Ability Sand Veil + Snow Cloak - Balanced now?

[Bizdis]

As we all are aware, weather only lasts five turns now without the weather rocks, and this changes the effectiveness of these abilities greatly.

Last generation, Sand Veil and Snow Cloak were banned because it was a passive way of having a significant chance of making the opponent get crucial misses. Now, this is no longer true, because in order to receive the benefit of them, you would have to send out Tyranitar, Hippowdon, or Abomasnow within a few turns of sending out your Sand Veil/Snow Cloak pokemon, or use Hail/Sandstorm.

This changes the idea behind the abilities significantly, because instead of making the opponent have passive misses, weather teams have to send in their weather inducer first, in order to have a reasonable chance of making 1 or 2 of their pokemon avoid taking 1 or 2 hits, depending on luck.

Seeing as I believe most of the discussion will be about Garchomp (and Gliscor to a lesser extent), I might as well bring up its SubSalac set now. Will this still be broken? Maybe, because of more priority, and fairies, SubSalac Garchomp won't be used at all. Anyway, although I personally think that sending in a weather inducer just before sending in a Sand Veil/Snow Cloak pokemon is smart play, others might have a different opinion.

 

[HabibsHotDogs]

Throw in a keen eye buff and a buff to the accuracy of whirlwind and the premier gliscor/garchomp counter is now surefire. Getting past Skarmory is noticeably easier with passive evasion.

 

[MrMewTwo]

I think the question to ask here is not if these abilities are balanced but if they are unbanned, what will they provide to the existing meta? Evasion typically is heavily reliant on luck. It is detrimental to the competitive environment. So regardless of the weather nerf, allowing sand veil and snow cloak will only increase the aspect of luck in the game and ultimately decreasing the calculating and strategic components of the game.

 

[HabibsHotDogs]

I wish people would stop trying to find a way to allow evasion abilities and moves back into the game. Jesus, it's so frustrating to play against but what is even worse is people like this crap.

HUEHUE MINIMIZE/DOUBLE TEAM FIRST ONE TO GET HIT LOSES HUEHUE LIFE ON THE EDGE MAN

Its more about what you can do to control it. There are a few moves that counter minimize fairly well now, it'd be interesting to see what a metagame with evasion would look like. I think its comparable to sleep clause at the moment, and GF has given enough ways to deal with it that it could be a legitimate strategy and not just imbalanced luck. I don't want to go too off topic but evasion clause and sleep clause may be unnecessary in the future.

 

[Baldafor]

I think the question to ask here is not if these abilities are balanced but if they are unbanned, what will they provide to the existing meta? Evasion typically is heavily reliant on luck. It is detrimental to the competitive environment. So regardless of the weather nerf, allowing sand veil and snow cloak will only increase the aspect of luck in the game and ultimately decreasing the calculating and strategic components of the game.

Critical hits are completely luck and are detrimental to the competitive environment. Why don't we remove those too?

I realize Smogon as a community prefers to try and balance this 6v6 singles metagame to resemble some form of perfection, but the reality is that official tournaments are run without half of the rules we have put in place here, and are primarily doubles 4v4. The more we ban, the more we become different to the actual games. It will eventually become reality that our version of pokemon on this site might as well be a separate game, and we can come up with our own pokemon and rulesets. We have to try and ALLOW things, not BAN things to stay truer to the games or else why bother playing pokemon at all? Make our own game!

 

[Ballofire]

Its more about what you can do to control it. There are a few moves that counter minimize fairly well now, it'd be interesting to see what a metagame with evasion would look like. I think its comparable to sleep clause at the moment, and GF has given enough ways to deal with it that it could be a legitimate strategy. I don't want to go too off topic but evasion clause and sleep clause may be unnecessary in the future.

What? GF gave us sleep turns reset yes, a grass immunity to it. But this does not stop 5/6 of your team going to sleep. Who cares if you can wake up a turn after youswitch in when the second you switch out the mon you send in takes another spore. Lol, what are you thinking. Sleep clause exists for a reason. It's extremely easy to abuse , more so than evasion.

On topic though, that's the problem there's a "few" ways to counter it- who the hell in their right mind wants to give up sturdy for keen eye on a Skarm?

