Sturdinja works wonders *pun?* for me atm. It's gotten a few laughs but it's so helpful. Granted it only works because the current meta has shifted away from sturdinja counters because of the lack of sturdinja, but still. And, PixieXern checks Kyurem B pretty well. And a healthy impostor.
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Ladder Balanced Hackmons
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albeit shed counters have gone away but that doesnt stop cube from running sacred fire
Kit Kasai
Love colored magic
The thing (at least for me) about sturdinja, is that it's a good rule of thumb to NEVER rely on it to counter anything. But lemme get this straight. This doesn't mean you shouldn't use shedinja, but it means you shouldn't rely on it. I always have at least one other counter for things besides shedinja, because shedinja can only take one mistake and that can throw your entire game. That way, you can abuse its power against teams that aren't prepared for it and still be ready for teams that are prepared for it.
Poison Heal.
Still dumb.
It is just me?
It's probably not just me.
Still dumb.
It is just me?
It's probably not just me.
Dumb though it may be, it's one of the best abilities for sweeping in the whole meta, providing effective status immunity, an advantage over Imposter, and sometimes an extra moveslot (over a recovery move).
I believe the current meta encourages Poison Heal. Gen VI nerfed offense a bit, such as reducing the power of moves like Draco Meteor and Thunderbolt, while also nerfing the damage of crits, which makes it easier to sponge hits from non-sweepers/wall breakers and therefore easier to gain passive recovery. Second, the addition of moves like Nuzzle and stuff like Sacred Fire being more common than ever means you can't rely on Magic Bounce to block status as easily as you could last gen.
And thirdly, and probably most importantly, once the Toxic Orb has triggered, the item is entirely expendable. Knock Off has gone from an occasional support move to one seen on almost every team, which means you're almost certain to lose one or more items during a match. If you can activate the orb safely, you no longer have to worry about losing the item AND you have someone who can now sponge additional Knock Offs safely. So, unless the opposing team has a way to exploit you losing your orb, a PHer getting hit by Knock Off gets a little bit stronger rather than weaker from losing its item. Outside of that, the only time you have to worry about losing your orb is if you're running a cleric or Psycho Shift.
And thirdly, and probably most importantly, once the Toxic Orb has triggered, the item is entirely expendable. Knock Off has gone from an occasional support move to one seen on almost every team, which means you're almost certain to lose one or more items during a match. If you can activate the orb safely, you no longer have to worry about losing the item AND you have someone who can now sponge additional Knock Offs safely. So, unless the opposing team has a way to exploit you losing your orb, a PHer getting hit by Knock Off gets a little bit stronger rather than weaker from losing its item. Outside of that, the only time you have to worry about losing your orb is if you're running a cleric or Psycho Shift.
Which is exactly why it shoudn't exist. Or, uh, be legal.
If I were to compile a list of every pokemon that I've played against with the ability, there would be exactly one Pokemon that can actually deal with the Poison Healer. I - nobody - should be forced to run a 'mon that they don't want to just to hang, or forced to run a gimmicky set to try to deal with the threat.
Not really sure why you crossed out certain parts of my quote, but I appreciate Poison Heal for the variety of sets it can be used to run, both offensive and defensive.
I don't necessarily disagree with those statements, they're just not relevant to the reason the ability is overcentralizing. There's always going to be a best sweeper ability, and Imposter is never going to be the alpha and the omega just because of how the ability works.
lets see you need a counter to magic bounce on your hazards setter in the form of moldy, you ALWAYS need a sturdyninja counter ALWAYS, a counter to imposter ON EVERY MON, etc. and none of those things are banned correct?
Kit Kasai
Love colored magic
Honestly, Imposter is way more centralizing than Poison Heal. Imposter is completely overcentralizing in this meta. Pretty much every sweeper either has to be Imposter proof or wallable by other team members. Yet it's still legal.
Also, I don't see how poison heal is really that hard to deal with. In my experience, I've never been bothered by the passive regen or the status immunity when I'm playing against it. The only thing that bothers me is the latent immunity to imposter (sans toxic orb). Which isn't a problem if you just don't send chans into a poison heal mon.
Idk. I don't mean to be disrespectful or mean, I just think it would help if you provided some concrete examples like replays why PH is op. (and more importantly, why it's banworthy)
Relevant 3AM Arcticblast rant (logs courtesy of Relados):
I can probably solidify my thoughts on this if needed (since this was all said at 3 AM) but if we're talking about Poison Heal being hard to stop, well: here you go.
Kit Kasai
Love colored magic
+1
In reality the only situation where the ability is specific to a pokemon is Sturdy and Imposter. The rest is like Arcticblast said. The purpose of the set depends on the pokemon and its moveset.
You can forego hazards, which, because of the dwindling presence of Shedinja and the difficulty of preventing Defog, isn't a bad option, Shedinja dies to a relatively large amount of things, and Imposter counters are seamless. You can also play around each of those things; forcing their Bouncer out and then setting up rocks, for instance, and neutral or defensive pokemon don't actually care about Imposter. However...
...in the real world Poison Heal is on Pokemon with poor defenses and quadruple weaknesses, yet here we can put on Pokemon with good defensive typing and high defensive (and most likely offensive) stats. Additionally, like you mentioned, Pokemon with the ability Poison Heal are immune to status, which means in the case of an offensive Pokemon we have a threat which invalidates the usual ways that threats are dealt with in this format (status and Imposter), and you better pray to Arceus that one of your remaining Pokemon can get in safely and either kill or force out the offender.
