With the advent of Black and White, and the unveiling of all new information about new move mechanics and the like, there was one thing that stood out. Selfdestruct and Explosion (Normal-Type 200 Power/250 Power/Deals massive damage but causes the user to faint) had a very beneficial effect removed from them. In previous generations, when the move Selfdestruct or Explosion is used, the damage is calculated as if the opponent's Defense was effectively halved, making it to where instead of both moves effectively having 400/500 Power, they are reduced back to their original base power, effectively making it just about useless. Whereas before it was a staple in causing hellish damage to very hardy opponents, it hardly dents them as much, for the same cost of the user fainting afterwards.
Which brings me to the topic of "nerfing" or reducing the effectiveness of something in order to bring more balance into the game. It's quite common in games where a single aspect stands out as being near broken, or simply too-overpowered in its environment. For example, the original nerf was the transition between Pokemon Red/Blue and Pokemon Gold/Silver. Back then, the combined Special stat proved rather broken, giving some a very large advantage over another. Mewtwo stood as the King of Special back in the day with base 154. Special moves could hardly touch him. Same is said for many others with high Special. So to bring more balance, Special was split into Special Attack and Special Defense. Some with rather high Special obtained either high Special Attack, or high Special Defense, some having drastically lowered stats in one of those areas unlike the previous installment. Mewtwo still retained base 154 Special Attack, but its ability to take Special attacks was lowered drastically. Move effects where changed to, whereas Amnesia no longer effectively raised Special Attack and Special Defense, now just raising the new Special Defense stat. This brought on more balance within the game.
In the Fire Emblem series, there was an spell known as the Luna Tome, which was an extremely effective item bringing a very high advantage to the user, making them a deadly unit in battle. It negated enemy resistance, making the damage from it equal to your Magic power. It also had a very high Critical ratio and accuracy, effectively ending boss battles in two phases, or turns. The creators saw fit that this spell was definitely overpowered for that reason alone, and in the next installment lowered the critical ratio and the accuracy by a large amount, bringing in much balance.
In the Super Smash Brothers series, characters have taken many a "nerf". In the Nintendo 64 Version, some characters had a gross advantage over the others. In the transition into Melee, those characters had changed mechanics, or simply altered move mechanics to lessen their effectiveness. The same happened in the transition from Melee to Brawl.
However, most nerfs are actually justified, while others feel out of place. Some nerfs aren't even implemented in the physical games. A prime example is, again, in the Pokemon series. Being a game that has a large competitive aspect to it, there are of course going to be things that stand out. And things that stand out are usually those that tend to be overpowered.
And that is why the tier system was put in place. As a means of nerfing things the competitive community find either overpowered or overcentralizing that are also overpowered. These are placed into a tier of their own, above all others. A "no man's land" if you will, that's still very well playable. This tier, known as the "Uber Tier", is pretty much a banlist, or simply nerfing the standard metagame in its present state. Other tiers below standard. such as UU(Underused) can either be used in standard, or can be played in their respective tier, and those below it, banning those in standard and in Ubers. And even lower than that, there is one last final tier, NU(Neverused, although the name is rather ironic, as the members are used, however usually not in standard), whose members are playable in all other tiers, but can also work as a standalone.
Nerfs are usually argued by groups that centralize on that particular game, usually whether or not the nerf was really justified or simply unnecessary. Others give praise to the nerf if the thing in question was really wanted by most, if not all. Others, known as "buffs" are improvements to something, however it can still be considered a nerf to those that benefitted from the weakness of the thing in question.
In conclusion, nerfs are an essential part to the way competitive and casual games are played, changes forcing the birth of new thought on how to play it, rather than continue the exact same style of play as before. While it may be argued on whether or not it was really needed, perhaps, in a sense, it has justification in the fact that change is for the best.
Perhaps why Explosion and SelfDestruct had their key effect removed was due to the fact that in the Pokemon Video Game Championships, an annual event sponsored by The Pokemon Company International, the use of those two moves were overcentralizing in the key style of play used then, which was Doubles. With the advent of Triples, it is assumed that they feared that play would centralize upon those moves even further, causing matches to not be as fun, and rather, who survives the most Explosions/SelfDestructs is the victor. This way, people must develop a new perspective of how exactly to create teams, and how exactly to use them, rather than focusing on Explosion/Selfdestruct decimating the opposition.
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