XY OU Suspect Process, Round 3 - BATON PASS [READ POST #590]

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Name one Viable Perish Song user that can afford to use it over another move.
Off the top of my head the pokemon I've seen make this concession most has been CB Azumarill.

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Perish Song is no guarantee of victory, even against a team lacking Mr. Mime.
No, and it shouldn't be. It should, and does, give you an opportunity to outplay your opponent, however, alleviating that "the match is decided in the first 5 turns" argument.
 
Off the top of my head the pokemon I've seen make this concession most has been CB Azumarill.


No, and it shouldn't be. It should, and does, give you an opportunity to outplay your opponent, however, alleviating that "the match is decided in the first 5 turns" argument.
My point was it doesn't make sense to build a team around such a niche move when it's not as effective as is often assumed, even against its intended target. You can restart a chain after getting PSed and Politoed at least is worn down pretty easily by Zapdos.
 
My point was it doesn't make sense to build a team around such a niche move when it's not as effective as is often assumed, even against its intended target. You can restart a chain after getting PSed and Politoed at least is worn down pretty easily by Zapdos.
But you don't have to build a team around it. Gengar is another pokemon that can run Perish Song, in addition to the plethora of other options available to it and he can go on just about any team or playstyle.

Waterfall / Aqua Jet / Play Rough / Knock Off/Superpower

Theres no room for a shitty move on a CHOICE set of all things.
Waterfall and Play Rough. Those are STAB moves designed to be used in most circumstances as inherent characteristics of the pokemon.

Knockoff and Superpower. These are coverage options meant to deal with certain, specific threats that Azumarill's normal STABs have a problem damaging super effectively.

Is there something criminal about thinking of Perish Song as a coverage option like Superpower? That is what it is. It is not a tax on your pokemon any more than any other coverage move is. You're addressing a threat outside of your pokemon's normal realm of expertise.
 

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But you don't have to build a team around it. Gengar is another pokemon that can run Perish Song, in addition to the plethora of other options available to it and he can go on just about any team or playstyle.


Waterfall and Play Rough. Those are STAB moves designed to be used in most circumstances as inherent characteristics of the pokemon.

Knockoff and Superpower. These are coverage options meant to deal with certain, specific threats that Azumarill's normal STABs have a problem damaging super effectively.

Is there something criminal about thinking of Perish Song as a coverage option like Superpower? That is what it is. It is not a tax on your pokemon any more than any other coverage move is. You're addressing a threat outside of your pokemon's normal realm of expertise.
The thing is, though, is that both Knock Off and Superpower not only do damage, but also hit multiple things. Perish Song on a choice set is probably one of the biggest and worst gimmicks out there. It does no damage and hits one thing and one thing only, only for the chain to restart after the weakest link (usually Smeargle) has been KOed. Also...

28 SpA Zapdos Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Azumarill: 288-342 (71.2 - 84.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

+1 28 SpA Zapdos Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Azumarill: 432-510 (106.9 - 126.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

That pretty much guarantees that this can only happen once, which assumes that there are zero boosts involved (which if thats the case, they just manually switch and you get absolutely nothing). And if there are boosts, G_g.

If youre gonna suggest a counter/check to BP, for the love of god PLEASE dont resort to terrible gimmicks. CB Perish Song Azu is high up on the list for a terrible gimmick.
 
Well yeah, if I could beat an entire team guaranteed by running a single move that would be rather convenient wouldn't it? It's not because people despise BP teams that you can ask for something ridiculous like that.
But Perish Song doesn't beat Baton Pass guaranteed. It only resets the chain, and it's quite possible to start it up again, even if it takes more effort than "follow the machine-like algorithm". There's always Zapdos too, seeing as how Politoed is weak to it.

