Balanced Hackmons: Extreme Stalling

How should we handle PP stalling


  • Total voters
    94

verbatim

[PLACEHOLDER]
is a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Battle Simulator Moderatoris a Battle Simulator Admin Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnus
In regards to this thread, we at Pokemon Showdown have decided that this tactic is not healthy for BH and that something needs to be done, we're just not sure what yet. To that end, we have compiled a number of possible solutions. This thread will serve as a means by which we can gauge public opinion on the matter at hand and, hopefully, observe quality discussion regarding this issue.

The most obvious option missing from the previous thread "do nothing" will not be available. The particular combination of Heal Pulse, Leppa Berry, and Harvest is designed to remove the element of strategy and rely on factors outside of the other users control (i.e, how long he can stay online) to win. I am aware that this strategy is stoppable, however, that does not mean that it is good for the metagame. One point brought up in the last thread really struck me as significant, specifically,

ntiller said:
2. New players to BH who get exposed to this strategy early on might never play the meta again (and understandably so.)
BH is a metagame thats managed to stay alive as a result of its dedicated fanbase. For a metagame that attracts a third of the matches as hackmons, it has managed to dominate in discussion, both on forums and in IRC. As a result I greatly appreciate anyone who's trying to get into BH, and I don't want their first interaction to be with tactics and techniques that revolve around things outside of their control.


I'm open to discussion and (assuming I can figure out how this forum works) new options, however let it be known that any ban proposed must rule out this specific combination
 

verbatim

[PLACEHOLDER]
is a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Battle Simulator Moderatoris a Battle Simulator Admin Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnus
If you ban this, you should probably ban Dual Chanseys too.
I'm more (albeit not entirely) okay with Dual Chansey's, as that results in a win based on PP stall, which is better than a win based on time constraints. Since I personally do nto have a solid position on the legitimacy of pp stall, I included options for and against the allowance of pp stall in the vote. If there is an overwhelming support for banning Leppa in its entirety, I could see myself looking at other forms of PP stall in the future, however right now I'd like to focus winning via time constraints.
 
I'm more (albeit not entirely) okay with Dual Chansey's, as that results in a win based on PP stall, which is better than a win based on time constraints. Since I personally do nto have a solid position on the legitimacy of pp stall, I included options for and against the allowance of pp stall in the vote. If there is an overwhelming support for banning Leppa in its entirety, I could see myself looking at other forms of PP stall in the future, however right now I'd like to focus winning via time constraints.

Fair enough. I'll vote then.
 
It should be noted that both the first and the second option still leave means available for the strategy (For example pain split/recycle/softboiled/mean look Blissey which evades all of the suggestions but ban leppa). The only option you provided which permanently solves this is ban leppa berry, which is pretty unhealthy as the Leppa berry itself has its uses.

I'd like to suggest a 5th option, which is ban leppa berry + trapping moves/magnet pull. This would permanently solve the problem while minimally affecting other viable sets unless you ingrain yourself and don't have baton pass for whatever reason, as your struggler can't be trapped.

While it is notable that it can still be done on the last mon in your party, nobody will want to run the set after it becoming next to useless in all but the situations I explained already.
 
What about treating this strategy like time stalling, where ps! ranked players can threaten a ban to people who use it against their opponents will? In my opinion, this would be the best option, because it means the smallest amount of damage to the metagame.
 
I agree with Klang that that version would be the most effective. And the strategy is merely a dick move if you use it on their last Pokemon since you've already won. This is different to the regular version which is just permanently stretching out a single kill to make opponent ragequit. Now the problem with that ban is that Trapping+Leppa Berry could be used for PP Stall which is a legit(ish) if rather ineffective strategy.

@Adrian: It's Time Stalling 2: Return of the Noob. Not legit. It only scores you a win if the opponent rage-quits. Otherwise it gets you one kill and this is after going to that effort.
 

verbatim

[PLACEHOLDER]
is a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Battle Simulator Moderatoris a Battle Simulator Admin Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnus
It should be noted that both the first the second option still leave means available for the strategy (For example pain split/recycle/softboiled/mean look Blissey which evades all of the suggestions but ban leppa). The only option you provided which permanently solves this is ban leppa berry, which is pretty unhealthy as the Leppa berry itself has its uses.

I'd like to suggest a 5th option, which is ban leppa berry + trapping moves/magnet pull. This would permanently solve the problem while minimally affecting other viable sets unless you ingrain yourself and don't have baton pass for whatever reason, as your struggler can't be trapped.

