np: BW Ubers Suspect Round 2 - U Can't Touch This (UPDATE: EVASION UNBANNED!)

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Exactly, that was the original meaning. We are now bringing that meaning into question.

The OU bit was just to avoid it being brought up when I pointed out the ineffectiveness of Iron Head Jirachi haxing. Evasion is just as useless in Ubers. (Jirachi is kind of a bad example as it hasn't be banned so why should it be a reason that Evasion should be?)

I want to remind you of Poppy's post in the first suspect test concerning the mindset in the case of unbanning. We are looking for a lack of reasons to ban, not a lack of reasons to unban or anything else.

My point is that it's silly to ban something that almost everybody agrees is underwhelming and inefficient just because it CAN with enough hax steal a game from you. If your opponent is going to take that risk, odds are you are going to win the game. We might as well ban T-Wave and Confuse Ray because of the chance that you can get haxed out of a win.
 
Finally got my reqs, tho it took way too long. Being someone who had never played ubers before a couple weeks ago, I'd like to say that I actually enjoyed the metagame quite a bit and it seems like a cool tier to play. That said, my ladder run itself was a load of shit, but that's not a surprise.

As far as evasion goes, I barely saw any of it. I'd say I saw it about 3-4 times, and I won all of these matches besides one, which I lostsimply due to not being able to land my attacks. Evasion is not really viable and is obviously a huge gamble, and it definitely will not be used in tourneys or even on the ladder to great effect. Winning with evasion requires copious amounts of luck, but this can be said about many things. Fundamentally it isn't broken, but it isn't really something we (or at least I) would want in the metagame either. Still, I'll probably end up voting not to retain unless something manages to change my mind.
 
Surprisingly, I haven't come across Evasion abusers that often.

(But I am NOT looking forward to testing Moody or Sleep Clause. Although testing the Species Clause is gonna be hilarious...)
 

Enguarde

I only play ADV UU
is a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
Got Ubers requirements.



Pretty much what I've said previously in this thread, the risk/reward of using Evasion moves just doesn't pay off enough times, and that giving up a moveslot for such a gimmick is such a hard thing to do. Plus Thunder always hits under rain so Pokemon such as Kyogre and Palkia have the potential to hit you regardless if you run Double Team/Minimize.
 
Really? I thought it just boosted its accuracy from 70% to 100% before applying evasion modifiers.
If that's the case then anything weak to Electric such as Starmie and Drifblim (who both happen to learn Minimize) can't make good use of evasion. Pity, because they resist/are immune to Aura Sphere.
That's one of the Gen 5 changes. In gen 4 and earlier, Thunder+Rain was 100% accuracy, now it's perfect accuracy. Since this is the first time 100% accuracy moves could miss in a competitive environment, I'm not surprised many people missed that change.

And yeah, Thunder+Aura Sphere+Sacred Sword means that Chandelure is the only mon that can at all exploit Minimize. Everything else that's viable* is hit SE by one of those. Now, if Shadow Tag Chandelure was released, we might be seeing a very different test, but that might be more balanced, not less(Groudon becomes more common, ExtremeKiller becomes less common, etc). As-is, Chandelure is just not bulky enough, even with Minimize+Substitute, to set up.

*Blissey, Drifblim, Starmie
 

AfroThunderRule

*yawn* ez
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
Maybe this isn't the best place to post this but is there any chance of moving the ladder a bit back, or maybe lowing the deviation requirement for the ladder? I don't know how long this issue has gone but today about 30% of my matches didn't count towards my ACRE/Glicko2/Deviation totals, it's annoying and it's pretty hard to find the time to ladder since (I assume many people face this problem aswell) people have finals coming up.

Edit: Regardless I made it to 55 deviation.





It's interesting how I played so many fewer games than other people with 55 deviation. Hmm.
 

