Pokkén Tournament Pokken has a Rage Mechanic.

[Arkaizer]

I've been skimming around the pokken smashboards and I haven't found anything about this so I'm gonna post

Have you been playing ranked (or anything else really) and survived a hit you didn't think you would? Or maybe you felt like you were doing more damage when you were on your last legs and managed to turn the game around.

This is because Pokken actually has a built-in comeback mechanic (Besides burst mode of course). When your character is at about 1/4th of their health (basically a little after the health bar turns red), you receive a 30% reduction in damage taken for each individual hit and you deal 20% more damage with each strike. What this basically means is that when you're on the verge of being defeated, your single attacks and combos become even more dangerous, and you become more resilient, which is amplified even further when your burst mode is active. For example:
Weavile's Ax5: 122 damage. At low health, it turns into 150 damage, and 164 damage while in burst mode at low health. Not bad. Now, what about damage reduction?
Shadow Mewtwo's Dark Nova (Burst Attack): 246 damage. When the opponent is at low health, it only will do 176 damage. An opposing Shadow Mewtwo with Burst Mode active reduces it even further to 151 damage.

As a side note, the rage mechanic will still kick in even if your recoverable HP extends beyond the rage threshold, which would benefit characters like Shadow Mewtwo, whose damage output gets pretty crazy when he's at low health.

Unfortunately, I don't have the equipment to upload and validate these findings, but feel free to test them out yourself in training mode. Go to Advanced Settings in the training menu and set the HP to "Below Certain Value" for one or both characters.

 

[Spirst]

So, something interesting.

I was playing with @Reserved and messing around with Charizard while he was Suicune. Game 3, I used Seismic Toss right after the Synergy Burst ended (in which I did Seismic Toss to Burst Attack) and it fainted him even though he had 206 HP left. I had no buffs and he had no debuffs. My leveling points were +3 in Attack and nothing else since I never use Charizard. Keeping this rage mechanic in mind, I went into training mode and was unable to replicate it. Here's what I got.

Non-rage Charizard uses Seismic Toss on non-rage Suicune. Does 160 dmg.
Rage Charizard uses Seismic Toss on non-rage Suicune. Does 192 dmg.
Rage Charizard uses Seismic Toss on rage Suicune. Does 144 dmg.
Non-rage Charizard uses Seismic Toss on rage Suicune. Does 112 dmg.

As you can see, nothing does at least 206 HP so therefore, it doesn't make sense that he died from a Seismic Toss given he had 206 HP. 192 to 206 is a 12% increase and even factoring in the leveling points, that's only a 0.3% increase as I only had 3 points in attack. 0.3% is a lot lower than 12% so that's not something to consider.

I checked whether the time/round number had any influence, checked the supports (Cresselia for Zard and Mismagius/Ninetales for Suicune), the movesets to see if any moves buffed/debuffed (they don't for either pokemon) and nothing I've done is able to replicate what happened. Mega Charizard with rage against a non-rage opponent does 208 dmg but I wasn't mega evolved so that's irrelevant. I don't know if there's some other kind of mechanic in addition to rage or if we're somehow missing a crucial detail but yeah.

 

[Deaga]

I thought it might be the Skill Levels, if it was a longshot with just 3 points... But I tested it in-game and rage Charizard vs Non-range Suicune did a whopping 193 damage with Level 3 Attack. >_> At level 100 it did score 208 damage, though.

Side question: How do you set HP values on training mode? By using the "Below certain value" option I could get both Charizard and Suicune at 60 HP, but I didn't find out how to change that value. >_>; At least 60 HP Charizard vs Full HP Suicune was enough for this one test.

 

[Spirst]

The issue is that I never play Charizard so mine was at level 3, all of which were just thrown into attack. Each point makes a 0.1% totaling to 10% in one stat if all points are directed into that one stat at level 100. But yeah, I'm not even at 100 with my main yet much less Charizard.

As for HP values, I don't think there is a way to set custom values. Or if there is, it's not at all intuitive and I have no idea how to. I don't think it makes a big deal though. We have rage and non-rage mode. Everything else can be calculated using the combo damage counter and the existing HP the training dummy has.

My last thought is that maybe some stages have attack buffs/defense debuffs somewhere but I've never once heard of that and am pretty sure that's the not the case. Cue the X-Files theme.

 

[xzx]

Rage mechanics SUCKS!!!

 

[Arkaizer]

such profound insight

 

[Arkaizer]

Spirst do you remember if you landed Seismic Toss when the Suicune was preparing a Counter Attack? It would've resulted in a critical hit, which should have done enough damage to seal the kill. Other than that, I don't know
this game is deep, man

 

[Spirst]

Spirst do you remember if you landed Seismic Toss when the Suicune was preparing a Counter Attack? It would've resulted in a critical hit, which should have done enough damage to seal the kill. Other than that, I don't know
this game is deep, man

Actually, that's very likely it seeing as how there isn't any other explanation and it makes sense. Do you know what the numbers are on a critical hit? I'm sure that's it either way but I'm curious as to what the percent increase for critical moves are.