While it is notable that it can still be done on the last mon in your party, nobody will want to run the set after it becoming next to useless in all but the situations I explained already.
I'll consider this, but I can't seem to edit the poll options, so any support for this is going to have to be seen visible in user comments.
 
Heal Pulse is the center of this strategy, banning Heal Pulse will make the strategy almost impossible to use, while banning leppa will just let the alternatives take its place. I was wrong about the post above.
 
I'm just going to state once again that every option but the ban leppa one hardly hinder the strategy at all, and I've spoken to people who want the strategy to continue that have in fact voted ban heal pulse for this very reason.
 

tehy

Banned deucer.
I think it's pretty clear that banning Heal Pulse is the right thing to do.

Heal Pulse basically serves no purpose, so it'll remove a lot of this stuff. People have mentioned Pain Split Blissey, but...if you see a Blissey sans Imposter, you can easily determine it has this, which cuts down on such strategies already. As far as i can tell, any reasonably bulky pokemon can pull off such strategies via Heal Pulse. Worst comes to worst, it has no effect. At which point no one cares anyhow since no one uses Heal Pulse outside of this.

Leppa berry eh, it's got legitimate uses. although they all tend towards heavy PP stall, which although not on this level is still pretty douchey. So i'd be okay with such a ban, although not in favor of it really

Hey, if you really think it won't hinder the strategy? Start posting stuff to prove it, besides Pain Split blissey. (Which, again, is way easier to evade since it's super obvious.)
 
Once again, I would like to suggest treating this strategy as we treat timestalling. All that this strategy does is take up time which could be used doing other things to see which player has a mousebot/less of a life. If we ban heal pulse, the strategy can continue, by using pain split or some other obscure technique. BH players are very resourceful, and I have no doubt that there are many ways to pull this off without heal pulse. Banning leppa, on the other hand, is a detriment to the metagame because leppa berry serves purposes besides acting as a means to troll newer players and prevent them from enjoying balanced hackmons.

Making a penalty for endless stalling is far more effective that banning any of this or remaining inactive. It would deal with any future methods of doing this that get discovered, as well. For these reasons, treating endless stalling like timestalling is for the best of the metagame.
 
I think it's pretty clear that banning Heal Pulse is the right thing to do.

Heal Pulse basically serves no purpose, so it'll remove a lot of this stuff. People have mentioned Pain Split Blissey, but...if you see a Blissey sans Imposter, you can easily determine it has this, which cuts down on such strategies already. As far as i can tell, any reasonably bulky pokemon can pull off such strategies via Heal Pulse. Worst comes to worst, it has no effect. At which point no one cares anyhow since no one uses Heal Pulse outside of this.

Leppa berry eh, it's got legitimate uses. although they all tend towards heavy PP stall, which although not on this level is still pretty douchey. So i'd be okay with such a ban, although not in favor of it really

Hey, if you really think it won't hinder the strategy? Start posting stuff to prove it, besides Pain Split blissey. (Which, again, is way easier to evade since it's super obvious.)

1. I've used Blissey more multiple roles in BH in the past, and it is hardly obvious. The only reason you think it is obvious is because I just posted it (Which means anyone unfamiliar with this thread won't know...) , not to mention you can always switch it up with chansey (Usually assumed unaware when not imposter) or even Giratina, since they both have reasonably high HP stats

2. This one requires 2 mons, but can still accomplish the strategy. (And once again, while it's as easy to avoid as the others, it still hurts) Pokemon one has a combination of mean look with skill swap dry skin, mean looks a steel type turn 1, then skill swaps. You're then free to switch to your magnet pull user with Jirachi's moveset but with a water move over heal pulse to feed them hp until you let it die. Harder to pull off, but the main threat is #1
 
Banning Leppa Berry won't do anything, Banning heal pulse will make it impossible. Pain Split is too inconsistent to work. Ban Heal Pulse, or else it'll be soooo easy to be able to use the strategy.
 
Banning Leppa Berry won't do anything, Banning heal pulse will make it impossible. Pain Split is too inconsistent to work. Ban Heal Pulse, or else it'll be soooo easy to be able to use the strategy.
Other than Transform and Imposter, Leppa is the only way to regain PP. As others have shown, there are other ways of giving the opponent more health. Thus, I put forward that you are lying here.
 

tehy

Banned deucer.
Generally speaking Blissey is just an imposter, which means if you force this strategy more skilled players can also evade it much more easily and people will only fall for one mon using it once.Or they'll be like 'hey why isn't this chansey' and then figure it out. You can almost always catch a newbie but this ensures he won't be caught twice.

