Banning sleep moves in Gen 5

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JabbaTheGriffin

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talked to phil about wanted to nominate sleep moves he said i should make a pr topic on it

Sleep has always been extremely good, but the most recent mechanic changes push it from good to broken. With the sleep timer resetting every time you switch out, a mon that was put to sleep is often effectively fainted for the entirety of the battle. There is no more using smart play to tick turns off your timer, if you're asleep, you're fucked. Pokemon using sleep moves often get the pseudo-kill by putting something to sleep and then are able to do what they would do normally, making pokemon like Darkrai and Breloom seem much better than they actually are.

So, I think we should consider and talk about it and not leave it completely out of the discussion because of how major it would be to take something out of the game that has been there since gen 1. The new mechanics have really just screwed it up to an insane degree. You can almost equate them to ohko moves with much higher accuracy that can only be blocked by switching in a mon with status, which is usually unreliable at best (especially against darkrai and breloom). I'm not sure where the discussion lies here, but since I was asked to post this if I really want a ban on sleep moves considered I'll try to have something productive actually come in. Like um...should we consider banning moves if they are broken (outside of our evasion/ohko bans which are mostly rooted in luck i guess, but i still think it's equivalently the same thing)?
 

locopoke

Banned deucer.
I was actually thinking about bringing this up myself, playing in a metagame with Darkrai has shown me how broken sleep really is this gen. I agree with all of the points made in the OP.
 

Oglemi

Borf
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I know I'm walking into a shitstorm and hate war when I say this, but here it goes:

Is it possible that we can just change the mechanics of Sleep back to the way they were? I know this seems highly unethical, and its been debated over the whole "team viewer" debacle and the whole "sticking strictly to the game cartridge mechanics" debate.

But really? If something that has never been broken and the mechanics of which haven't been changed from Gen. 1, why live with it the way it is now? Is it really that big of a deal? We're not talking about changing how the game is played, just a tiny minor part of it back to the way it once was.

We could just change it back and say we changed it because it was a programming error on Game Freak's / Nintendo's part, (which is still a highly plausible case.)

Or, to make people happy, we could ban Gen. 5 Sleep mechanics and re-implement Gen. 4 sleep mechanics.

Just throwing my opinion out there.

On banning moves: no
 

cim

happiness is such hard work
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I haven't played the new meta so I don't have an opinion on how broken sleep is, but I'd like to see discussion on the viability or necessity of carrying a dedicated Sleep Talker on your team. At least on paper with the new mechanics, a Sleep Talk Choice Band / Specs Pokemon would remain asleep "forever", preventing anything else from being put to sleep while still firing powerful attacks. That's the only real question I have in this regard.

---

Changing the game mechanics at all means we're not playing Pokemon and any battle that we have cannot be played on a cartridge. Not happening.
 

Firestorm

I did my best, I have no regrets!
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I know I'm walking into a shitstorm and hate war when I say this, but here it goes:

Is it possible that we can just change the mechanics of Sleep back to the way they were? I know this seems highly unethical, and its been debated over the whole "team viewer" debacle and the whole "sticking strictly to the game cartridge mechanics" debate.

But really? If something that has never been broken and the mechanics of which haven't been changed from Gen. 1, why live with it the way it is now? Is it really that big of a deal? We're not talking about changing how the game is played, just a tiny minor part of it back to the way it once was.

We could just change it back and say we changed it because it was a programming error on Game Freak's / Nintendo's part, (which is still a highly plausible case.)

Or, to make people happy, we could ban Gen. 5 Sleep mechanics and re-implement Gen. 4 sleep mechanics.

Just throwing my opinion out there.

On banning moves: no
No. We are not here to interpret "errors" on the developer's parts. We are playing Generation V. We will use Generation V mechanics.

I personally don't see a difference between banning Sleep moves and banning Evasion / OHKO moves.
 

Jackal

I'm not retarded I'm Canadian it's different
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I personally don't see a difference between banning Sleep moves and banning Evasion / OHKO moves.
How about the fact that one is relying on a strategy that revolves completely around luck while the other doesn't?

