WHY I DISLIKE DYNAMAX:

My dislike for Dynamax boils down to a few points, which I'll try to compare to previous mechanics which I enjoyed/felt neutral about

1) Doubling HP
2) Opportunity cost

1) Doubling HP initally felt interesting to me, as it was a mechanic that supposedly encouraged defensive play. However, what happened is the exact opposite - pokemon that often Dynamax tend to play more aggressively, as they aren't at risk of being knocked out from a stray hit

It makes it so not only do you need to have answers for your opponent's pokemon on your team, but you also need to play around the fact that they could Dynamax at any moment and thus not be at risk of being KOd

My main problem with that is how it killed a really fun style of play, spread move-based HO. HO now is mostly based on nuking stuff with a boosted/Fake Tears supported single target Max Move, creating Protect mindgames or trading KOs, instead of being a careful positioning battle

The power creep that doubling HP requires is simply too big for the traditional pins we used, and Fake Tears/Swords Dance/Nasty Plot+Max Moves often seem like the only way of keeping up

It also has the added issue of making Weakness Policy an absurdly strong option that punishes you for trying to hit opponents while Dynamaxed instead of trying to stall it out

2) The opportunity cost of Max Moves is better understood when compared to a similar mechanic - Z Moves. To use, say, Bloom Doom on your Heatran, in order to catch Gastrodon by surprise, you'd have to use up:

- Your item on Heatran, which had to be Grassium Z

- A moveslot for Solar Beam

- Your only Z Move for the whole game, which could strike a Protect

- A turn where you weren't striking the other slot/protecting/switching and were thus left vulnerable

Now, for Max Overgrowth, you use up:

- A moveslot

- Your Dynamax for the game, but only one turn of it, so if you hit a Protect you can strike the slot again, and if you get if off/Gastro switches, you can switch moves

- A turn, but you're less vulnerable due to doubling HP

That means pokemon don't have to commit much to being a Dynamax option on teambuilding, and jank coverage moves are much easier to fit in for Dynamax than they were for Z Moves

These problems are compounded with the secondary effects, which cause snowballing. Now, snowballing per se is not something negative - we've been dealing with setup for a long time now, and it's a healthy part of the game

What I dislike about it is that, due to having almost no opportunity cost to being a Dynamax option, players can snowball in multitude of different ways, which makes full planning of a game from the start impossible. It might be personal to me, but it removes a fun part of VGC

My last issue with it is the fact that not all items are deactivated, which means you can have Z Move levels of damage when paired with a Life Orb without the commitment of not having an item for the rest of the game

I hope it didn't all seem like a rant, I tried to be clear and objective but I know a lot of it comes from the way I enjoy the game and it might be different for each player. I'd love to hear your thoughts on all of this, so please don't shy away from replying!