Lavos

Banned deucer.
Maybe this isn't the best place to post this but is there any chance of moving the ladder a bit back, or maybe lowing the deviation requirement for the ladder? I don't know how long this issue has gone but today about 30% of my matches didn't count towards my ACRE/Glicko2/Deviation totals, it's annoying and it's pretty hard to find the time to ladder since (I assume many people face this problems aswell) have finals coming up.
I'd like to second this. Me and a few other people I've talked to are having a really hard time getting our deviations down to 55. We don't have a lot of time on our hands what with finals to study for and all, and 55 takes a ton of time to get to even if you do have all the time in the world, which we unfortunately do not. I wouldn't ask this or even bring this up if I didn't think it needed addressing. I just can't feasibly get my variation low enough for reqs with the time I have on hand. The ladder itself isn't the problem, I'm currently #1 rank, it's the time it takes to get all the way down to 55 deviation that's the problem...sorry about this shoddy post as I'm in a hurry (schoolwork to do haha) I just feel some change needs to be implemented to account for the many users who are suffering the same problem as me right now.
 

Focus

Ubers Tester Extraordinaire
It took 105 matches before I saw someone use an evasion-boosting move. I could maybe be tempted to say that something you can expect to see in 5% of matches may be bad for the metagame, but the rarity of these moves DURING A SUSPECT TEST is truly a sight to behold. From my experience, there is certainly not enough reason to keep these moves banned. Four moveslot syndrome and overall lack of good abusers make the prospect of rebanning Double Team and Minimize seem silly. Bans shouldn't be on principle only, but rather if they make the metagame significantly worse. This suspect test has shown that in the Ubers environment, carrying evasion moves is a liability. Cleaning up the clause list a little at ~0 cost to the metagame seems the right thing to do. (Evasion Moves Clause doesn't quite roll of the tongue, does it?)
 
I quite literally haven't seen evasion at all so far on the ladder. It's just business as usual. Evasion seems to be a complete non-factor. I personally dislike evasion (or rather, the extra factor of luck it introduces in a game that already has an excruciating number of luck factors), but it is clearly having little effect on the metagame since I keep hearing the same story of people rarely, if ever seeing, it on ladder. It would seem that evasion is either so ineffective or so uninteresting that people simply don't want to use it. Maybe people just haven't gone and broken it yet, but I'm having a hard time believing that we're going to decide that Minimize + Baton Pass makes Drifblim or something like that too much of a threat for Ubers to handle. (Actually now that I think about it, though, Minimize / Spore / Shell Smash / Baton Pass Smeargle sounds like an asshole. I'll test that if it doesn't make me feel like too much of a dick.)

Unbanning evasion does bring more luck factors into the game, but it seems to have a more than balancing opportunity cost, and is arguably even less powerful or luck-oriented than say, paralysis. Not that the two are directly comparable, and not that I'm even remotely attempting to imply that paralysis is a problem; I'm just trying to underline how seemingly unproblematic evasion is. If it was really a problem I think we'd be well aware of it by now. Maybe people simply don't *like* using evasion moves, because it's been ingrained in our heads that evasion is bad for the game. Maybe they simply consider it not fun enough to use or not rewarding enough to be worth the hassle. It could explain why there's so little of it that it might as well be non-existent (though it's surely a multi-faceted reason). In fact a few of us were betting that Shaymin-S will see more use than the move Double Team as a whole during this test.

So yeah I'm leaning heavily towards "Do Not Retain" at the moment. (Now there's a sentence I never though I would type)
 

Furai

we will become who we are meant to be
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Theorymon yelled at me to post here, so here I am. :(

Basically, for abusing Evasion, like many others, I mainly ran a Baton Pass team. It wasn't exactly great, as it's very prone to hax and everything needs to go smooth, but it's so much fun. For my Evasion abuser, I used Drifblim.

Drifblim (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Aftermath
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Minimize
- Substitute
- Baton Pass
- Disable

Here is a proof of how effective this set is. Completely shuts down Choiced Kyogres, Arceus, Darkrai, Terrakion (FUK Taunt), and more. Substitute scouts the move, Disable disables it. Make sure you use this with Speed support; it will not be able to defeat the aforementioned Pokemon at +0 (even +1 Speed would work). Minimize is really really strong, it's nowhere close to Double Team; you're taking less turn to setup, and because of that the opponent has less chance to hit you during the turns you setup. When they DO hit you though, good luck.
 