All I see people talking about is b-but phasing abilities can't miss now...! uh, your point? So now every team has to carry a phaser to deal with people who think it's mad skillz to roll with double team/minimize and bright powder? Do you understand what centralising the meta means?

 

[Ballofire]

I think that minimize should also halve your weight, since that's just logic. Also, another thing that I feel gamefreak missed was the fact that stomp should be more like heavy slam.
Also, does mold breaker/ teravolt affect sand veil and snow cloak (I think yes, but just not sure)?

It does, but obviously ignores moves like double team etc

 

[Kairyu_Gen1]

As far as I know, people REALLY hate evasion. Whether or not they're balanced will be rendered void by the folks dead set against them. I personally think evasion abilities have such negligible effects, that they're not worth the banning. If you're that afraid of missing, run hone claws or no-miss attacks or something.

 

[MrMewTwo]

Critical hits are completely luck and are detrimental to the competitive environment. Why don't we remove those too?

I realize Smogon as a community prefers to try and balance this 6v6 singles metagame to resemble some form of perfection, but the reality is that official tournaments are run without half of the rules we have put in place here, and are primarily doubles 4v4. The more we ban, the more we become different to the actual games. It will eventually become reality that our version of pokemon on this site might as well be a separate game, and we can come up with our own pokemon and rulesets. We have to try and ALLOW things, not BAN things to stay truer to the games or else why bother playing pokemon at all? Make our own game!

Critical hits are an inherent aspect in the game. Any pokemon can do a critical hit. Next, there is also the fact that the problem with evasion is that it has no counter. It relies on luck MORE than critical hits. Smogon's policy is to ban both entities that are overpowered AND entities that are blatantly detrimental to the entire game. They ban moves, abilities, pokemon, and items NOT inherent aspects in the game like crits. There is a difference here.

Next, your claim about making a different game than that of gamefreak's is plausible. However you make a naturalist fallacy. Just because something is a certain way doesn't mean it ought to be that way.

 

[Quixim]

Evasion totally has a counter. There's auto-hit moves, phazing moves now have perfect accuracy, and the best move, minimize, now takes double damage from dragon rush and steamroller. Plus, we have aura sphere and it's not as though Lucario isn't a popular pokemon. Plus, paraflinching at base relies on luck to a large degree and also requires specific counters or luck to be dealt with and people don't seem to want that to go. Besides the "Wow you're so wrong" posts, I haven't really had a solid reason why passive 10% evasion like sand veil (especially only lasting for a couple turns now) and paraflinch are significantly different to the metagame.

 

[Kairyu_Gen1]

Yeah guys lets all run Ariel Ace hone claws sets. Seems good.

Man you guys.. do you not understand how stupid you sound telling people to actually use hone claws just so they do not miss? First of all let's say for argument sake that you're right and we should just use hone claws (lol) against a Drifblim spamming minimize behind a sub then baton passes this to something like a garchomp, who then proceeds to SD in your face. What's your solution? Spamming hone claws along side? lol oh yeah that's right you have KEEN EYE SKARMORY.

My point was that NOBODY runs hone claws, because the accuracy boost does nothing for you. If anybody really thought hone claws is viable, then there's something wrong with them, not evasion.

Coil on the other hand is a perfectly viable move, and should get better distribution

 

[Ballofire]

I agree that evasion should be banned because it's not fun, but this analogy doesn't work because "Oh man, I lost my counter to your pokemon and now I can't do anything!" is basically the way competitive pokemon works

Uh it completely works. Evasion is completely different to a counter/check scenario. If your check to X mon has died it can come down to miss plays or being out played. But you can still find ways around it. What other ways is there around a mon at +6 and behind a sub other than spamming DMG hoping to hit whilst he either sets up in your face or sweeps you. Btw it's incredibly easy to set up to +6 evasion and get a free sub off. Infinitely easier than setting up a SD on most mons, because even if you get to plus +2 something can come in on you.

I just can't understand this mentality where people WANT evasion even though they know it means they have to use a phaser, or hone claws (lol) do people not understand they won't be the only leethax0rs running evasion lol?

 

[MagnetBoy]

i'd rather play against evasion then another prankster swagger user. oh you got paralyzed the one chance you had to kill me? ah well too bad you lose now.

