np: Doubles Stage 3.5 — Mama Said Knock You Out

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Ok, let me get something off my chest. I've been seeing a lot of Ambipom. I don't know why people are using it, because it's really bad. It really can't do anything outside of Fake Out and U-Turn. So it pretty much gets shut down by Quick Guard users. It can't take hits either. If it's a cry for being creative, I don't approve of it.
protip: get higher on the ladder.
 
I was directed here by GlassGlaceon to nominate for suspects, and I'd really like to nominate sleep clause. Sleep is not broken in the normal sense such as how mega mawile and aegi were banned from ou, but i believe it deserves another suspect becuase of the pure disruption is causes. A sleep clause of only 2 pokes to sleep per team would be fine but being able to put every poke to sleep is really quite detrimental to the meta. While it is possible to have a counter, every team MUST have a counter and it severly limits teambuilding. Also the lack of sleep clause promotes people to come in and spam sleep, as they're unable to do so in their usaul tiers. Another thing about sleep is the lack of skill it takes to use, and the pure luck of the rolls it involves. No predictions happen due to the fact that it is completely random and unreliable. I know some will probably back this and others will go against it but I do believe that sleep clause would be helpful to the developement of the meta and to the quality of the ladder, something we've been trying to improve. I know that because of the first one this one is going to need support to get anywhere, so if you're wanting a change in the standing of sleep please back this c(l)ause!
 
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Stratos

Banned deucer.
I was directed here by GlassGlaceon to nominate for suspects, and I'd really like to nominate sleep clause. Sleep is not broken in the normal sense such as how mega mawile and aegi were banned from ou, but i believe it deserves another suspect becuase of the pure disruption is causes. A sleep clause of only 2 pokes to sleep per team would be fine but being able to put every poke to sleep is really quite detrimental to the meta. While it is possible to have a counter, every team MUST have a counter and it severly limits teambuilding. Also the lack of sleep clause promotes people to come in and spam sleep, as they're unable to do so in their usaul tiers. Another thing about sleep is the lack of skill it takes to use, and the pure luck of the rolls it involves. No predictions happen due to the fact that it is completely random and unreliable. I know some will probably back this and others will go against it but I do believe that sleep clause would be helpful to the developement of the meta and to the quality of the ladder, something we've been trying to improve. I know that because of the first one this one is going to need support to get anywhere, so if you're wanting a change in the standing of sleep please back this cause!
Im sorry but what kinds of arguments are these?

1) it forces you to pack counters.

........

2) it severely limits teambuilding.

Sleep is quite possibly the last thing you could say this about. For one, there's a variety of pokes that naturally beat sleep users: venu, skymin, ludicolo, any sub user, but if you don't like those options, there's also safeguard or taunt or putting goggs on literally any pokemon that isnt mega.

3) noobs use it and do better than they should

quite ironic, considering one of the main points in our original sleep suspect was that it was much harder to win with shit like contraryswap and transform mew when we removed sleep clause.

4) sleep takes no skill to use

Have u ever used sleep because u would see that this is wrong

5) sleep rolls introduce "pure luck," meaning you can't predict.

I've written before about how sleep having a random timer is a benefit to the sleeping Pokemon and not the sleep user, and I don't feel like reposting these arguments, especially from a phone. It's pretty intuitive anyways—when you don't know when the pokemon is going to wake up, you can't safely ignore it or know exactly what your battle plans will be. And many good players have written treatises on why "prediction" is a joke. But assuming you meant "move options" instead of predictions, sleep doesn't remove those, just change them. Do you stay in with the sleeping mon to burn turns? Do you switch it? Do you spore the sleeping mon hoping for a switch? Do you spore at all, or rage powder? In the sleep clause meta there is none of this, there's just "get mon slept, switch it out so it can't get koed, don't switch it back in until the sleep user is dead," which is so much drier.

Friendly reminder that 79% of people voted to remove sleep clause under the exact same banlist we have now
 
Im sorry but what kinds of arguments are these?

1) it forces you to pack counters.

........

2) it severely limits teambuilding.