 

[Arkaizer]

I'll check tomorrow

Edit: wait

it is tomorrow

I'll check when I wake up

 

[Spirst]

So I tested it and it looks like Critical Hits also do 20%.

Gengar counters Blaziken normal hit. Does 108 dmg up from 90 dmg. 20% increase.
Gengar grabs Blaziken during counter. Does 108 dmg up from 90 dmg. 20% increase.
Gengar hits Blaziken with X as Blaziken is grabbing. Does 72 dmg up from 60 dmg. 20% increase.

Rage stacks with Critical Hits meaning that a Critical Hit done while in rage does 40% more damage. Thus, Charizard doing Seismic Toss while in rage and scoring a crit means that the move will do 224 damage up from 160 which is no rage or crit. That's...yeah...

 

[Arkaizer]

d a m a g e b o y z

 

[Spirst]

B A N S E I S M I C T O S S

 

[Warchamp7]

Rage is a Tekken mechanic, so yeah

 

[Muskrat Catcher]

This explains a lot. I remember when my friend caught me in Braixen's burst attack and it did only like 20 damage, I kid you not. I was in burst and rage when she did it, and I was expecting to die or at least get really close to dying, but then I still had like 70 HP left, and I was like wow, how in the world? Like, I understand comeback mechanics, and I like them, but this seems a bit extreme, ya know?

 

[JOE!]

that also factors in damage scaling. is a critical hit any hit that like, "wins" an attack triangle / causes a shift?

 

[Spirst]

Yup. When you win an attack triangle interaction, a little banner pops up saying, "Critical Hit" and then you do 20% more for whatever move you just did that won said interaction

 

[Spak]

Canonically, shouldn't the Rage mechanic only work for Blaziken and Charizard because of Blaze?

 

[Spirst]

Braixen has Blaze too and Sceptile has Overgrow. Rage as a character-dependent mechanic would be pretty dumb though.

 

[Deaga]

Yup. When you win an attack triangle interaction, a little banner pops up saying, "Critical Hit" and then you do 20% more for whatever move you just did that won said interaction

Some moves, notably counters, will also get a much longer hitstun when they're critical hit. Which is why so many dojo moves have the (Critical Hit) next to a move. You need the extra hitstun for those combos to work!

 

[IsmaR]

Certain characters will always perform Critical Hits when they're in Burst, to boot. Characters like Garchomp, who has both a command grab and command counterattack become absolutely horrifying with rage/stat buffs.

 

[Arkaizer]

that explains why I get completely rekt in 2 seconds whenever he activates burst

 

[SatsumaFS]

Braixen has Blaze too and Sceptile has Overgrow. Rage as a character-dependent mechanic would be pretty dumb though.

But what if the other Pokemon had abilities as well? Maybe there'd be some cool way to implement No Guard for Machamp...

I personally don't like that they put this in the game. This kind of buff has its place in certain PvP games, but definitely not in a 1v1 fighter.

 

[BornABrawler]

Wow, never even considered that rage could have been a factor in Pokken. Though it seems the research has proved the case. It's interesting how they went about it though. Combos already get scaled the longer they continue, so the implementation of rage boosts are something to consider as well. The game from this perspective almost rewards you for doing simple, singular moves that do decent damage. I'd assume the same would be favorable for grabs. Pokken never ceases to surprise me.

 

[Szion]

such profound insight

your pic made that reply so much better to me lmao

and yeah i notice when im dying that shinku hadoken does more and when THEY''RE dying its like theres some kinda..scaling..against me.

 

[meleebrawler]

Certain characters will always perform Critical Hits when they're in Burst, to boot. Characters like Garchomp, who has both a command grab and command counterattack become absolutely horrifying with rage/stat buffs.

And don't forget the Victini assist giving criticals for everything that's not a losing exchange.

Wow, never even considered that rage could have been a factor in Pokken. Though it seems the research has proved the case. It's interesting how they went about it though. Combos already get scaled the longer they continue, so the implementation of rage boosts are something to consider as well. The game from this perspective almost rewards you for doing simple, singular moves that do decent damage. I'd assume the same would be favorable for grabs. Pokken never ceases to surprise me.

Still, you have to consider that while the damage of your moves may scale, the synergy gained doesn't (although causing constant phase shifts is still the fastest way). Scaling is really just there to keep the games from being shorter than they already are, and to discourage limited-use moves like burst attacks or Sceptile's Leaf Storm from being used with impunity in combos.