np: OU Suspect Testing Round 3 - So Long and Thanks for all the Fish

[Sphyxius]

So, I can't be bothered to sift through this thread's 88 pages at the moment, can some one point me towards the discussion (if any exists, I've torn these forms apart) in regards to Blaziken's banning? I just wanna read it, I'm just morbidly curious as to how they found such a pokemon banworthy and fail to see how it was broken or uncounterable at all...

So yeah, anyone know where I can read up on that?

 

[Showsni]

Using Double Team six times allows you to avoid attacks 2/3rds of the time. In other words, you've just spent six whole turns, in which the enemy could be doing anything, to then avoid being hit for two out of the next three turns, on average. You've spent six turns to get two free turns to move. Which is the better position after spending six turns; setting up SR, three layers of spikes and two layers of Toxic Spikes, or potentially doing nothing at all with a 1/3 chance? On most Pokémon, Double Team is not competitively viable. Like Brightpowder and Lax Incense, it's an inferior option.

This is important. Brightpowder is not only not broken, it's bad. It hurts your team to use it. Smogon has gone out of its way to ban something that isn't good enough to use competitively, because people are scared of being the one in a hundred chance that loses to the Brightpowder player. (Considering you'll probably need several hax misses before it becomes a real problem). I guess in a way this will make people's teams better, but why stop there? Why not ban every inferior option? People shouldn't be using rubbish items/Pokémon anyway, right, so it's fine if we ban them.

 

[shrang]

We don't only ban broken things!

Well, we should be!

If it's not broken, don't fix it.

 

[JSND]

Its interesting to think that even with SwSw banned, rain still dominate the metagame in smogon server.

What do all of you think will happen with ken's banning ? i mean back at previous round, every banning always gave us a very big metagame shifts(uber spam, SwSw spam, Rain spam, Virizion, DOuble genie, ken become popular)

 

[Ewil]

i don't see many changes exept for the power down of the sun teams and the less use of Sand Veil Chomp.

 

[alexwolf]

You're missing my point. I am saying that if we define uncompetitive as anything that "encourages players to rely on luck to win" then we must ban Attract and Confusion as they would be uncompetitive by that definition.

this term is lacking...for something to be uncompetitive it must also lack counters...u must understand this!
i asked you again do you think that if more always hitting moves with high power existed evasion rasing moves/items/abilities would be defined as uncompetitive?even though they make the user rely on pure luck they wouldn't be banned 'casue everyone could handle them easily...so attract and confusion are not broken by that definition...understand that and let's move to anlother point pls...

As for evasion items, since when are they broken? It's not as though they suddenly became more abused and more viable than in Gen III and Gen IV. It's annoying, yes, but it is in no way going to decide a significant number of matches.

they were not broken!they were uncompetitive!it is just that now people decided to ban them...why?my belief is that they saw garchomp in ou and his annoying sand veil and since they couldn't put a blanket ban on it they just did on something similar,which was these items...

My point being: plenty counters exist and would find a way to fit into the OU metagame if the evasion boosts from Brightpowder were actually an issue. I say this because, at least in Gen IV, the only counter to entry hazards once they were laid found a way to be used. And Rapid spin has an even smaller move pool than evasion reducers.

the point is that these counters are not good on anything else except countering evasion...and it doesn't matter how big the evasion boost from brightpowder was it would have been banned anyway 'cause it is banned by principle...it isn't banned due to brokeness.
it is not fair for good players to lose by bad players due to these items even if it happens one out of 100 times...crits,added effects etc cannot be avoided since they are part of the game mechanics...but the evasion items can be avoided so they get banned...simple as that!

 

[badabing]

I'd still like for someone to point how exactly how evasion is any less manageable than it was in Gen 3 and Gen 4. Passing up LO or Lefties in favor of an evasion item has much more dire consequences given the wider choice of pokemon, moves, and strategies overall. Sand Veil has been around since Gen 3, and no one had a problem with it. Same for the evasion items. The percentages haven't changed at all, and with every passing generation, they become more useless, or at least that's my opinion.

What has changed is that for some reason, the community at large is trying to sweep everything they don't like into the "uncompetitive" blanket category based on the choice to ban Inconsistent. Sand Veil + Brightpowder is not nearly as uncompetitive; people are just whinier as a whole these days when they miss against Garchomp every now and then, even though their place on the ladder would still be relatively the same.

That's all good and well, but do Sand Veil and Brightpowder contribute anything positive to the metagame whatsoever? There only purpose is to create extra hax. Imo this discourages fair competition and should be banned.

 

[Mario With Lasers]

Sand Veil does add something positive.


