Ok, at this point I think it's time to respond to this. Okay, letting the metagame adapt is great and all, but only to a certain point. You're acting like Baton Pass is the entire metagame, but it's not. Not everyone is using Baton Pass; it is just a team archetype that is used on the ladder and is sometimes used for "cheap" tournament wins. Putting one of these Pokemon on your team is just asking to be at a disadvantage against the rest of the metagame. It is not worth it in general. Also, saying something is not broken because the "metagame can adapt to it" and we can all run Pokemon such as "Imprison Musharna or Prankster Murkrow or Haze Unaware Quagsire to counter Baton Pass so let's not nerf it" just simply do not make sense in the grand scheme of things. In that case, we should just unban Mega Kangaskhan and simply say, "Everyone should use Rocky Helmet Max Def Max HP Ferrothorn and Max HP Max Def Defensive Garchomp to stop Kangaskhan, then it won't be broken." Max HP Max Def Sableye countered Kangaskhan, so did other Ghost-types such as Spiritomb. But we still banned Mega Kangaskhan. Why? Because adapting is only fine to a certain point. When it requires using such obscure Pokemon on every team just to "adapt," the argument becomes irrelevant. As Haunter said earlier, we could just unban Kyogre and allow people to spam Parasect and Assault Vest Ludicolo to "adapt" to the metagame. The same can be said for a wide variety of other Uber Pokemon such as Ho-Oh, as everyone could simply run something like a Max HP Max Def Rock Blast Rhydon with Stealth Rock on every team to "adapt to the metagame." It's even worse in the case of Baton Pass since Baton Pass isn't even the main part of the metagame; running these obscure "counters" leave the player at a major disadvantage against other archetypes which truly are the main part of the metagame. One shouldn't be required to run such obscure answers to a team archetype that clearly portrays nothing short of an over-reliance on team matchup and many auto-wins against many other teams.
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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 really admire and appreciate the fact that you decided to search for all this data, but I do have a few objections concerning your numbers :
Firstly, Unaware Quagsire without Haze has next to no chance of countering BP. Quagsire can barely 6HKO Vaporeon, a very common Pokemon on BP teams, and Vaporeon can easily set up to +6 Defense. Quagsire cannot break through physically defensive Sylveon either, and Sylveon can easily set up enough Calm Minds to 2HKO it with Stored Power. Keep in mind this is all factoring in Unaware.
Unaware Clefable, while one of the most solid BP counters there is, has trouble defeating Sylveon and Vaporeon if it lacks Calm Mind.
And, finally, you completely ignored offensive checks such as Talonflame, Pinsir or Volcarona. Although BP teams still have ways to deal with these Pokemon, they can cause a lot of trouble. However, they are far from being solid counters, and it's therefore impossible to add them to the percentages since they do not guarantee a win, so I can understand why you ignored them. Ultimately, I guess it's best not to account for offensive checks.
And besides, these calcs are much more relevant to stall than any other playstyle, and pretty much prove that the only way a stall team can defeat BP while still being viable is by packing a Clefable.
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The problem with this reasoning is that it assumes that Baton Pass is intrinsically unfair, but it's scalable, it depends on it's abusers just as Hyper offense need powerful fast-hitting pokemon in order to work. Removing the strongest Baton Passers hurts the strategy, obviously. Unlike Swagger that was luck depending, Baton Pass is actually being punished not for being luck dependant, but because it's too consistent.
Non-Guest 31415 : Perish Song can also mess with BP pretty bad, it should be mentioned somewhere in your statistics post.
Thanks to everyone who noticed problems in my stats post; I'll remove non-Haze Unaware Quagsire and add any OU/UU Perish Song users ASAP. That'll likely change the final number.
That's untrue, given that Mr. Mime is a staple of Baton Pass teams, and completely stops Perish Song. However, Curse can royally screw over BP chains, and BP teams have absolutely no way of stopping that.
