accurpressure, evasion clause? and killing last poke via certain moves?

i have been noticing that acupressure has been increasing evasion and wondering why some moves that effect evasion clause still effect do the evasion effect, now surly it would be logical for some sort of coding for the clause so it couldn't increase/decrease evasion, now i know its changing the game from the original but we have these clauses and they can be bypassed.

and i know we have self KO clause meaning you cant kill your last pokemon but why doesn't this clause work in reverse for revenge moves like destiny bond? surly killing a pokemon in that way is just as cheap as sleeping 6 pokes or fiddling with accuracy?
 

cim

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I don't think we should ban Acupressure, a badass move, just because there's a 2/7 chance or something of an accuracy/evasion mod.

Uh, Destiny Bond isn't really that cheap. It's easy to stall out of PP and the user has to faint for it to work.

Wait, people still use Self-KO Clause?
 
I love to use accupressure on drapion.
The only problem os that it often increases sp.attack.
love an evasion boost though.
 

Syberia

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Yes, people still use the self-KO clause. Otherwise you could just use a team of 6 exploders and, if something isn't going your way, force a draw 90% of the time.
 
i think destiny bond is fine. it's not broken really. i do agree with the accupressure stuff, and yes i do think it should be banned or modified on shoddy.

something that bothers me even more is bright powder. i know people usually talk about in reference to garchomp and the argument is that banning bright powder won't solve the problem on itself. however, i have yet to see a reason not to ban bright powder in its own discussion. with evasion clause, i really can't see why anyone can support bright powder. it's part of the game, yes, but we play the METAGAME. ie. we take out components that we find broken and play with that. arceus was part of the game too, yet if it was introduced into the metagame, everyone will be throwing fits.
 
Umm...I thought Arceus was part of the Uber metagame. Or am I missing something here? o_O

On Acupressure and Evasion Clause, I believe that the clause only bans moves that explicitly raise evasion -- in other words, Minimize and Double Team. Acupressure has a...1/7 chance of raising a given stat (assuming the distribution is even) if I'm counting right. I can't figure out how to phrase this in a 100% objective manner, but the point is that since it's not guaranteed to raise evasion, it's not banned. At least that's how I see it.

On BrightPowder and similar items, I personally couldn't care less if they dropped off the face of the earth. It's annoying, yes, but it's only (arguably) gamebreaking on a Garchomp under Sandstorm, and I'm not touching that topic with a 10-foot pole. Since bans are usually an all-or-nothing deal (Read: There won't be a "No BrightPowder on Garchomp" clause anytime soon.) and the actual evasion boost granted by the items is both small and incapable of being increased unless you have Sand Veil or Snow Cloak as an ability, I can't see it going anywhere anytime soon.
 

jrrrrrrr

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Topic Creator: could you polish up the original post? It's tough to take you seriously when you dont even spend the time to make sure your post is readable. Things like "and wondering why some moves that effect evasion clause still effect do the evasion effect, now surly it would be logical" is just a pain in the butt to decipher. I don't like sounding like a mini-mod, but seriously...

Anyways, the reason why moves like Acupressure and items like BrightPowder aren't banned is because there are almost always much better things to do with a pokemon holding these items. If you want to take the chance that Acupressure could boost evasion, go for it while I switch to a counter and set up. It's just too unreliable to justify using a moveslot on it.

BrightPowder is slightly different, but not by much. Most things that could use BP effectively require support from teammates (usually weather support from Tyranitar or Abomasnow), and are much better off with different items, i.e. Snow Cloak Mamoswine is usually better with a Life Orb, and Sand Veil Garchomp would like its Yache Berry or Choice Scarf/Band more often than not.

If you want to rely on your luck to bail you out, you can try it...but any serious team isn't going to rely on luck to pull them through matches.

The reason why they don't fall under evasion clause is because their benefits are much less devastating than the intentional, much greater increase in evasion that moves like Double Team and Minimize give, on top of the fact that they can be stacked very easily with few side-effects. Many people debate the legitimacy of the evasion clause in D/P, anyways, so I guess the "it's just not a big deal" argument comes into play again here.
 

obi

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I'd favor a ban on Acupressure. I think I also would favor banning BrightPowder, Lax Incense, Quick Claw, and probably some other things. I don't care that "there is usually something better" because my argument isn't "they are too powerful". I would like to minimize the effect of luck as much as possible, and these things go the opposite direction.