It adds Garchomp, Sandslash and Cacturne and, in the future, Stealth Rock Garchomp, Stealth Rock + Knock Off + Super Fang + Focus Punch Sandslash and [ashitloadofmoves] Cacturne.

 

[Raikaria]

i don't see many changes exept for the power down of the sun teams and the less use of Sand Veil Chomp.

Uh... so people are using other types of Garchomp? Since when was Garchomp's DW ability released?

Or do you mean less Garchomps in general? Which... makes little logic, really, as Garchomp is still pretty good, and since Lati@s hardly ever runs Scarf anymore, Scarfchomp nets me plenty of revenge kills on Lati@s.

Which is pretty important, seeing as I run a Rain Offense team, and as such, I am weak against Lati@s.

Ive seen more changes too. Scizor useage seems to have spiked [And, unfortunety, Azumarill's has dropped]. Slowbro is off the charts again. I am seeing a lot of rain teams [Probobly people who used to abuse Blaziken + Sun], but Sand is still all over the place too.

No sun, for some reason. Sun still has Venusaur and Volcarona, as well as various pokemon who like the water resistance, and use Fire attacks [Salamence?]. If people use rain to abuse Thunderous and Tornadus and Rotom-W, then why don't people use sun to abuse pokemon who use Fire attacks, or to mess with Thunder/Hurricane?

 

[IcyMan28]

That's all good and well, but do Sand Veil and Brightpowder contribute anything positive to the metagame whatsoever? There only purpose is to create extra hax. Imo this discourages fair competition and should be banned.

It does not have to. Fire Stone doesn't add anything good, nor does Scope Lens or Quick Claw. People said that the slippery slope argument did not apply back when Inconsistent was banned, but it is exactly what's happening now.

As soon as we decided to ban whatever we deemed "uncompetiive," we went from being willing to test a game without evasion clause to attemting to remove the most minuscule aspects of luck in the game.

Lax Incense? Really? The phrase "we ban what is uncompetitive" is a thinly veiled slogan for "we will do what we want."

 

[AlphaSpade]

Do the people who push for SV/SC bans know that you'd have to ban Garchomp / Cacturne / Sandslash / Froslass until their DW abilities are released? And even if they are, you would slice into their movepools (Cacturne loses Focus Punch, Thunderpunch, Superpower, Giga Drain, Dark Pulse, Magic Coat(?)...pretty much half of it's usable movepool. Garchomp loses SR and Aqua Tail. Glaceon loses it's entire non-TM movepool. Froslass only loses Pain Split I think. Sandslash has nothing to lose iirc).

 

[Ewil]

Uh... so people are using other types of Garchomp? Since when was Garchomp's DW ability released?

Or do you mean less Garchomps in general? Which... makes little logic, really, as Garchomp is still pretty good, and since Lati@s hardly ever runs Scarf anymore, Scarfchomp nets me plenty of revenge kills on Lati@s.

Which is pretty important, seeing as I run a Rain Offense team, and as such, I am weak against Lati@s.

Ive seen more changes too. Scizor useage seems to have spiked [And, unfortunety, Azumarill's has dropped]. Slowbro is off the charts again. I am seeing a lot of rain teams [Probobly people who used to abuse Blaziken + Sun], but Sand is still all over the place too.

No sun, for some reason. Sun still has Venusaur and Volcarona, as well as various pokemon who like the water resistance, and use Fire attacks [Salamence?]. If people use rain to abuse Thunderous and Tornadus and Rotom-W, then why don't people use sun to abuse pokemon who use Fire attacks, or to mess with Thunder/Hurricane?

I mean that the sub-haxchomp is no longer avaiable in his true form, so, the only chomp that i see at least are all scarfed for the reason that you listed.
The true battle, in my opinion is between sand and rain. Ttar is really frustrating, i hate it ! xD

 

[Thorhammer]

Do the people who push for SV/SC bans know that you'd have to ban Garchomp / Cacturne / Sandslash / Froslass until their DW abilities are released? And even if they are, you would slice into their movepools (Cacturne loses Focus Punch, Thunderpunch, Superpower, Giga Drain, Dark Pulse, Magic Coat(?)...pretty much half of it's usable movepool. Garchomp loses SR and Aqua Tail. Glaceon loses it's entire non-TM movepool. Froslass only loses Pain Split I think. Sandslash has nothing to lose iirc).

With a simple ban, yes. That's why a complex ban is necessitated.

 

[badabing]

It does not have to. Fire Stone doesn't add anything good, nor does Scope Lens or Quick Claw. People said that the slippery slope argument did not apply back when Inconsistent was banned, but it is exactly what's happening now.

