We're literally deciding how to ban it. We're not banning the move Baton Pass because the move Baton Pass on its own has legitimate uses outside of BP chains. It's not exactly clear-cut on how to ban BP, so we're discussing.
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Baton Pass - its role in the metagame and possible solutions to nerf full Baton Pass chains
- Thread starter haunter
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I don't know if I think BP needs to be nerfed or not, but if we DO nerf it, we should ban what's actually broken. I've seen the following suggestions:
Espeon/Scolipede: Neither of these is remotely broken on its own. I understand that people want to avoid a complex ban, but banning a pokemon because it's really good when used with 5 other specific pokemon with specific moves is a stretch. Blaziken is banned because Blaziken as an individual pokemon is broken. That's true of neither Espeon nor Scolipede. I don't see why we can't just tell people that if they complain about Blaziken not being allowed in OU.
Baton Pass/Stored Power: Neither of these is really broken on its own either. I think an argument can be made for Stored Power though, as a 400+ base power move on top of the boosts that BP teams accrue is just stupid. However, I'm not sure that banning Stored Power would nerf BP teams to people's satisfaction.
Only allow X number of BP users: I'm sorry, but this is absolutely ridiculous. Any rule like this is going to be entirely arbitrary. If we're going to do a complex ban, we might as well directly address the problem. Having more than three Baton Pass users on a team isn't a problem. Would a team with Mr. Mime/Smeargle/Vaporeon/Sylveon/Zapdos be broken? Absolutely not.
So what are the reasons BP troublesome right now? Most people seem to agree that the problems are 1) Espeon renders Taunt/phazing useless and 2) thanks to Scolipede, Baton Pass teams easily outspeed for the whole match. I think any ban should address this directly. I think the Speed Boost + Magic Bounce + Baton Pass ban makes the most sense. If people still don't like that, I think Magic Bounce + Baton Pass is a relatively simple ban that gets at the heart of the problem.
Last note: Finally, to the people who want a blanket ban on Baton Pass because it "requires no skill": Baton Pass only requires no skill right now because Espeon makes Taunt/phazing so easy to get around and Scolipede makes it so easy to get the chain started. Without Magic Bounce, Baton Pass teams would have to consistently rely on things like Mental Herb and Magic Coat, which would require a heck of a lot more skill than using standard teams does.
Espeon/Scolipede: Neither of these is remotely broken on its own. I understand that people want to avoid a complex ban, but banning a pokemon because it's really good when used with 5 other specific pokemon with specific moves is a stretch. Blaziken is banned because Blaziken as an individual pokemon is broken. That's true of neither Espeon nor Scolipede. I don't see why we can't just tell people that if they complain about Blaziken not being allowed in OU.
Baton Pass/Stored Power: Neither of these is really broken on its own either. I think an argument can be made for Stored Power though, as a 400+ base power move on top of the boosts that BP teams accrue is just stupid. However, I'm not sure that banning Stored Power would nerf BP teams to people's satisfaction.
Only allow X number of BP users: I'm sorry, but this is absolutely ridiculous. Any rule like this is going to be entirely arbitrary. If we're going to do a complex ban, we might as well directly address the problem. Having more than three Baton Pass users on a team isn't a problem. Would a team with Mr. Mime/Smeargle/Vaporeon/Sylveon/Zapdos be broken? Absolutely not.
So what are the reasons BP troublesome right now? Most people seem to agree that the problems are 1) Espeon renders Taunt/phazing useless and 2) thanks to Scolipede, Baton Pass teams easily outspeed for the whole match. I think any ban should address this directly. I think the Speed Boost + Magic Bounce + Baton Pass ban makes the most sense. If people still don't like that, I think Magic Bounce + Baton Pass is a relatively simple ban that gets at the heart of the problem.
Last note: Finally, to the people who want a blanket ban on Baton Pass because it "requires no skill": Baton Pass only requires no skill right now because Espeon makes Taunt/phazing so easy to get around and Scolipede makes it so easy to get the chain started. Without Magic Bounce, Baton Pass teams would have to consistently rely on things like Mental Herb and Magic Coat, which would require a heck of a lot more skill than using standard teams does.
Nicely put, I think one of the things that makes it so bad is that it goes against what we've been taught. The way to beat it is to set up immediately or just come hard charging right out of the gate, and this is counter intuitive. We've been trained to NOT setup early game, and this thinking will lead to a loss. Like I've said, is like a big setup sweeper, and you deal with it the way you deal with every setup sweeper, limit the boosts.
