I'm not sure about it. It has never been as powerful as today with both full evs and all the new abusers and so much more coverage options over gen5.Poison heal won't get suspected
I'm not sure about it. It has never been as powerful as today with both full evs and all the new abusers and so much more coverage options over gen5.Poison heal won't get suspected
Actually, PH isn't. Sure, Cgarde is a new user and the Primals get to experience full EVs + PH for the first time, but PH as a whole is definitely not at its strongest. In Gen V, it was absolutely nasty for a myriad of reasons that wound up making PH Gigas/Slaking THE threat to prepare for since it could easily destroy unprepared teams without even clicking a single set-up move (I can give you more details if you'd like, just not here since I'd veer off topic). Pre-ability clause Gen VI was utterly nasty too since, as someone who abused the hell out of PH pre-ability clause, it was one of the few abilities that could be spammed super hard without getting rendered moot by one or two checks/counters. You'd need like... 4ish Pokemon dedicated to countering with PH to beat a 6 PH team.I'm not sure about it. It has never been as powerful as today with both full evs and all the new abusers and so much more coverage options over gen5.
even though i disagree with a lot of this, i feel there is a valid discussion to be had on protean. however, now really isn't the time for it -- there are a ton of things that are possibly banworthy in bh atm (primals, ray, prio blockers, gengarite, shell smash) that should probably be looked at, and i feel like the biggest issue with bh currently is that there are just too many powerful threats for any team to reliably be able to check them all. even if protean isn't broken, reintroducing it now will only exacerbate existing issues with the metagame. we gotta focus on balancing the current metagame before we even start to consider unbanning more potentially broken shitI'm here to talk about something that everyone who knows me probably saw coming a while ago: Protean. In specific, I'm here to talk about why it should be unbanned. Hope you all like essays.
First off, I think it's important to note that Protean has only really gained one thing of value between gens. Most of the changes help it not one iota; Psychic Surge and Dazzling infringe upon it (more on that later), Sunsteel Strike doesn't allow the physical Protean sets to defeat any new mons, and Moongheist Beam is at best a mediocre coverage option on the special sets. Even Core Enforcer is largely overshadowed by Moonblast in terms of super effective coverage, especially since the wallbreaking sets that would get the most mileage out of stopping abilities would much prefer to click Boomburst. The new Pokemon are also not a concern, as they are largely irrelevant with Protean; even Pheromosa is just a worse Deoxys-A with 1 more speed, and Deo-A was already irrelevant. The primals did have some Protean lures, but they were little more than that and generally much less effective than the ordinary Protean users.
While obviously this gen isn't the same as last gen, for the reasons I outlined above I think it's more than fair to assume that the users of Protean will be largely the same this gen. Of these, there were 4: Mega Mewtwo Y, Mega Mewtwo X, Mega Rayquaza, and Mega Latios. The eon twins are largely irrelevant now that Soul Dew has been nerfed, so I will be discounting Latios in this breakdown.
First off, Mega Rayquaza. If it isn't already over the edge, Protean isn't enough to push it there. It is already insanely unpredictable, and has far too many viable sets: Tail Glow Triage, FakeSpeed, Choice Specs Aerilate, Contrary (and also the more specific SubSpore contrary by motherlove ), Shell Smash, and even Tough Claws Choice Band. There is already no answer for more than half of these sets, and while you may argue that Protean makes it worse, it's also generally less effective: Choice Band V-Create is far less spammable, and far more easily walled, than a Choice Specs Boomburst. Here, at least, the unpredictability isn't much of a calling card, and Mega Rayquaza was the least effective of the Protean users in gen 6 regardless.
For Mega Mewtwo X, things have gotten far worse between generations. In addition to the Pokemon that already walled it, from Giratina to Slowbro, it now has to contend with new foes. Of these, Zygarde-C is probably the worst; only Ice Hammer has even a chance to break, an unless Mega Mewtwo X gets the predict and the 8% (which can be negated by running leftovers), there’s nothing Mega Mewtwo X can do, - and Zygarde on pretty much half of teams (not to mention being on just about every stall team). Sets like Fur Coat Primal Kyogre and Buzzwhole should also not be discounted. Since Multi-Attack is just bad, Mega Mewtwo X will always get forced out by imposter, so it's not like Mega Mewtwo X is a balance or bulky offense breaker either.