Edit : Actually, now that I think about it, Mold Breaker Roar isn't an answer to BP either, since Ingrain Smergle is also standard...
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Full baton pass teams are not a problem for the development of the metagame, it´s just like a strategy that the players who are not playing it consider inmoral, and that keeps it aside of the way we play/like to play and separated of how new offensive and deffensive threats/styles grow. It has just few counters and certainly limits succesfull teambuilding, but I also think that we shouldn´t limit this style that much (like when banning specific pokémon), just somehow cut it´s viability.
Perhaps the problem with full baton pass teams is that they´re completly dedicated to this style, every single mon in the team is passing stats to another, creating an unbreakable barrier made of six pokémon, but if we reduce the lenght of the chains the problem could be solved withouth carrying batton pass to extinction.
I don´t think that banning or nerfing individual pokémon will solve the problem, some users could search other ways to pass and we´ll just be limiting the variety of the metagame.
We could do a complex ban to solve this problem, but one that limits the number of passers that one has in a team. Baton pass is an entire style of the metagame that has allways been present and it itsn´t only represented by full baton pass teams. For example, if Scoilpede + BP recives a ban there would be no more "let´s pass speed and attack to our sweeper" and things like that.
Perhaps we could stand small chains of baton pass on the metagame, like just allowing three/two baton pass moves per team. If we do that as a "Full Baton Pass clause" we will drasticaly reduce the viability of this style in battles, creating a more stable, controlable and "cleaner" passing style...
Perhaps the problem with full baton pass teams is that they´re completly dedicated to this style, every single mon in the team is passing stats to another, creating an unbreakable barrier made of six pokémon, but if we reduce the lenght of the chains the problem could be solved withouth carrying batton pass to extinction.
I don´t think that banning or nerfing individual pokémon will solve the problem, some users could search other ways to pass and we´ll just be limiting the variety of the metagame.
We could do a complex ban to solve this problem, but one that limits the number of passers that one has in a team. Baton pass is an entire style of the metagame that has allways been present and it itsn´t only represented by full baton pass teams. For example, if Scoilpede + BP recives a ban there would be no more "let´s pass speed and attack to our sweeper" and things like that.
Perhaps we could stand small chains of baton pass on the metagame, like just allowing three/two baton pass moves per team. If we do that as a "Full Baton Pass clause" we will drasticaly reduce the viability of this style in battles, creating a more stable, controlable and "cleaner" passing style...
Disaster Area
formerly Piexplode
Xatu can't run BP + Magic Bounce; it's already been mentioned.
If Baton Pass is not an overly common, dare I say OverUsed, team style, then why object to letting the metagame shift to counteract it? You keep your teams the way they are now, without "obscure" things such as a Haze user, and when you come up against a Baton Pass team, you just refuse to play them and move on to the next game. Banning or nerfing a playstyle based around a combination of Pokemon as opposed to just the individual Pokemon is a bad precedent to set.
The reason Mega Kangaskhan is an issue is because it is a single Poke that can be put onto almost any team as filler simply because of its stat distribution, movepool, and ability. Baton Pass teams are more than a single Pokemon. It has also been pointed out that there are very few viable members to a successful full Baton Pass team, which in my mind makes countering that team a lot easier since you know what it is likely to consist of.
The thing is these two aren't very different at all. You're not trying to counter each individual Pokemon on Baton Pass; you're trying to counter the whole team. Baton Pass as a whole has its counters just as Mega Kangaskhan did. And countering the team is not a lot easier just because you know its members simply because all of the counters to it are relatively obscure ones which have already been discussed. Metagame adaptation is great, but not when it shifts the metagame so much in order to overcome a threat which is clearly broken, as demonstrated in the case of Mega Kangaskhan and other Ubers.
How much would the entire metagame have to shift to counteract Baton Pass? You yourself stated that not everyone is using it; it is just a team archetype used on the ladder and for cheap tournament wins.
