np: OU Suspect Testing Round 4 - Blaze of Glory

[SJCrew]

Please don't extrapolate from one to infinity. More luck based =/= unplayable.

Sorry to break your heart, but a lot fewer people would be taking this game seriously on a competitive level if every single one of your given moves had a 20% chance and below to do nothing. Part of what makes Pokemon such a competitive strategy game is the choices we make when building our teams. If you're tired of your moves missing, you can change your options to accommodate your need for reliability. Even in a game like Pokemon, you need something to count on.

But I'm drawing the line at letting Garchomp get away with this free evasion nonsense. It's so arbitrary and gamechanging that it's disgusting to think how some people are randomly losing their matches to an endgame Garchomp thinking "Well, that's ok. Let's see if I hit him next time." I've seen this happen far too often on both my end and my opponent's end to think it's fair. Maybe if Sand Veil halved his attack or something, it wouldn't be such a problem to miss every once in a while.

 

[ERFN]

Of course you need to be able to rely in some cases, especially if there's a 1 in 5 chance that your best playstyle might still result in a sweep from Garchomp. But still - we are talking about this one Pokémon that is able to use just this one theoretical "free turn" to be able to wreak havoc.

That's like banning flinching moves in doubles and triples. You just don't do that. It's part of the game, but nothing that break it entirely.

What breaks Sand Veil is Garchomp's ability to abuse it.

 

[alphatron]

HP Fire on LO Starmie never ohko's ferrothorn just letting you know. Max EV'd timid LO Starmie uses hp fire and is promptly ohko'd back by a 0 Evd power whip.

Starmie needs Sun boosted LO HP fire in order to ohko standard relaxed ferrothorn. Not even specs does it. Starmie honestly has no reason to run hp fire at any time, for any reason.

In any case, I must bring to your attention the most suspect pokemon of them all right now. Sigilyph. Yes, sigilyph. Sigilpyh breaks the metagame and overcentralizes hard. It's counters, such as Jirachi and CM Latias, aren't actually counters. You guys don't see it now, but you will in the future, when Sigilpyh is at your door and Tyranitar is not there to save you. Sigilyph dominates the future metagame.

 

[jormungand201]

When it comes to banning pokemon, i, like many others, tend to take a macroscopic view of competitive battling. In a way, I'm a poke'socialist. If i can somehow get all pokemon into OU, then i see that as job well done.

But, this idealistic dream has to reach a reasonable compromise. The last thing i want to see is any poke moving to ubers. That being said, i wouldn't mind more "complex" bannings. Something similar to the SwSw ban would be agreeable, although that in itself can be tweaked (luvdisc, Armaldo etc.).
I mean c'mon, if you're playing pokemon competitively, where you have to memorize stats,sets,resists,abilities, and even formulas, what real harm is there to remembering acouple "complex" bans. And that slippery slop bs is nonsense. With proper moderation, things will not fall into convoluted chaos, that is just lazyman talk.

 

[kingofmars]

When it comes to banning pokemon, i, like many others, tend to take a macroscopic view of competitive battling. In a way, I'm a poke'socialist. If i can somehow get all pokemon into OU, then i see that as job well done.

But, this idealistic dream has to reach a reasonable compromise. The last thing i want to see is any poke moving to ubers. That being said, i wouldn't mind more "complex" bannings. Something similar to the SwSw ban would be agreeable, although that in itself can be tweaked (luvdisc, Armaldo etc.).
I mean c'mon, if you're playing pokemon competitively, where you have to memorize stats,sets,resists,abilities, and even formulas, what real harm is there to remembering acouple "complex" bans. And that slippery slop bs is nonsense. With proper moderation, things will not fall into convoluted chaos, that is just lazyman talk.

The thing is, if we make things too convoluted, some people will just say "fuck it" and make their own tiers, because Smogon's would be too complicated. It also discourages new players from playing. New players are used to things like "you can't use X Y or X" from the Battle Tower and VGC. Hell, they'll even be able to pick up on more advanced things like "you can't use X with Y" because it isn't that difficult to understand. However, saying "you can't use X with Y unless it's Z, Q or R" can seem so arbitrary to newer players that they decided to just use PO tiers instead.