That one is sketchy as hell-it requires the foe to have a steel-type, then you have to trap it (if they switch you're ruined), and then you have to skill swap them as well (so they could break you in the time you mean looked and skill swapped them.) Rain would help you with that, healing you, but still, that's not NEARLY as good as before. Post some better ones.

Adrian stop bullshitting, you're pretty clearly just trying to keep this strategy alive (or being sarcastic)

Edit: Okay, with Giratina and Giratina-O you may have a point, although i'm not sure you can totally recover any used pokemon's HP from two struggles every two turns.

And at least stuff like 'needs to be a steel-type' heavily cuts down on this strategies' chance to work.
 
Generally speaking Blissey is just an imposter, which means if you force this strategy more skilled players can also evade it much more easily and people will only fall for one mon using it once.Or they'll be like 'hey why isn't this chansey' and then figure it out. You can almost always catch a newbie but this ensures he won't be caught twice.

That one is sketchy as hell-it requires the foe to have a steel-type, then you have to trap it (if they switch you're ruined), and then you have to skill swap them as well (so they could break you in the time you mean looked and skill swapped them.) Rain would help you with that, healing you, but still, that's not NEARLY as good as before. Post some better ones.

You CAN do it with chansey as well, as I have said. It's only slightly less bulky than blissey without eviolite, and can still tank all the tier's special hits all day long. And once again, Giratina is the most used Pokemon in the tier and has base 150HP. I can almost guarantee that you won't see him coming.

Yes, it is sketchy, but most steel type in the tier are defensive and stay in for extended periods of time. I've caught a few people doing this, and it's easier than you expect. Not to mention that all the sets that do this are sketchy as hell, the only added requirement to this one is that they have a steel type. It can also be done with volt absorb and other abilities. All other strategies that do this apart from pain split are a tad bit harder to pull off than the original, and I'm just saying that if you want the best ban possible Leppa + Trapping moves is it.

Also the fact that Adrian made sarcastic posts about it should simply confirm what I'm saying.
 
To be honest, I would prefer the idea of banning both Leppa and Heal Pulse entirely. Both tend to be centered around time, since, while Leppa alone generally forces a win, it can also be used to stall a game when you are in a bad situation, trying to win by time. In my opinion, people aren't going to enjoy a metagame where it takes ~200 turns to get a win, since the opponent uses the aforementioned tactics to stall your victory every other match.
 
If Leppa does have legitimate uses, banning it would be unhealthy for the metagame, forcing users to limit their creativity. I once saw an ES Arceus with Leppa berry, it was annoying because I depended on the 8 PP although it was an extremely long battle and generally speaking, other items are better.

And yes, I have about 6 different strategies that all mimic the same goal. 1 which is relatively easy to setup and is unbannable due to its consistent uses for other goals. Go ahead, ban Leppa Berry, people will find alternatives. Banning Heal Pulse is definitely the better option to stop the strategy from being used easily at least.

I would also like to apologize for being rude (although I was partly honest).
 

tehy

Banned deucer.
So i'm going to throw a wild idea out there.

Why not just have this:

"Leppa Clause: If a Pokemon with a Leppa Berry (even if it's consumed, as its original hold item) stays in for more than 50 turns, and its opponent also stays in for 50 turns, that player automatically loses."

It needs tweaking, sure, but this would ensure that you can't do such a tactic. I guess you could have multiple Magnet Pullers, but then you can only do it to steel-types, and you could just say if multiple pokemon with Leppa berries too.

Meanwhile, this doesn't really alter legitimate strategies that much, at worst hurting pure PP stall bs that...honestly, if that's the baby that goes out with the bathwater, then we just got rid of the antichrist.
 

Qwilphish

when everything you touch turns to gold
Adrian Marin: If you are going to be posting saying that you have four other ways of abusing this strategy, you should post them so that others know what you are talking about, and so that we know what to look for in the future.

At the moment, I'm leaning towards banning Heal Pulse as it is the most reliable way of executing this strategy and gets rid of most of the problems. However, I'm not against banning Leepa Berry also as it creates a full stall strategy which also somewhat relies on the time clock mechanism as well.
 

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