Other The effectiveness of Baton Pass teams after the nerf

[DaKakz]

Can we wait a bit longer before we start panicking again? It's only been, what, two days since the BP hit took place? We have no idea how those teams will do compared to everything else, particularly in the tournament scene, and one or two replays this soon in a brand new meta means almost nothing.

Problem is Deniss is almost back at the top of the ladder with his alt "suck my nick" beating every high ladder player on his way there using a three BP users team.

That's why everybody is panicking because they thought they wouldn't hear of Denissss's name or hear of BP ever again after the ban but instead they saw BP take a new form and wrecking its way up to the top and that leaves a bad taste in lots of mouths.

Edit: Denisss's alt "suck my nick" is as of now n°2 on the OU ladder, second only to his old account.

 

[nyczxjay]

He had a counter but had no idea what he was doing. Get a better replay.

Please show me how it's done then. Because clearly I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to playing this game.

 

[Karxrida]

Please show me how it's done then. Because clearly I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to playing this game.

Yeah, it's not like you've been on this site for 7 years or anything. CLEARLY you're a nub. ;D

 

[Arcanine is Regal]

He had a counter but had no idea what he was doing. Get a better replay.

Yeah this was about the highest ranked battle there could be so...im sorry I couldnt do better than that. He also explained his thought process very clearly, and all of his plays made sense. Please do not post here if that is the quality of your future posts.

But, I found the option #3 that they did present problematic because banning Magic Bounce + BP as well seemed to be going too far for no reason.

I agree on all your points thats espeon not only doesnt need baton pass to sweep effectively, but outside of baton pass teams espeon loves escaping pursuit. So I can see why people wouldnt want to take that away, but yeah as I said the main concern is scolipede.

I think smeargle will be the desired 3rd choice, to compliment scolipede and espeon, mainly because he has quiver dance/spore/ingrain all of those things are too nice to give up and force alot of mind games. Mainly because the opponent would most likely switch out to sleep fodder, only to get ingrained on the switch and then a QD in its face.

But yeah the main point of this thread was that I wanted to point out that denisss hasnt skipped a beat, and all we did is switch out full bp for semi bp, which is just as effective, although it may now be easier to counter. It is still the strongest playstyle in the meta(as proven by the playstyle holding the top 2 spots on the ladder) and I just cant help but feel like the suspect test was a waste of time. Because at the end of the day we are all still scrambling trying to figure out how to stop baton pass, while the baton pass users are just having a grand ole time.


Because some of you think that denisss gets to the ladder magically...here are some more replays of him abusing this playstyle.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-132129685
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-132125815
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-132121012 (notice the first comment in the chat)
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-132111820

It is a sad joke how easily he got to top 1 and 2, and for all of you wanting more proof, if this doesnt convince you I am not sure what will

 

[Bizdis]

"Rampant on the ladder", huh? Did you actually reach the suspect test reqs or do you just have no idea what you are talking about?

The suspect test was bad specifically BECAUSE virtually nobody was willing to use BP chains. Over the course of 160 battles as a BP chain user on that ladder I found that maybe 5% of the people I came across actually used one, and following their matches showed that even BP users who were in the top 100 on the OU ladder struggled on the suspect ladder just as much as I did. Basically, people came in with a totally closed mind, made heavily biased and uninformed opinions in the discussion thread, and whined about it being broken despite consistently beating even the best BP players with minor adjustments to their generic hyperoffense cores.

Now you want to complain about people who try to make the most out of a broken playstyle despite getting the nerf you specifically voted for?

Here's a thought- learn how to play against them instead of automatically assuming they are effortless and broken. Basic shit like priority, Taunt, prediction, and sweeper pressure is just as effective against BP chains as they ever have been, and with only three BP users available the chain has MUCH less longevity. Notice the lack of Zapdos on Denisss's team- maybe that's an indication that attacking with Talonflame instead of pointlessly switching out over and over like the guy in the replay is a good idea? Notice the lack of Sylveon, allowing a common special sweeper like Landorus to get up Stealth Rock and proceed to punch through the team with little resistance. Notice the lack of Baton Pass on Vaporeon, which would have been pretty obvious right from the start if you had any experience with BP chains- maybe that's an indication you should force it out with a common sweeper like Mega Charizard and proceed to tear it apart with Mega Venusaur or the electric type of your choice.

