Nothing feels as good as defeating Zapdos in Pokemon Unite. Not only is the legendary bird a difficult fight, but landing the winning blow rewards your team with a collective 110 points, and makes the enemy's goal defenceless for 30 seconds.
Yet equally, nothing is quite as crushing as being on the receiving end of a Zapdos defeat. Almost ten minutes of hard work can be overturned in seconds, as you're spammed with 50 point goals from the other team, and probably end up killed a whole bunch of times as you try and keep them away from your base. Now, there's a bitter divide in the Pokemon Unite playerbase, as some players want to see Zapdos nerfed, while others see the system as an integral part of the game.
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Over on the Pokemon Unite subreddit, players discuss what patches they would like to see in the future. Unsurprisingly, Zapdos is brought up constantly. "Zapdos needs to give either 2x points or instant goals, not both. It's awful that it's possible to score 500 points instantly in theory", says user Juxee. Many others agree, with The_souLance saying, "Zapdos makes the entire 8 minutes beforehand pointless."
This sentiment is shared in some of the user reviews over on Metacritic. While many of these are negative because of the MOBA's heavy use of microtransactions, others complain about this controversial boss battle. "Impossible to win a game with a noob team because EVERYTHING depends on Zapdos", reads a 0/10 review. Similarly, another negative review labels Zapdos "a complete game-breaker."
However, the anti-Zapdos feelings are not universal in the fanbase. Going back to r/PokemonUnite, some threads defend the late-game perk. DeathZamboniExpress argues that "If you are winning before Zap, getting Zap stolen is your team's fault." They also make the point that if such a game-changer was nerfed too heavily, then teams may forfeit as soon as they start losing in the first few minutes of a match.
Furthermore, players are also sharing strats to turn a game around even after losing Zapdos. As seen in a post from StevynTheHero, Slowbro can be effectively utilised to stop players from scoring those big 50 point (100 points after the multiplier) goals – you just have to jump into action quickly.
Next: Pokemon Unite’s Microtransactions Are Bad, But It’s Not Pay To Win