Furai

we will become who we are meant to be
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Team Rater Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Past SPL Champion
If it's raining anything with Thunder will outright OHKO Drifblim. And considering everything in ubers with access with Thunder is faster and that set is the only reason you'd use Drifblim in that tier, I find it to be a complete non-threat.
Pair it with Celebi and you've got yourself a deadly Baton Pass combination. Plus, I already said that you should pair it with a Speed booster, otherwise it would not work. Not to mention, I did say the Disable completely destorys all of those, especially Choiced ones, so please read much more carefully next time.
 

Dark Fallen Angel

FIDDLESTICKS IS ALSO GOOD ON MID!
I've actually started playing with a sun team with a tanking Ho-Oh with Brave Bird, Sacred Fire, Whirlwind and Roost. It does well againt teams dedicated to evasion. Actually, it completely shut down them. You don't actually need to predict that much. They are almost always going to lead with Ninjask. You then, can use either Brave Bird or Whirlwind. I prefer Whirlwind, as they generally use Protect, but if they use sub, I can kill the next switch-in with the apropriate move. But if they protect and switch their Espeon, Brave Bird kills that Espeon.

So, basically, Ho-Oh is the bane of BP evasion teams.

I am still inclined to vote to retain the evasion clause, though. It's another luck element that I think that is unecessary and unhealthy for the metagame. However, I am watching all arguments in favor. And preparing for evasion isn't actually hard. Maybe if this metagame wasn't so hard-hitting, centered on rain, and with Thunder looking on every corner, Evasion would be broken. But at this time... I am not sure.

It's a shame that I couldn't link the last battle that I was, against a BP evasion team, though I battled with someone named Furai. No matter what he did, Ho-Oh always disrupted its plans.

Also, I am also having difficulty to lower my deviation to less than 55.

EDIT: lol, I didn't even had noticed that Furai was the above poster. Furai, I was the guy that defeated you with Ho-Oh, and sincerely, these type of team are always defeated by Ho-Oh.
 

Pocket

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LOL, DFA, Furai is a mod of this forum ;0 - know your leaders!

Note that evasion clause was banned because of the luck factor. However, Ubers senators have decided to test it despite this fact, in order to include as much non-broken elements back into this metagame. If your only reason to retain evasion clause is because that it's an additional chance element, then that's really not a viable reason to have it out of Ubers.

From what I've seen through my laddering experience, evasion clause virtually has 0% influence on the Ubers metagame. I used the same exact teams from last round (sans OHKO moves), and I had no problems. The fact that Evasion is so rarely seen on the ladder is a telling sign of how unimpressive and unrewarding this strategy is for most players. Compare this to OHKO moves from last round, which pretty much made running defensive CM Latias, etc a liability, evasion clause is no where near ban-worthy.
 
I haven't been playing much lately (too busy watching replays. >.>) but I have noticed that pretty much nobody uses Evasion-boosting moves. However! I do have something to report involving it. I won a battle merely because I managed to get Kyogre to +6 Evasion due to Smeargle. This isn't due to my skills, either, since I was completely cornered and would've lost if it weren't for Smeargle.

I won't be able to vote this time, either, but I'll have you know that it can turn a match around if your LUK stat is as high as mine.
 

jrp

Banned deucer.
I won't be able to vote this time, either, but I'll have you know that it can turn a match around if your LUK stat is as high as mine.
if that's a fire emblem reference, I applaud you.

Anyway, yeah. The round is ending right after finals are done which is pretty cool.

Still haven't seen any evasion abusers recently >_>
 

Lavos

Banned deucer.
Seriously, please give a deadline extension or raise the deviation requirement...I've been laddering tirelessly all day and my deviation is only down to 76, and what with studying for my six finals that are all happening in the next two days I'm afraid I don't have quite enough time to lower my deviation to the required 55. Battle animations dont help either :/

I know for a fact I'm not the only one in this situation. A couple friends of mine who are also regular suspect voters are in the same predicament as I am. That's a reasonable proportion of the informed voter base. I think whoever is in charge of this for the time being should consider changing the deadline / reqs, for the tier's sake.
 

jrp

Banned deucer.
Seriously, please give a deadline extension or raise the deviation requirement...I've been laddering tirelessly all day and my deviation is only down to 76, and what with studying for my six finals that are all happening in the next two days I'm afraid I don't have quite enough time to lower my deviation to the required 55. Battle animations dont help either :/

I know for a fact I'm not the only one in this situation. A couple friends of mine who are also regular suspect voters are in the same predicament as I am. That's a reasonable proportion of the informed voter base. I think whoever is in charge of this for the time being should consider changing the deadline / reqs, for the tier's sake.

the deviation is hardly a problem. I've been studying for finals, and I have made reqs with the proper deviation on two alts right now. it took 4 hours to do it on one of them...
 