But that would require having a coherent strategy instead of some catch-all answer to the entire playstyle, which according to you is a bad thing:



You don't need a check/counter to stall or a check/counter to hyperoffense to beat them or any other playstyle, you need a check/counter to each individual Pokemon and the ability to play well enough to make use of those advantages. If this means taking risks instead of making the most blatantly obvious plays imaginable like the guy in that replay, then by golly you're just going to have to do it, because as long as there are ANY form of sweepers in this game you are going to get punished for making stupid and predictable plays.

It's worth noting that despite every decent player being overprepared for BP in the suspect ladder, Baton Pass players were actually able to achieve reqs. What other playstyle could claim to do this?

Anyway, even Talonflame can't stop DeoS from getting up at least one screen: 252+ Atk Choice Band Talonflame Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Deoxys-S: 256-303 (84.2 - 99.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Incidentally, here is somebody getting lucky with a crit, and then DeNiSsSs being able to restart the chain - getting very lucky with the second crit is irrelevant, I am linking this to prove that Baton Pass can start itself up again after being broken just like it used to: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-131622043

From what I can deduce from these replays, Baton Pass has the same powerful core - Espeon for Magic Bounce and finishing games, Scolipede for fast stat boosts, and Smeargle to kill momentum on the opposing team with spore, and prevent being roared out with Ingrain. The difference now is that rather than teching pokemon to beat the stuff as part of the BP core itself, he now has to use seperate pokemon to eliminate threats, and DeoS is now a necessity for setting up screens at the start of the match. This would indicate that DeNiSsSs now has much less wiggle room for defeating pokemon that give BP trouble, but as we have seen, it can still be done.

Overall, this is quite alarming that despite BP getting nerfed, it is still a very viable playstyle, and as was mentioned in the OP, punishes the opponent severely if they make any misplays, whereas, as you can see in my link, the BP player can potentially start up the chain again. I wouldn't expect this new BP to hold up in a ladder where everyone is trying to counter it as the old one did, but that doesn't mean it can't have an equally harmful impact on our current metagame. I think this certainly requires more testing before we consider nerfing BP further, but many of the old problems that made it uncompetitive still exist - mostly notably how it seems to play almost automatically, totally demolishing teams that don't run specific counters to it, and how it stands a very good chance of beating those that do. From what I have seen so far, BP is almost as bad as it was, but now has to rely on a strong lead in DeoS to give it the initial momentum it needs - maybe suspecting DeoS would solve the issue?

 

[Lil YoshiXD]

Honestly don't see DeoxysS as that game breaking. I feel klefki could easily do its role if not better. Losing SR hurts, but isn't so bad. They have similar bulk:
Klefki: 57 91 87 DeoxysS: 50 90 90. Klefki also gains helpful priority. The weakness to ground and fire hurts, but losing weakness to bug, ghost, and dark imo is worth it.

 

[Chou Toshio]

During the suspect test (while I was fiddling around) I also tried spamming the 3 BP Users (I used Scolipede, Espeon, and Mega Sciz) + 3 ridic pass targets strategy, and it works very well-- I was sometimes surprised how much I could cheese victories even when I didn't bother taking the time to really refine my strategy.

I think though it is much easier to break than full BP, and people are going to have to learn to play around it-- to me, the most important point is that there aren't nearly as many answers for BP teams to deal with the REALLY hard offensive hits of the metagame, and it takes skill to balance your BP strategy while not making your other 3 pass targets useless without boosts. It's also a lot easier to beat 3 BP user teams without a dedicated BP chain-breaker (just switch smart, and smack hard-- it can and will break now).

That said, there are a lot of fun targets to pass Scolipede's boosts too-- Excadrill, Garchomp, Manaphy, Togekiss, Mega Scizor (who can pass OR sweep), Mega Mawhile (pass OR sweep), etc. With even just +2DEF/+2SPE and a good chance to Swords Dance/Nasty Plot/Tail Glow, these things can really wreck off even a very short pass. When a team has 3 pass targets, it can be really hard to actually deal with the pass target (because of course, they'll pass to whatever handles your current mon the best).

