[Wolfox]

X items can give you an edge, but they are far from overpowered. like the one before me said: it's like a regular set up move, but a bit less. you have to buy the item, while a setup move is just there until you remove it. Another thing is that most setup moves do more than just 1 stat, or they raise a stat by more than just 1. the most commons ones being d-dance, q-dance, s-dance (wow... that's a lot of dances. Maybe Tierno was right with his dancing team?) and so on. X items don't do this. They generally increase your speed, for example, by 1. And then the last part, the RNG. That's a big part of Pokémon altogether. you can't plan a strat expecting not to get crit, burned, parad or anything 100% of the time. This makes X-items equally and less viable than the majority of set up moves.

[Marcello]

4 minutes ago, Zargerth said:

I don't know if a strategy relying on not getting critted/ minimal damage rolls is OP. Likewise, I don't find X items game-breaking in any shape or form. They just allow every mon to set up and just like setting up with moves like Dragon Dance etc., timing is important.

 

Assuming you have enough money, you can buy Revives, Ultra Potions etc. to your heart's content and win battles by using said items. Does that make Revives or Ultra Potions broken or overpowered too? Not in my opinion.

While this is true, X-Items are super cheap and as of Gen VII, are +2 boosts, which honestly make them really useful. I know a few people, myself included, that used them pretty extensively in E17. Before E17 it wasn't a big deal because they were only +1 stat boosts, but now that they are +2 they are indeed quite formidable.

[Zargerth]

1 minute ago, Marcello said:

While this is true, X-Items are super cheap and as of Gen VII, are +2 boosts, which honestly make them really useful. I know a few people, myself included, that used them pretty extensively in E17. Before E17 it wasn't a big deal because they were only +1 stat boosts, but now that they are +2 they are indeed quite formidable.

I didn't even know X items got buffed.

[Alistair]

... didn't even know X-items were +2 since Gen7

I've always viewed them as pocket money in item form, but this might change a little with this information

[Azeria]

They're overpowered, but like with any item, it's your choice to use them(the inferior choice mind you.) Personally I just like minimalising  the reliance on non held items since it feels rather cheap to spam x items/healing items into a victory.

[beroosh]

   Also, they not only are +2, but they naturally have priority over anything because they are items; so that is crucial in some fights where you'd get outsped and wiped off, you get your +2 off before their attack. This means they are definitely better than moves like Nasty plot or such. Because they don't occupy a move slot and they have priority against anything.

 

   Also, money doesn't really matter since you can just grind 5k at a time on the circus trainer "challenge" and X items are only 350 to 600 I think.

 

   Use a X-Special Def/X-Def depending on the moveset of the gym leader's first poke, then keep setting up your speed and attack to wipe their team.This might not be the prettiest way to do it, but is definitely a better option than grinding an entire team just for 1 battle.

 

The main reason I opened this thread was because of all the advice threads I saw around with several posts reccommending strategies/movesets that would take a long time to achieve just for 1 fight. Maybe the best advice is to buff up your stats with these OP items.

 

  Still, I might be wrong, as I said this is just what worked for me; might be different from another perspective

[TeamPlayerSwampert]

Honestly imo Reborn would be much more challenging if item use was disabled in-battle for both sides (ex: the Reborn Hardcore mod made by Commander)

 

1) No +2 boosts from x-items, which do not require sacrificing a moveslot and potentially break certain mons who are balanced by lack of setup capability

 

(ex: imagine a +2 SpA Greninja or Gengar behind Aurora Veil, who have amazing STAB, coverage, and speed tiers but are balanced b/c they can't normally break through certain walls)

 

2) No revive spamming

 

3) When the AI decides to use a healing item, that's a free quiver/dragon dance for you.

 

(While you could argue that healing items are barely any different from Roost/Recover, I'd say this makes a huge difference if your opponent uses a turn to heal a wallbreaker like Tyranitar or Gardevoir instead of firing off a last powerful attack that could deter you from setting up)

[HUEnd]

1 hour ago, Alistair said:

... didn't even know X-items were +2 since Gen7

I've always viewed them as pocket money in item form, but this might change a little with this information

I do feel exactly the same: my only use for them were selling the ones I find (pretty much what that NPC on the Dept. Store says about them).

[Kenneth]

Say what? Ever since X-accuracy stopped making One Hit KO moves surefire, i never used any of those, ever again! I always sold out all X-items i ever happened upon. But if they work so well, i might just give them a try. But in NEW episode. I am waiting for US/UM content, before i get it started with gen7.

[Nadrel]

Well... to all those who say that X items aren't overpowered, I used them extensively during my duo run for Reborn and I already found them super useful, even though they were only +1.

With +2 they make nearly all stats boosts useless and allow you more offensive moves on pokemon who would otherwise need them.

 

I have to say I find Rejuvenation a lot harder than Reborn because I can't cheese my way with X items there.

 

That said, I would be strongly against the prevention of the use of Battle items during the main game. They really add a dimension to fights and are fully part of the game.

[Tribey]

When I found out battle items were buffed to +2 I thought that seemed like a good change, finally making them useful. Then I found out, to my very clearly misinformed surprise, you could use them more than once on a pokemon. In fact, you can use every stat boost 3x and have a mon at +6 for every stat, without using any move slots for it.
It changed from me having to think about a fight to just using a very bulky mon with a good attack (mega-aggron works well) and starting with the relevant defence boost then alternate healing items and x items until it's an unstoppable sweeper. Not only that, but as mentioned above, they are priority because they're items, so you don't even have to at least first live through the initial attack unbuffed, like you would if defensive stalling with something like Misty Terrain + Cosmic Power with a bulkty slower mon. 

Now the thing is, sure you could say "just don't use them then", but having to knowingly handicap yourself just to keep the game a relevant challenge feels bad, especially in a game like reborn where until now so much of the enjoyment is that it offers a genuine challenge that requires strategic consideration for every fight. 
Fortunately Ame has now made Battle items only available from one of the highest floors of the department store, so at least they can't be readily used to cheese until the later stages of the game. 
I dunno, feels bad man. Very disappoint. 
Makes me wonder how difficult it would be to make a version of the game where the only change was that using X items are mutually exclusive and/or can only be applied once to a mon in combat.