More to the point, the whole thing about naming checks to Baton Pass teams is really ignoring the bigger problem, which is how high the cards are stacked against your favour. Running subpar moves like Perish Song and Haze (which are really terribly distributed in the first place) just for this literally one team, against a better choice of a move is sacrificing your efficacy against any other matchup. (It really says something, when I can feel confident switching a T-Tar onto a non-defiant Thundurus without fearing a Focus Blast, because they're running Taunt instead.) This goes double for stall and even some balance, which can't constantly pile on offensive pressure, so any defensive mon that's not overspecialised is just set-up bait. It's a real strain on team-building, and what I see is, that it only accentuates the mindless offence carousel that this meta has turned into.

The same can't be said of Baton Pass teams in relation to other teams. It's essentially fixed - they need only switch one thing at most (Zapdos or Mr.Mime?), and they suffer none the more. That is clearly a huge imbalance.
 
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If youre gonna suggest a counter/check to BP, for the love of god PLEASE dont resort to terrible gimmicks. CB Perish Song Azu is high up on the list for a terrible gimmick.
And Gengar? Surely you're not going to decry the horrible sacrifices Gengar has to make to run Perish Song.

As for Perish Song hitting "one thing" I think you're underestimating the relative power of it in comparison to, say, Superpower, when that "one thing" is an entire team archtype.

But Perish Song doesn't beat Baton Pass guaranteed. It only resets the chain, and it's quite possible to start it up again, even if it takes more effort than "follow the machine-like algorithm". There's always Zapdos too, seeing as how Politoed is weak to it.
If they manage to restart the chain after you cripple it then they deserve the win just as much as anyone else. A win shouldn't be denied to a BP player just because they're playing Baton Pass and that is apparently a sin.

The same can't be said of Baton Pass teams in relation to other teams. It's essentially fixed - they need only switch one thing at most (Zapdos or Mr.Mime?), and they suffer none the more. That is clearly a huge imbalance.
This is very true, and why I support option 2 over no action. While BP may have to adapt and change up their move sets in the future if the metagame actually took building against them into account in balance with all of the other team archtypes, this does not seem to be the case now and people would rather ban it then adapt. Option 2 should at least let BP still exist as an interesting team building option and we could see some more variety from those keeping the dream alive after the ban goes through.
 
Of all the jokes I have heard people make, Perish Song CB Azumarill was not one of them. Focus Sash Infiltrator Topsy-Turvy Malamar was though.

Unless I completely misunderstood what was said, the argument being made is that everything besides Waterfall and Play Rough are coverage moves (because apparently STAB moves cannot be coverage moves, they are more like staples HP Flying Thundurus ftw), making them readily replaceable. As such, replacing Superpower or Knock Off is not criminal nor does it cause any problem when using Azumarill because coverage isn't that important for a Choice-locked attacker. Seeing how anything that isn't STAB is not mandatory and replacing it is not criminal, it should be replaced with Perish Song. This is a great idea because people losing coverage moves is no big deal as long as they are replaced by a move so specific in its usefulness that it is like a surprise attack because nobody will see it coming. So, instead of actually using Superpower, you can just bluff Superpower in the 96.16796% of battles where you aren't playing against Baton Pass and will probably be needing to use Superpower more often than not.

As for the comfort zone thing, I am pretty sure that I addressed that later but I am not sure if you even read it seeing how it was left wholly unaddressed.
 
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Being a exprienced Baton Pass player before the denissss incident, I can tell you that none of the "counters" or "checks" listed can stop baton pass. If there's a problem, Smeargle spores you and puts your "counter" or "check" out of action unless you want to waste a few turns waiting for it to wake up. Worst case scenario you sac Smeargle and restart the chain. The only real counter is Sheninja which isn't viable in OU and is practically deadweight against any other well-played team. And even then Baton Pass players like myself can squeeze in a toxic user. So please stop suggesting "counters and checks" that are useless against any other style other than Baton Pass. If you think one pokemon to beat a style is worth it, wait till you lose to any other well-played style because you are essentially playing 5v6
 
Of all the jokes I have heard people make, Perish Song CB Azumarill was not one of them. Focus Sash Infiltrator Topsy-Turvy Malamar was though.