 

[Martingale]

In a hypothetical world where evasion wasn't banned, there are ways around it. The plethora of no-miss moves. Sweet Scent which sharply lowers evasiveness. Unaware, No Guard, and Keen Eye which just don't give a damn. Always-accurate Roar, Whirlwind, and Haze. Foresight, Miracle Eye, Lock-On, Mind Reader. Raise your own accuracy with Hone Claws. And for evasion abilities, just remove their weather support. And why not try forcing the foe out by walling them and setting up?

I'd doubt that evasion is an unstoppable force-- it's easily countered. But because we're not used to dealing with it it seems like slamming a revolving door. A lot of Battle Tower rage moments are caused by the AI spamming Minimize and the fact nobody is prepared for it.

 

[Jaroda]

I dislike evasion as much as the next person, but I honestly can't think of a GOOD reason to not allow these two abilities at the bare minimum. They are far from uncounterable, and they have a time limit. There are plenty of equally annoying strategies that are legal and not dominating. Paraflinch was one. Hazard phazing is another. It shouldn't be a forced ban if it's not necessary. At least even with Double Team you still have the potential of hitting them while they are setting up. Copycat Roar however was almost impossible to overcome with even fewer counters to it. There have always been means of countering evasion. Phazing, early Toxic, 100% accuracy moves, set up alongside them (they can boost evasion all they want because it's only going to take one +4 attack from me to take you out). Anything with Red Card. You can't say something is broken if your counter to it died during the match. You could say the same thing if your priority user is gone and you can't stop a sweep. Or if your weather setter died when there's is still alive. It means you got played around. No team is prepared for everything, and it's not fair to keep asking to ban the moves and abilities in general that you happen to struggle with. Something is only really broken when you CAN'T counter it.

Again, I would much rather NOT play with evasion. Certainly Double Team/Minimize. But I simply can't rationalize keeping, particularly, those two abilities banned. Not to mention what does it add, 10% evasion? That's WAY better than being paralyzed, confused, frozen, asleep, flinched, or even just using Fire Blast against ANYthing!

 

[Quixim]

I dislike evasion as much as the next person, but I honestly can't think of a GOOD reason to not allow these two abilities at the bare minimum. They are far from uncounterable, and they have a time limit. There are plenty of equally annoying strategies that are legal and not dominating. Paraflinch was one. Hazard phazing is another. It shouldn't be a forced ban if it's not necessary. At least even with Double Team you still have the potential of hitting them while they are setting up. Copycat Roar however was almost impossible to overcome with even fewer counters to it. There have always been means of countering evasion. Phazing, early Toxic, 100% accuracy moves, set up alongside them (they can boost evasion all they want because it's only going to take one +4 attack from me to take you out). Anything with Red Card. You can't say something is broken if your counter to it died during the match. You could say the same thing if your priority user is gone and you can't stop a sweep. Or if your weather setter died when there's is still alive. It means you got played around. No team is prepared for everything, and it's not fair to keep asking to ban the moves and abilities in general that you happen to struggle with. Something is only really broken when you CAN'T counter it.

Again, I would much rather NOT play with evasion. Certainly Double Team/Minimize. But I simply can't rationalize keeping, particularly, those two abilities banned.

I can't really disagree with this in any solid way; Those abilities simply aren't powerful enough for long enough to make them worth banning. They don't really add much to the pokemon using them now.

 

[UltiMario]

These were banned because Garchomp. Nobody should pretend they were for any other reason. They were never banned before for the same reason Brightpowder and Quick Claw aren't, they're hax but they're not broken.

With the significant nerf to weather abilities and Garchomp's poor defensive synergy with Tyrantitar and Hippowdon, it essentially means Garchomp has few opportunities to try and set up, and with phazers now reliably making chomp waste 25% trying to subspam, especially Skarmory... these abilities are far from broken now.