PISTOLERO
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
Although Jukain's smart reasoning has changed my opinion of Baton Pass as a whole and I now agree with him that a limit of 3 BP users per team sounds balanced, I have to admit that using Baton Pass without its "broken" aspects, is, as you said it, "way fun". It's really challenging to stop phazing, taunt, etc, and relies on good prediction throughout - you can run Magic Coat Mew/Celebi for example, as a Pseudo-Bounce - you can run Togekiss in there over Sylveon (Togekiss gets Stored Power btw), you can run Agility/Sub/Taunt/Baton Pass Gliscor. The issue is that, as Jukain said, Baton Pass as it is played currently is broken and sadly does not take any skill to play with, and whilst a Baton Pass team cannot guard against every countermeasure that can be taken against it, but a normal team cannot be well-prepared for a BP team right now without getting nailed to the wall by any other kind of team archetype. Do you really want to run any of Imprison+Baton Pass Musharna, Taunt+Roar Mega Gyarados, or Prankster Haze Murkrow on your Hyper Offense/Stall team?
P.S. read unitard's post two posts above mine, it pretty much says what i say except slightly better
I'm happy to read that I'm not the only poster that simply disagrees: all Pokémon on the team that do not know Baton Pass become dead weight when the Baton Pass chain starts, and the issue that the chain itself can no longer pack counters to common, yet specific threads, means that the non-Baton Pass users will have to take on the role of bringing down the team's counters before the "core" can start to set up. Not only is this an entirely different strategy, it also makes one wonder why one would not just make a balanced team that includes a single setup sweeper to pick of a weakened opponent, for a team like this functions in about the same way - only more effectively.
It should also be noted that the complex ban of allowing only three different Pokémon with Baton Pass leads to a situation that is very undesirable for the pro-ban side to see (given that, as you suggest, a team focusing on a full Baton Pass chain would still be used - I explained my doubts in the paragraph above): a commonly heard complaint is the lack of variation in full Baton Pass teams' Pokémon line-up, and with this "limit" we reduce the viable members for a Baton Pass chain to Scolipede, Espeon, and Sylveon, effectively annihilating any variety we would have seen in any Baton Pass chains/teams to follow.
at the risk of making a 'poorly-worded argument' that will get deleted, it seems to me that the main problem with baton pass isn't that it's broken, uncompetitive, or even that it can get lesser-skilled players a win against a more competent player.
it's that baton pass is cheap, like hadouken spam, infinite combos, camping, or using fucking oddjob in goldeneye.
it's annoying, and even more annoying to lose against, especially against someone who has no idea what they're doing, and that seems to be the underlying issue. on the subject of ingenuity and other possible counters, volcanion is coming (eventually) and will have haze. take that how you will as we can only theorymon at this point, obviously, but it seems like it will be a toptier mon and could be another potential wrench in the cogs of baton pass chains.
the above isn't an argument for or against banning baton pass, just stating that we should call it what it is. what this has to do with your post is i don't think people want to be ingenious about countering baton pass. they want to socially-reinforce the notion that cheap strategies are lame and people who use them should feel bad when they use them. it does have precedence in pokemon though; just look at sleep clause, but then again, this is the same logic that people use to justify 'no legendaries', and i think we all know smogon's stance on that one.
as an actual discussion of what to do with bp, and let me preface this by saying again that i am not stating my opinion in support of or against a ban of baton pass or this action, but i believe that limiting the number of baton passers seems likely what's going to be decided based on the discussion of the thread.
if that happens, i see the problems already of everyone arguing about whether or not 1, 2, 3, 4, or even 5 is the right number. 5 seems too high considering some teams self-impose this anyway, and 1 seems low enough we might as well ban it outright at that point, so maybe 2-4 is what we should look at. but we should look at it, i don't think that simply discussing will achieve the most desirable outcome for everyone. 4 may be enough of a restriction for some people, and 3 may not even be enough that 2 would make sense, (and i'm unsure of how to do this), but i don't think that anyone can be sure of the correct number of limitations without actually testing out the possibilities.
as an aside, i wonder how many bp teams have been created as a result of this thread.
