Priority moves aren't the only moves in existence and I don't see much relevancy here to be honest. Priority moves are meant to be inherently weak for starters and are generally meant for finishing things off, not outright killing things, which is what needs to be done here. Scolipede as a defense quick-passer still has an inherent flaw in that it's checked by a lot of special attackers, and even if they come in as it boosts, the recipient still has to take a powerful special hit before it can do anything. I've laddered a lot with this kind of team as you know, and it never ceases to amaze me how many players fail to understand the simple concept of using their special attackers to start with, instead of defying common sense and trying to beat a defense boosting pokemon with a physical attacker. If you lead with your special attacker first, they can't grab a defense boost without risking being outright KO'd. When they are forced to pass after a few sub+protects, THEN go into your physical attacker and harass the living hell out of the recipient.
Also, being passed speed + defense doesn't necessarily make that mon an immediate offensive threat; Espeon and Clefable are weak as anything without a couple of CM boosts, which differentiates the concept from Smash Passing which generates immediate threats that give you little time to act after the pass, so it's not as if one is strictly better than the other.
Agreed that priority moves are not the only ones in existence, but here's why they are so important: When you have a threat with a speed boost and an offensive boost, priority is frequently the only option left to prevent teams from getting swept. Espeon and clefable are hardly the only things to pass to either. In fact, my recipient of choice is SD bulkyzard X. As you probably know, Zard-X is incredibly threatening at +2 attack, very few things can take even one hit from that monster. With a speed boost, he cannot be outsped, and there does not exist any super effective priority either. At that point, you are either banking on a crit or that I kill myself.
Also, while I have also seen plenty of players defy common sense and attempt to attack scoli with a physical attacker, I have also had scolipede come in on a revenge kill from something like a bisharp or a dragonite, and once that happens, there is literally nothing the opponent can do to stop me from getting to +2 defense, the best he can do is send out his hopefully still alive special threat. At that point, literally all I need is something that is capable of swapping into whatever special mon you send out and beat it 1v1 and I get to sweep. Given the relatively few good special mons in OU, this isn't terribly hard unless it's something like aegi or lando, and even then I have ways of getting around them. Sadly I didn't save any replays of exactly this happening (after multiple hundreds of battles, it's really hard to know which ones are helpful, ya know?).
As long as you pass to a threat that can take a couple of hits from the mon that is out and has a setup move of it's own, there is very little that your opponent can do to stop the incoming sweep.
*edit*
TIZNE I meant to reply to your post and then kind of forgot. Lemme remedy that real quick by answering your questions.
"Is BP really that hard to counter?": That's the million dollar question right here, as you can clearly see in this post and the above post. Obviously, there is no real consensus on this one. I do think that if BP is overpowered, the root cause probably lies with scolipede.
"Is that counter also counterable?": IMHO, the answer is usually yes. Scolipede itself has very few "counters" or mons that can swap into a full hp scoli as he uses iron defense and prevent him from passing out. You either need a significant amount of prior damage + a priority user, prankster taunt with mental herb gone, or an already evolved megazam. That being said, the point that
jbtc10 brought up, and we are currently debating now, is that if you bring in a strong special attacker like aegislash, you can hit the swap in hard and stop him from setting up his offensive stat of choice and sweeping. As stated above, I have my doubts on this argument because that would require that the enemy team not have a swap in for whatever strong special mon that is sent out, if they do, then the enemy team is in all likelihood boned.
"How much skill does it take to use that hard counter?": Actually, that's not bad. It's more along the lines that there are either prereqs that need to be met for said counter to work or for you to be running megazam. That being said, scoli is much easier to check and counterlead then he is to outright stop, but that's not saying much.
"Is the meta capable of shifting in a positive way? Is this ban sufficient?": Way too early to call imo. As I stated waaaaaaaay back in the beginning of the thread, I think we should suspect other stuff and figure out how many of these special theats that check scoli aren't broken themselves (looking at you thundy). As stated before though, I believe that if there is still a problem with BP, the problem lies with scolipede.