Mega Mewtwo Y is the only truly contentious Protean user of the bunch. It already has Contrary, Sheer Force, and Psychic Surge sets, just as Mega Rayquaza has other sets, and was the most powerful and versatile of last generations Protean users. There is a solid argument to be made that in order for Protean to be unbanned, Mega Mewtwo Y would have to be banned. However, I feel this isn't ultimately neccesary, as Mega Mewtwo Y has also suffered between generations. The so called “unwallable” set of Life Orb Boomburst/Earth Power/Moonblast/Kings Sheild has new answers; instead of just niche Pokemon at full health and Chansey, it now has Celesteela, Lunala (if people ran this), RegenVest Primal Kyogre, Chansey, aand assorted niche pokemon. Furthermore, it's niche as a breaker is much lower, as it can't threaten nearly as many Pokemon with OHKOs, as Regigigas/PHOgre/SashSmash can just set up on it and then KO it instead. The imposterproof set of Ghost Judge+Secret Sword+Filler is already prepared for, as Mega Gengar runs it, and is in fact easier to deal with using mons like Primal Kyogre since you do not need to fear the coming Entrainment.
Last generation, Protean was decried for destroying offense; it was fast, powerful, and hard to revenge KO thanks to King’s Sheild. Now, however, we can see what it means to actually be immune to revenge killing with Anti Priority Setup, and Protean doesn't even come close. Unlike Sash Smash or Psysurge, you just need to weaken it for priority or run a scarfer.
TL;DR: Protean is has not gained anything of significance between generations, and has lost quite a bit. The general power level is also much higher, and roles Protean used to hold completely like wallbreaker are done better by Pokemon such as Mega Rayquaza. The removal of EV limits was also a significant blow to it, and it's enough worse to be worthy of a suspect test and reintroduction.
This meta already forces most support roles to run Spectral Thief to reduce their passivity (preventing themselves from becoming a setup fodder), and if this way is no longer an option to stop the setup, what will initially stop the setup spams that comes out of nowhere and evades Spectral Thief with Protean? This is even closer to impossible if the user has Dazzling of QM to stop FakeSpeed which is the most viable way to break sashes.1. Shell Smash requires no skill to use, and it forces the preparation.
Many checks such as Prankster Haze have been developed, and the newly introduced move called Spectral Thief seemed to alleviate this issue. But they are sometimes not enough to stop sweepers.
Prankster Haze is forced to spam Haze until the setup sweeper decides to stop spamming Shell Smash and switch to something else, and this ends up messing up the momentum itself. Even Destiny Bond is sometimes not enough, especially against hyper-offensive teams with 3-4 different 'mons with access to Shell Smash.
Spectral Thief is a fantastic move that can be, or more precisely, should be stapled into most support 'mons to reduce their passivity. However, according to my experience, supports' movesets are in this structure:
- Recovery
- Switching moves
- Anti-setup
- Hazards or its control (Stealth Rock or Defog)
Recovery is self-explantory. Switching moves is crucially important in any BH teams because they need their wallbreakers / sweepers to safely switch in. But what about two other moveslots?
If you choose Haze for Anti-setup, you become VERY passive.
If you choose Topsy-Tursy or Encore, you become setup fodder for APS user.
If you choose Hazards as 4th moveslot, you become totally passive to Magic Bounce user.
If you choose Core Enforcer, you can stop PH users but someone has to die next turn after setup from APS.
If you choose Destiny Bond to stop out-of-control sweeper... I won't say how passive that is.
The truth is, due to setup-spams, support 'mons have hard time fitting anything into their slot. Even RegenVest users are forced to run Spectral Thief to stop Shell Smash.
I believe this is somewhat similar phenomenon as when Water Bubble existed, Water Absorb was chosen to stop the madness. Although Spectral Thief is much more viable outsides checking APS user (such as best physical Ghost-type coverage for sweepers), it is very irrelevant move to support 'mons outsides stealing potential APS boost. I won't describe a move causing other 'mons to sacrifice their moveslot to check it, as healthy.