Darkmalice

Level 3
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the deviation is hardly a problem. I've been studying for finals, and I have made reqs with the proper deviation on two alts right now. it took 4 hours to do it on one of them...
I had a deviation of about 150 after 4 hours. I have no idea how you managed to get it done in 4 hours. Even after 10 matches, my deviation was > 200, with a win ratio of 8:2. Admittely, it sometimes took about 5 mins to find a match.

Anyways, after 30 battles, I only saw evasion twice, both not on Baton Pass teams. One on a random Dialga, the other on a random Multiscale Lugia. The Dialga was unimpressive. The Lugia was initially annoying, but then I realised that it's too difficult for it to give up a moveslot for DT after realising that Lugia didn't have a phazing move, making it easily phazed out and DT insignificant. DT has proved to be more of a hinderence given its opportunity cost from what I've seen. I can't comment on Minimize though.
 

jrp

Banned deucer.
I had a deviation of about 150 after 4 hours. I have no idea how you managed to get it done in 4 hours. Even after 10 matches, my deviation was > 200, with a win ratio of 8:2. Admittely, it sometimes took about 5 mins to find a match.

Anyways, after 30 battles, I only saw evasion twice, both not on Baton Pass teams. One on a random Dialga, the other on a random Multiscale Lugia. The Dialga was unimpressive. The Lugia was initially annoying, but then I realised that it's too difficult for it to give up a moveslot for DT after realising that Lugia didn't have a phazing move, making it easily phazed out and DT insignificant. DT has proved to be more of a hinderence given its opportunity cost from what I've seen. I can't comment on Minimize though.
I mean to be honest I power laddered, at some points I had around 5 battles open.


also I think I ran into that lugia. all I did was set up a sub on it and it couldn't do anything to me.
 
Theorymon yelled at me to post here, so here I am. :(

Basically, for abusing Evasion, like many others, I mainly ran a Baton Pass team. It wasn't exactly great, as it's very prone to hax and everything needs to go smooth, but it's so much fun. For my Evasion abuser, I used Drifblim.

Drifblim (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Aftermath
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Minimize
- Substitute
- Baton Pass
- Disable

Here is a proof of how effective this set is. Completely shuts down Choiced Kyogres, Arceus, Darkrai, Terrakion (FUK Taunt), and more. Substitute scouts the move, Disable disables it. Make sure you use this with Speed support; it will not be able to defeat the aforementioned Pokemon at +0 (even +1 Speed would work). Minimize is really really strong, it's nowhere close to Double Team; you're taking less turn to setup, and because of that the opponent has less chance to hit you during the turns you setup. When they DO hit you though, good luck.
This is a cool set and all that but how does it help to deal with whatever problems BP had to deal with before? (besides trolling DTail and Roar) In any case you still have to get around the problem of dodging those 60% acc attacks the turn you use Minimize as well as the turn you go to Disable Thunder. (unless, of course, you catch a Choice locked mon or the OP switches around) The replay you showed is kind of misleading, TI should have spammed ESpeed on Ninjask instead of letting it pass a Sub to Drifblim. If he had done that, you would have never been able to bring Drifblim in with a speed boost. There is definitely some use in using such a Drifblim set but I don't think it comes anywhere near to making Baton Pass OP nor a good enough reason to ban Evasion. (Not that you made any statements supporting such ideas, anyways)
 

Smeargle @ Focus Sash
Own Tempo
Timid 20 Def / 236 SpD / 252 Spe
- Shell Smash
- Mimimize
- Baton Pass
- Spore

Quick note on the EVs: 236 SpD lets you survive Choice Scarf Palkia's Thunder (read: not Modest ScarfOgre) after Stealth Rock, which I feel is more pertinent given Minimize.