 

[xcfrisco]

These abilities fall under evasion clause, pure and simple. I don't see how you can argue FOR sand veil and snow cloak and not double team and minimize, especially considering with the new hidden ability mechanics every single pokemon with one of the evasion abilities has a different ability they can use. I'm pretty sure evasion clause is never getting removed from any Smogon sponsored metagame. There have always been counters for evasion boosting, these arguments have been had before since ADV, but nobody wants to play that metagame. I'd be wonderfully surprised if during Suspect Testing you would ever find 65% of the best battlers voting unanimously to get rid of any form of evasion clause. Again, nobody wants to play that metagame (especially the best players imo)

Honestly the biggest reason before for not banning these abilities is cause Dream World wasn't around and people thought it was dumb to ban stuff like Sandslash from OU lol.

Really what's the point of using Sand Veil or Snow Cloak except for evasion abuse. How are Snow Cloak or Sand Veil (evasion boosting in general) contributing to the competitive metagame at all?

I'm not saying its broken. I'm saying its lame. Unbelievably lame. Lamer than anything else I can think of in pokemon (I feel like the majority of people feel this way).

 

[Kairyu_Gen1]

You didn't answer my question. What are you going to do against something at +6 evasion and behind a sub? Don't say "phase bro" what if it's mid game and your phaser is dead? Please tell me. Enlighten me on how this is not a complete and utter scummy way to play.

1. How the hell did I let them get 6 double teams off anyway?
2. If that strategy were to become popular, I'd just get an infiltrator Crobat with arial ace.
3. I don't think anyone's seriously suggesting bringing evasion and accuracy lowering moves back. That's the kind of strategy we ran when we were 4 years old playing on our pokemon red thinking pidgey was so strong because it could beat brock's geodude.
4. Even in places like wifi, where evasion's legal, how often do you see it? It just isn't that reliable of a strategy to use,

 

[Lazybeef]

All evasion is banned, regardless if it is good or not.

 

[Jaroda]

Really what's the point of using Sand Veil or Snow Cloak except for evasion abuse. How are Snow Cloak or Sand Veil (evasion boosting in general) contributing to the competitive metagame at all?

I'm not saying its broken. I'm saying its lame. Unbelievably lame. Lamer than anything else I can think of in pokemon (I feel like the majority of people feel this way).

Phrasing it "what does it contribute" is misleading, because it was in the game in the first place and we removed it. We're not adding something to the game that didn't exist before. The real question is: is evasion BROKEN enough to justify being removed in the first place, if we are being intellectually honest. That was arguable for the early gens, and I would probably have said it was. Currently however, there are simply too many legitimate methods of dealing with it, as Martingale listed a more exhaustive list than I did.

Again, I DON'T like evasion. But let's argue honestly here, we are being selfish and cherry-picking our meta in certain regards.

 

[BuddhaSmite]

Because this is simply a game that is based 100% off of whether something can 3HKO or 2HKO something.

You start adding a random element into this that can turn a guaranteed 2HKO into a bunch of missed attacks, then this is no longer a game about strategy: it's pure dice rolls.

 

[Shroomisaur]

These abilities are a much different story than Minimize, etc. Now that these abilities are on a very short timer, I don't see them as unbalanced. As Ultimario said, they were banned because of Chomp anyway, so now that weather is nerfed, Evasion abilities can't be abused infinitely.

On top of that, with things like Mega Kangaskahn around, I think Rough Skin would be a solid choice for Garchomp anyway.

 

[Martingale]

Because this is simply a game that is based 100% off of whether something can 3HKO or 2HKO something.

You start adding a random element into this that can turn a guaranteed 2HKO into a bunch of missed attacks, then this is no longer a game about strategy: it's pure dice rolls.

If you believe this game is not about dice rolls, please direct your attention to the Prankster ability.

Haven't got priority left? Prankster Riolu's Copycat Roar ends you.
Haven't got an Own Tempo mon? Murkrow, Liepard and Klefki all Foul Play you to oblivion. Even with an Own Tempo mon you'll probably be wrecked.
Have a stealth rock user? The very interesting Assist-Roar team tactic will sort you out very quickly.

 

[xcfrisco]

we are being selfish and cherry-picking our meta in certain regards.

It's always been that way. For all intents and purpose, the top <1% of battlers determine the metagame for us (before it was just an elite fraternity of people who started this site but now anyone can vote in Suspect Testing if they're good enough). Most of the time these are reasonably intelligent people too, you can read the posts in Suspect Testing for the mentality of the best battlers.

Evasion is banned cause no one wants to play that metagame lol.