I guess you are not understanding how bulky is Zygod, not even considering Fur Coat.Semako every assistdon team i've ever seen has had both water absorb and moldy, specifically to counter water types and fur coat. Between those and trick band, assistdon teams are a little more versatile than you seem to believe. prankster is a good revenge killer, unaware can work to shut down sweeps with things that don't know sunsteel/moongeist/stored power/power trip, and these pdons still know other moves, because king's shield/spiky shield/phazing moves/trick aren't pulled by assist at all.
it's absolutely not worthy of a ban, let alone a ban before gengarite or aps, but i don't like spreading the notion that it's completely worthless.
the only ground resists i can think of that ive ever seen are triage hera and contrary msceptile. neither are especially big threats, since heracross deals no damage and sceptile is never improof. the rest of the post still stands, though i would like to note how well entrainment gengar shuts does assistdon teams w/o magic bounce. nothing can switch in, and you're completely useless if you're not running spooky or earth plate imposter. the only thing on most assistdon teams that can take down a gar is prankster, but rarely do teams run multiple and those are all hard walled by the presence of alolan rattata, or literally any other dark type.ground resists just don't care,
Giratina takes more damage, but it still is 3HKOed (very low chance of 2HKO, but Leftovers negates this). Giratina with Z-Parting Shot is viable and wins against every AssistDon I can think of, since they can't actually run nothing good but Thousand Arrows.Assist probably isn't the most important right now, but it's definitely worth keeping in mind. After all, it took a couple of months of experimentation for people to come up with ORAS Assistdon. Given time, I'm sure someone will find the anti-meta assist set-up for S/M. I personally think Assist-Ogre would be more likely to form the cancer Assist team, or maybe something else.
Although, Zyggy doesn't often run Z-crystals from what I've seen, so I'm not sure how having a Zygy on your team reliably stops it from getting shut down by Trick.
252 SpA Groudon-Primal Subzero Slammer (200 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Zygarde-Complete: 792-932 (124.5 - 146.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO :thinking:Having a zyggy with a z crystal does, if people choose not to run it and lose to assist it's their problem, but that doesn't make assist broken.
Doesn't help that in full EV band groudon doesn't OHKO anything. Not Kyogre, not MMY, not rayquaza, not even opposing groudons. If it's adapt then you outspeed, if it's scarf then it's less powerful than band. Dark types are immune to prankster assist, psychic terrain means you can't use prankster assist altogether, ground resists just don't care, fur coat mons wall any non moldy, shedinja just deals with it altogether pretty well. There are ways.
Yeah, thats my bad for not checking; I shouldnt have assumed it works like all other 2 turn moves. Either way, though, zygarde shouldnt wall a well built assist team entirely, as they can run one of refridgerate (252+ SpA Choice Specs Refrigerate Groudon-Primal Nature Power vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Zygarde-Complete: 628-740 (98.7 - 116.3%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO), destiny bond, snatch, and imposter pp stall.The only way to have a 200BP Subzero Slammer is by including Freeze Shock or Ice Burn directly in your movelist, and while the Z-move is something that Assist can't call, neither of those base attacks (nor any other Ice move for that matter) is present on the Assist exclusion list, so you can't help but have your teammates' Assists diluted by being able to call that move, complete with its helpless charge turn, instead of Thousand Arrows on occasion.
Yeah, but, again, I can't actually think of a Ziggy I've seen running a Z-Crystal, in either my games or watching others. It's usually Leftovers, Safety Goggles, or Toxic Orb.Having a zyggy with a z crystal does, if people choose not to run it and lose to assist it's their problem, but that doesn't make assist broken.
Giratina takes more damage, but it still is 3HKOed (very low chance of 2HKO, but Leftovers negates this). Giratina with Z-Parting Shot is viable and wins against every AssistDon I can think of, since they can't actually run nothing good but Thousand Arrows.
Offense can deal with that too. Fridge Boomburst from Kyu-W from a Choice Scarf will outspeed every Pdon, and if you throw psychic terrain support from, I don't know, MMY, then not even priority will save you.
Also offensive Prankster is bad. The best a Prankster AssistDon can use against Yveltal, to say one dark Type, is Dragon Tail. And if it's choiced, then you killed momentum.
AssistDon can't break a well played Zygarde; it lacks the tools for that. Maybe Zygarde will be incapacitated. Sometimes. But that is. This is why it will never be broken.