 

[jormungand201]

wouldn't the new player eventually see the more developed side of smogon once

they realize how unorganized and juvenile their supposed "better" teir works? Rather than see this as a popularity contest, see it as weeding out the novices until they come to the conclusion that smogon, a pokemon university, which at first seems daunting, will infact prove to be the more enjoyable choice..plus less noobs on our server, amiright?

jk, we were all there at one point. Now let that point be PO server, rather than ours. Pardon my elitism, but if this comes down to trying to sway new comers, then i'll be the one to say "fuck them". They'll come around, eventually

 

[flashkickass]

or you know everybody will just abandon this site to the 10 elitist players who stay.

 

[truevillany]

I mean c'mon, if you're playing pokemon competitively, where you have to memorize stats,sets,resists,abilities, and even formulas, what real harm is there to remembering acouple "complex" bans. And that slippery slop bs is nonsense. With proper moderation, things will not fall into convoluted chaos, that is just lazyman talk.

Well my friend this is common sense right here... Thank you for this post. It is true, the only thing truly stopping these complex bans is quite literally the "slippery slope" argument. Do not take my word for it... Simply read past posts on this thread. Basically the best players recognized by the site are charged with making decisions on how the meatgame should be played with the intent of balancing. This is not bad... Its actually a really good thing. Where things get bad is the fact these select people ban/dont ban things subjectively. I hate to bring up examples that this thread is littered with, but a great example is the blaze blaziken argument. This guy is banned completely because people don't want to be "bombarded with arguements about why specs Garchomp
And inner focus dragonite should be uu." The definition of a cop out. I contest that with proper moderation (as jormungand201 stated) these arguements can be easily swept under the rug. Why? Because arguements like these aren't the primary subjects on discussion on the world's most prominent competitive pokemon website. And if little arguments like these gain enough backing by the community, they should be explored. Another example of what I am talking about Is that the evasion clause is regularly implemented and recognized in standard play, yet we find reason after reason not to ban garchomp with sand veil... Or any evasion ability for that matter. Is there a reason that a clause put into effect by a group of people is ignored under certain instances by that exact same group? Does that even make sense? Isn't this inherently a. "Complex ban" or what ever that really means?

Do not misunderstand... I am neither pro blaze blaziken, or anti garchomp. I am simply pointing out inconsistencies in the current bans that are clearly subjective. Meaning there is no actual legitimate tested reason as to why these things are allowed to conflict with other previously set bans/clauses. There are other examples of inconsistency. If you want to be inconsistent... That is this website's prerogative... I am just some guy so my opinion is not critical. I just ask for valid, reasonable, and most importantly, logical explanations of why this site is ok with contradicting itslef in some instances but not others.

 

[Yoshiken]

Villany, the thing with that is that Evasion Clause seems to be, more than anything else, a relic from Gen 1 and nothing else. I think you could safely remove the Evasion Clause and, other than the odd newbie who would be successful with it 1/10 games, it wouldn't do a damn thing. Yes, it seems inconsistent now, but I'd assume most of those people also wouldn't be too concerned about Evasion Clause being removed.
As for complex bans, there is a line that needs to be drawn. The issue for the most part isn't about consistency or complexity, it's about needing a place to stop - for a good number of people here, that line is between banning Ability+Ability and Pokemon w/(Ability/Attack/Item).

 

[jormungand201]

Yoshiken, i think removing the evasion clause would be a terrible idea. I am unfamiliar with real life tournament rules concerning banning, although i do remember Tytar and celebi being on a ban list along with obvious ubers. Perhaps the people at nintendo have banned them in order to find a balance that works? And if we are an emulator/training grounds for real life tournaments, shouldnt we follow their assigned banned list? again, im unfamiliar so if they end up allowing Mewtwo and no sleep clause, then ignore this suggestion.