As soon as we decided to ban whatever we deemed "uncompetiive," we went from being willing to test a game without evasion clause to attemting to remove the most minuscule aspects of luck in the game.

Lax Incense? Really? The phrase "we ban what is uncompetitive" is a thinly veiled slogan for "we will do what we want."

Maybe I worded it wrong. What I'm getting at is that these abilities only effect the metagame negatively. An above poster mentioned that certain pokemon cannot be used without Sand Veil remaining unbanned. For that reason, I would advocate the proposal of a Veil ability + activation weather ban.

 

[bubbly]

Sand Veil + Sandstorm ban is kind of ridiculous IMO, at least until the pokemon concerned receive DW abilities.

To be honest I think that at some point we're going to have to reevaluate exactly on which criteria things should be banned. The point is that things which aren't necessarily broken, such as Sand Veil, Brightpowder, Double Team etc, still introduce a significant reliance on luck, which in turn lowers the skill based component of the game and makes is less enjoyable to play. At the same time, they don't contribute anything positive to the game as has been said.

This is why I would propose a more flexible method of banning giving slightly more power to the voters or panels to decide whether something should be banned or not, rather than only being able to do so on the basis of it being definitively broken.

This has some problems, but most of them can be solved by having a suitable CRE cutoff or other selection process which ensures that the decision makers are of a relatively high quality, and that there are a large enough number of them that personal biases get outweighed.

 

[XienZo]

If your being careless with your DT the yes they can do anything you want but any smart person knows that these situations work against them. Come in on something that they force out and DT. Boom you got +1 Evasion and a chance of setting up without getting hit. They can set up along with you but what could you do with that one turn of set up?

Sword Dance? Dragon Dance? Substitute? ANYTHING?

What if the DT user was a special attacker. What could conceldurr do then? miss that DP while they continuously get hit and taken down.

Hopefully, your opponent is smart enough to send in something like CM Reuniclus / Quiver Dance Volcarona on a special threat...

Not to mention Conkledurr could just attack earlier at a +2/3 to OHKO you when you have a much lower chance to evade.

The first one is an oddly scenario because this can pretty much happen with any pokemon. A bulky pokemon comes in an walls you. It happens to any set up user. You could always use a mixed attacker with well balanced offensive stats. Azelf (I'm only thinking off the top of my head because the very first thing I thought of got banned recently.) has low defenses but good offensive stats and fair speed so it could properly abuse Double Team and Sub which could help it against a major check in scizor.

Or it could just use Sub on the switch and Flamethrower next.

It's not that hard to do the math: Substitute gives you one free turn and Double team gives you a third of that. Meanwhile, Sword Dance lets you get an extra turn of damage and Agility let's you get another hit before your opponent attacks again.

And .33 < 1 = 1 = 1

The second one.... HA! If someone was stupid enough to do 3 set up moves and 1 attacking move I'd literally laugh in their face. That ain't Crocune.

The third one is also one I'd laugh at but not to an extent. All they'd really have to do is get rid of that taunt user first.

Any substitute user can just come in as well, unless you're doing something like Screens or Hazards, and I don't need to show you the math to show that 6+ turns of setup to do something accomplish-able in 1-2 turns is not a good idea.

 

[TheAvenger]

all i hear is fair or unfair. when u dont want to change with the times then your doomed to failure. u have the same access to dw ability pokemon , i.e. blaziken. u also have the same access to the swift swim pokes and drizzle politoad. u also have the same access to the "hax" items. if u dont want to ADAPT then dont get mad when u suffer defeat

 

[JSND]

Yeah but seriously Swift Swim is NOT fair even to those using it and have adapted with It and to one using it. DO you REALLY know how centralizing SwSw was in R2 before you post it ? or you only play in PO server which MIGHT have DW ability that can handle them that it creates a different metagame approach ?

I can say ohhh i can use salamence on my team in g4 so dont ban it.

 

[petrie911]

With a simple ban, yes. That's why a complex ban is necessitated.

Wait, I've got a better idea. We could just not ban something that isn't broken. Problem solved.

 

[Thorhammer]

Wait, I've got a better idea. We could just not ban something that isn't broken. Problem solved.

And yet it is uncompetitive. That clearly logically follows from the fact that Brightpowder and Sand Veil were banned by an overwhelming majority, obviously on the basis of uncompetitiveness.

 

[XienZo]

And yet it is uncompetitive. That clearly logically follows from the fact that Brightpowder and Sand Veil were banned by an overwhelming majority, obviously on the basis of uncompetitiveness.

On the basis of uncompetitiveness?