Sleep is quite possibly the last thing you could say this about. For one, there's a variety of pokes that naturally beat sleep users: venu, skymin, ludicolo, any sub user, but if you don't like those options, there's also safeguard or taunt or putting goggs on literally any pokemon that isnt mega.

3) noobs use it and do better than they should

quite ironic, considering one of the main points in our original sleep suspect was that it was much harder to win with shit like contraryswap and transform mew when we removed sleep clause.

4) sleep takes no skill to use

Have u ever used sleep because u would see that this is wrong

5) sleep rolls introduce "pure luck," meaning you can't predict.

I've written before about how sleep having a random timer is a benefit to the sleeping Pokemon and not the sleep user, and I don't feel like reposting these arguments, especially from a phone. It's pretty intuitive anyways—when you don't know when the pokemon is going to wake up, you can't safely ignore it or know exactly what your battle plans will be. And many good players have written treatises on why "prediction" is a joke. But assuming you meant "move options" instead of predictions, sleep doesn't remove those, just change them. Do you stay in with the sleeping mon to burn turns? Do you switch it? Do you spore the sleeping mon hoping for a switch? Do you spore at all, or rage powder? In the sleep clause meta there is none of this, there's just "get mon slept, switch it out so it can't get koed, don't switch it back in until the sleep user is dead," which is so much drier.

Friendly reminder that 79% of people voted to remove sleep clause under the exact same banlist we have now
Sorry, I wasn't around at the time of the first test, so i didn't know the specifics of that, but i figured I'd try for this seeing as some people still wish for the clause, including me. Didn't mean to rub anyone the wrong way, but sleep clause would promote the things I stated, even if there is a strong counter argument for it. I've gotten support from spacebass, finally, and quickscope, all active and knowledgeable members of the doubles community, and I'm planning on asking more people about it when i see them.

EDIT: Finally worded it better then I did with his post.
 
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finally

how can you swallow so much sleep?
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unrelated to pwne's stuff: a quick point about 2 mon limit
ok yeah if you have 2 ore more of your mons asleep you are already in a bad position
but one of the primary concepts of the 2 limit is to stop the opponent from continuing to spam spore on switches. aka you can now safely switch around against amoonguss without worrying about getting popped by the sleep on the switch. (you switch, amoonguss sleeps where you switched)
 
I agree with qwertypops and would be in favour of the regulation of amoongus

1) it forces you to pack counters.

The salty forfeits from sleep spam were like killing my ladder score so I decided to use amoongus myself for some revenge.

2) it severely limits teambuilding.

Once I had a taste of using spore, amoongus earned a spot on every one of my teams. This basically limits me to only 1 Pokemon per team after kangaskhan, lando-t, rotom and heatran.

3) noobs use it and do better than they should

Living proof of this, a sleep clause would also ensure only the best players improve when they use better Pokemon.
 
Going to try and bring some life to this thread. I fully support a moderated sleep clause. While it is true "you are bad" if you let more than 3 pokemon sleep. Sometimes it is impossible to prevent, and a sort of checkmate system comes in place around turn 3 if you have a bad matchup against Amoonguss. I understand the argument can be made that it is easy to counter Amoonguss but it only takes one Mega Gengar Destiny Bond or more commonly one decent prediction to kill ones Amoonguss counter. I have found pairing Wide Guard with Amoonguss to be very threatening, and Follow Me + Amoonguss to be even better. Outside of Heat Wave almost nothing is killing Amoonguss if you follow me ... and Heat Wave is incredibly predictable (Zard-Y, Heatran, Chandelure). With Wide Guard, Amoonguss is now protected from Heat Wave which makes its weaknesses basically Psychic, Air Slash, and Ice moves. Fire Blast is farely uncommon when most pokemon would rather opt for Heat Wave. Psychic/Psyshock is fairly rare outside of Latios, Slowking, and Gardevoir. To cut to the chase, Amoonguss is hard to kill and not much things can one shot it.