The real question is "Where does it end?" Banning Acupressure and the like doesn't create this slippery slope: banning anything does.
 

obi

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Unfortunately for me, I have much less power than some people think. I cannot unilaterally decide any ban.
 

jrrrrrrr

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I completely agree with the statement that luck should be minimized, I was just explaining why these things are allowed under the current standard rules.

Whether or not evasion clause is legit wasn't the question I was answering, I was answering "why does evasion clause not cover x and y". My post really didn't get across the fact that I am in complete support of the "luck ban" (as I'm calling it) that Obi described.
 

X-Act

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I don't agree that luck should be minimized. Nobody bans critical hits. Nobody bans moves that are not 100% accurate. Nobody bans Sand Veil Sandstorm Garchomp. And games between two equally-good players always go in favour of the luckier guy. Luck is an inherent part of the game. But it seems like I'm in the minority here.

I don't see why Acupressure should be banned.
 

Syberia

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I don't think 90% of teams are ghost-less considering Gengar's high usage.
I always ran Pursuit Metagross on my explosion team.

I don't agree that luck should be minimized. Nobody bans critical hits. Nobody bans moves that are not 100% accurate. Nobody bans Sand Veil Sandstorm Garchomp. And games between two equally-good players always go in favour of the luckier guy. Luck is an inherent part of the game. But it seems like I'm in the minority here.

I don't see why Acupressure should be banned.
Critical Hits are... eh. They can effect either side equally, without either player making an active decision to do anything. If you want to try to get evasion hax, you have to attach Bright Powder to one of your pokemon. Getting a critical hit occurs without either player having to do anything.

Why should less than 100% accurate moves be banned, when they can only hurt the player who decides to use them? If I don't want to risk a 15% chance of my Fire Blast missing, I'll use Flamethrower instead. It's luck, but it's luck that can easily be controlled by the player deciding to use it. If my opponent decides to use a Bright Powder Sand Veil Garchomp, I'm potentially screwed over by luck because of something beyond my control. If I use Fire Blast and it missed, I should have used Flamethrower.
 
I don't agree that luck should be minimized. Nobody bans critical hits. Nobody bans moves that are not 100% accurate. Nobody bans Sand Veil Sandstorm Garchomp. And games between two equally-good players always go in favour of the luckier guy. Luck is an inherent part of the game. But it seems like I'm in the minority here.

I don't see why Acupressure should be banned.
Then maybe "minimized" isn't the perfect word, and a wordier phrase should be chosen. What seems to be happening here regarding moves, is that we want the most balanced metagame without having the ban list too long. While I don't know much about the human brain, wouldn't it be almost impossible to find two people with exactly the same skill level? With the level of customization available in Pokemon, most of that skill level could be reflected, so without any hax, the more skilled player always wins.

I don't agree with a ban on Acupressure, though. The threat isn't big enough, and it accomplishes something else besides increasing the role luck plays.
 

jrrrrrrr

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And games between two equally-good players always go in favour of the luckier guy. Luck is an inherent part of the game.
Luck is an inherent part of the game, but don't you see anything wrong with luck determining the outcome of matches in every, or even most situations? There are so many other factors that should be prioritized over luck in a game- the combonation of team members, every move choice, style. Luck isn't necessarily a bad thing all the time, as it prevents things like Cosmic Power Jirachi from being unbeatable...but if we are adding luck into the game, the need for skill is removed and that makes the game much less fun to play in the long run. Why bother trying to get better if there is still the same, very high chance that someone in their first match can win? Situations like that should be minimized, but I can conceded that not ALL luck is a bad thing.
 
I don't see how there's a "very high chance" that someone in their first match could win at all. There's luck for sure, even with DTs, but assuming you're a battler of any skill, and you're aware of evasion existing in the current [hypothetical] metagame, you would've taken that into account.
 

jrrrrrrr

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But that's exactly the point- evasion moves are so difficult to counter that even battlers of high skill will find themselves unable to beat them consistently.