I have played a good amount of gen 5 and sleep doesn't seem to be that much better or worse than it was last gen. To be completely honest with you, I did not even know about that mechanic change until I read it right now. I also use a breloom on my main (only) team. The fact that it has never come to my attention is pretty good testament to the fact that it isn't too relevant.

There are counters to sleep moves: abilities, Sleep Talk, having something with status, heal bell, etc. If you don't carry one of these, you have to "sac" a pokemon essentially. Once you do that the sleep threat is over. It is no different than any attacking move. If your team doesn't have a good counter for CB Garchomp, chances are you are gonna have to sac something to take that Outrage or whatever.

I run Breloom and from my experience it is one of the least broken pokemon on my team. I have faced plenty of Darkrai, and while my team can handle it well, I can see why it is considered such a threat. I feel that is a case where the pokemon is the problem, not the move.

All other sleep moves are really too inaccurate to really claim are broken. Were talking about a move that best case scenario takes out one pokemon, and unless it is Spore or Dark Void, it has shit accuracy. Tricking a choice item onto the right pokemon serves this exact same purpose.

So basically just get a counter to sleep moves on your team if it is that much of a problem. There are a lot more counters to sleep moves than there are counters to spikes, yet we aren't looking to ban those. Spikes/SR/etc puts up way more of a threat to a team, and is only countered by one move that can be stopped pretty easily.
 

reyscarface

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Take into account that the amount of turns you can be asleep also dropped, which makes 1 and 2 turn sleeps happen oh so often.

Because of that and the amount of things you can use to "escape" Sleep (what Jackal said), id say no on banning them.
 
I whole-heartedly agree with the OP. However, I would absolutely love to follow Oglemi's idea of implementing previous generation sleep mechanics, but unfortunately the Smogon 5th Generation policy is against that, and it would variate from Wi-Fi play.

Sleep moves are actually very similar to OHKO moves as identified in the OP. In the current state of 5th gen, where it is pretty much just attack! attack! attack!, you cannot afford to leave your Pokemon in for 3 turns or however many, as ridiculous Pokemon are just waiting for the right opportunity to set-up. You also cannot switch out, as obviously your sleep counter resets. If we are making the comparison of sleep moves to OHKO moves, banning the accurate ones would not be a good idea. If we banned Spore and Dark Void, and even perhaps Sleep Powder, the only sleep moves will be moves like Grasswhistle and Hypnosis. With their accuracies, they are relying on luck just like OHKO moves, although with much better odds.

Honestly, I think something that definitely warrants consideration, or at least a discussion, is changing the sleep clause so you can only sleep one Pokemon per game...as we cannot really ban moves and banning sleep on a whole will be a bit too drastic for some people. We cannot deviate away from in-game mechanics either.
 

TheFourthChaser

#TimeForChange
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A Pokemon with 125 base speed, 135 base special attack, and access to a move like Nasty Plot is going to make Sleep seem more broken. The only obvious sleep abuse I can think of once Darkrai is banned(anyone that has played knows this will happen) will be Breloom which isn't nearly as dangerous as Darkrai, until we see how Sleep moves are in that meta I don't agree with the banning of them.
 

Chou Toshio

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I would have to agree with the OP that considering sleep for ban deserves some looking into. I used Breloom for the entirety of the suspect period (some dabbling into darkrai), and I honest cannot say that it is completely fair. Even a pokemon like Breloom gets an almost "guaranteed kill" and then subs up to destroy another enemy.

That said, Xatu is essentially a perfect breloom counter, and it does seem that pokemon have a way of waking up at just the wrong time. I think it is worthy of note that while Darkrai spanks Xatu, Xatu in turn can handle almost all grass types trying to abuse it.

It might be worth a round after Darkrai is banned, but I can definitely see banning sleep sometime in the future as feasible.

edit: Yeah, Oglemi, I don't think that's a good idea-- not only for where Phil has currently set our philosophy, but in general that seems like a very large mechanics adjustment, largely unfounded.
 

Seven Deadly Sins

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Just a question... how would Rest factor into this? I assume that the 2 turns spent sleeping would just become a risk that the player has to take into account when they use Rest.

For that matter, how would Rest + Psycho Shift work? Would the combination of Rest + Psycho Shift + Sleep Talk become banned? How would we handle that?