From the defensive side of the spectrum, you get a Pokemon which resists most of the ways in which you could threaten it, and, in both situations, you're staring at something which most likely recovers some multiple of a hundred hit points a round, so residual damage does next to nothing...all the while they're free to do whatever they'd like, whether that be cripple you (with Knock Off, usually) or ignore you.
Kit Kasai
Love colored magic
Either way, the problem is dealt with by the Ability Clause. Really, as Arcticblast said, it's not the ability itself that is really the problem, it's the pokemon and their sets. If your team can't handle two PH users in a battle, either it has a severe gap in its defensive structure or you have a severe lack of offensive pressure (depending on your team style). PH isn't terribly hard to deal with. You can force out PH users with an entrainment user so that they take the poison damage. If you really have a problem specifically with poison heal you can do pecha + trick or entrainment + natural cure or something like that.
ArcTic: While I mostly agree with what you say, such as focusing on the opposing Pokemon as a whole, I do feel it's worth saying that the ability generally defines the Pokemon's role. With the exception of the versatile abilities, like Poison Heal, Magic Bounce, and so forth, most abilities fit within either a general or specific role. For example, Adaptability is a general purpose offensive ability, Flashfire is there to specifically defend against fire attacks, Insomnia to specifically deal with Moldy sleep, and so forth.
Arcticblast edit: I am definitely not ArcTic
@Harak: Sheddy's presence is dwindling specifically because teams are running multiple counters just to kill it and it alone. Even in absence, Sheddy's impact on the meta is prevalent that teams are generally shoving some form of residual damage on every second mon just to not get walled by it. And rightfully so since, thanks to Defog and Safety Goggles, Sheddy requires little support and can't be killed reliably by just merely one or two checks. And if you're only packing just one or two checks, or Arceus help you, just a Rocky Helmet on a random mon and nothing else, you're running a big risk of losing your counter and getting permanently walled by Shedinja in any given battle.
Seriously, PH might be more common, but it is nowhere near as centralizing as Sheddy. And don't get me started on comparing PH to Imposter, the latter of which pretty much defines how you build your entire team.
Arcticblast edit: I am definitely not ArcTic
@Harak: Sheddy's presence is dwindling specifically because teams are running multiple counters just to kill it and it alone. Even in absence, Sheddy's impact on the meta is prevalent that teams are generally shoving some form of residual damage on every second mon just to not get walled by it. And rightfully so since, thanks to Defog and Safety Goggles, Sheddy requires little support and can't be killed reliably by just merely one or two checks. And if you're only packing just one or two checks, or Arceus help you, just a Rocky Helmet on a random mon and nothing else, you're running a big risk of losing your counter and getting permanently walled by Shedinja in any given battle.
Seriously, PH might be more common, but it is nowhere near as centralizing as Sheddy. And don't get me started on comparing PH to Imposter, the latter of which pretty much defines how you build your entire team.
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What Rumors said. Some abilities are almost solely seen on some Pokemon, for example:
From the February statistics for BH (newer ones not avaliable):
Kyurem-B | | Refrigerate 78.666%
Kyurem-W | | Refrigerate 38.471%
Use Control + F and try to find a third occurrence of Refrigerate. You can't find one, because it's so specific to the Kyu's.
Now compare that to Poison Heal, I found 17 cases (some of which were only a few %). That's the thing about Poison Heal, it's good on almost any Pokemon that is either somewhat fast/powerful or is bulky. For example, most Cresselia's tend to be Unaware, but I'm sure you could put Poison Heal on one and have it be effective:
Abilities | | Unaware 54.184% | | Prankster 11.638% | | Fur Coat 7.687% | | Magic Bounce 5.879% | | Levitate 4.510% | | Simple 3.873% | | Other 12.229% |
Now take a look at the items:
Items | | Leftovers 66.731% | | Rocky Helmet 10.841% | | Lum Berry 7.272% | | Safety Goggles 6.363% | | Toxic Orb 4.100% | | Other 4.694%
So this means that there were some Poison Heal Cress's but they got wrapped into that 12.229%. Looking for "Toxic Orb" using Control + F, I'm able to find 27 cases, which is a considerable amount.
Lucky Punch is actually quite effective when using Imposter. 50% crit rate iirc.
Pikachuun
the entire waruda machine
I put natural cure. Imposter's pretty good with Lucky Punch, but certainly not with Natural Cure :p
Right, I wasn't sure if you meant the combo only or if you meant each individually too. My bad. : P
1k Arrows and 1k Waves are in. The former is not functioning properly and the latter seems to be working as intended.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/balancedhackmons-110807621
Steam Eruption is in too, but I didn't realize that until after the test.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/balancedhackmons-110807621
Steam Eruption is in too, but I didn't realize that until after the test.
1k Waves could bring back effective Perish Trapping to the meta, coupled with Taunt to stop Baton Pass / Parting Shot. If used on a Ground type it would stop Volt Switch as well, leaving only U-turn able to be used effectively to escape. I expect a greater number of Flying types to be seen, along with Ghosts.
I hope 1k Arrows starts working soon properly. : )
I hope 1k Arrows starts working soon properly. : )
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