I can also see that competitive pokemon has taken a life of its own in terms of separate servers, artificial rankings etc.., which i think is wonderful. I view the pokemon franchise as a relatively slow progressing game in terms of competitiveness. The real daunting task of it all is the memorization of new changes from one gen to another alongside retaining the info learned in the past gens (pokemon,stats,abilities etc.).

Each new gen gets a little more complicated, and as such, so should our Banning/clause system(s). If you have a box(our banning system) that is full of donuts (pokemon), and another new batch of donuts come in(Gen 5), you can't cram those donuts in the same old box because the custard would smear against the jelly filled ones, and then you're fingers get sticky, and it's just a mess...a delicious mess. no one wants that.
To recap, with proper, concise and thorough moderation (as we are doing now), there will be no slippery slop, only a gradual understanding of why certain pokes are banned because of certain characteristics

 

[Mario With Lasers]

wouldn't the new player eventually see the more developed side of smogon once

they realize how unorganized and juvenile their supposed "better" teir works? Rather than see this as a popularity contest, see it as weeding out the novices until they come to the conclusion that smogon, a pokemon university, which at first seems daunting, will infact prove to be the more enjoyable choice..plus less noobs on our server, amiright?

jk, we were all there at one point. Now let that point be PO server, rather than ours. Pardon my elitism, but if this comes down to trying to sway new comers, then i'll be the one to say "fuck them". They'll come around, eventually

You sound like Sony Computer Entertainment in 2006.

Each new gen gets a little more complicated, and as such, so should our Banning/clause system(s). If you have a box(our banning system) that is full of donuts (pokemon), and another new batch of donuts come in(Gen 5), you can't cram those donuts in the same old box because the custard would smear against the jelly filled ones, and then you're fingers get sticky, and it's just a mess...a delicious mess. no one wants that.
To recap, with proper, concise and thorough moderation (as we are doing now), there will be no slippery slop, only a gradual understanding of why certain pokes are banned because of certain characteristics

You forgot the part where all those donuts are actually of the same flavor, some one them just came up earlier.

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

What breaks Sand Veil is Garchomp's ability to abuse it.

I think this might be the comment that brings the Garchomp-ban groups ideas into focus.

People (myself included) have ranted long and hard (inb4lulz) about how Sand Veil is not broken itself due to various situations and how Garchomp is not broken as the metagame has provided new ways to check/counter it.

While I still standby those arguments it seems to me that this brings into sharp focus those arguments that state that the broken combo is Garchomp+Sand Veil.

However, read the statement again: "What breaks Sand Veil is Garchomp's ability to abuse it." It says nothing about Garchomp and Sand Veil being broken together. From this statement it is clear that Garchomp's ability to abuse Sand Veil to such a high extent is the catalyst that sends him over the edge.

To summarize, with the above statement taken into account; Garchomp's bulk, power, and set up potential, while not broken on their own, are pushed to the state of brokeness when combined with an ability that gives Garchomp the chance to beat its potential checks/counters, an ability which Garchomp is perfectly situated to abuse.

As such, the course seems clear. Ban Garchomp.



Also,

Yoshiken, i think removing the evasion clause would be a terrible idea. I am unfamiliar with real life tournament rules concerning banning, although i do remember Tytar and celebi being on a ban list along with obvious ubers.

Actually, those were part of the banlist for a previous VGC where the level cap was 50. As Tyranitar evolves at level 55 (along with Dragonite) and Celebi was unavailable to the majority of participants (alnog with Mew/Deoxys/etc) they were banned.

 

[spweasel]

My understanding was that the evasion clause was only ever intended to apply to guaranteed methods of increasing evasion, not possible methods or even probable methods. While it may seem like it some days, Sandstorm is not a permanent fixture on the battlefield. You can counter it with your own weather or (theoretically) force your opponent into a situation where they cannot send out Tyranitar until after Garchomp is dealt with. Only when you cannot do anything at all to prevent someone from getting a guaranteed evasion boost should the evasion clause come into effect. If there was an ability that gave a passive +1 evasion boost with no strings attached, you better believe that it would be banned even if the only user was Magikarp-level. While the evasion clause most certainly could be expanded to include all evasion moves/abilities, just because it does not currently does not indicate some sort of inconsistency.