I don't think limiting sleep clause to two pokemon is necessary, but I think it would help decentralize the metagame from overcompensating for Amoonguss. I'm not sure what the usage statistics say but if I don't see Amoonguss, I see Shaymin-S or Gardevoir to kill one.
 
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Take a look at it this way, ubers is having a shadow tag suspect test right now, even though there are ways around it, just like sleep. The reason they're having it is because they think that shadow tag maybe uncompetitive and want to test it out. We're not talking about taking sleep out altogether, just the concept of being able to take out two pokes that are asleep and not have to worry about an amoonguss spamming the rest of your team with spore. Also this isn't just for ladder use, I don't think anything should be banned based on ladder alone. Also once your counters are dead, an amoonguss can just spore like crazy, not even having to think about what its doing.
 
May I introduce you to the concepts of Grass types, Safeguard, Lum Berry, Safety Goggles, and, most cockblockingly, Substitute. Oh and Taunt too.
If you are running Safety Goggles and Safeguard dont you think thats a little much to beat Amoonguss? What grass-types do people actially use besides Amoonguss, Shaymin-S, and the occasional Mega Venusaur. Also, if you have something like Jumpluff you're just planning to spam sleep lol. My point is just that sleep spam limits team building (stuff like Safeguard) I know it also blocks MKanga from WoW etc so I know its not useless, and when your opponent has in Amoonguss sometimes you cant do anything.
 

Bughouse

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If you are running Safety Goggles and Safeguard dont you think thats a little much to beat Amoonguss? What grass-types do people actially use besides Amoonguss, Shaymin-S, and the occasional Mega Venusaur. Also, if you have something like Jumpluff you're just planning to spam sleep lol. My point is just that sleep spam limits team building (stuff like Safeguard) I know it also blocks MKanga from WoW etc so I know its not useless, and when your opponent has in Amoonguss sometimes you cant do anything.
Safety Goggles is a totally fine item on a number of mons. Most commonly I've seen it on Aegislash, Rotom-H, and Talonflame to become superb answers to Amoonguss. Togekiss and Jirachi can be good too since they can Follow Me to redirect and ignore the Spores. Safety Goggles also enables all these mons to ignore its Rage Powders. It's not like it's only use is for avoiding Spore.

Other common grass types are Breloom, Ferrothorn, Abomasnow, Whimsicott, Gourgeist, and (most commonly) Ludicolo. Also there are the Overcoat mons I forgot about above, most notably Escavalier, which is somewhat common. And also Goodra with its Sap Sipper, though I find Goodra mediocre. Realistically, your best options in most cases aren't a lot of the Grass types themselves, but Overcoat Escavalier, Safety Goggles, Sub, and Taunt. Safeguard is also fine on some teams and is good for the reasons you mentioned. Of the grass types, yeah Shaymin-S is the biggest thing that you should consider when trying to stop Amoonguss.

As to "sometimes you can't do anything" versus Amoonguss.... well sometimes you can't do anything against Mega Gardevoir or Sub Heatran or any number of things. That's just not a valid argument. There are ample resources (and diverse ones at that) to stop Amoonguss from doing its job. Use them.



(Also I have used Safety Goggles Safeguard Togekiss before... probably overkill but that one team just really hates Amoonguss)
 
Safety Goggles is a totally fine item on a number of mons. Most commonly I've seen it on Aegislash, Rotom-H, and Talonflame to become superb answers to Amoonguss. Togekiss and Jirachi can be good too since they can Follow Me to redirect and ignore the Spores. Safety Goggles also enables all these mons to ignore its Rage Powders. It's not like it's only use is for avoiding Spore.

Other common grass types are Breloom, Ferrothorn, Abomasnow, Whimsicott, Gourgeist, and (most commonly) Ludicolo. Also there are the Overcoat mons I forgot about above, most notably Escavalier, which is somewhat common. And also Goodra with its Sap Sipper, though I find Goodra mediocre. Realistically, your best options in most cases aren't a lot of the Grass types themselves, but Overcoat Escavalier, Safety Goggles, Sub, and Taunt. Safeguard is also fine on some teams and is good for the reasons you mentioned. Of the grass types, yeah Shaymin-S is the biggest thing that you should consider when trying to stop Amoonguss.