This is all fine and dandy but really im sure limiting baton passers is enough becasue i like many people have a single scolipede on my team so i can boost up then pass on ASAP without speed boost and BP together this can poke holes in plenty of strategys that im sure many people will be upset with
also please stop saying that you dont like the complex ban idea... we have heard many times over an although yes it doesent SEEM like the best approach it is unfortunatley what i see the majority of people voting for here today so my idea is we limit baton pass for only 3,2 or 1 per team cuz a quick pass is a strategy many people use and it helps give a pokemon the extra UMPH it needs at times so maybe we shoudl limit it to 3,2 or 1 (i just said that twice :P) so that people can still use a quick pass as a viable team idea
Neither are broken, but like Mega Gengar (though, admittedly to a lesser extent), they're being discussed for the support they bring.
Anybody who's followed the ranking thread knows that people have a bias for recognizing offensive power and look at defense and support only after the obvious nukes have been established. Just look at which Charizard X set was popular first, or
My problem with Jukain's posts are that he's operating under an assumption that baton pass teams are just a cheap strategy to abuse if you lack skill. Right now, absolutely, but, but without auto speed, I don't see any of the cheap players lasting any longer than a week before realizing they suck and quitting.
And dr00 , did you just bitch about Oddjob? Really James, how hard is it to just aim down? (Can't disagree about the camping thing though)
I agree with you that, at the moment, full BP teams are uncompetitive and broken. However, I really disagree with you that full BP is an inherently uncompetitive strategy. Full BP is a playstyle (as much as I love to hate it) and I don't think we should ban in entirely. Kairyu already brought up this, but when Heavy Rain offense was still broken during BW, we didn't destroy the playstyle all together. We made sure to nerf it by banning Drizzle+Swift Swim, but rain offense (which pretty much was its own playstyle) survived. Yes a lot of people still hated the BW meta. But the point remains that we should always try to keep bans to a minimal, and we should never ban something just because we don't like it. A ban such as Magic Bounce+Speed Boost wouldn't be that complicated, makes BP teams much more manageable and requires some mental effort on the BP user to use, but most importantly minimizes the amount we ban. People should be able to run a appropriately nerfed BP team on the ladder, as much as I'll rage on them when they do.
So many more baton pass teams since this thread was created ;___; Only due to experiencing a ton more bp teams recently have I actually been bothered by the playstyle, but the only time when a baton pass team has become swiftly unmanageable is when defensive boosts are baton passed, and it becomes not even an option to break them by attacking with the correct moves, predicting the switches etc.
just trying to clarify, but are you suggesting banning those two abilities together on the same team or either of those abilities with baton pass?
if you mean the latter, i'd like to reiterate that no-boost espeon runs bp to escape pursuit, so that would result in 'collateral damage' as others have put it
A Magic Bounce+Speed Boost ban would ban having both abilities on a team, much like the drizzle+swift swim ban.
I'm not sure what you meant to say by that statement. I was just responding to someone who claimed that limiting BP would completely kill it, which is not the case. I don't think we should try to "murder the playstyle", but rather, stop it from being broken and, if possible, avoid banning things that aren't in the process.
The problem is, there's no way to guarantee that people will us the team you suggested without either :
-a complex ban of both BP+Speed Boost and BP+Magic Bounce, which would ban both drypassing with Magic Bounce Espeon to avoid Pursuit and scout and using Scoliopede alone to pass boosts to a sweeper, neither of which are uncompetetive
-or completely banning Scoliopede and Espeon, which is a bad idea since neither of them are broken and their boots can be filled by Ninjask and Mega-Absol respectively (even though both are far poorer options)
You seem to be against banning more than 2 or 3 BP users per team due to the collateral damage that would cause, but it's by far the most precise and least damaging option we have when it comes to fixing this strategy.
A difference between Mega Gengar and Scolipede/Espeon is that Mega Gengar basically never failed at what it set out to do when played by a competent player. Whatever it wanted dead would die and there was nothing the other player could do about it because of Shadow Tag. And unlike Scolipede/Espeon, it functioned on pretty much every team, as opposed to exactly one team (Deniss' or any minor variant of it.)
As a single pokemon, Scolipede and Espeon have many viable checks and counters and are not broken. We are not discussing them, they are not broken; we are discussing Baton Pass teams.
Besides, Scolipede and Espeon can sort of be replaced by Ninjask and Mega Absol, respectively, or something like Agility Scizor. I'm not convinced banning Scolipede or Espeon would solve anything.
im really confused is it speed boost and magic bounce ban?
or is it that the 2 abilites cant be on the same team?