 

[sidakarya]

I have tried a 3-mon passing core some time ago before I got busy and disappeared, and from what I've seen, it's still extremely threatening by itself even with the shoddy team I hastily put together. The real beauty about it is that your other 3 spots are so much more flexible - now that you have sweepers to take advantages of even a few boosts, and you have more leeway for support and pivoting. Even the sweepers can take some of the roles of the old team - M-Gardevoir almost feels like a surrogate Sylveon (even gets Stored Power with STAB!). Or you can just pass +2 Spe and +1 Calm Mind to Landorus and watch the world burn.

Is it still broken? I don't know. I personally would've preferred a 2-mon limit myself to be honest, which is even more limited such that even stall has ways around it. On the other hand, in all of these replays am I seeing the real trump-card as the Deo-S, which Denissss' new team almost exclusively relies on, to garner guaranteed free momentum to start the chain. I'm beginning to have the suspicion that, if not the cause of the brokenness, it severely exacerbates the problems with that team. We're already long-overdue for a Deo-S (and -D) test anyway, which I hope is the next suspect test.

Still, the meta is volatile, and I feel, that in the space of only two days we've not had enough time to find countermeasures to this strategy (and it's already a lot easier to stop than the 6-mon chain, or even a 4-mon chain), to say whether BP needs more nerfing. What I definitely feel is that should this happen, it shouldn't get in the way of other tests. I'd much rather see a quick "update" to the Baton Pass clause than another month doing the same suspect test over again, right after this one.

 

[Jukain]

zzz

this is why we shouldve just banned the move baton pass

at least i feel like these teams are a lot more matchup reliant. i was laddering some stall and managed to basically autowin with one team that was far from specifically prepared for it, but autolost with another team. the thing is that the screens amplify the issue, particularly against more offensive teams, which are also matchup reliant because if you have certain things you can win, but certain teams will just lose. it's a nerf but not rly adequate :x

 

[Jacks0n]

This is kind of funny, baton pass is still a threat. A three man baton pass chain requires a lot more skill and is more match up reliant but is still good asf and a skilled player can beat a lot of teams with a 3 main chain quite easily. I thought we had escaped bp lol. (denis is laddering with a 3 man chain on an alt and is second after his own account :/)

 

[WECAMEASROMANS]

i would've voted to ban the move baton pass if there was such an option.... unfortunately there wasnt and so i just picked option#2 :( but yeah, this is ridiculousness. i would def support a complete ban on the move baton pass, like we did with swagger. fuck collateral damage. sorry celebi

 

[Karxrida]

If Baton Pass seriously becomes a problem again we need to stop pussyfooting around with complex bans and just get rid of the move (don't tell me option 2 wasn't a complex ban because it was). We don't need to repeat Gen V, do we?

 

[sidakarya]

To add to this, if it does come so far as to offing the move altogether, I would prefer it to be a quickban. Suspect testing is precious time, and as I've said before, I'd rather not see other suspect-worthy things be neglected.

 

[D-Ssain]

I was actually taken aback when I saw the 3 baton pass team for the first time on the ladder because I actually thought people would give it up. But this new version is even deadlier, because Deoxys basically takes away so many of Scolipede's counters with Reflect. Ughhhh.

 

[Gloating]

I agree with Chou Toshio. People just need to adapt and pack an anwer to BP teams wether it's Haze, Perish Song, or simply overwhelm them with strong hits. We can't just ban everything left and right.

 

[Jacks0n]

I agree with Chou Toshio. People just need to adapt and pack an anwer to BP teams wether it's Haze, Perish Song, or simply overwhelm them with strong hits. We can't just ban everything left and right.

if every team packs haze and perish song it limits teambuilding and is overcentralizing. That says enough...

 

[Emmy2]

I don't see what the issue is, really. Denisss just made a team that's really hard to beat, even managed to be "nerfed." Since enough people bitched about it to get it suspected, and eventually nerfed; and the outcome was something any idiot could foresee once the suspect test was placed, I'm sure Denisss had plenty of time to make a new team while he continued to autopilot the people on ladder who refuse to put checks for it in their teams. So now his new team is "broken" and "must be nerfed"? I think he's just a genius troll, and he's playing you guys...

 

[SoulRed12]

The thing is, baton pass as a move is not broken, not like Swagger which could only be used to turn the game into a coin flip. It's the synergy between multiple mons. If we can get the complex ban we've gotten already, at least in theory there's no reason we can't just change it to better balance the metagame. No need to just flip the table and go overboard.

People just need to adapt and pack an anwer to BP teams wether it's Haze, Perish Song, or simply overwhelm them with strong hits. We can't just ban everything left and right.