Please show me a team that counters everything except Baton Pass and I will listen to the argument that you can't fit a
EDIT: WebBowser said it better than I did in his post below. Once you Haze (or whatever) to break the Baton Pass chain, then it essentially is the same as breaking down a stall team. You wear them down as they scramble to regain their lost stat boosts.
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The main difference between BP and mega kahn is that once you have countered mega kahn, you still have to deal with the opponent's remaining 5 pokemon, and it was near impossible to counter megakahn without losing at least one mon in the process. For BP, once you have countered it, that teams done. There is no "5 other pokemon" to counter. That being said, if it is indeed the case that the only way to counter BP is by using relatively obscure mons (whatever that's supposed to mean), then it is without a doubt broken (I'm still working on that one).
I think that is part of the reason why the anti-ban response has been rather strong with this one (as in, a lot of users have been protesting). We are not talking about nerfing/banning a single mon, but an entire team archtype. That is not a decision to be made lightly.
Normally when i dont like specific metagame i generally just ignore it until it gets better but the issue with baton pass is so old and hilariously tiring that i really want this to be dealt with once and for all. Basically we are dealing with something different than one single pokemon or move. Its an entire broken playstyle (broken as in, it enforces matchup based games, for the love of arceus stop saying it has ''counters'', no one cares), and as a playstyle it should be looked at as whole. This is quite similar to the rain debate last gen where instead of getting rid of the frog we made a complex ban, banned dozens of abusers and at the end of the gen it was still a problem. Thats essentially the debate here, people would rather make all sorts of insane clauses (magic bounce+espeon, baton pass+espeon, scolipede+baton pass) that dont solve the problem at all then just cut the source and get this done with. If we are going to actually ban anything then just ban the move that is the heart of the chains instead of making the tiers even more confusing then they already are and not dealing with the issue at all.
I'm sorry, but you're acting like quitting during the first turn is a valid way of dealing with BP teams lol. It doesn't matter how much they are used, it only matters that they ARE. And auto-losing every time you face them is not a good thing at all. This is ridiculous! The battle should NOT be determined before a player chooses a move. And if the playstyle is the problem as opposed to just one Pokemon, then said playstyle is the one who needs the nerfing, obviously!
What, we should just rage quit whenever facing such team until it becomes ''standard'' or ''overused'' and then we start packing Haze (which is apparently such an easy thing to do, and if we don't, we're lazy) to counter them? LOL.
Also, just to be clear: while I personally believe that BouncePass is the broken element; however, as I'm not a voter and I'm not knowledgable about battling to really judge, (I can just do math. Sort of.) feel free to use my stats to justify any position supporting banning anything related to Baton Pass, or not banning anything relating to Baton Pass; they're intended more as a resource than anything else.
I'm not saying quitting is the way you should always deal with a Baton Pass team. I'm saying that since there are options that can disrupt the chain, and thereby make a Baton Pass team just another group of six Pokemon, if you choose not to include one of these options in your team, you have the option to avoid playing BP altogether.
I cannot seem to get across that Pokemon is about strengths and weaknesses, and the choices that come with them in regards to teambuilding. Saying that the Pokemon that can learn Haze are not OU or "viable" is saying that you don't understand how tiering based on usage is supposed to work. If a Pokemon becomes used and eventually overused, it is because it has something (ability, movepool, typing, etc) that players value. If a reliable option to help counteract Baton Pass becomes valuable, then the Pokemon that have these options will, in theory, become OverUsed.
But the options are not even reliable and leave you under-prepared for the other team archetypes that exist and that you'll face more often than BP. The metagame should not evolve to the point that a Dragonite MUST be running Haze of all things JUST to stop BP chains. Or that a Haze set becomes viable just because it deals with BP teams.
-Tsunami- already gave great analogies to this. We could adapt to Kyogre if we allow it in OU, but are we really going to do that?