Also, by no means should we even consider altering Generation 5's sleep mechanics. That would be a massive step back for the generation, and would just open up a whole host of issues.

A Pokemon with 125 base speed, 135 base special attack, and access to a move like Nasty Plot is going to make Sleep seem more broken. The only obvious sleep abuse I can think of once Darkrai is banned(anyone that has played knows this will happen) will be Breloom which isn't nearly as dangerous as Darkrai, until we see how Sleep moves are in that meta I don't agree with the banning of them.
Spore Breloom, Morobareru, or Smeargle. Hypnosis Bronzong or Gengar. Sleep Powder Venusaur / Tangrowth / any one of a number of Pokemon that get Sleep Powder (made doubly threatening by Drought Ninetales). That's a whole lot of viable Sleep users. Breloom is obviously the most effective after Darkrai, but considering the case of stuff like Gengar which can become super-threatening after a Substitute, or Smeargle, which uses Spore simply as a means to set up something nastier.

It's not just Darkrai. Sure, Darkrai makes things worse, but it's just the general fact that Sleep basically equals death in this metagame. Sleep Talk is rare among the new Pokemon, and carrying it on Pokemon other than RestTalkers is a liability and generally a waste of a moveslot.
 

cim

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For that matter, how would Rest + Psycho Shift work? Would the combination of Rest + Psycho Shift + Sleep Talk become banned? How would we handle that?
The simplest clause would be "At the end of each turn, if any Pokemon are asleep via any mechanism other than Rest, the opposing team loses." Can't see how that would be exploitable.
 

Seven Deadly Sins

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Sounds good.

"If at the end of any turn, a Pokemon is asleep by any means other than its own Rest, The opponent loses."

Not that this is what should "become law," but it's a good starting point.
 

Deck Knight

Blast Off At The Speed Of Light! That's Right!
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SDS didn't even get into all the viable uses of Yawn when talking about Sleep.

Sleep is as irritating and powerful as it ever was, but I don't see how it's banworthy. The new Pokemon don't tend to have Sleep Talk a lot but pretty much every old pokemon does. Having a pokemon asleep was a huge liability last generation as well, since that was offensive enough you couldn't find much time to wake up. As it stands, the issue seems to be "Sleep + Hyperoffensive threats" that don't give you the time to set up or stop them.

Are we going to ban Effect Spore because it has a small chance to cause sleep on contact? Or just tell players "Don't use Effect Spore it sucks and now it can even make you autolose."
 

panamaxis

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I could write up a variation on what Jackal, TFC and rey said but for now I'll just say I agree with them. Darkrai is the only sleep abuser I've ever had trouble with, sure sleep got better but its still not that widespread and Gen 5 introduced a couple of new ways to get around it (Poison Heal Gliscor and Magic Mirror being the 2 most prominent but there's even random stuff like herbivore and lum berry + harvest that works).

Keep in mind the large majority of sleep abusers get dominated by the 2 things previously mentioned, sleep probably seems really good atm because darkrai is really the only one that can easily get around the most common ways of stopping it. This is without taking into account the things mentioned by Jackal plus the reduction in number of turns sleeping.

I think it would be interesting to see people's opinion on sleep moves if darkrai gets banned. I'm all for discussing it but atm I really don't believe it's ban worthy.

Essentially, in my experience it's not sleep that's hard to get around, it's darkrai...
 
I personally don't see a difference between banning Sleep moves and banning Evasion / OHKO moves.
All moves banned under OHKO clause or Evasion clause are effect-wise equivalent moves. Sleep moves also include a self-inducing move and a damaging move with Sleep as a secundary effect, therefore they are not the same. I disagree with CIM's proposal as his definition includes Ancient Song and Effect Spore. Which could lead to a temporary banishment of Morobareru which currently only has Effect Spore and a permanent banishment of Meroetta's step form when it becomes released. My proposal for this 'clause' is the fellowing:

A player cannot use non-damaging moves that have a chance to put an opposing pokemon to sleep.

All moves banned under this definition are equivalent, making this clause similar to OHKO and Evasion clause.