As to "sometimes you can't do anything" versus Amoonguss.... well sometimes you can't do anything against Mega Gardevoir or Sub Heatran or any number of things. That's just not a valid argument. There are ample resources (and diverse ones at that) to stop Amoonguss from doing its job. Use them.



(Also I have used Safety Goggles Safeguard Togekiss before... probably overkill but that one team just really hates Amoonguss)
We're just going to agree to disagree at this point. Sub Heatran and Mega Gardevoir aren't going to just endgame as many teams as Sleep spam can, but I know what you mean. Perhaps I just need to use Taunt more.
 

shaian

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lets give 2 already good mons an item that is essentially an assault vest and choice specs combined without any of the restrictions, what could possibly go wrong? the special defence boost is already ridiculous enough, for example: 252+ SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Sylveon Hyper Voice vs. +1 0 HP / 0 SpD Latios: 258-306 (85.7 - 101.6%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO (damage calc doesn't list soul dew so i just used +1 same shit), seriously wtf dragons aren't allowed to live that by virtue of being a dragon.
 

Level 51

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lets give 2 already good mons an item that is essentially an assault vest and choice specs combined without any of the restrictions, what could possibly go wrong? the special defence boost is already ridiculous enough, for example: 252+ SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Sylveon Hyper Voice vs. +1 0 HP / 0 SpD Latios: 258-306 (85.7 - 101.6%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO (damage calc doesn't list soul dew so i just used +1 same shit), seriously wtf dragons aren't allowed to live that by virtue of being a dragon.
252+ SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Sylveon Hyper Voice vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Dragalge: 175-207 (64.5 - 76.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Excuse me??????????????????
edit: actually i dont think i would mind giving soul dew a go, latios and latias are susceptible to plenty of stuff besides special attacks \o/
 
252+ SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Sylveon Hyper Voice vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Dragalge: 175-207 (64.5 - 76.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Excuse me??????????????????
edit: actually i dont think i would mind giving soul dew a go, latios and latias are susceptible to plenty of stuff besides special attacks \o/
252+ SpA Choice Specs Sylveon Psyshock vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Dragalge: 278-328 (102.5 - 121%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Its go that going for it I guess lol.

Also Soul Dew would turn Lati@s into insane Rain / Sun checks, giving them great a natural bulk as well as extreme strength to take out a multitude of threats. They'd also be amazing Tailwind setters, so if they aren't destroying shit, a teammate would be.
 
If I remember correct, it works as specs ONLY for Latios and assault vest ONLY for Latias, so it may not be as broken as we may first think.

Ok, so I should look stuff up before I say it, but I do remember hearing what I said somewhere else before.
 
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Anty

let's drop
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Reffering to Pwnemon's post, soul dew isnt legal in XY therefore cannot be used in competitive battling, as they (well, the leaders) try and make battling as cartridge like as possible.

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/pokebank-tier-leaders-pay-attention.3491876/
This thread kind of covers it largely.

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/pokebank-tier-leaders-pay-attention.3491876/#post-4951865
This post particularly clears it up.

Also, i highly doubt soul dew would be realised in XY mainly because Mega latios and latias. Gamefreak want people using the megas, but these pokemon are just better with the soul dew meaning there would be little to no reason to use the megas. If you also look at the hype the mega twins have been having, like flying around on them, you can see that GF want people to use the megas. There is even a new item for them, 'eon flute', to get them to fly.

The meta is fine right now (not gonna bother mentioning sleep clause), albeit slightly stale, but when ORAS gets released there will be a lot of changes. We should be concentrating on what XY will bring and how it might change the meta (a bit early to do so, but we have stats/new movepools and we can play each other via custom doubles game)
 
So I was reading through previous discussions in the thread and I thought why don't we BAN PERISH-TRAP test an uber? We decided than any uber would be op in the Metagame, but that was the meta of 3 months ago. Despite the identical ban-lists, they are definitely different metas (see Keldio and Goth).