It seems to me that the argument to unban Blaze Blaziken boils down to "because we want to use him in OU/UU/whatever". Making concessions just to please a small subset of people undermines the whole process. Making people happy should not be our primary concern, we should be more focused on making the metagame as balanced as possible in the simplest, most elegant way possible. And creating a complex ban just for Blaziken pretty clearly works against that. I also think chickening out and going with a complex ban instead of just banning Swift Swim outright was one of the low points in my (admittedly very limited) time at Smogon, but that's a different discussion for a different time.

The only Pokemon I really see as really problematic right now is Garchomp. I keep hearing people say that Garchomp's simply not as good as he used to be, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he's acceptable for OU now. He's still faster than most non-scarfed targets, he still hits like a truck, he still has only a couple weaknesses (one of which is pretty rare), and he still has very solid defenses for a sweeper.

I could live with all that, but like with many other people Sand Veil is the tipping point for me, since it gives Garchomp a not insignificant chance of taking out a check without any real chance to do much of anything about it. It doesn't feel right when facing a Garchomp sometimes becomes a game of "how many Pokemon do I need to throw under a bus just to take Garchomp out". Admittedly, he's hardly the only Pokemon with whom you can end up playing that game, but with the others it's usually because of unlucky crits, misplays, or misses because of your attack's accuracy (while with Garchomp it can be any of those things on top of Sand Veil).

As for the earlier Ferrothorn discussion, I personally think he is acceptable at this point in time. If Ferro manages to get more than about two turns on you without being either chased off or killed, there's a fair chance you did something wrong. I mean, if he could run Stealth Rock, Spikes, Leech Seed, Thunder Wave, Gyro Ball, and Power Whip all at the same time he'd be over the top, but since he needs to choose his hazard and can only survive a very short while against anything with a decent Fighting or Fire move, I consider him more a major annoyance than something that's truly banworthy.

@jorm: Your doughnut analogy would lead me to think that you should simply get more boxes (tiers) rather than just cutting off and throwing away bits of doughnuts so you can stuff more into the box than it can legitimately hold (making the rules more convoluted than they already are).

 

[Shiny Crobat]

Sorry to break your heart, but a lot fewer people would be taking this game seriously on a competitive level if every single one of your given moves had a 20% chance and below to do nothing. Part of what makes Pokemon such a competitive strategy game is the choices we make when building our teams. If you're tired of your moves missing, you can change your options to accommodate your need for reliability. Even in a game like Pokemon, you need something to count on.

But I'm drawing the line at letting Garchomp get away with this free evasion nonsense. It's so arbitrary and gamechanging that it's disgusting to think how some people are randomly losing their matches to an endgame Garchomp thinking "Well, that's ok. Let's see if I hit him next time." I've seen this happen far too often on both my end and my opponent's end to think it's fair. Maybe if Sand Veil halved his attack or something, it wouldn't be such a problem to miss every once in a while.

So now fun IS a factor?

Every ability is arbitrary. Banning Garchomp is even more arbitrary than his ability. Gamechanging it is not, for the mechanics remain the same. Losing matches to Garchomp is simply a result of bad gameplay. Aware of Sand Veil, a player should never expect to win a standoff against Garchomp.

 

[truevillany]

Villany, the thing with that is that Evasion Clause seems to be, more than anything else, a relic from Gen 1 and nothing else. I think you could safely remove the Evasion Clause and, other than the odd newbie who would be successful with it 1/10 games, it wouldn't do a damn thing. Yes, it seems inconsistent now, but I'd assume most of those people also wouldn't be too concerned about Evasion Clause being removed.
As for complex bans, there is a line that needs to be drawn. The issue for the most part isn't about consistency or complexity, it's about needing a place to stop - for a good number of people here, that line is between banning Ability+Ability and Pokemon w/(Ability/Attack/Item).

