Pokémon Unite Sleep Nerf Could Devastate Snorlax, Wigglytuff Players

While fresh duds and some great quality-of-life changes are definitely exciting, today’s Pokémon Unite update also included a huge list of gameplay adjustments. As usual, some Pokémon were helped and some were hindered, but it’s hard to argue that anyone was more affected than Snorlax and Wigglytuff. Both saw a massive downgrade as the developers reduced the benefits of putting opponents to sleep.

Before today, the Sleep status was a massive tool in the Snorlax and Wigglytuff player’s repertoire. Not only did it keep a slumbering opponent from acting for a set period, but that inaction also opened them up to potential beatdowns. It was a versatile ability too, as it provided a great way to escape from a more powerful Pokémon if you were caught behind enemy lines. With this latest patch, however, sleeping Pokémon now wake up when hit rather than taking it lying down.

The intentions behind this change are a little hard to parse. While both the English and Japanese patch notes refer to how Sleep worked previously as a bug, only the latter go into greater detail about how it was presumably supposed to function prior to today’s update. It’s strange to think such a significant bug survived for months without developer intervention, especially with it becoming such a major part of Wigglytuff’s meta game specifically.

Of course, that doesn’t mean Sleep moves are entirely useless. The status remains a great distraction and movement denial tool, and I’m sure folks will still get some use out of scoring points while opponents take a forced nap. It’s just wild to see it changed after all this time.

Read the full article on Kotaku