The overwhelming majority banned BrightPowder because they didn't like it. That's all we know, and that's all that's safe to assume.

Now, some people MAY have banned it because they thought it was uncompetitive, but some people may have not. You can't just go and assume they all did, as much as we'd hope they did.

It's definitely not a given that they all banned it on the basis of uncompetitive-ness.

 

[Thorhammer]

I think we can trust our voters enough to assume that they voted it for a good reason, which would be either being broken or being uncompetitive. And it's obviously not the former.

 

[Zephiel]

Why are Brightpowder and Sand Veil uncompetitive?

Let's consider Fire Emblem. I'm training a unit who has high speed and luck but low defence so that he can dodge attacks. I'm using his talent for dodging attacks so that I can win against enemy units - isn't that an intelligent and competitive way to win?

It's the same for Pokemon. If you use Brightpowder, you potentially lose 1/16th of your HP restored per turn, or 10% of your HP per attack in exchange for 1.3x more power, or increased speed when your health is below 25%, and so on.. It's a strategy, not uncompetitive.

You may mention Double Team, but Double Team really is cheap because you can use it over and over (I think an NPC in Black mentions that after 2 Double Teams the chance for you to take a hit is halved, to be honest I don't know the formula for evasion). That's ridiculous. Phazing won't work all the time because you can miss. While with Sand Veil and Brightpowder (combined), that's significantly less - you also miss on the chance to use other items.

It's strategical to use Sand Veil and/or Brightpowder - and I think it's a result of Smogon's increased ban infatuation that caused this.

 

[TheAvenger]

those items are competitive . it stops or lessens the usage or overusage of status moves. after someone uses willowisp to burn your whole team then youll question the competitiveness of status moves. if u didnt like gen 5 before all this banning. then maybe u should have stayed in gen 4 games. if u can't adapt u can't survive. this stands true to the pokemon metagame and real life. people will always whine about fair and unfair. but everyone has access to the same things we've been discussing here , and if u refuse to carry a blaziken counter then dont whine when u get pwnd. its just not right to ban a starter. i mean i could see if it had base stat total of 600 but how many of those are still "legal" lets count
celebi
jirachi
and these two alone are gamebreaking i mean jirachi flinch hax and celebi wall and leech seed thats damn near unstoppable. but we were forced to adapt to them. therefore we must not ban blaziken and we must adapt to him. in the end if these bans continue , the metagame may become stale like 3 day year old doritos . so its up to the community. adapt or fall into the abyss.

 

[Thorhammer]

Why are Brightpowder and Sand Veil uncompetitive?

Let's consider Fire Emblem. I'm training a unit who has high speed and luck but low defence so that he can dodge attacks. I'm using his talent for dodging attacks so that I can win against enemy units - isn't that an intelligent and competitive way to win?

It's the same for Pokemon. If you use Brightpowder, you potentially lose 1/16th of your HP restored per turn, or 10% of your HP per attack in exchange for 1.3x more power, or increased speed when your health is below 25%, and so on.. It's a strategy, not uncompetitive.

You may mention Double Team, but Double Team really is cheap because you can use it over and over (I think an NPC in Black mentions that after 2 Double Teams the chance for you to take a hit is halved, to be honest I don't know the formula for evasion). That's ridiculous. Phazing won't work all the time because you can miss. While with Sand Veil and Brightpowder (combined), that's significantly less - you also miss on the chance to use other items.

It's strategical to use Sand Veil and/or Brightpowder - and I think it's a result of Smogon's increased ban infatuation that caused this.

In Fire Emblem, you get attacked by several weak, low-accuracy attacks per turn. Using a character with high evasion doesn't give normally 100% attacks a miss chance; it increases the substantial miss chance that already exists. Evasion is a natural part of Fire Emblem that increases as each character levels up; there's no real way to separate characters from their high evasion like in Pokemon, where evasion is always something added later than a natural part of the Pokemon. Sand Veil and Snow Cloak are the only built-in forms of evasion, and even then, they only activate when triggered by another ability. The fact that individual moves tend to be less significant is also a factor; one miss isn't anywhere near as likely to make a difference.

But what's perhaps most significant is that Fire Emblem is that it's typically played in single-player, while we address the multiplayer aspect of Pokemon. If you dodge an attack in Fire Emblem, you aren't cheating any player out of their move, while you are in competitive Pokemon.

When you add all of this up, you get that in Fire Emblem, evasion cannot be reasonably prevented, it's less significant, and there is no reason to prevent it. In Pokemon, it can be reasonably prevented, it can be extremely significant, and there are good reasons to prevent it. That's all the difference that's needed between the two series.