Although this discussion about evasion in general is kind of off topic, so I'll stop posting now.

edit because i said i wasnt posting again- even if the chance of hitting a DTer is better than the chance of missing it (assuming you can actually stop it from getting a couple under its belt..3 DTs is the 50/50 point iirc), "beating something consistently" is being used to mean hitting something enough times consecutively so that it can actually be KOd on top of whatever healing methods it has. While the one-turn effect of the move isn't that big a deal, I agree with you there Feni (and thank you for pointing out a potential flaw in my argument), over a couple of turns it can easily stack up to a very frustrating deficit. I was talking about the effects it has over a broader scope. Minimize Chansey from RBY and DT Umbreon seem like the best examples here- even if you CAN hit them, you will most likely not be able to hit them hard enough while they set up to take them down without some really powerful god in your favor. You can't just hit a DT user to beat them, remember that you have to knock them out too! Even though the whole "its not reliable" argument could be applied to DT, it is reliable enough to be ban-worthy...so I would say that the strategy can be very productive in a competitive environment.
 
Actually going from a consistency standpoint, you're more likely to get hit trying to DT up than not. Anyway back on topic.

Acupressure isn't a guaranteed statup of any sort, and while your opponent may get lucky, it's generally not the stat they want/need boosted. Fun to play with though, and I don't see a real need to ban it, even with evasion clause up.
 
I think the question is where do we draw the line? We want pokemon to be a game where luck is not a deciding factor but the fact still remains that it will always be a part of pokemon unless we decide to ban everything associated with luck and thus remove a huge chunk of the game.

It's all very well to ban things like DT/minimize and OHKO moves but there will always be people who are gonna cry about some form of luck or another. Today it's acupressure giving a 14% chance of raising evasion, yesterday it was brightpowder and sand veil's 28% evasion hax, tomorrow it will be metronome's 0.1% chance of raising evasion or OHKOing a pokemon. So let's ban all these things that provide some form of luck to the game. Then what? There'll still be people complaining about crit hax. So we have a critical hit clause. Still there will be those bitching about how 6 of their pokemon just got frozen in a row. So we remove status from the game too? Suddenly pokemon just became half the game it used to be.

Critical Hits are... eh. They can effect either side equally, without either player making an active decision to do anything.
Sounds to me like we should ban super luck because that seems like it's an active decision by the player to increase their chance to crit. And while we are along the lines of banning luck based abilities like sand veil, why not shed skin too. 30% chance to remove status? Sounds like luck to me.

Personally, I'm actually all for testing out the unbanning of evasion. Evasion may not have that many counters but given the offensiveness of the metagame, as fenikkusu said, you'd be a fool trying to DT up because you are much more likely to be hit than not.

My opinion on the matter is: either ban everything associated with luck or just let everything be and play pokemon as it was meant to be played.
 
i agree that banning luck is dumb. luck is part of the game. it isn't entirely luck either, it's mathematics. just because it kicks in at almost unpredictable times, it's still logical in its execution and happening.

banning luck is just dumb. shit happens, you know?
 

Chou Toshio

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Unfortunately for me, I have much less power than some people think. I cannot unilaterally decide any ban.
Damn, why not? :(

Not one of those Obi groupies, but there are so many topics I read where the only one saying something that's really to the point and makes real sense is this guy here. >.>
 
I think Acupressure would be too pendantic to ban. I never ever see it used, so it would make little difference to begin with, and it also really isn't an amazing move found on every Pokemon (the best one is Drapion, who has his niches, but is nowhere near great).

For Destiny Bond, I see no reason to clause that. It falls under Self-KO clause, so that's fine qua draws, and it isn't really gamebreaking. An Explosion that trades "I am guaranteed to work before I'm out of PP" for "I actually work on Ghosts and other things that resist Normal, and Blissey and likes cannot Softboil it off". Perfectly fine.
 

X-Act

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Critical Hits are... eh. They can effect either side equally, without either player making an active decision to do anything. If you want to try to get evasion hax, you have to attach Bright Powder to one of your pokemon. Getting a critical hit occurs without either player having to do anything.
If both players use evasion, then luck affects both sides equally.

Why should less than 100% accurate moves be banned, when they can only hurt the player who decides to use them? If I don't want to risk a 15% chance of my Fire Blast missing, I'll use Flamethrower instead. It's luck, but it's luck that can easily be controlled by the player deciding to use it. If my opponent decides to use a Bright Powder Sand Veil Garchomp, I'm potentially screwed over by luck because of something beyond my control. If I use Fire Blast and it missed, I should have used Flamethrower.
No, I don't agree. I use Fire Blast over Flamethrower because it 2HKOes stuff that Flamethrower 3HKOes.
 

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