Regardless i disagree with JabbaTheGriffin's proposal to ban sleep moves if only for philosophical reasons. In the past the banishment of a pokemon to the uber tier was a serious issue that involved a lot of discussion. However when reading through the current suspect nomination topic, i see people nominating 5 different pokemon but don't even bother to write a well thought-out reasoning behind it. I'm afraid that this new mentality towards banning pokemon will only get worse when we start to ban series of equivalent moves.
 

monkfish

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i dont see how the change in mechanics has suddenly made sleep broken. its been pretty much a standard part of teambuilding to have a status taker since forever. also i dont think using up a turn here and there to tick down the sleep counter was ever a popular play was it?? id usually just send something bulky in to take the sleep, so it can still serve as a wall later.

not to mention we have lots of ways to handle sleep right now. magic mirror, natural cure, hydration, insomnia, poison heal, taunt, sub, magic coat... the list goes on
 

B-Lulz

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From my experience sleep has gotten worse. The mechanic itself is annoying but the fact that a lot of the time you wake up 1st or 2nd turn anyway, not to mention the aforementioned counters to sleep, I don't think it is banworthy at all.
 
Really I don't see how you can find sleep in 5th Gen ban worthy, if anything sleep isn't as good as in gen 4 since 1 or 2 turn sleeps are much more likely.
 
I don't know about "much more likely", but as I understand it, the counter range was 2-5 in previous generations and is 1-4 in this generation (including the wake-up turn). Correct?

Anyway, I agree with everything that mien said. However, I would like to emphasize that I don't see anything inherently wrong with actually nominating sleep. I don't see a point in comparing it to previous generations; if it's broken in this generation, it's broken in this generation. That said, I don't really see what the big deal is. Does it really affect anyone in any way other than bookkeeping?
 

eric the espeon

maybe I just misunderstood
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If anything I have found sleep to be significantly weaker this gen due to the drop in turns. Unlike before where 3+ turn sleep was common and being put to sleep made a Pokemon effectively a dead weight (and seriously, smart switching + attacking with a sleeping Pokemon to wear away sleep turns was highly situational at best), you can now stay in and usually wake up soon enough that the foe has not had time to set up to the extent that you can't stop them. Of course, there are some exceptions (Darkrai, Breloom) but they should be dealt with on their own merits rather than by introducing a gamewide ban on a major status, and Breloom is perfectly counterable.

That said, I can see a ban on sleep moves considered as a replacement to a cartage sleep clause on grounds of simplicity/reduced arbitrariness. Don't think I agree with it (larger than necessary competitive change), but a case could be made.

And as for reimplementing gen 4 mechanics.. go read the crit removal thread. Multiply the response to that by about 2 since it is even harder to justify that messing with Sleep mechanics would improve the game, and the changes would be much more complex. That's how I feel about this suggestion.
 

Great Sage

Banned deucer.
I agree that a lot of the angst about sleep this generation is conflated with angst about Darkrai, which also happens to have excellent stats and usually doesn't die in one hit (!). Sure, sleep is irritating and it always will be irritating, but it's nowhere near broken. Even though I've been on the wrong end of 3-turn sleeps many times, 1-3 turns is not so extreme as to be gamebreaking.
 

Andy Snype

Mr. Music
In my experience with 5th gen, the only annoying trait about 5th gen is the resetting of the counters. The only sleep user that I've found troublesome is Darkrai due to its ability to setup easily against many teams and heavily dent the switchins that expect sleep. The rest (Breloom, Smeargle, (I haven't found any Morobaeru, so no opinion on that)) have been just nuisances to play around; nothing is really broken about how they Sleep the enemy.

While I do agree with Heist's point about how everything is attack, attack, attack in this meta, do note that there is team preview in this metagame, so if you need to sacrifice something to sleep, it should be something that is the least useful to handle the opponent's team, and if you know what the opponent's team is, you should have a good idea on what to give up.

Therefore, I feel that it is best to examine Sleep Clause if Darkrai gets banned from Standard, because its presence in Standard influences our perspectives on Sleep.
 

haunter

Banned deucer.
Essentially, in my experience it's not sleep that's hard to get around, it's darkrai...
I couldn't agree more with panamaxis here. Sleep is overhyped in these early stages of the 5th Gen metagame because of Darkrai. With Darkrai hopefully banned after the first round of testing, I believe that we'll just get used to the new sleep mechanics. In my opinion this discussion is premature.
 
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