There is a difference between OU and viable. OU means higher than 3.41% usage in the 1760 stats of the last 3 months' OU metagames. Viable means that it serves either a single, vital purpose (e.g. removing hazards, physical/special sweeper/wall) either better than anything else or as well as and differently than anything else or it serves multiple purposes as well or better than anything else can perform that particular combination (e.g. mixed sets, Charizard as a full Pokémon as opposed to looking at the Megas separately, etc.). Viable also means that it doesn't fail its job when faced with Pokémon not specifically designed to oppose it; for instance, a spinner that can't get off a Rapid Spin, or a sweeper that dies before killing anything, are unviable. Haze is not inherently unviable, but unless anti-Baton Pass is valuable enough to use that on a Pokémon (and really, the main utility Pokémon that gets Haze is Tentacruel; Quagsire is more of a dedicated anti-BP Pokémon) or use a dedicated Pokémon to counter it, then Haze will remain less viable than other moves.
Stop comparing the banning of an entire strategy and playstyle to the banning of a Pokemon. Its entirely different. The only real comparison that can be made would be the banning of Weather in Gen 5 or something like Trick Room teams.
Seems like the majority of people against Baton Pass were also anti-weather in Gen 5. They don't want to have to lose 10% of the time since Baton Pass isn't common enough to be standard. Will it become as dominant as weather in gen 5 though?
The majority of people for keeping Baton Pass seem to think that the meta should evolve to whatever it needs to. if Baton Pass us really so good, why isn't everyone using it? If everyone does use it, shouldn't it be easily countered by 1/24th of a team (ie a single move like haze from an already viable pokemon like crobat)?
These are the questions that need addressed.
Seems like the majority of people against Baton Pass were also anti-weather in Gen 5. They don't want to have to lose 10% of the time since Baton Pass isn't common enough to be standard. Will it become as dominant as weather in gen 5 though?
The majority of people for keeping Baton Pass seem to think that the meta should evolve to whatever it needs to. if Baton Pass us really so good, why isn't everyone using it? If everyone does use it, shouldn't it be easily countered by 1/24th of a team (ie a single move like haze from an already viable pokemon like crobat)?
These are the questions that need addressed.
Rather than replying to any specific post, I am going to make a metaphor to try and illustrate what I see in this debate. Please do not dismiss it as silly or irrelevant, since it is another way of making my point in this discussion.
In an ecosystem, (read: OU metagame) many different parts (Pokemon) coexist and work together to keep the ecosystem running smoothly.
Suddenly, one component of the ecosystem (Baton Pass teams) becomes more prominent, and possibly threatens the overall health of the ecosystem.
Rather than increase (OverUse) the number of predators (checks and counters) in the ecosystem to counteract this unhealthy growth, people think that the best solution is simply hunting the unhealthy part into extinction. (banning something)
Banning might be the most quick and efficient solution to Baton Pass teams, but I cannot believe it is the best solution for this scenario.
In an ecosystem, (read: OU metagame) many different parts (Pokemon) coexist and work together to keep the ecosystem running smoothly.
Suddenly, one component of the ecosystem (Baton Pass teams) becomes more prominent, and possibly threatens the overall health of the ecosystem.
Rather than increase (OverUse) the number of predators (checks and counters) in the ecosystem to counteract this unhealthy growth, people think that the best solution is simply hunting the unhealthy part into extinction. (banning something)
Banning might be the most quick and efficient solution to Baton Pass teams, but I cannot believe it is the best solution for this scenario.
Baton pass is not so common because everyone think that is a broken playstyle and don't want to win so easily, that's just a coward play style, look at everyone baton pass user on the ladder, the same team ever(denisSsS team)
Baton pass users actually are almost crying because them don't want that their teams be banneds and more that the half of your"counters" don't work against baton pass or are uncompetitive
I'm going to stop you there, because when two Pokemon are synergetic, you can always identify how.