Unless I completely misunderstood what was said, the argument being made is that everything besides Waterfall and Play Rough are coverage moves [more text than was needed was removed and replaced with these brackets]
He asked for a pokemon that could run Perish Song. I've seen more than one Azumarill with Perish Song. It works for them. What do you want from me?

As for the comfort zone thing, I am pretty sure that I addressed that later but I am not sure if you even read it seeing how it was left wholly unaddressed.
Apologies, I actually did miss that. Not layering your actual points in venom would aid in granting clarity to discourse with you.

Regardless of anything, if you only need to worry about this scenario 3.833% of the time by your count, why is this even an issue for you?

Being a exprienced Baton Pass player before the denissss incident, I can tell you that none of the "counters" or "checks" listed can stop baton pass. If there's a problem, Smeargle spores you and puts your "counter" or "check" out of action
Thoughts on Curse Trvenant, then? That is my usual go to for my stall team. How would you handle him?
 
He asked for a pokemon that could run Perish Song. I've seen more than one Azumarill with Perish Song. It works for them. What do you want from me?

Apologies, I actually did miss that. Not layering your actual points in venom would aid in granting clarity to discourse with you.

Regardless of anything, if you only need to worry about this scenario 3.833% of the time by your count, why is this even an issue for you?

Thoughts on Curse Trvenant, then? That is my usual go to for my stall team. How would you handle him?
Just because a Pokemon can run Perish Song most certainly doesn't mean that it should and CB Azumarill is not exception to this. As already stated, cutting coverage moves to put in something like Perish Song on a Choice-locked Pokemon is less than efficient.

So do you have any response to that point or do you just intend to complain about how it was presented?

I am pretty sure that it was quite clearly explained earlier in this thread why the lack of BP teams on the ladder is absolutely no reason why it should be left untouched.
 
Thoughts on Curse Trvenant, then? That is my usual go to for my stall team. How would you handle him?
Couldn't whoever takes the Curse just BP out next turn? You can only use Curse effectively once, and Curse doesn't last if switched out.You effectively gimped one of your pokemon for no good reason other than to get the enemy to switch out once, without even forcing them to restart their chain.
 
Curse is transferred by Baton Pass.
Ahh. That doesn't really solve the problem though, does it? I mean, yeah, you basically guaranteed a KO on one of the enemy's pokemon, but at the same time (like I said) you can only use it once, and they're just restarting their chain, which won't be hard unless you have a Priority attacker with a Stab on whoever they switch in, assuming you switch in the attacker before their first gets KO'd and doesn't take any other pokemon with him.
 
Ahh. That doesn't really solve the problem though, does it? I mean, yeah, you basically guaranteed a KO on one of the enemy's pokemon, but at the same time (like I said) you can only use it once, and they're just restarting their chain, which won't be hard unless you have a Priority attacker with a Stab on whoever they switch in, assuming you switch in the attacker before their first gets KO'd and doesn't take any other pokemon with him.
Trevenant with Harvest and a Sitrus Berry can use it twice in a row minimum. First turn Curse, activate Sitrus Berry, potentially harvest berry, use again, eat berry, maybe Harvest again. If the EVs are divided correctly, it will have 51%, so it could shoot off another one. One fourth of your HP at the end of every turn is a pretty big deal, really limits what you can do, especially when your maximum recovery is 1/8th with Lefties and Ingrain. If used early on, you essentially limit the boosts your opponent can accumulate significantly. On top of that, if you can stall with Sturdy, Focus Sash, Protect or something similar, you can prevent them from sweeping you. Then again, if they play smart, they can just almost lose Espeon but then pass to Sylveon. Either way, they become significantly pressured. However, they most certainly can still win unless they get too greedy or are against a team of Sturdymons and Sash users where everyone has Protect.

