Lavos
Banned deucer.
22:08 Lavos aldaron would it be acceptable to open up a separate discussion for baton pass in bw?
22:08 Lavos i feel like the current thread is clogged with too much multi gen discussion
22:08 aldaron acceptable and encouraged
22:08 Lavos cool
22:08 aldaron bp shouldnt be a catch all across the gens
as the above logs demonstrate, it's important that we have a clear and purposeful realm to discuss baton pass in every relevant generation, and the current thread is getting really messy with 4 generations being discussed, so i'm taking the initiative to open this thread solely for the purpose of discussing baton pass and its uncompetitiveness in the 5th gen. nothing is going to get done when the TDs have to sort through so many disconnected opinions.
let's get started shall we?
and if anyone's unfamiliar with bp in bw, standard full pass squad is ninjask/espeon/vaporeon/mr.mime/mew/smeargle. all doing what you'd expect. notable moves include flash on ninjask, encore on mr.mime, spore and ingrain on smeargle, aqua ring on vaporeon, and stored power on espeon.
i'll try to spark some conversation with my opinion, which is that baton pass in conjunction with speed boosting should be banned in bw. there's no strategy which utilizes this combination other than full bp which is the problem in this tier. stuff like nasty plot bp celebi is perfectly fine. however full bp creates a situation in which you either have the answer or you don't. and even when you do, you can still lose. shoutout to omfuga's haze politoed. essentially the issue is that full baton pass is almost purely reliant on team matchup similar to how sun offense teams operate, but to an even greater degree. sun was largely removed from wcop bw ou play for this reason, not to mention that forcing matchup to decide entire games is nearly universally agreed to be uncompetitive and unhealthy for any metagame. i think individually the components of the full bp team aren't op, but when combined they are nearly unstoppable. ninjask getting +3 means everything on the bp team outspeeds the entire metagame sans scarfers, who never pack enough damage to threaten bp once it starts boosting. even after a t1 protect, ninjask will outspeed every choice scarfer. i guess electrode would be the exception and i think i'm the only person who has ever used that shit competitively. ninjask's ability to use flash is an annoyance that can't be overstated, stuff that tries to switch in and break its sub to force it out lacking protection can be lucked out of a play which the game hinges on. additionally, smeargle's spore can neutralize a phazer, which bw teams rarely pack more than one of. and smeargle plus vaporeon with ingrain and aqua ring respectively means that the bp user is gaining 18% per turn, almost enough to make up for perpetual substitutes. the natural bulk of the pokemon who boost defenses (vaporeon for acid armor and mew for amnesia) also contribute to how hard full bp is to stop. but these aren't the biggest problems. the scariest part of bw baton pass lies in mr.mime and espeon, or more importantly, encore and magic bounce. soundproof is pretty dumb yeah, and it blocks roar, but mr.mime's key strength really lies in encore which means setup sweepers, something one would initially assume could break the bp chain, can't do shit because they are in constant fear of being locked into their setup move and boosted on for eternity. and magic bounce means phazing and hazards won't work either. the one saving grace is that espeon's pretty frail so getting hazards up early is a possibility. even so, only ninjask takes a ton from rocks, and once it gets a couple boosts under its belt it's done the job it needs to do and won't be coming in much more. so what happens in a standard game of bw where one player brings full baton pass is either 1) the bp user has his/her chain broken by an early crit or otherwise unfavorable luck, or 2) the bp user boosts to 5 stats of +6 and then gets espeon in to stored power everything for OHKOs from 3 million base damage. and that sucks regardless of which outcome occurs because it's matchup all the way down.
22:08 Lavos i feel like the current thread is clogged with too much multi gen discussion
22:08 aldaron acceptable and encouraged
22:08 Lavos cool
22:08 aldaron bp shouldnt be a catch all across the gens
as the above logs demonstrate, it's important that we have a clear and purposeful realm to discuss baton pass in every relevant generation, and the current thread is getting really messy with 4 generations being discussed, so i'm taking the initiative to open this thread solely for the purpose of discussing baton pass and its uncompetitiveness in the 5th gen. nothing is going to get done when the TDs have to sort through so many disconnected opinions.
let's get started shall we?
and if anyone's unfamiliar with bp in bw, standard full pass squad is ninjask/espeon/vaporeon/mr.mime/mew/smeargle. all doing what you'd expect. notable moves include flash on ninjask, encore on mr.mime, spore and ingrain on smeargle, aqua ring on vaporeon, and stored power on espeon.
i'll try to spark some conversation with my opinion, which is that baton pass in conjunction with speed boosting should be banned in bw. there's no strategy which utilizes this combination other than full bp which is the problem in this tier. stuff like nasty plot bp celebi is perfectly fine. however full bp creates a situation in which you either have the answer or you don't. and even when you do, you can still lose. shoutout to omfuga's haze politoed. essentially the issue is that full baton pass is almost purely reliant on team matchup similar to how sun offense teams operate, but to an even greater degree. sun was largely removed from wcop bw ou play for this reason, not to mention that forcing matchup to decide entire games is nearly universally agreed to be uncompetitive and unhealthy for any metagame. i think individually the components of the full bp team aren't op, but when combined they are nearly unstoppable. ninjask getting +3 means everything on the bp team outspeeds the entire metagame sans scarfers, who never pack enough damage to threaten bp once it starts boosting. even after a t1 protect, ninjask will outspeed every choice scarfer. i guess electrode would be the exception and i think i'm the only person who has ever used that shit competitively. ninjask's ability to use flash is an annoyance that can't be overstated, stuff that tries to switch in and break its sub to force it out lacking protection can be lucked out of a play which the game hinges on. additionally, smeargle's spore can neutralize a phazer, which bw teams rarely pack more than one of. and smeargle plus vaporeon with ingrain and aqua ring respectively means that the bp user is gaining 18% per turn, almost enough to make up for perpetual substitutes. the natural bulk of the pokemon who boost defenses (vaporeon for acid armor and mew for amnesia) also contribute to how hard full bp is to stop. but these aren't the biggest problems. the scariest part of bw baton pass lies in mr.mime and espeon, or more importantly, encore and magic bounce. soundproof is pretty dumb yeah, and it blocks roar, but mr.mime's key strength really lies in encore which means setup sweepers, something one would initially assume could break the bp chain, can't do shit because they are in constant fear of being locked into their setup move and boosted on for eternity. and magic bounce means phazing and hazards won't work either. the one saving grace is that espeon's pretty frail so getting hazards up early is a possibility. even so, only ninjask takes a ton from rocks, and once it gets a couple boosts under its belt it's done the job it needs to do and won't be coming in much more. so what happens in a standard game of bw where one player brings full baton pass is either 1) the bp user has his/her chain broken by an early crit or otherwise unfavorable luck, or 2) the bp user boosts to 5 stats of +6 and then gets espeon in to stored power everything for OHKOs from 3 million base damage. and that sucks regardless of which outcome occurs because it's matchup all the way down.
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