So I tested out the set for a bit on ladder, and it was surprisingly lackluster. Well, the Minimize part, I mean, because SmashPass Smeargle is still incredibly dangerous. The issue I had with the set is that most of the time, Smeargle already takes perfect advantage of the turns afforded it with just a moveset of Shell Smash / Baton Pass / Spore. Minimize is almost always going to be used on a turn you could Shell Smash or Baton Pass, and is usually not worth giving up that crucial turn. The rote, fairly safe routine of Shell Smashing as you get down to your Sash, Sporing your now slower opponent, and then Baton Passing while the opponent is helpless, becomes far more risky when you try to add Minimize to the mix. You're either sacrificing the relative safety of Smeargle's usual early gameplan if you Minimize before Shell Smashing, since Smeargle is slow enough that most threats outspeed it before it can Minimize, probably guaranteeing a broken Sash. If they miss as you Shell Smash, then great, but it's really risky to attempt to pull it off, especially when you already have a much safer and more rewarding game plan. And if you already Shell Smashed, then Minimizing becomes a whole nother case of high-risk / low-reward. Obviously, such a risk is not something you wish to take, because if you lose out Smeargle fails its primary role and at best put something to sleep.

Minimize does have a few benefits, though. For example, if you need to burn Spore before you can Shell Smash, say against Groudon, then Minimize becomes a more appealing pass option since you can send it along to an appropriate booster, and maybe even keep Smeargle's Sash intact for a SmashPass later in the game if you can manage to keep hazards off. It's not foolproof, of course, but it is nice to have something useful to pass in that kind of situation, and the chance to dodge a phaze is helpful. It's also a more considerable option against paralyzed Pokemon or Pokemon confused from Outrage, since your odds are much better. A paralyzed Pokemon can't be Spored anyway, so going for the SmashPass would be risky. Still, I'd probably prefer Magic Coat or Taunt most of the time, since I feel they have more utility. Minimize is certainly usable, but I'm not sure I would even slash it on the analysis. Definitely an AC mention though.
 

Lady Alex

Mew is blue
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
Made it



I only ran into one evasion team, and it wasn't very effective at all. When I used it myself, I had similar results. Even though evasion has been disallowed because of an inherent luck factor it introduces, I don't think the Ubers environment struggles to deal with it at all. In most instances, I think evasion is more trouble than it's worth, and I don't see it as worth keeping banned.
 
The replay you showed is kind of misleading, TI should have spammed ESpeed on Ninjask instead of letting it pass a Sub to Drifblim. If he had done that, you would have never been able to bring Drifblim in with a speed boost.
252+ Atk Life Orb Arceus-Normal ExtremeSpeed vs. 248 HP / 236+ Def Ninjask: 207-243 (63.69 - 74.76%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Ninjask survives with enough to make a Sub on turn 1 (which was the first move), use Protect on turn 2 (remember, Sub's in tact) and pass turn 3. So actually, the pass was guaranteed against Arceus, barring a crit (or, like, Overheat or something).
 

jrp

Banned deucer.
252+ Atk Life Orb Arceus-Normal ExtremeSpeed vs. 248 HP / 236+ Def Ninjask: 207-243 (63.69 - 74.76%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Ninjask survives with enough to make a Sub on turn 1 (which was the first move), use Protect on turn 2 (remember, Sub's in tact) and pass turn 3. So actually, the pass was guaranteed against Arceus, barring a crit (or, like, Overheat or something).
You could usually lead with a Dragon Tail 'mon

usually BP people ragequit the instant ninjask's recipient gets dtail'd out
 
Ah yes, you are right Ninjask would have been able to pass the speed boost if he ESpeed spammed but not a Substitute (ESpeed hits before Baton Pass). Knowing the calcs, the smartest plan would have been to Shadow Claw spam until he could KO with the ESpeed. This way Ninjask wouldn't have been able to set up a Sub nor safely pass into Drifblim. (he tried to SD off the bat and then spammed Shadow Claw instead of Espeed)
 
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