EDIT: DOOOD MASTA PLAN. Curse Trevenant+Prankster Sub/Protect user(s) with Lefties+Mega Gyarados with Roar. Reveal that your Gyarados has Roar early on, then switch out to something useless like Weedle, let them setup Ingrain so that they think they killed your strategy. Bring in Trevenant and use Curse. Just go through all of your Prankster users alternating between Sub and Protect when they begin attacking. MASTAAAA PLAN!!!!

Only problem is that this sucks against almost literally everything else imaginable.
 
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Trevenant with Harvest and a Sitrus Berry can use it twice in a row minimum. First turn Curse, activate Sitrus Berry, potentially harvest berry, use again, eat berry, maybe Harvest again. If the EVs are divided correctly, it will have 51%, so it could shoot off another one. One fourth of your HP at the end of every turn is a pretty big deal, really limits what you can do, especially when your maximum recovery is 1/8th with Lefties and Ingrain. If used early on, you essentially limit the boosts your opponent can accumulate significantly. On top of that, if you can stall with Sturdy, Focus Sash, Protect or something similar, you can prevent them from sweeping you. Then again, if they play smart, they can just almost lose Espeon but then pass to Sylveon. Either way, they become significantly pressured. However, they most certainly can still win unless they get too greedy or are against a team of Sturdymons and Sash users where everyone has Protect.
From what I'm hearing, it sounds like a solid counter, but at the same time, that's giving up an entire pokemon for just the off-chance that the enemy is running Baton Pass, and even then, a BP player would probably play it smart and either take most of your team down with it or take the 1 KO.
 
From what I'm hearing, it sounds like a solid counter, but at the same time, that's giving up an entire pokemon for just the off-chance that the enemy is running Baton Pass, and even then, a BP player would probably play it smart and either take most of your team down with it or take the 1 KO.
Just thinking of stall teams right now, I doubt they have any Focus Sash users, one Sturdy probably and maybe like 2 Protect users. You can essentially take the Curse with Scolipede, set up a Sub, Iron Defense once or twice (I think once), go to Smeargle, set up Ingrain and then take turns with every other Pokemon accumulating boosts and passing right before they die and just end up with the same end result that'll take 8-9 turns to die, which should be plenty of time. You even have Sylveon as a back up sweeper, so that is practically 16-18 turns of sweeping. Obviously it won't be as simple as that, but it shouldn't be too hard to play around Curse.
 
Apologies, I've had to step away from my keys for a while and must continue to do so now for an hour to hour and a half before I can address new posts sufficiently.

You missed the viable part.
You missed Gengar.

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Only problem is that this sucks against almost literally everything else imaginable.
Curse Trevenant works for me and functions in more than enough capacities to earn his place on my stall team. I may be biased, being primarily a stall player, but "build to counter" is what I always do when building a team. BP is no different than having a pokemon or two to handle HO, or a stall breaker prepared to counter other Stall. If I spread myself too thin, that is my fault as a team designer, not Baton Passes fault for existing.

Just thinking of stall teams right now, I doubt they have any Focus Sash users, one Sturdy probably and maybe like 2 Protect users. You can essentially take the Curse with Scolipede, set up a Sub, Iron Defense once or twice (I think once), go to Smeargle, set up Ingrain and then take turns with every other Pokemon accumulating boosts and passing right before they die and just end up with the same end result that'll take 8-9 turns to die, which should be plenty of time. You even have Sylveon as a back up sweeper, so that is practically 16-18 turns of sweeping. Obviously it won't be as simple as that, but it shouldn't be too hard to play around Curse.
This is why I couple the Curse pressure with Chansey Seismic Tosses, which can't be mitigated by defense boosts.
 
Curse Trevenant works for me and functions in more than enough capacities to earn his place on my stall team. I may be biased, being primarily a stall player, but "build to counter" is what I always do when building a team. BP is no different than having a pokemon or two to handle HO, or a stall breaker prepared to counter other Stall. If I spread myself too thin, that is my fault as a team designer, not Baton Passes fault for existing.