Take deosharp for example, deoxys sets hazards, and bisharp keeps them on the field, resulting in decent punishment for switching, or significant punishment for removing them via defog. This is an oversimplification, as elements such as typing and utility moves add things, but that is the most important point.
We can do this with teams too. BP teams have work because they have 7 things; a way to boost spe, def, spd, spa, a way to pass those boosts on, the necessary tools to keep those boosts from being removed by most significant OU threats, and a way to use all to win in the form of a late game sweeper.
Speed is important because it does 3 things; allows def boosts to outspeed attacks so you take significantly less damage from attacks, lets bp outspeed moves such as taunt to avoid being trapped, and let's your sweeper outspeed its victims. Speed can be obtained by either stalling for turns with scolipede, or using agility on something like zapdos.
Defense is important so your chain isn't broken by physical attackers, and can be obtained by iron defense (typically on scolipede) or acid armor.
Special Defense, same thing as defense, but usually obtained from either calm mind or amnesia.
Special attack is important so your sweeper can ohko most enemies. Usually obtained from calm mind.
Obviously baton pass is key to the strategy.
The big player for avoiding getting the
Boosts removed is espeon, being immune to taunt, roar, whirlwind, etc, but mr. mime and sylveon help too.
And the sweeper is usually something like espeon, who can abuse stored power for ridiculous power, and use the passed speed to sweep.
There's nothing wrong with def, spd, or spa, but the spe, bp, and the "immune to checks" thing are all questionable.
Through testing restrictions against scolipede, I've found that teams that rely on agility rely on good play significantly more than scolipede teams, and can therefore be beaten by a skilled player, regardless of the team make up.
Without espeon, taunt and phasing are more reliable, but things like sub and ingrain don't magically disappear. It would definitely be more difficult to pull off a bp chain, but does adding more counters really fix the problem we've been discussing?
BP, is just BP. There's not much I can say to change your mind if you're dead set that bp is uncompetitive, but I will say that without without scolipede or espeon, it's at least not broken. If we do limit it with a cap, I vote 3. 4 can still include pokes to extend the chain and prevent being beaten by common pokes. 2 limits it too much that it's not versatile enough to be viable. With 3, you can have a solid core of scolipede, espeon, and something like sylveon, being able to play around a lot of things, but like any win conditions, there's a couple checks that would have to be left to team members
Sorry I'm slow, and sorry there's no tl;dr version, but I've done a decent amount of work on this, and it bugs me when people act more out of bias or laziness than thinking through the problem and coming to a conclusion that is both logical and effective.
Holy...
The problem is not Baton Pass becoming prominent and people refusing to adapt to it.
The problem is that some team archtypes will automatically lose against a full Baton Pass type (outside of hax) team unless they incorporate something suboptimal method which significantly hampers their ability to compete against any other team.
This has been states and restated god knows how many times.
The problem is not Baton Pass becoming prominent and people refusing to adapt to it.
The problem is that some team archtypes will automatically lose against a full Baton Pass type (outside of hax) team unless they incorporate something suboptimal method which significantly hampers their ability to compete against any other team.
This has been states and restated god knows how many times.
As I said in my previous response it is not unheard of to run some form of attack investment if this allows a Pokémon to dismiss of an important threat: it's an example of how specific Pokémon can adapt to a metagame in which Espeon/full Baton Pass is recognized as a legitimate check to defensive teams.
Just like against any setup tactic, the goal is not to bring down Espeon once it has been passed defense and speed: the goal of the set I posted, and of virtually any Taunt user sent in against a Baton Pass team, is to force out Espeon before boosts have been accumulated. One cannot expect any Pokémon to reliably check a Baton Pass team when it has set up multiple boosts already; many ways to force out Scolipede before it can raise its defense have been brought forward in this thread, and these counters should not be ignored just because they may no longer stand a chance if their user for some reason let the opposing Baton Pass team set up anyway.