The OU pokemon that learn Haze and can spare both a moveslot and a turn for it are Quagsire and possibly Vaporeon. Vaporeon isn't that great (it's not even ranked in either viability thread. To put that into perspective, even Moltres is ranked at D), leaving only Quagsire. In UU, the only pokemon with room/time for Haze are Milotic and possibly Crobat, both of which also do very poorly in OU (both are unranked like Vaporeon). There is also Politoed, but he's really a hindrance if you're not running a rain team.

So we're left with Haze Quagsire.

As for Perish Song, in OU you've got Azumarill, Gengar, and Smeargle. Smeargle might be able to run it, but it's frail, and the other two have neither the moveslot nor the time. In UU, the only viable user of Perish Song is Celebi, which again is pretty meh in OU.

So it's not like Gen 4-5 where Roar/Whirlwind was an adequate answer and there were lots of really viable users of those moves. Basically, you're asking everyone to run one pokemon (Haze Quag) just to counter this playstyle. That doesn't sound like a balanced metagame, which is what Smogon goes for instead of just saying "lol bring a counter" about everything. That logic could be applied to lots of things that are currently banned, for example, why ban Kyogre when you could just bring Specially Defensive Assault Vest Lanturn with Thunder? I know that's a huge exaggeration, but I only use it to make the point that it's not about whether there are "counters," it's about how effective the counters are, how much having to use the counters limits teambuilding, and how viable the counters are in the general metagame.

 

[Karxrida]

The thing is, baton pass as a move is not broken, not like Swagger which could only be used to turn the game into a coin flip. It's the synergy between multiple mons. If we can get the complex ban we've gotten already, at least in theory there's no reason we can't just change it to better balance the metagame. No need to just flip the table and go overboard.



The OU pokemon that learn Haze and can spare both a moveslot and a turn for it are Quagsire and possibly Vaporeon. Vaporeon isn't that great (it's not even ranked in either viability thread. To put that into perspective, even Moltres is ranked at D), leaving only Quagsire. In UU, the only pokemon with room/time for Haze are Milotic and possibly Crobat, both of which also do very poorly in OU (both are unranked like Vaporeon). There is also Politoed, but he's really a hindrance if you're not running a rain team.

So we're left with Haze Quagsire.

As for Perish Song, in OU you've got Azumarill, Gengar, and Smeargle. Smeargle might be able to run it, but it's frail, and the other two have neither the moveslot nor the time. In UU, the only viable user of Perish Song is Celebi, which again is pretty meh in OU.

So it's not like Gen 4-5 where Roar/Whirlwind was an adequate answer and there were lots of really viable users of those moves. Basically, you're asking everyone to run one pokemon (Haze Quag) just to counter this playstyle. That doesn't sound like a balanced metagame, which is what Smogon goes for instead of just saying "lol bring a counter" about everything. That logic could be applied to lots of things that are currently banned, for example, why ban Kyogre when you could just bring Specially Defensive Assault Vest Lanturn with Thunder? I know that's a huge exaggeration, but I only use it to make the point that it's not about whether there are "counters," it's about how effective the counters are, how much having to use the counters limits teambuilding, and how viable the counters are in the general metagame.

Swagger was only "broken" when combined with Prankster, T-Wave, and Foul Play. Yet we banned Swagger because that was the aspect that made the strategy possible. A theoretical ban of Baton Pass would be the same thing because the strategy relies on that move to even exist.

EDIT: Let's stop talking about this before we derail the thread.

 

[Outrageous Fortune]