This is why I couple the Curse pressure with Chansey Seismic Tosses, which can't be mitigated by defense boosts.
Whether it works for you or not is completely irrelevant unless you are claiming that you and your experiences are representative of the meta. As for the rest of the argument, I will let someone else handle it this time seeing how I have no intention to repeat the argument once more only to have them ignored in favor of changing to a different approach (which also has been used before).

On a more general note, your solution of Trevenant+Chansey is wonderfully great and all except for the fact that, as you have said as well, it works for stall and stall alone. Very few other playstyles would/could use that same combination without having a prefix followed by stall in their name. So, telling us how slapping a Trevenant on your team helps deal with BP is meaningless in that a) it only tells us that a stall team can sacrifice something with more general use in order to deal with BP specifically and b) it only applies to stall, providing no argument as to why it isn't a problem elsewhere. Regardless, you are essentially repeating the argument in where a specific Pokemon that is marginally useful against anything that isn't BP can be used to replace a Pokemon that is more useful against everything else and trying to argue how your experiences justify this substitution. I could ask you why you think your individual experiences with said Pokemon are meaningful and you'd either respond with something intangible (such as, "I've played stall for [insert a probably inflated number of years]") or something tangible (such as a ladder ranking). In the case of the former, you are essentially claiming yourself to be knowledgeable while, in the latter situation, I could easily point out how BP has been camping at the top of the ladder for a notable period of time, rendering your accomplishment useless.
 
Whether it works for you or not is completely irrelevant unless you are claiming that you and your experiences are representative of the meta.
I do not by any means. As always, anecdotal evidence is worth next to nothing. I was putting forward an answer I had for stall when it was being said Stall suffers most against Baton Pass. Whether it works for me or not is a non-issue, it was a suggestion for those struggling who do play stall.

On a more general note, your solution of Trevenant+Chansey is wonderfully great and all except for the fact that, as you have said as well, it works for stall and stall alone. Very few other playstyles would/could use that same combination without having a prefix followed by stall in their name.
I acknowledge this, and is also a reason I support option #2. While it was baing said stall has the most difficulty against BP, I find that it would be more general teams, not built strictly around countering all possible threats, could use the assistance in watering down the highly optimized 6 mon BP chain. Reducing it to three mons, and retaining the core of Scoliopede and Espeon, should go far in giving more balanced teams more options to break through the chain without destroying the concept of the chain itself as a valid strategy.

Regardless, you are essentially repeating the argument in where a specific Pokemon that is marginally useful against anything that isn't BP can be used to replace a Pokemon that is more useful against everything else
This opinion I find a bit silly, however. In order to account for a threat you dilute that pokemon's ability to handle other kinds of threats. A pokemon made to handle BP would suffer no more against a balanced team than a stallbreaker would against that same balanced team. This is the tradeoff that goes into accounting all checks and counters in the game, building toward one threat weakens your odds against most others. BP is not an exception to this rule and it should not be given a double standard where it is considered incredulous one pokemon may have to weaken itself against general threats to prepare yourself against a specific one.

From what I'm hearing, it sounds like a solid counter, but at the same time, that's giving up an entire pokemon for just the off-chance that the enemy is running Baton Pass, and even then, a BP player would probably play it smart and either take most of your team down with it or take the 1 KO.
I don't know if you run stall, but I'de suggest trying it. It makes for a pretty fun game with the BP player trying to break you without losing their team's momentum, or giving up and restarting the chain after heavy losses while you make sure to lock them out again without making your ace in the hole vulnerable. I would hate to see the matchup go, but can understand how other play styles wouldn't find it as enjoyable.
 