That works only if there aren't Terrains activated. Best Terrain scenario is Misty Surge for Moonblast, worst Terrain scenario is Electric Terrain for Thunderbolt. Other Terrains are neutral.Yeah, thats my bad for not checking; I shouldnt have assumed it works like all other 2 turn moves. Either way, though, zygarde shouldnt wall a well built assist team entirely, as they can run one of refridgerate (252+ SpA Choice Specs Refrigerate Groudon-Primal Nature Power vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Zygarde-Complete: 628-740 (98.7 - 116.3%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO), destiny bond, snatch, and imposter pp stall.
Clauses should be reserved for complex cases where you'd either need a lot of individual bans, or it's more of a strategy that needs to be reduced. Saved for:
Exception: No complex bans which disallow specific Pokemon from having specific moves, items, abilities or any combination thereof
- Dominant strategies with either no checks, or the player has to choose between preparing for this specific strategy or the general meta
- Remove the emphasis of the game from skill to outside forces such as luck or amount of time the battlers have e.g. Endless Battle Clause
- Blanket limitations instead of going for multiple bans e.g. Ability Clause
Looking at this now, how are Sleep-inducing moves any more OP then they were in, say, Gen 5? Prankster Spore was even more unblockable then (only M-Bounce and Poison Heal/Guts/Flare Boost/Quick Feet/wutevr). No Safety goggles then, no grass immunity to Spore either. Also, the sleep mechanics in Gen 5 made Sleep even more obnoxious. Sleep-inducing moves have only been nerfed since then with the lower # of sleep turns and no reset. No Guard/Moldy Dark Void existed back then too. So why is it suddenly a problem now, after all these years?Another thing I really would like to see is the addition of a sleep clause just like it is in regular OU and Ubers.
In Regular OU/Ubers, sleep si generally rarely seen, as most sleep-inducing moves have very bad accuracy (Hypnosis for example has only 60% acc), so that using them is extremely risky - and the only 100% accuracy sleep move, Spore, is only learned by a handful of mons, which are all not really viable for the current OU metagame (except maybe Breloom). Also, due to sleep clause, only one opposing pokemon can be put to sleep at a time. That means that you can sacrifice a pokemon as sleep fodder to protect your other mons from being put to sleep.
In BH however, every pokemon has access to Spore, and to No Guard, so that other sleep-inducing moves like Lovely Kiss or Hypnosis can be used without having to worry about their accuracy. No Guard, however, is outclassed by other abilities and thus not often seen, while Spore is extremely splashable and extremely common. Due to the absence of sleep clause, nothing prevents one from simply putting all the opponent's pokemon to sleep - except Safety Goggles, which can be knocked off or tricked away.
Especially when the opponent predicts right and sets up on a switch, you don't have a chance of beating his pokemon unless your pokemon is bulky enough to defeat it even when factoring in sleep turns - this is something which applies only to a select few matchups like Regigigas vs Fur Coat Core Enforcer Zygod, because Zygod can stall the sleep turns out and then supress Regigigas' Poison Heal. Otherwise you're simply lost, because all your pokemon can be put to sleep and killed, even those who can survive one or two hits.
Regarding the ban guide:
- Spore and so trying to put opposing mons asleep, is very dominant in the meta. The only checks are either abilities like Insomnia or Comatosa which grant the user no other benefit than the status immunity (Magic Bounce is no counterplay due to mold breaker and clones), safety goggles which can easily be knocked off, or prankster Taunts, which are extremely niche and prankster mons already have enough other moves to run, they kinda suffer already from a 4MSS (recovery, anti-setup, hazards/removal, dbond, switching move, anti-PH...), so that they can't really fit taunt into their four moveslots. If someone prepare his whole team to not getting defeated by a spore spammer, he has to either sacrifice important item or ability slots for that and an important moveslot on his prankster user if he has one, which causes severe disadvantages against other teams which don't use that much spore. Also, Safety Goggles can be knocked off, as I said, so they don't reliably protect from Spore trhoughout the match.
- Definitely applies here. There are often situations where the difference between a 1-turn-sleep and a 3-turn-sleep decides the game - and its only RNG-dependant. Such situations occur for example, when a sweeper puts its check to sleep and is able to 3HKO or 2HKO it after the setup, while the check can OHKO the sweeper, like it happened multiple times with my earth Plate Kyogre against Spore/Shell Smash Gengars.
- Also applies here clearly.