Yoshi while I agree with the majority of statements you made in this post, I want to make sure we don't deviate from the point I was trying to make. I am not arguing the importance of said bans to the metagame. I am saying that unfortunately these bans do not hold true for every pokemon for no apparent reason. Using your example, I am in agreeance that evasion clause probably would not make an amazing change in the meta. I am just saying half of debates on this thread would not even be debates if the moderators actually just did away with the clause itself, or banned chomp. Yet people rant and rave over why chomp should be the exception. Even you had to ahgree that's it' completely inconsistant although you also say its irrelevant. This makes no sense @ all, because the people making the rules are the ones turning a blind eye to their OWN RULE. The good number of people that draw the line between ability+ability and pokemon bans that you refer to: No one can answer logically why they feel this way... I have asked a good amount of people who take your side to explain why this is so significant that its the turning point of debatable arguements... Here are the typical responses:

1. "That's just stupid to not ban the pokemon entirely" - this is an opinion. There are no facts or statistics to back up this viewpoint. This is no way answers the question @ all.
E
2."It's a slippery slope"- I will say it again... boldly... This defines the term cop out.

 

[zarator]

Every ability is arbitrary. Banning Garchomp is even more arbitrary than his ability. Gamechanging it is not, for the mechanics remain the same. Losing matches to Garchomp is simply a result of bad gameplay. Aware of Sand Veil, a player should never expect to win a standoff against Garchomp.

It's not the ability which is arbitrary. It's the fact that, while you are responsible for the misses of Fire Blast and Hydro Pump to a certain extent (You could have chosen to use a more accurate move), you are certainly not responsible in the same way for the misses caused by Sand Veil. You simply cannot do anything about it.

And about the "a player should never expect to win a standoff against Garchomp", that's why it should go to Ubers for me and many others. Sending Garchomp against a Ferrothorn using anything but Leech Seed, Power Whip or Gyro Ball (assuming these moves hit) while a sandstorm is brewing grants you at least a kill 90% of the time, even when the opponent is packing the like of Gliscor. THIS is why Garchomp should be banned - he's way too good at getting that Sub up and killing something.

 

[jormungand201]

sorry, i dont know how to quote.

Texas, your argument sounds more on the side of banning Garchomp with Sand Veil rather than baning Chomp itself. Chomp has other abilities that keep it from falling over to Ubers. Garchomp is a very good pokemon with out sand veil, with SV it is uber worthy.

@spweasel: Elegance smell-o-gance. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. One can look at a sculpture and say, "hey, thats cool", but if one learns the ins and outs of the craft, one can appreciate the refinement. The same can be applied to complex bans. The arguement that simplicity is better is, in my opinion, counterproductive to the evolution of the game itself.

Gen 5 GIVES us alternate abilities for a reason! Why ignore the possibilities? for simplicity's sake?

We can debate till the rapture occurs (oct 21 apparentlylol), but it will be rather fruitless. There must be a compromise. What are we willing to give/take?

p.s- I hope in the future luvdisc and its fellow shitty swift swimmers could be freed so they can be a little less shitty(with politoed). NOT including good swswimers-kingdra

 

[reachzero]

We're only a week away from the end of the test now, and as such there is an important announcement: this round we will no longer be using the 15+15 method of determining voters. Instead, we will be using a fixed rating requirement of 1450. Keep in mind that because ratings were not reset at the beginning of this round, the requirement may or may not be as high in future rounds.

 

[Yoshiken]

Villany: Hm, I see your points. If I were arguing from scratch now, I'd say that only things that are broken should be banned and, as such, would remove the Evasion Clause. That said, it would need an obscene amount of testing just to confirm that it isn't broken, and could lead to more complex bans (e.g. Brightpowder+Double Team+Garchomp) - in this case, what is it that's breaking it? Well, it's the whole thing, but what part do we ban? In the past, it's always been Double Team. Recently, Brightpowder's been added to that list - just it's listed as a clause, not as an OU/Ubers ban.