This opinion I find a bit silly, however. In order to account for a threat you dilute that pokemon's ability to handle other kinds of threats. A pokemon made to handle BP would suffer no more against a balanced team than a stallbreaker would against that same balanced team. This is the tradeoff that goes into accounting all checks and counters in the game, building toward one threat weakens your odds against most others. BP is not an exception to this rule and it should not be given a double standard where it is considered incredulous one pokemon may have to weaken itself against general threats to prepare yourself against a specific one.
This is most definitely a valid point if it were such a simple trade-off. In your example, a Pokemon loses out on their ability to deal with one playstyle in order to deal with BP. In actuality, the Pokemon loses out on the ability to deal with multiple playstyles or different variants of multiple playstyles in order to deal with BP. Superpower, to use the example of CB Azumarill, is not limited in use to stall, for example. Rather, it comes in handy across the board, providing a very strong Fighting-type attack which, as common sense would dictate, is immensely useful. Perish Song, on the other hand, isn't even a coverage move. You trade out on hitting all things that you would with Superpower, regardless of playstyle, in order to deal with BP specifically and, to be even more specific, non-Mime variants of BP. Seeing how there are pretty much only two variants right now (although calling them variants would be a stretch), Zapdos and Mr. Mime, you are really narrowing down Azumarill's usefulness. Sure, you could use Perish Song against other playstyles, but that doesn't mean it is good. Very few playstyles are campy nowadays, so the only thing you are stopping is a setup sweeper who hasn't setup yet or cannot KO you. In the case of the former, who cares, it'll switch out. In the case of the latter, if it couldn't touch you even when it was boosted, it was switching out anyway, very little if anything looks forward to taking neutral CB hits from Azumarill.

So, your general analogy is absolutely correct, but it isn't applicable to the suggestion you made.
 
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So, your general analogy is absolutely correct, but it isn't applicable to the suggestion you made.
It wasn't so much a suggestion as I was requested to give an example and that was literally the most recent example I had seen, even if it wasn't a great one. I was not expecting the cornerstone of an argument to be based around CB Azumarill coverage concerns. (Though, I thought Superpower was just for Ferrothorn. I can't think of much else that Superpower outclasses Waterfall or Play Rough in in terms of coverage)

Instead of CB Azumarill being the thing put under scrutiny, what about a more general utility pokemon like Gengar? He's all ready on 10% of teams as is with near unmatched flexibility. He even all ready has Perish Trapper sets used before Baton Pass even became a thing showing it has more uses then just countering BP and could even lend strength in other, specific matchups. (Like against stall)
 
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It wasn't so much a suggestion as it was literally the most recent example I have seen, even if it wasn't a great one. I was not expecting the cornerstone of an argument to be based around CB Azumarill coverage concerns. (Likewise, I thought Superpower was just for Ferrothorn. I can't think of much else that Superpower outclasses Waterfall or Play Rough in in terms of coverage)

Instead of CB Azumarill being the thing put under scrutiny, what about a more general utility pokemon like Gengar? He's all ready on 10% of teams as is with near unmatched flexibility.
I honestly see no point in talking about some hypothetical solution to a problem because that gets us nowhere. We can abstractly discuss how slight modifications to one's team allows them to efficiently deal with BP without losing significant ground to other playstyles. However, such a conversation would be absolutely useless unless we can actually apply it, which would require us to discuss actual options.

I don't have the usage stats right now, but I am quite certain that Gengar was closer to 7 or 8% as opposed to 10%. Either way, 10% is hardly something to marvel at but we can just ignore that fact for now. Gengar most certainly has the potential to be a flexible Pokemon, but that doesn't mean teams using Gengar have flexibility in that regards. Offensive/hyper offensive teams, for example, would run a set that matches their team's style, so 3 attacks + sub to give an example (not saying that is what they run though) or something similar. Dropping one of its attacks in order to allow it to run Perish Song significantly lessens its usefulness on the team because it cuts its coverage, something that is important for offensive teams. So, the only teams that have the ability to run the set that you are referring to is teams that already do that. I don't know the breakdown of the 7-10% of Gengars in regards to what type of team they were on but the fact that only a portion of such a small number of teams could actually use your suggested fix says a lot by itself. So, Gengar may be a flexible Pokemon in regards to what it can do, but that doesn't mean each individual Gengar is flexible regardless of the team it is on.
 
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