I don't understand why people in these replays are rushing to kill deo-s. It's clearly being used as a suicide lead, so you can just switch a few times before hitting it so that the screen you have a problem with wears off when deo faints. The BP user won't want to switch to scoli for fear of getting hit on the switch - you can throw in at least one attack between your switches since deo-s isn't going to get OHKOed behind screens by too many things.
Failing that, the team is much more taunt weak than its 6 mon BP counterpart because scolipede runs leftovers on this one (I guess you'll have to ask denissss why, I'm sure there's a good reason - probably to increase its bulk since this team has more problems facing raw power than the 6 mon BP team). It has no sylveon either, to deal with the occasional mold breaker taunt or pokemon that can taunt and hit espeon hard. The team is also weaker to priority taunt or mental herb taunt, since deo-s needs light clay for its screens.
Another issue is the lack of defensive capability. The 6 man BP team had several ways to deal with powerful attackers, such as vaporeon for strong physical attackers, zapdos for powerful flying types, and sylveon for powerful special attackers and a lot of taunt users. With this new team, it's important to note that vaporeon lacks both baton pass and a way of boosting its defense, letting a lot more pokemon punch holes in the team. Screens are there to mitigate this, but as I mentioned they're not infallible.
As I see it, this team takes skill to use and can't autowin like the 6 man bp team could. This works with the aim of the nerf - it's still good, but not completely matchup reliant. Nobody needs to resort to niche sets/pokemon to beat it, except maybe stall players - stall not being able to beat this team may be a problem, but I haven't seen enough replays of stall vs this team to make a decision on that yet.

 

[sidakarya]

It does seem kind of appealing to "upgrade" the Baton Pass clause, and rather less reactionary. Building from the point of SoulRed12, even limiting BP to only one member might well be the best option, just to ensure that this synergy is impossible to exist, and you can only use Baton Pass as a standalone. The only problem I'd see with this is screens + Scolipede alone, or maybe Smashpass, which would operate similarly to Denissss' new lead strategy - but then again, Deo-S is a big part of what enables it. I do believe though, that any kind of action on this matter should be quite quick, whatever it is.

Swagger was only "broken" when combined with Prankster, T-Wave, and Foul Play. Yet we banned Swagger because that was the aspect that made the strategy possible. A theoretical ban of Baton Pass would be the same thing because the strategy relies on that move to even exist.

The Swagger thread actually makes it clear, that Swagger itself can operate outside that moveset (e.g. Whimsicott's Swagseed set), and even a random Swagger on a Terrakion can change the outcome of a match, which clearly points to the move itself being the problem. Here the "broken" part depends on a chain existing, and each link doing work for each other - Baton Pass itself is just passing stat-boosts.

 

[SoulRed12]

Swagger was only "broken" when combined with Prankster, T-Wave, and Foul Play. Yet we banned Swagger because that was the aspect that made the strategy possible. A theoretical ban of Baton Pass would be the same thing because the strategy relies on that move to even exist.

The difference is that (in singles) the move Swagger had no role other than making the game a giant coinflip. It was still the move itself that was the problem, it just so happened that T-Wave, Prankster, and Foul Play made it so bad that something had to be done about it. BP on the other hand is still 100% useful entirely outside of its broken role in chaining.

 

[Rotosect]

From what I have seen Vaporeon is now the main sweeper in post-nerf BP teams, plus they now have the option of running a dedicated BP receiver such as Unaware Clefable, but lots of alternatives exist.
Scolipede and Espeon are still must-have, but the other 4 teamslots are now much more diverse - BP chains are no longer limited by their copy/pasted members and movesets, meaning they're much more unpredictable and possibly even stronger than before.
The complex ban didn't accomplish anything other than making people realize that Denissss' team was just the tip of the iceberg.

As for Deoxys-D/S, many of us have already realized that these two are the most abusable pokemon in the OU metagame right now (take a look at the "Current metagame trends" - we posted about this a month ago) and usually a suspect test tends to reveal what is going to be suspected next (we all knew BP was going to be suspected during the Swagger test, for example) due to the "law of the next best thing". Perhaps someone should write an article about it, because at this point it's pretty obvious that such a law exists within the metagame.

 

[Flamer]

Look, while I'm disappointed that we haven't escaped the clutches of Denniss and BP yet, lets be honest, this new team we've seen was probably created and refined while we were discussing whether to ban the original Full BP or not and we have been scouted, predicted and outplayed. I think we need to see what possible counters can arise from this mess before we jump on its throat, we may have just been caught on the backfoot. If its not counterable, and that certainly seems like the case atm, I don't think there's any reason to fuck around with complex bans, straight up ban of BP is the only real way it can be dealt with without another head of the hydra rearing up.

 

[Tactical]

How nice to see, I'm glad it was adapted as predicted. Now one wonders if others will finally start trying to adapt to it.

Specifically, the current build is extremely vulnerable to priority taunt. Sableye, in particular, tears it apart and Infiltrator pokemon hold even more strength than they did before thanks to ignoring screens. Perhaps we'll see a Chandelure or Noivern popping up to deal with this threat soon?