I have already explained why you're wrong but w/e not reading the thread idc
It's obvious that actual Pokemon bans and BP + Stored Power are dumb. You are so entirely off-base about the number of BP members to ban being arbitrary, it's ridiculous. Yes, a BP team with 5 members is still broken. Yes, a BP team with 4 members is still broken. Yes, a BP team with 3 members is still broken. 5 members? You just run Scolipede / Espeon / Vaporeon / Smeargle / Sylveon, it's not like you needed that last slot for Mime/Zapdos anyways. 4 members? You just play Sylveon as a final receiver w/o BP, no big deal. 3 members?
There's no way to do a 2-mon BP chain. You simply don't have enough components to do it. It's not a subjective baseline. It's based on facts and evidence, which sure as hell aren't arbitrary.Danilo said:
Two reasons why this method is the best compared to Speed Boost + Magic Bounce + Baton Pass and Magic Bounce + Baton Pass.
1) Elegance: Let's look at how you word each of these bans.
- Option 1: No more than 2 Pokemon may carry the move Baton Pass on a team.
- Option 2: No team can have a Pokemon with the ability Speed Boost and the move Baton Pass, and a Pokemon with the ability Magic Bounce and the move Baton Pass, together.
- Option 3: No team can have a Pokemon with the ability Magic Bounce and the move Baton Pass.
Which one of these makes more sense? The second one is convoluted as all hell, I won't even touch it, and the first option presented is still simpler than the third. One consideration we have when we make bans is simplicity of banlist. If a new player were to look at our banlist to figure out what they can and can't use, would the banlist make sense and be easy to comprehend? A simple ban has been proven inappropriate in this scenario; thus the simplest, most elegant option we can implement is the first presented -- a limit on the amount of BPers allowed on a team. See VictoryHD 's confusion.
2) Efficiency: What is the problem as we've identified it? It's Baton Pass chains. Let's look at how each of the options presented attacks this problem in terms of efficiency:
- Option 1: This prevents elongated Baton Pass chains completely, which are the entire problem. It attacks the problem directly, which is as efficient as we're going to get.
- Option 2: This doesn't fix the fact that teams without a phazer will still utterly fail against BP. It nerfs the teams slightly, but still leaves the playstyle broken against offense.
- Option 3: See above. Also, this actually bans an entirely non-broken strategy: using Baton Pass on Espeon to gain momentum and avoid Pursuit. Getting rid of it basically kills the remainder of Espeon's viability, which is definitely undesirable.
- Option 1: Nips the problem at the bud. We won't have any more issues with BP chains. Desirable.
- Option 2: BP is still a terror for teams without a phazer to face, and even then BP still has Mega Absol, not fixing the problem.
- Option 3: See above.
For the sake of elegance, I don't think that Option 2 is a very good option. Both Option 2 and Option 3 don't fix the problem entirely and impact legitimate strategies. Thus Option 1 is the best out of what we have.
I agree that baton pass teams are really linear and don't take much skill to do. Baton pass itself is not inherently broken though. Pursuit escaping and switch initiative are both inherently legit and competitive in themselves (among other bp tactics that aren't full-fledged bp teams). Personally I don't think baton pass teams are that hard to counter, but if it must be dealt with, let's make sure we're not hindering too many legitimate strategies. Banning magic bounce+baton pass would make baton pass espeon no longer viable, even though espeon is pursuit-weak and able to force switches easily. Banning speed boost+magic bounce would make espeon (or xatu) and sharpedo unable to be on the same team, through no fault of the combination of them actually being broken.
Also the Espeon BP strategy has been in the works since release. People have been figuring out ways to make it work better. The only reason it is now a problem is because ppl put in enough time to learn how to use it effectively. They should not be punished for all their time an effort to learn the best ways to use it. Those at the top might be using this strategy, but if it gets banned, they will just switch to another "OP" strategy. They are ranked up there for a reason, not just because of one strategy.
A Choice Specs Flamethrower from a Timid Noivern (Infiltrator) does about 74-88% to a 252 HP Scolipede. Not a OHKO, but enough to stop it from getting anymore than 1-2 speed boosts off. Noivern can use Switcharoo on the first turn with it's 123 speed. Noivern can also Hurricane (low accuracy) for a OHKO as long as it doesn't use Protect first turn.
In short, give it some time and see what happens, what's the rush with banning something so soon before people have time to attempt to adapt? And again, where are the usage stats of the top players? I would like to see for myself that a majority of the top ranked players are exclusively using this strat and for how long they have been.
And exactly, I'm glad someone agrees. A lot of the metagame is fixated around aggressive and stall. People need to learn to adjust to knew strategies, no one team will win every time, everything has a counter. It literally takes 1 move to stop/slow down this strategy. Here is one basic strategy which might equal a free win if you enjoy starting with Noivern like I do.