As for 'drawing the line', my personal reasoning is as follows:
Ability+Ability - Limits the team as a whole, but no specific Pokemon.
Pokemon+Item/Attack/Ability - Limits a specific Pokemon.
^-- That is why I draw the line there. I don't see a reason to differentiate between abilities and attacks, and that just opens up the arguments for non-Dark Void Darkrai and physical Shaymin-S, amongst others. Personally, I'd be fine with a complex ban on things like Sand Veil+Sand Stream, but only if I believed they were broken together, which I don't.

 

[jormungand201]

Yoshi, im curious. How do you deal with sand veil Chomp? I myself dont have a problem with him(toxic spikes), but it's obvious that the evasion boost causes a lot of trouble to a lot of people, otherwise there woudnt be a need to test for so long. You wouldnt support a specific banning of SVChomp/SBoost Blaziken?

 

[Yoshiken]

Me personally? Usually No Guard Machamp, although I also like using phazers and Whimsicott on him if Machamp's down. If I miss with one of those, I deal with it, but it doesn't happen often enough for me to care.

I don't support specific ability bans, no. As far as I'm concerned, that's too far across the line that leads towards things like specific moveset bans, and I'd rather stick with bans that just limit teams as opposed to specifically limiting a certain Pokemon on what they can and can't do (unless, of course, it's a blanket-ban, such as Double Team or Moody)

 

[jormungand201]

I'd be ok with a blanket banning as well. Meaning chomp can still be used in OU, maybe in the same way swift swim is still available:

1.Chomp with SVeil on your team without TTar/hippo

2. Chomp on team without SV, but with Tar/hippo

This means, like swift swimers, if your opponet is still using perma sandstorm, they will be at risk if you use a Sand Veil Chomp.

I suppose i could do without Cacturn/sandslash etc. with SV. Perhaps future developments with the eventual "Grey" version will change things and free SwSw luvdisc. For now, I think this is a good compromise, and not complex. It's just like the swift swim ban

 

[truevillany]

.
Pokemon+Item/Attack/Ability - Limits a specific Pokemon.
^-- That is why I draw the line there. I don't see a reason to differentiate between abilities and attacks, and that just opens up the arguments for non-Dark Void Darkrai and physical Shaymin-S, amongst others.

This is a cop out. These suggestions don't take up half the text of a 60 page thread on the pokemon competitive community's most important website. These are what people refer to when speaking of "slipperry slope" or "openning a can of worms". Just as we cannot speculate who should be in what tier until tested, we also cannot assume that moderators will all of a sudden be magically bombarded with requests that so and so should be in this tier with this moveset. But as I said before, I believe that if this were to hypothetically take place it could easily be managed without the people doing the managing being lazy as hell

 

[Yoshiken]

Non-Dark Void Darkrai was suggested quite a bit during Gen 4, if I'm not mistaken. It was refused on the grounds of being overly complex.
Even then, most people on here wouldn't support another complex ban (I think I'm in the minority in being against SB+Blaziken but not really caring about SV+SS) and it's probably just the complexity issue for a few.

And Jormungand: SV+SS would be a complex ban, since SwSw+Drizzle is a complex ban - it's just always been sold as being the only one to be allowed, as much as people are now trying to promote more.

Anyways, as far as Pokemon+Ability bans go, I really, REALLY do not support banning Sand Veil Garchomp, if only because it's a delayed ban. If it's a problem, ban Garchomp, since it's his only legal form for now. I'm sure I can be content just having this argument again in the future when Rough Skin Chomp is released and people try to bring him into OU again.
(As for Blaziken... Well, I've said my point on the matter. Villany, you may think it's a weak argument, but I don't think you've got an argument to the contrary, so it's purely opinionated here.)

 

[truevillany]

I have 3 major reasons that I counter your arguement about blaziken but that is beating a dead horse. I don't care about him that much, but if I did I would ladder to the point where I am recognized and present a proposal. once again this deviates from the main point I have been making. If you moderate and come up with rules, enforce your rules. @ least have a valid reason not follow your own rules besides the slippery slope argument.