Not entirely! Scolipede would likely be replaced by a combination of Ninjask and Mawile/Mew when banned, for its function is entirely different from that of the other members, being not nearly as specific as what Espeon and others accomplish; instead Scolipede is so vital because it can take on two roles at once! By banning Scolipede, full defensive Baton Pass teams will have to start off slower since they can no longer boost two stats at the same time (as I said before: props to the players that teach Ninjask Harden), and will have less room to include counters to the aforementioned checks to its playstyle, making the playstyle more easily pressured by both offensive and dedicated counters. This is why I proposed a ban on Scolipede in my first post on this forum - I still think this makes for the best nerf if one is needed.
As a player who started on NetBattle in gen 3, I never thought I'd see the day when Baton Pass was considered for suspecting. BP teams are not invincible, nor are they particularly tough to handle.
1) Hazard control. BP teams rely on switches, so Spikes and SR do a decent job of whittling down the opposing Pokemon. A properly timed Leech Seed or Perish Song also wrecks these types of teams, as they are mostly stall variants with one or two offensive threats.
2) Status support. If the team is using M-Absol and/or Scizor as a core offensive threat, catching them with a Will-o-Wisp, Spore, Thunder Wave, or Stun Spore on the switch hinders them greatly. Toxic works against a lot of standard BP team members too.
3) Item removal. These teams really appreciate their Leftovers. Trick+Scarf shuts down Pokemon in BP chains, and most of them don't like Knock-off either. Knock-off has great distribution, and 2 of the 3 Magic Bounce users are weak to it.
4) Phazing. Magic Bounce may be a problem for Roar and Whirlwind, but Dragon Tail is also a viable move with good distribution. If the opponent isn't behind a sub, Dragon Tail works. If they are, Whirlwind them.
5) Move control. Encore and Taunt are your friends. Teams don't win on the merits of Espeon and Xatu alone; everything else falls apart with Taunt and Encore. Particularly Scoliopede.
I could go on, but this covers most bases. If your team doesn't include at least 3 of these things, then it should. These aren't even things that are exclusive for Baton Pass counters; they work for almost all teams.
1) Hazard control. BP teams rely on switches, so Spikes and SR do a decent job of whittling down the opposing Pokemon. A properly timed Leech Seed or Perish Song also wrecks these types of teams, as they are mostly stall variants with one or two offensive threats.
2) Status support. If the team is using M-Absol and/or Scizor as a core offensive threat, catching them with a Will-o-Wisp, Spore, Thunder Wave, or Stun Spore on the switch hinders them greatly. Toxic works against a lot of standard BP team members too.
3) Item removal. These teams really appreciate their Leftovers. Trick+Scarf shuts down Pokemon in BP chains, and most of them don't like Knock-off either. Knock-off has great distribution, and 2 of the 3 Magic Bounce users are weak to it.
4) Phazing. Magic Bounce may be a problem for Roar and Whirlwind, but Dragon Tail is also a viable move with good distribution. If the opponent isn't behind a sub, Dragon Tail works. If they are, Whirlwind them.
5) Move control. Encore and Taunt are your friends. Teams don't win on the merits of Espeon and Xatu alone; everything else falls apart with Taunt and Encore. Particularly Scoliopede.
I could go on, but this covers most bases. If your team doesn't include at least 3 of these things, then it should. These aren't even things that are exclusive for Baton Pass counters; they work for almost all teams.
Let's see. Espeon stops hazards so thats irrelevant since if you spend your time trying to do that you will just get set up on and lose. Status is irrelevant considering Baton Pass + Substitute exists. Item removal is blocked by Substitute, and if you're speaking about Knock Off, after a few boosts that isn't really breaking the Substitute either. Phazing is blocked by Magic Bounce, and Dragon Tail isn't breaking most Substitutes, especially not after defense boosts (not even mentioning Sylveon which is immune to Dragon Tail). And there's almost no viable Taunt / Encore users that are actually threats in the metagame while being able to stop Espeon. So...
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