A Choice Specs Flamethrower from a Timid Noivern (Infiltrator) does about 74-88% to a 252 HP Scolipede. Not a OHKO, but enough to stop it from getting anymore than 1-2 speed boosts off. Noivern can use Switcharoo on the first turn with it's 123 speed. Noivern can also Hurricane (low accuracy) for a OHKO as long as it doesn't use Protect first turn.
In short, give it some time and see what happens, what's the rush with banning something so soon before people have time to attempt to adapt? And again, where are the usage stats of the top players? I would like to see for myself that a majority of the top ranked players are exclusively using this strat and for how long they have been.
Several things: (1) Taunt is useless after a few speed boosts, and it can get flipped back at you with Magic Bounce. (2) I have never seen Clear Smog, and Haze isn't necessary because phazing moves do the same thing, but get hazard damage, which brings me to (3) Roar and Whirlwind can be predicted, and as a safe measure be reflected with Magic Bounce. Either that or Ingrain. And if you are adamant on running Mold Breaker Roar (the users were cited at an earlier point), good luck taking a hit.
Yeah no, that is wrong. Let me tell you something: Rotom-W makes a nice Talonflame/M-Pinsir counter, and it was used well before they came into existence. Aegislash can't do much in the face of earthquake, even in shield form it takes out a nice chunk of HP. I personally use Lando-T as my Aegislash counter, and let me tell you that has just bit more use outside of Aegislash. Mega Charizard Y is a threat, but granted that is so long as sun is up and it can't switch in repeatedly if rocks are up (pretty common in OU), and most scarf pokemon threaten to outspeed and KO. So yeah, if you want to run an RU counter to these pokemon be my guest, but the OU tier is at least equipped for these kinds of pokemon.
Yeah see I have a problem with your comment on TR teams and Baton Pass, because the turn you set up TR is the turn they jump behind a sub and proceed to burn out your TR turns (scolipede is notorious for this with sub/protect which it only needs to do a few times to stall out a full cycle of TR). Trick Room also tends to forego status moves UNLESS it is a defensive setter because those just burn up your precious turns, and they can't do much to break the sub, and definitely won't if there are any boosts. So yeah Trick Room is not a good idea to counter BP teams, because it just doesn't last long enough for it to be effective.
I am for a limit of BP-ers on a team to either 2 or 3, for reasons stated in other posts. Also, since the problem is the chain, that is what we should be aiming at, and if that doesn't work then consider the links themselves I'd think is a good way to go.
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I would still argue that this ban is the most elegant and efficient: Using both a Pokemon with Speed Boost and a Pokemon with Magic Bounce on the same team is banned.
Even though its complex, it certainly is less subjective than banning more than 2 BP users on a team. It also doesn't destroy a playstlye altogether.
i agree this seems like its the best idea we have for now and we should probobly go with it and besides.. most other options here are very much flawed and if we limit a team to 2 BPers we will fix the problem with the best effeicency and fix the main problem as a whole
p.s. i feel so good i was an example XD
Noivern, mega pinsir, ditto, sableye, talonflame, landorus-T, anything with sing, anything with boomburst, any ghost type with curse, and (probably) anything with unaware are all viable counters to baton pass teams that don't need to be specifically added just to deal with baton passers. With this many counters, is it even banworthy?
Instead of directing our energy toward arguing about whether something is broken or we just don't like it, why don't we try alternate options? I mean, if it turns out that the only stop in the entire meta is mega alakazam, sure, something is wrong. But if we apply this energy to building creative teams, with all of the baton pass teams out there, this is the perfect opportunity to actually test some creative team building strategies against baton pass alongside more traditional teams.
good point it is probobly time for a "more do less talk" kind of senario but i think a good 80% of people are already agreeing to make it so that its only 2 BPers a team good point none the less
We've already explained many times that banning more than 2 BP users per team is the way to go, since 3 BP users is the bare minimum a BP team needs to have all the elements to be potentially uncompetetive. With only 2 users, a BP team can only function as a one-way pass to a sweeper which cannot send the boosts back to the BP users, and therefore, can be dealt with like any other boosting sweeper. Either that, or the team forgoes Speed Boost or Magic Bounce, both of which are too important to miss out on.
And you can still pass boosts with only 2 BP users, so this ban wouldn't kill BP as much as force it to become a slightly different strategy, more focused on offensive boosts and momentum than just taking hits and countering everything easily.
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