The uber I think would make a good suspect is Ho-oh. Sun isn't as coon so Ho-oh won't be getting as many sun boosted sacred fires without severely compounding a rock weakness, it's weak to common types, has few spread moves outside of earthquake and heat wave, rock slide is still a great move, no other pokemon who's name is a palindrome is also broken, and we literally have nothing better to be doing suspect testing wise (except maybe sleep).

I know it's bulk is great, but Keldeo outspeeds and 2HKOes it! 252 SpA Life Orb Keldeo Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Ho-Oh: 320-377 (76.9 - 90.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

What does anyone else think about Ho-oh?
 
So I was reading through previous discussions in the thread and I thought why don't we BAN PERISH-TRAP test an uber? We decided than any uber would be op in the Metagame, but that was the meta of 3 months ago. Despite the identical ban-lists, they are definitely different metas (see Keldio and Goth).

The uber I think would make a good suspect is Ho-oh. Sun isn't as coon so Ho-oh won't be getting as many sun boosted sacred fires without severely compounding a rock weakness, it's weak to common types, has few spread moves outside of earthquake and heat wave, rock slide is still a great move, no other pokemon who's name is a palindrome is also broken, and we literally have nothing better to be doing suspect testing wise (except maybe sleep).

I know it's bulk is great, but Keldeo outspeeds and 2HKOes it! 252 SpA Life Orb Keldeo Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Ho-Oh: 320-377 (76.9 - 90.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

What does anyone else think about Ho-oh?



ho-oh would easily be one of the single most broken things in like all of the tier lol. fire/flying is fucking fantastic coverage and when you already have a top tier threat with that physical coverage and 81 BASE ATTACK, imagine pumping 50 points into that and making its bulk absolutely ludicrous. A lot of weak rock slides don't kill it, unlike zard and tflame, and sacred fire is such a stupidly good move that really pushes it over the line and out the fucking door.

252+ Atk Life Orb Ho-Oh Brave Bird vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Keldeo: 611-720 (189.1 - 222.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

2hko won't do shit

also, the meta really hasn't changed too much in the past three-ish months, contrary to what you think. doubles is an incredibly stable meta and a few mons phasing in and out of popularity isn't really drastic enough to consider dropping an uber. also "we have nothing better to do" is plain wrong, we're wrapping up this gen and I'd think it'd be absolutely idiotic to consider doing this when ORAS is right around the corner.
 
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ho-oh would easily be one of the single most broken things in like all of the tier lol. fire/flying is fucking fantastic coverage and when you already have a top tier threat with that physical coverage and 81 BASE ATTACK, imagine pumping 50 points into that and making its bulk absolutely ludicrous. A lot of weak rock slides don't kill it, unlike zard and tflame, and sacred fire is such a stupidly good move that really pushes it over the line and out the fucking door.

252+ Atk Life Orb Ho-Oh Brave Bird vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Keldeo: 611-720 (189.1 - 222.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

2hko won't do shit

also, the meta really hasn't changed too much in the past three-ish months, contrary to what you think. doubles is an incredibly stable meta and a few mons phasing in and out of popularity isn't really drastic enough to consider dropping an uber. also "we have nothing better to do" is plain wrong, we're wrapping up this gen and I'd think it'd be absolutely idiotic to consider doing this when ORAS is right around the corner.
It's no more powerful some other common attackers in the tier (it's tied with garchomp and Terrekion), it has a bad defensive typing, it has a really awkward spread tier, and it's beaten by some common mons in the tier.

Many mons in he tier nearly get an OHKO, and they miss it by such a small margin that almost any prior damage will result in a KO. All of how calcs are from either faster mons or mons that can live a hit.
252 Atk Life Orb Garchomp Rock Slide vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Ho-Oh: 348-411 (83.6 - 98.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Terrakion Rock Slide vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Ho-Oh: 520-614 (125 - 147.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Landorus-T Rock Slide vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Ho-Oh: 316-376 (75.9 - 90.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Mega Manectric Thunder vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Ho-Oh: 254-302 (61 - 72.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
 

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